Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [97]
Or the scar it had left behind...
The Lesser Mark still glinted gold on the bridge of her nose, and though her eyes were bloodshot and pain-haunted, her gaze was clear, and level, and, after all, she was Depa Billaba.
Whatever had happened to her; whatever she had seen, or done.
She was still Depa.
With an effort that nearly broke Mace's heart, she curved her mouth into a smile, and she extended a hand that trembled, just a little, as Mace reached to take it. It felt fragile in his, as though her bones were as hollow as a bird's, but her grip was strong and warm.
"Mace," she said slowly. A single jewel of a tear welled in one eye.
"Mace. Master Windu."
"Hello, Depa." He opened his vest and produced her lightsaber. "I have kept this safe for you."
As she reached for it her hand trembled even more. "Thank you, Master,"
she said slowly, with exhausted formality. "I am honored to receive it from your hand."
Her smile turned more genuine. She looked down at her light-saber, turning it over and over in her hand as though she didn't quite remember what it was for. She lowered her head until he could no longer see her eyes. "Oh, Mace... How could you?"
"Depa?"
"How could you be so arrogant? So stupid? So blind?" Though her words were angry, her voice was only tired. "I wish... You should have come to me, Mace. Straight to me. Those people-they're not worth this. Not worth you not knowing. You should have asked me-I could have told you-"
"Why innocent children had to die?"
Her head hung even lower. "We all have to die, Mace."
"I'm not here to argue with you, Depa. I'm here to take you home."
"Home..." she echoed, and raised her head again. Her eyes were event horizons: infinitely deep, and infinitely dark. "You use that word as though it means something."
"It does to me."
"But it doesn't. Not anymore. Not even to you. You just haven't realized it yet." She sighed a bleak, bitter chuckle as dark as her eyes and swung her trembling hand at the jungle around them. "This is home. As much home as any place will ever be. For any of us. For all of us. That's what I brought you here to learn, Mace. But now you've messed everything up.
It's falling apart and flying off in all direc tions. It's all wrong, and it's all too late, and I should have known it would happen like this, I should have known because you're just too blasted arrogant to mind your own business!" Her voice had risen to a screech, and a drop of blood seeped from a crack in her lower lip.
"You are my business here."
"Exactly. Exactly!" She snatched his wrist and yanked him down toward her with astonishing strength. ",' was your business here. Those people had nothing to do with you. Nor you with them. But you can't stop being a Jedi," she said bitterly. "No matter what. With the existence of the whole Jedi Order at stake, you had to play HoloNet hero. Now your business here is ruined. Destroyed. Everything is wasted. It's too late.
Too late for all of us. You have to leave here, Mace. You have to leave right now, or Kar will kill you."
"I'm planning on it," Mace agreed. "And you're coming with me."
"Oh," she said. The fire inside her dwindled, and her strength with it.
Her hand went slack on Mace's arm. "Oh... you think-you think I can just leave..."
"You must leave, Depa. I don't know what you think is holding you here-"
"You don't understand. How could you? You haven't seen-I haven't shown you-You can't possibly understand..."
Mace thought of his hallucination at the outpost. "I understand," he said