"With a brevet rank of, let's say, major? And once we get to Coruscant, I'll be needing staff instructors to train officers in guerrilla tactics. A few months as an urban- and jungle-warfare consultant affiliated with the Jedi Temple should make you pretty attractive to all those mercenary captains out there. You might even get your own company. Isn't that what you want?
Or am I confusing you with some other Korun whose fondest dream is to travel the galaxy as a mercenary?" "You bet your sweet-I mean, No, sir. General. Major Rostu at the general's service. Sir.
Uh-is there any kind of swearing-in, or anything?" "I hadn't really thought about it," Mace admitted. "I've never inducted anyone into the Grand Army of the Republic before." "I feel like I should raise my right hand or something." Mace nodded thoughtfully. "Put your left hand over your heart, raise your right and stand at attention." Nick did so. "This is-uh, y'know, I' feel kind of funny about this-" "It is not to be undertaken lightly. The Force stands witness to such oaths." "Sure enough." Nick swallowed. "Okay, I'm ready." "Do you solemnly swear to serve the Republic in thought, in word, and in deed; to defend its citizens, resist its enemies, and champion its justice with the whole of your heart, your strength, and your mind; to forswear all other allegiances; to obey all lawful orders of your superior officers; to uphold the highest ideals of the Republic, and at all times to conduct yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer, by witness of, aid from, and faith in the Force?" Didn't sound bad at all, Mace thought.,' should probably write that down.
Nick blinked silently. His eyes looked glassy, and he licked his lips.
Mace leaned toward him. "Say I do, Nick." "I–I guess I do," he said in a tone of wondering discovery, as though he had just learned something astonishing about himself. "I mean: yes. I do." "Come to attention, and salute." Nick had snapped to in very creditable fashion, though he still looked a bit dazed. "Hey- hey, I feel something. In the Force-" His daze was replaced by open astonishment. "It's you." "A soldier at attention does not speak, except to answer direct questions. Is this understood?" "Yes, sir." "What you feel is our new relationship: it has a resonance in the Force not unlike the bond of an akk to its human." "So I'm your dog, now?" "Nick." "Right, right, shut up. I know. Uh-sir." "At ease, Major," Mace had said as he finally returned the young Korun's salute. "Move them out." Now as the departing Akk Guard disappeared into the rain, Mace carried the wounded Balawai back to the group of exhausted prisoners. He couldn't find anyone among them who even looked strong enough to support this man's weight over the jumbled tree roots and through the calf-deep mud, so he just shrugged and joined the march, holding the Balawai's arm around his neck.
Heads down, shoulders hunched against the icy downpour, they slogged on.
They broke out of the trees on a small promontory that ended in a sheer cliff. Jungle swarmed its base a hundred meters below. They had been sidestepping down a long switchback, heading for the canyon floor. Half a klick behind, a ribbon of waterfall steamed down a thousand-meter drop; the far canyon wall was a riot of greens and purples and bright shining red that eclipsed half the sky. The thunderstorm swept to their rear as Mace and Nick broke out from the trees, and in the near distance through the canyon's mouth ahead, only a klick away-glowing now with afternoon sun blazing red-slanted from a crystal sky-lay the broad bare-dirt curve of the steamcrawler track.
Mace and Nick were both on foot. The feverish Balawai was tied into the grasser's saddle.
"There it is," Nick said. His voice was low and grim. "Pretty, ain't it?" "Yes. Pretty." Mace stepped around the grasser. "Pity we didn't make it." Any Force-sensitive could have felt the menace that lay across their path; to Mace, it felt like an arc of forest fire ripping through the trees. He couldn't feel exactly what was down there, but he knew it was Vaster: whatever forces he had brought after them now sealed the mouth of the canyon.
Nick nodded. He unslung his rifle, checked the clip, and cocked it. "Just couldn't move fast enough." He glanced back to where the Balawai were now struggling out to the fringe of the undergrowth. He shook his head. "Only needed an hour. That's all. One more hour, we woulda been clear." "What's going on?" The boys' father joined them near the rim of the cliff. "Is that the track?
Why have we stopped?" The Akk Guard with the bruised face Came out of the trees; the six dogs and the other guard were fanned out behind the prisoners. He nodded toward the thick arc of danger that all but the grassers and the Balawai could feel ahead. "Hard luck, huh? Told you Kar would come, me." "Yes." Mace folded his arms. "It was too much to hope that he might let us go." He turned to the Akk Guard. "You can go to him, if you like." "Maybe will, us." The Korun had recovered some of his former swagger. His chest swelled out, and he looked down at Mace with an air of contempt that might have been convincing, if he hadn't been so careful to keep himself just out of arm's reach. "Not going nowhere, you, huh?" Mace glanced at Nick; Nick shrugged dolefully. Mace said, "It seems not." Knots of exhausted Balawai untied themselves and frayed to pieces to let the departing Akk Guard through. He joined the other, and along with the dogs they faded into the trees beyond the reach of the afternoon sun.
Nick fingered his rifle. "Think they'll really go down there to Kar?" "Not at all," Mace said crisply. "They'll move up the switchback to cut off our retreat." "Don't much like the sound of that. What's our move?" "You tell me, Major." Nick blinked. "You're kidding." "Not at all. Given our victory conditions-saving as many of these people's lives as possible-what should we do?" "I can't believe you're asking me." "What I'm asking you," Mace said, "is not what we're going to do, but what we should do.
Let me put it another way: what does Kar think we'll do?" "Well." Nick looked back up the trail, then forward down toward the mouth of the canyon and the steamcrawler track. "We should split up. If we all stay together, we all get caught either by whatever Kar's got below, or the guards and the ULF behind us. If the prisoners scatter, some might slip through while Kar's rounding up the rest." "Exactly." Mace pointed at the boys' father. "You. Get the others out of the trees. I want all of you on this rock. On your knees, with your hands behind your heads." The Balawai gaped. "Are you crazy?" "Y'know," Nick said, sighing, "I ask him that all the time. Somehow I never get a straight answer." Mace folded his arms across his chest. "All those who don't want to do what I say are welcome to take their chances with the jungle and the ULF." The man turned away, shaking his head.