Shatterpoint: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars - Legends) by Matthew Stover

Author:Matthew Stover [Stover, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2005-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

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THE SAME AKK Guard whom Mace had kicked now moved to block the Jedi Master’s path. The swellings Vastor’s fist had left on the man’s face had gone as purple-black as the thickening clouds overhead. Muscle bunched like blocks of duracrete under the skin of his bare chest. “Where going, Windu?”

Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun’s stare. “I don’t know your name.”

“You can call me—”

“I didn’t ask your name,” Mace cut him off. “I just don’t know it. I don’t need to. You should get out of my way.”

The guard’s eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed. “Out of your way, little Jedi?”

“I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler track.” Mace nodded in that general direction. “I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick.”

“Over me? Can fly, you?” The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled to life. He raised them to either side of Mace’s face. “Draw your toy weapon, little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw.”

“My lightsaber? Why should I?” Mace raised a finger to tap his own forehead. “This is the only weapon I need.”

“Yeah?” A sneer: “What, think me to death, you gonna?”

“You misunderstand.” By way of explanation, he splattered the Korun’s nose with a sharp head-butt.

The Korun staggered backward. Mace moved with him in perfect synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man’s massive biceps. When the Korun started to recover his balance, his head naturally coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling him into another head-butt that brought Mace’s forehead and the point of the Korun’s chin together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.

Mace stepped back to let the semiconscious man collapse. The other guard snarled and lunged at Mace’s back, only to find himself facing the business end of a sizzling purple lightsaber.

“He’s alive,” Mace said calmly. “So are you. For now. The next one of you pathetic nerfs who raises a hand to me will die for it. Do you understand?”

The Korun only stared at him with murder on his face.

“Answer me!” Mace roared. With a convulsive snarl, he threw his lightsaber on the ground at the Korun’s feet. Faster than the eye could follow, his hand flashed out, his thumb hooking the Korun’s cheek while his fingers dug in behind the hinge of the man’s jaw. He yanked the Korun’s face to within a centimeter of his own, and there was open raging madness in his eyes. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

The Korun’s mouth worked in speechless shock. Mace howled into his face, “YOU WANT TO DIE? YOU WANT TO DIE RIGHT NOW? MAKE A MOVE! DO IT! DO IT AND DIE!”

The astonished Korun could only blink and mumble and try to shake his head. Mace released the man’s face with a contemptuous shove that sent the guard stumbling backward. Mace opened his empty hand, and his lightsaber flipped up from the ground and smacked into his palm. He tucked it back into the holster inside his vest.

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