"Yeah, funny, huh? How do you think I've survived this game for twenty-three years? Talk as much as I do, it takes people longer to notice you never really say anything." Maybe she was nervous. Maybe she could smell the threat that smoked in those streets.

Some people thought they could hold danger at bay by pretending to be safe.

"I got thirty-seven employees. Only five are Intel. Everybody else just works there. Hah: I make twice the money off the Washeteria as I draw after twenty-three years in the service. Not that it's all that hard to do, if you know what I mean. You know what an RS-Seventeen makes?

Pathetic. Pathetic. What's a Jedi make these days? Do they even pay you? Not enough, I'll bet.

They love that Service is its own reward junk, don't they? Especially when it's other people's service. I'll just bet." She'd already assembled a team to take him upcountry. Six men with heavy weapons and an almost new steamcrawler. "They look a little rough, but they're good boys, all of them.

Freelancers, but solid. Years in the bush. Two are full-blooded kornos. Good with the natives, you know?" For security reasons, she explained, she was taking him to meet them herself. "Sooner you're on your way, happier we'll both be. Right? Am I right? Taxis are hopeless this time of day.

Mind the gutter cookie-that stuff'll chew right through your boots. Hey, watch it, creepo! Ever hear that peds have the right-of-way? Yeah? Well, your mother eats Hutt slime!" She stumped along the street, arms swinging. "Um, you know this Jedi of yours is wanted, right? You got a way to get her offworld?" What Mace had was the Halleck onstation in the Ventran system with twenty armed landers and a regiment of clone troopers. What he said was, "Yes." A new round of blasterfire sang perhaps a block or two away, salted with staccato pops crisper than blaster hits. Flor instantly turned left and dodged away up the street.

"Whoops! This way-you want to keep clear of those little rumbles, you know? Might just be a food riot, but you never know. Those handclaps? Slugthrowers, or I'm a Dug. Could be action by some of these guerrillas your Jedi runs-lots of the kornos carry slugthrow-ers, and slugs bounce. Slugthrowers. I hate 'em. But they're easy to maintain. Day or two in the jungle and your blaster'll never fire again. A good slug rifle, keep 'em wiped and oiled, they last forever. The guerrillas have pretty good luck with them, even though they take a lot of practice-slugs are ballistic, y'know. You have to plot the trajectory in your head. Shee, gimme a blaster anytime." A new note joined the blasterfire: a deeper, throatier thrumm-thrummmthrummthrumm.

Mace scowled over his shoulder. That was some kind of light repeater: a T-21, or maybe a Merr-Sonn Thunderbolt.

Military hardware.

"It would be good," he said, "if we could get off the street." While she assured him, "No, no, no, don't worry, these scuffles never add up to much," he tried to calculate how fast he could dig his lightsaber out of his kitbag.

The firing intensified. Voices joined in: shouts and screams. Anger and pain. It started to sound less like a riot, and more like a firefight. Just beyond the corner ahead, white-hot bolts flared past along the right-of-way. More blasterfire zinged behind them. The firefight was overflowing, becoming a flood that might surround them at any second. Mace looked back: along this street he still could see only crowds and groundcars, but the militia members were starting to take an interest: checking weapons, trotting toward alleys and cross-streets. Flor said behind him, "See? Look at that. They're not even really aiming at anything. Now, we just nip across-" She was interrupted by a splattering thwop. Mace had heard that sound too often: steam, superheated by a high-energy bolt, exploding through living flesh. A deep-tissue blaster hit. He turned back to Flor and found her staggering in a drunken circle, painting the pavement with her blood. Where her left arm should have been was only a fist-sized mass of ragged tissue. Where the rest of her arm was, he couldn't see.

She said: "What? What?" He dived into the street. He rolled, coming up to slam her hip joint with his shoulder. The impact folded her over him; he lifted her, turned, and sprang back for the corner. Bright flares of blaster bolts bracketed invisible sizzles and finger snaps of hypersonic slugs. He reached the meager cover of the corner and laid her flat on the sidewalk, tucked close against the wall.

"This isn't supposed to happen." Her life was flooding out of the shattered stump of her shoulder. Even dying, she kept talking. A blurry murmur: "This isn't happening. It can't be happening. My-my arm-" In the Force, Mace could feel her shredded brachial artery; with the Force, he reached inside her shoulder to pinch it shut. The flood trickled to sluggish welling.

"Take it easy." He propped her legs on his kitbag to help maintain blood pressure to her brain. "Try to stay calm. You can live through this." Boots clattered on permacrete behind him: a militia squad sprinting toward them. "Help is on the way." He leaned closer. "I need the meet point and the recognition code for the team." "What? What are you talking about?" "Listen to me. Try to focus. Before you go into shock. Tell me where I can find the upcountry team, and the recognition code so we'll know each other." "You don't-you don't understand-this isn't happening-" "Yes. It is. Focus. Lives depend on you. I need the meet point and the code." "But-but-you don't understand-" The militia behind him clattered to a stop. "You! Korno! Stand away from that woman!" He glanced back. Six of them. Firing stance. The lightpole at their backs haloed black shadow across their faces. Plasma-charred muzzles stared at him. "This woman is wounded.

Badly. Without medical attention, she will die." "You're no doctor," one said, and shot him.

CAPITAL CRIMES H

e had plenty of time to get familiar with the interrogation room.

Four meters by three. Duracrete blocks flecked with gravel whose shearplanes glinted like mica. The walls from waist-high to ceiling had once been painted the color of aged ivory. The floor and lower walls used to be the green of wander-kelp. What was left of both paint jobs flaked in patches rimmed with mildew.

The binder chair that held him was in better condition. The clamps at his wrists were cold and hard and had no weakness he could touch; those at his ankles sliced pale gouges into the leather of his boots. The chest plate barely let him breathe.

No windows. One glowstrip cast soft yellow from the joining of wall and ceiling. The other one was dead.

The door was behind him. Twisting to watch it hurt too much. The durasteel table in the center of the room was dented and speckled with rust-he thought it was rust. Hoped it was.

On the far side of it was a wooden chair, its bow back stripped from wear.

His vest and shirt were tattered at the shoulder where the first bolt had struck. The skin beneath was scorched and swollen with a black bruise. Set on stun, the bolt had barely penetrated his skin, but the concussive force of the steam-burst still hit like a club. It had picked him up and spun him. The pounding in his skull implied that at least one shot had caught the side of his head. He didn't remember.