This is a fact: I found the shatterpoint of the Gevarno Loop.

Another fact: Depa volunteered to strike it.

And another fact- That she said:,' have become the darkness in the jungle.

The spaceport at Pelek Baw smelled clean. It wasn't. Typical back-world port: filthy, disorganized, half choked with rusted remnants of disabled ships.

Mace stepped off the shuttle ramp and slung his kitbag by its strap. Smothering wet heat pricked sweat across his bare scalp. He raised his eyes from the ocher-scaled junk and discarded crumples of empty nutripacks scattered around the landing bay, up into the misty turquoise sky.

The white crown of Grandfather's Shoulder soared above the city: the tallest mountain on the Korunnal Highland, an active volcano with dozens of open calderae. Mace remembered the taste of the snow at the tree line, the thin cold air and the aromatic resins of the evergreen scrub below the summit.

He had spent far too much of his life on Coruscant.

If only he could have come here for some other reason.

Any other reason.

A straw-colored shimmer in the air around him explained the clean smell: a surgical sterilization field. He'd expected it. The spaceport had always had a powered-up surgical field umbrella, to protect ships and equipment from the various native fungi that fed on metals and silicates; the field also wiped out the bacteria and molds that would otherwise have made the spaceport smell like an overloaded refresher.

The spaceport's pro-biotic showers were still in their long, low blockhouse of mold-stained duracrete, but their entrance had been expanded into a large temporary-looking office of injection-molded plastifoam, with a foam-slab door that hung askew on half-sprung hinges. The door was streaked with rusty stains that had dripped from the fungus-chewed durasteel sign above. The sign said CUSTOMS. Mace went in.

Sunlight leaked green through mold-tracked windows. Climate control wheezed a body- temperature breeze from ceiling vents, and the smell loudly advertised that this place was well beyond the reach of the surgical field.

Inside the customs office, enough flybuzz hummed to get the two Kubaz chuckling and eagerly nudging each other. Mace didn't quite manage to ignore the Pho Ph'eahian broadly explaining to a bored-looking human that he'd just jumped in from Kashyyyk and boy, were his legs tired. The agent seemed to find this about as tolerable as Mace did; he hurriedly passed the comedians along after the pair of Kubaz, and they all disappeared into the shower blockhouse.

Mace found a different customs agent: a Neimoidian female with pink-slitted eyes, cold- bloodedly sleepy in the heat. She looked over his identikit incuriously. "Corellian, hnh? Purpose of your visit?" "Business." She sighed tiredly. "You'll need a better answer than that. Corellia's no friend of the Confederacy." "Which would be why I'm doing business here." "Hnh. I scan you. Open your bag for inspection." Mace thought about the "old-fashioned glow rod" stashed in his bag. He wasn't sure how convincing its shell would be to Neimoidian eyes, which could see deep into the infrared.

"I'd rather not." "Do I care? Open it." She squinted a dark pink eye up at him. "Hey, nice skin job. You could almost pass for a Korun." "Almost?" "You're too tall. And they mostly have hair. And anyway, Korunnai are all Force freaks, yes? They have powers and stuff." "I have powers." "Yeah?" "Sure." Mace hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "I have the power to make ten credits appear in your hand." The Neimoidian looked thoughtful. "That's a pretty good power. Let's see it." He passed his hand over the customs agent's desk, and let fall a coin he'd palmed from his belt's slit pocket. The Neimoidian had powers of her own: she made the coin disappear. "Not bad." She turned up her empty hand. "Let's see it again." "Let's see my identikit validated and my bag passed." The Neimoidian shrugged and complied, and Mace did his trick again. "Power like yours, you'll get along fine in Pelek Baw," she said. "Pleasure doing business with you. Be sure to take your PB tabs. And see me on your way offworld. Ask for Pule." Til do that." Toward the back of the customs office, a large advertiscreen advised everyone entering Pelek Baw to use the probiotic showers before leaving the spaceport. The showers replaced beneficial skin flora that had been killed by the surgical field. This advice was supported with gruesomely graphic holos of the wide variety of fungal infections awaiting unshowered travelers.

A dispenser beneath the screen offered half-credit doses of tablets guaranteed to restore intestinal flora as well. Mace bought a few, took one, then stepped into the shower blockhouse.

The blockhouse had a smell all its own: a dark musky funk, rich and organic. The showers themselves were simple autonozzles spraying bacterium-rich nutrient mist; they lined the walls of a thirty-meter walk-through. Mace stripped off his clothes and stuffed them into his kitbag.

There was a conveyor strip for possessions beside the walk-through entrance, but he held on to the bag. A few germs wouldn't do it any harm.

At the far end of the showers, he walked into a situation.

The dressing station was loud with turbine-driven airjet dryers. The two Kubaz and the comedy team, still naked, milled uncertainly in one corner. A large surly-looking human in sunbleached khakis and a military cap stood facing them, impressive arms folded across his equally impressive chest. He stared at the naked travelers with cold unspecific threat.

A smaller human in identical clothing rummaged through their bags, which were piled behind the large man's legs. The smaller man had a bag of his own, into which he dropped anything small and valuable. Both men had stun batons dangling from belt loops, and blasters secured in snap-flap holsters.

Mace nodded thoughtfully. The situation was clear enough. Based on who he was supposed to be, he should just ignore this. But cover or not, he was still a Jedi.

The big one looked Mace over. Head to toe and back again. His stare had the open insolence that came of being clothed and armed and facing someone who was naked and dripping wet. "Here's another. Smart guy carried his own bag." The other rose and unlooped his stun baton. "Sure, smart guy. Let's have the bag.

Inspection. Come on." Mace went still. Pro-bi mist condensed to rivulets and trickled down his bare skin. "I can read your mind," he said darkly. "You only have three ideas, and all of them are wrong." "Huh?" STAR WARS: SHATTERPOINT Mace nipped up a thumb. "You think being armed and ruthless means you can do whatever you want." He folded his thumb and flipped up his forefinger. "You think nobody will stand up to you when they're naked." He folded that one again and flipped up the next. "And you think you're going to look inside my bag." "Oh, he's a funny one." The smaller man spun his stun baton and stepped toward him. "He's not just smart, he's funny." The big man moved to his flank. "Yeah, regular comedian." "The comedians are over there." Mace inclined his head toward the Pho Ph'eahian and his Kitonak partner, naked and shivering in the corner. "See the difference?" "Yeah?" The big man flexed big hands. "What are you supposed to be, then?" "I'm a prophet." Mace lowered his voice as though sharing a secret. "I can see the future." "Sure you can." He set his stubble-smeared jaw and showed jagged yellow teeth. "What do you see?" "You," Mace said. "Bleeding." His expression might have been a smile if there had been the faintest hint of warmth in his eyes. The big man suddenly looked less confident. In this he could perhaps be excused; like all successful predators, he was interested only in victims. Certainly not in opponents. Which was the purpose of his particular racket, after all: members of any sapient species who were culturally accustomed to wearing clothes would feel hesitant, uncertain, and vulnerable when caught naked. Especially humans. Any normal person would stop to put on pants before throwing a punch.