by Troy Denning
The Twi’lek stepped out behind Luke. “Coward!” His voice grew a little muted as he turned toward the crowd. “Let’s get—”
Luke silenced the Twi’lek with a bone-crunching back kick, then hurled himself at Lumiya, both blades striking for the kill. He knew better than to think victory would come so easily, but he had to keep her attention riveted on him until Mara struck.
Lumiya’s counter was, of course, masterful. She flicked her whip at Luke’s legs, forcing him into a high somersault that bought her half a second to spin away. He came down a couple of paces inside the cantina, framed in the hatchway and facing the murky corridor where Alema crouched, hidden inside her Force shadow.
Then Lumiya’s lightwhip crackled in at Luke’s flank, striking high, low, and in between all at once. He pivoted around to defend himself, filling the air with sparks and ozone and flying shards of Kaiburr Crystal as he blocked with the short blade and used the long to cut away one of the strands.
Alema could have taken him at that moment. She had the cone-dart in the blowgun and the blowgun pressed to her lips, and Skywalker was so focused on Lumiya that he would never have sensed the dart coming. That was what Lumiya would want, what she expected.
But where was the Balance in that? Luke Skywalker had taken so much from her—the use of her arm, her nest, her identity—and it would not be right for Alema to simply kill him. She had to destroy him, to let him watch Mara die first so that when he died, he would know that there was no hope—so he would know that Lumiya had won, that the Sith would have his nephew and his son, and that the Jedi order would die with him.
So Alema held her dart, waiting motionless while Lumiya’s lightwhip flashed again and again, keeping Skywalker framed in the hatchway for her, striking at his flanks and head to keep him from pivoting or somersaulting or simply advancing out of her line of sight.
Finally Skywalker feinted a leap for the hatchway. When Lumiya made the mistake of trying only halfheartedly to block his “escape,” he made an unbelievable parry across his body with his short blade, then spun into a slashing, whirling advance with his long blade.
Lumiya had no choice except to retreat. Skywalker vanished from the hatchway and out of Alema’s sight, then the last of the lightwhip’s metallic strands whirled past the hatchway. A fresh chorus of screams arose, and a jet of blood arced out of the cantina to splat down in a line of elongated red beads.
When Alema looked back into the cantina, it was to find Mara crouching opposite her, just inside the hatchway and facing away. Half a dozen meters beyond her, Skywalker and Lumiya were fighting a frantic battle in the midst of the crowd, Skywalker trying to remain in clear areas so no bystanders would be injured, Lumiya working to keep those same bystanders in front of her so Skywalker could not attack without cutting his way through them first.
Now was Alema’s chance—but it would not be enough to simply kill Mara. Alema was a Jedi, and Jedi served the Balance.
As she filled her lungs, Alema was also reaching out to Skywalker, sharing with him all the sorrow and loneliness and despair he had caused her—the shame and hopelessness and unending anguish.
A bolt of surprise shot through the Force. Skywalker’s eyes widened and slid toward the hatchway—and that was all the opening Lumiya needed.
The lightwhip cracked again, wrapping Skywalker in a fiery cage of light and leather. The short blade went flying, taking along the hand that had been holding it, and Skywalker’s robe fell away below the armpits in ribbons, leaving the air pink and smoky with blood and charred flesh.
Alema emptied her lungs, and the dart shot from the blowgun.
Mara heard Luke screaming and thought it was only because he had been so badly hurt, but then he touched her through their Force-bond and she realized he was frightened for her, that something was coming at her only slightly under the velocity of a blaster bolt. She dived away and felt her skin prickle as something tiny and dark shot past her shoulder.
A female Twi’lek cried out in astonishment, and when Mara rolled back to her feet, it was to find one of the cantina owner’s wives standing a couple of meters in front of her, staring back through the hatchway as she plucked a tiny cone-shaped dart from her thigh. Clearly, Lumiya had brought backup, but Mara had no time to think of likely candidates. The Twi’lek suddenly began to tremble and gasp for breath, then her leg buckled and she collapsed in convulsions.
Poison.
Mara whirled around to charge through the hatchway—only to find it blocked by a swarm of terrified Hapans trying to flee. She deactivated her weapons and rushed into their midst, Force-shoving the leaders into the dark corridor ahead of her. Luke was badly wounded and she knew it, but she was not going to save him by giving the dart blower another shot. As soon as she was through the hatchway, she reignited her blades and spun toward the dark corner from which the dart had come.
There was nothing but shadow.
Fleeing patrons continued to jostle past behind Mara, cursing her for blocking their escape. Thinking the attacker had already fled up the corridor, she turned to follow—then wondered why the corner had still been in shadow with the glow of two light blades shining into it.
Mara pivoted around to face the corner—but had to deactivate her lightsaber when a salt-drunk Arcona nearly impaled himself on her blade, whistling in panic and slamming into her so hard she had to use the Force to avoid being bowled over.
“Get off!” she ordered.
Instead of Force-shoving the Arcona back through the hatchway, she stepped back to let him continue up the corridor—and that was what saved her life when a deep blue, almost black, lightsaber blade came shooting out of his chest, so close to her throat she was afraid to drop her chin.
Reacting even before she understood what was happening, Mara whipped her left hand around behind the shrieking Arcona and felt her shoto’s blade rub across something. A female voice cried out in surprise, then the dark blade vanished from the Arcona’s chest, and he dropped to the floor gurgling and wailing.
Standing behind him was a twisted figure in a black Jedi robe. She held herself slightly hunched, as though it would pain her to stand upright, and one arm hung atrophied and limp beneath a sagging shoulder. The far lekku had been seared off just above the shoulder, while the near one had a smoking wound across the back where it had been grazed by Mara’s blade.
“Alema?”
Mara was not so astonished that she forgot to defend herself when the Twi’lek reignited her lightsaber. She caught Alema’s attack on her shoto, then swept the Twi’lek’s blade aside and brought her long lightsaber around in a killing slash.
Alema used the Force to hurl herself into a backward somersault, crashing upside down through the line of still-fleeing cantina customers. She alit on both feet on the other side of the corridor. An angry din began to build in the cantina as fleeing patrons stopped in the hatchway rather than run through the middle of a lightsaber fight.
There were a dozen questions Mara would have liked to ask Alema. Was she Lumiya’s apprentice? How had she escaped Tenupe? How long had she been back?
But Mara could feel through her Force-bond that Luke was fading fast. His energy was dwindling and his concentration slipping, and he was drawing heavily on the Force just to keep his pain in check and his body moving.
Mara stepped into the middle of the corridor, bringing herself within striking range of Alema. The Twi’lek stepped away from the wall, buying herself room to maneuver and betraying the limp caused by her half foot, and Mara added one more question to her list: why had Alema helped kill Tresina Lobi?
Mara leveled her long blade at the Twi’lek’s throat. “I don’t have much time, so I’ll give you one chance to surrender,” she said. “After that, this is to the death—and it doesn’t look like you’re in condition to last long.”
Alema glanced toward the cantina, where the crackle of Lumiya’s lightwhip was growing both louder and more frequent, and the sneer that came to her lip was surpri
singly confident.
“You could let us limp away,” she said. “We promise to go.”
Mara grew cold and angry inside. “That was your chance.”
She leapt in, attacking with both hands, beating Alema’s defense down with her lightsaber and thrusting for the torso with her shoto. Normally she would never have risked such an all-out attack, but Alema was not much of a challenge and Luke was running out of—
As overconfidence always does, Mara’s proved costly. Alema dropped her lightsaber and stretched out her arm, driving her sharp Twi’lek finger talons into Mara’s throat and twisting aside so that the short lightsaber slipped past without hitting anything.
Mara’s breath stopped instantly, and she felt herself choking on something wet and warm. She started to bring her arms together, intending to cross her blades through Alema’s body, then realized they had dropped to her sides. She started to bring them up, but Alema’s eyes had grown dark, and tiny forks of energy were crackling across her blue face.
Mara did not have the half a second it would take to raise her arms again, so she simply threw herself backward, pulling her throat off the talons and bringing her legs up to either side of Alema’s. A bolt of blue lightning crackled past above her face so close she saw it even through closed eyes.
Mara was already scissoring her feet, catching the Twi’lek below the knees with one leg and above the knees with the other. The two foes hit the floor in the same instant, Alema coming down hard on the back of her head.
The Twi’lek went instantly limp, her arms and body flopping to the floor as though her robe were filled with warm gelmeat. Mara sat up, already bringing her lightsaber around to lop off Alema’s head—then stopped the blade just centimeters above the Twi’lek’s throat. She could not kill an unconscious foe, even one who had betrayed the Jedi order … even when she was in a hurry to help Luke.
Having knocked out enough beings to be certain Alema was not faking her unconsciousness, Mara put away her weapons and spun to her knees. She could sense that Luke’s strength was continuing to fade and that he was starting to doubt his ability to prevail, but leaving the Twi’lek armed and free—even when she was unconscious—was not an option.
As the exodus of patrons resumed through the hatchway, Mara bound Alema’s hands behind her back and collected her lightsaber and blowgun from where they had been dropped. Then she opened the Twi’lek’s robe to check for concealed weapons and was suddenly very glad she had stopped short of killing an unconscious enemy.
Under the robe, Alema wore a black combat vest with a sensor pad blinking over the heart. A bundle of thin wires ran from the pad down into a chest pocket bulging with something shaped like a thick wafer. Very carefully, Mara opened the pocket and followed the wires to what she had feared she would find: a dead-man relay connected to the proton detonator from a baradium missile.
There was no question of returning to the cantina without disconnecting the relay. Head injuries were too unpredictable. The Twi’lek could die at any moment, and even if she lived, one of the fleeing patrons might trigger the device accidentally. Unfortunately, the wires had to be disconnected in a specific sequence to keep from triggering the detonator. Mara only hoped that Luke could hold Lumiya off until she finished. Even with the Force to guide her, this was going to take time.
And time was something Luke did not have. He could feel that in the fire eating his lungs, in the raw nettling of his flesh. His breath came in inadequate gasps, and his blood was bubbling from his side in a pink froth. He was calling on the Force to keep fighting, drawing it through himself faster than his body could endure, literally boiling his own cells. At most, he had another minute of fight in him … maybe less.
Luke had to end this now.
He blocked a pair of crackling energy strands with his lightsaber and flung them aside, then launched himself across a claqball table toward Lumiya. She countered by pivoting away, bringing between them a Twi’lek serving girl. He could have continued the attack, slicing through the chests of both shield and captor, but even desperate, he could not kill a hostage. He threw himself into an aerial cartwheel and came down on a slick, utensil-strewn floor squarely facing Lumiya.
Her hand flicked, and the lightwhip came arcing toward his head. Luke dropped to his haunches and let it crackle past overhead. Then, when Lumiya started to back away from the expected lunge at her midsection, he hit her hard with a Force shove and spun her half around. She crashed into a drink table and nearly fell, but quickly brought her hostage around to protect her from an attack.
Luke smiled and raised his arm, pointing his lightsaber toward the serving girl, then using the Force to wrench her free of Lumiya’s grasp, he sent her flying across the claqball table. She crashed down on the other side in a heap, screaming in terror but far safer than she had been a moment earlier.
By then Lumiya had recovered from her stumble, and the lightwhip was snaking back toward Luke. He sprang into a round-off, wrapping the tip of his blade into the crackling strands as he passed over upside down. He landed on the claqball table’s squishy surface and jerked backward with all his might.
And that was when his mangled body failed him. Instead of yanking the weapon from Lumiya’s hand, his lightsaber slipped out of his own grasp and went flying into the shadows.
Luke cursed in disbelief—then rolled off the table in a backward somersault.
Even that turned into a disaster. He landed on the body of one of Lumiya’s original victims and—too weak to steady himself—hit the floor with an audible thump. He could sense Mara out in the corridor, concentrating intently on something, very frightened and urging him to wait for her, not to press the attack until she was there.
There was no chance of that. Luke’s strength was failing so fast that he feared Jacen’s betrayal would cost him his life. And when Lumiya was done with him, she would be free to go attack Mara, as well. His chest tightened with an emotion that might have been anger or sorrow or fear—and was probably all those things at once. Jacen had betrayed them … which could only mean that somewhere along the line, Luke had failed Jacen.
Lumiya must have suspected a trap, because when Luke failed to rise immediately, she did not rush to attack. Instead, she called, “It’s not too late, Skywalker. Let me kill you now, and everyone else survives. Even Mara.”
“Very generous.” As Luke replied, he was inspecting the cantina floor, searching for the shoto he had lost when Lumiya took his cybernetic hand. “But I don’t … think so. You can’t have … Jacen.”
“Jacen?” Lumiya let out a cold laugh. “What makes you think this is about him?”
“Your involvement with GAG.” He wasn’t having much success looking for his lightsabers; the blades had deactivated as soon as they left his grasp, and the cantina floor was too littered in debris and shadow for him to find anything. “Who else could give you … an apartment? Who else could give you access to … their files?”
Again, that cruel laugh. “Indeed.” The lightwhip’s crackling grew deeper as Lumiya shortened the strands for easier control. “Who else has access to Jacen’s codes? Who else could give orders to GAG officers in Jacen’s name?”
The questions caught Luke like a kick in the stomach. He knew that Lumiya was only trying to hurt him, that her implications were likely more false than true. But the possibility explained too much … and now that he thought back on Ben’s behavior over the last several months, he had to admit that he had seen too much of that possibility himself.
Something crunched on the floor as Lumiya circled the base of the claqball table. Luke gave up his search for his shoto and began to look for another weapon. He had not brought his own blaster into the cantina, prefering light blades instead, but the body he had fallen on was almost certainly a spacer, and spacers always carried blasters.
“You’re lying.” Luke found the spacer’s belt and followed it to a holster. “Just saying that … to hurt me!”
“Does that make it a lie?�
�� Lumiya asked. “You’ve caused me a lot of pain over the years, Skywalker. What better way to repay it than bringing your family legacy full circle?”
Luke knew she was only trying to twist the vibroblade, to hurt him as much as she could before she killed him—but he stuck his head up anyway.
“Stop it!” he yelled, with real anger. “You’ll never make a Sith of my—”
Luke never had a chance to say son.
All he saw was the bright glow of Lumiya’s lightwhip snaking across the claqball table barely centimeters above the surface, and he knew that his reflexes were just too slow right now, that he could not duck quickly enough to keep the whip from slicing into his brain.
So Luke simply fell backward, closing his eyes against the crackling glow as the strands swept past a finger’s width above his nose, bringing up the blaster he had taken from the dead spacer’s holster, allowing the Force to guide his hand, squeezing the trigger three times before he felt Lumiya’s shock in the Force, then squeezing it twice more before he heard her body hit the floor.
And suddenly Mara was screaming at him from across the cantina, flooding the Force with alarm. “Stop firing!”
Luke sat up and glanced over long enough to see her in the hatchway, pushing past the last handful of stragglers—mostly wounded—who were still struggling to leave the cantina.
“You can’t kill her!” Mara yelled.
Luke looked back to Lumiya and thought he had done a pretty good job of it. She was lying at the foot of the claqball table with three different columns of blaster smoke rising from her chest, her cybernetic life-support girdle sparking and sizzling with short circuits. Her lightwhip lay on the floor nearby, where she had dropped it when he blasted her. His own lightsaber lay a few meters beyond, where it had landed when she used the whip to disarm him. Luke used the Force to summon both weapons to him, then stood and went to check on her.
To his surprise, Lumiya’s eyes were focused and alert—and horribly bugged out with pain. As soon as she saw him, they crinkled at the corners as though she were smiling. That tiny act made his spine ache with danger sense, but he tried not to let that show when he spoke.
