Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [95]
They drifted laterally to the top of the slope of the black wall, riding it down, using their power to slow their descent, keep their balance, increasing the friction between the clothes on their feet and the wall’s surface.
Lord Nyax moved to be beneath them. He ignited his blades, all of them. He knew they’d be here, knew it from the moment they stopped chasing him. He wished they’d go away instead of tiring him.
The foremost of them, the male, slid down until he was not far above Lord Nyax’s reach, then leapt free, somersaulting to land somewhere behind him. Lord Nyax reached out as the male came down; he slid a sharp-edged piece of stone toward the male’s landing area, timing it so that the stone would shear through the male’s legs. But the male slowed his descent and rotation, landing atop the stone instead of in front of it, and bounded off, toward Lord Nyax. Meanwhile, the women leapt clear of the stone, spinning down toward him, igniting their weapons as they came.
Lord Nyax leapt free of the center of their formation, bounding up over the head of the red-haired female. He hit the stone wall feetfirst, shoved off, and rotated to a landing many steps away from the three pests.
Then he made a thought and drove it into their heads.
It hit Luke like a razorbug fired straight through his forehead. Luke staggered under the pain. His back hit the irregular floor. He waved his lightsaber up and in front of him, a defensive form, but there was no follow-up blow for him to counter.
There was, however, a new priority. He was to switch off his lightsaber and then go attack the Yuuzhan Vong. He leapt to his feet and turned his weapon off. He could see Mara and Tahiri doing the same.
But that would mean dying—and, worse, failing.
No, it’s what he had to do.
No, he couldn’t do that.
He stood, frozen by the dilemma, straining against the thought that filled his mind, the thought that was slowly driving out every other consideration.
So he did what he had to whenever he was confused. He reached out, touching Mara in the Force. He didn’t have to open his mind to her; his mind was as open as it could be, held open by Lord Nyax’s thought. He just had to reach for her, and she was there, locked in as much confusion and pain as he.
She had no answer for him. He reached for Tahiri and found her to be identically immobile.
He felt Lord Nyax grow impatient, then angry, and Lord Nyax expressed his anger through pain. Luke felt his fingers and toes, hands and feet, shins and forearms explode. He fell, writhing, then stared in amazement as he realized that his limbs were still attached—the pain was real, but no injury had caused it. He could feel Mara’s pain, feel Tahiri’s.
There was something different about Tahiri’s. He looked over to where she lay.
She was rolling to her stomach, forcing her way to her feet. Off-balance, weaving as she stood, she nevertheless managed to pick up her lightsaber and ignite it. She looked at Nyax, anger blazing in her eyes. “I know something about pain you don’t,” she said. “Pain drowns other people. I just swim in it.” She took a step toward her tormenter.
Luke could feel Nyax’s anger, his moment of confusion. And though Luke couldn’t move, he could act. He reached out through the Force and grabbed the stone that Nyax had tried to use against him moments earlier. He jerked it toward his enemy.
And though he was weakened by pain, by distraction, it flew those few meters and slammed into Nyax’s back, driving him forward, slamming him off his feet.
Tahiri leapt forward, bringing her lightsaber down in an all-out attack. Nyax managed to get one of his arm-blades up to intercept it, then kicked out, shoving off against a pile of rubble. He slid away from Tahiri, and the slide continued well past the point that it should, carrying him clear of her … but he left skin and blood behind on rubble he crossed.
Luke felt Nyax’s astonishment, his outrage at having been wounded, however trivially. Then Nyax drove another thought into Luke’s brain: Kill Tahiri.