Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [10]
As though it in turn sensed his contact, the floating remote droid let loose a volley of laser beams aimed at him, simultaneously zipping from one midair position to the next as it fired. Jax, blindfolded, whipped up the energy sword, countering each burst by knowing, before it was fired, which direction it would come from. One … two … three … four … five …
The sixth, and last, beam stung him painfully on the right side.
“Blast!” Jax pulled off the blindfold and spoke the deactivation code for the remote, which drifted to the floor. He sat down on the extruded lip of a wall couch and looked ruefully at the weapon in his hand.
“I see it’s remote one, human zero,” a voice said. Jax looked up to see I-Five in the doorway of the small, enclosed courtyard in which the Jedi had been practicing.
“I’m beginning to think that Laranth is right,” Jax said. “The Jedi should have practiced more with other weapons.” He grimaced. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“On the other hand, no one but a Jedi could have blocked five out of six beams.”
Jax shrugged. “It makes no difference if it’s the sixth one or the first one that kills you. Dead is dead.”
“I wouldn’t know. I do know, however,” I-Five said, “that you’re much better with that sword than you think you are.”
Jax glanced down at the weapon, saw his distorted reflection looking back at him from the blade’s surface. “Yeah? How do you know th—?”
I-Five suddenly whipped up his left hand, index finger extended, and fired a laser beam at Jax. The beam splashed off the ionized fire that suddenly coated the length of the blade, which Jax had automatically raised to block the beam.
“That’s how,” I-Five said. “The speed of light is just under three hundred thousand kilometers per second. You are currently seven-point-three meters from me. Your Force-augmented anticipatory reflex action is obviously working fine. You just have to let it.”
Jax grinned. “You sure you’re not carrying a Jedi Master template somewhere in that droid brain of yours?”
“Maker forbid. I’d like to think that even preprogrammed mechanical intelligences are less rigid than the Jedi were.”
Jax’s smile faded. The droid projected concern. “My apologies, Jax. Even protocol droids can be indecorous at times. I was out of line.”
“I’m not upset at your opinion. What gets to me is—you’re right. Every living species in the galaxy knows that one either adapts or dies. It’s not a difficult concept. Why didn’t the Council understand it? Why couldn’t they recognize the danger until it was too late?”
“Assuming for the moment that the question isn’t rhetorical,” I-Five said, “all I can offer is an observation your father made once, more than twenty-five years ago. He was a Temple employee, as you know, and had an opportunity to observe his employers closely. Even before he became so biased against them for what he felt was your kidnapping, Lorn was under no illusions about Jedi stagnation and complacency.
“He told me of references he’d found in datafiles to someone they called the Chosen One … a being whose coming was foretold and said to be imminent, who would restore balance to the Force. Perhaps they were waiting for this being to come and accomplish for them what they were unable or unwilling to do for themselves. It was your father’s opinion—and I’ve watched the behavior of enough organic sentients in my travels to heartily agree—that whenever they give up their own judgment to some sort of fanciful higher power, instead of looking for answers within themselves and their actions, they are the worse for it.”
Jax nodded thoughtfully. Of course he had heard