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Jax hesitated, but only until they entered the corridor. It was nearly deserted, and for the first time since arriving at the port they could actually advance unimpeded. Jax took a deep breath and relaxed.

Or rather, he tried to.

Now that they had temporarily bypassed the pandemonium, he realized that the Force was trying to tell him something. Actually, that was much too mild a phrase. It was more like being grabbed by the lapels and shaken violently. Before he realized it, the hilt of his newly acquired lightsaber was in his hand. He didn’t ignite it yet, however; they were still in an all-too-public place.

A quick glance at Laranth confirmed that she had been warned as well; both hands were hovering near the twin DL-44s holstered on each hip. Jax looked warily about but saw nothing amiss. A few other species—mostly Niktos—walked or rode the slide-walks as well, but it made perfect sense that he and his cronies wouldn’t be the only ones to risk a fine by making use of the construction accessway.

Den said, “Now what?” in a tone of voice usually only heard from H’nemthe grooms on their wedding nights.

“Hush!” It was menacing—that much was certain. But where was its source?

The relative quiet of the accessway was suddenly shattered by a loud throbbing, fluttering noise. Then an ornithopter rose nearby, its wings thrashing the air. At the same time Laranth shouted “Look out!” and shoved him to one side. Jax barely avoided being hit by a slashing emerald blade.

Laranth didn’t.

twenty-nine

Jax landed on his side, rolled, and came to his feet in a single smooth motion, letting the Force do most of the work. At some point during the move he activated the lightsaber, though he couldn’t have said when. The blade—crimson, a remote part of his mind noted—boiled out to its full length in a heartbeat.

Then he was on his feet and facing Aurra Sing.

Though he’d never met her before, her appearance left him with no doubt of her identity. He would have little time for doubt in any case, because her blade was already whistling toward him. It was a green lightsaber, and its glow painted everything the same shade of corroded brass. Everything, that is, except the Twi’lek’s green skin—that it rendered the deep gray-green of ripe chee nuts.

Jax had just time enough to register that Laranth was either grievously wounded or already dead, and that she was directly in the path of the blade’s second downward arc, before he lunged in a desperate attempt to block it.

He did, but just barely. The clashing blades crackled, the air was rent with ozone, and the two lightsabers rebounded. Sing’s blade had been deflected just enough to miss Laranth. It sheared through the suspended floor of the elevated walkway, cutting supports. Jax backflipped and came down on the still-supported section, his lightsaber ready for another attack.

Behind him, his comrades fell into the abyss.

No time for even the briefest of reactions, as Sing was leaping at him again. Several meters below, an emergency-response tractor field automatically activated by the disintegration of the corridor caught his tumbling companions. They would slow-fall, but he didn’t have time to watch; he barely had time to breathe. She rained down on him a fury of blows almost as vociferous as the oaths and curses that accompanied them.

“Fear me, Jedi! I am Aurra Sing, Nashtah, scourge of your kind! I haunt your darkest dreams! I drink Jedi blood; I nest in their guts! Your nightmares now have a name, hierophant, and that name is Aurra Sing!”

He felt the Force flowing around her. There was considerable might to it, but it was wild and undisciplined and, as such, difficult to anticipate. He’d never before felt anything quite like it, and he’d certainly never heard anything like it.

At last she paused for a moment in her tirade. Raising his lightsaber, he slid his right leg back and lifted the humming beam over his head.

“You’d be the bounty hunter, then,” he said.

Hefting her own weapon, the woman grinned a feral grin