Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [101]
“You handle a lightsaber well, prey.” Suddenly she leaned forward, and her crimson eyes narrowed. Then rage filled them—or at least, he thought, topped off the last little bit of sanity; it’s not like there was a whole lot to begin with—and she snarled, “Where did you get that?” She indicated his lightsaber.
He told her the truth: “An acquaintance sent it to me.” He shrugged. “I guess he didn’t want it anymore.”
She came in, and she was incredibly fast; faster than anyone he had ever encountered. Only the Force allowed him to anticipate her reactions; otherwise he would have surely lost limbs in the first minute of action. It was all he could do to parry the hurricane of blows she threw at him: cut-cut-cut-thrust-diagonal-cut—!
He leapt backward to escape, felt the heat of her lightsaber singe his right foot as it cut through his boot and sliced off part of the heel.
Maybe needling her into losing control wasn’t such a good plan after all …
As he flew backward, Jax slashed behind himself with his weapon. A newly installed transparisteel pane shattered under the impact of his lightsaber, just in time for him to sail through unharmed. He landed on his feet on the roof.
In an instant, Sing followed. She flew through the opening, eyes narrowed, her arms held wide for balance. Her lightsaber was a viridian shaft in the semi-darkness.
She cut downward, hard, so fast! Without the Force, he would have been bisected. Instead, before he could think, his body moved on its own, wrapped in lines of power. Unbidden, his hand snapped up to block her blade with his. Scarlet and emerald lightning once again blinded them both momentarily. Coupled with the force of her descent, her strike knocked him backward again, across the roof construction. He nearly fell off the far edge.
Behind him, several massive automata were hard at the business of demolition and construction. At a comfortable control station somewhere, a supervisory sentient was probably kicked back in a form-chair, watching as the gigantic machines did all the work. Would he or she glance at a screen, take notice of the fight amid all the heavy work, set down the inevitable cup of caf and notify security? Would the fight even last long enough for help to arrive?
She came at him again. She was fast, strong, and good, but she was also reckless. She had said it herself: her passion lay in hunting Jedi, not fighting them. She was used to striking hard and fast, a streak of scarlet in the night. She wasn’t used to fighting skilled opponents for any length of time.
Jax kept backing away, parrying, letting the Force completely control him. A wrong move and he would be chopped down. His best bet was to wait, to let her wear herself out before trying to take her down. Assuming he could outlast her. She was humanoid, but not human; there might be different rules for her kind. He was already certain that her fast-twitch muscle percentage was far higher than his. He was getting tired, and she seemed as fast and strong as when they’d started.
They were among the machines now. Heavy lifters and composite depositors, link checkers, emitters, and synthesizers whirred and hummed and rumbled all around them. Sing continued to push him back, back, always back. Jax went with it. He wanted her to be sure that she was winning.
Maybe she was …
At least she’s stopped her diatribe. I was beginning to think she was trying to talk me to death.
“No need to die,” she said, as if reading his mind. She threw a fast series of choppy attacks, none designed to do major damage, but rather to set him up for the killing stroke.
“Really? What do you think your boss plans to do with me? Buy me lunch?”
“Not my concern, Jedi. Surrender now and maybe you can negotiate something with him. Don’t, and I kill you now. An iffy future is better than none, don’t you agree?”
She charged in