Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [102]
This was not going well. He needed to do something, and soon, or—
Sing was growing impatient. The blasted Jedi refused to capitulate, even though the Force was all that was holding him up at this point.
She wasn’t sure how he’d come upon her lightsaber; most likely he’d had an encounter of some sort with Typho. The particulars didn’t concern her—she was intent on getting it back, and she wasn’t too particular about how. If it meant prying it from the cold, dead fingers of his severed hand, she was sure Lord Vader would understand. But she wanted this to be over, and soon. Her stamina would outlast most humanoid sentients, but when it faded, it faded fast.
Even acknowledging the possibility of failure was not an option. She would defeat this upstart Jedi. Anything else was unthinkable.
Movement out of the corner of his right eye caught Jax’s attention. The energy of their lightsabers clashed and sizzled yet again, and he allowed the blow to send him staggering back toward the activity he had sensed. All he had time for was a quick look.
He couldn’t fight any harder. He had to fight smarter.
The machine was a large reposticator, or fabber. It chewed up raw material that looked like sand from a hopper, then laid a sheet of translucent plate onto the roof for a hard, weatherproof coating. The hopper had a safety field that glowed a pale blue, to keep things from falling into the raw-materials bin. Wise, because the fabber would ingest anything that fell into it and restructure the material into its extrusion.
A desperate plan popped into his head.
He tried an attack, a basic, simple Form II series he had learned early on. Not really much of a threat; the moves were designed as defense against an opposing lightsaber.
Sing did just that, easily blocking the attacks. She laughed.
“A defense unworthy of a Padawan? Come on, you can do better than that, can’t you?”
“Not really,” he said. But all he wanted was a little running room, which the moves had given him. He turned, sprinted three steps, and leapt with every bit of the Force he could muster, managing to land on the control bar above the fabber, arms windmilling in a charade of seeking balance—
Sing would be right behind him, he knew; he wouldn’t even have time to turn and face her, and she would use the field guarding the raw-materials bin as a step before launching into a lunge that would easily unbalance him from his narrow perch.
He felt for her, using the Force—
The flashing red button on the control panel was just next to his damaged boot. Jax waited until he felt Sing land on the field—
Then he stepped on the button.
The field shut off.
Sing screamed as she fell into the churning sand. Her lightsaber cut a swath of molten energy through it, fusing the sand into lumpy green glass—then was snuffed out as she lost her grip on the hilt.
Sing looked up at him as she sank beneath the sand. It churned while it was sucked into the machine. The last he saw of her was a splotch of red hair.
He turned and started toward a nearby drop-tube, realizing that his friends should have reached the ground by now …
thirty
Jax had two bombshells dropped on him in quick succession soon after he got to the medcenter.
The first was from Dejah. She had checked out fine, her medscan showing no aftereffects from the fall. “We Zeltrons are a hardy breed,” she said with a grin. She seemed quite a bit more cheerful—so much so, in fact, that Jax asked her what good news she must have received while in care.
“It’s a decision I’ve made,” she replied. “I’m staying here on Coruscant instead of returning to Zeltros. I want to be part of the resistance movement.”
“What?” For a moment he wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “You mean, after all the work