Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [26]
That he should stop him was obvious. No, this was not Jax Pavan, but it was a Force-user of such power that he had drawn Tesla to him as a lodestone draws iron.
In the moment of decision, Tesla flung himself into the air in a graceful Force leap calculated to carry him within striking distance of his quarry. But instead of landing at the foot of the ferrocrete block, he was met in midleap by a resilient energy barrier that slapped him to the ground. Hard.
He fell between a gleaming shard of transparisteel and a twisted spur of durasteel buttress, only his finely honed reflexes and a sweep of his lightsaber saving him from serious injury. He thought for an instant that he must have connected with the repulsor field, but realized the impossibility of that as quickly as the thought occurred to him. His quarry had been standing at the edge of the field—the barrier he’d struck had met him several meters from that verge. He hadn’t collided with the repulsor field; he had been struck down by the Force, wielded by someone who had remarkable strength in it.
Someone he could not afford to let get away.
He gathered himself and leapt again, up into the charged air of the ersatz canyon. He lit upon the block of ferrocrete as lightly as a bird, ready to fire a bolt of Force-lightning at his opponent.
His target was gone.
Tesla reached out with his senses toward the interstices of the two repulsor fields. He found his prey with eyes and the Force simultaneously. Two strides took him over the edge of the block of debris and down onto the ground behind it. Above him the energy fields pulsed and flickered, making him feel as if fire gnats crawled over his body. But directly before him was a warped corridor of safety—a buffer zone in which the opposing fields canceled each other out.
It writhed and shifted as if alive—a twisted gullet that bent light and refracted color. It conjured the image of two deep pools of troubled water kept back from each other by an invisible and uncertain barrier. How in the name of the Force was the boy able to navigate it?
It hardly mattered. Tesla reached out with the Force and grasped the fleeing figure, yanking it to him. The boy fell backward, his tattered cloak fluttering about him. Tesla could feel the presence in his hand almost as an actual, tactile sensation. He tightened his Force grip and dragged the boy toward him.
One pale hand reached out of the tattered cloak as if to try to arrest his headlong slide. Tesla smiled grimly and squeezed—then cried out in surprise and consternation as his feet were wrenched out from under him. He landed hard on his back, air driven from his lungs, and dropped his lightsaber.
He took only a second to recover, by which time his quarry was gone again. The boy might be young, but he was obviously no novice; Tesla would not allow himself to be lulled into stupid complacency again.
He picked up his lightsaber and hooked it to his belt, then went after the boy with both hands. This time he would not be deflected or caught off-guard. He would capture this prize for his master. Failure was not an option.
At the mouth of the energy corridor, he reached out anew with the Force, using one hand to restrict his target’s limbs and the other to haul him in. Concentrating his full attention on his task, he almost failed to catch the sudden movement of a five-meter-long section of fallen buttressing that swung suddenly toward his head.
Tesla whirled, using both hands