Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [86]
It was a shrewd move. Jax was forced to parry the lightning with his lightsaber and was out of position to defend against his enemy’s blade. Time slowed to glacial speed. Jax knew that if he leapt out of the way, the second Inquisitor, hidden in the rubble on the street, stood a very good chance of striking him down.
He’d have to take his chances with the lightning.
He dropped to his knees, hoping the Inquisitor wouldn’t be able to adjust his flight. There was a strange, sharp tingle in his Force sense and a split second later a thin line of blue-white energy cut through the thick air and made the wisdom of his maneuver academic. The beam severed the Inquisitor’s sword arm at the shoulder. The Inquisitor was carried to the ground several feet past Jax on his own momentum. His arm and weapon took their own trajectory.
A second laser beam sliced through the Inquisitor’s throat, stopping his howl of pain.
Jax looked to the source of the blasterfire. I-Five stood, gleaming, in the dust and debris, the index finger of his right hand still aimed at the crumpled enemy.
“Thanks,” Jax murmured, then realized that his awareness of Laranth through the Force was gone. He pivoted, lightsaber still armed, and was flooded with relief to see her racing toward him.
The relief was short-lived. The second Inquisitor had moved since he’d gone to ground, covered by the fury at his cohort’s death. He fell on Laranth from a ledge above the sidewalk, aiming one bolt of Force-lightning at her unprotected back and a second at Jax and I-Five.
Jax leapt, trying desperately to angle himself above the flow of searing energy. But he knew even as his feet left the ground that he would be too late to save Laranth.
Kaj had touched down gently amid the debris, senses thrumming, waves of Force issuing from him like ripples from a pebble in a still pool.
Oh yes, his enemy was still here somewhere, still present. And if his sense was true—and he knew it was—the taozin ward had been destroyed or stripped away.
He heard and felt the battle going on down the street as he searched the rubble, seeking the Enemy. All of the anger he’d felt over his parents’ dispossession, all the loss of being sent away from them to Coruscant, all his hatred of the Imperial Order roiled beneath his breastbone and he invested it in this quest. If there was any life left in the scar-faced Inquisitor, Kajin Savaros would extinguish it.
He followed the dark ripples in the Force to a twisted mound of wreckage where the bulk of the scaffolding had fallen, letting the pure flow of energy seep in among the randomly toppled blocks and struts. He felt frustrated. The trail told him the Inquisitor was nearby, and the inconstant Force energies told him the man still lived, but something was obscuring his ability to sense it clearly and find it.
But wait—there was movement in that wreckage, a flutter of power like a flame fighting to take hold. Kaj moved closer, his eyes on the spot where the Force emanations were strongest, where Scarface struggled to rise.
A tug at his senses caused him to pause and glance across the street. Laranth Tarak had turned to run toward where Jax and I-Five stood near the body of another Inquisitor. Kaj allowed himself a moment of fierce celebration, then saw the danger Laranth was in.
In the duracrete barrow, not two meters away, the third Inquisitor used the Force to thrust rubble away from him.
Torn, Kaj swung back toward where his enemy rose, again, from what should have been his grave. He knew he had the means to send him back again—once and for all this time.
But the Inquisitor high above Laranth’s head had leapt, Force-lightning sparking from his hands in two deadly, dancing streams.
Kaj turned and raised his hands, delivering a massive Force-push from every angle against the Inquisitor. One moment the Inquisitor was falling