Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [114]
The room was empty, completely devoid of any furniture. Based on that fact and its great size—forty meters by thirty—she guessed it had been built as some kind of practice arena or training center. In addition to the exits on either end, there was a small door on one of the side walls that led to a tiny, dead-end room. It had probably served at one time as a storage closet for weapons, targets, and other implements used in drills or training.
At Bane’s instruction, she’d stashed the datacard from the Archives inside the closet, and her Master had done the same with Belia Darzu’s Holocron. At her suggestion, Darovit was hiding in there, too. He was unarmed, and he would be of no help to either side.
“Don’t come out until the fighting’s done,” she’d warned him, drawing a sour, disapproving look from her Master. “He’ll only get in the way,” she’d explained as Darovit had closed himself in.
Now there was nothing to do but wait for the enemy to arrive. Fortunately—or unfortunately—they didn’t have to wait long.
The doors on either end of the room burst open simultaneously, the Jedi splitting their numbers in two to better coordinate the attack. The first group—a female Echani wielding a blue lightsaber in each hand and a Jedi Master in garish clothes with a golden blade—charged straight for Bane. The other two—a lean, quick-looking Jedi armed with a green lightsaber and a gigantic mountain of a man spinning a massive blue, double-bladed weapon—came at her.
Zannah ignited her own double-bladed lightsaber and threw up a twirling wall of defense, though her weapon looked puny and insignificant set against the blue monster brandished by the larger of her two opponents. Before they could engage her, she backpedaled toward one of the corners, stopping several meters from the intersection of the two walls. This allowed her to protect her flanks, but still left enough space for her to duck, dodge, and evade the weapons of her enemies.
From the corner of her eye she saw Bane take a completely different approach. Protected by his orbalisk armor, he charged forward to meet the two Jedi Masters confronting him head-on.
And then her enemies fell on her. It took only seconds for her to realize that the bigger man was by far the more dangerous opponent. In the time it took for the smaller man to strike at her twice with his green blade, she had batted aside half a dozen attacks from the other. There was a marked difference in the style and effectiveness of their blows, as well. The skills of the Jedi with the green lightsaber were raw and basic. When he struck, it was with either strength or speed, but not both at the same time. His blade came in either high or low, but never altered its plane during the attack. In contrast, the big man attacked her from creative and unexpected angles, the massive blue blades changing course mid-thrust. Each offensive was a model of lethal efficiency—quick and powerful strikes and counterstrikes that kept an opponent guessing.
Yet as long as Zannah kept her blade spinning to hold its momentum, she was able to ward off both their attacks easily using whirling parries, in large part because the Jedi with the green lightsaber was inadvertently working at cross purposes to his partner. He was attempting to alternate his forays with those of the bigger man, expecting they would take turns pressing forward, then withdrawing, always keeping Zannah on defense. But the incredible reach of the bigger man’s weapon made it difficult for him to unleash a sustained volley without fear of injuring or even killing his companion when the other man moved in to join the fray. As a result, the bigger man constantly had to step back, pull up, or lay off his attacks.