Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [57]
“Did you hear that?” Assant asked.
The three stopped. I-Five probed the darkness in various directions with his eye beams, which revealed nothing more than ancient, moss-covered walls. “My audioreceptors are set at maximum. I hear nothing that might indicate danger. In addition, my radar detects no movement in the vicinity.”
“Maybe you’ve got radar,” Assant said, “but I’ve got the Force, and right now it’s telling me that we’re not alone.”
“Impossible,” Lorn said. The Jedi were always playing the Force as a hole card, using it as an excuse to justify all kinds of actions and opinions. Not that Lorn had any doubt that the Force existed and could be manipulated by them; he’d seen too many examples of it. But he felt that their use of it was largely just another way to justify questionable actions.
He continued, “You think something that lives down here could have access to a radar jammer?” He was about to enumerate several sarcastic reasons why this was a ludicrous idea when something whistled out of the darkness and struck him in the head, and he lost interest in the conversation for a while.
Darsha jerked her lightsaber from its clip and activated it. She had no idea what sort of threat was impending, but whatever it was, it was all around them. She and the droid positioned themselves back-to-back, with Pavan’s unconscious form lying between them. I-Five had both hands up, the index fingers extended, like a child pretending to point a pair of blasters. He swiveled his head slowly through 360 degrees, illuminating their surroundings. There was a branch corridor on their left and two more on their right. Nothing moved. There was no indication of where the weapon that had laid Pavan low had come from. It was a curved throwing stick; she could see it lying on the floor at her feet.
“We’re too exposed here,” she said in a low voice. “Pick up your friend and let’s at least get our backs against a wall.”
The droid did not answer. Keeping his left finger blaster extended, he reached down with the other arm and hooked it around Pavan’s waist, lifting the unconscious human as easily as Darsha might lift a small child. They began to move cautiously toward the nearest wall.
The attack came from the one direction they had not expected: above.
Without warning, a net of fine mesh dropped down on them. Darsha sensed it settling from overhead and slashed at it, only to have the lightsaber’s blade screech and emit a shower of sparks. She realized too late that the net was charged with some kind of power field. She felt a bolt of energy slam through her, and then for the second time in as many hours darkness engulfed her.
Discipline.
Discipline is all. It conquers pain. It conquers fear.
Most important of all, it conquers failure.
Discipline is what allowed Darth Maul to survive a thirty-meter fall into a pile of rubble and debris: the discipline of his teräs käsi fighting skills, which gave him complete control over his body, allowing him to utilize midair acrobatics to direct his fall and so avoid striking ornamental projections, ledges, and other potentially lethal obstructions; the discipline of the dark side, which let him manipulate gravity itself, slowing his descent enough to