Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [59]
Tistura Paan hit the platform in a practiced roll and came up on her feet at its edge; she spun, ready again.
Ben spared a glance at his father. Luke still had his back to the fight and looked as though he were digging dirt out from under a fingernail.
Tistura Paan advanced more carefully, short steps, her left side forward, hands up and ready in a classic martial posture. Ben mimicked it. He wasn't sure how long he should go on letting her demonstrate her skills and tactics as the fight's aggressor—the longer he did so, gauging her skill, the longer he gave her to develop a successful strategy. But neither did he want to rush blindly into an attack for which she had a ready, practiced defense.
She stopped well short of him and gestured as if shooing children before her, but the move was more sudden, more forceful. And Forceful: Ben felt a surge in the Force, and then suddenly wind was shoving him backward toward the platform's edge, tugging at his garments, pushing at his breath mask.
He knew instinctively that going over the edge would mean losing the match. He got his feet behind him, bracing him against the Force wind, and drew on his own powers to root him in place.
He stopped, his tactical sense telling him that his rear foot was mere centimeters from the platform edge. But he held where he was.
Then Tistura Paan's attack tore the breath mask from his face. It flew behind him; a sudden yank against his back told him it had reached the end of the cable by which it was attached to the canisters in his backpack.
This was bad. If he devoted any effort to getting the breath mask on, she'd be able to assault him, perhaps successfully. If he did nothing, he would be limited to the endurance the air still in his lungs gave him—less than a minute, considering his exertions. But he had to do one or the other …
No, he didn't. His father had always taught him to look for the third of two options. He shucked the backpack, letting Tistura Paan's Force assault carry it away from his body. He heard it clank against the stone wall.
Tistura Paan's eyes grew wide. She smiled. “Thank you for handing me the victory. Well, in a few moments.” The Force wind stopped.
Ben wasted no breath on a retort. He advanced and threw a rapid punch-kick-punch combination, not quite at full speed or strength. The Kel Dor blocked the maneuvers with a smooth, defensive style.
Ben settled into an aggressive pattern, one he'd practiced so often with Jacen and at the Temple that it was almost second nature to him. It was second nature, which meant that it occupied very little of his mental faculties.
In his mind, he focused on his discarded breath mask and canister pack. He could feel them against the wall, almost see them. He exerted his will against the rig through the Force, lifting the whole mass a few centimeters, bringing it forward to the base of the platform.
Tistura Paan's fist hit him in the ribs, an attack he'd failed to anticipate because of his inattentiveness. The rock-hard blow drove the air from his lungs and forced him to take a step back.
The Kel Dor's smile grew wider. It was an unattractive smile, lips pulled back over hard upper and lower palates that Ben supposed must take the place of teeth. “Wake up, Jedi boy, whoever you are.”
Ben felt a twinge of panic, but he knew it was just a physiological reaction to not being able to breathe. He suppressed the emotion and divided his attention more equally between what his body was doing and what he was up to with his manipulation of the Force.
Tistura Paan struck; he parried. The breath mask rig floated another few meters along the base of the platform