Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [132]
But Luke, despite recent exertions, had had time to recover. He parried each of Gaalan’s blows, and his ripostes—his blade skittering off Gaalan’s and thrusting now at the Sith Lord’s face, now at shoulder or knee or torso—came increasingly close to touching flesh.
Luke smiled at the man.
VESTARA TOOK HER LIGHTSABER IN HAND AND RAN, HER SPEED BOOSTED by the Force.
One Sith Saber was down, dead. This still should have been a lopsided match, Gaalan matching Luke, the first female Saber matching Ben, the second Saber overmatching Dyon and almost killing the Jedi washout instantly.
But Dyon was proving hard to kill. He bobbed and weaved, back-flipped and somersaulted, keeping just above or below the Saber’s blows, firing at his foe in the midst of his acrobatic maneuvers. His blaster shots went wild or were caught on the woman’s lightsaber blade, but they had to be reckoned with, countered.
He dived for the dead Saber’s lightsaber, the hand that had held his now severed blaster empty, reaching for the weapon. He hit the ground, rolled—and came up with nothing in his clenched fist, having missed the lightsaber hilt.
He looked stricken. The female Saber advancing on him smiled.
Dyon backflipped away from her, his free arm flailing in the air—
No, his clenched fist was not empty. It opened as he flailed and the handful of clover and dirt he held flew, spattering into the face of Ben’s opponent. She staggered back, taken momentarily by surprise.
Ben cut her in half at the waist. Dyon landed, no longer looking stricken.
Vestara grimaced. That was Firen’s ploy, used only semi-successfully in her last bout with Luke. Now it had changed the odds as intended, tilting them against the Sith.
Ben charged against Dyon’s enemy. Dyon returned to the dropped lightsaber and picked it up with his free hand, all the while maintaining blasterfire against Ben’s new opponent. That Saber used her lightsaber to bat his blasterfire toward Ben, but the boy, with reflexes like lightning, batted the bolt straight back at her. It caught her on her sword wrist. She staggered back, pain crossing her features. Dyon’s next bolt and Ben’s next strike, launched reflexively, before they could even assess her condition or offer her surrender, both caught her, the bolt in her gut and the lightsaber across her neck. Her head flew free, straight up into the air, as her body was propelled straight back into the side of the shuttle.
Vestara slowed, dropping the Force boost to her running speed.
The others sensed her presence. Luke shifted rightward, not abandoning his concentration on Gaalan but putting Vestara’s angle of approach in his peripheral vision. Ben turned toward Vestara and—seeing Ben’s shift—Dyon did as well.
Gaalan took that moment of adjustment to act. He backflipped—straight through the open boarding hatch of the shuttle. The hatch rose. Luke hurtled forward, got his lightsaber blade into the hatchway before it entirely closed, and began burning a narrow furrow around the periphery of the hatch.
But the shuttle thrusters fired. Lord Gaalan could be seen in the cockpit, features beautiful and impassive as ever, in control of the vehicle. It skidded forward, leaving a meters-wide trench in the ground. Its nose lifted before it had traveled thirty meters, and it went airborne.
Luke reached after it, a clear exertion of telekinetic Force power, then dropped his hand. He looked rueful. “He’s countering my power.”
Ben pointed his blade at Vestara. “Come to help your boss, I suppose.”
Vestara left her lightsaber unlit for the moment. “He’s not my ‘boss,’ as you put it. My Master was Lady Rhea. Your father killed her. Very skillfully, too, I might add.” She hung her weapon from her belt. “Of course, I’d hoped to leave with Lord Gaalan’s shuttle.”
Luke swept his gesture toward Vestara. Her lightsaber leapt from her belt and into his hand. “I’ll take that for now.”
She shrugged. “Of course. I have nothing