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I smiled, knowing what I had to do. “We have our strengths.”

“Do you?” He whisked the blade back around to his left, preparatory to sweeping it through me. “Better summon one swiftly.”

In the second of life he left me, I caught a vision of him standing above me and my dead comrades. Our slain bodies faded away, but his mocking laughter did not. I knew with a certainty as clear and hard as transparisteel that if I did not deal with Tyris, my friends and our mission here would be destroyed. I couldn’t let that happen, so I acted.

I launched myself toward my lightsaber, my right hand reaching for it. My body twisted in the air as I flew. I landed on my back, skidding the last centimeters to where my hand closed on the blade’s hilt. Even as I tightened my grip, even as I started to bring the blade around in a parry, I knew I would be too late.

So did Tyris.

He stabbed his blade down through my chest. The azure blade melted flesh and boiled blood as it went, reducing my heart to sweet smoke and steam. On further it stabbed, exploding arteries and burning through my spine. The lower part of my body went numb, though I barely noticed because of the wave of agony surging up through me and into my brain. It threatened to overwhelm me, letting darkness nibble into my sight. I was dying and I knew it and regrets poured in with the pain.

But I was not dead yet.

I was a Halcyon. I was a Jedi.

Jedi do not know pain.

In an instant all physical agony ceased as effectively as if I’d flicked a switch and turned all my pain receptors off. All I was left with was an incredible clarity of mind and a singleness of purpose. I’d dedicated my life to the service of others, to the service of the Force. I would not go out without my duty being fulfilled. I concentrated and employed the greatest Halcyon gift against my enemy.

I sucked the energy out of the Anzati’s lightsaber and forced myself to smile as I did so. I tasted blood in my mouth, but that fact elicited no panic. It was inconsequential. More telling was the look of surprise on Tyris’ face as his blue blade flickered once, then twice, then went out. I’d drained it of every last joule and let him read in my eyes that he should suddenly be very afraid.

With the energy I’d pulled in I plucked him from the ground in a giant invisible fist. He screamed, I think; at least his mouth worked as if he was screaming. I made the fist convulse once and I felt no resistance as his bones shattered. I let him hang limp in the air for a moment, then hurled him back through the tents to slam him against the dome and a support. I felt a jolt through the Force and saw a blue flash of light, but by then my energy reserves had faded.

As did I. I felt spiky red torments racing in to fill my consciousness, but I slipped out of my fleshy prison before they could shackle me to this spot forever.

I sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring off my body. I felt for the burned, crusted hole in my chest but found nothing. My head pounded, but I found no torn scalp, no bump rising from a stone, no blood. A shiver ran down my spine and I realized that I actually could feel my lower body again.

I stumbled out of bed and staggered to my room’s refresher station. I started cold water running and splashed it on my face as the station’s glowpanels brightened. I drank from my cupped hands, quenching an intense thirst, then lowered my face into the catch basin and let the water flow over the back of my head.

Finally I brought my head up. As water trickled down over my back and chest, I glanced in the mirror and saw my grandfather’s face where mine should have been. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Opening them again, amid the tear-tracks water droplets left on the mirror, I saw Nejaa Halcyon’s features fade and mine return. I reached up and touched my own face, letting my fingers confirm what my eyes saw, and that sent a shoulder-shifting shudder through me.

I turned away from the mirror and buried my face in my hands. For the past ten weeks I’d been an idiot. I could have seen it, I would have seen it, but by