Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [170]
I kicked him solidly in the ribs, then backed away, sucking at my torn knuckles. “That was for even thinking about imposing yourself on her.”
I walked back over and picked up the rest of the jewelry. I tossed the bag to one of the Caamasi in the crowd. “Make sure the pieces get back to whom they belong.”
Remart’s wingmate, Dobberty, groaned. “Captain, that’s our stuff.”
“Not any more.” I turned around again to see Remart coming up into a crouch. “You want to come to me, or do I come to you?”
He came and came running. His arms hooked out like horns, looking to catch me, grapple me, carry me to the ground. In close, wrestling like that, his size gave him an advantage, and he wanted to use it. He could hurt me badly doing that, so I didn’t feel inclined to play along with him.
I let him get in close, then I began to fall back before his attack. As his arms closed about me, I grabbed the front of his flightsuit and pulled. Rolling back, I posted my right foot in his stomach. As we rocked back on my spine, I extended my leg, pitching him into the air and over my head. He hit hard, driving the Caamasi and his daughter off to my left and further away from their own people. Before Remart could get up and lunge at them, I closed with him and grabbed a handful of hair to help him up.
He started to turn toward me, so I let go of his hair and caught him with a roundhouse left that shattered his nose. He reeled away, but I kept after him, burying my right fist in his stomach, then clipping him with a left on the side of his head again. That punch landed like a hammer on an anvil, and didn’t do the anvil or the hammer any good. I felt a pop in my left hand and knew I’d broken something, but despite the pain, I didn’t care.
A short jab to the mouth mashed Remart’s lips and tumbled a couple of teeth free. His hands rose to his face, came away bloody, then he stared at me for a moment as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. His mouth gaped open with surprise, so I closed it for him with a sharp jab that staggered him and sent him to the ground.
Remart lay there for a second, spitting out bloody saliva and a tooth. He swore, spraying blood over the green grass, then looked past me. “Don’t just stand there, nerf-brains. You have blasters. Shoot him.”
I spun, hoping I could touch the Force and absorb the bolts, but I never even got a chance to begin to concentrate. Blue lightning wreathed each man, one after another, starting them jerking and dancing as if puppets controlled by a spastic droid. Their blasters hit the ground right before they did, and the bleeding Caamasi kept my blaster on them.
I turned for one last time to Remart. “You don’t know it, but you’ve had quite enough.” I leaped above the feeble kick he aimed at my legs, then snapped a kick to the side of his head. He flopped back on the ground and I prepared to kick him again, but a hissed gasp from the Caamasi stopped me.
I stared at Remart for a second and could feel my hands swelling. I flicked the blood off my right hand, then realized I’d spattered the young Caamasi female. I looked to apologize to her, read the horror in her eyes, then my gaze drifted beyond her to where her father stood holding my blaster carbine.
On me.
“Thanks for protecting me.” I opened my palms toward him. “Couldn’t blame you if you shot me. In your place, I probably would.”
“That is entirely possible.” The Caamasi shrugged his shoulders easily, lowered the carbine, then twisted it around to present the stock to me. “Among the Caamasi, however, a bodyservant does not shoot his master.”
“I wasn’t serious about that. I said that just to prevent him from killing you.”
The Caamasi’s blue on green eyes sparkled. “This I know, but I am serious about it. You put your life in jeopardy to protect mine, much as I did to protect my daughter and these, my friends.”
“So you should