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By Root 744 0

cutting back and forth to make ourselves difficult targets. As I ran I opened myself to the Force and felt a flood of data pour in. I planted with my right foot, cut to the left and whipped my lightsaber around to the right, batting a blaster bolt out into the night. Another two steps, then hesitation as fire from an E-web mounted in the right tower slashed across my path, then a dive-and-roll over the stream of bolts starting to track toward me. I fended off two more bolts, wishing I could manage, as Luke did, to direct them back at the men who had fired them, then reached the sanctuary of the recessed gate.

I pushed my sphere of responsibility to see what was on the other side awaiting us, but found no one. I pushed further and then smiled. “I have her, Luke. This close, I have Mirax. Tower your side, down.”

The Jedi Master smiled. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”

In tandem we slashed left and right from the center of the gate and down through the big metal doors, carving a hole large enough to admit a landspeeder. I stepped inside, then slashed up and through the elbow of a stormtrooper shoving his blaster carbine down to spray us. He screamed and reeled away. I tugged the carbine from his falling hand and triggered a burst of bolts at a stormtrooper hunkering down from Elegos’ covering fire. I hit, sending him spinning from the wall, then sprinted after Luke.

Luke scattered a half-dozen bolts fired at him, sending four back at the tower from whence they had come. One stormtrooper went down, the other just ducked, but the E-web sparked and started to burn. Luke sliced the barrel from the blaster rifle carried by the lead stormtrooper running from the tower where Mirax lay, then dropped him with a backhand blow that separated the man’s pelvis from everything that normally rested on it.

I snapped the selector lever over to stun, then shot the next man in line. Elegos came through the gate and peppered the next three with stun shots. They all tottered and fell. Luke dashed into the tower doorway. I saw a flash and heard a blaster whine, but the green lightsaber continued to hum.

Ooryl came through the gate and laid down a pattern of suppression fire that held off the stormies coming from the far tower. Elegos and I covered him as he retreated to the tower, then we entered and I sprinted straight for the stairs leading down. This took me past two stormies with their assorted parts scattered in awkward positions. One level down I caught up with Luke at the mouth of an octagonal corridor festooned with sunken doorways.

He stood by a control panel scanning a readout of prisoner names. “Calling up a prisoner roster now.”

I glanced at the list and tapped a name. “That’s her.”

“Holding cell 02021020.”

I nodded and ran down the corridor. “Here it is.” I reached the door, shot the lock and watched the door retract amid a shower of sparks. I took all three steps in a leap, then stopped just inside the doorway.

There she was, just lying there, as Exar Kun had shown me. The little grey device on her forehead flickered with green and red lights, and the silver light from above bathed her in a radiance that left her skin almost pure white. It reflected true from her black hair. She looked perfect and asleep and I felt my throat tighten. You are incredibly beautiful, Mirax, and you’ve been away far too long.

Luke squeezed past me and leaned over by her face. “Don’t think this is what’s keeping her under. Feels like a Jedi hibernation trance. Normally a person can’t be placed in one against her will, but if this device broke down her resistance, it might have been possible.”

I nodded. “I’ve had experience with machines breaking down resistance.” I set my lightsaber and blaster down on her bier. “Take the gadget off, let her wake up.”

Luke pulled the device away and smashed it against the wall. “It’ll take a bit more than that to wake her up.” He reached his hand toward her forehead. “There’s a Jedi technique used.…”

I grabbed his wrist. “Know of it. Read about it in my grandfather’s notes.” I smiled at him. “She’s my wife, I