Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [210]
Halfway up those stairs, on a broad landing, sat a massive red granite desk and built into the front of it a cushioned chair made of the same stone. I found it easy to imagine the governor working at the desk, then moving around forward to sit in judgment over any issues brought before him. Elevated and imperial, he would have ruled as the sole, unopposable authority on Susevfi. All around the room, almost like courtiers waiting for a ruling, odd bits of fine furnishings, casks of credits, small chests of jewels and stacks of antiquities added a crude but opulent display of conspicuous wealth that smacked of Tavira.
Yet, all this, which I took in with a glance, faded to insignificance compared to the six creatures standing in the open central part of the floor. One, a woman wearing a grey cloak, with streaks of matching grey in her long brown hair, stood in the center. A mask hid her face, but unlike the others, it had not been fashioned after an animal, but instead showed a young woman, beautiful and smiling. The fire flashing in the blue eyes behind the mask, however, suggested the tall woman was anything but smiling underneath.
Arrayed behind her in an arc, five of the Jensaarai waited in their grey cloaks, their hoods up. The light flashing down from recessed glow panels above cast long shadows over their masks, but I caught details reptilian, insectoid and mammalian. The rightmost figure I had seen on the Invidious bridge with Tavira. The others, who were generally smaller, radiated little hints of anxiety.
The central figure raised her right arm and pointed a lightsaber toward me. The gold blade shot out, but stopped well shy of crossing the five meters that separated us. “Finally you have come. The Halcyon. To destroy us.” Her eyes focused beyond me. “The rest of you are free to go. You have done your part in bringing him here.”
I frowned. “You kidnapped Mirax to get me here? You could have given me directions and this could have been over much faster.”
Ooryl rested a hand on my shoulder. “It was not here that was important, but when.”
“The choice of futures is made in the moment the future you desire is born.” She let her cloak slip off, revealing her armored form. The armor, like the mask, had been styled after a beautiful woman and while alluring, was nonetheless deadly. She inclined her head toward me and struck a guard I found hauntingly familiar. She grasped the hilt daggerlike in her left hand, with her right hand riding on the pommel, pointing the blade toward the floor. “Now is the time.”
Luke took a half-step forward and reached my side. “Wait, I am Luke Skywalker. There is no need for further violence here.”
“The Skywalker. Your intervention here was not unanticipated.” She jerked her head. “My students will entertain you, then I will destroy you, too, that they may live.”
The five people backing her moved to the left, letting their cloaks fall to the floor. Each brought out a lightsaber and set themselves.
“Saarai-kaar of the Jensaarai, do not do this.” Luke waved a hand at her students. “I do not want to kill them.”
“Then that would be a problem for you, Skywalker.” She nodded at me. “Come, Halcyon, destroy or be destroyed, there is no alternative at this juncture in time.”
I lit my lightsaber as she drove toward me and blocked her first sweeping blow low and to the right. I anticipated the wrist-twist that allowed her to rake her gold blade back across where I had been. I ducked beneath her cut, then slashed at her legs, but she danced above my