Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [211]
I sprang up to press my attack, but she never hit the ground. She turned her fall into a languid backward somersault. The second she touched down, she drove at me again, feinting left and right. I backed away, moving to parry. When her blow finally came in on my left, I caught it on the forte of my blade and brought it up and over in a big circular parry. As I did so I slid forward so we stood shoulder to shoulder for a second. I cranked my left elbow up into her facemask, driving her back, then batted away a quick slash.
Off to my left, Luke moved through the Jensaarai with such ease and skill that I realized the only help he’d needed from me back on Courkrus the night we’d faced their brethren was for me to hold his cloak. A quick parry with his lightsaber and then a push with the Force and two of them went down hard. Another parry and the application of the lightsaber’s dark end to a head dropped another to the floor. A telekinetic tug on a mask blinded one, while he fought another to a standstill, their blades arcing and screaming as they met.
The Saarai-kaar came at me with cold fury, her blade held in the style of the Anzati who slew my grandfather. She aimed a cut across my middle that I danced back from, then she slashed it down toward my trailing leg. The gold blade sliced through my robe and roasted a layer or two of skin off the top of my right thigh, but did no serious damage. I pivoted on that foot and arced my left foot around to catch her in the flank, pitching her across the room to where she crashed against a duraplast chest full of coins.
She clawed a handful of them back in my direction and I realized a second too late what she was really doing. With a telekinetic push she accelerated them at me. I got my lightsaber up and deflected most of them, but two thudded against my chest and one skipped off my forehead, opening up a cut above my right eye.
“Enough of this.” I opened myself fully to the Force and felt it flow through me. I came in at her, beat her blade aside and planted a front kick against her armored belly. She bounced back a step, but then slashed down and in at me as she quickly advanced. I parried her hard and to the right, then shifted my wrists and came up through a slash that should have cut right through her bracer and taken her left hand off.
I felt a jolt run through my lightsaber, numbing my hands as the blade flickered and died. She recoiled, clutching at her smoking armor, her own lightsaber going out as it fell from her hand. Snarling, she nodded sharply at me, and I heard a rustling. One of her students’ discarded cloaks wrapped itself around my ankles and dumped me unceremoniously on my back. I blacked out for a second, then saw the Saarai-kaar standing over me, her golden blade raised for an overhand blow that would split my head in two.
Without conscious thought, I reacted through the Force. Into her brain I projected an image of Nikkos Tyris lying there in my place.
She hesitated. “Master?”
Mirax’s stunbolt hit the Saarai-kaar square in the chest and dropped her out of my sight. I kicked my feet free of the cloak and sat up. Mirax slid down by my side, her blaster carbine still pointed at the armored woman’s form. She pumped another shot into her, making the body twitch.
“Nice shooting.”
Mirax smiled. “Thanks. Tried to shoot her earlier, but wasn’t able to concentrate enough to hit her. Then things became clear.”
“Right, right at the same time I broke her concentration by planting a picture in her mind. I linked her fighting style to that of my grandfather’s killer, gave her his image and she hesitated.” I rolled up to one knee and kissed Mirax full on the lips. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“My pleasure.” She stroked a hand through my hair. “By the way, you can keep the chin fur, but change the color.”
Luke came over and knelt next to the Saarai-kaar. He worked her mask off revealing a face somewhat