Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [75]
It took Ben a moment to realize the droid was addressing him. He obeyed.
The lightsaber flew from the droid’s hand to him. He caught it out of the air.
“Straight down from where you are,” the droid said, “there’s an unguarded chamber. It leads to a corridor that parallels the one outside. You should leave now.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. He felt numb. He activated his lightsaber and pressed the blade tip into the floor. Smoke curled up as he began dragging the blade around in a slow circle.
“I think I’ll activate that evacuation alarm anyway,” the droid said. “You know why?”
“Why?”
“’Cause it’ll be funny to watch all the people run around.” The droid laughed again, and this time there was real mirth in it. “Won’t that be a good way to die? No pain, and watching people do silly things like in a holocomedy?”
“That’s a good way, all right.” Ben’s circle was almost done. His lightsaber blade hissed louder as his tears fell on it, and little puffs of steam rose to join the smoke.
Jacen caught up to Thrackan in a corridor intersection. Against the long wall, flush with the floor, were two shiny silver discs more than a meter in diameter. Above them, transparent tubes emerged from the ceiling a short distance, no more than twenty centimeters. The tubes looked like some sort of escape access, but no ladders led up to them.
Thrackan was in the act of reaching toward a control panel on the wall when Jacen lashed out through the Force, hammering Thrackan into the wall. The older man bounced off, rolling painfully to his knees atop one of the silver discs.
And then Jacen reached him, holding the glowing tip of his lightsaber just under Thrackan’s chin. Jacen saw the tips of Thrackan’s beard hairs blacken from the heat.
His cousin, panting and almost stunned, said, “I guess you win.”
“I guess I—”
“Time to die, Solo!” The voice was Thrackan’s but it came from behind. Reflexively, Jacen turned and began to bring his lightsaber up in a defensive posture.
There was a blaster retort from behind him. The shot hit his lightsaber hilt and catapulted the weapon out of his hand, sending it down the corridor.
He spun again. Thrackan, blaster in hand, finished rising and fired into Jacen’s chest.
Jacen caught the shot—bare-handed, dissipating its energy before it reached his palm. He smiled and opened his hand, showing Thrackan his undamaged palm.
Thrackan fired again. Jacen twitched his hand over to the left, caught the second shot.
Then he crooked his finger with his left hand. The blaster flew from Thrackan’s grip into that hand. Jacen glanced back to where his lightsaber lay and gestured for it. It flew the four meters between them and dropped into his right hand. He activated it again and positioned its tip in front of Thrackan’s neck.
“Stang,” Thrackan said. His expression suggested he was genuinely impressed. “I heard rumors that Darth Vader could do that. Can all Jedi do that?”
“No. What did you do? A recording?”
“Yes, a little sound recorder. It was triggered by me saying, I guess you win.”
“Time to die, Solo!” came the cry from behind Jacen.
Jacen snorted, amused despite the urgency of his mission. “I see.”
“Except you really lose. In a minute, all the forces I’ve brought to bear will be here. They’ll continue to follow you, to wear you down, until one of them drops you. And your plan to destroy this station will fail. In that sense, it already has failed.”
A distant wail filled the air, a keening noise seemingly emanating from all directions at once, echoing and overlapping as though a city-sized droid were suddenly grieving for a slain offspring.
Thrackan paled.
Jacen grinned. “That’s the evacuation alarm. It means we have ten minutes to get off this station before it destroys itself. Which means that my apprentice, who is fortunate enough not to share any blood with you, has succeeded in setting up the station’s destruction.” He leaned