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She would win the battle if she did it. But, she knew, she might lose the war. Ji had told her he had no plans to harm her. He wanted to knock her sprawling into the mud, to embarrass her, but that was the extent of it. She sensed no darker, baser purpose than that. Nothing would be greatly damaged, save her dignity-which was, of course, his point.

Ji’s driving energy was con-trol, and right now, he wanted, needed, to control her.

To use the Force against an opponent when you were in no real danger was wrong. She had been taught so all her life. The Force was not something to spend like a to-ken in a sweets shop simply because you could. Neither was it solely a weapon.

So what was left? Her own fighting skills. These were not inconsiderable-Jedi were trained in all manner of disciplines, both mental and physical, and the Masters knew there were times when use of the Force was not appropriate. Even without activating her lightsaber, she was someone to be reckoned with.

Of course, her self-defense skills had not been de-signed to deal with a champion martial artist-what were the odds of ever encountering such a situation? Especially when he didn’t intend to seriously injure or kill her?

She would have smiled at that thought another time. The odds didn’t really matter when the reality stood two steps away, facing you and ready to attack.

There was always the option of using the lightsaber. Ji would, of course, consider it a breach of combat rules. That didn’t matter to her, but she was concerned that the drawing of the energy blade might spur him to at-tack more viciously. A Jedi Knight or Master would have the skills to stop him without injuring him, but as a Padawan, she was not confident in her ability to do so. She might wind up killing him-and she did not want that on her conscience.

She had already determined that his would be the first move. If Phow Ji was waiting for her to attack him, he’d be waiting for a long-He leapt, covering the two strides separating them with phenomenal speed. Barriss barely had enough time to dodge, twist to her left, and block, so that his punch glanced off her shoulder, instead of connecting with her solar plexus.

She backed away, keeping her guard up.

"Excellent," he said. "You have very good reflexes. But you should have counterattacked.

Pure defense is a losing strategy."

By acting as a teacher with a student, she knew, he was trying to show his superiority-as if he needed to demonstrate that.

Ji circled the opposite way, moving his hands up and down and around in an almost hypnotic weave, trying to draw her attention.

His hands didn’t matter. It was his feet she had to watch. To get close enough to her to attack successfully, he had to step, had to move in. He could wave his hands around all day as far as she was concerned. When he moved his feet, then she would have to-He came in again, and this time, instead of moving out of his path, Barriss slid forward to meet him.

But she dropped very low, below his center of gravity, firing a hard punch at his belly as his strike sailed over her head. She hit him, but it was like punching a wall-there was no give. His abdominals were like ridged plasteel.

She scooted out of range as fast as she could, but not fast enough. She caught a slap on the left side of her neck as she retreated, hard enough to make her vision flare red for an instant.

She gained two steps away, and he turned to face her again.

"Very good, Padawan! Not the best target, but a clean strike. You’ll need more than one, though. Think com-binations-high, low, multiple attacks."

Her neck stung, but the pain was small, and no dam-age done. The Force sang within her, and she could barely keep from using its power. The dark side was al-ways there, her Master had told her; always waiting for an opportunity to be set loose. Give in once, it would be twice as powerful the next time. Give in again, and you might be lost forever.

Oh, but she wanted to