Star Wars_ Rebel Force 2_ Hostage - Alex Wheeler [43]
He seemed to be shooting blindly, and yet nearly every blast made contact.
Soon only three stormtroopers were still standing. "Retreat!" one of them ordered. In unison, they darted to the edges of the corridor, sheltering themselves behind a series of open doors. Every few seconds, one would peek out just long enough to spray the hall with laserfire then duck back to safety.
Ferus hopped off the cart, feeling a surge of relief. Two against twenty had been daunting odds. Two against three? Even a Padawan could handle that.
But the thought of Padawans made him think of Luke and Leia, and he remembered they were still no closer to rescuing the princess than they'd been before. The relief vanished.
"Cover me," Elad suddenly shouted, dropping to the floor over the body of a fallen stormtrooper. Ferus stood over him, blasting away at the stormtroopers who were left.
Elad ripped off the stormtrooper's armor and dug his fingers into the man's shoulder.
He shrieked with pain.
It was a hand-to-hand combat tactic Ferus had never tried: a precise compression of the parascapular nerve that caused unbearable pain. The rare maneuver had been perfected centuries before, but Ferus had seen it performed only once, by an Imperial officer trying to torture information out of a spice smuggler. The officer's expression had been no more single-mindedly brutal than Tobin Elad's.
This is different, Ferus told himself, trying to block out the stormtrooper's agonized cries. Our cause is just. We have no choice.
But another, fainter voice drifted through his troubled mind, resonating with Jedi-like assurance. There is always a choice.
"Where is the prisoner?" Elad asked. The stormtrooper just screamed. Ferus winced as the man's pain rippled through the Force. Elad just pressed harder. " Where is she? "
"Hallway on the right," the stormtrooper moaned. "Third door down."
"That better be the truth," Elad warned him. "Because if she's not there, I'm coming back for you. My friend here is going to leave you alive for me."
"It's true!" the stormtrooper screamed, writhing in pain. "I swear!"
"Enough!" Ferus shouted. "I'll hold them off—you go find Leia. Go! "
Elad didn't hesitate. He took off down the hallway. Ferus activated his lightsaber, and advanced toward the remaining stormtroopers. When they saw he'd dropped the blaster, they abandoned their hiding places and rushed him. Time slowed to a crawl. He struck out with the lightsaber, once, twice, thrusting its glowing blade into the nearest stormtrooper.
He somersaulted through the air, dodging the man's fallen body, and deflected a blast of laserfire. The blue beam swooped and swirled, carving elaborate arcs through the air.
A Jedi never craves violence, never enjoys it.
But Ferus's lightsaber had sat hidden and unused for a long time. Wielding it again, finally taking action instead of just sitting around and endlessly watching, waiting…it felt like coming home.
X-7 raced down the hall, pausing to look back just before he turned the corner. Out of curiosity, not concern. Was the fool already dead?
Two bodies lay on the floor, both of them stormtroopers. And between the two still on their feet, was Fess. But a different Fess than X-7 had seen before. He was leaping nimbly away from the blaster shots, with a dancer's liquid grace. He moved so fast that he almost seemed to be in two or three places at once.
But that wasn't the strangest thing.
The strangest thing was the glowing blue blade slashing through the air, deflecting laserbolts, spiraling toward the stormtroopers and effortlessly slicing through their armor.
So Fess, whoever he was, had a lightsaber. A carefully hidden lightsaber. And, unlike Luke, he seemed to know how to use it.
Interesting.
But not relevant. X-7 filed the information away for later