Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [171]
“Sometimes. When it doesn’t, people get hurt. Sometimes they die.” Obi-Wan’s blue-gray eyes met squarely those of yellow behind the mask. “By people, in this case, you should understand that I mean you.”
“I understand enough. I understand that I will kill you.” Grievous threw back his cloak and ignited both lightsabers. “Here. Now. With your own blade.”
The Force replied through Obi-Wan’s lips, “I don’t think so.”
The electrodrivers that powered Grievous’s limbs could move them faster than the human eye can see; when he swung his arm, it and his fist and the lightsaber within it would literally vanish: wiped from existence by sheer mind-numbing speed, an imitation quantum event. No human being could move remotely as fast as Grievous, not even Obi-Wan—but he didn’t have to.
In the Force, part of him was Grievous’s intent to slaughter, and the surge from intent to action translated to Obi-Wan’s response without thought. He had no need for a plan, no use for tactics.
He had the Force.
That sparkling waterfall coursed through him, washing away any thought of danger, or safety, of winning or losing. The Force, like water, takes on the shape of its container without effort, without thought. The water that was Obi-Wan poured itself into the container that was Grievous’s attack, and while some materials might be water-tight, Obi-Wan had yet to encounter any that were entirely, as it were, Force-tight …
While the intent to swing was still forming in Grievous’s mind, the part of the Force that was Obi-Wan was also the part of the Force that was R2-D2, as well as an internal fusion-welder Anakin had retrofitted into R2-D2’s primary grappling arm, and so there was no need for actual communication between them; it was only Obi-Wan’s personal sense of style that brought his customary gentle smile to his face and his customary gentle murmur to his lips.
“Artoo?”
Even as he opened his mouth, a panel was sliding aside in the little droid’s fuselage; by the time the droid’s nickname had left his lips, the fusion-welder had deployed and fired a blinding spray of sparks hot enough to melt duranium, and in the quarter of a second while even Grievous’s electronically enhanced reflexes had him startled and distracted, the part of the Force that was Obi-Wan tried a little trick, a secret one that it had been saving up for just such an occasion as this.
Because all there on the bridge was one in the Force, from the gross structure of the ship itself to the quantum dance of the electron shells of individual atoms—and because, after all, the nerves and muscles of the bio-droid general were creations of electronics and duranium, not living tissue with will of its own—it was just barely possible that with exactly the right twist of his mind, in that one vulnerable quarter of a second while Grievous was distracted, flinching backward from a spray of flame hot enough to burn even his armored body, Obi-Wan might be able to temporarily reverse the polarity of the electrodrivers in the general’s mechanical hands.
Which is exactly what he did.
Durasteel fingers sprang open, and two lightsabers fell free.
He reached through the Force and the Force reached through him; his blade flared to life while still in the air; it flipped toward him, and as he lifted his hands to meet it, its blue flame flashed between his wrists and severed the binders before the handgrip smacked solidly into his palm.
Obi-Wan was so deep in the Force that he wasn’t even suprised it had worked.
He made a quarter turn to face Anakin, who was already in the air, having leapt simultaneously with Obi-Wan’s gentle murmur because Obi-Wan and Anakin were, after all, two parts of the same thing; Anakin’s flip carried him over Obi-Wan’s head at the perfect range for Obi-Wan’s blade to flick out and burn through his partner’s binders, and while Grievous was still flinching away from the fountain of fusion fire, Anakin landed with his own hand extended; Obi-Wan felt a liquid