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By Root 587 0

Two of the creatures squawked and swooped into the air, then flapped their leathery wings to dive at him. Artoo whistled a warning.

Jacen ducked at the last moment. The creatures dragged their hooked metallic claws on the flagstone floor, sending up showers of sparks. The boy didn’t slow. He ran toward the last of the reptilian creatures, who stared hungrily down at Luke’s soft, closed eyelids.

Jacen reached the raised platform. The third creature rose into the air, thrashing with its scorpion tail and snapping with both heads full of clacking fangs.

Unable to fight for himself, Luke paralleled the boy as Jacen struggled up onto the raised platform. Grim and determined, the boy stood guard by his uncle’s motionless form. Artoo came up beside Jacen, his welding arm still crackling.

Then Luke saw what to do—if it was possible, if he could manage to use his skills in such a way. Next to his robed body lay a black cylinder studded with power buttons.

“Jacen,” Luke said, “take my lightsaber.”

The three flying creatures circled the chamber, croaking at each other as if receiving instructions from the Exar Kun.

Without hesitation the boy picked up the lightsaber handle. It was as long as his small forearm.

“Don’t know how,” Jacen said to Luke.

“I’ll show you,” Luke said. “Let me guide you … let me fight with you.”

Talons extended, the three flying creatures plunged toward the boy, squealing with bloodlust in their eyes.

Jacen held the smooth handle in front of him and pushed the activation button. With a loud snap-hiss the lightsaber’s deadly shaft blazed in the dimness. The little boy planted his feet apart, raised the glowing blade, and prepared to defend the Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker.

Cilghal scooped Jaina up in her arms and ran down the halls as Dorsk 81 and Tionne joined her at the turbolift. They rose to the highest level, ready to battle for their Master, as they had done against the unleashed storm. But even Cilghal’s greatest fears did not prepare her for the astonishing sight that greeted her as she entered the grand audience chamber.

Little Jacen held a lightsaber in his hand with all the grace and confidence of a master swordsman. The trio of flying creatures came at him, jabbing with their dripping stingers, snapping with long teeth, reaching with hooked claws. But Jacen pirouetted with the energy blade, wielding the lightsaber as if it were an extension of his arm. The blade crackled and hummed through the air.

Artoo-Detoo, agitated, buzzed back and forth, doing his best to keep the creatures from coming too close to Master Skywalker’s body. Jacen continued to fight.

One of the lizard creatures darted in with gnashing fangs, but Jacen deftly cleaved off a head with one smooth stroke. He left only a smoking neck stump as the other head of the two-headed monster writhed and flailed and spat. The creature crashed to the floor and flopped its leathery wings against the flagstones.

The remaining two monsters struck with their scorpion stingers. The little boy swung the lightsaber, neatly slicing off one pointed stinger, then rolled out of the way as gouts of black poison spurted from the amputated end. The evil liquid burned on the ancient Massassi stones like acid, boiling with greasy gray-and-purple smoke.

Maddened with pain, the injured thing flapped in the air until it grappled against its companion, rending with claws and snapping with two heads full of tearing teeth. It struck with the useless stump of its stinger, but the stronger creature stabbed with its own stinger—leaving a burning hole in the torso of its attacker, a hole that continued to burn and sizzle as the poison ate deeper and deeper.

The stronger flying lizard latched its jaws on to the scaly throat of the other. When its victim had ceased its struggles, the survivor released its claws, flapping higher as the dead carcass fell with a thud onto the floor. Artoo came forward to zap the limp creature, making certain it was dead.

Cilghal, Tionne, and Dorsk 81 froze on the threshold of the turbolift, watching the impossible tableau.