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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Before either Corran or Ganner could offer a new plan for escape, an explosion outside shook the giant shell building. The cloying odor of killscent wafted in and down the stairs. All around him Corran could feel slashrats gathering, coursing through the sand, looking for any morsel of food. Panic rose among the slaves, but, one by one, their weakening sense in the Force ended.

Corran slipped past Ganner and ignited his lightsaber. “Okay, Ganner, here’s the new plan. You’re the telekinesis champ here, so you float the students to the rear of this shell, carve yourself an exit with your lightsaber, and get them out.”

“You can’t possibly think, in your state, that you can beat these two.”

“Immaterial, isn’t it? As they say on Tatooine, when being hunted by a krayt dragon, you don’t have to be faster than it is, you just have to be faster than the slowest guy in the group you’re with. I’m the slow guy here, and you’re getting them out.”

Corran raised his left hand and extended two fingers toward the Yuuzhan Vong. He forced himself to ignore the pain and composed his face in an expression that suggested facing two Yuuzhan Vong was slightly less inconvenient than getting his beard trimmed. He bent his wrist to motion them forward, inviting them down to meet him in single combat.

The lead Yuuzhan Vong let his amphistaff coil itself around his waist. He stepped to the side and waved his subordinate forward. The other Yuuzhan Vong, whom Corran thought of as the younger, bounced down several steps, then set himself in a pose of great martial grandeur. His amphistaff slithered down into his hand and stiffened itself.

“Ganner, I still hear you breathing back there. Go! Now, go! Get them aboard and get the ship out of here.” Corran glanced back and gave Ganner as hard a stare as he could. “You’re the only one who can save them, and I’m the only one who can buy you the time you need to do it. Go!”

The younger Jedi Knight nodded once, then gestured, and the two students rose from the floor as if on invisible stretchers. Ganner started walking backward into one of the many tunnels, with the two of them floating behind him. The younger Yuuzhan Vong came down two more steps and raised his amphistaff like a spear, ready to throw.

The elder Yuuzhan Vong hissed something, stopping his subordinate.

Corran twirled his silver lightsaber blade around in a humming circle, then moved to interpose himself between the Yuuzhan Vong and Ganner’s line of retreat. “I hope you two think this is a good day to die.”

The younger Yuuzhan Vong slowly stalked down the steps and spun his amphistaff in his right hand. He held his left hand out toward Corran, with his gauntleted fingers splayed out. The Yuuzhan Vong moved with the casual grace of a predator. He took one step toward Corran’s left, clearly as the first part of a gambit to make Corran circle around and present his back to the elder Yuuzhan Vong.

Corran countered by stepping to his left and bringing his left hand onto the hilt of the lightsaber. The blade’s hilt had been constructed long ago from the throttle assembly of a speeder bike, so it had ample length to accommodate the second hand. Corran brought his hands down toward his waist and pointed the blade at the younger Yuuzhan Vong’s throat.

The Yuuzhan Vong came in with a sweeping slash at Corran’s left leg. Corran blocked the cut low. The tip of his lightsaber sliced through the shell floor with ease, leaving a blackened scar between the two of them. At least now I know Ganner can cut his way out of this place. Corran stepped back and aimed his lightsaber at the Yuuzhan Vong again.

The Yuuzhan Vong tried the same attack a second time. Corran parried a bit higher, then pivoted on his right foot. His left foot came around in a roundhouse kick that caught the Vong in the chest. The younger warrior fell back and went down, then rolled from beneath Corran’s overhand strike. That blow left another scar in the shell, but by the time Corran