Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 01_ Onslaught - Michael A. Stackpole [68]
Choking still, Jacen ducked behind the villip plant, then cut behind another. He splashed a handful of water up to wash his face off, then dodged left and slashed twice quickly at the Yuuzhan Vong. The slashes backed his foe off for a moment, but in the blade’s light Jacen noticed that the furrow he’d cut in the Yuuzhan Vong’s armor had become little more than a discolored scar.
They don’t just grow the armor; it’s living still!
The Yuuzhan Vong held his amphistaff high and brought it down in a crushing blow aimed at Jacen’s head. The Jedi brought his lightsaber up to block, but the amphistaff went from rigid to fluid and, whiplike, wrapped itself around his right wrist. A quick yank pulled Jacen forward, off balance, and into the Yuuzhan Vong’s right knee. The knee caught him in the gut, doubling him over.
Jacen felt the warrior’s viselike grip close on the back of his neck, then he had his face plunged into the turgid water. Water boiled around his lightsaber, but the whip controlled the movement of that arm enough that he couldn’t strike.
The young man shunted away the panic rising in him and immediately summoned the Force. He reached out to pluck the Yuuzhan Vong off him—exactly as he had done countless times with his siblings or comrades when goofing around at the academy. He discovered the flaw with his strategy about the same time his lungs started to burn for lack of oxygen.
I can’t sense the Yuuzhan Vong through the Force. And now I can’t affect him.
It occurred to Jacen, as he sucked in the first mouthful of water, that he could use the Force to lift himself out of the water. The concentration necessary for that act died as his body gagged and coughed. The stale air in his lungs bubbled out, then his body reflexively tried to inhale and breathed in more water, which started him coughing and gagging yet again.
Oh, no, Jacen thought, as the world began to go black, it wasn’t a vision. Or a dream. Just a nightmare . . .
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anakin crouched in the lavender grasses and peered through them at a small group of Dantari. The native nomads did not appear all that unusual. Humanoid in form, they used a limited vocabulary of spoken words supplemented with hand signals and facial expressions to communicate. They made tools, but had not yet found the secret of working metal. A couple of them did have knives formed from shards of AT-AT armor, but Anakin had never seen the knives being used for anything. He gathered they were a sign of power, since both were owned by large males whose hair was streaked with gray.
For a half second the boy wished C-3PO was there so he could translate the Dantari speech, but the image of the gold droid hiding in the grass was ridiculous enough that he almost laughed aloud.
The Dantari had made camp in a small clearing near a stand of blba trees. One of the elder males had drawn a charcoal design—the Imperial crest—on the upper left side of a younger male’s chest. Using a blba thorn and a stick with which to strike it, the elder began to drive the coal-black ash into the younger male’s chest, tattooing the design there forever.
The young Dantari was not the only one to be sporting that crest. Others had crude AT-ATs tattooed on them, or images of blasters, or the outlines and seams of stormtrooper armor marking their legs and arms. Small children sat and watched in fascination as the tattooing took place. Elders looked on pridefully as the youth said nothing during the tattooing process.
Anakin looked away and tried to shut the tick-tick-tick of stick hitting needle out of his mind. He glanced over at where Mara sat and caught her in an unguarded moment looking very tired. He glanced down immediately, then looked up again. By that time she had composed her face into an expression less haggard and much warmer.
That I could see her looking tired indicates how tired she must truly be. She’d never have let me