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Wrapped in agonies all but unimaginable, Shedao Shai again dedicated himself to the sacred mission given the Yuuzhan Vong. We have come to give them the Truth. Shriven in the crucible of pain, the fortunate will know salvation before they die. The others—He paused as a hot jolt curved up his spine to burst in his skull. —The others will become as lifeless as the machines they embrace, and the gods will rejoice at the fulfillment of our destiny.

CHAPTER TWO

The hiss-crack of lightsaber smashing against lightsaber drowned out the sharp intake of Luke Skywalker’s breath. He watched as the blow that had been struck drove Mara Jade Skywalker back and had her stumbling. Luke could feel the way the Force flowed around her and through her. Jagged, precipitous lines seemed to attack her, to trip her up. He reached out with a hand, ready to smooth sharp lines into gentle curves.

Yet even before he could do that, Mara used the physical momentum of her retreat. She rolled down onto her right hip, then came around, slashing wide and level with her blue lightsaber. Her red hair shone with reflected highlights as it lashed from one shoulder to another. Her green eyes blazed with another sort of light, one that matched the feral snarl on her face, betraying no sense of weakness from her debilitating illness.

The foe leapt above the slash, though not as high or as gracefully as other Jedi might have. Corran Horn landed and shifted his silver lightsaber to his left hand and stabbed it toward the ground. It sparked as it caught Mara’s return cut. Corran then pivoted on the ball of his left foot and snapped a side kick at Mara’s head. She ducked back, rolling through a somersault, then came up on her feet.

Her blade came up in a guard high by her right ear. Corran faced her, his blade held in two hands and running from his belly toward a point beside his right instep. The light from their blades turned their sweat into an iridescent sheen visible on Mara’s face and bare arms and on Corran’s dripping torso.

Mara attacked and Corran parried. They exchanged blows, each retreating and attacking in turn. Luke marveled at the complexity of the Force flows around them. He had seen greater displays of the Force—years ago before I understood the Force’s subtleties—and more fluid displays of swordsmanship, but the fight he witnessed here was altogether different. Mara and Corran, longtime friends, each sought to push the other to the limit, and relied on guile and skill and strength to do it. They shifted from defense to attack, and through a myriad modes of each. The object was not to do damage, but to force the other person to prevent damage.

What made it even more remarkable was that neither of them was in full, good health. Mara had been battling a disease that sapped her strength and defied Luke’s best efforts to help her. He knew things could have been worse: of a hundred people diagnosed with the ailment, only she had survived. Her strength in the Force has sustained her, and in combat she lets the Force race through her.

Corran had only recently completed bacta therapy for life-threatening wounds he’d earned in a fight with the Yuuzhan Vong on Bimmiel. While the injuries had healed, including the long-term effects of a biotoxin, getting his conditioning back and regaining his combat edge was not easy. Luke could see Corran’s chest heaving with the exercise and smiled. Neither of us is as young as we once were.

Mara crashed her blade against Corran’s, driving him back. Corran’s right ankle twisted, dumping him to the workout room floor. He rolled back through a somersault and came up on his right knee, with his left flank closer to Mara than his right. He held his lightsaber in toward his belly, then rotated his right hand. The weapon’s internal assembly shifted, more than doubling the length of the lightsaber’s blade and infusing it with a deep amethyst hue.

Mara laughed sharply and swung her blade at the slender purple energy rod opposing her. While Corran’s weapon did give him reach on her, a simple