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“I think we were being watched,” Tahiri whispered back. “I mean, it felt right. From the Yuuzhan Vong perspective. But I’m not sure.”

“I’m sure,” Luke said. “Couldn’t you feel the insect life go quiet just east, ahead of us?”

“I …” Tahiri looked embarrassed. “I could have been able to if I’d thought about it. But I didn’t.”

“Don’t feel bad. You were thinking Vong—”

“Yuuzhan Vong.”

“—Yuuzhan Vong instead of Jedi. I suspect it’s not easy to think both ways at once. Is it?”

Tahiri shook her head. “They’re ahead of us, then. That won’t be the same group that was watching us, I expect. That group hasn’t had time to get into position ahead of us.”

“Good work,” Mara said. “When do we expect it?”

“They’ll wait until we can’t hear what the first group is doing back at the site we just left,” Tahiri said. “But they’ll be impatient. It’ll be pretty soon after that. Such as … now.” Tahiri thumbed her lightsaber on; its snap-hiss heralded the lengthening of its glowing blade just in time for that blade to intercept a thud bug. The thud bug flared into incandescence and disappeared with a crackling sound.

Luke brought his lightsaber up but turned away from Tahiri. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Mara doing the same, turning the other way. The three of them stood back to back as the Yuuzhan Vong warriors came spilling out of the jungle.

There were five of them, and the first, coming in at Luke, was moving too fast, committed to the charge, depending on the first thud bug to distract the Jedi. Luke spun his lightsaber to intercept his cracking amphistaff, then rolled over backward, propelling the Yuuzhan Vong warrior past him in an uncontrolled tumble. Yours, he thought.

Barely looking, Mara brought her own lightsaber blade around, plunging it into the hurtling warrior’s face as he tumbled past.

The next one in came at Tahiri, amphistaff rigid in a two-handed grip. She parried his first strike, his second, and kicked him in the knee, but the impact of her bare foot on his vonduun crab armor slowed him not at all.

Two, timing it as a single attack, leapt out from a screen of dangling fronds at Mara. She reversed her lightsaber so that the butt of the hilt was next to her thumb, the blade oriented down, and directed it back and forth against their low amphistaff attacks, using the lightsaber as a defensive umbrella. As one went high to bring his weapon up and over her defense, she kicked out, a beauty of a full-extension kick that caught him under the jaw and tumbled him backward into the fronds.

The last one came in at Luke. He was slower, more patient than his comrades. Luke struck, a feint, then began a reverse strike as he saw his opponent raise the amphistaff to parry … then something about the warrior’s pose and motion set off an alarm in Luke’s mind. Luke dropped to one knee and the poison spat by his foe’s amphistaff went harmlessly over his head.

It wasn’t entirely harmless. Luke saw it arc toward Tahiri’s side. She withdrew a step, drawing her enemy forward, and the poison splattered against that warrior’s mask, dribbling through the eyehole. The warrior gurgled, clamping down on a shout of pain or dread.

Luke rose to a crouching position and then continued the motion, leaping up and over his opponent, inverting as he went, swinging his lightsaber with blurring speed at his foe’s head. His enemy caught the blow on his amphistaff and was shoving the staff’s pointed tail at Luke even as the Jedi Master landed. Luke caught the thrust on his lightsaber blade, deflected it mere centimeters, and kept the energy blade scraping up the amphistaff’s length. His opponent jumped away before the lightsaber could sever his fingers.

Tahiri’s enemy was down now, poison flowing from one eye socket and smoke rising from the other, and she moved into position just in time to intercept Mara’s second foe as he returned from the verge of fronds. Caught off guard by her flurry of attacks, the Yuuzhan Vong warrior allowed himself to be forced into retreat; both of them disappeared into the fronds.