Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [99]
“Stay close, Tee-Three,” she whispered, keeping her voice low so only he could hear her.
“Is anybody here?” she called out, making her voice tremble slightly.
She took another seemingly cautious step forward.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
“Don’t move!” a voice shouted from the darkness. “We have you surrounded.”
“Lord Scourge,” she called out. “Is that you? I only want to talk.”
“Lie flat on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” the voice ordered. “If not, we open fire.”
“Now, Tee-Three!”
The little droid turned his headlamp to full power. In the tight confines it had the intensity of a small sun, easily illuminating the entire cave. The sudden flash of brightness also overloaded the night-vision goggles of her adversaries, temporarily blinding them.
It took Meetra less than a second to see and process the odds she was up against. Four soldiers—two male and two female, each wearing heavy armor and carrying a blaster carbine—had taken up positions around the cave, forming a loose semicircle around their intended victim. A tall Sith stood in an alcove near the back corner of the cave.
The four soldiers opened fire. Even blinded by the flash of T3’s lamp, they were disciplined enough to react by unleashing a volley of blaster bolts at the last known location of their target. Unfortunately for them, Meetra’s reactions were quicker than theirs.
By the time the bolts hit home, Meetra was already on the move. She snapped off a quick back handspring to dodge the blasterfire, then reversed her direction with a flying leap toward the nearest assailant.
Her lightsaber was already in her hand when she landed, and she plunged her blade through the vulnerable joint between the chest plate and right shoulder guard of the soldier’s combat suit. Unlike his cortosis-laced armor, the man’s flesh and bone provided almost no resistance to the lightsaber as it drove straight through his heart.
As he fell to the ground, Meetra thrust her free hand out toward the next closest soldier, palm open. The woman flew backward, lifted off her feet and hurtled across the cave by the Force until she slammed into the rock face of the far wall. She slid to the ground, dead.
The other two soldiers had ripped off their night-vision goggles and opened fire again. Meetra deflected the bolts with her lightsaber.
With their attention focused on the Jedi wreaking havoc in their ranks, the soldiers forgot about T3-M4. The droid took full advantage of the situation, rolling forward until he was close enough to unleash a jet of flame from the short nozzle jutting out from the center of his torso.
The flames engulfed the nearest soldier; as his dying shrieks momentarily distracted his companion, Meetra charged forward with a burst of speed to deliver a vicious two-handed slash of her blade that cleaved through the plates of the woman’s armor and bit deep into her chest.
At last, Meetra turned to face the Sith. Now that she had a chance to focus her attention more closely, she recognized him from T3’s holovid. Apparently Lord Scourge had decided to show up after all.
Curiously, he hadn’t done anything to help the soldiers during the short and violent encounter. He hadn’t tried to flee, either. In fact, he hadn’t seemed to have moved at all, other than to draw and ignite the crimson blade of his lightsaber.
He held his weapon in front of him in a standard defensive posture, staring at Meetra with a look of utter disbelief on his face.
Wary of a trap, Meetra took a single step toward him.
“You’re a Jedi,” he said, his words causing her to freeze in her tracks. “What he said was true. He saw you. He knew.”
Meetra wasn’t about to attack someone who didn’t seem to want to do her any harm; that went against everything she believed in. But she wasn’t going to let her guard down, either.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“You’re here because of Revan,” he said, his voice filled with wonder. “You’ve come to rescue him.”
“I’m impressed you figured it out so quickly,