We thought you would probably need these more than we do. Don't eat them all in one place.
Love,
The Wraiths
Only then did Viqi sink down to the carpet. Only then did she begin to cry.
The ziggurat was a series of high, broad steps. The Jedi leapt up to the next step, ran its width, and then leapt up to the one above, again and again, until they reached the roof.
From here they could see the hole in the ziggurat root widening. With every moment that passed, more tons of rubble poured up and out of the hole and flew out to pour onto surrounding kilometers of buildings. Some streams diverted to hose coralskippers out of the air. The lines of giant boulders still danced their merry circles around Nyax.
Luke led the others off at an angle, to where each of the boulders in turn dipped down to within meters of the zig-gurat's surface. As the next one swept low, they leaped, propelling themselves farther with use of the Force, and landed atop the irregular duracrete surface.
Luke could feel it as Nyax detected them. The pale giant rotated in the air to face them, his smile changing from one of simple pleasure to one of malice. "This is going to be bad," Luke said.
Mara nodded. The wind at this altitude whipped her hair into a life of its own, making it look like a candle flame in a strong breeze. "Any ideas?"
"I have one." Tahiti knelt to improve her balance while she stared ahead. In the distance, this stream of boulders took a sharp turn, then moved to within a few meters of Nyax's position and beyond. "Just past that point. Distract him. I'll finish him."
Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. "You'll finish him. How?"
There was something in Tahiri's eyes that sent a chill down Luke's spine. "He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force," she said. "He couldn't feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I'm both." She rose and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third boulder down.
"What do you say we take her at her word?" Mara said.
"I'm too tired to argue."
Their boulder reached the end of its straightaway course and turned. It turned more violently than its predecessors had, but Luke and Mara could feel Nyax's intentions in the Force; they kept their feet planted and did not budge.
As their vehicle came closer to Nyax, Luke stretched forth his hand. He snatched a portion of the rubble stream from beneath them, bent its course, sent it hurtling toward Nyax.
Nyax reacted without moving, regaining control of the stream, hurling it at Luke.
Luke leaned over backward, rotating his boulder with him. The oncoming stones crashed into its side and bottom as the rotation continued.
Upside down, clinging by virtue of her enhanced Force strength, Mara ignited her lightsaber and hurled it. It twirled under the flow of boulders, almost invisible through the dense rain of duracrete; then, as it came within meters of Nyax, it twirled up and at him.
His expression changed to one of startlement. With none of his own blades active to protect him, he slipped sideways, out of the lightsaber's path, then turned to watch it as Mara directed its flight. She sent it around in a long loop, preparing it for another approach.
Mara and Luke came upright as their boulder completed its rotation, and Luke could feel Nyax's attention on him, too, waiting for his attack. Luke made it, shoving in the Force, trying to hurl Nyax off balance and onto Mara's blade. The attack was a success, but Nyax activated all his blades as he was shoved, and with contemptuous ease he swatted Mara's lightsaber away.
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
And he was tired of these creatures. They were weaker than he, but so stubborn. Even inventive.
Nyax raised his hands. He would crack the stone they rode on and send it and them hurtling down into the ruins.
Something slammed into his back, just below the point where his internal armor plate protected him. His eyes snapped wide. He had not felt it coming. He used his power to overcome the pain.
A second thing struck him. He felt bones in his lower hack shatter. Numbness flowed across his legs. He exerted greater control over himself, desperately trying to force sensation into those limbs, as he turned.
His third antagonist, the smaller female with the yellow hair, rode another boulder, lying upon it and gripping it with one hand. She looked at him with alien merciless-less in her eyes. She barely registered in his special senses - she must have closed herself off to the power, reducing his ability to detect her, his ability to anticipate her moves.
Something was wrong. He had the pain under control. He was full of the power. He should be able to make anything happen, anytime.
He did not understand, for he had not been trained in the ways and use of the Force, that the catastrophic failure of the body's functions could interfere with use of the Force. All he did understand was that his control over the boulders, over the debris flow from the ever-widening hole beneath him, was faltering.
The yellow-haired female held up a third missile. It had legs that writhed as she held it.
Nyax gaped at her. It was one of the alien creatures, one of the types flung by the warriors he could not feel. Her type was not supposed to use this. Only the flat-nosed aliens were.
It was unfair. She had cheated.
Before she could throw it, Nyax lost control. He fell, screaming, into the pit he had created.
All at once, the boulders came crashing down onto,. and often through, the ziggurat roof. Luke and Mara leapt free, using their augmented power to soften their landing, and rolled up to their feet, looking among the rain of multi-ton missiles for a head of blond hair.
"There," Mara said, and sprinted. The distance of a ballplaying field away, Tahiri lay atop a small dome. But as Luke watched, as a boulder arced down toward her, the young Jedi leapt free. The boulder crashed through the dome and was gone.
"Face to Mara, Face to Mara, do you read me?" Luke skidded to a halt and pulled out his comlink as his wife reached and embraced the younger Jedi. "Mara's a little busy right now, Face." He leapt to one side and a mass of ferrocrete the size of a Y-wing smashed into the roof beside him. "For that matter, so am I. What is it?"
"Tell me that the whole mess with the fountain of rock was you."
"It was."
"We're inbound. So are a couple of Vong capital ships. You want a lift?"
"We do."
"We'll be there in two."
The three Jedi leapt from the ziggurat roof edge to the stubby wing of the Ugly Truth. They squeezed in through the open hatch. Before they were buckled into their restraint couches, Kell had heeled over in a stomach-churning dive into the avenue below. Luke had a glimpse of the construction droid, thought they were going to plow right into it, and then they were level again and accelerating along the avenue.
"So," Face said, his tone conversational. "Is property damage on a massive scale normal for Jedi?"
"That's just if you're friends with them," Kell said. "Wait until you're married to one."
"We need to go back," Luke said. "Nyax isn't dead."
Face and Kell exchanged a glance. "Are we saving him or killing him?"
Luke sighed. "Just getting in his way."
Kell shook his head and gained altitude. As soon as he reached rooftop level, he looped around again, back toward the ziggurat.
Nyax lay in pain at the bottom of the pit.
He'd never known what pain was before he met those three with the power. Now there was nothing but pain.
He would find them, and he would kill them. He must do so soon because he could feel his strength ebbing. No matter how much strength he drew from what lay behind the black wall, he could feel himself failing. Soon he would sleep.
He extended himself, finding the minds of every living thing his power could detect. Where a mind was strong and complex enough to hear him, to obey, he looked through that creature's eyes.
In the first few moments, he could see only a blur of superimposed images. Then he learned to subtract some, overlap others, remap the image into a coherent one in three dimensions.
The power-wielders who had hurt him were not visible. But two chunks of coral he could not feel with his own power, big ones, were approaching him from two different directions.
His enemies had to be aboard them, hidden by whatever power they possessed to block his senses. Since they never gave up, they must be coming back after him. They had to be aboard because he would not sleep until they were dead.
He roared out his pain and sent ton after ton of rubble into the sky.
Kell lost altitude and slid to a landing on a rooftop four kilometers from the ziggurat. From here, they could see the two Vong mataloks, cruiser analogs, approaching from north and south.
Two sprays of rubble leapt from the hole in the ziggurat, each going after one of the mataloks. Nyax's aim was getting worse; in the first few seconds of the attack, neither Vong ship took a hit.
And both fired, raining plasma projectiles as numerous as raindrops into the ziggurat.
Luke jerked as he felt his flesh burn. He looked at his arm, but no blackness appeared there, no seared flesh. It was Nyax, his pain being transmitted to all close enough to feel it, and he could see that pain reflected in the faces of Mara, Tahiri, Danni, even Kell.
Then the rubble streams hit the mataloks. They poured across the vessels, some small portions of them being swallowed by voids, the majority eating away at the yorik coral as though it were sugar. The mataloks sideslipped, desperately trying to avoid the streams of destruction, but the rubble blasts tracked them, followed them, wore them down.
A constriction in Luke's chest, one he had been unaware of until now, suddenly loosened, vanished. "He's dead."
"Lord Nyax?" Face frowned back at him. "I don't think so. Look, more rubble than ever is flying out of there."
"Luke is right," Mara said. Her voice had a distant quality as she tried to interpret what she felt through the Force. "Nyax is gone. But he's imbued his surroundings with some of his hatred. Some of his last intent."
The mataloks rose above the rubble-stream, launching a new volley of plasma before the blasts tracked them, tore into them again. In the distance, more Yuuzhan Vong capital ships raced toward the disturbance.
"It's going to continue," Luke said, "as long as some Part of him is there. As long as some part of him can exert his will on his surroundings, and that wellspring of the Force allows it to happen. But he's gone." He took a deep breath. "Let's go home."
"Not quite yet," Kell said. "You hear this?" He dialed up the comm board, and suddenly everyone could hear a noise-sniffing. No, sniffling. Weeping. "This is from an open comlink Face left behind for stragglers. Back where the Ugly Truth was. So someone's there."
Indeed, One of my favorites paragraphs from those chapters was this
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
i'd like to get it on this unless anyone has a problem with it.
and i don't know too much about the njo series but y stop at just discerning where njo luke stands in terms of force power and lightsaber combat? Granted i think after you set where njo luke is i think you should go on and do lotf luke since that is the most powerful luke we've seen.
LotF Luke is acknowledged as the #1 warrior in the mythos. NJO Luke is, according to Gideon, not even close. We're trying to clarify that issue, and decide just how good he really is. So far, it's looking like he's closer to that top mark than some had surmised.
Also, Gideon, here's the entire passage detailing Luke's battle.
It wasn't until the eighth level that Luke and his niece and nephew met with resistance, but it was clear from the ferocity with which the warriors attacked-from above, below, and through the various access corridors-that the onslaught was likely to continue all the way to Shimrra's lair, and probably inside it, as well. If the warriors constituted the first line of defense, it was difficult to imagine what might await them at the summit, assuming they could even make it that far. In most places the stairway wasn't wide enough for the two people to stand abreast, and in those stretches Luke had to face the brunt of the attacks.
He was his own vortex, deflecting amphistaff strikes, whiplike lashes, and spurts of deadly venom; dodging or redirecting flights of thud bugs; parrying the thrusts of coufees, to sidestep, duck, maneuver his body in ways that seemed to defy gravity. Stunned or burned by Luke's green blade, thud bugs were ricocheting from the walls and high ceiling, chipping away at the yorik coral surface.
Dropped in their tracks, warriors sprawled with hands pressed to stumps of legs and opened foreheads, or with black blood welling where the lightsaber had found defenseless areas between living armor and tattooed flesh. Jacen recalled watching his uncle on Belkadan, where the war had begun, wielding two lightsabers when he had come to Jacen's rescue.
But the rescue on Belkadan paled in comparison to the control Luke demonstrated now. His single blade might as well have been ten, or twenty. He took the steps at a lightning pace, burning his way through dilating membranes but in complete control of his momentum. Seen through the Force he was a maelstrom of luminous energy, a Force storm against which there was no shelter. And yet all his energy poured from a calm center; an eye.
He made no missteps. None of his actions were interrupted by thought. In fact, Luke didn't seem to be there at all-physically or as an individual personality. Jacen and Jaina were astounded-but they had little time to reflect. Their lightsabers were busy, as well, turning the blows Luke dodged, or defending assaults launched from below. On the fourteenth level, where the Citadel's exterior wings sprouted from the hull, they reached a fork in the stairway. Luke swung to Jacen.
"Which way?" He wasn't even breathing heavily.
Jacen extended his Vongsense.
"The left passage leads to living quarters on the next level. The other, to some sort of dovin basal lift that accesses the summit." He screwed his eyes shut. "Shimrra is there. He has guards with him-"
"Shimrra's expecting us," he said. Jaina tightened her ringed grip on the pommel of her lightsaber.
"We should at least announce ourselves," Luke said.
He aimed the tip of his lightsaber at the membrane. Jacen and Jaina brought their lightsabers close to his, and the three of them pushed the glowing blades through. A rancid smell permeated the antechamber, and the thick membrane began to melt. Finally the lock retracted with an audible pop! Luke gestured for Jaina and Jacen to withdraw to either side of the opening, and not a second later a shower of thud bugs whizzed out into the antechamber, caroming off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The three Jedi raised their blades, deflecting some of the winged creatures back through the portal, stunning others, and killing the few that remained. While Jaina was dispatching the last of them, Luke whirled and leapt through the opening. Landing in a crouch five meters from the membrane, he held the lightsaber in a one-handed grip extended to his right and slightly behind him.
Jacen was the next through, assuming a bent-legged forward stance, with his blade held straight out in front of him. Then Jaina came through, moving swiftly but vigilantly to Luke's left side, with her blade raised over her right shoulder. Though the floor was level, the walls of Shimrra's circular, high-ceilinged lair were curved. A simple throne occupied the center of a raised dais that was encircled by a shallow moat flowing with what might have been diluted Yuuzhan Vong blood.
The far wall contained a much more elaborate entry portal, and to the right of the throne a stairway climbed into the summit of the Citadel, presumably to the command and control areas of the escape vessel itself. Between the moat and the Jedi stood fifteen warriors of modest stature, arrayed in a semicircle and armed with hissing amphistaffs.
They affected no armor, but their burnished and blood-smeared flesh looked as impenetrable as vonduun crab topshells. Luke recognized them from Han and Leia's description as examples of the specially engineered warriors they had faced on Caluula, and against whom even Kyp had failed. The slayers presented a daunting obstacle, but they were surpassed by the one they were deployed to protect.
When Luke had been brought before the Emperor, Palpatine's visage had been familiar to him from images that had reached even remote Tatooine, and his inherent power was immediately evident.
The Supreme Overlord, however, was a void Luke could not fathom. He wasn't a shell of a human in a hooded cloak, more energy than flesh. Nor was his face that of a Sith Master, prematurely wizened by years of calling on dark power.
Instead, Shimrra was very much alive and all the more intimidating for it. In him was concentrated the combined strength of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and if he couldn't be defeated, then all that Luke had done to reach this point would amount to nothing. He was the largest Yuuzhan Vong Luke had ever seen, with lean limbs, a massive head, and an upper body so thoroughly branded and tattooed it was impossible to distinguish flesh from garment.
Widely placed, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed in shifting colors. He wore a ceremonial cape made of tanned hide. Curled sedately around his left forearm was a thick-bodied amphistaff with an intricately patterned head. Only in his bemusement was Shimrra similar to the enemy Luke had confronted at Endor, on the incomplete Death Star.
Much as the Emperor had trusted in the power of the dark side of the Force, the Supreme Overlord trusted entirely in the power of the gods. And similar to that pivotal moment in the Galactic Civil War, a battle was raging in the skies.
But Shimrra's lair permitted no view of the contest; only the muffled sounds of distant explosions infiltrated the sealed space. If Luke was at all worried about Jaina and Jacen, if he had any regrets about having brought them to the very heart of the war, he kept his concerns so deeply to himself that they could not be felt by his charges, even through the Force. The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.
Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force. Shimrra's warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear-only the full measure of their intent to protect their god-king at all costs.
"The Master and the twins," Shimrra murmured from the throne, in passable Basic. "How long we have anticipated this meeting."
"As we have," Luke answered.
Shimrra beckoned with the fingers of his left hand.
"Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai."
Luke stayed put-and yet something began to move him forward. Just short of the moat, and much to the amusement of the slayers, he dropped to his knees, and bent at the waist. His extended left arm shook as it fought to prevent him from pressing his face to the floor, and the lightsaber was nearly yanked from his grip.
It's not Shimrra, Jacen said through the Force.
A dovin basal, Luke guessed. He sensed Jacen abandon the meld momentarily, presumably to call on his Vongsense to disable the gravitic powers of the biot. Luke began to feel as if he were shedding weight by the second. Gradually, he raised his face to Shimrra, then-and as if defying gravity-he drew himself erect with a proud air.
Incredulity almost raised Shimrra out of his throne. For a split second his glowing eyes fell on Jacen, who by then had returned to the Force-meld. Jaina and Jacen sidestepped away from Luke to create three separate fronts. Then Luke did something neither twin had ever seen him do. Shifting his stance, he called the lightsaber into his left hand. Abandoning form, he encouraged the warriors to attack him. In swift response the fifteen divided themselves into three groups of four, four, and seven.
The quartets began to square off with Luke and Jacen, while the larger group formed up opposite Jaina. Seeing that Luke and Jacen were the stronger fighters, the slayers had decided to reserve most of their might for the Jedi they perceived as being the weakest, guessing that Luke and Jacen would always go to Jaina's aid before attempting to reach Shimrra.
No one moved.
Just when it seemed that the moment would be forever frozen in time, the slayers charged, some with amphistaffs stiffened, others unfurling them like whips, and still others prompting their weapons to spit venom. There were no attempts to engage Luke, Jacen, or Jaina in single combat for personal glory, as had happened on Yag'Dhul and other worlds.
The war had gone on too long. All that mattered now was that the conflict be decided, and that there be winners and losers. Luke's lightsaber was a blur of pure energy as he parried a four-pronged attack.
His blade found exposed flesh time and again, but the slayers sustained each searing blow without surrendering ground. The amphistaffs hammered at the lightsaber with such force that flashes of blinding radiance filled the room, projecting giant silhouettes up along the curved walls. In an attempt to forge a united front, and despite battling warriors on three sides,
Luke and Jaina began to move toward one another. For a moment, several slayers found themselves trapped between the two Jedi and the lashing movements of their comrades' amphistaffs. Pierced simultaneously from either side, one warrior dropped to the floor; then a second. Luke vaulted through a half-twisting front flip that landed him back to back with Jaina, killing a third warrior on the way down, with a strike to the top of the head. With some effort, Luke saw Jacen through the Force, pressed hard by the four slayers who had dedicated themselves to him.
Again Luke leapt, swinging his blade through the air and cleaving the neck of the most formidable of the slayers attacking his nephew. Two slender amphistaffs shot for Luke's legs, but he managed to jump over both, as if skipping rope, then decapitated the slower amphistaff before it could withdraw. A coufee swooshed through the air millimeters from his right ear. Crouching, he extended one foot and pivoted on the other, knocking feet out from under the knife wielder, then amputating the warriors left foot with a return swing of the lightsaber.
Seeing an opening, Luke made a move for Shimrra-only to be dragged down by the dovin basal. Immediately, he rolled to one side, toppling two slayers and removing himself from the gravity field. Jacen leapt to Jaina's side of the bunker, and the two of them began working in concert to drive a trio of warriors back toward the moat that encircled Shimrra's throne.
One of the slayers nearly stumbled into the flow, but caught himself in time. Surging after him, Jacen swung his blade through a backhanded crosscut, which the warrior parried, then answered with a fast chop aimed at Jacen's left knee. Jacen jumped straight up, but not quickly enough, and the amphistaff struck him on the ankle. Landing off balance, he staggered into the wall. Two warriors hurried after him, but made it only halfway when the entire bunker tipped to the right.
The unexpected movement sent everyone, slayers and Jedi alike, scurrying, sailing, and tumbling into the opposite wall. As if mounted on gimbals, the bunker tipped again, this time in the direction of the ruined osmotic membrane, bunching everyone against that wall. Guessing that Shimrra was responsible, Luke spared a glance at the throne.
The Supreme Overlord's clawed hands were indeed in motion, but the expression on Shimrra's face was one of benign bafflement. The dhuryam, Jacen sent through the Force. Luke understood.
The World Brain, joining the Shamed Ones in revolt, was causing the entire Citadel to shake, perhaps by rocking the cradle to which it was wed, or by some means beyond Luke's imagining. Self-contained, the bunker was attempting to keep itself level. But cut off from the dhuryam, it couldn't anticipate the Citadel's behavior.
Shimrra's hand movements were just that-the idle flutters of a god-king who was forced to accept that he had lost his most powerful ally and weapon. Without the dhuryam's cooperation, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan'tar. Even if victorious in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong would have failed to re-create their ancestral homeworld.
And yet there was a look in Shimrra's blazing eyes that promised Luke he had not seen the last of the Supreme Overlord's tricks. Shimrra was concealing something-a secret of such power that it enabled him to remain seated on his throne, even with his world teetering around him. Luke noticed then, for the first time, that Shimrra wasn't alone on the dais.
Behind the throne crouched another Yuuzhan Vong, whose asymmetrically swollen head and downcast features identified him as a Shamed One. Aware that he had been glimpsed, the Shamed One withdrew into the shadow cast by the throne, as if in an attempt to make himself small and unnoticeable. But Luke had no time to think further about Shimrra's companion.
Only the Force was keeping Jacen from succumbing to the pain-the Force and what he had learned from Vergere during the indeterminate amount of time she had kept him in the Embrace of Pain-breaking him. While under his mentor's tutelage he had been able to go into himself to meet the pain on its own terms. Now he didn't have that curious luxury, because he was having to call on all his abilities to keep from being killed. If not for the swaying of the Citadel and the effects of its unpredictable oscillations of Shimrra's coffer-his escape vessel-Jacen figured he would already be dead.
That was the World Brain, having finally decided which side it was on. The trouble was, that decision mattered only to the reshaping of Coruscant and not to the Supreme Overlord, who was clearly able to control objects in his immediate environment without need of the dhuryam. The slayers, for one thing.
Where initially they had been moving with individual vigilance and of their own accord, they were now moving as coralskippers did under the control of a battle coordinator. The change had come simultaneously with Shimrra's rising from the throne, and the escape of his Shamed One companion, whom Jaina had pursued into the summit of the Citadel.
Jacen knew that her exit had been prompted by something she had perceived through the Force, but he and Luke could have used her lightsaber now. Three slayers had Jacen backed to the bunker's outer wall. Even through his Vongsense he could not predict their actions, or where their thrashing and thrusting amphistaffs were going to strike next. He had managed to evade copious sprays of venom, but his torso had taken countless lashings; his limbs were bruised by the heads and coils of the serpentine weapons-though none had yet been successful in sinking fangs into him.
His lightsaber had returned as many blows, but the slayers seemed to be largely immune to pain, if not indestructible. A half dozen corpses were sprawled on the floor, sliding or rolling with each random cant of the Citadel. But more than the lightsaber, it was acrobatics that was keeping Jacen from being overwhelmed by the specially engineered warriors. Time and again last-moment leaps had carried him out of the range of their shapeshifting weapons, as the fight moved along the perimeter of the throne room.
The gravity-tweaking dovin basal set in the base of the throne made it impossible for Jacen or his opponents to venture closer to the throne than the shallow moat that encircled it without being tugged violently to the yorik coral floor. Jacen took advantage of the gravitic anomaly now, as one of the slayers lunged for him. He leapt high into the air, and the warrior flew under his feet, only to be pulled to the floor facefirst, so that by the time Jacen had twisted in the air and landed he was able to drive his blade into the small of the warrior's back, almost pinioning him to the floor.
The other two immediately rushed him from behind. Unleashing his amphistaff, one warrior managed to wind the weapon around Jacen's legs, while the other swung his amphistaff at Jacen's head. Ducking the swing, Jacen leapt again, taking the attenuated amphistaff with him. Yanked from the warrior's grasp, the weapon unwound and dropped before it could strike.
Across the room Shimrra was moving stiffly toward Luke, who was being set upon by four warriors. The enormous Vong overlord stepped across the moat as if crossing a final line. Seemingly entranced-in sway of the Yuuzhan Vong gods-he fixed his glowing eye implants on his prey. He held the thick-bodied amphistaff diagonally in front of him, with his giant left hand closed around the middle of the weapon's three-meter-long body.
Jacen sent a warning to his uncle through the Force, which Luke acknowledged-not only through the Force but also by spinning away from the warriors to provide himself with enough fighting room to confront Shimrra. Whirling through a cartwheel, Luke caught one of the warriors on the chin with the heels of his boots, unbalancing him enough so that Luke could get inside the arm that held the amphistaff and drive his lightsaber through the warrior's neck. As he quickly withdrew the blade, a second warrior was ready to pounce; Luke stretched out his left hand and impaled the slayer through the right eye.
At once the other two converged on him, battering him with their amphistaffs and coufees, opening ragged wounds in his upper arms and chest. Abruptly, the Citadel rocked and the room tilted to the right. Luke dropped to one knee, holding his lightsaber arm up to protect his head, then dived, somersaulting on landing and spinning to his feet to face the warriors' charge. His green blade moved up from the floor in a diagonal motion, cutting off the weapon arm of one of the warriors, then on the downswing grated across the abdomen of the second, leaving a sizzling burn in the slayer's hardened flesh. Wincing, the warrior tried to take hold of the energy blade itself and fell forward on his knees. Luke pierced him through the chest, then pivoted on one foot to take on the others.
One of the warriors stalking Jacen abandoned him to engage Luke. Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen's right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen's right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back.
The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor. Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his assailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim's forehead.
Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force. From Luke's left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force. As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree. Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff.
Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer's armpit. The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra. Without thinking-and without his lightsaber-he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen's intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was hit squarely in the center of the chest. Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.
When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra's follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke's lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.
The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson. Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke's torso, pinning his right arm and lightsaber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake's uppermost coils and the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff.
Feeling his uncle's suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra's head. The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen's lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape-and extracted a lightsaber!
With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar snap-hiss. Jacen recognized it immediately. Anakin's lightsaber.
"Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr," Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed: "Conveyed to Yuuzhan'tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the Jeedai Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels."
Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move. Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke's head. Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff's throat to grab Shimrra's right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke's chest.
Luke screamed in pain.
The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: "One thrust and the deed is done!"
Then all at once, Anakin's lightsaber flew from Shimrra's grip into Luke's left hand. Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra's astonishment and dismay. In a motion almost too swift for Jacen's eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra's amphistaff.
As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lightsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff's body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke's neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra's neck.
The blades burned clean through. Shimrra's decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud thud! and his body crumbled. Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord's body and collapsed against the wall.
"Jaina," he said weakly. Swinging his left hand, he sent Anakin's lightsaber in a high arc across the room. Jacen scrambled to his feet and had just started for the lightsaber when the floor dropped to the right and he stumbled. Jacen regained his balance and leapt for the lightsaber, but it flew past him and rolled beyond his reach.
The vision! Jacen thought. He looked at his uncle for confirmation.
"Leave it," Luke said.
Lips compressed in determination, Jacen raised himself from the floor and raced for the stairway that curved up into the Citadel's towerlike summit.
Aug 31st, 2008 07:27 PM
