KMC Forums - Lumiya vs Mara Skywalker

"Hello, little housewife... ," said Lumiya.

Mara's autopilot kicked in and she was the Emperor's Hand again, silent and focused. There was nothing worth saying anyway. Amateurs gave speeches; professionals got on with the job.

She Force-leapt five meters at Lumiya, slashing down right to left, two-handed. The stroke—all power, no finesse—clipped the Sith's headdress as she sprang back, slicing off a section. Lumiya's eyes widened, pupils dilated, but she was already whirling her lightwhip about her head. The tails crackled and hissed, missing Mara only because she threw all her energy into a Force push to slow them a fraction.

Mara didn't take that weapon lightly. It was the worst of both worlds, leather strips studded with impervious Mandalorian iron fragments and tendrils of sheer, raw, murderous dark energy. Mara drew her blaster and rolled under the hull of the ship next to her. The light-whip gouged through the durasteel with a shriek of tearing metal, filling the air with the smell of hydraulic fluid, and the spurt of liquid turned into a torrent that began spreading in a thick pool. As Mara rolled clear on the other side of the ship, Lumiya landed heavily on both feet and brought the whip down so close to Mara's head that she felt the rush of air on her right cheek like a breath. The crack was deafening.

Mara wasn't even thinking when she aimed the blaster. Lumiya's whip hand was raised to throw as much weight as possible from the back stroke. A puff of white vapor burst from Lumiya's shoulder, and she staggered a few paces.

Metal. Maybe I hit metal.

Maybe she had, because Lumiya teetered for a second but came right back. Mara sprang horizontally from a crouch and cannoned into Lumiya's legs with all the power she could muster from the Force. She hit solid durasteel. Blood filled her mouth but she couldn't feel a thing—yet. Clinging to Lumiya's knees with one arm, denying her the space to swing the whip, she brought her down like a felled tree before smashing her head into the woman's face.

And that hurt. Oh yes, Mara felt that. She'd caught not Lumiya's nose but the cybernetic jaw, and it cut deep into her forehead. Fighting on pure reflex now, part stunned, she killed the lightsaber blade for a second and held the hilt like a dagger, stabbing it down into Lumiya's chest before flicking the energy back on. Lumiya pulled to the side as the blade punched through flesh. Mara smelled it. She flicked off the blade to pull back again, triumphant.

I've done it. Dead. Dead, you—

But Lumiya was screaming, and that wasn't right at all. The scream seared through Mara's spinning head. It was more than sound. It was—

Mara scrambled to her knees to look down at what should have been a dead woman, and stared into green eyes that were utterly devoid of any emotion, and then the world darkened like an eclipse.

Maybe I'm the one who's dead.

Something hit her square in the back, pitching her forward onto Lumiya. Mara struggled to turn over without letting go of either lightsaber or blaster, but something coiled around her neck and jerked her backward. The lightwhip was still in Lumiya's fist, she could see the thing, she could see it, so what was around her neck, choking her? She felt as if she was flying backward at high speed, and then she hit something so hard that it punched every bit of breath out of her lungs and left her gulping for air.

A second or two was all it took. Mara lay trying to suck in air in painful, straining gulps, eyes stinging, and saw Lumiya's boots run past her face at a stagger, missing her by centimeters.

What's in my eyes? What's stinging?

She raised her hand to rub them and her knuckles came away red and wet. It was blood. The last thing she saw as she looked up was the orange sphere, that impossible Sith ship, soaring vertically into the air and extending webbed vanes like living wings.

Mara managed to prop herself up on her elbows. She was suddenly aware of the two runners she'd seen earlier, all nice and neat in their crisp white sports gear, staring at her in horror. She summoned what focus she had and concentrated hard.

"You've just seen two stuntwomen performing for a holovid, shot by a hidden cam," she said. "You didn't see a fight at all."

"We didn't see a fight at all, dear," said the woman obediently.

The man gawped, and then grinned. "Wow, it's amazing how real that blood stuff looks!"

"Isn't it... ," said Mara, and somehow got to her feet, retrieved her lightsaber hilt and blaster, and walked off with as much grace as she could manage.

I was sure I'd finished her off. How did I miss?

She almost sobbed with frustration and struggled to get into the XJ7's cockpit, still trying to work out what had jumped her from behind. When she checked her injuries in the reflective surface of her datapad, her face was streaked with blood, her right eye was swelling and closing already, and there was something like a rope burn across her neck. She could see indentations in her skin that looked like a twisted wire cable.

Something like a droid jumped me. A machine, anyway. That's why I didn't sense it.

It was crazy to fly a fighter after a head injury, she knew, but there was no other way back to Coruscant. She fired up the drives, swearing and cursing. She'd had the cyborg witch right there, her lightsaber in her, and she still hadn't killed her.

And I didn't feel any malice from her, either, Luke. Just a busted head.

This was going to take plenty of bacta. Mara lifted the XJ7 clear and set it on automatic for the homeward leg.

Luke is going to go nuts when he sees me in this state.

Her adrenaline was ebbing, and the pain was making itself felt now. She settled into a shallow meditative trance to speed the healing process.

Why didn't she kill me? She had the chance. I brained myself on her kriffing metal jaw.

Then Mara remembered the transponder. She fumbled for the datapad again and activated the search emitter. A yellow blip—no, two yellow blips—showed.

One was still on Vulpter: Ben. The other was edging across the grid on her screen, moving away from the Core.

Lumiya.

Gotcha, she thought, smiling for a second before she remembered her split lip. Gotcha.

Lumiya and her bizarre Sith ship were on a bearing for the Hydian Way node. Either she wanted Mara to follow, or she didn't know about the transponder.

It was okay. Mara could take her anytime now. And two could play the Come-and-get-me game.

She leaned back in her seat and concentrated on reducing her ripening black eye.

__________________

"There is only Revan. Only he can shape this galaxy as it is meant to be shaped."