Part 13 (1/2)

”It's our duty, sir, ” said Potannin with a brisk salute.

”Me, ” added the soldier, ”I'm just here for the fun of it. ”

With that, she slipped her helmet off, revealing the most beautiful woman Ula Vii had ever seen.

CHAPTER 13.

Under a ma.s.sive statue of Ta.s.saa Bareesh, s.h.i.+gar sealed the outer door behind him, using the Force to a.s.sist the hydraulics he'd damaged on the way through. He recognized this type of room; the inner door wouldn't open until the outer door was closed. He crossed the circular expanse of the security air lock, noting but not being distracted by the gentle tinkling of the gla.s.s chandelier above. The air stank of smoke, which was odd. The mysterious explosions had been distant, and he a.s.sumed the air-conditioning system of the vault was completely independent.

His senses p.r.i.c.kled. Moving slowly and silently, he approached the inner door.

It was unlocked.

There was one thing he would say about the Hutts: when it came to protecting their valuables, they didn't scrimp. The door was a marvelous piece of machinery, precision-tooled to very precise measurements. It might not withstand a Jedi and his lightsaber, but it would keep a horde of safecrackers busy for a month, and would easily withstand a small nuclear blast.

It certainly wouldn't open itself.

s.h.i.+gar deactivated his lightsaber and stood still for a full minute.

His slow, shallow breathing and steady heartbeat were all he could hear. If there was anyone on the other side of the door, they were being as quiet as he was.

Reaching out a hand, he tugged on the door's handle. So well balanced was it that it swung smoothly aside, revealing the antechamber he had been looking for. The four vault doors were exactly as Sergeant Potannin had described. None of them had been interfered with. Behind one of them was the mysterious wreckage that consumed so many people.

In the center of the room, a black pit had been burned into the floor, scarring its otherwise impeccable whiteness. That was where the smoke was coming from. He approached cautiously and looked down. Someone had burned into the room from below, presumably to steal the vault's contents. But how had they avoided triggering any alarms? And where were they now?

He looked around. The antechamber was empty. There was nowhere to hide. None of the vaults appeared to have been tampered with. All four doors were sealed. There was no other way out, except back through the hole, or...

The small of his back itched. He turned to face the door he had come through. Certainty filled him. Activating his lightsaber, he strode into the air lock room.

”You don't look like a Jedi, but you sure smell like one. ” With a tinkling smash, a skinny girl dressed all in black dropped out of the chandelier. Her hair flailed in thick red dreadlocks like the tentacles of a living thing. ”You stink of repression. Let's see what we can do to change that!”

The girl activated a brilliant crimson lightsaber.

s.h.i.+gar didn't return her bloodthirsty grin. He kept his heartbeat steady, raised his lightsaber in return, and adopted a stance of readiness.

She came at him in a storm of blows, feet moving lightly across the floor, almost dancing, blade swinging like a propeller. Their weapons clashed with a furious electric sound. He matched her move for move, but doing so sorely tested him. Every block jarred through him like a hammer blow. His opponent was small, but she was strong, and her eyes were full of hate. The dark side flowed through her in powerful waves.

She drove him back to the room's inner door and, with a telekinetic sweep, slammed it shut behind him.

”Nowhere to run now, Jedi, ” she gloated. ”Why don't you stop fighting defensively and show me what you've got? I'm going to kill you either way, but let's at least make some sport of it. ”

s.h.i.+gar ignored her. He knew that some Sith used verbal attacks alongside physical ones, to dispirit their opponent, but he would not fall victim to such a ploy. Neither would he allow fear or anger to dictate the way he fought. His Master had trained him well. He knew how to tight a Sith-and that was the same way he would fight anyone. The key was to make fewer mistakes than your opponent, and to take every opportunity when it came. The element of surprise could make the difference between a drawn-out battle and a decisive early victory.

Smiling calmly, he faced the snarling girl and reached out his left hand.

Ax heard the sound of gla.s.s tinkling from behind her and ducked barely in time. Hundreds of tiny shards rushed at her, ripped out of the chandelier by the power of the Jedi's mind and hurled at the exact spot she had been standing. A second stream followed her as she rolled and flipped away, pus.h.i.+ng off with her hands and landing on her feet halfway across the room. Recovering her poise, she wrapped a kinetic s.h.i.+eld about her and flung the shards away. Only a handful got through, one cutting her arm and another putting a b.l.o.o.d.y gash over her left eye. She blinked blood away, relis.h.i.+ng the sharpness of the pain.

The tall, skinny Jedi was coming for her, green blade foreshortened by a strong, stabbing blow aimed at her midriff. She swept it aside, only to find that the move was a feint. He aimed a kick at her right knee and brought the blade sweeping around for her head. With a grunt, she took the kick on her s.h.i.+n and saved herself from decapitation only by reducing the hold on her hilt to one hand. Their lightsabers met just centimeters from her skin.

They locked there for a moment, his blade pressing down toward her face, her left leg twisted behind her, in a difficult position to use her weight against him. He was physically stronger than she, and wasn't above taking advantage of that fact. One solid push and his blade would be burning more than air.

He was stronger, but she was more cunning. Whirling his cloak around his face and throat took barely more telekinetic energy than it did to think of it, and the move had the effect she needed. Taken by surprise, he reeled backward, clutching at the flapping fabric. She retreated only long enough to regain her footing and balance before moving in again, while he was blinded.

Even without the use of his eyes, he still matched her. He antic.i.p.ated her moves and blocked them one-handed. His other hand tore at the cloak, fighting its strangling folds. When he finally threw it away, he faced her two-handed again, lips pursed and bare-shouldered, and she knew that the game was really on now.

They fought back and forth across the room, slas.h.i.+ng and blocking and leaping and running, using walls, floor, and ceiling as launching pads for each new attack. Gla.s.s crunched beneath their feet and swirled around them in distracting, potentially blinding streamers. He was good-she had to grudgingly admit that-but she was good, too, and she fought to the very edge of her abilities. Her mission wasn't going to end here, skewered on a Jedi's lightsaber. If Darth Chratis was going to stand before the Dark Council and admit that he had failed, then she was going to be there to see it.

The end came unexpectedly for both of them. She had tuned out the sound of alarms and the distant aftershocks of her sabotage, but she remained alert for everything in her environment, just in case her sparring partner tried something new. When a noise came from the other side of the air lock room's inner door, she initially dismissed it as a ploy to distract her. She had sealed her ferrocrete tunnel behind her, so no one could be coming up that way, and there was no other entrance to the vault.

The sound came again-a m.u.f.fled metallic thud-and this time she caught the Jedi's reaction to it. He was distracted, too. His eyes flicked to the sealed inner door.

In that instant she struck.

Her ability to produce Sith lightning wasn't fully developed yet, and she didn't dare hope that it could overwhelm anyone with Jedi training, but she used it anyway, blasting her opponent with everything she had. He caught it badly, as though he wasn't used to facing such attacks-and it occurred to her only then that he was an apprentice like herself. Like her, this could be the first time that he had faced his enemy alone. Unlike her, he wouldn't live to learn from the experience.

He staggered away, flesh tortured and smoking. She maintained the surge as long as she could, and followed it with two quick strikes to midriff and throat. He barely blocked them, swinging one-handed, holding his other arm across his eyes as though the light blinded him. Thrilled by his weakness, Ax lunged again and again, driving him backward until he hit the wall. He slid down it, blade raised ineffectually to block the killing blow.

His comlink squawked.

”s.h.i.+gar, watch out. Stryver's on his way. He's after the navicomp!”

Triumph turned to all-consuming hatred. Dao Stryver-here!

It was her turn to be surprised.

With one swift kick, the Jedi, s.h.i.+gar, knocked the lightsaber from her hand. It skittered away, blade flas.h.i.+ng and deactivating automatically. She staggered backward, disarmed, and he came to his feet, eyes bloodshot and full of determination. Not hatred. Not anger. She didn't even have the satisfaction of that small victory.

She ran backward, Force-pulling her fallen hilt to her even though she knew it couldn't possibly arrive in time. The Jedi followed her, driving her toward the outer door.

When the door burst in behind her, she didn't need to look to see who was there. She felt his presence as keenly as a dagger in her back.

Dao Stryver.

Caught between a Jedi apprentice and a Mandalorian who had already beaten her once, all she could do was. .h.i.t the activation stud and hope for a miracle.

CHAPTER 14.

Larin was halfway to the vault when Yeama intercepted her. He was standing in the deserted pa.s.sageway ahead with his hands upraised in the universal signal to halt. She would have pushed right past him had he not been backed up by five Weequay and a dozen ax-wielding Gamorreans.

”I see the missing envoy has returned, ” he said, taking in the group behind her with baleful red eyes. ”The pirate, too. My mistress will be pleased. ”

Larin didn't have time to discuss the situation. The thought of s.h.i.+gar facing Dao Stryver alone filled her with urgency. It might already be too late. Her attempts to hail him on the comlink had prompted nothing but silence in reply.

”Thank her for her concern, ” she said. ”We're returning the envoy to his quarters now. ”