Blasted Jedi danger sense.
Alema came up on her knees, her hazmat-gloved hands fumbling for her lightsaber.
“Did they get her?” Han asked over the headset.
Leia and Alema answered together. “No!”
The Noghri spun toward the Falcon’s prow and opened fire again, but Alema was already leaping behind a landing strut. Leia dropped her own bucket and started to circle behind the Twi’lek, fumbling at her lightsaber through the thick hazmat gloves.
“Wait!” Alema cried. “What’s this about?”
“Spilled coolant,” Han replied over the comm.
“It was an accident!”
“Sorry, kid,” Han said. “We were watching on the hull cam. You broke the handle.”
The four remaining buckets of coolant rose and went flying toward Meewalh and Cakhmaim. The Noghri dodged easily, but the maneuver gave Alema time to pull off her hood and gloves and snap her lightsaber off her belt.
Blasted telekinesis.
Leia pulled off her own gloves and hood, then grabbed her lightsaber and continued toward the prow. Though she felt certain that the Colony was behind Alema’s treachery, Leia could not help feeling hurt, angry, and confused. Somehow, the Twi’lek’s vulnerability felt like a betrayal in itself, and Leia could not help wondering whether Jaina had really been as surprised as she seemed when Alema announced her plans to return aboard the Falcon-or if her own daughter had known of the plan and kept silent about it.
Alema glanced in Leia’s direction, but then Cakhmaim and Meewalh were fanning out toward her flanks, firing as they ran. The Twi’lek spun from her hiding place, her silver blade deflecting the Noghri’s stun bolts back at them as she ran.
Han continued to chatter at Alema over the headsets. “What we can’t figure out is why. What’d we ever do to you?”
“We told you,” Alema insisted. “It was an accident!”
“You kicked over two buckets,” Han said.
“We had no… choice.” Alema launched herself through the air, flipping and corkscrewing closer to Cakhmaim, turning bolt after bolt in Meewalh’s direction. “You betrayed the Colony!”
“We betrayed them?” Han was incredulous. “Saba’s the one lying up there half dead.”
“You see?” Alema landed. “You blame the Colony! We can’t-” She directed one of Cakhmaim’s stun bolts into Meewalh’s chest.”-let you poison the Masters’ council against us!”
Meewalh dropped to her knees, but kept firing. Leia ducked under the Falcon’s prow, ignited her own lightsaber at midguard, and raced to attack.
Alema did not even show Leia the respect of turning around. She simply raised a leg and planted a hazmat boot squarely in Leia’s stomach and sent her flying back into a landing strut, then directed a second stun bolt into Meewalh and turned all her attention to Cakhmaim.
“How’s it going down there?” Han asked.
“Aaaag…” Leia answered, trying to suck some air back into her lungs. “Ooog…”
“That good?”
Seeing that his blaster rifle was doing him more harm than good, Cakhmaim tossed it aside and drew his favorite weapon, a thin durasteel club connected by a hilt cord to a short sickle. Alema continued her advance more slowly, her lightsaber weaving a silver shield in front of her.
Leia really didn’t want to turn this into a killing fight, but neither did she want to die marooned on an empty planet. She pointed to the bucket she had left near the boarding ramp and used the Force to send it flying at Alema, then pointed at Cakhmaim’s discarded blaster rifle and sent that flying as well.
Alema pivoted away from the bucket and ducked the blaster rifle.
Then Cakhmaim was on her, club-and-sickle whirling, lashing sickle-low and club-high, then sickle-high and club-low, hands flashing as he switched from one weapon to the other. Alema fell back jumping, skipping, ducking, trying to land just one parry with her sizzling blade and send her attacker’s weapons spinning away. Cakhmaim’s reflexes were too quick for her. Every time she turned her wrists to intercept an attack, he reversed his whirling weapons and hit her where she was unprotected, clubbing her in the ribs, slashing her across the thigh, always forcing her to retreat.
Han continued to speak over the headsets. “Hang tight, Leia.” His voice was strained, which was not surprising, given the length and diameter of the twisting access tunnel that led to the hyperdrive coolant drain. “Be there… anytime now!”
Leia pushed off the strut and rushed Alema with a heavy heart. Though she still intended to capture the Twi’lek alive if possible, she knew a killing fight when she found herself in one. She reached striking range and, activating her blade, swung for the head.