[Dark Nest] - 3(110)

Fortunately, Saba had prepared her well for such moments. Leia found her arms lashing out behind her, one elbow hooking over the branch to stop her fall. Everything remained dark, but she knew she had to keep fighting, to keep her enemy … whoever that was-she was having trouble remembering … at bay.

Leia felt the blaster pistol in one hand and her lightsaber in the other … another of Saba’s lessons ringing inside her head, never, never drop your weapon, die with your weapon sssstill in your hand … and Leia started to fire the blaster, pointing it down the branch where the trouble-who was it again?-seemed to lie.

A familiar voice sounded in her ear. “Hey, that

sounds

like blasterfire!”

Han.

“Yeah … it is.” Leia started to recall the situation-a jungle, a Twi’lek, a fight-Alema Rar. “Now be quiet!”

Leia shook her head-big mistake-then whipped her leg up over the branch, still firing. The darkness faded from her eyes, but her blaster bolts were snaking toward their target in slow motion, while the target-a shimmering blue mirage that seemed to have three heads and six arms-was limping toward her behind a lightsaber moving so fast that it seemed to be weaving a shield of solid light.

Then one of the six blue arms moved. Leia’s blaster flew from her own hand and vanished into the billowing greenness of the out-of-focus jungle.

The fight was not going exactly as planned.

Saba always said that planning would be Leia’s downfall; that she planned too much and felt too little. She had also said that a shenhit always saves its deepest bite for last.

Leia pushed off the mossy branch and brought her feet up beneath her. The Princess had never met a shenhit, but Saba usually uttered the saying in sparring practice, right before she drove her student into the deck with a flurry of power strikes. Leia began to advance on her three-headed, six-armed

opponent,

weaving

her

blade

through

the

frenzied slash-slice-and-rip of a Barabel rage attack.

To Leia’s astonishment, the three-headed enemy suddenly

stopped advancing, then began to retreat.

“Wait! This is silly!” Again, that beguiling voice and that furtive Force-touch, trying to dampen the negative thoughts and bolster the positive ones. Alema pointed her lightsaber over the side of the branch. “The bomb is right down there.”

Leia stopped advancing-more to give her eyes a chance to bring her enemy into focus than because she was considering the offer-and glanced down. There did seem to be a big silver blur lying in a bed of green.

“It would be a shame to let the Chiss recover it,” Alema said. “Can’t we strike a truce long enough to destroy it-then finish killing each other?”

Leia pretended to consider the offer while her vision finished clearing, then-when Alema’s extra heads and arms disappeared-she shook her own head.

“Let’s do it now.”

Leia started forward … and instantly regretted her decision when the branch bounced and nearly buckled her knees. She noticed it sagging beneath her weight and realized she was farther out on the end than she had perceived in her foggy-headed state. It was a mistake that would cost her dearly. With such unreliable footing, the Princess would be even worse off than her half-footed foe.

Alema was quick to press her advantage, hobbling forward to attack, launching a flurry of strike and Force-push combinations that drove Leia back even farther toward the tip of the bouncing branch. The Princess parried, but her reactions had been slowed by her head blow, and she had to retreat yet another step. She Force-shoved at Alema’s knee, but the nimble Twi’lek-who had spent her youth dancing in the ryll dens of Kala’uun-simply lifted her bad foot and pirouetted forward on the good one, driving Leia back another, even longer step.

The branch sagged so precariously that the Princess had to Force-stick herself in place.

“Hey, those sound like lightsabers!” Han observed over Leia’s earpiece.

“They are!” Leia growled. “Can you just hold on?” Now the branch was bouncing even when the Princess wasn’t moving, and her danger sense was covering her back with goose bumps. Had Alema launched a power attack-even a weak one-Leia’s only choice would have been to drop off the branch and hope she could catch another one with the Force on the way down. Instead, the Twi’lek seemed content merely to hold the Princess in place with defensive swordplay.

Then comprehension finally burned its way through the concussion fog inside Leia’s head. The danger she was sensing had nothing to do with Alema. A predator had landed behind her … something large enough to weigh down a limb the size of her thigh.

Alema smiled. “Dinnertime, Princess.”