[Dark Nest] - 3(118)

“If it were self-defense, we might have to permit it,” Luke said, playing along-and again using Raynar’s own attack against him. “But even that wouldn’t save the Colony. It cannot survive as it is. We know that.”

“How do we know that?” Raynar demanded angrily. “We know no such thing.”

“We might,” Luke insisted, exerting his own will through the Force again, reeling Raynar in. “If the Colony grew too large, it would devour its own worlds and destroy itself.”

“There are always more worlds,” Raynar countered.

“Not always,” Luke said. “Sometimes all of the other worlds are taken. That could have been what happened when the Killiks disappeared from Alderaan.” He paused, then used the Force to pull as hard as he could, trying to draw Raynar into his own view of reality. “In fact, I’m sure that’s what happened on Alderaan. The Killiks devoured their own world and tried to take someone else’s. That’s the reason the Celestials drove the Killiks into the Unknown Regions.”

The fight finally went out of Raynar. “You’re sure?” He folded his cauterized forearm stump across his stomach and cradled it with his other arm, his lips quivering in pain and tears welling in his eyes. “You know-“

The question was drowned out by the roar of a blaster cannon, and Luke glanced down the corridor to see the bugcruncher stationed there suddenly powering down. The droid fell out of the opening backward and crashed to the deck, then Lomi Plo scuttled through the hatchway on her mismatched set of legs-one human, the other insectile. She turned her bulbous eyes and noseless face down the corridor, then extended her crooked upper arms toward the lightsaber in Luke’s hands.

The last remaining bugcruncher opened fire, forcing Lomi Plo to ignite the lightsaber in her lower set of hands. Her blocks and parries came so slowly that she was barely able to deflect the cannon bolts and she was forced to swing her upper arms toward the droid and drain its power. Raynar, thankfully, continued to stand dazed-and seemingly impotent.

Determined to reach Lomi Plo before she drained his lightsaber’s power cell, Luke sprang down the corridor and leapt off the carnage heap to attack. Lomi blocked his first pass with her white lightsaber. Then, in place of the purple lightsaber she had left in Jacen at the end of their last meeting, she ignited a familiar-looking green blade-the lightsaber Raynar had confiscated on Woteba. Luke’s lightsaber.

“Now you’re just ticking me off,” Luke said.

Lomi clacked her mandibles and hissed, then launched a

deadly low-high-low combination with her flashing blades. Luke parried, ducked, and jumped, then brought an elbow up under her mandibles and sent her staggering back, all four arms flailing as she struggled to catch her balance on her mismatched legs.

Luke whipped his blade around, cocking it for a death slash across her middle-then had a prickle of danger sense between his shoulder blades and tried to spin away. He almost made it.

Something heavy and huge slammed into his shoulder-a shatter gun pellet?-and sent him tumbling across the floor past Lomi Plo’s feet. He tried a reactionary slash as he rolled by, only to discover that was he was no longer holding his lightsaber, and he could not move his prosthetic hand-nor the rest of his arm.

Lomi Plo’s two blades began to chop the floor behind him, so he used the Force to accelerate himself and continued to roll, then came to his feet two meters on the other side of her and called his lightsaber back to his good hand.

The weapon arrived just ahead of Lomi Plo, and suddenly Luke found himself on the defensive, being driven into a corner while Raynar Thul-not so impotent after all-used his other hand to fire more shatter gun pellets.

In lightsaber combat, Luke favored two-handed styles, but he could still fight single-handed-even with his weak hand-just as well as anyone in the academy. What he could not do, however, was fight wounded and weak-handed against twin blades while a second party fired a steady stream of hard-to-deflect shatter gun pellets at him. In short, Luke was desperate.

So he dropped to his side and caught Lomi Plo’s human leg in a scissoring motion between his feet. The knee bent backward and popped with a sickening crunch.

She fell, squealing in pain and clacking her mandibles-and redoubled her attacks, slashing so ferociously with her twin blades that Luke’s lone hand barely had the strength to block.

Of course, Control picked that moment for an important announcement from the Megador. “Be advised that three Killik swarms are diverting to attack Healing Star.”

Lomi Plo’s attacks slackened for a moment, and Luke realized that she was gently probing him through the Force, searching for any hint of fear or doubt. He put the Healing Star-the fleet’s main hospital ship-out of his mind and remained focused on the fight. Lomi Plo had almost certainly used the Dark Nest to divert those swarms, to try to create an opening that would give her power over his mind.