[Dark Nest] - 3(81)

“Luke?” Mara came his side. “What are you-“

“Lomi’s over there,” Jacen said, joining them. “At least I think it’s her.”

“You can see her, too?” Mara asked.

“Sure,” Jacen said. “Either that or I’m still unconscious.”

“You’re awake,” Luke assured him. He shrugged out of his combat harness and sent it toward Jacen. “Keep an eye on Artoo-“

“I’m not that fuzzy,” Jacen said. “I’m coming with you.”

There was no time to argue, for Lomi Plo had spotted Luke and was staring right at him. The face inside the carapace was the same one Luke had glimpsed during their fight a few months earlier: a half-melted, noseless face with bulbous multifaceted eyes and a pair of stubby mandibles where there should have been lower jaws. The mandibles moved behind the faceplate, and the Gorog warriors raised their shatter guns and started to turn to fire.

Luke sprang toward Lomi Plo, at the same time grabbing her in the Force and pulling her toward him. She launched herself into a backflip, trying to wrench free, but Luke had her too tightly. It was all she could do to bring herself back around before he was on her, igniting his blade and thrusting at her abdomen.

She brought her purple blade down and blocked-then Luke glimpsed a white flash sweeping toward his helmet and had to throw himself sideways. Her second lightsaber swept past his shoulder, barely missing. Luke used the Force to accelerate his spin, whipping his feet up over his head. He landed a Force-enhanced kick to her faceplate, the tip of his blade tracing a smoky curve up the side of her carapace.

Lomi Plo whipped both lightsabers around in a counterstrike, the short purple one driving for Luke’s abdomen, the long white one sweeping toward his knees. He switched to a one-handed grip, meeting the white blade with his own and blocking the other attack by spinning inside and striking across her elbow, forcing her to lock her arms with both blades extended. She countered by bringing her knee up into his helmet, sending him flipping away, and then they fell into a vicious contest of strike and counterstrike, neither one probing for weaknesses or trying to set up a fatal trick later, both of them fighting just to survive two more seconds, all their attention focused on blocking the next blow, pouring all their strength and speed and skill into landing their next attack just a little quicker, hitting their foe’s blocks just a little harder.

Luke was vaguely aware of the larger battle raging around him. He could feel Mara and Jacen protecting his flanks, keeping Lomi Plo’s bodyguards at bay with blasters and detonators and the Force. He could sense more StealthXs gliding into the battle zone, lighting it up with their laser cannons and penetrating deeper into the rubble, preventing more Gorog from reaching their queen. He could hear Kyle Katarn issuing commands over the suit comms, ordering Jedi Knights to leave their StealthXs and form a protective ring around their Grand Master.

Then Mara set off the first dazer. A shrill whine filled the comm channels, and the battle zone shimmered with a rainbow iridescence. The air inside Luke’s helmet suddenly smelled like fresh-cut pallies-a side effect, he knew, of the aura-deadening pulse Cilghal had developed to disrupt the collective mind of the Killiks.

Deprived of the thoughts and feelings of their nest-fellows, the Gorog warriors froze or launched suicidal attacks or simply collapsed in trembling heaps. And Lomi Plo hesitated, her white lightsaber hanging above her shoulders for a heartbeat too long, her lower blade caught out of position defending a flank attack that was not coming.

Luke launched a furious assault, slipping under her upper lightsaber and catching her lower guard on the back-swing, then driving forward and slashing at her midsection. She pivoted, dropping one side back, and Luke switched to a lunge, driving the tip of his blade deep in the belly of her carapace.

For a breath, the queen did not seem to realize she had been hit. Seeing Luke stretched forward and off balance, she snapped her mandibles in delight and brought her short blade around to attack his arm while her long blade descended on him from above.

Luke thumbed off his lightsaber and rolled away sideways, watching in alarm as her long blade slashed past his head just a centimeter from his visor. He rolled once more and saw vapor billowing from the abdomen of Lomi Plo’s pressure carapace, then brought his feet up over his head … and found himself hanging upside down, caught in a net of golden Force energy.

Luke knew what was coming next: the Myrkr strike team had described how Lomi Plo had used a similar net to dice a Yuuzhan Vong captor into bits. Luke began to push out with the Force, stopping the net from constricting any further and slicing through this vac suit. But he was not strong enough to break the attack outright. Cilghal’s Dazer had cut Lomi Plo off from the collective mind of the Gorog, but not from the Force. She could still draw on her nest to enhance her Force potential, and as strong as Luke was, he was not strong enough to overpower an entire nest of Killiks. He would simply have to hold on-and hope she ran out of air before he ran out of strength.