[Legacy Of The Force] - 03(91)

“Wait,” he repeated.

Sing fought back, trying to push him from her mind, but Jacen had taken her by surprise. He had the power of his anger and his fear and his hatred behind him, and she simply was not strong enough.

Jacen started forward again, then dropped his blaster pistol and retrieved his comlink.

“Double-Ex, open…”

The doors to his stateroom slid open, grating loudly as the damaged area scraped past the jambs. Jacen stepped into the foyer of his suite, where beads of molten durasteel were still popping and hissing on the stone decking.

To his right, the walls above the galley and dining area were pocked with scorch marks. Allana’s Defender Droid lay to his left, a heap of severed limbs and smoking circuits scattered along the edge of a sunken conversation area.

Sing stood with her back to Jacen, about five paces beyond the droid, on the other side of a smoldering couch. In one hand, she held her still-ignited fightsaber. In the other was a class-C thermal detonator with a disintegration radius large enough to kill herself, Jacen, Allana, and probably half the personnel on the decks directly above and below.

As Jacen started toward her, she looked over her shoulder with an expression in her pale eyes that seemed equal parts hatred and awe.

“Don’t ever touch me like that again.”

Jacen did not reply. Sing was still struggling to free herself of his domination, and all his concentration was focused on keeping the pressure on until he drew close enough to strike.

Sing flashed him a cold smile. “But then, I don’t think you’ll have the chance.”

Her thumb twitched.

The activation light on the thermal detonator began to blink, and that was enough to shatter Jacen’s concentration. He felt Sing slip free, and suddenly he was completely outside her mind, watching in horror as she pitched the detonator toward the refresher where Allana was hid-ing.

Jacen’s heart dropped through the bottom of his stomach. His arm shot out without conscious thought, and the detonator floated into his hand almost before he realized he had summoned it.

Sing was already whirling, leaping toward him with her crimson blade coming around at neck height. Jacen brought his lightsaber up automatically and blocked, then pulled the detonator’s thumb slide back.

He never saw whether the activation light darkened. Suddenly Sing’s knee was sinking into his stomach, driving the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling over a couch. The detonator clattered to the floor somewhere in the galley. He came down on a beverage table, smashing it apart, then Sing was over him, her crimson blade arcing down.

Jacen whipped his lightsaber around to block, catching her blade about halfway up the shaft and filling the air with a sizzling shower of sparks. Sing grabbed her hilt with both hands and began to push, slowly driving the tip of her lightsaber down toward his eye.

The glow was as blinding as the heat was searing, and Jacen’s vision blossomed into a fiery red blur. He brought his free hand up to brace his weapon arm and tried not to worry about whether his eyeball would melt, not daring to turn his head or even look away for fear that he would slip.

Sing kicked him in the side. The tip of a small, wedge-shaped blade scraped against his ribs and sent a blazing bolt of pain shooting into his body.

“Never…” She kicked him again, sending another bolt of pain deep into his stomach. “… violate…”

She kicked again.

“… my…” Another kick, more pain. “… mind!”

Sing kicked again, this time catching him near a kidney A wave of fiery anguish rolled through his body, stealinig his breath, so hot he could not even scream. The pain would have paralyzed anyone else, left him on the floor praying to die before he drew his next breath.

But pain was an old friend of Jacen’s. He had learned to embrace it during his imprisonment among the Yuuzhan Vong, and now it no longer troubled him. Now it served him.

He turned the palm of his bracing hand toward Sing and pushed with the Force.

The move did not surprise her as much as he had hoped. As she flew away, Sing rolled the tip of her blade over his, and his Hghtsaber went flying. He held his Force shove until he heard her thud into the wall opposite, then sprang to his feet.

A fiery blur continued to blind one eye, and his sight in the other was still splashed with crimson blotches. But he could see clearly enough to be worried. Sing had landed near the refresher where Allana was hiding-close enough to fulfill her contract, if she was willing to risk Jacen attacking her from behind.

Jacen did not give her that chance. He opened himself fully to his fear and anger, using the power of his emotions to bring the Force flooding into him, and his body began to crackle and burn with dark energy. He raised his arms in Sing’s direction, hands held level and fingers splayed wide.