Lightsabers

5

Tenel Ka hesitated, rubbing her fingers along the ivory surface of the rancor-tooth lightsaber handle. She held the deactivated weapon in front of her, drawing deep breaths. Intent on her body, her surroundings, she tightened her muscles and brought them to full readiness. Jungle sounds filled the clearing: the whisper of breezes ruffling leaves, the song of insects, the flutter of birds in the canopy.

She centered her thoughts, making sure her reflexes were primed and ready for action. Tenel Ka relied on her body and pressed it to its limits, but she always knew how far she could take it. So far, her muscles had never let her down.

Slowly, she opened her cool, granite-gray eyes and looked at the young man who stood in front of her, ready for the next duel.

He grinned at her. “Good against remotes is one thing, Tenel Ka,” Jacen said, “but good against a real opponent? That’s something else.”

“This is a fact.”

Depressing a button, Jacen switched on his lightsaber. The emerald-green blade sprang forth, snapping and glittering with power. “Hey, I’ll try not to be too hard on you.”

Tenel Ka’s fingers found the recessed power button on the rancor-tooth handle. A shimmering gray-white blade extended like crackling electric fog shot through with golden sparks. The light-saber’s color reminded her of the hazy crystals she had taken from the lava tube.

“And I will try not to be too hard on you, my friend Jacen,” she said. Tenel Ka tested the weapon by turning her wrist, flicking the blade from side to side. The beam sparked and sizzled as it encountered moisture in the air.

“Be careful,” Master Skywalker said from his vantage point on the burned tree trunk. “Don’t get cocky. You both have a great deal to learn.”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Luke,” Jacen said. “I know it was a bad time for me, but I did have some training at the Shadow Academy.” He grinned. “Fighting Tenel Ka will be more of a challenge than battling holographic monsters, though.”

Jaina cleared her throat and spoke from where she sat, sweating and worn out after her session with Lowbacca. “And better than fighting your own sister in disguise?”

“That too,” Jacen said.

Tenel Ka flicked her lightsaber back and forth again, taking a step closer to Jacen. She squared her shoulders, knowing that she stood taller than her good-humored friend. The lightsaber thrummed with power in her hand. “Are we going to talk all day, Jacen?” she said. “Or will you leave time for me to defeat you before the morning is over?”

Jacen laughed. “Hey, we’re not supposed to be enemies, Tenel Ka. It’s just a practice session.”

She nodded. “This is a fact. Even so, we are opponents.”

She swung her lightsaber slowly enough that he wouldn’t perceive it as a real attack, but instinctively Jacen brought up his own weapon. Their blades intersected with sizzling force.

Jacen blinked in surprise, then drew back and struck against her nebulous gold-shot blade, testing. “All right then—let’s go, Tenel Ka!”

She deftly sidestepped the thrust and returned with a parry of her own as he stumbled to regain his balance. Had he been a real enemy, she could have finished him then, but she pulled her blade aside for a split second, just to demonstrate that Jacen had let his guard drop—a lesson a Jedi Knight would need to learn to avoid defeat.

Unexpectedly, Jacen whirled and came up with a backhanded strike that forced her to retaliate. “I figure we should do something about that lack of confidence you’ve got, Tenel Ka,” Jacen said, still grinning.

“I have no such lack,” she said, and found that perspiration had broken out on her forehead. She swung, and Jacen caught her blow on his blade, laughing. She noted the degree of strength he used, the speed with which he maneuvered his weapon. They clashed again. Her cheerful friend, usually so scattered and disorganized, was giving her a surprisingly difficult workout.

“Hey, Tenel Ka,” Jacen said as he struck twice more, as if he always held conversations while fighting with a lightsaber, “you know why a wampa snow monster has such long arms?” He paused for just a beat. “Because his hands are so far away from his body!”

Lowbacca groaned with miserable laughter, prompting the little droid at his waist to speak up in a tinny voice. “I fail to perceive the amusement value in Jacen’s explanation of a zoological anomaly,” Em Teedee said.

“Your jokes cannot distract me, Jacen,” Tenel Ka said, swinging her lightsaber once more. Did he really think he could break her concentration so easily? “I do not find them humorous.”

Jacen sighed as he met her blade with his own. “I know. I’ve been trying to get you to laugh ever since I’ve known you.”

Tenel Ka watched her opponent closely, trying to judge from the tension in his muscles how soon he intended to make a surprise move, in which direction he would react, when the motion of his blade was a genuine attack and when it was merely a feint.

“Good,” Master Skywalker said from where he watched. “Feel the Force. The lightsaber is not just a weapon. It is an extension of yourself.”

Jacen pressed Tenel Ka hard, and she skipped backward a couple of paces. It was obvious he was trying to drive her toward an outcropping of broken boulders at the edge of the clearing. Jacen must have thought she had forgotten about them, but Tenel Ka filed away every detail of her surroundings in her mind.

Just as she reached the rocks, Jacen gave away his plans even more clearly with a broad grin. He pushed forward abruptly, no doubt expecting her to trip. But Tenel Ka leaped lightly backward over the boulders and landed on the other side, her legs planted firmly in a fighting stance. Suddenly foiled, Jacen stumbled and fell toward her, almost hitting the rocks himself. He came up sputtering in disbelief.

“Hey,” he said, then smiled. “Good one!”

Tenel Ka stood waiting for him, her braided hair dangling about her head, drenched with sweat. Allowing herself a brief moment of self-indulgence, she switched the lightsaber to her left hand to prove she could fight just as well with either arm. She had practiced equally with her left and right hands, knowing it might prove a useful skill sometime.

“Show-off,” Jacen said. After a heartbeat of hesitation, he switched his own blade to his left hand and charged at her, swinging hard with the emerald-green lightsaber. She raised her own misty-white and gold blade, struck at him, then struck again. Sparks flew as the blades met.

When Jacen laughed with exhilaration, she allowed herself a satisfied grin as well. “You are a good opponent, Jacen Solo,” she said.

“You bet I am,” he answered.

Tenel Ka knew that her skill was based on her prowess, her physical ability. Though she had constructed a fine lightsaber, she would become a great warrior because of her fighting abilities, not because of the strength of any weapon, no matter how powerful.

Jacen’s lightsaber pressed against hers, and she took a step back. They stood deadlocked, slamming energy blade against impenetrable energy blade. Fiery electricity crackled, and the air thickened with the sharp scent of ozone. Tenel Ka pushed with all her strength, but Jacen countered with equal force.

Her palm was sweaty, but her hand maintained its grip on the rancor-tooth handle. Inside, the components of her lightsaber vibrated, as if struggling to maintain the full energy of the blade while Tenel Ka pressed so furiously against an equally powerful weapon. She pushed harder. The handle rattled.

Jacen grinned at her. “Hope you don’t expect me to surrender too easily.”

“Perhaps you should,” she panted, and pressed harder, ignoring the strange, unsettling sensations from her weapon. She gritted her teeth. Her arm strained. The lightsabers whined and buzzed. Jacen shoved back with all his might. His eyes glittered with the effort.

Over by the edge of the clearing, Master Skywalker stood watching the tense battle, as did Lowbacca and Jaina.

Tenel Ka narrowed her gray eyes, not easing up for an instant, wondering how best she could defeat Jacen and end this match.

Suddenly, something changed inside her lightsaber. She heard a sharp crack and then a loud hissing sizzle.

Jacen pressed harder with his emerald-green blade. For the briefest instant, the golden sparks that shot through her white pulsating energy beam flickered wildly. Her blade blurred with static, grew less focused.

Intent on the battle, Jacen gave a final, extra push with all his strength.

It happened all at once.

The power source in Tenel Ka’s lightsaber gave a shriek of electrical overload—and the blade winked out like a snuffed candle. Sparks and smoke poured from the end of the handle where an energy blade should have glowed.

Suddenly, encountering no resistance as Jacen thrust with his last reserves of strength, the emerald-green lightsaber sliced through the opening where Tenel Ka’s own blade had been just a moment before—plunging down to the only thing that stood in its way.

Tenel Ka felt a line of blazing agony sweep across her arm just above the elbow. It burned … and yet below the burn she felt only a sickening, horrible coldness—a bone-deep chill like none she had ever felt before.

Somehow her lightsaber thumped on the ground with a soft thud. Impossibly, she saw her hand clenching the carved rancor’s tooth. Sparks the size of lightning bolts flashed around the handle as her weapon exploded in a burst of blinding light.

Bright. So very bright …

Tenel Ka felt a dizzying haze swirling up to engulf her. Everything was so confusing. Jacen screamed something she couldn’t understand. Tenel Ka hoped intensely that she had not hurt him.

Jaina, Lowbacca, and Master Skywalker all ran toward her, shouting, but Tenel Ka couldn’t find the energy to stay upright any longer. Just as Jacen reached a hand out toward her, she felt herself falling to the ground.

Then the pain and shock were completely swallowed up in blackness.