Sacrifice

"Okay," he said. "I know you can hear me, Mara. You can still back out of this."

His voice echoed. There was no response, just as he expected, so he began walking deeper into the maze of drains, lightsaber in his right hand and blaster in the other. The only light around him now was a green haze from the glowing blade of energy.

"I could," he said quietly, "go back, block the entrance to this complex with flammable material, and set fire to it." She could hear him, all right: he could hear water dripping slowly deep in the tunnels. Sound was magnified, even if it was hard to pinpoint the origin. "And the fact that these tunnels have vents means the chimney effect would smoke you out, asphyxiate you, or barbecue you."

Silence.

He held his breath, listening.

Crack.

His right knee exploded with blinding pain as Mara cannoned out horizontally, Force-assisted, from a side conduit and caught his leg on the joint with her boots, ripping the tendons. As he lost his footing in the narrow passage, screaming, he found himself wedged for a second and groping for support. He lashed out with his lightsaber, shaving powdery brick from the wall. Mara dropped to the muddy floor to dodge the lightsaber, then sprang up and sprinted away down the tunnel.

It wasn't a good start. Jacen swore and made himself run after her, willing endorphins to numb his leg and telling himself that he knew she was setting up a trap. She wanted him confined, pinned down, penned.

If she thought tunnels would even the odds, she was wrong. He'd bury her here.

Mara found the perfect trap at the end of one of the culverts. She could hear Jacen's running footsteps and she had a good fifty meters on him.