Lightsabers Read online

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 fro nt 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 light 50 LIGHTSABERS

  ^ saber. 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 lightsaber'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 ove r.

  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 LIGHTSABERS

  ^ 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 mo nster 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.

  LIGHTSABERS

  ^

  "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 mistywhite 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 lightsaher. 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 bluffed 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 LIGHTSABERS

  ^ thrust with his last reserves of strength, the emeraldgreen 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 bum 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.

  ^

  ------------------ON THE FRINGES of the unmapped heart of the galaxy,

  the Shadow Academy found a new hiding place near the flaming shells of

  two stars that had been dying for the last five thousand years.

  Without its cloaking device, the dark Imperial training center hung like

  a circlet of thorns, washed in the blaze of solar radiation. The

  whispering trails of thrown-off star gas would camouflage the station

  from prying Rebel eyes.

  Zekk stood before the broad windowports of the tallest observation

  tower, staring into the dazzling maelstrom of starfire. The darkened

  transparisteel of the viewport filtered out the deadly radiationbut even

  dimmed to a fraction of its true power, the fury of the universe left

  Zekk breathless.

  Beside him stood Brakiss, Master of the Shadow Academy, a tall and

  statue-handsome Jedi. As an Imperial spy, Brakiss had once studied at

  the New Republic's Jedi academy; when Master Skywalker had tried to turn

  him away from the dark side of the Force, however, Brakiss had fled back

  to the Em 58 LIGHTSABERS

  ^ pire. There he gathered a group of Dark Jedi trainees and conditioned

  them to serve the great leader of the Second Imperium, the resurrected

  Emperor Palpatine himself.

  Brakiss lifted his serene face, drinking in the view of the double suns.

  "This reality makes the image in my office seem like a pale glimmer by

  comparison, doesn't it, Zekk?"

  Zekk nodded, but found himself without words.

  "More than five millennia ago the Denarii Nova exploded, ripping through

  these stars and reducing them to cinders," Brakiss said. "The powerful

  Sith sorcerer Naga Sadow caused this cataclysmic event to gain his

  freedom from pursuing Republic warships. With the extravagant power of

  the dark side, Naga Sadow tore these two stars apart and used giant

  flares like two slapping hands to crush the fleet behind him."

  Zekk nodded again and finally found words.

  "Another example of the power of the dark side."

  Brakiss smiled proudly at him. "It is a power your friends Jacen and

  Jaina would never have shown you-much less taught you."

  "No," Zekk agreed. "They never would have."

  For years, he had been friends with the twin children of Han Solo and

  Leia Organa Solo. Zekk was just a street kid, though-a nobody, who lived

  by his wits scavenging items in the dangerous underievels of the

  city-covered world of Coruscant.

  His hopes for a better life had been little more than dreams until the

  Nightsister Tamith Kai snatched him and brought him to the Shadow

  Academy as part of a new recruitment drive.

  In an earlier attempt to gain talented candidates, Brakiss had made an

  error by kidnapping the high-profile trainees Jacen, Jaina, and

  Lowbacca.

  When that failed, he had decided the Shadow Academy might do better with

  a different sort of person: downtrodden young ones who wouldn't be

  missed, yet had just as much potential to acquire Jedi powers-and more

  to gain by swearing allegiance to the Second Imperium.

  Zekk had resisted the transformation at first, fighting to stay loyal to

  his friends. But gradually Brakiss lured him, showing Zekk how to use

  the Force for one small thing, then another. Zekk discovered that he was

  strong in the Force, and he learned quickly.

  The experience altered his feelings toward the twins from friendship to

  resentment. Jaina and Jacen had never thought to include him in Jedi

  testing, though he felt he had as much innate talent as any of their

  highbom friends. Zekk's main regret in leaving his old life was that he

  missed his companion, old Peckhum. But now he had much more of a future.

  Zekk was beginning to understand Jedi powers, and he had already done

  things he'd never dreamed of.

  LIGHTSABERS

  ^ Gazing at the stormy suns, Brakiss raised his arms to each side,

  spreading his fingers. His silvery robe flowed around him as if knit

  from silken spiderwebs. He stared into the swirling flares of the

  Denarii Nova. "Observe, Zekk-and learn."

  Closing his eyes, the Master of the Shadow Academy began to move his

  hands. Zekk watched through the observation port, his green eyes

  widening.

 
; The ocean of rarefied incandescent gases between the dying stars started

  to swirl like arms of fire . . . writhing, changing shape, dancing in

  time with the hand motions Brakiss made. The dark teacher was

  manipulating the starfire itself!

  He whispered to Zekk without opening his eyes, without observing the

  effect of his work. "The Force is in all things," Brakiss said, "from

  the smallest pebble to the largest star. This is just a glimmer of how

  Naga Sadow reached out to the stars and delivered a mortal wound five

  thousand years ago."

  "Could you make the sun explode?" Zekk asked in awe.

  Brakiss opened his eyes and looked at his young student. His smooth,

  perfect forehead creased. "I don't know," he said. "And I don't believe

  I ever want to try."

  Zekk remembered the way Brakiss ha rst enticed him to experiment with

  his innate Jedi powers, by giving him a flarestick and showing how

  simple it was to draw shapes in the flames with the Force. Here in the

  Denarii Nova, Brakiss had done the same thing-only on a scale the size

  of a star system.

  "Could I try it?" Zekk said eagerly, leaning forward. He touched his

  fingertips to the lightfiltering viewport, looking out at the double

  star and its brilliant corona, which rippled like a barely contained