Grim Tidings/Part 8

Tirien used the cover of the ship's rumble and the Zygerrians' gasps to unlock his binders with the Force, though he kept his hands behind his back; a second later he freed Narasi as well, but nudged her hard in warning and whispered, "Wait for it."

His Padawan radiated so much tension it amazed him she didn't snap in half. Though she was beyond fear, her anger could be just as destructive, but he could not risk a lengthy reminder of the principles of the Order with the Zygerrians on high alert. He had to settle for giving her a mental prod and breathing, "Be a Jedi."

Could a single sentence summarize so much? Tirien, who knew from painful experience the power of words to do good or ill, was not sure. But Narasi sighed, and it seemed that some of that vengeful, vindictive edge left her. Tirien gave her an encouraging nudge.

The ship bucked, harder this time, and just as Tirien thought that they were definitely under attack, the lights in the hold flickered. They went on and off, the generator struggling to keep power, but the Force urged him to action, and he said, "Now."

He had used his first moments in the pen to spot the distribution board along one wall, and he bent the Force toward it now as the ship listed a hair to port and captives and captors alike wobbled for balance. He dared not crush the panel—he had a horrible mental image of permanently disabling life support and them all suffocating in space—but he gave the board the same spike of energy he would give a droid, and it sparked. As the Zygerrians nearest jumped in alarm, the overhead lights failed completely.

Tirien shook off the binders and jumped. The Force carried him over the pen with room to spare, and he touched down behind a Zygerrian. He wrapped one hand around the woman's forehead and pulled her in as he punched her in the base of her skull. The blow killed her instantly, and he took up her rifle before her corpse hit the ground. Even as someone got emergency lights on, Tirien gunned down three Zygerrians.

"HEY!" he heard, and looked in time to see Narasi land on the catwalk. She ducked as a Zygerrian tried to grab her, then spun into a wheel kick backed by the Force; she pulped the Zygerrian's jaw, sent several of his teeth flying across the hold, and knocked him into the pen. Before he could do more than moan, the Whiphid Tirien had met stomped over, grabbed the Zygerrian, and ripped his head off.

Now Carosites and Zygerrians alike were screaming, but the Force drew Tirien's attention back to Narasi even as he ducked a shot aimed his way. She had Executive Officer Nimbran's other attendant in a chokehold, but the battle droids were maneuvering to fire on her. This time Tirien put as much of the Force as he could into Ionizing them; two trembled and froze, one sparked and collapsed, and the last one's arm exploded. Then Tirien had to anchor himself in the moment to absorb a Stun ring and he lost track of his Padawan's fight.

Continuing to fire would only draw more shots his way, and Tirien did not want to risk any Carosites being hit by stray blasts, but Suwo Tolp's hand-to-hand combat training had emphasized quick kills, and the lessons came back in a hurry. Tirien dodged a shot at Force speed, closed on the shooter, and collapsed his throat with a punch from his second row of knuckles. Slipping behind a big Zygerrian, Tirien jerked him into the way of three shots, then propelled his corpse into the shooters with the Force. He wrapped his arm around another slaver's throat, pitched the man over his hip, and cranked back; the Zygerrian's head stayed where it was while his entire body weight dropped the other way, and the cri-i-ick-ACK in his neck was audible even over the klaxons.

Tirien had a moment to wonder about the droids, but he noticed sparking ruins here and there and saw Slejux downing another; he had taken up a blaster rifle too, and he was making use of their simple processing system by drawing their attention away from the captives and getting between them, the Force giving him enough warning to dodge the shots and let the droids splinter one another.

A piercing shriek drew everyone's attention for an instant. Talar Nimbran had returned, and he was grappling with Narasi, who had lost or shed her head wrap somewhere along the way. He was almost a head taller and much more muscular, and he had forced her down almost to one knee, but it was he who was screaming; under the circumstances, Narasi had apparently abandoned combat technique and finesse and taken a bite out of his neck with her fangs. He released Narasi to clamp a hand over his wound as it shot spurts of blood through his fingers; Narasi immediately launched a swinging hook punch so telegraphed that Tirien could see it from the first floor, but Nimbran was too distracted by pain, and her fist connected with his jaw and spun him in a circle before he crumpled to the catwalk.

A door nearby opened and a trio of Zygerrians surged in, throwing themselves on Tirien. Two of them caught his arms and pulled them wide of his torso while the third punched him. He used the grip for support and leapt, heel-kicking his attacker under the chin, but the Zygerrians wrenched at his arms, trying to straighten them; Tirien sensed their plan to snap his elbows, and their incredible strength was going to break his forearms instead if he resisted too much.

He opened one palm, and the Force blew the Zygerrian on his right side back into the fence; the man writhed in torment, but the wires did not shred him. Electricity, then. Tirien rounded on his remaining attacker with a punch, but she released him to block it, then scooped his other arm out of the way and hit him with a jab in the ribs. He retaliated, but she met each of his blows and countered at once. Settling into a Makashi mindset, Tirien tried to parry her lightning-quick jabs and fingertip strikes, going for precision rather than power in his own attacks. Her style was alien to him and much more graceful than anything he had seen from a Zygerrian before.

The ship shook so hard that both Tirien and his Zygerrian enemy were thrown to the deck. Even as she kipped up and Tirien rolled over his shoulder and onto his feet, a Zygerrian voice bellowed something over the intraship comm, and the woman attacking Tirien radiated a pulse of fear and a good deal of bafflement.

"NARASI?!" he called over the din.

The woman attacked him again and he returned his focus to her, but he heard his apprentice reply, "THEY'RE…DOING SOMETHING TO US! I DON'T KNOW THE VERB!"

Tirien and the Zygerrian fought back toward the pen even as slavers and battle droids alike stormed away from their conflict toward the doors. The Force filled with danger and violence, but Tirien was willing to take the interruption, whatever it was, if it cleared the room. He sustained a shin kick to his ribs that he couldn't trap in time and a cross punch on his jaw through which he only remained conscious because he had years of experience sparring Narasi and rolled with it. She was better than him, and her relentless attack came too quickly for Tirien to retaliate with the Force.

But as he thought of it, it whispered, ''Now. Here!''

He parried one of her punches and pushed her shoulder, and momentum carried her into the pen's fence. She caught herself on a strut; one of her arms went between the wires, but she avoided the shock. She had almost pulled it free when a Carosite inside grabbed her wrist. She blinked and jerked free of the weaker being's hold, but in that second of vulnerability, the Force impelled Tirien to action, and he smashed his fist into the hollow under her ear. She slumped, smacked her forehead against the pillar, and fell into the fence, where she twitched and jerked, unconscious.

Before Tirien could decide whether to drag her out or leave her there, two doors blew inward at the same time, and Tirien saw lightsaber blades glowing in the darkness. There were screams amidst a torrent of blaster fire; Tirien watched a Zygerrian's head whirl through the air.

"Hey!" he heard Narasi scream. "I'm a Jedi!"

He looked in time to see her leap back from a would-be sai tok slash across her midsection; her attacker wielded a blue blade, but it was clear Narasi's frantic reassurances were not registering. Tirien thrust out a hand, and Narasi's attacker smashed into the bulkhead so hard she bounced a meter off and collapsed. The lightsaber spun away, then flipped back into Narasi's hand. She ignited it in time to defend herself from the first attacker's companion.

More lightsaber-wielders flooded Tirien's level. Without thinking, Tirien pulled a fallen Zygerrian's blaster rifle to hand and switched the weapon to stun. He targeted the closest attacker…then shifted aim when he sensed another in the midst of strong emotions, shock and awe and righteous fury all rolled into one. The stun ring caught the boy by surprise, and as he crumpled, the Force tugged his lightsaber out of his hand and into Tirien's.

"Hey!" the boy's older companion snarled. She charged, but Tirien met her blows without hesitation; she was aggressive and more skillful than her younger friend, but a year of fighting with Mali's straight hilt lightsaber made him only a bit less comfortable than with a curved hilt, and Tirien had her in seven exchanges; he singed her shoulder and then disarmed her when she clasped her wound instead of her lightsaber hilt with one hand. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes as if braced for death, but Tirien just swiped a hand and the Force batted her into the fence.

"They have Force users!" someone near the door roared.

Two of them charged Tirien, but he got a running start and leapt up to the catwalks. Narasi was still dueling her attacker, a tall Togruta who bludgeoned at her with ferocious strength; Tirien sensed her hard on defense, relying on Soresu deflections and two-handed versions of Makashi parries. Tirien came up on the man's other side, but he whirled to defend himself. He fought between them for only a few seconds before realizing he was doomed and leaping away.

"What do we do?!" Narasi gasped.

"Back in the pen!" Tirien decided. "We have to protect the Carosites!"

They jumped together, landing amidst the captives, who'd had the good sense to lay flat on the floor when the shooting started. Tirien had lost track of Slejux, but even as he looked, he saw one of the lightsaber-wielding invaders lurch, weaving like a drunkard. "Uggghhh…whooooOOOOOoooaaa…"

Her lightsaber was torn from her slack-fingered grip, and it spiraled into Slejux's waiting hand. Tirien wasn't sure what Slejux had done to the woman, but he leapt into the pen beside them and asked, as if they were meeting there by chance, "Is it possible that boarding is the word you couldn't translate, Narasi?"

"Ya think?!"

Half a dozen enemies, armed with lightsabers, ringed the pen on both levels, and Tirien felt their mingled wariness and hostility. Without a word, the three Jedi pressed their backs together; Tirien and Slejux reached out to one another in the Force so each could appreciate the threat from the other's angle, and after a second Narasi's mind flowed into the link.

"Lay down your weapons, slavers!" one of them ordered.

"We're not slavers," Tirien called back. "We're Jedi."

"Lay them down or we'll kill you!"

Before any of the Jedi could so much as whisper to one another to strategize, a deep guffaw echoed from the blown-out door on the first level, and all eyes turned that way. The light beyond through a massive figure into silhouette; there was danger there, Tirien sensed, but it contrasted against a wave of good-natured humor.

"You could try, but I don't think it'd turn out that way, Emey!" a familiar voice boomed through another laugh. "Those are three of the best swordsbeings I ever had the pleasure to train! You can stand down though, they're telling you the truth—they're Jedi through and through."

Some of the attackers deactivated their blades, though Tirien sensed their wariness had not abated. The speaker kept her saber in hand as she asked, "Even the Zygerrian, sir?"

"Yep, her too." The man seemed to be enjoying himself. "Loyal as an akk dog and tough as durasteel to boot. But if you want to go a few rounds with a teenager who could hold off Jylo that long, be my guest."

The woman hesitated, then deactivated her blade. The big man drew his lightsaber from his belt in a movement so quick Tirien couldn't follow it, cleaving through the fence; the ruptured lines spat electricity into the air, but the man waved a hand and they curled away from the slaves until the power rupture died out. As the Force users came into the pen and began rousing the Carosites, the bulky tower of a man walked into the light and showed a grin full of fangs.

"Of course, you could all return the kind gesture and power down too."

Tirien was so stunned he had forgotten the stolen lightsaber in his hand; the three zhwipps chased one another within a second.

"Didn't expect to see you all here!"

Tirien sensed Slejux was bemused into silence too, and Narasi's mouth hung open, but he finally rallied enough to say, "I could say the same for you, Master Z'dar."