She broke into a run, charging down the hall toward him. Bane dropped into a fighting crouch to meet her attack, knowing her knives were no match for his lightsaber. It was only then that he noticed the flash grenades lying by the dead bodies at his feet.
They exploded with a burst of intense light and chemical smoke that blinded Bane. Disoriented, he fell back against the balcony"s railing. An instant later he felt the sole of the Iktotchi"s boots strike him hard in the chest, sending him tumbling backward over the banister to the marble floor four meters below.
He hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his body, leaving him gasping for air.
The impact jarred his lightsaber from his grip, sending it skittering across the floor. An instant later his p.r.o.ne form was enveloped by the webbing from the tangle guns, pinning him to the ground.
Blind and immobilized, Darth Bane"s fury saved him. Years of training allowed him to focus all his pain and rage in one single instant, drawing on it so he could unleash the full power of the dark side. Once again he felt the Iktotchi"s barrier opposing his efforts, but this time he tore through it like it wasn"t even there.
For a moment it was as if the world around him was frozen in place. Though his eyes were still suffering the effects of the flash grenade, the Force rushing through his body gave him an otherworldly awareness of his surroundings-the scene was burned into his brain in exquisite detail.
The soldiers were scattered about the foyer, scrambling to take up new positions in preparation for the next stage of the battle. They were well trained, but he could still sense their fear: they knew the fight was far from over. The Iktotchi had leapt over the railing in pursuit of him. She hung poised in the air above him, her twin blades held out to the either side as she braced for landing. Bane could even see himself lying on the floor, buried beneath a thick, wet blanket of rapidly drying chemical adhesive.
The frozen tableau lasted only a fraction of an instant, but it told the Dark Lord everything he needed to know. And then the instant was gone, and everything became a blur of motion again.
The Iktotchi landed just as Bane unleashed a wave of crackling electricity that burned away the webbing of the tangle guns. She dropped to one knee and tried to stab her knives into him as he lay on the floor, but through the Force Bane saw her coming. He managed to roll aside, escaping with only a long, deep cut along one of his forearms as he scrambled back to his feet.
In response to his call, his lightsaber flew up from the floor and into his waiting hand, but the Iktotchi was already retreating. Now that he was no longer helpless, she was eager to fall back and let others step in.
Several more flash grenades exploded around him, but Bane was unaffected; he was no longer relying on his physical sight to guide him. Fresh streams of webbing arced across the room toward him, but this time he incinerated them while they were still in the air. Half a dozen concussion grenades tossed in from every side clattered on the floor at his feet. As they exploded, Bane simply enveloped himself in the Force, creating a protective coc.o.o.n that absorbed the impact and left him standing completely unharmed.
Two men popped up from behind a nearby couch and fired at him from point-blank range with their stun guns. Bane slapped the incoming bolts away with his lightsaber, then thrust out a hand to send the couch slamming straight back into the wall, crushing the men who had been using it for cover.
Then he was on the move, bearing down on two of the soldiers carrying tangle guns. He sliced them both in half horizontally with a single blow from his lightsaber, carving a perfect line just above their belts. Another volley of stun bolts came too late to save them; Bane was already gone.
A single flip and he was back on the balcony again, face-to-face with the Iktotchi.
"You can"t escape," he told her.
"I wasn"t trying to," she hissed back at him, lunging forward with her knives.
She was quicker than Bane expected, coming in low and fast. He didn"t have time to simply chop her down; instead he had to spin out of the way.
He tried to take one of her arms with his lightsaber on a counterthrust as she slipped past, but the Iktotchi antic.i.p.ated his move and managed to contort her body so that his blade caught nothing but air.
They had switched positions from their first engagement; she was now the one standing with her back to the balcony railing. Bane thrust out with the Force, the impact sending her hurtling backward over the railing as her kick had done to him less than a minute earlier.
Somehow the Iktotchi managed to turn in the air so that she landed on her feet. Because of this, she was able to spring to safety when Bane sent a blast of lightning hurtling down toward her.
Instead of her charred corpse, it left only a smoking circle on the floor.
Soldiers were firing their stun guns at him again from the stairwell. Bane didn"t even bother to strike back at them; he simply dodged their attack by vaulting over the railing and dropping back down to the floor below. The soldiers were nothing to him; it was the Iktotchi he was interested in now. She was the only opponent who posed any real threat. Eliminate her and he could deal with the soldiers at his leisure.
He landed on the floor in a crouch, absorbing the impact. And then everything went black.
The Huntress couldn"t say how long it had been since she"d carved her senflax-coated blade through the flesh of the Sith Lord"s forearm, but the neurotoxin had to take effect soon.
Jedder was dead, crushed against the wall by a piece of flying furniture. At least five other soldiers were already down, too. The Sith Lord was focusing his efforts on her.
The Iktotchi knew she couldn"t beat him. He was too strong. The tricks she had used against the Jedi had slowed him down at first, but now they had no effect at all. The senflax was her only hope of surviving.
She saw the Sith leaping down from the balcony, coming after her. He hit the floor, turned toward her, and collapsed. The big man lay on his side, eyes open and seeming to stare right at her. The pupils were bloodshot from the chemicals in the flash grenades.
The Huntress waited until he blinked. Then, seeing no other signs of movement, she held up her hand and shouted, "Cease fire! Cease fire!"
She thought briefly that his paralysis might be a trick, then discarded the notion. The Sith didn"t need subterfuge to win the battle; it was obvious he had them overmatched. The only explanation was that Serra"s drug had finally worked its magic. According to the instructions she had been given, they had four hours before they needed to administer the next dose.
With Jedder dead, the hired soldiers were staring at her, waiting for their next orders. The Huntress closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, seeking guidance. Someone else was coming: the blond woman from the camp on Ambria.
"You three go bring the airspeeders around to the front of the house," the Huntress barked. "The rest of you gather up the bodies. Don"t leave anything behind that could link this to the princess."
The survivors hustled to follow her commands.
She didn"t bother to tell them to hurry; they were already moving as fast as they could, eager to get away from this place where so many of their comrades-in-arms had fallen.
On an impulse, she bent down and retrieved the now extinguished lightsaber from where it lay on the floor beside the fallen Sith. She turned the curved handle over, inspecting it carefully.
She ignited the weapon and was surprised by its weightlessness.
"What about this?" one of the soldiers asked, holding up the duffel bag the Sith had dropped in the first few seconds of the attack.
"Take it with us," she said absently, not even bothering to look over. "Give it to the princess."
Infatuated with her new toy, she made a few slow, experimental swings with the unfamiliar weapon before extinguishing it and secreting it away in one of the pockets inside her robe, just as she had done with the strange crystal pyramid from the library out back.
Five minutes later they had the prisoner and their casualties in the back of the speeders, and they were heading to the drop shuttle that would take them back to Doan.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
As Zannah brought the Victory Victory in to touch down in her designated hangar at the Ciutric IV in to touch down in her designated hangar at the Ciutric IV starport, she felt a sudden sense of uneasiness.
"Something wrong?" Set asked from the pa.s.senger"s seat, picking up on her discomfort.
I"m about to challenge my Master in a battle to the death, and I"m still not sure if I made a mistake picking you as my apprentice. mistake picking you as my apprentice.
"It"s nothing."
Set shrugged. He was sitting with his chair reclined, his legs stretched out, and his feet resting on the dash. If he was feeling any anxiety himself, it was well masked.
With the ship on the ground, Zannah cut the engines. She couldn"t shake the feeling that something was very wrong, but she had come too far to turn back now.
Is this a premonition of my own death? Will Bane end my life tonight?
"What now?" Set asked, sitting up and swinging his legs down to the floor.
When he had first accepted Zannah"s offer, she had sensed a clear reluctance in him. Over the course of the trip to Ciutric, however, he seemed to have warmed to the idea. Now he appeared almost eager...though Zannah was aware this could all be an act.
"When we arrive at the estate you need to wait outside," she said out loud. "My Master doesn"t like uninvited guests."
"I"ll hide in the bushes like a scared little Kath pup," he promised.
"This isn"t a game," she warned him.
"Everything"s a game," he replied. "This is just one you really can"t afford to lose."
"If I lose, you might end up dead, too."
"Or I could end up as your Master"s new apprentice," he countered with a sly grin.
"You wouldn"t find him nearly as tolerant of your impertinence."
"Then I truly hope you win. Is that all, Master?"
When Zannah nodded, Set rose from his seat and executed a deep bow, his head dipping down so low his long hair tumbled forward to hang like a silver curtain covering his head and face.
"Lead and I will follow," he offered, though there was something almost mocking in his tone.
She couldn"t help but wonder what Bane would have done in response to Set"s irreverent behavior. The consequences would no doubt have been harsh. Zannah, however, was content to let the Dark Jedi have his fun. She had wounded his ego, humiliating him by so easily overpowering him during their confrontation. It was important to let him regain his confidence.
And if his jests made it easier for him to accept his role as apprentice, she was willing to put up with them...to a point.
Set understood all this, of course. She knew he was pushing her, testing the limits and boundaries of their relationship. At the same time, Zannah had been testing him. So far he had been smart enough to know where to draw the line.
Leaving their bags on the ship, Zannah and Set made their way from the hangar to the small customs building at the front of the starport. Chet, the young customs officer who had spoken to her the last time she"d left Ciutric, was on duty again.
"Good evening, Mistress Omek," he said with a tilt of his head. "I"ll have someone bring your speeder around."
"Thank you, Chet."
"Want me to send someone for your bags?"
"I"ll pick them up in the morning." If I"m still alive. If I"m still alive.
"Aren"t you going to introduce me to your friend?" Set chimed in.
Zannah silenced him with a glare.
Chet obviously caught the exchange, but what he made of it Zannah wasn"t sure. A few seconds of silence pa.s.sed before the customs official said, "May I speak with you alone for a moment, Mistress Omek?"
Curious, Zannah nodded at Set, who turned and walked away in the other direction, looking mildly offended.
"Had an unregistered drop ship enter atmosphere a few hours ago," Chet whispered once Set was out of earshot. "Touched down in the jungle about a hundred kilometers east of the starport."
Odd, Zannah thought. Zannah thought.
Ciutric IV was located at the nexus of several key trade routes, but the tariffs and taxes charged by the customs stations were minimal. No legitimate merchant would incur the risk of landing in the untamed jungle just to avoid some paperwork and save a handful of credits. And there weren"t any smuggling operations active in the region; if there were, she and Bane would have known about them.
"Any idea who they were?"
Chet shrugged. "They landed outside our jurisdiction, and they didn"t send off an emergency beacon, so n.o.body bothered to send a patrol to investigate."
She wasn"t surprised at the lack of official urgency generated by the unregistered vessel. Ciutric was generally a law-abiding world; as a result planetary security was somewhat lax. It was one of the reasons Bane had chosen to take up residence here.
She was intrigued, however. Did the drop ship have anything to do with the unease she"d felt upon landing?
"You said they touched down to the east?" Our estate is on the eastern edge of the city. Our estate is on the eastern edge of the city.
"Yeah. Showed up on the sensors a couple of hours before your brother got back."
"My brother?"
"Oh," Chet said, mildly surprised. "I just a.s.sumed you knew. He left the day after you did. Just got back tonight."
"Any idea where he went?"
The customs official shook his head. "Sorry."
Zannah"s mind was spinning with a thousand possibilities as the valet arrived with her speeder.
Bane almost never left Ciutric. If he had business, people came to him...or he sent Zannah.
Something must have come up that was too important for him to wait for her to get back. Either that, or he had business he wanted to deal with personally. And if that was the case, was it possible he had sent her to Doan as a way to get rid of her temporarily?
She could think of only one reason Bane would have wanted to keep her from knowing about his journey: he was looking for someone to replace her!
"Trouble?" Set asked, wandering over to see what was going on.
"It"s fine," Zannah replied, not wanting to reveal her apprehension to either of the men.
She climbed into the speeder and nodded at Set to do the same.
"Thanks for the update, Chet."
As the speeder roared to life and took to the air, she began to consider her options. If Bane was alone, she would challenge him as she planned. However, if Bane had found someone else to become his heir things would get more complicated.
If Bane had cast her aside, did the Rule of Two still apply to her? Or would Bane and his new apprentice combine their strength to defeat her as an enemy of the Sith? If that happened, she wouldn"t be able to survive alone.
If things went bad, she didn"t really know if the Dark Jedi sitting beside her would come to her aid, but she didn"t have any real choice. She had decided to confront Bane tonight, and she wasn"t about to turn back now. She"d waited too long for this moment, put it off too many times before.
"Be on your guard when we land," she warned Set.