Chapter 15

The Twi'lek Jedi's leap, guided by the Force, landed him squarely behind Maul on the rear engine housing of the T‑ shaped bike. The action took Maul by surprise; he had not expected such a courageous, if foolhardy, deed.

Unexpected as the move was, however, Maul was still able to block the slash of the other's lightsaber with his own energy blade. He quickly activated the speeder's autopilot, then twisted around in the saddle, thrusting his weapon at the Jedi's chest. The Jedi blocked the blow and countered with another.

Maul knew the battle could not continue this way. The speeder bike's autopilot was not sophisticated enough to chart a safe course at high speed through the torturous windings of the surface streets. He grabbed the handlebar and jerked the speeder toward a docking platform on a nearby building, about thirty meters above the street. They shot by the skycar, which had slowed after the Jedi left it, and rose toward the shelf. As the ledge came within range of the autopilot's seniors, the speeder slowed, then settled down to a landing on the extruded slab of ferrocrete.

The Sith and the Jedi leapt from the speeder bike onto the platform to continue their battle. The dock‑ Ing ledge was only about ten meters by fifteen, barely enough room to maneuver in. Maul knew he had to dispatch the Jedi quickly, before Pavan once again vanished into the labyrinth of Coruscant's downlevels. He pressed the attack viciously, blocking and thrusting, the twin radiant blades spinning a web of light about him.

The Jedi was obviously a master of the teras kasi fighting arts, as well, judging by the smooth way he parried and counterattacked. Still, within the first few moments of the engagement, Darth Maul knew that he himself was the superior fighter. He could tell that the Jedi knew it, too, but Maul also knew that it didn't matter. The Jedi was committed to stopping the Sith, or at the very least slowing him down enough to let the others get away, even if it meant giving his own life to do so.

Maul bared his teeth. He would not lose his quarry again! He doubled his efforts, pressing the attack hard, hammering away at the Twi'lek's defenses. The Jedi gave ground, but Maul was still unable to slash through his guard.

Then he heard something: the distinctive sound of the skycar's damaged engine. He let his awareness expand on the ripples of the Force, and what he sensed brought a dark smile of satisfaction to his face.

The skycar‑ with his prey‑ was returning.

Darsha could not believe it at first when Master Bondara leapt from the skycar onto the Sith's speeder bike. Her first action was reflexive; she slowed the skycar, intending to go to her mentor's aid.

" What are you doing? " Pavan shouted. " He said head for the Temple! "

" I'm not going to abandon him to that monster! " Darsha shouted back. She saw the speeder bike shoot past them, then rise and head for a docking ledge that protruded from a dilapidated building.

" He knows what he's doing, " the droid told her. " Are you prepared to make his sacrifice meaningless? "

Darsha knew the droid's words made sense, but she didn't care. After all, she had made one mistake after another in the past several hours; why stop now? She had gone far past the point of worrying about the consequences of her actions; all she knew was that she could not leave Master Bondara to battle the Sith alone. It was hard for her to conceive of a situation in which her mentor could be bested in combat, but if anyone was capable of it, she had the feeling the Sith was that one.

She slowed the skycar and brought it around, heading back toward the landing ledge‑ and realized she had a problem. The damaged repulsor array had fixed the vehicle's ceiling, and the platform was a good ten meters above them. Her ascension gun was still, as far as she knew, attached to the monad, nearly a kilometer from her present position.

It would be no problem to leap ten meters straight up; in training exercises she had used the Force to help her perform jumps higher than that. To assay such a leap onto a narrow platform and into the midst of a raging lightsaber duel was a considerably more complex undertaking, however. It would do Master Bondara no good for her to get herself killed by the Sith.

Still, there was no other choice. Her mentor might dense the skycar's presence and leap back into it, but there was no guarantee he would be able to do so in the heat of battle. Darsha brought the skycar to a hovering top below and to one side of the ledge. Above her, the two dueling figures were hidden by the ferrocrete slab, hut she could see the variegated flashes and hear the angry buzzing and screeching of the lightsabers as they clashed. She had to take action, now. She stood, pulled her lightsaber from its belt hook, and prepared to leap.

And the world suddenly dissolved in a burst of blinding light and a deafening roar.

Darth Maul had seen the grim realization in the eyes of his foe: the knowledge that the Twi'lek could not defeat his adversary. Once defeat was conceded in the mind, its reality was inevitable. It was only a matter of time.

He pressed his attack to an even higher intensity, driving the Jedi back toward his speeder bike, intending to pin him between the dual‑ bladed lightsaber and the bike. With his movements thus constricted, it would be mere moments before the Twi'lek's ten‑ tacled head was separated from his neck.

But then he saw the desperation in the other's face suddenly give way to realization, and then to triumph. Quickly, before Maul could intuit what was intended, the Jedi whirled toward the speeder bike, raised his lightsaber‑ and plunged it to the hilt into the bike's repulsor drive housing.

Maul realized his suicidal intention, but too late. The superheated energy blade melted with lightning swiftness through the housing and sank into the bike's power cell core. Maul turned and leapt from the plat‑ form, reaching for the dark side, enfolding himself i it even as the power cell exploded, the heat and pres‑ sure wave vaporizing the Jedi in a microsecond and then expanding, reaching hungrily for him, as well.

The landing platform shielded the skycar from the main force of the explosion; otherwise the three passengers would not have survived. Even so, the shock wave hurled Darsha from her standing position back over the rear of the craft. She would have plunged to the street below had Lorn not grabbed her wrist as she fell past him. I‑ Five lunged for the controls and fought to stabilize the vehicle, which was pitching and yawing wildly. For an instant that felt like an eternity Darsha hung over the abyss, too stunned to use the Force to help lift herself to safety‑ and then Lorn managed to pull her back into the rear seat compartment.

But the danger was not yet over; the explosion had caused the platform to break free of its supports. It began to collapse, sagging away from the building wall. As it did so, Darsha caught a glimpse of the Sith's dark form hurtling from the ledge into the darkness below. The buckling platform clipped the skycar's side, sending it spinning out of control toward the street, as well.

I‑ Five fought with the controls and managed to level out as the vehicle reached the ground. The spec‑ tators drawn to the scene by the explosion scattered in panic as the skycar pancaked to a rough landing.

Darsha, half‑ stunned, was vaguely aware of an in‑ sistent beeping that was rising in frequency and tone. Even as realization of what the beeping signified penetrated her dazed brain, she felt herself seized in a powerful grip and pulled from the wrecked skycar. As she stumbled across the litter‑ strewn pavement she realized the droid was dragging her and Lorn Pavan away from the vehicle.

" Hurry, " she mumbled. " Power cell's on overload.. "

" A fact of which I am quite aware, " I‑ Five replied. He stopped before a kiosk. A sign on the door read keep OUT in Basic, but the droid ignored this and blasted the lock with a laser beam that shot from his left index finger.

Within the kiosk was a narrow, dimly lit stairwell. The three of them hurried down it as, behind them, the alarm beeps reached a crescendo. A moment later a second, more powerful explosion rocked the area. Darsha felt the stairwell shift and shudder as if in the throes of a temblor. The light went out, she felt herself falling‑ and then she knew no more.

PART II

Labyrinth