Jacen Solo

At this point, this thread will just cover the one topic, the second half from the previous part:

• Lightsaber and Combat Feats

Lightsaber and Combat Feats

Jacen easily deflects blaster bolts while walking towards a group of twenty soldiers, deflecting only the shots that were a threat to him while also deflecting them back towards the shooters:

Now making the turn from the balcony into the corridor and running toward them were half a dozen troops armed with blaster rifles. Their orange jumpsuits were reminiscent of X-wing pilot uniforms, but the green carapace armor over their lower legs, torsos, lower arms, and heads was more like stormtrooper speeder bike armor painted the wrong color.

And then behind the first six troops came another six, and then another eight . . .

Jacen brought his lightsaber out and snapped it into life; the incandescent green of his blade was reflected as highlights against the walls and the armor of the oncoming troops. "Stay behind me," he said.

"Yes, sir." Ben's sigh was audible, and Jacen grinned.

The foremost trooper, who bore gold bars on his helmet and wrists, shouted, his voice mechanically amplified: "Stop whar you are! This saction is restricted!"

Jacen moved forward at a walk. He rotated his wrist, moving his lightsaber blade around in front of him in a pattern vaguely reminiscent of butterfly wings. He shouted back, "Could you speak up? I'm a little deaf."

Ben snickered. "Good one."

"You may not entar this saction!"

They were now twenty meters from the ranks of troopers ahead.

[...]

He took another two steps and the trooper commander called, "Fire!"

The troopers began firing, Jacen gave himself over to the Force, to his awareness of his surroundings, to his sudden oneness with the men and women trying to kill him.

He simply ignored most of the blaster bolts. When he felt them angling in toward him, he twirled his lightsaber blade in line and batted them away, usually back toward the crowd of troopers. In the first few seconds of their assault, four troopers fell to blasts launched by their friends. The smell of burned flesh began to fill the corridor.

Jacen felt danger from behind; felt Ben react to it. Jacen didn't shift his attention; he continued his march forward. He'd prefer to be able to protect the inexperienced youth, but the boy was good at blaster defense practice. Hard as it was to trust a Jedi whose skills were just developing, he had to. To teach, to learn, he had to trust.

Jacen intercepted the next blaster shot that came his way and batted it toward the trooper commander. It struck the man in the helmet and caromed off, burning out against the ceiling; a portion four meters square of the ceiling's illumination winked out, darkening the corridor. The commander fell. The shot was probably not fatal—protected by his helmet, the man would have forehead and scalp burns, probably a concussion, but he was unlikely to die.

The strategy had its desired effect. The troopers saw their commander fall. They continued firing but also exchanged looks. Jacen never broke pace, and a trooper with silver stripes on his helmet called "Back, back." In good order, the troopers began a withdrawal.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

Jacen then deflects more blaster bolts than before but still aims them back at his attackers. He does so while the guards were holed up with better firing position than before, at first defending himself from the bolts and then himself and Ben Skywalker when his apprentice joined him:

Jacen's movement out of the corridor brought him within sight of the orange-and-green defenders, who were now arrayed in disciplined rows along the walkway to Jacen's left. As soon as he reached the railing they opened fire again. Their tighter formation allowed them to concentrate their fire, and Jacen found himself deflecting more shots than before.

He felt rather than saw Ben scoot into position behind him, but no blaster bolts came at him from that direction. "What now?" Ben asked.

"Finish the mission." Jacen caught a too-close bolt on his blade near the hilt; unable to aim the deflection, he saw the bolt flash down into the assembly area. It hit a monitor screen. The men and women near the screen dived for cover. Jacen winced; a fraction of a degree of arc difference and that bolt could have hit an explosives package. As inured as he was to causing death, he didn't want to cause it by accident.

"But you're in charge—"

"I'm busy." Jacen took a step forward to give himself more maneuvering and swinging space and concentrated on his attackers. He needed to protect himself and Ben now, to defend a broader area. He focused on batting bolt after bolt back into the ranks of the attackers, saw one, two, three of the soldiers fall.

There was a lull in the barrage of fire. Jacen took a moment to glance over his shoulder. Ben stood at the railing, staring down into the manufacturing line, and to his eye he held a small but expensive holocam unit—the sort carried by wealthy vacationers and holocam hobbyists all over the galaxy.

[...]

With the tip of his lightsaber blade, Jacen caught a blast that was crackling in toward his right shin. He popped the blast back toward its firer. It hit the woman's blaster rifle, searing it into an unrecognizable lump, causing her green shoulder armor momentarily to catch fire. She retreated, one of her fellow soldiers patting out her flames. Now there were fewer than fifteen soldiers standing against the Jedi, and their temporary commander was obviously rethinking his make-a-stand orders.

"Good. How?"

"Well, the way we came in—no. They'd be waiting for us."

"Correct."

"And you never want to fight the enemy on ground he's chosen if you can avoid it."

Jacen grinned. Ben's words, so adult, were a quote from Han Solo, a man whose wisdom was often questionable—except on matters of personal survival. "Also correct."

"So . . . the ends of the assembly lines?"

"Good. So go."

Jacen heard the scrape of a heel as Ben vaulted over the rail. Not waiting, Jacen leapt laterally, clearing the rail by half a meter, and spun as he fell.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

For his versatility and effectiveness, Luke Skywalker chooses Jacen to lead the mission to disable or destroy Centerpoint Station. However, Thrackan Sal-Solo knows of the plan and takes countermeasures designed specifically to incapacitate Jedi, including a powerful sonic attack that’s capable of bringing a Jedi down without aiming. Jacen manages to dodge two blaster bolts and pull his lightsaber to him while in severe pain before deflecting blaster bolts back to take out the sonics while he couldn't see because of smoke grenades:

Thrackan, nonchalant, held a hand out to his side. One of the CorSec officers there handed him what looked like a flight helmet. With slow, deliberate motions, watching Jacen all the time, Thrackan donned it. Then he snapped his fingers. Two droids, looking much like R5 astromechs but with their top halves removed and replaced by naked machinery, rolled up from behind the CorSec officers to the rail.

And the sound began.

Jacen didn't even experience it as sound at first. It hit him like a windstorm, blasting him to his knees, bringing pain to every millimeter of his skin as though he were being scorched by a gigantic blowtorch. His lightsaber fell from his lifeless fingers and rolled away.

Even as the attack convulsed him with pain, Jacen, in some dim portion of his mind that still functioned, recognized it—a sonic assault, something that did not have to be aimed or tracked to bring a Jedi down.

—

Jacen rolled sideways, kicking the metal floor to propel himself, and managed to be a meter away when the first blaster bolt hit the spot where he'd been kneeling. He continued to roll, awkward because of the pain that racked him, but came up on his feet. Despite his blurring vision, he saw his lightsaber rolling across the floor, extended his hand toward it—

Two white egg-shaped canisters hit the floor near him. He leapt backward away from them, rotating through the air as he went, and came down on his feet, but his legs buckled as he landed and he crashed to the floor.

He could still see his lightsaber. He exerted his will toward it. It wobbled on the floor and began rolling toward him.

The egg-shaped canisters detonated, filling the air around them with white smoke. It rapidly spread, obscuring everything. But Jacen managed to maintain his focus, and his lightsaber flew to his hand before the whiteness closed down all vision.

Jacen rolled to the side again, heard and felt the heat from blasterfire hitting where he'd just lain. So they can see, he thought. Optics in their helmets. There had to be sound bafflers, too.

Well, he had a couple of tricks remaining, and they had nothing to do with specialized gear.

He knew more about pain than his opponents realized. At the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war, he'd been a prisoner for months, subjected to their tortures and customs of self-inflicted agony. He had learned to function within their Embrace of Pain and other rituals that would break beings not accustomed to such hardships.

A sudden infliction of pain could surprise him, surely. But it couldn't keep him down.

He let the pain flow through him as though it were the Force. He internalized it, experiencing it as an old friend—albeit an old friend he didn't necessarily want visiting him too often.

He stood and moved forward. His first few steps were awkward and slow, his later ones sure, and once he was in full mastery of his body and the pain that suffused it, he put on a burst of speed in traditional Jedi fashion, outracing the blaster bolts that tailed him.

Pain-racked, unslowed, he neared the wall and leapt high up on it, landing on one of the ascending ramps. Now he was still within the smoke cloud from the canisters but shielded from blasterfire from above. Moments later he reached the walkway level where Thrackan Sal-Solo had stood.

He still could not see, but through the Force he could detect living beings ahead of him. They were changing their order, some retreating, some advancing, the foremost of them aiming . . .

The blaster bolts came, illuminating the canister smoke in curiously beautiful lines as they flashed toward him. He batted them back the way they'd come, mercilessly picking off the soldiers who'd fired them.

Then he changed tactics. There were curious gaps in the formation of the living ahead of them. Those gaps had to be where the droid generators of the sonic waves were situated. He began batting blasterfire toward them, and a moment later the pain-inducing shriek was reduced in volume by half. Three blaster bolts later, the sound and pain cut off entirely, and he could hear a mechanical cough as the motivator of the second sonic generator droid detonated dully within its housing.

"Cease fire." That was the voice of Thrackan, coming from the rear of the unit of six remaining CorSec operative. They obeyed.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

Jacen deflects blaster bolts and uses the Force to divert small explosives towards a pair of suicide droids attacking him and then cuts them in half. He then manages to initially deflect continuous fire from twenty CorSec guards before taking a blast in his calf:

He ran back the way he'd come, putting on a Force-based burst of running speed, and leapt through the new opening in the wall.

Corridor, broad, dark. Left, away from the areas of the station he wanted to reach, open. Right, in the distance, a line of CorSec agents, twenty or more in a well-dressed pair of lines, the front line kneeling, curved transparisteel crowd control shields at the ready, while the rear line stood with blasters aimed. Behind the two lines stood Thrackan Sal-Solo.

Closer, ten meters away but floating toward him, scarred and still smoking from where explosion debris had hit them, were two probots.

No, not quite. These droids looked a lot like Rebellion-era probots—misshapen and bulbous, slightly less than two meters tall, they floated on repulsorlifts well above the floor, four mechanical arms dangling beneath, just like the old stealth droids. But these were bronze in color rather than black, and their arms seemed bulkier, sturdier, than old-time probots'.

And they ended in what looked like weapons pods.

As Jacen emerged into the hallway, they activated deflector shields, not a feature of the original probots, and flew straight at him.

They raised weapon pods and began firing—one, a blaster; the other, small oval canisters that had to be explosives.

—

With his lightsaber, Jacen batted away the blasterfire coming from the right-hand probot. He couldn't aim his deflections; that would require too much concentration. Instead, with his left hand, he reached out through the Force and found the projectiles being fired by the left-hand probot. He seized them and redirected them in two streams, one stream toward each droid.

They flew only as far as the droids' deflector shields, out about a meter from their bodies, and adhered there. Then, one after another, they detonated.

Jacen saw the deflector shields weaken with each explosion. He charged forward, relying on his speed and sudden motion to throw off the aim of the probot with the blaster. When the last of the projectiles had detonated, before the probot shields had time to strengthen, he lashed out, first right and then left.

Two probots, sliced in half at the narrowest portions of their bulbous bodies, crashed to the metal floor.

In the silence that followed, Jacen heard Thrackan say, "Open fire."

The rear rank of CorSec agents opened up with their blaster rifles. Each was set to full automatic fire and they filled the air with blaster shots.

Jacen went into a full evasive mode—running, leaping, dodging, spinning his lightsaber in a defensive shield that intercepted shot after shot.

It wasn't enough. He felt a burn against his left calf as a blaster shot grazed it. Another shot, almost as close, tugged at his right sleeve and left a char-lined hole in it.

He leapt up and back, cartwheeling, and as he cleared the zone of heaviest fire, before the security agents could adjust their aim, he reached against the ceiling with the Force. He yanked against that simple, immobile metal surface for all he was worth.

It came free, yielding to his pull. As he landed, a huge sheet of metal ceiling tore free from its housing almost directly overhead and crashed to the floor a mere two meters ahead of him. The far end of the same sheet remained adhered to the housing above, so what Jacen faced was a crude ramp leading upward—and acting as an angled shield between him and the blaster line.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

Jacen duels a Force Phantom of Luke Skywalker, unknown to him that Lumiya was connecting the two men with the dark side and that Jacen was dueling the actual Luke Skywalker who was back on Coruscant. Jacen holds his own despite him fighting in a no gravity environment but would have ultimately lost if Lumiya didn't end the projection:

The reflection of the Sith's gold-orange eyes disappeared—and then the Sith himself vanished, ghost-like.

But there was a sound from beyond where he had stood, a slight scrape, and another figure moved forward into view. This one walked, as the Sith had, in a fashion appropriate for a standard-gravity environment, and stepped out to stand where the Sith had stood.

He was not tall, but he was well muscled and agile. He wore black pants, tunic, boots, and gloves, and held an unlit lightsaber.

His features were those of Luke Skywalker, but rakishly bearded and twisted into a grin that was all malice and scorn.

"Not nice," Jacen said.

—

Luke felt a presence, the arrival of someone strong in the Force. He opened his eyes.

Hovering over the floor in front of him, meters from him, was his nephew and onetime prize pupil, Jacen, lightsaber lit in his hand. Except it was not truly Jacen; whoever it was reeked of dark side energy, and his stare promised only malevolence. "Not nice," the false Jacen said.

Luke rose. "Who are you, really?"

The not-Jacen snorted. "You barely exist. You don't need to know." He took an odd, gliding step forward—it was only the slightest of exertions, but he floated meters toward Luke.

Luke lit his lightsaber.

The not-Jacen struck, a fast, powerful lateral blow that Luke met with little effort, without conscious thought. Not-Jacen's blade was immediately in guard position for an anticipated counterstrike, but Luke held back. Oddly, the force of the impact sent his opponent floating backward. Not-Jacen drifted until he hit the corridor wall, which checked his motion, and he floated gently to the floor.

Then Luke heard the humming and chattering of lightsabers in conflict. The muffled noise was coming from his own quarters.

—

The Not-Jacen came at Luke again and again, making prodigious leaps, bounding from wall to wall, from ceiling to floor, as if immune to gravity. With each pass he hurled one, two, three lightsaber blows at Luke, striking again and again until, thrown back by the impacts, he was too far away to engage.

Luke countered every blow and pitched attacks of his own. He felt the skin of his left forearm pucker a little from the heat of a near hit, saw the Not-Jacen's robes catch fire just under the right armpit from an especially close thrust of Luke's . . . but Not-Jacen patted the flames out and merely grinned at him.

Not-Jacen seized a ceiling glow rod fixture and hung there as though his weight were nothing. "You're just about as good as my true Master," Not-Jacen said.

Luke gave him a quizzical look. "And who is that?"

"You know," Not-Jacen said. "By the way, you'd look good with a beard."

"You think so?" Luke ran his free hand over his clean-shaven chin. "Well, I'm not sure what our disagreement is, but perhaps it could be settled by talking."

"I try not to negotiate with phantoms, with things that don't exist. Better to just cut them in half and watch them disappear." Not-Jacen kicked off from the wall and flew forward again.

—

Jacen seized a rock outcropping and held it, keeping him from dropping once more toward the man with the face of Luke Skywalker. "You're just about as good as my true Master," Jacen said. And it was true—the phantom he fought had the speed and moves of a Jedi Master. He'd be a fair match for Luke.

The bearded man gave him a mocking look. "And who is that?"

"You know," Jacen said. "By the way, you look good with a beard."

"You think so?" His opponent stroked his facial hair. "Well, I'm not sure what our disagreement is, but perhaps it could be settled by talking."

Jacen considered that. This combat was not just pointless, being carried out at someone else's wish for someone else's ends, but also dangerous—the false Luke was potentially good enough to kill Jacen.

Still, the false Luke reeked of the dark side of the Force. There could be no enduring benefit in cooperating with him. Could there? For a moment Jacen was confused, weighing the preponderance of Jedi history and claims about dark-siders against his own limited experience.

But he decided in favor of history and tradition. "I try not to negotiate with phantoms, with things that don't exist. Better to just cut them in half and watch them disappear." Jacen kicked off from the wall and flew forward again.

He knew that this solidly planted, gravitationally advantaged Luke had adapted to Jacen's low-gravity tactics, so he altered them—the instant he touched down before the false Luke, he planted his feet and used the Force to brace him there, then threw a flurry of hard blows.

It was no use. The false Luke adapted instantly to his change in tactics, reverting to a softer, defensive stlye, turning away each of Jacen's all-out attacks. And he did so grinning, silently mocking.

Then false Luke, instead of countering Jacen's fifth blow in sequence, sidestepped it, luring Jacen forward and off-balance. Luke's counterstrike whipped around and down toward Jacen's unprotected back—

"Enough," Brisha said, and the false Luke vanished. Jacen, straightening, still felt a tremor of pain from the area where the blow would have landed, and looked down to see a portion of his robe, a long black mark, on fire. He patted it out and looked up at Brisha. "Who was that, really?"

She shrugged. "A combination of the real Luke Skywalker and the dark side energy of this place. A combination that would have beaten you, since you weren't utilizing the same energy, the resources available to you."

Source: Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

Jacen fights off the assassin and Jedi killer Aurra Sing. Aurra began the fight by throwing a thermal detonator towards Allana's room and forcing Jacen to pull it toward him with the Force, which gave her the chance to attack and knock him back over a couch. She then leaps over to kill him with her lightsaber but he blocks it and manages to keep it blocked just before his eyes. In this position, Jacen takes five kicks to his side, the last one landing near his kidney, all while Aurra had a small blade extended from her boot. Jacen then Force Pushes her off and is about to blast her with Force Lightning when Allana appears and causes Jacen to stop his attack because he doesn't want her to see him using the dark side. Aurra uses this opening to attack as Jacen tries to set up a feint. When he dodges over and around her lightsaber, she reverses it almost too fast for him to catch and maneuver her hand and blade against herself. He then dislocates her knee with a kick and the two start a grapple as she falls to the ground, but Jacen has to worry about Allana as she starts walking toward Aurra intending to help. Jacen manages to twist Aurra away and prevent her bladed kick from slashing Allana and then the fight ends when Allana injects a vial of poison into Aurra's leg:

Sing stood with her back to Jacen, about five paces beyond the droid, on the other side of a smoldering couch. In one hand, she held her still-ignited lightsaber. In the other was a class-C thermal detonator with a disintegration radius large enough to kill herself, Jacen, Allana, and probably half the personnel on the decks directly above and below.

As Jacen started toward her, she looked over her shoulder with an expression in her pale eyes that seemed equal parts hatred and awe.

"Don't ever touch me like that again."

Jacen did not reply. Sing was still struggling to free herself of his domination, and all his concentration was focused on keeping the pressure on until he drew close enough to strike.

Sing flashed him a cold smile. "But then, I don't think you'll have the chance."

Her thumb twitched.

The activation light on the thermal detonator began to blink, and that was enough to shatter Jacen's concentration. He felt Sing slip free, and suddenly he was completely outside her mind, watching in horror as she pitched the detonator toward the refresher where Allana was hiding.

Jacen's heart dropped through the bottom of his stomach. His arm shot out without conscious thought, and the detonator floated into his hand almost before he realized he had summoned it.

Sing was already whirling, leaping toward him with her crimson blade coming around at neck height. Jacen brought his lightsaber up automatically and blocked, then pulled the detonator's thumb slide back.

He never saw whether the activation light darkened. Suddenly Sing's knee was sinking into his stomach, driving the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling over a couch. The detonator clattered to the floor somewhere in the galley. He came down on a beverage table, smashing it apart, then Sing was over him, her crimson blade arcing down.

Jacen whipped his lightsaber around to block, catching her blade about halfway up the shaft and filling the air with a sizzling shower of sparks. Sing grabbed her hilt with both hands and began to push, slowly driving the tip of her lightsaber down toward his eye.

The glow was as blinding as the heat was searing, and Jacen's vision blossomed into a fiery red blur. He brought his free hand up to brace his weapon arm and tried not to worry about whether his eyeball would melt, not daring to turn his head or even look away for fear that he would slip.

Sing kicked him in the side. The tip of a small, wedge-shaped blade scraped against his ribs and sent a blazing bolt of pain shooting into his body.

"Never—" She kicked him again, sending another bolt of pain deep into his stomach. "—violate—"

She kicked again.

"—my—" Another kick, more pain. "—mind!"

Sing kicked again, this time catching him near a kidney. A wave of fiery anguish rolled through his body, stealing his breath, so hot he could not even scream. The pain would have paralyzed anyone else, left him on the floor praying to die before he drew his next breath.

But pain was an old friend of Jacen's. He had learned to embrace it during his imprisonment among the Yuuzhan Vong, and now it no longer troubled him. Now it served him.

He turned the palm of his bracing hand toward Sing and pushed with the Force.

The move did not surprise her as much as he had hoped. As she flew away, Sing rolled the tip of her blade over his, and his lightsaber went flying. He held his Force shove until he heard her thud into the wall opposite, then sprang to his feet.

A fiery blur continued to blind one eye, and his sight in the other was still splashed with crimson blotches. But he could see clearly enough to be worried. Sing had landed near the refresher where Allana was hiding—close enough to fulfill her contract, if she was willing to risk Jacen attacking her from behind.

Jacen did not give her that chance. He opened himself fully to his fear and anger, using the power of his emotions to bring the Force flooding into him, and his body began to crackle and burn with dark energy. He raised his arms in Sing's direction, hands held level and fingers splayed wide.

That was when the door to the refresher hissed open, and a pair of small gray eyes peered out. They were wide open and locked on Jacen with an expression that might have been awe or fear or both.

"No, Allana!" Jacen could not bring himself to release the Force lightning while she was watching; even if Tenel Ka had not yet taught her that the dark side was evil, his own childhood training remained strongly enough ingrained that he did not want his daughter to see him using it. "Close the . . . "

Jacen had to let the order trail off when Sing took advantage of his hesitation to leap at him. Allana screamed from inside the refresher, then Sing was three paces away, lightsaber coming in for a midbody strike. Jacen lifted one foot as though to pivot away, and Sing took the bait and stopped, dropping one leg back as she continued her swing.

Instead of spinning past as he feinted, Jacen cartwheeled over her blade ad came down on the other side. Sing reversed her attack so fast he barely had time to grab her wrist, much less turn her own weapon against her as he had intended.

So Jacen kicked her in the knee as hard as he could.

The joint dislocated with a sickening pop, and Sing collapsed to the floor shrieking. But she did not release her lightsaber. She did not even stop fighting, rolling into him in an effort to break his grasp and slash him open. Jacen started to pivot out of the way, intending to bring her arm around for a clean break behind her back.

But Allana suddenly appeared on the other side of Sing, charging forward with her dark brows lowered and what looked like a small recording rod clutched in her hands.

"Allana, no!"

Allana kept coming.

Determined to keep Sing from striking out at his daughter with any of her weapons, Jacen Force-leapt backward, dragging the assassin away from his daughter. Allana took two more steps and raised the silver rod over her head . . . then dived.

Sing raised her uninjured leg, cocking her foot to kick Allana with the stubby knife in the toe of her boot.

Jacen screamed and whipped Sing's arm around, twisting her away from his daughter. Her lightsaber flashed by so close he nearly lost an ear, but the assassin's legs spun around with her body, and the kick-knife flashed past half a meter above Allana's head.

Allana landed on Sing's other leg and jammed the silver rod into her injured knee. The hiss of an autoinjector sounded from its tip, and Sing cried out in astonishment.

"You little shrew!"

Sing drew her leg back again to kick . . . then let it drop to the floor. Her eyes widened in anger—or perhaps it was fear. She craned her neck around, staring at Allana, and began to convulse. Jacen quickly pulled Sing's lightsaber from her unresisting hand, then held the still-ignited tip to the assassin's neck.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Tempest

Jacen fights and defeats Mara Jade Skywalker in a grueling fight. Mara realized that Jacen had taken a turn towards the dark side and decided to devote herself fully to killing him. Mara lured Jacen into a set of tunnels that would prevent him from using all of his Force powers, started the fight by crashing into his knee and tearing the tendons in it, and then collapsed a small tunnel on Jacen's head before engaging in close quarters with a shoto and a vibroblade. Despite this, Jacen is able to endure the injuries, fight through the blood loss, and prevent Mara from doing anything more than stabbing his shoulder with her shoto before using an illusion technique to show her Ben's face, allowing him to stab her with a poison dart to end the fight:

As he tries to track down his Sith mentor, he instead tangles with Mara in a confrontation in the caves of Kavan. As Mara and Jacen duel, Ben forces the meditation sphere to land to apprehend Lumiya.

The duel between Jacen and Mara is an exhausting, no-limits display of acrobatics and Force power. Mara comes to truly comprehend how far Jacen has fallen to the dark side. Jacen uses the Force to distract Mara with a vision of Ben before closing in to stab her with a poison dart. The fast-acting toxin kills Mara, and her death reverberates through the Force, hitting Luke and Ben as if it were a physical blow.

Source: The Essential Reader's Companion

.

She grabbed her bag and everything from the cockpit that could be used as a weapon, then found some cover while she consulted her datapad for charts and surveys of Kavan. It was honeycombed with ruined monuments and tunnels. Fine. If I get him in a confined space, he can't use all his Force skills, but I can make the most of what I've got. She decided to make her way into the maze of buried passages and get Jacen to follow her.

[...]

Jacen loaded four poisoned darts into an adapted blaster and slipped the others into slots on his belt, wondering how he could think such things so calmly. He approached the tunnel mouth with slow care. While he could sense the layout, Mara had vanished from the Force again. There was about a meter of headroom as he edged carefully along the central tunnel, and he could see horizontal shafts at about hip height branching off. It had been built to drain storm water; in harsh winters, local Kavani had once made emergency homes down here.

Jacen stood and listened.

"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.

[...]

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 legs and telling himself 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.

From here, the vaulted ceiling became lower, and even Mara had to run at a crouch. It wasn't the place to swing a standard lightsaber. The tunnels were in poor condition, and the brick arches were starting to sag and collapse in places.

So he wouldn't oblige her by revealing his physical position in the Force. Fine. She spotted a rusty metal sheet about half a meter wide and laid it carefully across the tunnel floor, propped on stones so he'd tread on it and give her an audible warning when he reached that point. An intense Force shake of the brickwork and arches in front of and behind the metal plate weakened them, and then she stopped them from collapsing by Force pressure.

Hold 'em up. Wait for him to hit that plate . . .

Going after Jacen would never work. He could never be allowed to set the agenda. He could come after her.

Trap, immobilize, kill.

It wasn't pretty, and it wouldn't capture the public's imagination like a lightsaber display at the academy, but her training was in destruction. Jacen's was in deception.

She could hear him breathing, and the irregular vzzzm-vzzzm-vzzzm of his lightsaber as he stalked, jumping and turning to be sure she wasn't behind him. Then she could hear that he wasn't swinging the blade so much; the short staccato hums and buzzes told her he was running out of room.

She was trapped too, of course, unless she counted the ventilation shafts every fifty meters. But when she said she was leaving here over his dead body, she meant it.

She felt the beginning of a compassionate human thought about Leia, but killed it stone-dead. It would weaken her.

Jacen's boots crunched over bricks. He was impatient. She was in his way, holding him up when he wanted to get on with something.

Crunch . . . crunch . . . crunch.

If she'd timed it right, he was close to stepping on that rusty plate.

Clang . . .

The rumbling began. She brought down both sections of tunnel, before and behind, with a massive exertion in the Force that made her breathless. She didn't hear him call out. Even in the damp conditions, clouds of fine debris filled the air and made her choke.

Mara waited, one hand over her mouth and nose, shoto drawn, and listened in the Force.

There was whimpering and the chunk-chunk sound of the last falling bricks. She didn't expect that weight of debris from a low ceiling to cause impact injury, but to engulf and immobilize him. He wouldn't be dead—yet.

She waited in silence, a nonexistent presence herself, until she could hear no more movement.

Okay. Let's see what I have to do to end this.

An arm was all that protruded from the rubble. Through a fist-sized gap, she could see the wet, blinking glint of an eye and bloodstained face. A hand reached out to her, fingers splayed, bloody and shaking. Other people might have felt an urge to take that hand, the most distinctively human of things, but it was an old, tired Sith stunt, and she'd used it herself too many times.

She took her blaster and leveled it at the eye, one-handed, forefinger resting on the trigger. She had the shoto ready in case a coup de grace was called for.

She felt as detached and steady as she'd ever been as the Emperor's Hand.

"Tell my mom I'm sorry I failed her," Jacen whispered.

"She knows," Mara said, and squeezed the trigger.

—

They said that the human body was capable of extraordinary feats of strength when in extremis. For a Jedi, it was something else entirely.

Jacen Solo wasn't ready to die, not now, not so close to his ascendance, and not in a stinking drain like vermin.

He deflected the energy bolt with one last surge of the Force and sent the rubble erupting off his crushed and bleeding body like a detonation. Bricks hammered the walls and rained fragments, knocking Mara flat like a bomb blast. She made an animal noise that was more anger than pain and flailed for a moment as she tried to get up.

The effort froze Jacen for two vital seconds. But he knew if he didn't get up now and fight back, Mara would come in for the kill, again and again, until he was worn down and too weak to fend her off.

He scrambled to his feet, staggering more than standing, and suddenly understood.

It was Mara who had to die to fulfill his destiny.

Killing her was the test: the words of the prophecy were meaningless, and at a visceral level he knew that her death was the pivotal act. He didn't know how, and this wasn't the time to stop and think about it. He surrendered totally to instinct for the first time in ages. Whatever guided a Sith's hand had to guide him now.

But he was hurt, and badly.

Ben . . . he didn't know where Ben fitted into this, but now he knew he did, as surely as he knew anything. Jacen didn't care, because he knew he had to kill Mara now and nothing else would make sense until he did that.

He fumbled for his lightsaber and thumbed it into life again. Mara was already back on her feet, coming at him with the shoto and vibroblade, brick dust and black-red blood snaking down her forehead from a scalp cut. She leapt at him with the shoto held left-handed, fencing-style, seared the angle of his cheekbone, and caught him under the tip of his chin with the vibroblade as he jerked back.

She shouldn't have been able to get near him. He had total mastery, and she was just athletic and fast. He pushed back at her in the Force, sending her crashing against a wall with a loud grunt, but she kept coming at him, one-two, one-two with the shoto and the blade, and he was being driven back, his strength ebbing. He needed space to fight.

He drew his dart gun and fired one after the other, but Mara scattered all four needles in a blur of blue light. They fell to the ground. He turned and scrambled through the collapsed brick, using the Force to hurl debris up at her from the floor of the passage while she leapt from block to boulder to chunk of masonry, until she Force-leapt onto his back and brought him down.

They rolled. This wasn't a duel: it was a brawl. She thrust her vibroblade up under his chin and her jerked his head to one side, feeling the tip skate from his jaw to his hairline as it missed his jugular. He couldn't draw the weapons he needed. He was losing blood, losing strength, waning, flailing his lightsaber to fend her off. It was almost useless in such a close quarters struggle. Mara, manic and panting, flicked the shoto to counter every desperate stabbing thrust.

"Ben . . . I'll see you dead first . . . before . . . you get . . . Ben."

Jacen was on the knife-edge between dying and killing. They grappled, Force-pushed, Force-crushed: he threw her back again, trying to Force-jolt her spine and paralyze her for a moment, but somehow she deflected it and bricks flew out of the wall as if someone had punched them through from the other side. She almost Force-snatched the lightsaber from his hand, but even with his injuries he hung on to it. He wouldn't die. He couldn't, not now.

"You can't beat me," he gasped. "It's not meant to be."

"Really?" Mara snarled. "I say it is."

Then she launched herself at him—unthinking, a wild woman, hair flying—and he Force-pushed to send her slamming against a pillar in midleap. But the battering he'd taken and the ferocity of her relentless attack had blinded him to danger from another quarter. As he lurched backward to avoid her, his legs went from under him and he stumbled into a gaping crack opened up by the subsidence. He fell badly: red-hot pain seared from ankle to knee. His lightsaber went flying. Pain could be ignored, but the moment it took him to get to his feet again was enough for Mara to right herself and come back at him with the shoto and plunge it into the soft tissue just under the end of his collarbone.

Lightsaber wounds hurt a lot more than he ever imagined. Jacen screamed. He summoned his own weapon back to his hand and Mara crashed into him, knocking him flat again and pinning him down. Her vibroblade stopped a hand span from his throat as he managed to grab her hair and drag her face nearer and nearer to his lightsaber. She struggled to pull back, hacking at him with the shoto but blocked by his dwindling Force power each time.

Her vibroblade grazed his neck. He fumbled in his belt for a dart. She jerked back with a massive effort, leaving him clutching a handful of red hair, and the only thing that crossed his mind as she arched her back and held her arms high to bring both shoto and vibroblade down into his chest was that she would never, ever harm Ben.

Jacen stared into her eyes and instantly created the illusion of Ben's face beneath her. She blinked.

It gave him the edge for that fraction of a moment. It was long enough to ram the poison dart into her leg with its protective plastoid cone still in place.

It was just a small needle, ten centimeters long. He stabbed her so hard that the sharp end punched through the cone and the fabric of her pants.

Mara gasped and looked down at her leg as if she was puzzled rather than hurt. The dart quivered as she moved, and then fell to the floor.

"Oh . . . it's done . . . " Jacen said. The shoto fell from her hand and she made a vague and uncontrolled pawing movement with the vibroblade. It caught him in the bicep, but there was no strength behind the blow, and she dropped the weapon. "I'm sorry, Mara. Had to be you. Thought it was Ben. But it's over now, it's over . . . "

Source: Legacy of the Force - Sacrifice

Caedus fights Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker and although he admits that he lost the fight, he put up a tremendous effort and severely injured Luke throughout. The fight begins with Caedus being knicked by Luke's lightsaber in his kidney that would have paralyzed any normal human with the amount of pain it caused but Caedus kept grueling and fighting for several minutes after that with the fight ending with Ben Skywalker stabbing Caedus in the back with a vibroblade.

Jacen pointed at a vibrodagger lying on the deck, about two meters in front of Ben. Luke didn't know what it was doing there—whether Ben had attacked Jacen with it, or whether Jacen had been using it on Ben—but he started to accept that the horrible scene was real. He was, in fact, standing in the doorway of a secret cabin filled with Yuuzhan Vong torture devices, watching his twisted nephew taunt his captive son.

Luke didn't give Jacen a chance to surrender. He just sprang.

Ben's jaw dropped, and Jacen started to spin, snatching his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it in the same motion, bringing the emerald blade around high to protect his heart and head.

But Luke was attacking low, striking for the kidney to disable in the most painful way possible. Jacen's eyes widened. He flipped his lightsaber down in the same moment Luke's met flesh.

The tip sank a few centimeters, drawing a pained hiss as it touched a kidney, then Jacen's blade made contact and knocked it aside. Even that small wound would have left most humans paralyzed with agony. But Jacen thrived on pain, fed on it to make himself stronger and faster. He simply completed his pivot and landed a rib-crunching round-house.

Luke stumbled back, his chest filled with fire. Jacen had caught him on the barely healed scar from his first fight with Lumiya, and now his breath was coming in short painful gasps.

Good, Luke thought. This was supposed to hurt.

Jacen followed the kick with a high slash. Luke blocked and spun inside, landing an elbow smash to the temple that dropped Jacen to his knees. He brought his own knee up under Jacen's chin, hearing teeth crack—and relishing it. He parried a weak slash at his thighs, then drew his blade up diagonally where his nephew's chest should have been.

Except Jacen was sliding backward, one hand extended behind him, using the Force to pull himself toward a tendril-draped rack in the far corner of the torture chamber. Luke leapt after him, bringing his lightsaber around in a low, clearing sweep.

Jacen stopped pulling and started to swing his free hand around. Luke was ready, had been expecting this since the fight started. Still flying though the air, he raised his own hand, palm outward, and pushed the Force out through his arm to form a protective shield.

The lightning never came. Instead, Luke was blindsided by something heavy and spiky, and his body exploded into pain as he slammed into a durasteel wall. He found himself pinned in place, trapped by a bed of thorns Jacen had hurled across the cabin. He felt the hot sting of the thorns pumping their venom into him. His hearing faded and his head began to spin, and he saw Jacen, one hand still raised to keep Luke pinned, sneering and taking his time rising.

Bad mistake.

Luke raised his lightsaber, slashing through the thorn bed as he sprang. Jacen scrambled to his feet, barely bringing his weapon up in time to block a vicious downstroke. Luke landed a snap-kick to the stomach that lifted Jacen a meter off the deck, then followed it with a slash to the neck—

—which Jacen ducked. He came up under Luke's guard, holding his weapon with one hand and driving a Force-enhanced punch into Luke's ribs with the other, striking for the same place he had kicked earlier. Luke's chest exploded into pain, and he found himself croaking instead of breathing.

Luke struck again with his lightsaber, using both hands and putting all his strength into the attack, beating his nephew's guard down so far that Jacen emerald blade bit into his own shoulder. Jacen kicked at Luke's legs, catching the side of a knee. Something popped and Luke felt himself going down. On the way, he swept his blade horizontally.

Jacen screamed, and the smell of scorched bone and singed hair filled the air. Knowing Jacen would strike despite the wound, Luke rolled over his throbbing knee and spun back to his feet with a clearing sweep.

His blade met Jacen's in a shower of brilliant sparks. Luke freed one hand and drove a finger-strike at Jacen's eyes.

Jacen turned his head, but Luke's little finger scratched across something soft and bulbous. Jacen roared and stumbled away, shaking his head. Luke feinted a dash toward his nephew's blind side, then—as Jacen pivoted to protect his injured eye—Luke hit him with a Force wave.

Jacen went flying, and it required only a soft nudge to steer him into a tendril-draped rack in the far corner. He hit with so much cracking and crashing that Luke worried the rack had broken, but the thin tendrils quickly entwined Jacen in a net of pulsing green.

Luke started forward, his injured knee buckling each time he put weight on it. The rack's slender tendrils were tightening around Jacen, cutting into his flesh and oozing a yellowish irritant that made skin puff up and split. Jacen began to slash his lightsaber up and down, cutting the vines away two and three at a time. If Luke wanted to finish this—and it seemed like a good idea, given how battered he was himself—he had only a few seconds.

Luke closed to within two meters without saying a word. What point would there have been? Jacen wasn't going to surrender, and Luke wouldn't have believed him if he offered. It was better to attack quickly, while he still had the advantage. He brought his lightsaber up to strike.

"Wait!" Ben cried from behind him. "Let me do it!"

Astonished and appalled, Luke put a little too much weight on his injured knee—and fell as it buckled. He rolled beyond the reach of Jacen's lightsaber and looked back across the chamber.

[...]

Giving his son no further chance to argue, Luke turned back to Jacen, who by now was almost free. Only one leg remained caught, though it was still entwined in a half a dozen places. Luke limped forward, circling toward Jacen's trapped side.

Jacen stopped cutting at the tendrils and flung a hand toward the ceiling.

"Dad, look—"

Luke was already throwing himself to the deck. A tremendous crash sounded from the illumination panel, and the chamber fell instantly dark. He rolled opposite the direction he had just been moving, but wasn't quick enough. The fixture smashed into his head and shoulders, slamming his face into the deck. He heard something crunch in his nose and was instantly choking on his own thick blood.

Jacen's lightsaber droned twice, filling that corner of the torture chamber with flickering green light. Luke Force-hurled the light fixture off his back, then hobbled to his feet.

Jacen launched himself over Luke in a high Force flip. They exchanged perfunctory attacks as he tumbled past, then Luke was alone in the corner, watching the green column of his nephew's lightsaber move toward the door.

Jacen was running.

Luke spat a mouthful of blood and Force-leapt after his nephew, at the same time reaching out to drag him back. They came together in a blinding flurry of sparks, their blades colliding faster than the eye could follow, filling the dark chamber with flashing fans of color. Blows came out of nowhere. Luke caught another kick in his knee and found himself calling on the Force to keep his balance. He landed an elbow and felt a bone in Jacen's face shatter.

Jacen stumbled back, groaning, the green light of his lightsaber briefly illuminating Ben's face as the boy struggled to cut himself free. Luke pressed forward, angling toward the Embrace to keep Jacen away from Ben. Jacen fought his way over anyway, placing himself squarely between Luke and the chair, then gave ground and vanished behind the green ribbons his lightsaber was weaving through the darkness.

Luke Force-leapt after him, knowing that this Jacen—the Jacen he had caught torturing his son—would not hesitate to take Ben hostage . . . or to kill him. Luke landed half a meter in front of Jacen's lightsaber and quickly beat down his nephew's guard—too quickly. When he did not glimpse a face in the light of his own blade, Luke knew something was wrong and stopped.

Which was exactly what Jacen was waiting for, of course.

Luke had barely started to turn before a loop of thin tendril slipped over his head and tightened around his throat, oozing toxin and cutting deep into the flesh. The wound swelled and burned as if it were on fire. Luke whipped his lightsaber around, trying to cut Jacen off his back, but Jacen was already spinning away, tightening his garrote and placing Luke's body between himself and the deadly blade.

"Should have let me go when you had the chance," Jacen snarled. "Now you're done."

Luke slammed an elbow into Jacen's ribs, but it was like hitting a permacrete wall. Instead of continuing to fight, he accelerated into the spin, using the Force to hurl them both into the nearest wall.

Jacen hit first, his skull clunking hard into the durasteel. The garrote loosened a little. Luke dropped his lightsaber, bracing one hand against the other so he could use the strength of both arms to hammer his elbow up under Jacen's chin.

The garrote went completely slack. Luke followed up with a palm-heel to the same target, using the impact to drive himself away from his attacker and buy some maneuvering room.

Then Jacen let out a bloodcurdling scream and stumbled away, a black silhouette vanishing into the darkness of the torture chamber.

Luke stepped back in shock and confusion, summoning his lightsaber to hand, but knowing by the surprise in Jacen's scream that this was not another trick.

"It's okay, Dad," Ben said from beside him. "It's just me."

Ben took the glow rod from Luke's belt and activated it. Jacen was crawling across the torture chamber, the hilt of a vibrodagger protruding from between his shoulder blades. His face was inflamed and misshapen, his clothes were smoking and tattered, a hand-sized rectangle of scorched skull showed through his scalp, and still he was stretching a hand toward his lightsaber.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Inferno

The fight between the two men was the most terrible lightsaber duel of Caedus's life and had been a brilliant demonstration of lightsaber technique and Force skills:

Mere days before, he had waged the most ferocious, most terrible lightsaber duel of his life. In a secret chamber aboard his Star Destroyer, the Anakin Solo, he had been torturing Ben Skywalker to harden the young man's spirit, to better prepare Ben for life as a Sith. But he had been caught by Ben's father, Luke Skywalker.

That fight . . . Caedus wished he had a holorecording of it. It had gone on for what had felt like forever. It had been brutal, with the advantage being held first by Luke, then by Caedus, in what he knew had been brilliant demonstrations of lightsaber technique, of raw power within the Force, of subtle Jedi and Sith skills. For all his pain, Caedus felt a swelling of pride—not just that he had survived that duel, but that he had waged it so well.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Fury

The injuries Caedus sustained during this fight were: a lightsaber cut a few centimeters into his kidney; an elbow to his temple; a knee to his chin that resulted in a "teeth crack" sound; a kick to the stomach that lifted him a meter off the ground; a lightsaber burn to his shoulder; a hand-sized rectangle of skin burned off his skull from Luke's lightsaber; a little finger scratching his eye; Force pushed into a rack that wrapped him up in tendrils that cut into his flesh and oozed a yellowish irritant that made his skin puff up and split; an elbow to the face that shattered a bone; launched backwards and slammed his skull into a metal wall; elbowed under the chin with the strength of both Luke's arms; struck with a palm strike; and finally stabbed between the shoulder blades with a vibrodagger. Here's Caedus after the fight:

The air in the forward infirmary reeked of bacta salve and scorched flesh, and casualties were jammed three and four to a bay. Yet Caedus had an entire corner to himself—and not because his injuries warranted it. He had only a few broken bones and some damaged organs.

[...]

Jacen slipped off the gurney—then groaned in shock as the small impact of landing on the deck sent halos of pain radiating out from his two back wounds. His knees buckled, and he would have fallen if the MD droid's hand hadn't shot out to hold him up.

"In your condition, standing is out of the question," the droid informed him. "Even if the swelling in your brain doesn't destroy your balance, you have burn damage to your kidney and a perforation in your lung. You're simply too weak."

Source: Legacy of the Force - Inferno

The injuries Luke sustained during this fight were: a rib-crunching roundhouse that filled Luke's chest with fire and caused painful gasps; slammed by a bed of thorns and spikes and pinned against a metal wall where the thorns pumped venom into him, causing his hearing to fade and his head to spin; Force-punched in the ribs in the same spot he was kicked making his chest "explode" with pain and causing him to croak instead of breath; a kick to the side of the knee that caused something to pop and almost made Luke fall down and buckled every time he put weight on it; has an illumination panel dropped onto his head and shoulders, slamming his head to the ground and causing his nose to "crunch" and make Luke choke on his blood; a second kick to the knee that needed him to use the Force to stay upright; have a tendril wrap around his throat like a garrote, oozing toxin and cutting into his flesh which caused the wound to burn as if it was on fire. Here's Luke after the fight:

"There may also have been some Force pressure involved," Luke added from the end of the table. With a bruised face, two black eyes, and half a dozen casts and bandages not quite hidden beneath his cloak, he looked like he had actually taken the beating that Leia and Jaina had threatened to give him if he ever faked his death again.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Inferno

.

"Right," Luke answered. "I stay as close as I can to the future we're seeing without actually fighting Caedus -- at least, not physically."

"I must say, that seems quite wise," C-3PO said. "The last time you two fought, you were forced to spend your nights in a bacta tank for an entire week."

Source: Legacy of the Force - Invincible

Despite everything though, Caedus fully admits that Luke defeated him:

Luke had beaten him. Luke had just kept coming despite his injuries. He had inflicted more damage on Caedus than he had suffered himself, and he had even escaped the garrote before Ben struck. In fact, it was probably that attack that had saved Caedus's life. Nothing else could have shocked Luke out of his battle rage—only the sight of Ben slipping so far to the dark side.

It was a memory that both frightened Caedus and burned his pride, but it was one that he would have to contemplate at length. Now he knew what to expect when Luke discovered who really killed Mara—and when Luke came after him next time, Caedus would be ready.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Inferno

Caedus fights a Jedi striketeam of legendary Jedi Battle Master Kyle Katarn and three Jedi Knights, Valin Horn, Thann Mithric, and Kolir Hu'lya. Caedus immediately knows that the three Knights are no match for him and although he describes Katarn as a threat, he is able to easily keep the Jedi team from doing any sort of damage to him despite them being extremely coordinated. After only a few moments, Caedus is able to use the Force to pull a GAG speeder down onto Katarn before stabbing him with his lightsaber and injuring Hu'lya in the process. However, he still hadn't completely recovered from his fight with Luke Skywalker (listed above) and begins to falter under the constant and rage-filled assault of Mithric. At this time, a few of the GAG snipers were starting to recover and fire on the Jedi with their snipers, but Horn was able to use this to his advantage as he then deflected the bolts towards Jacen, the first striking him in the leg. This forced Caedus to divert his attention between the deflected blaster bolts and the mad Jedi beating down his defenses, but even this he was able to turn to his advantage. Caedus waited until the opportune moment and in the same instance, blocked a lightsaber strike from Mithric as well as deflected a blaster bolt at the Jedi, striking him in the chest. This allowed Caedus to decapitate the Jedi and effectively ended the fight, forcing Horn to retreat after the injured Hu'lya:

Finally he detected more than just telekinetic pushes; he felt presences as his enemies drew on Force abilities. He felt them rush toward him, caught sight of them as they entered the glow of lights from the front of the Senate Building—four Jedi, Master Kyle Katarn foremost among them.

Katarn ignited his lightsaber as he came to a stop a few meters away. "Care to surrender, Colonel Solo?"

"Not to a traitor." Caedus looked at the other three as their Force-augmented sprints came to an end, leaving them in a semicircle before him. Three Jedi Knights: the younger Horn, the Falleen Mithric, the Bothan Hu'lya. He resisted the urge to snort. Separately or collectively, these Jedi Knights were no match for him.

Katarn, though, was a threat. Still, the Jedi had only moments before GA reinforcements would arrive. Their attack was already a failure.

He sensed Katarn's attack, threw up his blade in a block so well practiced that his muscle memory could have performed it while he slept. With his free hand, he gestured at the Bothan Jedi. She was suddenly airborne, hurtling side ways to slam into the Falleen, knocking them both down.

Katarn's blade struck his, rebounded with a snap-hiss, and came around from the other side as the Jedi Master executed a lightning-fast spin. Caedus stepped back from it, not engaging the blade. He watched the blade flash harmlessly past him.

He stepped forward again into a side kick, aimed not at Katarn but at the onrushing Valin Horn. His boot heel caught the Jedi Knight on the point of his chin, knocking Horn backward off his feet.

Two seconds had passed since the attack began.

—

Only Seha's head protruded from the pavement hatch as she watched her four companions assault Colonel Solo.

In one sense, it was a beautiful and brilliant thing to see. The five combatants moved as though they'd been choreographing this event for years and had planned, all along, that the two sides would somehow be even. Each time the lightsabers came together, the resulting flash of light, slightly greater than two glows by themselves, cast the five combatants into relief. Around them, blinded GAG troopers withdrew, finding one another by touch, keeping their blasters up and at the ready, waiting for the moment when their sight would return and allow them to open fire.

—

Ten seconds.

Caedus rolled out of Katarn's kick to his head, catching a scrape along his cheek, and swung at the Master's leg, but Kolir's blade intercepted his before it bit into flesh. His strength batted her weapon away, but she had deflected his blow and spared Katarn an amputation.

They're coordinating. Good for them. Bad for me.

Caedus heard a siren—an oncoming GAG vehicle. No, two—maybe three.

He allowed himself a certain satisfaction at their speed of response. He hadn't expected anything of the sort for another half minute.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the first oncoming vehicle, an aging Sentinel-class armored shuttle. It was yellow, with spots of rust. He could not make out its markings without looking at it, but he knew it was not in GAG or Alliance colors. Entering airspace above the plaza, it began a dangerously steep and fast repulsorlift descent. Behind it came three GAG airspeeders, one of them firing a top-mounted laser at the shuttle.

Ah. So they were not responding with brilliant speed to an alarm. They were chasing the Jedi escape vehicle. Caedus swung at Horn, a blow meant not to connect but to cause the young Jedi to flinch away into the path of the Falleen, which he did. While they were interfering with each other, Caedus gestured at the Bothan Jedi, hurling her toward Katarn.

Katarn hurled his lightsaber off to the side and caught Hu'lya with both hands, preventing her from falling, prepared to pull her out of harm's way if Caedus followed through.

Caedus did not. He kept his senses on Katarn's lightsaber, and, when it vectored to fly toward him from the side, he negligently swatted it away with his own blade.

Fifteen seconds.

Caedus gave Katarn and Hu'lya a little smile. "You could save yourselves a lot of pain by telling me now where Luke has set up the new Jedi headquarters. I swear, when you are in my hands, you will answer that question."

The Bothan got her feet back under her and stood at the ready.

Katarn caught his returning lightsaber. "Meaning you will torture us to death. Are you listening to yourself, Jacen? Do you even know who you are anymore?"

"I do. It's you who have no idea who I am."

He felt Force energy growing within Mithric and Horn. He gestured, telekinetically yanking the Bothan forward, positioning her between him and them. He felt their Force exertion as it was suddenly cut off.

Katarn advanced, lightsaber at the ready. Caedus withdrew before him. With part of his awareness, he was keeping track of the four inbound vehicles, plotting their trajectories . . .

One of the GAG vehicles was circling ahead and to starboard of the descending shuttle. Its arc, intended to put it toward the bow of the shuttle so it could fire on the cockpit, would bring it near the combatants, just a few meters above them. The pilot's maneuver was smooth, the vehicle clearly under control. Caedus could see the Jedi barely registering its presence, since it did not figure into the combat.

Caedus reached out a hand as if intending to hurl Katarn away from him. The Master raised his own hand, a deflecting gesture. But Caedus exerted himself against the oncoming GAG speeder, yanking it down and toward all of them.

A moment's inattention or focus elsewhere. That's all it ever took. By the time Katarn felt the speeder coming toward him—spinning, its stern a mere two meters from his back—it was already too late for him to send a command even to Force-augmented nerves and muscles. His face changed with the awareness of danger.

Then the speeder's port quarter hit his back, hurling him forward to slam into Caedus. The speeder, continuing its out-of-control motion, slid through the location of the other Jedi, knocking Hu'lya to the permacrete, causing Horn and Mithric to leap to safety.

Katarn now stood so close to Caedus that every facial feature was visible, every scar and line in his weathered face, every hair on his brow, mustache, and beard.

Caedus felt a rush of satisfaction, enjoyment, as Katarn's expression turned from one of surprise to pain. Katarn looked down to see Caedus's lightsaber buried to its hilt in his chest.

A noise, something halfway between a groan and a death rattle, emerged from Katarn's lips. Smiling, Caedus yanked his lightsaber free and let the stricken Jedi Master all fall facefirst on the pavement.

—

Seha felt all breath leaver her body, as though it had been her chest, not Katarn's, that had been pierced. Jacen Solo's exultation washed through the Force and over her like a wave at a beach, almost knocking her free from the rung she held.

No, no, no . . . The words rang in her head and were echoed by Mithric. The Falleen Jedi howled as he charged Solo, his anguish giving him speed and strength as he threw blow after blow at his enemy.

Things were at their most chaotic.

[...]

Valin Horn was charging toward the combat. Kolir was up, too, but limping badly as she headed toward their enemy. The shuttle was just meters above the plaza, settling precisely into place so that its belly hatch was positioned exactly above the access hole through which Kolir had emerged. Laserfire from the GAG speeders was raking the shuttle's top armor to pieces.

Seha's vision blurred with tears. She dashed them away and flicked a hand at the distant patch. As Colonel Solo twirled, causing his cloak to flare up and away from him, the patch flew to its lower hem and merged with it.

Now the three Jedi Knights assailed Solo all-out, a fight they were doomed to lose. Seha could not save them. Her tasks were accomplished. She should leave before Colonel Solo detected her.

[...]

One of the GAG troopers fired his blaster at Mithric. Kolir, hobbling, managed to get her lightsaber blade up and caught the bolt.

But it meant the troopers' vision was returning.

Seha saw the Jedi exchanging words. Valin spun away from the engagement with Jacen and moved toward the one sighted trooper. That man fired again and Valin deflected the bolt with his lightsaber—deflected it straight toward Jacen. The improvised attack evidently came as a surprise: The bolt grazed Jacen's right leg, sending him to his knee. Mithric redoubled his attack, hammering away at Jacen's defense like a toolsmith on a primitive world battering away at a sunburn harvester droid.

Kolir, bent over from distress more than pain, hesitated, then turned and moved at a fast hobble toward the shuttle.

[...]

Caedus hadn't felt the blaster bolt coming. His concentration was slipping.

And this madman of a Falleen Jedi was starting to beat down his parries. His strength was slipping.

He wasn't yet recovered from his duel with Luke. And now, as more of his troopers began firing, Horn began deflecting more bolts at him. The imprecise, barely aimed nature of the attacks worked in Horn's favor. The shots were unpredictable and Caedus had to divide his attention between a mad swordsman and a growing number of half-blind snipers.

But he was still the best lightsaber swordsman around—excepting possibly Luke, perhaps the best there ever had been.

Caedus waited until the timing was perfect, waited until an incoming bolt arrived at the same moment as one of Mithric's attacks so he could devote a single maneuver to both. He caught Mithric's blow toward the hilt of his lightsaber. He caught the bolt near the tip, deflecting it up and straight into Mithric's chest.

Mithric staggered back, the center of his chest blackened, as the smell of burned skin and meat filled the air. Caedus leapt up and executed a single, precise lateral blow.

Mithric's head fell from his shoulders. His body toppled down half a second later.

Caedus and Horn spun to face each other. An expression of sadness crossed Horn's face, but his dismay did not distract him. He caught three more blaster bolts with his lightsaber blade without looking at their firers.

Caedus gestured toward his troopers, signaling them to cease fire. They did; now the only ranged fire to be heard came from the speeders, still chewing the shuttle to pieces.

Caedus flexed his injured leg experimentally and decided it was not too bad. It would take his weight and allow him some footwork. He gestured toward Horn. "You going to try this alone?"

Horn shook his head.

Caedus smiled. "You're a fraction of the man your father is."

"Funny. That's what I was going to say to you." Horn seemed to blur as he dashed toward the shuttle, his sprinting speed augmented by the Force.

"Don't be an idiot! That thing will never take off again." Caedus left off his harangue as Horn ran up the side ramp where the Bothan had disappeared moments before.

No matter. The shuttle would not take off; Horn or Hu'lya, or both, would be captured, and after a lengthy enough interrogation, Caedus would know where Luke and the Jedi were now hiding.

He bent over to pick up Mithric's head by its ponytail. The Falleen's eyes were still open, staring forward, eerily lifelike, but his skin color had gone to gray.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Fury

Despite not being completely healed after his brutal fight with Luke, the Jedi strike team were only ever able to match Caedus and never had the upper hand. In fact, once Kyle Katarn went down, the three Knights "were no match for Solo's control of the dark side of the Force" and he proved "too powerful" for the trio, proving his earlier assessment right that the three Knights no match for him:

Valin and Jedi Master Kyle Katarn confronted Jacen, at first alone, and it took just seconds for Solo to lash out with a kick that caught Valin in the chin and knocked him briefly unconscious. Valin recovered just as Solo drove his lightsaber into Master Katarn's chest, and he rushed Solo alongside Kolir Hu'lya and Thann Mithric. However, the three Jedi were no match for Solo's control of the dark side of the Force. After Mithric was killed while trying to hold Solo off, the surviving Jedi managed to escape when Seha Dorvald arrived to help them weave their way through underground tunnels to a waiting shuttle.

Source: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

Hu'lya was among the first group of Jedi who confronted Solo in a hangar bay near his offices, along with mission leader Kyle Katarn and Valin Horn. She was injured when Solo used the Force to deflect a passing speeder into Katarn. Hu'lya shrugged off the injury and confronted Solo after he defeated Katarn in a lightsaber duel. But Solo was too powerful, even after Hu'lya was joined by the others, so the surviving Jedi chose to escape when Seha Dorvald arrived with a shuttle.

Source: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

Caedus fights off a group of four Mandalorians while dealing with Jaina using a sniper rifle to try and kill him from a distance

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Caedus fights his sister Jaina Solo on the asteroid base of Nickel One with Luke Skywalker empowering Jaina to incredible levels. Just prior to the fighting, Jaina was able to shoot Caedus's shoulder with a sniper rifle, which rendered his entire arm useless. With the Force trickery Luke was pulling, Caedus believed he was fighting Luke himself and became confused and desperate when finding out Jaina was there, too. Jaina would use both her new fighting style, Luke's incredible boost, and unconventional weapons to allow her to cut off Caedus's arm, but he would still manage to defend himself and nearly knock her out by using the Force to both shove a Mandalorian's body at her and then shove her herself against a wall with Force Lightning. The text goes on a little longer than when the fight actually ends but that's to show more context about the amp Jaina received and the gap between the two of them normally. With Luke's amp, she feels the Force "in every cell of her body, swirling through her like fire, burning more ferociously every moment", "had never felt so strong or so quick or so alert", and that she was aware of "everything", yet when the amp ends and Luke isn't actively helping her anymore, she feels "cold, tired, and in pain", barely has the strength to hold onto her lightsaber as she deflects blaster bolts, and trips over debris in her way that she "normally would have sensed without any conscious thought". What's more, this is described as her returning to her normal levels of the Force, meaning that the majority of the reason she was even able to keep standing and going after being thrown by Caedus's lightning was because of the energies Luke was giving her. Despite all of this, Caedus chose to direct his efforts away from Jaina because he became so paranoid at the idea of Luke being there in person, allowing Jaina to escape:

Growing more frightened than ever by the magnitude of her brother's powers -- and therefore even more resolved to stop him -- Jaina set her sight on Caedus's ear and fired a burst of three pellets . . . just as Caedus flipped his lightsaber around and thumbed the activation switch.

The blade ignited inside Roegr's chest, splitting him open at the sternum. The tip extended up through his neck and hit the back of his helmet, failing to penetrate the tough beskar and snapping his head back into the path of Jaina's first mag-pellet. The third pellet whispered past, barely a centimeter behind Caedus's unprotected head, and punched a hole through a seat.

But the second pellet, the one that didn't miss, caught Caedus in the shoulder and sent him spinning. With Roegr's sword arm still trapped in an elbow lock, he pulled the Mandalorian around with him, and Jaina's next burst of mag-pellets slammed into the blue plate still affixed to the dead man's back. The impact tipped the balance, driving Caedus over a row of seats and out of sight down on the floor.

[...]

Caedus was on his feet again, dancing back and forth, his wounded arm hanging limp at his side, wielding his lightsaber one-handed and still deflecting everything that Vatok and the other Mandalorian were pouring down toward the Moffs.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Invincible

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Caedus waved the Moffs up toward the anteroom, then turned back to the projection booth to see the muzzle of a pellet accelerator pushing through a makeshift firing port, which the sniper had cut through the projectionist's blaster-scorched viewing pane. He managed to raise the arm on his injured side in the weapon's general direction, then reached out with the Force and made a twisting motion with his hand. The barrel trembled for an instant, then started to bend against the edge of the firing port.

The sniper was not surprised. The weapon simply spun free as it was abruptly released, and the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber sounded from inside the projection booth. Despite the pellet wound his shoulder had suffered earlier, Caedus did not hesitate to activate his own blade. His pain would only fuel his power, and if he did not attack the sniper, he knew the sniper would attack him. He Force-leapt up through the hole into the smoky, flashing interior of the booth and pivoted around to block the fan of blue light that came slicing toward his neck even before he could sense who he was fighting.

Whoever it was, the enemy was good.

Caedus felt a boot slam into his ribs -- an instant before he saw it coming with his Aing-Tii fighting spirit -- and the breath left his lungs. He countered with a head-high backslash and brought his own foot up, landing a Force-enhanced snap-kick between the legs of the brown-robed blur attacking him. The blow drew a pained grunt but failed to even stagger his foe.

A bony elbow slammed up under his chin, rocking him onto his heels. Then, finally, Caedus felt a familiar tingle in the back of his mind, and he saw the image of a violet blade slashing at his vulnerable side. He swept his own lightsaber down across the front of his body in a desperate reverse block that barely caught the attack in time to prevent it from slicing him in two, then whirled into a spinning back kick that landed squarely in his foe's stomach and drove him back . . . a mere two steps.

It was enough.

Now Caedus could see who he was fighting, and he could not believe it. A gaunt-faced man with eyes as blue and cold as vardium steel, nostrils flaring red with anger and exertion, a thin-lipped snarl filled with confidence and disdain.

Luke Skywalker.

Just a few minutes earlier, Caedus had sensed his uncle's presence far above Nickel One, in the same blastboat as his mother, father, and Saba Sebatyne. And now here Luke was, inside the asteroid. Even Jedi Grand Masters could not be in two places at once -- Caedus knew that -- but he did not waste time being confused.

All that mattered was that Luke was here, somehow, and that he was the one swordsman in the galaxy whom Caedus did not dare fight one-armed. Even as Luke leapt forward weaving a basket of lightsaber slashes, Caedus sprang back out of the projection booth, launching himself into a high Force flip designed to put as much distance between himself and his attacker as possible.

Luke flew after him, not even bothering to try for the high position, simply coming up under him with a wild slash combination that was anything but subtle or deft or even tricky; just pure relentless ferocity. Caedus had to stretch himself out belly-down in midair to meet the attack, and even calling on the Force to bolster the strength in his good arm, it was all he could do to keep the powerful strikes from knocking his guard aside and leaving him wide open.

They started to drop, trading a trio of lightning-fast blows that left Caedus's hands stinging and his heart racing. The last time he had fought Luke, he had started with a painful kidney wound but two good arms -- and barely managed to survive. Now, with a relatively bearable shoulder wound and a single good arm, he had to do more than survive, he had to prevail -- because now there would be no mercy at the last minute. This time, his uncle would not care whether he survived as long as Caedus died, because now Luke knew the truth about who had killed his wife.

After the third exchange, Caedus and Luke came down in the seating area, two rows apart. Both landed on their feet, Luke ore lightly than Caedus.

Caedus deactivated his lightsaber and flicked his hand downward, arming the dart thrower he had begun wearing beneath his sleeve after their last fight.

But Luke did something even more unexpected, removing one hand from his lightsaber and pushing the palm forward. An instant later, the unseen hammer of a Force blast caught Caedus in the sternum and drove him not over, but through the seats behind him.

He slammed into the next row and dropped to the floor foot-to-foot with the big Mandalorian he had killed earlier -- the one in the black armor and red helmet. Caedus's head was spinning and his chest was more than aching -- it was throbbing, burning, clenching so tightly he could hardly breathe.

But he still had his lightsaber -- and he needed it. He thumbed the activation switch and brought the weapon up just as Luke's blue blade came slicing down toward him. Caedus caught it on his own crimson blade, then straightened his arm, simultaneously parrying and pointing the dart thrower on his wrist into his attacker's face.

"Release!" he commanded.

A faint puff of air tickled Caedus's forearm as the thrower launched its darts, but Luke was already whirling out of the way. The slivers streaked past in a harmless black flash and vanished; then Luke was spinning into the row where Caedus lay, positioning himself above Caedus's head for the coup de grâce.

There was no time to leap up or loose a bolt of Force lightning, and the angle was particularly poor for blocking and parrying. Caedus's only hope lay at his feet, and he seized that hope with the Force, using it to pull the dead Mandalorian up over him, then hurling the corpse headlong into Luke.

Two bodies collided with the sharp crack of metal impacting bone. When Caedus did not die in the next instant, he realized he had finally driven his uncle onto the defensive. He rolled to a knee, his lightsaber ignited and raised between them.

Luke lay buried beneath the huge Mandalorian, blood pooling around his head and one motionless arm protruding beneath the fellow's side. By all appearances, Luke Skywalker was dead -- or at least unconscious.

Caedus's heart began to pound not with fear, but with excitement. His visions of late had been filled with his uncle's face -- Luke Skywalker attacking him here on Nickel One, Luke firing on him from one of Boba Fett's Bes'uliike, Luke sitting on Caedus's throne, claiming the New Empire as his own. Had he -- Lord Caedus -- finally put an end to those visions -- finally ruled out the possibility of those futures becoming the future?

Eager as he was to be rid of Luke, Caedus was also suspicious. His uncle had been using a new fighting style, one that he had never taught his students at the Jedi academy -- one that he had never, as far as Caedus knew, used on anyone who had survived to describe it. The style was essentially conservative, brutal, and ruthless, designed to deal damage without suffering it -- and not all that tricky.

Which meant now would be the perfect time to switch styles and trap an unwary opponent by playing dead. Using the Force to keep the Mandalorian pressed firmly down on Luke, Caedus retreated twenty paces to the body of a fallen stormtrooper, then deactivated his lightsaber and tucked it under his wounded arm. When Luke still did not move, he pulled a fragmentation grenade off the trooper's equipment belt. He thumbed the arming slide, then sent the grenade sailing toward his uncle and the dead Mandalorian.

--

Despite the ringing in her ears and the gauze in her head -- despite her hugely aching skull and the big knot of hurt swelling on her brow -- Jaina had never been so filled with the Force. She could feel it in every cell of her body, swirling through her like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. She had never felt so strong or so quick or so alert. She could drive her fist through a durasteel wall, or catch a blaster bolt between her fingers. Despite the red curtain of blood cascading from the gash where Vatok's helmet had split her forehead, she was aware of everything.

Including that grenade sailing toward her.

So Jaina reached out with the Force and sent it flying back toward her brother. An instant later, the weight pressing down on her grew lighter as Caedus's attention shifted to the grenade. She started to Force-hurl her friend's body off -- then recalled how her brother had been anticipating her attacks. She grabbed the beskad hanging from Vatok's waist, then sent his body flying after the grenade.

The iron saber had barely cleared its scabbard before the hammerfist of a grenade detonation jolted the forum. Vatok's body was silhouetted against the orange flash of the explosion. Jaina held him there, shielding herself from the fiery heat of the blast, and felt the searing bite of shrapnel only in her legs.

The detonation swept the last wisps of gauze from Jaina's mind. Not waiting to see if she had been seriously injured, she let her friend's body drop to the floor and leapt after her brother, lightsaber in one hand and Vatok's beskad in the other.

Caedus turned to meet her with his good arm forward and his wounded shoulder behind. Jaina struck high with the lightsaber and low with the beskad. Caedus slipped back, allowing both blades to pass, then sprang forward and counterthrust, trying to impale her with her own momentum.

Jaina was already spinning past his crimson blade, pivoting on a dead stormtrooper's chest plate as she brought Vatok's beskad around at neck height. But Caedus had anticipated her once again, leaning away to take the blow on his wounded shoulder rather than across his throat.

Jaina did not even feel the beskad cleaving bone. She simply heard a voice -- Jacen's voice -- cry out in shock and pain; then an arm landed on her boots. In the next instant Caedus was whirling away, screaming and flapping a red stump, and something hot and wet splashed across Jaina's face and throat and began to burn like acid.

A part of her -- the part that had grown up with Jacen and trained with him on Yavin IV and traded snowballs at Coruscant's polar playgrounds -- was too horrified to act. That part wanted to stand paralyzed in shock, to pretend this was just some terrible nightmare from which she would shortly awaken. The other part -- the part that had actually asked for this mission -- knew what would happen if she let herself freeze.

Jaina launched herself after Caedus. The loss of an arm did not seem to faze him. He simply turned to meet her attack, his yellow eyes blazing with pain and fury, and their lightsabers met in a brilliant explosion of color. Jaina brought the beskad around again, striking low for his thigh . . . and knew she was in trouble when Caedus did not even try to block.

Caedus deactivated his lightsaber and let it drop between them. Jaina felt the beskad begin to bite, then her brother's palm sank deep into the pit of her stomach. In the next instant she was riding a bolt of Force lightning across the chamber, her muscles cramping, her teeth grinding, her ears roaring with the fiery sizzle of burning synapses.

A full second later, she slammed into a durasteel wall and felt a terrible popping in her ribs, then dropped to the floor, still holding her lightsaber and the beskad. The Force lightning had died away, but her muscles remained useless aching knots, and the stench of scorched flesh was so powerful she wanted to retch. Instead, she tried to rise -- and succeeded only in sparking a dozen different kinds of pain.

Across the chamber, her brother was in little better shape. He sat slumped in a half-collapsed chair, his remaining hand clamped over the stump of his missing arm, his thigh wound dripping blood onto the floor. His yellow eyes were staring at Jaina more in confusion than rage, and his head was cocked as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

"You?" he gasped. "Jaina?"

Jaina managed to raise her throbbing head. It hurt -- a lot -- and her vision was starting to blur.

"I haven't changed that much, Jacen," she said. With her muscle control beginning to return, she pushed herself into a kneeling position. "And I hope you know how much this Sith nonsense is steaming Mom and Dad."

If Caedus heard her wisecrack, he did not show it. His yellow eyes began to dart around the chamber, searching for something Jaina did not understand -- but maybe that was just because her head was throbbing so bad. The pain was beginning to muddle her thoughts.

Somehow, Caedus forced himself back to his feet. That would have been impressive -- if it weren't so kriffing scary.

"Where's Luke?" he demanded.

"Right behind me," Jaina said, also standing. The effort sent pangs of anguish shooting through her lungs, and she realized she had a few broken ribs to go with the lightning scorch on her chest. She squinted in his direction, trying to keep him in focus so she could kill him. "Come over here, and I'll show you."

That brought Caedus's gaze snapping back toward her, and Jaina realized she might have overplayed her hand. She still had both arms, but the fact that her brother remained standing at all proved how much greater his Force powers were than her own. She tossed the beskad aside and summoned a fallen stormtrooper's power blaster to hand.

Then Jaina sensed someone watching her from the direction of the antechamber where the Moffs had fled. She looked up to find a pair of gray blurs dropping into firing positions in the doorways. She loosed a burst of suppression fire toward the two troopers, then Force-flipped up into the cover offered by the ruined projection booth, landing backward so she would be facing her enemy and in a position to defend herself.

Jaina's boots had not even touched the floor before the stormtroopers opened fire. She dropped the power blaster and used her lightsaber to deflect their bolts, angling them down toward her brother. If she kept him busy enough, he wouldn't be able to hurl another lightning attack her way. His lightsaber snapped to life and began to weave a crimson shield in front of him.

Then Jaina experienced an abrupt draining as her Force energies returned to their normal level. Suddenly she felt cold, tired, and in pain, and she barely had the strength to hold her lightsaber as it flicked back and forth, batting away blaster bolts. She retreated deeper into the projection booth, stumbling over combat debris that she normally would have sensed without any conscious thought. When she reached the wrecked control panel, she could finally drop behind cover.

Caedus's voice sounded out in the forum, still deep and booming and strong. "Not her! Skywalker is the dangerous one."

Skywalker?

Was Jaina beginning to hear things now, too? Or was Caedus beginning to imagine them?

The blasterfire shifted away from the projection booth and grew more erratic. Jaina poked her head up, peering over the scorched control panel through what remained of the projectionist's one-way viewport.

Her brother was limping up toward the anteroom, finally starting to look a little weak and dizzy himself. His good hand was still holding the stump of his severed arm. But his yellow eyes were round with fear and his brow was furrowed with anger, and he was looking toward the far corner of the chamber, which Jaina could not see from her vantage point.

"There, you fools!" he yelled. "Blast him!"

The two stormtroopers seemed to study the corner for a moment, then obediently opened fire again. Energy bolts quickly began to ricochet back into the seats, but whether they were being deflected by a lightsaber or merely bouncing off the walls was impossible to guess.

Jaina did not have the energy to investigate. She dropped back to her haunches and opened herself completely to the Force, drawing it into her exhausted, battered body from all sides.

Source: Legacy of the Force - Invincible

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