And she caught the strike on her weapon's yellow length of plasma, deflecting the first blade, then sparking on the second to twist it past.

He changed direction, stabbing forward in the form known as Striking Sarlacc to pierce her heart.

"Which was deflected by her in a downward stroke, the tip of her blade then arcing out to gut him.

But he wasn't there, having backflipped to land in a defensive posture.

Darth Maul bared his teeth at her. For a Padawan, she was a worthy opponent. No Jedi Master lived within the Force more fully than she did at this moment.

But he was going to kill her. He knew it, and so did she.

The Sith apprentice launched a simultaneous attack, using the Force to throw a rusty power-wrench and a bucket of old fasteners from a worktable at her as he launched himself forward, lightsaber dancing a variant of a teras kasi Death Weave.

This entertainment was beginning to pall. Time to kill her and move on to his primary target.

There is no passion; there is serenity.

It was true. Every action she took was committed and well defined, but there was no emotion, no conscious thought preceding it. The Force guided her, helped her make the lightning-fast movements necessary to deflect the Sith, and even to counterattack.

But it was not enough. The Sith was the best fighter Darsha had ever seen. His movement was precise, his control of the Force that of a musician playing an intricate solo. All of which made it even more mandatory that information about him reach the Temple.

Using the Force, she deflected the tool and bucket of parts he hurled at her. Several of the latter got through, striking her legs and torso as she leapt five meters up and onto a catwalk that ran the length of the chamber. As she landed, she caught a glimpse of Lorn's stricken face, framed in the viewport of the containment unit's hatch. She barely had time to catch her breath before the Sith was there in front of her. His eyes were hypnotic, their golden hue an eerie counterpart to the bloodred and black tattoos covering his face. But they did not prevent her from deflecting his strikes as he again moved within range, his twin blades spinning so fast they seemed to merge into a crimson shield.

There was a sizzle as her blade intersected his, a flash of sparks as they separated, she to deflect, he to attack with the blade opposite.

Darsha slashed backhand, feeling a weakness in his defense.

But it was a trap, carefully laid, and he spun a ruby shaft to intersect, which would have hit her at the same time.

But she wasn't there, having propelled herself sideways to a new position a meter away, her lightsaber pointed at his chest.

And the Sith dived forward, striking left-right-left in a series of attacks that left her winded, even assisted as she was by the Force. She deflected, forcing her mind to disengage from following his technique, to relax and maintain her deep connection to the Force. Thoughts were a hazard.

He did not share that weakness; she could feel the truth of that. He had more conscious control of the power at his command, and that gave him the edge. If she tried to increase her control of the Force, she would reduce her ability to simply react-but if she did not, she could only defend.

The problem reverberated within her as she maintained her connection with the environment, her senses reaching out, her mind searching for answers.

When she found one, she tested it and realized it was her only chance.

Lorn grabbed the droid's arms and tried to pull him away from the unit's controls. He might as well have tried to pull a skyhook down from orbit. "What are you doing?"

I-Five did not stop working as he answered. "Trying to ensure that her sacrifice is not a futile one."

"It won't be, if you'll just blast that damned door open!"

I-Five kept talking, his voice maddeningly even. "Even my reactions are no match for the Sith's-and I am far faster than you and Padawan Assant. She is doing for us what her Master did for her-buying time."

"What good will that do? We're trapped in this chamber-"

"With a carbon-freezing unit that can be adapted to put us both in cryostasis."

Sheer surprise kept Lorn from protesting for a moment. The droid continued, "It's theoretically possible for living beings to be frozen in a carbonite block and later revived. I read an interesting treatise on the subject once in Scientific Galactica-"

Lorn turned, a snarl building deep in his throat, and aimed the Saurin's blaster at the hatch lock. One way or another he was going to reach her.

"Stop!" I-Five commanded. "This chamber's magnetically sealed. The ricochet would most likely destroy us both."

Lorn spun about and pointed the blaster at I-Five. "Get over there and open that door," he said, in a voice that did not sound remotely like his own, "or I'll blow you to scrap metal."

I-Five turned his head and looked at him for a moment. Then the droid reached out and grabbed the blaster, taking it away from Lorn before the latter had time to pull the trigger.

"Now listen to me," I-Five said as he returned to his work. "We have one chance to survive this, and it's not a very good one. The Padawan has no chance. She knows this." He finished entering a final bit of data on the unit's control panel. "Get into the unit."

Lorn stared at him, then turned and looked back out of the hatch window. He couldn't see Darsha or the Sith directly, but he could see their shadows moving on the floor, cast by the light from the high windows. He realized they had taken the battle to one of the overhead catwalks.

She is doing for us what her Master did for her- buying time.

He had known her for barely forty-eight hours, and in that time he had gone from hating her and everything she stood for, to-this. This frantic pain, this frustration, this welter of emotions he had not allowed himself to feel for years. He did not love her; there hadn't been enough time for that. But he had come to feel fondness for her, to deeply respect and admire her. If all the Jedi were like her…

He didn't want to finish the thought. He forced himself to.

If all Jedi are like her, then what happened to Jax was the best thing for him.

"Hurry!" I-Five said. "The unit's on a timer. We have less than a minute."

Lorn pressed his face to the transparisteel, trying to get a last look at her. He failed. He could dimly hear the crackling and buzzing of the lightsabers, could see the flashes and cascades of sparks as they clashed against each other or sliced through metal as though it were flimsiplast. But he could not see her.