Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn Page B

sheets of metal and peel them away from their frame.
    Inside the cockpit Bane was flung against walls and ceiling. He was spun, tossed, and slammed against the sides of the cockpit as the vessel careened through the trees. Even the Force couldn’t fully shield him from the devastating crash as the ship carved a kilometer-long swath of burned and broken foliage before slamming into the soft, muddy ground of a swamp and finally coming to rest.
    For several seconds Bane didn’t move. His ship had been reduced to a smoking pile of scrap, but miraculously he had survived, saved by the dark side energies enveloping his form. He hadn’t escaped unscathed, however. His body was covered with painful bruises and contusions, his face and hands cut from fragments of shattered glass that had pierced his protective cocoon; his right bicep was bleeding heavily from a deep five-centimeter gash. His left shoulder had been dislocated and two ribs were broken, but neither had punctured a lung. His right knee was already swelling up, but there didn’t seem to be any cartilage or ligament damage. And he tasted blood in his mouth, oozing from the gap where two of his teeth had been knocked out. Fortunately, none of his wounds was life threatening.
    Bane rose to his feet slowly, favoring his injured knee. What was left of the Valcyn had come to rest on her side, turning everything in the cockpit at a disorienting ninety-degree angle. Moving gingerly, Bane made hisway to the emergency exit hatch, his left arm dangling all but useless from his side. Given the ship’s position, her exit hatch was now above him, facing the sky.
    Strong as he was, Bane knew he wouldn’t be able to pull himself to freedom with only one good arm. A Jedi might have been able to use the Force to heal his wounds, but Bane was a student of the dark side. Even if his ability to call upon the Force hadn’t been temporarily exhausted in surviving the crash, healing was not a skill the Sith were familiar with. Before he became a Sith Master, however, Bane had served as a soldier, where he had received basic medical field training.
    The Valcyn was equipped with an emergency medpac under the pilot’s seat. Inside it were healing stims he could use to treat the worst of his injuries. But when he made his way over to look under the seat, the kit was gone.
    Realizing it must have jarred loose during the crash, he rummaged around the cockpit until he found it. The outside of the kit was dented and slightly bent, but otherwise it appeared undamaged. It took him three tries to open the latch with only one good hand. When he finally succeeded, he was relieved to see that several of the health stims had survived intact.
    He removed one and injected it directly into his thigh. Within seconds he could feel his body’s own natural healing properties beginning to kick into overdrive in response to the healing shot. The blood flowing from his cuts began to clot. More important, the shot helped dull the pain from his swollen knee and broken ribs, allowing him to walk and breathe more freely.
    His dislocated shoulder, however, required more direct treatment. Grabbing his injured left wrist with his right hand and gritting his teeth against the pain, Bane pulled with all his might, hoping the shoulder would pop back into place. Thanks to his size and strength,he’d been recruited more than a few times by field medics to help resocket the dislocated limbs of fellow soldiers during his military days. A simple procedure, it required a tremendous amount of torque to work effectively, and Bane soon discovered he simply couldn’t get the leverage he needed to perform the maneuver on himself.
    Grunting and sweating from his exertions, he realized he’d have to take more extreme measures. Lowering himself to a sitting position on the floor, he stretched forward and bent his knees so he could grip the wrist of his injured arm securely between his ankles. He took a deep breath, then thrust his