Yoda by Sean Stewart Page A

twisting in midair like a dragonsnake in its death throes so as to come crashing down on the tabletop with Scout underneath him, but she had felt it coming and wiggled around him in mid-flight, so she was on top again when he hit the table with a
whump.
    Three, four…
    The Firrerreo kept rolling. His giant hands flexed, but for some reason the Force was flowing easily for Scout now and she knew he would try to pull her hands away before he knew it himself. Keeping the choke hold on with her right hand and forearm, she reached down with her left and popped the pressure point in his elbow, so his arm went numb and tingly.
    Five, six…
    Sisseri stopped thrashing and lay on the tabletop, blinking as if trying to summon the Force, but his eyes were glazing over. He gave a long, despairing hiss and glared at her with bulging eyes, his face congested and still running with juice. “I hate…”
    Seven…
    â€œI
hate
muja juice,” he gasped, and yielded.
    Scout rolled off him and crouched beside the table, peering around the refectory. There seemed to be six combatants left. Pirt Neer and Enver Hoxha were taking up most of the attention with a scintillating lightsaber duel. Whie and Hera Tuix were fighting hand-to-hand, but still at range, trading kicks, punches, and blocks. That wouldn’t last; no matter how elegant one was at range, unarmed fights always went to ground in the end, where it was all grappling skills and joint locks. Lena was just standing up over Bargu, the skinchanger, who was clutching her arm with one hand and bowing in defeat.
    Lena’s eyes met Scout’s, and they exchanged weary, wary smiles.
    There was a gasp from the crowd. Whie had just caught Hera Tuix in a very elegant little wrist lock, and although Hera was trying to come up with a counterattack, odds were she would have to tap out at any second. Scout found Lena’s eyes. “Now!” she said, and charged, with Lena right on her heels. Whie was stronger than either of them, but if they could take him now, together, while his back was turned and he was holding on to Hera, they might get him out of the equation.
    They were at his back. Lena leapt in, but something about the set of Whie’s body whispered to Scout that he knew exactly where they were.
    Hera yielded.
    Whie leapt into the air, five effortless meters, turned a backflip, and landed gently on a tabletop behind them. Lena ran into the table where he had been standing, and if Scout’s one Force talent hadn’t come to her aid she would have done the same, leaving them both at Whie’s mercy. Instead, she was waiting with a whirling lightsaber slash at his legs as he landed on the table. He met her blue blade with his green one in a shower of sparks.
    Then something strange happened. Whie stared at Scout, his mouth dropped open, and he recoiled.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Scout growled. She swiped across her face with her injured left hand. A few spatters of muja juice showed on the bandage, but that hardly seemed like a reason for him to be staring at her as if he had seen a ghost.
    Lena hissed, recovered herself, and darted in to attack. Scout knew she would thrust low, and slashed high, hoping Whie couldn’t parry both attacks. Instead of jumping back like any normal person, though, and falling off the table, Whie leapt
forward,
over their heads. A Force shove in her back sent her sprawling into the table he had been standing on, sending up showers of baked dru’un slices, a sleet of fish sauce, and a rain of juice and water.
    She rose and shook her head, sending little bits of lunch out of her hair. A line of lightsaber cuts went pinwheeling across the room, followed by a round of spontaneous applause. Lena’s feet raced by her table. Then a lightsaber came hissing and spitting through the air, bounced on the floor, and rolled to a stop less than a meter away. An instant later Enver Hoxha appeared, his face