Yoda by Sean Stewart Page B

contorted with desperation, lunging for his weapon.
    Scout reached out and grabbed it. “No!” Enver shrieked as Pirt Neer caught up and held her blade to his throat. “Well?” Pirt’s voice said, somewhere high above.
    Enver stared daggers at Scout.
    â€œThanks a lot, Scout,” Enver snarled, and surrendered. He stood, to a round of applause, and brushed off his pants. “Well done, Pirt. You may as well collect Esterhazy so I can get my lightsaber back.”
    â€œNot a bad idea—
ulp
!” Lena had come up behind Pirt while she was accepting Enver’s surrender, and put a sturdy arm bar on her. Pirt sighed and yielded.
    Lena’s cheerful blue face beamed at Scout. “Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to come out and play?”
    There was a whirring buzz, lightsabers clashed and sparked, and Lena disappeared in a dance of fancy footwork across the refectory tables. Scout groaned. She should, she really should go help.
    She edged out into the open. Lena and Whie were the only two combatants left. They were going at it in the wide clear space in front of the swinging kitchen doors. Whie was pressing Lena hard, his lightsaber spinning a cage of green light around her. Scout sprinted toward the pair.
    Too little, too late. As she watched, Lena went through a parry-feint-beat attack-flèche combination, trying for a straight thrust into Whie’s chest. He sidestepped, limber as a whipcord. He used his blade to guide hers harmlessly by while at the same time letting his free hand clamp on to her sword hand. He continued to pivot, sinking his weight exactly as Master Iron Hand always taught them, and now Lena’s sword hand was caught in a thumb lock that her own momentum was making worse. An instant later they finished like a pair of dance partners: Whie behind the Chagrian girl, pinning her arm behind her back with her thumb folded up at an unnatural angle. He gave the slightest upward pressure on her thumb, and the lightsaber dropped from her hand. One more little nudge had her on her tiptoes. She yielded.
    He smiled, let her go, and accepted her surrender with a grave bow. She answered with a curtsy and a laugh, amid the applause of those watching.
    Oh, well, Scout thought. So much for tackling Whie two-on-one. She had a plan, but she had really, really been hoping she wouldn’t have to use it. She sighed and switched her lightsaber over to her left hand. She trained left-handed often enough that it wasn’t completely implausible that she would do such a thing as a desperate ploy to throw him off. For that matter, he might even think she was left-handed. The brutal truth was, she had probably spent a whole lot more time worrying about him than he had ever spent studying her.
    She thumbed the power switch, and her lightsaber came on. Stars, how she loved its sound, the weight of the handle in her hand, and the pale luminous blue blade, clear as the sky at first light. She might not be the greatest Jedi apprentice ever, but she loved the Temple and her weapon and this life, and if even Yoda himself tried to take that away from her, she would go down kicking and screaming to the very end.
    A small serving droid wheeled through the swinging doors from the kitchen area and surveyed the refectory, emitting a series of dismayed beeps and whistles as it took in the shattered crockery and the food spattered over half the floor and some of the walls. Several tables showed scorch marks from stray lightsaber strokes.
    Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy—Scout to her friends—cut a little figure in the air to catch Whie’s attention. “I guess that leaves you and me, sport.”
    Whie turned. His face fell. “You’re still—I mean, I thought I was done.”
    There was something insulting about the way he stared at her and then looked away. “Hey, we don’t have to fight,” she said.
    His shoulders sagged with relief. “I