CaV: ILS vs ShootingNova (DotJ Team v NJO Team)

Leia and Saba activated their lightsabers and began to weave an impenetrable shield of light, synchronizing their movements through the battle-meld so that one blade was always in position to block without interfering with the other.

Source: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War

Leia caught up to the rear of the group and launched herself into a whirling lightsaber attack, cloaking herself behind a basket of sapphire light and batting blaster bolts back toward their source.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Tempest

Leia was on the opposite side of the corridor and a little ahead of him, trapped behind a display pedestal by a torrent of blasterfire so bright and constant it resembled an ion drive’s efflux.

...

But nearly a dozen guards had been far enough down the corridor to escape the chandelier.

They were concentrating their fire on Leia, driving her back behind the pedestal every time she tried to make a break for Han’s side of the corridor. And Leia was not helping matters much, simply deflecting their bolts instead of batting them back into her attackers. Clearly, she was trying to avoid hurting Hapans still loyal to Tenel Ka.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Tempest

The exchange took place in what seemed like slow motion. Han's shoulders did not hit the door - he staggered back into the corridor.

Leia's blade came up and deflected the first three or five thousand bolts from the droid's right arm.

Someone shot the droid three, four, five times in the chest-Han was surprised to see the blaster in his own hand, firing as fast as his finger could pull the trigger, his brain not figuring into the equation - and then his shoulder blades hit the passageway wall behind him, throwing his aim off.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Fury

She took one man out with a roundhouse kick to the head and sent another cartwheeling into the wall with a spinning crescent - then found herself looking down the barrel of an E-ll blaster rifle. When she raised her gaze, it was to see a young recruit only two or three years older than her son Anakin had been when he died.

The boy's pupils widened, and Leia knew he was going to blast her. She brought her lightsaber up beneath his arms, slashing them off at the elbows, then spun away feeling sick and sad. This was not right, fighting on the day of Mara's funeral, drawing blood inside the Jedi Temple, maiming her own son's troopers.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Inferno

A particularly large elbow, descending from a ferocious cheer, crashed down on Leia's shoulder and drove her to her knees. She didn't cry out - Saba had broken her of that particular urge by rapping her on the head until she learned to accept pain silently - but it didn't prevent the elbow's owner from scowling down to see what kind of critter he had just smashed.

"No harm." Leia rose and rotated her arm. "See? It still works."

Source: Legacy of the Force: Inferno

The detonators went off. The blast caught Sebatyne when she was only a meter or two in the air. It propelled her like an old-fashioned munition to the port-side wall, slamming her into that surface five meters above the floor, and she slid, flaming, down into the pit.

...

Impossibly, Saba stood, even got her lightsaber up to deflect the next wave of blaster bolts aimed at her. Smoke rose from her back and legs, and stretches of her skin were charred, bleeding. ... but she was upright, standing on shaky legs.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Fury

This time, the shadow man gave her no time to recover. A fork of blue lightning crackled from his hand and caught Saba square in the chest. Every nerve in her body became a conduit of blazing agony, and she dropped her to her knees, teeth gnashing, scales dancing, muscles clenching-paralyzed.

...

His lightsaber scraped along Saba's skull, flooding her mind with a pain so hot and blinding that she could not tell whether the Force lightning had stopped.

...

The rock slammed into her head wound, and then she was kneeling on the floor, her lightsaber in a high guard, with no recollection of how she had landed there. Her sight was worse than ever, narrowed to a tiny circle, and her senses of smell and taste had gone the way of her hearing.

Source: Dark Nest I: The Joiner King

The discharge that followed was not quite an explosion. She lost only two fingertips instead of an entire hand. The fireball did little more than scorch her scales and bedazzle her eyes, but... exploding Killiks?

Source: Dark Nest I: The Joiner King

Through the Force, he could feel Mara and Corran join him, and he could also feel the tremendous power Jacen and Saba were exercising to prevent the airship from being blown where the howling wind wanted to take it. Confidence surged through him. The Jedi were working not against the natural forces, but in harmony with them, availing themselves of just those gusts that would maneuver the airship to the destination they had chosen. Had there been better forewarning of the trap the three Yuuzhan Vong agents had sprung, Sekot also might have been able to maneuver Zonama through hyperspace to a safe landing. But the jump to lightspeed had been inadvertent-though fortunately in place of the planned destruction of the planet.

Source: The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force

She raised a hand and used the Force to jerk him off the girder.

...

Determined not to kill him, Saba stepped closer to the safety rail and caught him with the Force, then pulled him toward the catwalk. Toward her.

Source: Fate of the Jedi: Vortex

She hurled him into the catwalk, slamming him into the durasteel grate facedown, then snatched her own weapon and was standing above him as he looked up. His nose was gashed, crooked, and pouring blood.

Source: Fate of the Jedi: Vortex

He visualized the Millennium Falcon. In his mind, he could see the plates of her underside and the transparisteel of the cockpit mounted on the starboard flank. He saw her as she should have been, whole and sound. He could feel Leia straining to use Force telekinesis, but he couldn’t sense exactly where she was trying to apply it. He could only hear the tension in her voice and taste her growing anxiety.

And he could feel another presence, too: his sister, Jaina.

They hardly spoke these days, but twins could never cut themselves off from each other for long. She must have sensed their parents’ crisis, too.

Whatever his mother was trying to do, Jacen could only guess. And guessing wasn’t good enough when one was using the physical might of the Force.

Still in his Theran sound trance, he heard the bip-bip-bip of a sensor alarm, the kind that announced that a hull had been breached-or worse.

" . . . drive’s shaking loose and it’s going to take the plates with it . . ."

That was what he needed to know. He was certain now that his mother was using the Force to stop the cracks in the drive housing from spreading and ripping the Falcon apart as the ship reentered the atmosphere. It was a massive task. She needed help.

Jacen filled his lungs with a long, slow breath and centered himself to try something he had never attempted before.

Mom, I hope you can handle this.

He pictured Leia sitting in the copilot’s seat. Her emotions and her presence in the Force washed over him and he visualized himself in her place, behind her eyes, seeing what she saw. For a moment he was simply observing; but then a feeling like a sigh drained out of him and it was as if he were exhaling an infinite breath into his mother - no, through his mother. Now he was no longer sitting in the alcove between two topiary bushes, but staring at an array of lights and readouts and at hands that weren’t his. Beyond the console, Coruscant loomed in the viewport.

If Jaina had joined the effort, she was hardly detectable. He had drowned out her presence in his own mind with the sheer strength of the telekinesis he was projecting.

Take this, Mom. Use me. Use the Force I’m channeling through you.

He heard her say "Uh!" as if something had startled her. Then he could feel pressure in his lungs as if he were running hard and fighting for breath. He had no idea how long it lasted. But he had the sense of clutching something tight to his chest, and an awareness somewhere outside his mind and yet at its core showed him the Falcon enveloped in the Force, the hull around her drive assembly compressed instead of expanding catastrophically.

He was sure he wasn’t seeing what his mother was actually looking at, because he had none of the images of entering the atmosphere or landing. The scenes inside the Falcon’s cockpit were being supplied by his memory. He was simultaneously aware both of that rational fact and that his Force power was being funneled through his mother, helping her hold the drive assembly in place by telekinesis.

Then relief swept over him like a wave, making his scalp tingle and his heart pound. The Falcon was down safely. He knew it. Now he could open his eyes. When he did, he was almost surprised to find himself still in the grounds of the Temple in broad daylight.

Source: Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines

Behind him, the interrogator droid followed. It was a crude tool, a blunt instrument compared with the subtlety and precision possible with the Force; however, Princess Leia's mind was too strong to easily manipulate, even with the power of the dark side at his beck and call. It was possible that he could wrest the knowledge from her, but he might end up destroying the very information he sought. She would force him to burn her brain to a husk before she would willingly part with the data - of that he had no doubt.

Source: Death Star

But, after half an hour, despite the truth drugs, electrical shocks, and other inducements he had administered, it was evident that her resistance had not been lowered enough for him to probe her mind. That was surprising.

She was physically weakened and in considerable pain, but her mind remained shielded. She had revealed nothing.

Most unusual for anyone except a Jedi to have such control, he mused.Source: Death Star

Vader said, "Her resistance to the mind-probe is considerable. It will be some time before we can extract any information from her."Source: Death Star

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Don't you feel it? He is near... I feel his dark side power."

"What do you mean who? There aren't any ships around here."

"Your highness, the sensors aren't picking up anything -"

"The Emperor is here. He wants us... he wants our children!"

...

"Yes... yes! Excellent! She is strong to have sensed my presence, but still they are blind!"

Source: Empire's End Audio Drama

She could hear a large river purling through the jungle somewhere far below, but she had no sense of where this new predator was hiding. She turned in a slow circle. When she saw nothing but clouds of emerald foliage, she reached out in the Force, but she felt only the same hunters as before. This danger was something different-something that could hide itself in the Force.

Leia stilled herself and began to search for an empty place in the gauzy fog of the living Force on Tenupe. It did not take long to find. There was an odd calm where her branch connected to the mogo's trunk, hidden behind a green curtain of strangle-vines. Still holding herlightsaber in one hand, she drew her blaster and began to fire into the vines. The snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber sounded from inside the mass of vines, then a blade so blue it was almost black sliced through the foliage and began to bat Leia's bolts aide. The tangle of vines quickly fell away, revealing a blue-skinned Twi'lek female with an amputated head-tail and one withered arm hanging useless beneath a sagging shoulder. She wore a StealthX flight suit two sizes too small for her slender figure, her front zipper open down to the navel.

Leia stopped firing and touched Saba through their battle-meld, trying to let her knew she had found something as important as the bombs. "Alema Rar. I should have known you'd crawl out of a hole around here somewhere."

Source: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War

"The Emperor is here. He wants us... he wants our children!"

"Blast that scum! If I ever get him in my sights, he's rancor food!"

"I don't need a blaster. Not with what I've just learned with Jedi Battle Meditation."

***

"Yes... yes! Excellent! She is strong to have sensed my presence, but still they are blind!"

"My lord, the Millennium Falcon is headed right for us. They seem unaware of our presence, just as you predicted."

"Of course, it is. Through the dark side, I am blinding their sensors. The daughter of Vader feels my presence, but she does not know, she cannot... eh? What's this? Aaaahhhh......!"

"My lord - "

"Errngh! This Jedi... she's learned old Jedi tricks! Take the ship! Tractor beam on!"

Source: Empire's End Audio Drama

In the curtains of sun-glittering dust that filled the open gateway of the launch bay a woman stood, slender and tiny in the moving aura of misty light.Taselda? His old rival, his old enemy, flashed to mind . . . No. The little Jedi woman, the woman Ashgad had brought, the woman Dzym had wanted, a small shining figure in the shadows, with the pale glory of a lightsaber shining like tamed starfire in her hand.

"Don't test me, little Princess." His own blade stretched forth with a deadly thrumming, a pallid and sickly violet. "It has been years. I may be a lazy old slug now, but I am Beldorion still."

Heart beating fast, Leia studied him, remembering how Jabba had moved, sidelong and looping, using the center of the body as a balance point. She recalled the one time Jabba had become displeased with someone at his court--the fat housekeeper who danced or was it his long-suffering cook--and had gone after her or him with a stick. Recalled the deadly speed of even that obese and sluggish bulk. Yet she felt no fear. She didn't reply and could feel that it displeased him. He was the kind, she realized, who liked to expound before he killed. Good.

"You were a sweet little girl. Don't make me--" Leia struck. Step, step, thrust, as Callista had shown her, a hard clean slash like diminutive lightning, and Beldorion, still expounding, barely got out of the way. But his counterstrike was unbelievably fast, the strength of it nearly breaking her wrists as she intercepted it on the blade, the doubled vibration roaring in her head and in her bones. The blades twined, snarled, Leia twisting out from under another descending blow and barely dodging when the descending swerved to lateral an old trick, Callista had said, but it took practice and left you open. Leia dodged back, shaken by the Hutt's sheer, animal strength.

She stepped back in, pressing him, her attention narrowed to nothing but the monstrous thing before her and the shining blades. Nothing else existed in her mind. He had enormous striking range, flinging forward like a serpent, so that she threw herself sidelong, rolled--Thank you for the practice, Callista, Luke--under the paralyzing wallop of his tail and was on her feet again and going in, the blade seeming to stream fire from her hand. Not a second, not a moment, to lose--the plague rising up from this dim-shining world the monster coming toward her again, rutilant eyes staring. He struck with his tail again, hundreds of kilos flashing with the speed of a whip. She barely dodged, wishing she had Luke's acrobatic training, his ability to Force-lift. The blades tangled, parted, Leia panting as she leapt sideways again, sparring for distance, watching the tail, fighting to remain close enough to strike. In and out, Callista had said. It's the only way for a woman to fight.

Like a huge serpent he struck, and she raised her blade to defend, her mind open with the Force, feeling before he did so that he was going to switch to lateral again. He did, and she was in under the blow and slashing a long, streaming, sidelong cut that went through the soft green body like burning wire. She flung herself past him, away from him, fast, for the huge bulk of him burst open, severed clean through, mammoth gouts of fluid and flesh and organs exploding soddenly forth. She heard him bellow with rage, once--saw the hot smoke-colored blade of his lightsaber go whirling, end over end. Then he was collapsing like a punctured balloon, like an empty sack, and Leia stood panting, covered in slime, her own blade burning in her hand, as Luke flung himself out from under the Headhunter and into its cockpit.

Dripping with filth, she saluted him with the blade, and Luke saluted back, their eyes meeting for an instant before he slammed the cockpit shut. Luke knew what it was that he saw. Her first victory. The victory over the shadow of Vader. The victory of acceptance of herself.

Source: Planet of Twilight

"Alema Rar!" Leia said. "I've been looking forward to this."

Leia reached back and caught one of the last standing Unu soldiers in a Force grasp, then brought her arm forward and hurled the insect sideways down the corridor. She followed a few steps behind, using its body as a shield, listening to shatter gun pellets drum into its carapace.

A couple of moments later, she heard the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber, then a blade so blue it was almost black sliced the insect in half. Leia pressed the attack, leaping between the body halves as they dropped away, hitting Alema with a Force shove and bringing her own blade around in an overhand power strike.

Alema barely got her guard up in time, and sparks filled the air as the two blades met. Leia brought her foot up in a driving stomp kick that rocked the Twi'lek back on her heels, then rolled her lightsaber into a horizontal slash at Alema's limp arm.

Alema had no choice except to pivot away and bring her weapon around in a desperate block that left her sideways and out of position. Leia swung her foot around in a powerful roundhouse kick that caught the Twi'lek behind the knees and swept both legs.

Alema landed flat on her back, her mouth gaping and her green eyes wide with alarm. Leia allowed herself a small smirk of satisfaction-recalling how lopsided the combat had been in Alema's favor the last time they fought-then blocked a desperate slash at her ankles and slipped into a counter, angling the tip of her blade toward the Twi'lek's heart.

Before Leia could drive the thrust home, a thrumming mass of blue chitin hit her in the chest and bowled her over backward. She tried to bring her lightsaber up and found her arms pinned to her chest, then her attacker pressed the muzzle of a shatter gun to her ribs. She used the Force to push the weapon away, but then the insect's mandibles were clamped around her head, its needle-sharp proboscis darting toward her eye.

Leia shot her free hand up between its mandibles, catching the proboscis between two fingers and continuing to shove until it snapped. The Gorog let out a distressed whistle and bore down with its mandibles, and the edge of her face exploded into pain. But by then she was shoving at the insect with the Force, opening enough of a gap so she could bring her lightsaber up and slice her attacker in two.

Leia started to spring up-until a storm of blaster bolts streamed past overhead, tearing into a trio of Gorog at her feet. Half a dozen crew members rushed past and crashed into the wall of insects in a deafening cacophony of blows and small-arms fire, then Bwua'tu appeared at her side, reaching down to help her up.

"Princess! Are you-"

"Fine!" Leia brought her feet under her, automatically raising her lightsaber in a high block. "Get ba-"

Alema charged out of the melee, her lightsaber already descending for the kill. Leia caught the attack on her blade, then delivered a Force-enhanced punch to the Twi'lek's chitin-armored midsection.

It was like hitting a wall. She felt a bone snap in her hand, and she did not even drive Alema farenough away to buy space to stand. The Twi'lek brought her knee up under Leia's chin, snapping her head back with such force that her vision went black for a moment.

Leia lashed out with her free arm, hooking it around the knee that had just struck her, then launched herself into a back roll. Alema had to spring in the opposite direction, executing a backflip, and they both came up on their feet facing each other. Leia's hand throbbed, but not so badly that it prevented her from grasping her lightsaber handle with both hands.

Bwua'tu and the rest of the crew members were behind Alema, pressing the attack on the Gorog and driving them back toward the capture bay. On the other side of the hatch, Leia sensed Saba and the Noghri, struggling to override the security system so they could join the battle. Coming down the corridor behind her, working their way through the smoke left by the Grendyl's grenade, Leia heard the distant drone of the surviving assassin bugs.

Alema studied Leia with narrowed eyes. "You've been practicing."

Leia shrugged. "A little."

"It won't matter," Alema sneered. "You're too old to start being a real Jedi now."

Leia raised her brow. "I think I need to teach you some manners."

Leia sprang forward, once again attacking the side with Alema's crippled arm. This time, the Twi'lek did not make the mistake of underestimating her opponent. She gave ground quickly, pivoting around so that her crippled side was protected.

Their blades clashed time and again, each Jedi augmenting their lightsaber strikes with Force shoves and telekinesis attacks, each trying to take advantage of the other's weakness. Leia's face had become so swollen that she could barely see out of one eye, and Alema kept circling to find a blind spot. As Alema tried to protect her weak side, Leia kept slipping toward it, forcing the Twi'lek to retreat toward the security hatch. All the time, the drone of the assassin bugs drew nearer.

Then Bwua'tu and the Ackbar's crew began to overwhelm Alema's company of insect-soldiers, forcing them past her toward the access terminal. Though the Twi'lek's back was now to the main fight, as the admiral and his followers drew closer to the terminal, the knowledge came to her through Gorog's collective mind. Her eyes flashed with alarm, then she sprang back, locked her blade on, and hurled her lightsaber at Leia's legs.

Leia had no choice but to block low and pivot away, and in that second Alema pointed at Bwua'tu's spine and let loose a crackling stream of Force lightning. Leia started to grab the admiral in the Force, intending to jerk him out of the way, but his aide Grendyl was already leaping to protect him.

The lightning caught the woman full in the chest, hurling her back into Bwua'tu and knocking him to the deck. Leia leapt at Alema, striking for the shoulders. The Twi'lek spun away... and launched Leia into a wall with a whirling back kick to the ribs.

The blunt clang of skull against durasteel sounded inside Leia's head. Her mind turned to gauze and she thought for a moment that the bloodcurdling howl assaulting her ears was her own. Then she noticed the meter-long segment of amputated lekku flopping around on the deck like a baagalmog out of water.

Leia looked up and found Alema trembling and screaming in pain, the cauterized stump of one nerve-packed head-tail ending just above her shoulder. But the Twi'lek's pain did not prevent her from releasing another stream of Force lightning-this time into the access terminal itself.

The unit exploded into a spray of sparks, pieces, and fumes. The security hatch gave the telltale hiss of a breaking seal, and Bwua'tu cried out in frustration.

Leia sprang to her feet and started toward Alema.

The Twi'lek was already stretching her arm up the corridor, calling her lightsaber back to hand. Leia heard the sizzle of the blade growing louder behind her and dropped into a deep squat as the weapon spun past overhead, then stabbed for Alema's heart.

The Twi'lek brought her blade down and blocked easily, then brought her foot up in a side-snap kick that caught Leia in the base of the throat. The blow was more painful than harmful, but Leia dropped to her seat, coughing and choking and trying to make it sound as though her larynx had been crushed. She could hear the drone of the assassin bugs only a few meters behind her and knew the time had come to end this fight-and she could see by the unreasoning fury in Alema's eyes that the wounded Twi'lek was primed for a mistake.

Leia rolled her eyes back in her head and let herself collapse to the floor. She heard Alema slide forward, then felt a knot of anticipation form in her stomach as the time approached to bring her blade slashing up through the Twi'lek's abdomen-and that was when Leia felt a surge of relief from Saba and the Noghri. A loud grating sounded from the security hatch, and she knew her Master and bodyguards had finally forced it open.

The pulsing whine of Meewalh's T-21 repeating blaster echoed down the corridor, then Alema's blade began to hiss and sizzle as it batted blaster bolts away. Leia opened her eyes to find the Twi'lek dancing along one wall of the corridor, just beyond reach and retreating into the droning cloud of assassin bugs.

When their eyes met, Alema's brow shot up in surprise. She flicked her lightsaber up in a brief salute, then gave Leia a spiteful sneer and fled out of sight.

Source: Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen

Leia charged, firing her blaster pistol with one hand and activating her lightsaber with the other. There was no question of giving Alema a chance to escape later by working with her now-even if it meant letting the Chiss recover the bomb. Eliminating the Dark Nest was the core of Luke's plan, and the Twi'lek was a big part of that nest.

Alema rushed to meet the attack, igniting her own lightsaber, wielding it with her one good arm and easily deflecting the stream of bolts.They met at a large burl where a smaller limb converged with its parent, their lightsabers coming together in a sizzle of sparks and color.

Leia jolted Alema with a one-handed power attack that hammered the Twi'lek's block down easily, then whipped her blade around in a buzzing backslash at a pulsing span of blue undefended throat. Alema dropped to her haunches and somehow snap-kicked from that impossible position, and Leia's middle exploded into pain.

The Princess exhaled hard, forcing the pain out, and did not yield a centimeter. She swept her blade down to attack the extended leg, but Alema had already drawn her foot back, and she ended up blocking the Twi'lek's blade as it came sizzling in at her knees.

Leia rolled her wrist and sent Alema's lightsaber flying, then brought her blaster pistol around and allowed herself a small smirk as she opened fire.

It was too soon to gloat.

Alema was already twisting away and launching herself backward in the air, her handed extended to recall her falling lightsaber. A pair of bolts burned past the Twi'lek's legs-so close that her flight suit began to smoke-but she rolled into an evasive Force tumble and landed unscathed on the adjacent branch ... and slipped. She inhaled sharply and started to fall, then hooked the back of her knee over the branch and caught herself.

Leia fired at the knee, but Alema was already swinging around, facing her, deep blue lightsaber in hand, batting blaster bolts straight back at her. Leia stopped firing. The Twi'lek slipped back into the branch moss in a seated position, then brought her leg up and stretched it along the branch, staring at her boot.

Leia's earlier slash had not missed after all. The front half of Alema's boot was missing-along with half her foot. The Twi'lek turned toward Leia, her unblinking eyes wide in astonishment and anger, and that was when Leia's comlink earpiece crackled to life.

"How's it going down there?" Han asked.

"Busy!" Leia said into her throat mike.

"Any sign of the bombs?" Han pressed.

"Not really."

Leia watched in alarm as Alema rose and peered over the branch behind her-no doubt plotting an escape route.

"Gotta go," Leia said. "I'm sort of in the middle of something."

Determined not to let her prey escape, Leia Force-jumped from her branch toward Alema's.

The Twi'lek's withered arm swung up, reaching toward Leia. The princess tucked into an evasive somersault - then felt herself rolling the wrong way as her feet were Force-jerked in the opposite direction. She called on the Force to stop her rotation, but by then the back of her head was thonking into the side of the branch.

The moss was not as thick on the sides of the branches. The sound echoed inside her skull so hard that Leia thought she would never hear anything else. Then she felt her feet whipping down from above and sensed the darkness rising up to swallow hers and she knew she had come to one of those terrible instants when everything depended on willpower and the stubborn desire to live.

Fortunately, Saba had prepared her well for such moments. Leia found her arms lashing out behind her, one elbow hooking over the branch to stop her fall. Everything remained dark, but she knew she had to keep fighting, to keep her enemy . . . whoever that was-she was having trouble remembering . . . at bay.

Leia felt the blaster pistol in one hand and her lightsaber in the other . . . another of Saba's lessons ringing inside her head, never, never drop your weapon, die with your weapon sssstill in your hand ... and Leia started to fire the blaster, pointing it down the branch where the trouble-who was it again?-seemed to lie. A familiar voice sounded in her ear.

"Hey, that sounds like blasterfire!"

Han.

"Yeah .. . it is." Leia started to recall the situation - a jungle, a Twi'lek, a fight - Alema Rar. "Now be quiet!"

Leia shook her head - big mistake-then whipped her leg up over the branch, still firing. The darkness faded from her eyes, but her blaster bolts were snaking toward their target in slow motion, while the target-a shimmering blue mirage that seemed to have three heads and six arms-was limping toward her behind a lightsaber moving so fast that it seemed to be weaving a shield of solid light.

Then one of the six blue arms moved. Leia's blaster flew from her own hand and vanished into the billowing greenness of the out-of-focus jungle.

The fight was not going exactly as planned.

Saba always said that planning would be Leia's downfall; that she planned too much and felt too little. She had also said that a shenhit always saves its deepest bite for last.

Leia pushed off the mossy branch and brought her feet up beneath her. The Princess had never met a shenhit, but Saba usually uttered the saying in sparring practice, right before she drove her student into the deck with a flurry of power strikes. Leia began to advance on her three-headed, six-armed opponent, weaving her blade through the frenzied slash-slice-and-rip of a Barabel rage attack.

To Leia's astonishment, the three-headed enemy suddenly stopped advancing, then began to retreat.

"Wait! This is silly!" Again, that beguiling voice and that furtive Force-touch, trying to dampen the negative thoughts and bolster the positive ones. Alema pointed her lightsaber over the side of the branch. "The bomb is right down there."

Leia stopped advancing-more to give her eyes a chance to bring her enemy into focus than because she was considering the offer-and glanced down. There did seem to be a big silver blur lying in a bed of green.

"It would be a shame to let the Chiss recover it," Alema said. "Can't we strike a truce long enough to destroy it-then finish killing each other?"

Leia pretended to consider the offer while her vision finished clearing, then-when Alema's extra heads and arms disappeared-she shook her own head.

"Let's do it now."

Leia started forward ... and instantly regretted her decision when the branch bounced and nearly buckled her knees. She noticed it sagging beneath her weight and realized she was farther out on the end than she had perceived in her foggy-headed state. It was a mistake that would cost her dearly. With such unreliable footing, the Princess would be even worse off than her half-footed foe.

Alema was quick to press her advantage, hobbling forward to attack, launching a flurry of strike and Force-push combinations that drove Leia back even farther toward the tip of the bouncing branch. The Princess parried, but her reactions had been slowed by her head blow, and she had to retreat yet another step. She Force-shoved at Alema's knee, but the nimble Twi'lek - who had spent her youth dancing in the ryll dens of Kala'uun - simply lifted her bad foot and pirouetted forward on the good one, driving Leia back another, even longer step.

The branch sagged so precariously that the Princess had to Force-stick herself in place.

"Hey, those sound like lightsabers!" Han observed over Leia's earpiece.

"They are!" Leia growled. "Can you just hold on?" Now the branch was bouncing even when the Princess wasn't moving, and her danger sense was covering her back with goose bumps. Had Alema launched a power attack-even a weak one-Leia's only choice would have been to drop off the branch and hope she could catch another one with the Force on the way down. Instead, the Twi'lek seemed content merely to hold the Princess in place with defensive swordplay.

Then comprehension finally burned its way through the concussion fog inside Leia's head. The danger she was sensing had nothing to do with Alema. A predator had landed behind her . . . something large enough to weigh down a limb the size of her thigh.

Alema smiled. "Dinnertime, Princess."

Leia's blood began to burn with a very Barabel-like rage. She would not die at the hands of some Twi'lek dancing girl - or at the claws of some jungle flunky. She went on the attack, forgetting her slow reactions and foggy head and uneven footing, and let the battle take her - let her lightsaber block and slash and stab of its own accord, let her feet dance back and forth over the bouncing limb.

Alema came at her just as strongly, kicking with her half foot, stretching out for long lightsaber lunges, pushing constantly through the Force-steadily driving Leia back toward the hungry presence that she could now sense coming up behind her.

Then a wisp of hot breath brushed the back of Leia's neck, and she knew it was time. The Princess tried a throat slash and swung wide, deliberately leaving herself open for a heart thrust. Never having been one to resist temptation, Alema could not help lunging for the kill.

Leia had already flexed her knees and was springing off the sagging branch, bringing her feet up over her head in an open Force flip. She saw the Twi'lek stretched out below her, not quite off balance-but not far from it-her neck craned back as she watched her target fly overhead. Leia brought her lightsaber down, striking for the head. Alema could only whip her lightsaber up in a desperate block. The blades clashed in a growling shower of sparks and light, then the Princess was swinging down behind her, twisting around to plant one foot between the Twi'lek's shoulders and send her stumbling toward the shaggy mass that had been creeping up behind Leia.

There was no time to tell what kind of creature the thing was. All Leia saw was something the size of a bantha taking Alema's sword arm in its jaws. The Twi'lek screamed in pain; then four spiky pedipalps emerged from the side of the creature's mouth and began to feed her in.

Alema's legs were still outside, kicking wildly, when Leia felt the thing's attention fall on her and noticed six beady eyes peering out from beneath the mossy scales that covered its head. Before it could spring, the Princess brought her lightsaber down, cutting the branch away at her feet.

Instead of plummeting toward the jungle floor, the creature swung outward, hanging suspended by a thick, ropy tail that ascended more than ten meters to a branch above. It was even larger than Leia had first imagined, with a long slug-like body that had dozens of tiny feet wriggling on the underside. Alema remained in its mouth, kicking her feet and presumably screaming into its throat. Leia locked her lightsaber blade in the on position, then used the Force to send it spinning through the tail.

The predator - whatever it was - did not open its mouth or roar in pain. It simply plummeted groundward, filling the jungle with a terrific banging and cracking as it crashed through the mogo boughs, then finally splashed into the dark river below.

Leia called her lightsaber back to her hand, and had barely switched it off before Han's voice came over her earpiece again.

Source: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War

A pair of lightsabers sizzled to life behind the woman, and sparks flew as Leia and Tahiri brought their weapons together. By the time the captain spun back around, the two Jedi were locked in a furious battle of flashing blades and flying feet.

"Stop!" the captain ordered. She motioned to her squad, who instantly flipped their blaster rifle power settings to stun and leveled the barrels at the combatants. "You will stop, or we'll open fire."

Leia landed a jaw-cracking elbow under Tahiri's chin, and Tahiri slammed a knee into Leia's ribs. The captain cursed under her breath, then turned to her marines.

"Hold on!" Han said. "That's a really bad..."

"Fire at will, "the captain ordered.

Han dropped, barely reaching the floor before a flurry of stun bolts flashed toward the fight-then reversed directions as the two Jedi batted the attacks back toward their sources. The marines collapsed in moans and spasms, the redheaded captain cracking skulls with Han as she landed atop him.

He rolled out from beneath her, cursing and rubbing his head. The hangar was ringing with security alarms, and royal guards were pouring from hidden crannies and secret passages, but the two Jedi remained oblivious. Leia connected with a vicious thrust kick that bent Tahiri backward over a landing strut crossbar.

Tahiri grunted and pointed at a loose blaster rifle, bringing it tumbling into Leia from behind, catching her between the shoulder blades and knocking her to the floor.

Leia flipped onto her back and brought her legs up over her head, landing on one foot and pirouetting straight into the attack, her blade level with Tahiri's neck.

"Wait!" Han cried. "Not my strut!"

Leia accelerated her pirouette, trying to land the attack before Tahiri had time to block, and that was when Han began to realize his wife was really serious about this-she wasn't in it just to teach the younger woman a lesson.

"Leia, wo!"

The plea made Leia hesitate just long enough for Tahiri to block, then Leia was on her feet again, keeping Tahiri pinned against the strut, beating down her guard, slipping in knee and elbow strikes with a speed and ferocity that only a Barabel-trained fighter could achieve.

"Leia, stop!" Han yelled. "You want to kill her?"

Leia continued to press the attack, and Han realized that was exactly what she wanted to do. She had found a handy target for all her rage, just as he had when he'd blamed Anakin for Chewbacca's death, and she was determined to make Tahiri pay for what had happened to Luke.... and for what Jacen had become.

Han snatched the blaster pistol from the captain's hand and, hoping to startle his wife back to her senses, sent a bolt zinging past her. It glanced off the Falcon and left a black, smoking furrow in the hull-apparently, the captain had not set her blaster to stun. Leia glanced away just long enough for Tahiri to land a spinning back-kick that sent her staggering away.

Han sprang up to grab her. He was taking his life in his hands, but he knew Leia would never forgive herself if she killed Tahiri over a stupid comment and a couple of bad choices. He wrapped his arms around Leia's shoulders and pulled her back - then felt the air leave his chest and his feet leave the floor as she instinctively slammed an elbow into his ribs and started to throw him.

"Whoa.... Leia!" he groaned. "It's me."

He felt the tension leave her body and his feet return to the floor, then Tahiri started to advance, her haggard eyes filled with malice and anger.

"Don't do it!" Han ordered. He pulled Leia aside and, when she deactivated her lightsaber, stepped between her and Tahiri. "Don't you dare."

Tahiri stopped two paces away, her lightsaber still ignited, glancing from Leia to Han and looking like a sabacc player trying to decide whether to fold or raise."You think this is what Anakin would want?" Han prompted. "His mother and his girlfriend trying to kill each other?"

"I certainly don't," a female voice said, coming up behind Han-and speaking over the drone of her own lightsaber. "And I won't have it in my hangar."

The anger in Tahiri's face quickly changed to embarrassment. She deactivated her blade and bowed, holding herself parallel to the floor. "I apologize, Your Majesty. I didn't believe they would resist."

Source: Legacy of the Force: Inferno

"Care to surrender?"

"No."

"Good." She came at him.

Dei took her first attack, blocking with both skill and sheer strength, a defense meant to look contemptuous, meant to intimidate.

Leia was not intimidated. She retreated a step before he could shove her away, disengaged, kicked. His blade swept through the air where her leg should have ended up, but she hadn't followed through. Sand propelled by her foot spattered against his face - the right side of his face. He grinned. Hers had been a viable tactic, countered by damage he'd already sustained.

Then it was on, a full-speed duel to the death.

Relaxing into the Force, into instinct and muscle memory and training, Dei decided that the moment was one of perfect complementarity. His hot anger against her cool restraint. Male and female. Sith and Jedi. Glowing red against glowing blue. Strength against suppleness. He felt a thrill of delight at the beauty of it.

Complementarity - their blades locked, sizzling, then they spun away from each other, and Dei realized he'd made a mistake. Spinning toward his off-hand as he'd done thousands of times, he lost sight of his opponent a fraction of a second early, betrayed by his missing eye. He felt Leia surge in the Force. He whirled his blade in a defensive, protective pattern, but it encountered nothing.

They came to a stop facing each other. Dei felt a curious sense of detachment.

Then he found himself staring at the sky. He didn't know how, but suddenly he was looking up at the stars. Then at the camp beyond the overlook, and it was upside down. Then at the backs of his own legs and feet. His head hit the sand a moment before his body collapsed. His head rolled a few meters, then came to a stop. The last thing he saw was the nexu, puffed up, blood-spattered, sitting staring at him.

And darkness washed that image away forever.

Source: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction

The bitterness in the air grew stronger. The scales between Saba's shoulder blades rose in excitement, and she swept her tail around in a swift arc that ended in a knee-crunching impact. Her prey landed with the crisp slap of a practiced warrior, winning Saba's instant respect by not crying out in either pain or surprise. She spun on her haunches, snatching her lightsaber off her utility belt, bringing it around from the direction opposite her tail.

A crimson blade sizzled into existence and blocked, then a Force wave blasted her across the chamber into the wall opposite. The air left her lungs as her skull slammed against stone and a ring of darkness formed around the edges of her vision. She could see only her prey's red lightsaber and his seated silhouette. She felt nothing in the Force from him, only the same vague danger as before.

Now, this would be prey worth taking.

The shadow man returned to his feet and remained where he was, gathering himself to continue or arrogantly waiting for Saba to ask who he was. First mistake. Saba sprang, sissing in delight, ignoring the murk in her head, bringing her arms around in a vicious overhand slash. Her prey - she wasted no time wondering who he was-limped two steps back, then brought his crimson blade up and stopped her swing cold.

Saba brought a knee around, driving for his rib cage, and felt like she had struck a statue. He slipped a palm-heel under her guard and caught her in the chin, sent her staggering back.

Strong, too.

Saba kicked a fist-sized stone off the floor, then used the Force to hurl it at his head and followed it in with a cut at his knees. He pivoted past the stone and met her attack, catching her blade on his and sweeping it up in a disarming counter arc, power-fighting against a Barabel and winning.

At the top of the arc, Saba released her lightsaber and raked her claws down in a vicious one-two slash, the first strike opening her prey's face from temple to jaw, the second strike slicing an eye apart. He whirled away, still silent but screaming in the Force, and planted a spinning stomp kick in Saba's belly. She went with the blow, rolling into a quick backflip and losing half a meter of tail to his lightsaber.

This time, the shadow man gave her no time to recover. A fork of blue lightning crackled from his hand and caught Saba square in the chest. Every nerve in her body became a conduit of blazing agony, and she dropped her to her knees, teeth gnashing, scales dancing, muscles clenching-paralyzed.

Continuing to hold the Force lightning on her with one hand, the shadow man limped forward. In the light of his red lightsaber, Saba saw her prey clearly for the first time. Dressed in an amalgam of black plastoid armor and blue Killik chitin, he was surprisingly gaunt, with a sinewy frame and a twisted posture that looked ready to collapse beneath his humped shoulder. His face was even more melted and shapeless than Raynar's,just two eyes and a lipless slash in a scarred oval of flesh, and one of his arms was as much insect as human, turning tubular and chitinous at the elbow before ending in a hooked pincer.

Raynar and the Killiks had lied, Saba realized. Welk, at least, had also survived the Crash.

The Dark Jedi stopped a meter and a half away. Having learned the folly of hesitation, he brought his arm up quickly, swinging at Saba's neck-then pitched backward as her Force shove buckled his injured knee. His lightsaber scraped along Saba's skull, flooding her mind with a pain so hot and blinding that she could not tell whether the Force lightning had stopped. She sprang anyway and slammed into his chest, driving her prey the last half a meter to the ground, clutching blindly at his weapon arm, biting into his throat.

Her fangs barely sank two centimeters. She tried to rip the wound open, but lacked the strength to keep her jaw clamped and came away only with a mouthful of blood.

Still, the bite took her prey by surprise. She found herself in the grasp of the Force, flying back through the darkness. She reached out, calling her lightsaber to hand, and had it in her grasp when she hit the cavern wall.

Fighting off a black curtain of unconsciousness, Saba slid down the wall and landed on her feet. Her vision was blotchy at best, and she could not even hear the customary snap-hiss as she ignited her lightsaber. She sprang at her prey anyway, covering the distance in three short bounds, and nearly lost her balance when she landed in his blood.

Welk retreated two meters and leveled another fork of Force lightning at her. She deflected it with her lightsaber and pivoted past, sissing in excitement. It was turning into a good hunt, a very good hunt. She rushed to close the distance. He brought his lightsaber to a middle guard and retreated another step.

Saba attacked high, but her reflexes were fading and his lightsaber flashed up to block. He retreated another step. She launched a spinning advance, bringing her blade around in a shoulder slash, whipping her bloodied tail around at his legs.

She was smooth but slow. He blocked the shoulder slash and hopped over the tail sweep, then rolled his blade over Saba's in an excellent block-assault conversion.

The attack might have opened her throat, had there been a way for him to block Saba's trailing foot. As it was, she swept his feet from beneath him and continued into a second spin, bringing her lightsaber down across his pincer-arm, then planting afoot on his remaining arm and rolling her blade around to add a neck wound to the arm he had just lost.

That was when Saba's blotchy vision proved costly. She sensed something flying at her from behind and turned to look, but saw only dark against dark.

The rock slammed into her head wound, and then she was kneeling on the floor, her lightsaber in a high guard, with no recollection of how she had landed there. Her sight was worse than ever, narrowed to a tiny circle, and her senses of smell and taste had gone the way of her hearing.

This was becoming a hunt to remember.

Seeing nothing ahead but a narrow cone of rock, Saba stretched into the Force and felt more danger than before. It seemed to have her surrounded, as though her prey had extended his presence over the entire chamber. She began to weave her lightsaber in a blind defensive pattern and rose. Something spongy and warm landed on her shoulder beneath her head wound. She hoped it wasn't her brains.

Saba began to spin in a slow circle, and finally her narrow cone of vision fell on her quarry, fleeing toward the cavern wall at a fast limp, blood pouring from his neck wound, the cauterized stump of his severed arm waving useless in the air.

Good. The prey was weakening.

Saba shut down her lightsaber and bounded after him, her heart pounding in anticipation of the final kill. She reached the cavern wall three steps behind him... and hissed in surprise as something landed on her back and pierced her neck scales with a sturdy proboscis.

Source: Dark Nest I: The Joiner King

Tau kills numerous Flesh Raiders, who were benefiting from Tython's inclination towards the Dark Side in the same manner as Tau at that time. He then stomps a Force Hound in one move.

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Xesh has effortlessly subdued another Force Hound, Trill, twice, with telekinesis and physically.

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Xesh reacts to an ambush from Je'daii Master Daegen Lok, showing decent martial skill.

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Outmaneuvers Sek'nos Rath, who not too much later on would defeat Trill physically. He's also killed numerous Flesh Raiders, so this is a decent feat.

While both were holding back to a degree, Xesh keeps up with Shae Coda. (Or rather she keeps up with him)

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Xesh defeats his master, Skal'nas, in a Forcesaber duel. Skal'nas is a decent duelist, who kept even with Daegan Lok, who has killed numerous flesh raiders, and has done well against other skilled Je'daii.

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Daegen Lok was a general for the Je'daii during the Despot War against Queen Hadiya.

Kills a platoon of soldiers with his blade.

Fights Je'daii Master Fenn, defeating him by feigning fatigue. He also put a serious hurting on Fenn, judging by the scars on his arm that weren't there at the start.

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KO's Rori Fenn in one strike.

Diring the battles against the Flesh Raiders, the Je'daii were heavily outnumbered and surrounded. Lok was usually leading the others into battle, on the frontlines.

Lok kills several Flesh Raiders while being swarmed by them, and then receives some help from Sek'nos Rath, allowing them to kill about a dozen or more of them together.

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Duels evenly with Skal'nas, a skilled Rakatan warlord who fought his way up to the top of the brutal Rakatan hierarchy. Lok tries to use a Mind Twist but fails, ending with him being impaled (but not killed!).

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