Paul Kemp: Crosscurrent

Jaden stopped pacing, and his abrupt stop seemed to take the clone by surprise. "I cannot help you," he said.

"You can," the clone said, also stopping. "And you will. You will give us your ship."

"No."

From under his cloak, the clone drew his lightsaber and activated it. A long, unstable red blade cut the shadows, spitting angry sparks.

The clone's fa?ade ran like candle wax, the heat of his rage melting the calm mask of his expression to reveal the savagery beneath. Eyes narrowed, teeth bared, he snarled… and in the sound Jaden heard the violent nature that had slaughtered hundreds of people and thrown their corpses into a cloning pit turned mass grave.

"Mother is hungry!"

Jaden prepared himself, sank into the calm of the Force.

The clone ran one way around the pit and Jaden ran the opposite. They met after fifteen strides, still on Mother's edge, both lightsabers humming. Jaden ducked low under the clone's decapitating cross-stroke and stabbed at his abdomen.

The clone reverse-backflipped, balancing on the pit's edge, then immediately charged Jaden again. He feinted low and unleashed a vicious overhand blow, then another, and another. Jaden parried each one, but the blows began to numb his arms. He let the Force soothe his muscles and augment his strength, and answered with a flurry of blows of his own.

The clone gave no ground, and Jaden could not penetrate his defenses. They crossed blades at the chest, weapons sizzling, the sparks from the clone's blade searing scorch marks into Jaden's suit. The clone grunted, shoved Jaden two meters backward, and lunged after him.

Jaden leapt over his head, flipping, his blade slashing down as he flew over the clone, but the clone parried. Jaden landed on his feet on the edge of the pit and the clone was upon him, forcing his lightsaber high and landing a Force-augmented kick in his chest. Ribs snapped and Jaden staggered backward.

Following up on the opening, the clone leapt forward and cross-cut Jaden at the knees. Jaden leapt over the slash, used an overcut to drive the clone's blade into the deck, where it threw up a shower of sparks. Jaden spun, and angled a reverse-cross-cut for the clone's head.

The clone lurched backward but the tip of Jaden's blade opened a gash in his throat. Staggered, gasping, the clone swung wildly with his lightsaber while unleashing a telekinetic blast against Jaden's chest.

Jaden used the Force to deaden the blow, but his broken ribs ground against one another and he hissed with pain. By now the clone had recovered enough to charge. He attacked high, low, overhand, cross-cuts, Jaden parried them all while backing off. The clone did not relent, pressing Jaden further, faster. Jaden answered where he could but the clone's blade seemed everywhere. Jaden parried left, right, again, again, until he felt a sharp, stinging sensation and both his lightsaber and three fingers went flying off into the darkness.

A side kick from the clone ruined his already broken ribs and sent him down into Mother. He fell amid the corpses, swimming in the gore, feeling as if dead hands were clutching at him. Stinking, wet fluid soaked him. Before he could sit up, the clone leapt into the pit after him and landed on his feet with his legs to either side of Jaden. Jaden could not see the Kamclone's face, could see only the sparking line of his red lightsaber held high for a killing stroke. Jaden focused his mind on the blade as it came down. He threw up an arm, grabbed the clone's wrist, and steered the blade wide.

The clone grunted in frustration, knelt, and grabbed Jaden's throat with his free hand.

"Do not resist. You should be honored to provide sustenance to Mother," he said, and began to squeeze.

Desperate, and still holding the clone's right wrist to keep the sizzling red line of his lightsaber at bay, Jaden used his wounded right hand to claw at the clone's grip, trying to dig his remaining fingers under the clone's and pry loose some space for an inhalation. Failing that, he tried to roll aside, to shift his weight and gain some leverage, or free a leg to kick out, but the clone's Force-augmented strength was greater than Jaden's.

Jaden gagged, tried to shake loose by flailing his head, but failed. His lungs forced him to try to draw air. Unable to pull in oxygen, he saw spots. The clone grunted against Jaden's fading grip, his dark eyes wild, saliva dripping from his gritted teeth.

Jaden's arms were deadwood hanging off his shoulders. As he lost strength, the clone's lightsaber moved closer to his throat. The sparks from the unstable blade struck Jaden's face and arm, pock marking his skin with tiny scorch marks, igniting little flashes of pain. His heart banged in his ears. He was failing. He was going to die.

The realization summoned something from deep within the dark crevices of his mind where he kept secrets even from himself. Force lightning exploded from his hand, squeezed out by the exigency of his circumstances. The blue lines spiraled around the clone's hand and lightsaber.

The clone gasped with surprise, loosened his grip, disengaged. Jaden gulped a lungful of air while the darkness within him swelled and the outburst of Force lightning intensified. Jaden knew that fear had unlocked the darkest part of himself, knew, too, that he could free that part, surrender to it, and save his body while destroying himself.

But he thought of Kyle, of his training, of Relin, and denied the impulse. The Force lightning died.

The clone recovered, growled, raised his lightsaber high.

Jaden reached behind his back, pulled out the lightsaber he had built in his youth, his ignorant youth, a lightsaber not so different from that held by the clone.

The clone lunged forward.

Jaden activated his lightsaber and drove the point into and through the clone's abdomen.

The clone's roar turned to a groan, but his momentum carried him forward along Jaden's blade, and as death turned his eyes glassy, he completed his overhand stroke.

The sparking red blade cleaved the bodies beside Jaden and fell from the clone's hand. It lay there, a red line spitting sparks. It had no auto-off, and its energy burned into the corpses and sank part way into the muck. Jaden stared at its red swirl a long time, the dead eyes of the clone fixed on his face all the while.

Finally Jaden thumbed off his lightsaber and the clone's body fell free. He pushed the corpse to the side. Grunting with pain, he bent and picked up the clone's lightsaber, held it beside his own purple blade as best he could with his damaged hand.

Purple and red lines-two lines, two choices.

He deactivated both weapons, slowly stood. Exhaustion made his body shake. Pain turned his vision blurry. He limped to the edge of the cloning cylinder, of Mother.

Desiccated skulls and empty eye sockets bore witness to his passage. Open mouths screamed at him to cast himself in, to join them. The stink made him wince. At least he thought it was the stink.

With effort, grunting with pain, he slowly climbed out of the pit.

When he reached the top, he turned and stared down at the chaotic mass of bodies, all of them twisted together, contorted, as if frozen in a struggle to move over and past one another, or perhaps just pressed into one common mass where struggle no longer mattered. He thought all of it must be a metaphor for something, but his pain- and fatigue-addled mind could not decide for what.

He started to cast the clone's lightsaber back into the mass of flesh at the bottom of the pit, put it to rest beside his own, but decided against it. Instead, he latched it to his belt, turned, and found himself staring into the eyes of an Anzat. Surprise almost caused him to step back and fall again into the pit.

In the silence of the cargo bay, drenched in the power of the Lignan, Relin dwelled on his failures. He had failed Saes, failed Drev, failed the Order. He'd even failed Marr, awakening him to the Force so that his first experience with it was the touch of the Lignan.