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.He had almost made it back out to the open when Forty caught up with him."Where are you going?""You know I have to do this," Jangotat said.Forry nodded."And you know I can't let you.""Then stop me if you can," Jangotat replied.All things being equal, Jangotat and Forry should have been roughly equivalent fighters.But things were no longer equal.Jangotat was fighting for everything Forry fought for, plus just a little bit more.Sheeka.Tonote.Mithail.Tarl.The Guides.It's not what a man fights with.It's what he fights for.The two moved toward each other, paused for an instant just as they reached critical distance, judging.In the next instant there followed an eye-baffling flurry of punches and kicks.Forry was stronger and faster.But it didn't make a difference.Jangotat saw more clearly now, more than he ever had in his life, as if the entire moment were frozen in invisible ice.He saw Forry's patterned responses, the programmed blows and chops.Jangotat felt outside this somehow, watching the motion without being involved in it.Forry might as well have sat down and detailed his every intended motion in advance.Moving slowly, with greater calm than he had ever experienced in combat, Jangotat simply slid between Forry's movements.As he strove to keep the balance between them he contracted his stance, and Jangotat's natural flinch response moved his elbow into perfect position to clip his brother's jaw.Forry slid to the ground, and was still.Jangotat stood there for a moment, shocked.Was that what it felt like to be a Jedi? Was that even a fraction of how it felt?Or was this just how it felt to be free? He didn't know what door had been opened in his head, what training and.and.And love had done for him.He felt a deep excitement.He might be heading into death, but he was more alive than he had ever been, than any of his kind had ever been.He could, he would, succeed.There was no other option.He met with Thak Val Zsing and Resta by the speeder bikes.It took them only a few minutes to sabotage the other speeders—it would take his brothers an hour to fix them, by which time he would be long gone.For fifty minutes they rode to the northwest.The air riffled his hair, and the new sun flared to his left as dawn breached the darkness.He enjoyed the solitude, the sense of being beyond it all.Of knowing, for the first time in his life, that he had chosen his fate.A new, precious day.Perhaps his last.He grinned ferociously.Best not waste a moment of it.Fifteen kilometers north of Resta's farm a lava tube gaped in the middle of a mud plain.That is where they entered, carrying with them knapsacks filled with ordnance.For ninety minutes they crawled through darkness, bruising and slicing their knees on the glassy surface.Thak Val Zsing led the way, and from time to time he called back to them."The prison was to the east now, and we're in one of the escape tunnels." He laughed with self-mockery."Escape tunnels.What a joke: the whole planet was a prison—there was nowhere to escape to.But the central computers say that the Five Family resort was built in one of the wings of the old prison after it was abandoned."They reached a larger section, crawling out into a cave tall enough for them to stand.More than tall enough: this was part of an old mine, with smaller shafts twisting off in all directions."This is as far as I know," the old man said."This is where my grandfather escaped." Cestus Penitentiary's deepest pits were now bunkers for the Five Families.A savage irony, that."Let's go," Resta said, and tried to shoulder her way ahead.Jangotat stood in her path."You must live," he said."Got nothing live for.Lost mate.Lost farm." Jangotat shook his head."What happened here, to your people, shouldn't have happened.What you have done here will not go unnoticed.When this is over, file a report using the phrase A-Nine- Eight tac code twelv."He held her eyes."That means that you performed extraordinary service for me during official business.You are a friend of the Republic, and the Republic looks after its own." She glared at him, unwilling to believe.To trust that there was any way for her save revenge and death."No.Go with you.""Someone must sing your hive's song," Jangotat said."Find a new mate.Make strong children.Never stop fighting."She was so astonished that she didn't react when Jangotat spun her and placed her in a sleeper hold.Resta struggled to free herself, and she was strong—stronger than most human males.But he had the right angle and position.No matter how she struggled, he hung on.She ran him back against a wall, but he hung on.A hundred different alien physiologies flashed through his mind, then he remembered the Geonosians.They were also insectile, and air strangles were considered worthless.But there were nerve clusters—There, at the base of the skull.He disengaged one of his arms and leaned in with his elbow, pressing from both sides, gambling everything.Impact could prove fatal, but pressure alone.Resta went limp and rolled over, unconscious.Jangotat stared down at her, panting.What a fighter! What had it taken to sap the will of these people? "What are their men like?" he whispered to Thak Val Zsing."You don't want to know," Val Zsing replied.Jangotat took a few moments to calm himself.Then Thak Val Zsing pointed out the last tunnel, and together they descended into darkness.76Another hour's crawling brought him to the wall of the outer chamber.A swift scan revealed that the wall was only one-centimeter durasteel, and Jangotat knew that he could handle it.The armorpiercing mines were designed for use against battle droids, but they would work here as well.Pulling out two of the round, flat disks, Jangotat attached them to the wall with their adhesive bands and set the timer.He and Thak Val Zsing had barely had time to retreat back around the bend when the sharply focused blast detonated with a clap that knocked both men onto their backs.Dazed, Jangotat grabbed his rifle and rushed into the next room as red and yellow lights flashed warning.Through the smoke he glimpsed a bank of communications equipment and stacks of food supplies [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]