Star Wars: The Soul of a Sith Book II

Chapter 1 - Part II

"Leave us alone!" Neeka hissed at the man.

Kala, the eldest female Jedi who had shouted at Ren, flicked on her lightsaber – a pale blue blade that thrummed with glowing energy. "Put the weapons away, little alien girl, or I will come over there and slice your head from your body, you little—"

Ren's right hand snapped up with preternatural speed, his fingers spreading up and outward. The Force responded to his anger at Neeka being threatened, whipping through his arm and exploding out through his palm like a burst from a cannon. His perceptions accelerated, bringing his sense of time to a crawl. Kala reacted as he might expect a Jedi to react, summoning the force up in a protective shield. Her defenses came within a fraction of a second, but they were not fast enough. Ren's invisible power struck her so furiously that blood vessels burst under her skin and bone snapped. The woman was hurled some five meters back into a wall of rough stone where she struck and then bounced forward in a violent jerk, dropping to ground and falling limp to the ground where she coughed blood out in between wheezing breaths.

Ren sensed the energy of four lightsabers igniting from their hilts. Everyone but the leader drew. One of the male underlings shouted: "Should we cut him down, sir?"

"Not yet," Sorn said in an icy voice. He moved slowly toward Ren, the metallic hilt of lightsaber in his right hand, still not activated. "Tomire, see to Kala," he said over his shoulder. As one of the Jedi's moved toward his fallen companion, Sorn's eyes narrowed at Ren and he said in an icy voice: "You are extremely powerful." He did not seem concerned much about his injured comrade.

Ren said nothing. He could feel tremendous power coming off the man, and as Ren sensed this he saw pieces of the man's mind. There was no fear at all in him, nor did he exude the warm and benevolent aura Ren's father had. His was far colder—a kind of peace that seemed to be derived from utter emptiness.

"I do not wish to fight," Ren said. As he said this, a thin, pretty human girl stepped from around Sorn. Her hair was dark auburn and she might have been a slender, lovely thing save her eyes. They were orbs of inky black with thin silver reticules that glowed a bit like Dalvin's eye. Those eyes immediately fixed on Ren and as soon as they did a psychic impression leaped into his mind: she was not human, nor was she alive. Her hair, her smooth skin, and everything else about her were artificial. She was an HRD – a human replicant droid.

"Master," the artificial girl said, her voice incredibly cold, "the female matches all physical characteristics of an escaped military test subject specimen."

Ren's heart sank at these words. He sensed Neeka draw just a little closer to him, and he glared up at the Jedi Master. "Let us go. We aren't worth the fight we'll give."

"I'm afraid you are," Sorn said, meeting Ren's gaze. He took a step closer and said: "You do not seem like any Sith I have ever encountered, boy. Perhaps you could be made to serve the Jedi order in some way. That would be better than death, would it not?" Sorn turned and gazed toward the injured knight. A human male a few years older than Ren was attending to her wounds with a small metallic hypoderm of what was likely a regenerative substance. Then turned his gaze back to Ren and took a step forward, and then another. "It will go far easier on you if you do not attempt to resist, boy." Ren noted that the Jedi all around him were beginning to edge closer.

"STOP!" Ren snarled, and he poured all of his frustration and anxiety into an explosion of hissing tendrils of force lightning that leaped out from his extended palm.

Sorn's hand shot up instantly to intercept this attack and to Ren's utter shock an amazing field of white-yellow energy formed a kind of curving shield around the man. It took the full scope of Ren's assault, absorbing and spreading the energy around somehow. Ren's power at least caused Sorn stumble back a few steps, but when the attack had ceased he was utterly unharmed.