[Memory]

[blueskying]

There were five of us, running through the corridors. I heard something and told the others - my friends - to go on ahead of me, and they did. I took my sword hilt from my belt and activated the blade. It was white with pale green edges, humming and singing in the air, smelling like a lightning strike.

A woman said "Behold the Jedi Knight. The man of legend." She was behind me, a blonde woman, taller than me, hard and cold. I'd never seen her before but Lando (Lan Dao ?) had described her, she was incredibly fast and strong enough to casually break metal bindings, her name was Guri and she was actually a droid.

"You have caused my master much misfortune," she said. "You should die for that." I leveled the sword at her and she lifted her eyebrows and said, "But you have that blade and I am unarmed."

I knew there wasn't much time and it would be smarter to kill her or drive her away and head for the rendezvous point, but why would I start doing the smart thing now? I deactivated my blade and reattached it to my belt and asked what she wanted.

"A test," she said. "My master pits himself against the deadliest opponents he can find. There is no man who is my equal in hand-to-hand combat. Except perhaps, if the stories are true, a Jedi Knight."

I asked her, "This building is going to blow to pieces in three minutes and you want to play games?"

There wasn't any emotion on her face but I could hear agitation in her. "It won't take that long. Are you afraid to die, Sky Walker? (Skywalker ?)"

The obvious answer was yes, but I wasn't, not really. The Force was with me. Whatever happened, happened.

Guri came at me, impossibly fast, but I let the Force move through me; as long as I was focused on that I could move as quickly as she did. We traded blows I could barely follow, nothing damaging, until one of my friends screamed my name. Automatically I looked, saw that they were turning back (a small woman, two men, a sasquatch?), realized I shouldn't have done that and backpedaled but Guri was there, and I was distracted, the Force left me. I hit the ground dazed with the breath knocked out of me and knew with cold horror that she was about to kill me. Her smile lit her face.

There was a man's voice, calling from what felt like a great distance but also, somehow, so close. Steadying. The Force. Let it work for you.

Yes.

I managed to pull in a breath as Guri cocked back her arm and formed her hand into a blade, and let it out, letting go of the sudden fear with it. Trusting that the Force would help me, I fell back into it and let it overtake me. It was a blooming awareness, a lively shine, a vast effervescent heat sunk into my bones.

Guri was still moving, but slowed as if encased in gelatin. In that moment it had taken me to prepare she had launched herself and closed most of the little distance that had been between us, but now I easily rolled aside and got to my feet while she moved gradually through the air. It felt like I was moving normally, not even as quickly as a moment before, but there was a crackling feel to the air around me, and a sound like strong wind. My artificial hand seemed sluggish, lagging, moving in increments, in fits and stops.

I shoved her descending arm aside, feeling that it also moved by tiny increments, and hooked her legs out from under her. So close I could see her blue irises opening in a way that wasn't quite human, her gaze starting to move in tics from where I had been, and she was floating down -

The Force flowed and released me, and Guri's back hit the floor. It was an impact like industrial machinery, loud and heavy and cracking all of the tiles around her. I felt it in my legs and chest when she hit. I'd never heard anyone fall so hard, she didn't look right and blood showed at the corner of her mouth, but I knew, I felt it, she was stunned and not really hurt. She had lungs, she had a circulatory system pumping fluid, but they weren't vital components. In a moment she would recover.

The echoes of Laya's (Leah's ?) shout were still echoing down the corridor. Flexing my right hand - my artificial fingers moved smoothly again - I took my sword in hand and called out the blade again, knowing she was too dangerous to leave alive.

Lying on her back, stunned, she smiled faintly. "You won fairly. Go ahead."

She would have killed me - she'd been about to do so. I felt like time stalled again, stretched like melting plastic, but without the Force's influence. What would it be like, to be created to serve a creature as wretched as her master, but to have enough of her own will to say this?

I lowered my blade and shut it off. "Come with us. We can have you reprogrammed."

Surprise didn't show in her face as she sat up, but there was more energy in her voice than before. "No. If they can find a way around my brainblock, if somehow my memory is downloaded, it will be fatal for me-and my master. We have much to answer for. Better to kill me now."

The idea was repellent now. "It's not your fault. You didn't program yourself."

"I am what I am, Jedi. I don't think there can be any salvation for me." She hadn't been programmed to express emotion in her face or her voice, she had been made to be outwardly cool and controlled at all times, but that she could say this twisted something in my chest.

Down the hall one of my friends called out, "Luke! Come on!"

I shook my head at Guri. "There's been enough killing. I'm not adding to it today." I nodded at her once and ran to catch up, keeping a spark of awareness in case she came after me again - she was recovered enough by now to move - but I didn't expect that she would. And she didn't.