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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?
Tatooine. The dune sea rippled like it was a vast golden ocean, tormented by some siege deep within. The two stood there like statures; the taller one older, his dark hair graying in the steady decay of his age. The young man standing next to him was somewhat more built, his head completely bald. A deep scar ran down his left cheek, and there was a red tattoo of an ancient Jedi rune on his left eyebrow. Xava Ghijanna looked to his apprentice; Qua-Mi Adink, and sensing some siege deep within him, he spoke.
"What is it," he asked gingerly, brushing his long hair from his eyes. Qua-Mi breathed heavily, letting out a prolonged sigh.
"I sense something," he said to Xava. "Some great storm is gathering elsewhere, and is headed this way; and my fear is that it will consist of more than sand and wind."
Xava Ghijanna laughed, as he did so often in the face of danger. They both knew that the sand storms had been more frequent as of late, and more potent, as if driven by some hidden malice. Maybe a pressure system, coming from the Junland Wastes, which was one of Tatooine's only still-existing mountain ranges. "Ever is your council dark of late, my friend," he spoke to the other Jedi. "But after the darkness clears, light springs forth, and shines clear as our twin suns."
A cloud passed overhead, cutting off the light from them, even as he spoke, and with a roll of his head, Qua-Mi Adink laughed as well. "You speak too soon my friend."
* * *
Over the lip of some great hill of sand in the Dune Sea, a Jawa sandcrawler rolled silently, ever pressing on to some unknown destination. Its massive wheels clanked from within its treads; and inside a countless number of Jawa bustled inside, studying their newly inducted piece of machinery that sat on a table on the highest level of the sandcrawler. They conversed in their own language, poking and prodding at various points on the machine.
"Utini!" one of them shouted. "Come here! Ditlin, what is this thing?"
The eldest of the Jawa tribe had entered. "This is strange to me," he told them. "I have never seen the likes of this machine in all my travels, and I am one who has been from each edge of this great Sand Ocean to the other many times over," Ditlin spoke. "This is indeed very strange to me."
The machine sat on the table, on a stand of three legs. They protruded from three sides of the conal/ cylindrical structure at three points, and provided a firm foothold for such a truly strange device. It was heavy, almost more than a hundred pounds, they had decided, and took four of the strongest tribe members to lift it onto the table.
"Do not take it apart," he instructed. "And do not press any of its buttons, until we are clearer of its function."
"How are we to do that, Ditlin," Ortinli asked, "if we are instructed not to take it apart?"
"I will see to this," he said firmly. "And it is not your position to question my ever-standing authority."
Ortinli left the room in disgrace, while the others filed out silently after him, confident in their leader's ability to deal with this situation. Ditlin began to examine the machine, and found quickly that it was covered in strange markings, unknown to him. The Jawas were great dealers when it came to parts; countless devices from points and places all over the galaxy had passed through their hands, broken, then fixed and sold. Their mechanical genius was unsurpassed.
Only a few moments passed when the sandcrawler's giant engine had seized, and the monument of a vehicle rolled to a slow, grinding stop. Jawa poured into the room. "Our refuge has stopped moving," some shouted. Others yelled that they were "sitting dewbacks" in the open. They were very close to the Junland Wastes. Out of the ten or so bay windows they could be seen looming ahead, dark figures against a pale sky, orange and pink with the setting of the planet's twin suns. Ditlin looked out the windows, close to the feet of their sandcrawler, and could see three small specks sitting upright in the sand.
"Arm yourselves," he told them with the sort of calm that they all had expected. "Something is not right." And so they did; choosing the most effective gun wielders in the tribe, and arming them, not only with their electric pulse rifles, but blades as well. Jawas were not warriors, but in their culture the use of blades was essential in the deep desert, where food was scarce and great monsters were numerous. Their rifles emitted an ionic pulse, which disabled any magnetic or electric field it was projected at.
The Jawas came out of the sandcrawler at its feet, and saw the three forms Ditlin had seen from far above. They shared the same structure as the machine in the sandcrawler. It was cylindrical at the top, and tapered down to a cone structure at the bottom. It was more than half submerged in the sand, but doors were open on their sides. No life form could be seen.
And then it happened.
A great blast shook the feet of the sandcrawler, and distorted shapes came into view; the eyes of the Jawa are very keen, and can see things that most cannot, be it by the light of day with the suns, or moonlight under mist and shadow. Massive pieces of metal twanged as they were ripped from the main structure of the sandcrawler, landing in the sand with loud thumps and sending great showers of sand up into the air. The immediate threat was too close, and they could not risk shooting their ion blasters. For if they were shot at a life form, all their organs would cease to function; cardiac arrest in the heart, and hemorrhage and seizures in the brain. They took to their blades.
Ortinli was among the Jawas sent out, along with nearly twenty of their folk, as strong and stouthearted as could be mustered. Ditlin was one of them, as well as his son, the strongest of the tribe. His name was Anling, which in his tongue meant "fire hand." His blade was singing, but hitting nothing. He jumped from shape to shape, swinging and dodging massive blades, mounted at wrists.
Ditlin had turned his attention from the battle, to his ship. One of the invaders was scaling the sheer side of the sandcrawler. Deep ruts were driven in to its side at regular increments. The alien was using its blades to climb, his altitude increasing exponentially.
But he knew what to do, nonetheless. Ditlin leveled his blaster at the creature, which at the least was nearly eighty feet into the air; not an easy shot by any means. But he took it anyway, and as the creature pulled his massive arm back to break the window and climb in, Ditlin pressed the trigger actuator. His cloak deactivated, and the body fell lifeless. Slowly it went, as if carried by some great wind resistance to the ground, but quickly it fell too, as if the body weighed hundreds of pounds.
When the dead animal met the sand, the battle stopped. Only three or so Jawa remained, and had resorted to their ion blasters, but the aliens' technology surpassed theirs by hundreds and thousands of years. The leader stalked towards Ditlink, and flashed his giant blade from its sheath mounted on its wrist. It glistened in the deepening dusk.
In one swift movement, they ended the battle. One, with his shoulder cannon, reduced the Jawa warriors that remained into piles of smoking ooze and blood. The tattered rags that once served as their cloaks scattered to the wind. Ditlink raised his rifle, and attempted to squeeze a shot at the leader of the remaining two, but the intruders' blade was gorged deep in his belly, held upright into the air with the creature's one massive arm.
And Anling watched silently from the shadows, near the sandcrawler's great engine. It was still running, and emanating a great heat down Anling's back. He was sweating, and breathing heavily. One of the creatures looked in his direction, and stared a moment, as if he had seen him. Anling stood perfectly still, holding his breath. The heat now was unbearable to him. But the leader shook his head, and motioned the other one onward.
The two creatures ascended to the heights of the sandcrawler, to retrieve their machine. It was ancient, wrought by their ancestors in the depths of time. Once their homeworld was inhabitable, and the now great warrior race lived in holes in the ground, until they harnessed the planet's energy source, and turned it around. The machine was, in effect, a weather generator, programmed to emit high or low-pressure systems that would blanket the better part of a planet, and cover it in newfound peace?
Or cover it in mayhem.
* * *
"We should get inside," Qua-Mi yelled above the rising wind. The air stream kicked up sand everywhere, and little could be seen in the gray-gold torrent of dust. The cloaks of the Jedi blew in the wind.
"We need to get these dewbacks inside first, my young apprentice," he yelled back. "These poor animals will die in such a fierce storm. We have no choice." So the two of them pulled and pushed the dewbacks towards the small bastion chosen as the New Republic's way station in the outer rim. Dewbacks could move at great speed, if motivated, but their will was against them and fairly resolute.
When all was said and done, the storm raged outside, the wind howling through even the thick clay walls of the base. They had made their way to the command center slowly, speaking to each other on the way.
Xava spoke first; the master to the apprentice. "You spoke before of a hidden malice in the mountains. You felt this, my young padawan?"
"Not directly, Master," he answered.
Xava was unsure of what he meant. "Meaning what, Qua-Mi?"
"Well," his apprentice began. "I know what I feel; that I am unsure of the future, and almost afraid of it. It approaches as the footsteps of my death." Xava grimaced at the statement, but did not speak. "And I know my directions. The mountains are east of us, and that is where I look with the uncertainty. But one thing I do not know, Master, is what the future will bring, where lies my greatest fear and uncertainty."
"You speak with wisdom, young one," his Jedi Master, wizened beyond many years than his own, said to him, reassuringly. "But you must concentrate on the present, which is here and now in full; the future will present itself fully in time, friend."
"Yet," his apprentice said to him with a wry smile. "The future is ever on my mind as of late. It looms like a deathly shadow over the moment. I cannot concentrate."
"This is not good," he said. "You're losing focus, which is something that you have been as sure of as your skill with a lightsaber your whole life. Though with years you are a modestly clad, you have always been a good apprentice. I have faith in you, my young padawan."
Then a small beep came from Xava's belt, and from it he produced a small comlink. "Sir, we need you in the command center at once. The storm's doing something that we have never seen before in a storm. We need you right away."
The two of them sprang away like lightning from the lip of the sky to the breast of the ground, and reached the command center in a few minutes. Outside the window flames rolled around in cyclonic formations, spinning and throwing sparks in every direction, the result of sand pieces combusting in the intense heat.
"Are our shields up?" Qua-Mi asked immediately upon seeing the fierce storm at bay. It was on the threshold of their mighty base. It shook with tense vibrations, the pressure nearly buckling every side of the building.
"Yes, sir!" the tech sounded. "Shields at maximum."
"Where did this storm start?" Xava asked the nearest tech, who without delay spun his chair to the weather status station.
"Somewhere in the mountain range? in the Junland wastes sir."
The two Jedi looked at each other with mystified glances.
"But wait," the tech said. "It appears to be coming from one point, and is branching out as a sphere. This is no normal storm front. It's generated, sir, by the looks of it."
Xava and Qua-Mi shared the same perplexed look again. "Is there a way we can counter it," he asked, "if even for just a few minutes?"
"Well," the tech said as he punched a few buttons on his station. "I believe that if we put our shield harmonics to match the pressure system's barometric front, I can hold it off for a few minutes, but it can only be in one spot, and the rest of our base will be at risk."
"We only need thirty seconds," Xava said as he turned and walked out, his padawan close on his heels. "We're taking off." The command center all gave them looks of amazement. "Commander?"
The base commander walked to them. "Yes, sir?"
"Ready our fighters. We depart at once."
* * *
The docking bay technicians were fast, and had their fighters ready in moments, and when the Jedi walked through the door to the vast docking bay, the huge doors slid open, revealing the storm in its fullest. "You think you can handle this?" Xava laughed to Qua-Mi, as he so often did in the face of danger.
"Probably not as bad as the blizzard we hot-dogged our way through on Ando Prime in our T-47's," he said. "We should manage just fine."
Xava laughed again. "Nothing less than what I expected. Let's roll." Then they hopped in the fighters, and started them up, their repulsor engines coming online with a subtle whine, which could only be heard by standing right next to the fighter. The storm raged on outside the door, sand and dust and fire being thrown into the docking bay onto the floor without end. "Okay," Xava said into the comm. "This is Gold One, requesting shield adjustment and takeoff. Ready when you are."
"We copy, Gold One," came the reply, dull and mechanical through his earpiece. "We are adjusting shield harmonics now." Then the storm was pushed back, as if a giant hand came from the docking bay and forced it back, so that the fighters could take off.
The sublight drives kicked on and all of the cold gray docking bay was throbbing with the sound, and like a bolt from the blaster, the two fighters sprang away. They shot up, and up, barreling around whips of fire curling down from the sky in long thin trails. Their ascent did not quail until they were high above even the reach of the storm system, where the atmosphere was thick, and hot enough to boil water, if even water was there in the arid planet's blanket.
"I'm getting a very strong energy reading, in the south slopes of the mountains, in the Junland Wastes, Master," Qua-Mi reported.
"I read it as well," said Xava Ghijanna into the comm. "But there's also a calm in the center, like the eye to a great hurricane. Make for that."
"And risk going down in the storm? Lets blast it into oblivion!" Qua-Mi attempted to reason.
"Negative," Xava told him. "By destroying it we risk an explosion, which is the result of most terra-form generators. We have to deactivate it by hand."
It took the Jedi an hour at sublight speed to reach the storm center. At its starting point its wrath was incomparable to any the galaxy had ever seen. As their ships began to descend from the atmosphere they could see that nearly all the Mountains were wreathed in a great flame.
There was a ring around a certain point, though, where clear as could be seen a clearing was defined by a high ring of fire, where at each point in its circumference, vast gusts of wind issued forth, feeding the storm by forces unseen. The ring was almost two kilometers in diameter, and within it much could be seen. A large portion of the mountain was laid bare, unaffected completely by the super storm so close at bay. Near the mountains was a sandcrawler, the pieces of its outer hull strewn across the desert. At the mountain's feet, jutting stones broke the sand, thrust upward like the fingers of some stone giant lying dormant underneath a mantle of brown rock.
"Master, there appears to be a Jawa sandcrawler, abandoned. I'm going in closer to take a look," Qua-Mi told him.
"Go ahead," Xava said to him. "I'm going to make a pass on the mountains. Be careful, Qua-Mi"
"Understood, Master." Adink made a number of passes on the sandcrawler, and immediately noticed many bodies? or at least what was left of them? lying on the ground. "Master, there are dead bodies face down thrown across the sand. I fear some brutal slaying was made here." It was dark dusk, and the first of the stars begun to glint in the deep blanket of space, countless pricks of fire against an unfathomable measure of time.
"There's nothing going on here, Qua-Mi. Everything seems to be normal? besides the fifty foot wall of fire." He laughed again?
So often as he did in the face of danger.
His X-wing circled a few times around certain areas in the mountain, and then was on its way to meeting his apprentice's fighter, when the blast of some hidden enemy propelled its way to Xava's snubfighter with deadly accuracy. Many wisps of smoke trailed from the engine of the X-wing, as it began to spiral downward.
"Master!" Qua-Mi Adink yelled into the comm, turning to see what would befall his master: some sudden doom upon the rocks below, or a miraculous escape at the edge of foreboding disaster. But a voice echoed in his head. "But you must concentrate on the present, which is here and now in full; the future will present itself fully in time, friend." And Qua-Mi put his faith in the mastery of the Force that Xava contained in him, and put his concentration on the moment.
His Artoo unit had already targeted precisely where the blast came from, and small crosshairs went from yellow to red as the computer put it through the system. He held the trigger down, but moved the stick sharp to the left, avoiding an oncoming blast; this time from another angle. He pressed a few shots out of the cannons before the computer switched target, but was forced to do another barrel roll to steer clear of another blast. It was all he could do to miss them by only thin margins, and thus in his reasoning he reckoned that their technology far surpassed that of the New Republic's. It would be a hard press for them to come out as leaders in this instance. For even as mighty as the Jedi were in their own rights, the warrior race they were about to be pitted against was immaculate in their training and execution of abilities. They were a warrior race; and though it was not the first that the Jedi were destined to throw down, they were not wholly accustomed to such exactitude and deadly accuracy.
Suddenly a tumult of precise hits was hailing from below, and all the sky was alight asunder. The X-wing's shields buckled after only two hits, and the fighter was laid completely exposed. The third ripped deep into its belly, but the reflexes of the Jedi were no match for the precision of the marauders' weaponry. Qua-Mi, in the blink of an eye, had popped the canopy and ejected his seat. His body was propelled upward at an unbelievable velocity, and it was not until he was far above the mountains that his seat had begun to fall downwards. The retro-rockets fired constantly, slowing his fall, and leveling as so he would not tip the seat on the dangerous fall downward.
When the repulsor sled was activated, and his descent was nearly at its end, he began to survey his surroundings. There was no sign of his Jedi Master, Xava Ghijanna, to be seen anywhere.
Little did he know that his master hastened to where his apprentice's fighter went down. He did see his canopy pop, and the Jedi slip silently out to an outcropping of rock in the mountainside. Not even the ejector seat was blown; and not even his enemies were aware of his presence yet.
Qua-Mi took off the belt harness around his body, and let it fall to the ground with a metallic clank. Slowly the young Jedi stood up, and became aware of his environment. He was in a deep gorge, a sort of valley ripped open between two titanic rocks. The dell lay low, and shallow, but the mountains on either side of it rose until they towered over the Jedi like he was a diminutive speck against a russet collage of rock and dirt.
In the center of the hollow there was a small device. It amazed Qua-Mi that something so small could power a storm front like the one at bay. Its power source must be very potent indeed, if that was indeed the cause of the tempest set rampant across the dune sea. It was hot in the mountains; a strong current of blazing air swept through the clearing with a roar.
Off of his belt came his lightsaber, in a flash. Powerful energy clusters blasted from place to place. His targets were moving, and he could not see them. Evidently these hunters were using some sort of cloak technology to remain hidden.
He thought it cowardly of these monsters to kill and not be face to face, to not be able to see eye to eye with its prey. A tiny flame of anger sprang from his heart, but the soothing pulse of the Force through his body extinguished it ere it could bloom in full. Concentration coursed through his veins, and shot after shot was deftly repelled by Qua-Mi's strong lightsaber blade. It glowed blue under the shadow of the rock about him. Night lay on Tatooine's breast then, but was ablaze with the light of the ring of fire. All the mountains were shadowed in a blue haze of soft moonlight, contrasted against the harsh firelight. The glow flickered and danced on the ground about his feet, and on the sheer rock faces at his sides, all around him. He ran to where he targeted the blasts to be coming from, deflecting the discharges as they came. Some flew in random directions into the sky, or impacted noisily on the rocks around him, but some if the shots were angled right enough to be redirected straight back at their source.
As the young Jedi made his desperate charge, the creatures sensed in him, flowing through his youthful, strong blood, a power far beyond their grasp or hope. In a small sense, they might have feared the boy. It was the first that had ever happened; the hunter became the hunted.
In the mountain pass above, Xava Ghijanna went forth with a great Force- enhanced speed. He leapt from rock to rock, often not heeding dangerous precipices or large outcroppings of rock; which at the top of the range was nearly razor sharp. He saw his apprentice, who was making a brave assault on an invisible force. The barrage of blasts from these things was being thrown aside, seemingly without effort. It was as if the young man's feet had grown wings, for the distance between them was closing fast.
And when the distance had closed completely, the blasts stopped, and his apprentice, for some long moment in his mind, stopped short, and the alien was veiled in full to the sharp eyes of the Jedi Master.
They had re-strategized the approach of the situation with amazing speed, and there, just as the Jedi ran to meet them head on, the leader disengaged his cloaking system. He towered over the padawan like a troll.
Qua-Mi Adink quailed at the size of his foe, and deemed himself an unworthy competitor in such a sport as his. For that truly what it was to the alien. Sport, and that was it. His body was powerfully built, the muscles underneath his armor were well defined, and in many places over-large. There were small units on his wrists, from which large claws slid, remaining hidden until he chose; on his shoulder was a large automated cannon, sitting leveled with his mask.
The mask. Small eye coverlets could be seen in the dark, impenetrable against the glow of the fire. There were no breathing holes, only hoses attached to some veiled life support unit, and out of the rear thick dread locks hung to the middle of his back. The creature was over seven and a half feet tall, making the five- nine Jedi Apprentice a mere child when pitted against him. In his left hand he carried a whip of many long tongues, which were curled in a circle in his hand.
But Adink wasted little time in his assault. His blue lightsaber blade flashed around in a wide circle, and coming back around made a broad sided sweep at the alien. His right arm moved to block, evidently unknowing the power of the blade. Qua-Mi a dink let a smile slip to his face, and in that gave away a small hint of the unknown supremacy of his weapon. The creature's shields were readjusted, and a glowing plate of energy blazed to life from the wrist unit on his right arm, and in a flash, the whip that he had held tight in his hand was released, and its many lines of metal were alight with a glowing fire; steam issued forth as it swung through the air.
The lightsaber clashed with the shield, and the warrior batted it to the side with a great force, situating the Jedi's weapon on the outside of the creatures offense, leaving him vulnerable to any attack on his left.
But the whip did not lash at his side, or even his feet; quick as lightning it was wrapped around the padawan's blade. And then, it was ripped from his hands, leaving the young Jedi completely defenseless.
Xava knew, and sensed through the Force where his young apprentice could not, what was about to befall him. Onward ever he pressed, the distance between him and his new-sworn enemies was closing rapidly as well. These creatures were about to murder a Jedi. Qua-Mi Adink was very strong in the Force, and had a bright future ahead of him; thus his master had a very large amount of faith in him. If he could just get to him, before he faded, to tell him so. He still had nearly a hundred yards to go.
And he was so close?
But not fast enough. From behind Qua-Mi Adink there was revealed another one of these hunters. He was not as tall as his master, but just as menacing. In his hand a long staff was bourn, and at its tip was a barb of four points, jutting out at angles of forty-five degrees. And, as the Jedi's lightsaber went sailing through the air, the staff was swung behind him in a few circles above even the creature's tall head, and then plunged deep into the brave padawan's chest. The four barbs on its end opened, spread apart into different blades and ripped his torso open. While he had done so, the leader removed the tubes to his mask.
Holding the Jedi by the throat, he removed his veil thus proving him wrong, though not totally, and looked him eye to eye. They were small eyes, but had depth in them. Like dark wells they were, and in them was a rage to some depth in his soul. His nose was bridged, long, but skinny. It was ridged, its plane not exceeding past that of his high forehead, which was bare to its crest, where long braided dreadlocks hung, with metal beads or some kind of clasps at their roots.
His mouth consisted of a main jaw structure, but four mandibles held tight flaps of skin about his closed mouth. When they opened, the flaps stretched wide and all the inside of his gruesome mouth could be seen. First a low pulsating clicking sound came from the pit of his throat, and then a fierce roar. It echoed in the mountains from mountaintops into deep gorges. The Jedi was aware of the Predator then, and in his triumphant scream revealed his greatest weakness.
His anger. These creatures, when in battle, embraced their rage, and harnessed it. Not necessarily creatures of dark influence, but their hate made them powerful. Flashes of his Jedi training came before his eyes.
For the Jedi:
There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is only the Force.
And then he was upon them, as the coming of the very firestorm they had created and set against him. He crept in the mountains above, and at the right point dropped nearly atop their heads. His lightsaber blade flashed to life, and calling his fallen padawan's blade to his own hand, he lit in mid-air. He held it menacingly at the two warriors, the outlanders who had come to make the Jedi Knights, the defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy, their prey.
"I don't think so," he told them, sweat dripping from his brow in thick drops. His face glistened with it. In one smooth motion, flipping the lightsabers in the air, and letting his brown cloak fall to the ground, he jumped upward and caught both of the glowing blades. Flipping up and over the two of them, which was more than ten feet in the air, he let both the blades fall downward in an arch, carefully slicing away only their weapons. The useless cannons fell to the ground with clangs.
With fluid motion the Jedi was on his feet, running, and the Predators, enraged with this ill turn of events, roared. The leader was still without his mask, his mandibles spread open in a gesture of hate.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
From under their armor the creatures produced throwing blades, both bearing two in each of their huge hands. Throwing them, the four objects spread open into dangerous, many-bladed projectiles that spun with incredible speed. They flew towards the Jedi, his back turned against them, both blue and purple glowing blades swaying with his swift gait. They were inches from his back, but in a trice the man turned around and sliced them all to pieces; parts of the blades went flying in every direction, one even gouging itself into one of his enemy's thigh. It howled in pain.
From his standstill, he flashed his lightsabers around in the air, and stalked towards his foes without fear; and without emotion, or passion, or ignorance. In their places respectively lay courage, peace, serenity, and knowledge.
The man embraced the Jedi Code with his mortal flesh, and becoming symbiotic with the will of the Force, was rendered as a conduit through which Living Force poured through like a current reckless and wild. When he came upon them, the valor that he showed in battle between them would never be matched in the galaxy. His two blades worked harmoniously, swinging back and forth, this way and that. Sharp clashes of light contrasted on the faces of the three fighters, their shadows flickering on the ground, ever moving, and never the same.
The aliens proved more than efficient in hand-to-hand combat. The leader's whip was ringing through the air, thin trails of smoke curling about it. Xava swung at him, but ever did his subordinate press him, thrusting and swinging his now outspread staff in deadly and would-be accurate hits.
But the Force was ever on Xava Ghijanna's side, explaining him the constant will of its dominion over the living. Even then, over his head, the molten red and white, many-lashed whip wheeled about his head in wide circles, its harsh sound hissing in the hot air. The wind picked up and whipped around the dell, spinning small rocks into the air and kicking up old pockets of sand in the mountain.
The whip cracked downwards, towards one of Xava's blades, and the molten red flashed against the purple, throwing light to all sides of the hollow; it wrapped itself around Xava's lightsaber. A loud hissing sound echoed in his ears.
The leader barred his teeth, letting out a loud growl, harsh clicking noises coming from his throat, and jerked his arm back, attempting to take his weapon, as he just did his late apprentice. Xava Ghijanna laughed, as he so often did in the face of danger.
He used the momentum given, and ripped back the whip with his lightsaber blade, flinging the attached whip, with the Predator still holding it, backwards and over his head. The creature hit the ground with a loud wail. The whip was still wrapped around Xava's lightsaber blade; it sputtered and groaned, its hiss breaking to let out louder, more defined popping sounds. It held fast to the incandescent beam for a few moments, then dissolved under its heat and fell useless to the ground. It shut off, and its glowing red blades dulled to metallic bright silver, twinkling under the light of the moon. It appeared to be razor sharp.
Both of the lightsaber blades blazed with sudden fury, Xava's arms moving with lightning speed. So quick did they flash that they nearly appeared as just one blur; any distinct shapes being dulled into one. The Predator forgot his staff upon the ground with a clank and brought both of his massive arms up to his guard, their shields on his wrist unit kindling with some rebirth of energy. For a few moments, he backed the Jedi away, gaining the offensive. Xava tread back on his heels lightly and deflected a great many blows from him, both from the energy shields and the creature's blades. They popped out above his hands and extended to a length double that of his forearm.
The leader of the two ran to where his mask lay on the ground, and reconnected its many tubes. He stopped to catch a breath, as if tired. Perhaps it was an element in his health failing, or as a result of his prolonged exposure to the arid Tatooine atmosphere. Whichever it was, the Jedi noticed it, and redoubled his assault. The second Predator kicked his staff that lay on the ground into his outspread hand.
A mirage of swings and misses flashed around the three. The leader whipped the blades on his wrists in wide circles, jabbing and poking at the Jedi, while the out-thrust staff of his subordinate flashed towards him. Xava let the Force flow through his veins, and dodged every shot, down to the last throw. His two lightsaber blades wheeled around, blocking numerous shots while simultaneously on the offensive. The conflict seemed to be nearing an end; all three of them backed off suddenly and stared at one another with fierce gazes.
A dead silence fell upon them all. The two predators stepped back, and drew themselves to their full height, seeming menacing to the now undersized- looking Jedi. While he was indeed in the bloom of his health, these creatures were far greater in stature than any normal life form; save maybe wookies. But then again, that's a different story altogether.
Xava closed his eyes, and bowed his head. A drop of sweat fell from his forehead to the glowing blade of his lightsaber. It dissolved with a hiss. With the sounds going over him, he gathered his surroundings. His blades hummed underneath the hot, howling wind, their resonance bending with the gusts. He heard heavy footsteps, and knew his foes to be charging him recklessly, in their blind hate. He could feel it.
From behind them all, a high-pitched wail rose above the clamor of the battle, over that of the roaring gusts of wind streaming through the gully. They turned to see what it was, and in their amazement they all saw a small figure, not even four feet tall, hooded in a cloak of deep brown. Tiny eyes burned as bright and yellow as the twin suns of the planet from inside its dark shroud, and at the sight a smile blossomed on Xava's face.
With deft precision, Angling, son of Ditlin of the Jawa, raised his ion rifle toward the storm machine and leveled at its center. His tiny finger hit the trigger, and a powerful blast of energy was let loose, disabling the field that the machine had created; all electrical circuits were rendered inoperative when the ionized energy overpowered the existing power source. The ground shook with menacing vibrations from every direction, and huge chunks of rock slid from the heights over them. Xava felt a strong wind pull on him, and looked behind him. There in a small corner of the hollow was a small opening to a cave. Its depth he could not guess, but the man intended to. He swept the Jawa up in mid stride while he ran to the cave, and at its threshold nearly lost his balance. The stream of air coming through the slit was unbearable, and took a Force-enhanced burst of speed to get through.
The Predators were right on his heels, but the Jedi's mastery over the Force sped him through quicker than their muscled bodies could. It took their legs and arms to force themselves through it.
When all were inside the mountain, the Jedi already on his way into its depths, the machine's energy field collapsed. Through the wall of fire, great waves resounded, and when it buckled and gave way, the firestorm sped its way back to the source. Walls of fire fell downward with momentum greater than that of gravity, like a waterfall. The entire dell was thick with bright flame as bolts of red lightning lanced from the sky, striking the sand with sparks of bright fusion. The machine exploded into fiery pieces, and a great tsunami of potent flame blasted its way in a sphere out into the Dune Sea. The only entrance on that side of the entire mountain range was blocked off. Huge amounts of rock lay piled in front of the crevice.
Darkness. Darkness so thick that there is no was to see through it. But the Predators' technology gave them sight in places where others could not see.
And the Jedi's lightsaber, when lit in the dark could illuminate a room many feet in every direction.
