Chapter 5
........................................................................With a snap-hiss, Jameh ignited her lightsaber, but her eyes never left Miyaie Jan'zed's face as the two young women circled one another.
"So, you're the Sith then…Senator?" Jameh's voice was low and laced with disgust.
Miyaie gave an arrogant laugh, accompanied by a seering crackle as she drew the fire-red blade of her saber along the floor of the grotto. "Yes, my young Jedi. I am a Sith, and I have a bone to pick," she pointed her lightsaber at Jameh, "With you."
"And, whatever it is, I'm sure you'll tell me." Jameh clutched the hilt of her saber tightly, a quiet hum audible as she moved into a defensive stance.
"Jedi training does not change what you are, Terrikan—a peasant. You and the rest of those miserable rebels on Neritano destroyed my family! All we had worked for, all we had accomplished, in that pointless Civil War! And your…your father—the worthless farmer that he was—killed my brothers! Tossed a thermal detonator right into their midst! He deserved a worse death than he received at my father's hand!" Miyaie's voice grew until she was screaming, the swell of her rage and hatred accosting Jameh's senses.
"Your kind just couldn't be happy with their place in the universe, could they, Jameh? Well, they will pay dearly now." Miyaie's eyes burned and a snarl twisted her words.
"My parents are at rest now, Jan'zed. You can't harm them."
"No, but I can harm you. As you can see, you weren't the only one on Neritano born Force-sensitive. Only, I found a more powerful, suitable order to study under and I have learned well, Jedi. Granted, I didn't have a Master like you, but the Dark Side has provided me with many helps." A slow smile curled the Sith's mouth, and a shiver ran over Jameh's skin as she heard Master Yaddle's wise words perverted and twisted.
"Your time has come. I am older, stronger, and have a greater will than you. And you can despair of any help, for your Master cannot find you." Miyaie was confident of her abilities to hide herself and Jameh in the Dark Side of the Force.
Then she smiled. "How fitting that you should die in the very place that you have lived and hidden all your life. I shall paint this Temple with your blood!"
Jameh's eyes narrowed but her mind was sharp and focused. "Your feelings and thoughts betray you, Senator. And I do not fear you!"
Her last words threw Miyaie beyond rage and she attacked the Padawan! It soon appeared that they were pretty evenly matched; only Miyaie had learned to fight unfairly. Whirling around, she grabbed Jameh's long braid, using it as a tether and a means to slice at her opponent's head. But Jameh was able to adapt, moving quickly so that her enemy would have little opportunity to strike. You can't hit something that doesn't keep still, as Master Zeklar had taught her.
Still grasping her hair, Miyaie sought to sever Jameh's unguarded left arm but, remembering her spar with Anakin, Jameh avoided the fatal strike, sacrificing her hair to Miyaie's blade.
The ebony braid fell smoldering to the floor but a long blackened gash also appeared across Jameh's back! Miyaie smiled at the Jedi's cry of pain, but Jameh only grasped her lightsaber and stood again, unwilling to bow to the Sith. Her body was wracked with an unspeakable pain, for there were few things in the universe more deadly than the blade of a Sith warrior.
The battle raged on, the cavernous room ringing with the hum and crackle of lightsaber beams. Jameh was able to inflict several wounds to Miyaie but the Sith's greater experience was to surely be the Padawan's demise if she was not helped and soon.
With another strike laid to her leg, Jameh fell to the grotto floor, her lightsaber sliding away into the nearby crevice!
Miyaie Jan'zed stood over her Jedi foe, the same hatred burning in her eyes. "And so ends the rebel line, failures at everything, even being a Jedi." But the fatal strike never fell, for Jameh's time had not yet come.
"You! How did you find us?!" Miyaie shrieked as a stranger crossed beams with her.
"You have much to learn about concealing your feelings, young Sith," Master Zeklar informed her, fending off her attacks. "Your own great hatred betrayed you." He had sensed her feelings and thoughts through the Force, leading him straight to the grotto.
Miyaie took this intrusion quite badly and attacked Newan, momentarily turning her fury on him. She was indeed strong but no match for the accomplished Jedi Master. With one clean strike, he severed her lightsaber arm and laid a defeating gash across her abdomen, watching as she collapsed to the floor. Then he rushed back to his apprentice.
"Jameh, are you all right?" he asked, helping her to her feet.
"Nothing one of Master Yaddle's healing sessions can't cure," she replied. Then her eyes lit on the detached braid. "Well, except that," her attempt to laugh was cut short by a painful groan.
Master Zeklar held her up, his back to the fallen Sith as he tried to help her limp out of the grotto. Miyaie, however, would not die sans revenge. Pulling a blaster from her belt with the hand that remained, she leveled the scope at Jameh's head.
His senses alerted, Master Zeklar turned and stood in front of Jameh just as Miyaie's finger closed on the trigger. A high-pitched laser-scream bounced off the grotto walls as the fired shot pierced his heart!
Everything decelerated, as if the world had been put into slow motion. All Jameh could see was her Master falling, the clatter of his lightsaber accompanying the sickening thud of his body hitting the stone floor. A black burn scorched the left side his tunic and his breaths came in short gasps.
"NO!"
Time suddenly snapped back into place! Grabbing Zeklar's saber and igniting it, Jameh hurled it at Jan'zed! Whirling like a scythe, the saber sliced her upper torso, putting an end to the vengeful Sith.
Dropping to her knees again, Jameh crawled to her fallen Master, cradling him in her arms. A new darkness grew in her heart now, one like a cold, lonely mist. Her Master was dying.
Just then, footsteps came down the cave passage and Pilae, Obi-Wan, and Anakin entered the grotto just in time to be too late. They stood nearby, dismayed at the sight that met their eyes: a dismembered former Senator, a shorn and wounded Padawan, and a Jedi Master on the verge of death.
"Master, please, you can't leave me. I need you; I'm not ready!" Jameh begged, tears mingling with the sweat and blood on her face.
Newan wheezed, drawing a painful breath. "I have taught all I was meant to teach you, Jameh. It is time…time for you to walk alone."
Jameh shook her head, her singed hair falling into her eyes. "No, Master!"
"Yes, Jameh. Trust your instincts; trust your fellow Jedi; trust the Force, my young Padawan. All will be well. My time has come." Newan sighed as his eyes closed, and then he was gone.
"No!" Jameh pulled his lifeless body close, clinging to him as her tears fell. Obi-Wan walked over, prying her away from Master Zeklar's body, and pulled her to her feet, remembering his own loss of a Master those short years ago. "He will always be with you, Jameh," he said quietly, letting her lean on him and cry.
Sharp pangs and buckling knees soon reminded her that she needed medical attention. So, supported by Pilae and Obi-wan, Jameh left the carnage of the grotto, her Master's lightsaber clutched tightly in her hand.