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The pressure on his leg had been just enough to restrain him, not enough to
damage it. He was running toward the two combatants, favoring his right leg
but feeling it grow stronger with every step.
"Leia!" She still retained enough presence of mind to switch off the saber
before throwing it to him even as Vader grabbed to intercept the weapon. The
Dark Lord missed it by a finger-length, caught the
Princess instead.
But the throw was weak. Luke tried to run faster, found his still-sore leg
hobbled him slightly. Vader growled something unintelligible, shoved the
Princess away from him with his free hand. She fell to the hard floor, lay
there panting, exhausted.
Luke saw Vader closing the distance between them. The Dark Lord would reach
the lightsaber first.
He sprinted somehow, threw himself at the ground. He felt reborn as his fist
closed around the saber haft, then he rolled with renewed vigor to his right.
Vader's blow was an instant late, cutting a deep furrow in the stone floor
where Luke had fallen.
Then Luke was on his feet, the saber now shining bright blue in his hand. His
roll had taken him behind Vader. He stood between the Dark Lord and the
Princess. Vader regarded him silently.
"Leia?" No answer. He glanced backward. "Princess?"
A thin, sorrowful voice. "Don't worry about me, Luke."
Vader appeared to inhale deeply. "No, Skywalker," he rumbled, "don't worry
about her. Worry about yourself."
Luke felt a wild sense of elation as he brandished his father's weapon. "I'm
not worried about anything,
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Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster
Vader. Not now. I have no more worries and only one concern." His voice held
an unaccustomed hint of conviction. "I'm going to kill you, Darth Vader."
That humorless laugh again. "What a high opinion you hold of yourself,
Skywalker."
"I'm... I'm Ben Kenobi," Luke whispered in an odd way.
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For just a moment Vader seemed shaken. "Ben Kenobi's dead. I killed him
myself. You are simple
Luke Skywalker, an ex-farm boy from Tatooine. You are no master of the Force
and the equal of Ben
Kenobi you will never be."
"Ben Kenobi is with me, Vader," Luke snarled, gaining confidence every second,
"and the Force is with me, too."
"You do have something of the Force about you, boy," Vader admitted. "A master
of it you are not, however. That dooms you. Only a master could do... this."
The Dark Lord lunged and Luke spun well clear. At the same time, Vader was
staring not at Luke, but at the ground. A small fragment of the fallen ceiling
rose, shot straight for Luke's head. Seeing it coming, he reacted as Kenobi
had taught him... without thinking.
A much smaller stone lifted and intersected the path of the charging rock. The
two met. Though
Vader's missile was by far the larger, it was deflected just enough by Luke's
rock to send it shooting past his shoulder harmlessly.
Panting, he stared challengingly back at Vader. "Good, boy," the Dark Lord
confessed, "very good.
But my stone was the heavier. My powers are the stronger."
"Not strong enough, Vader," Luke insisted as he lunged forward. His thoughts
were of Kenobi, of the techniques of saber and Force the old Jedi knight had
laboriously taught him. He tried to let the Force guide his arm.
Vader parried, blocked, parried again, and found himself being forced backward
by the aggressiveness and skill of Luke's demonic attack. The breath mask
tilted back for a second. A section of heavy bas-
relief on one of the supporting pillars was loosened, fell away.
At the last instant Luke sensed it, jumped backward. The huge carved panel
shattered between them.
Both men rested uneasily as the dust settled. Luke gulped for air, while Vader
showed less aplomb and increasing tension.
"You are good, Skywalker," he declared. "Very good indeed, for a child. But
the end will be the same." He raised his saber and came charging over the
broken panel.
Now it was the Dark Lord who initiated the assault. Luke found himself forced
steadily backward as
Vader threw an unceasing blizzard of stone shards and saber cuts at him. It
was impossible to counter them all.
Somehow Luke did so.
They were circling in the center of the temple floor now. Lying on her side,
the Princess tried to turn and watch. The pain of her wounds rose about her
like a steel wall. Around her thoughts the wall closed, and in response her
eyes closed and she slumped back to the cold, cold stone.
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Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster
Again the two enemies paused, only now it was Vader who was panting heavily.
"Kenobi... trained you... well," the Dark Lord admitted admiringly. Some of
his usual insouciance had been drained by the steady fighting. "And you have
some... natural ability of your own. You have proven a challenge. I
enjoy... a challenge."
Still unhurt, Luke whispered defiantly, "Too much of... a challenge for...
you!"
"No," Vader assured him, "no. You overestimate yourself, child." The Dark Lord
drew himself up to his full, awesome height. "I have finished playing with
you."
Swinging his saber until it was no more than a blue blur in the dank air of
the temple, he leaped straight up into the air. It was more than a jump, less
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than levitation. Out of the blue circle of energy he flung the saber.
Instinctively he had no time to think Luke parried. The Force inherent in the
thrown saber knocked
Luke's out of his hand. Both weapons flew off to the right and lay, still
gleaming, still activated, on the ground, near a dark circular opening that
gaped black in the floor.
As Vader drifted slowly back to the floor he grabbed his right wrist with his
left hand, made a fist, and seemed to convulse like a man retching. A ball of
pure white energy the size of his fist materialized in front of Vader's hands
and moved down toward the wide-eyed Luke.
Something made Luke realize he could never reach his saber before the white
glove touched him. He threw up both hands and looked away. So he didn't see
what happened.
His hands seemed to blur. The white glove struck them, bounced back, and
contacted Vader gently as the latter touched the ground. There was a soft
crack as of an explosion far in the distance. Vader was knocked head over
heels and the glove vanished.
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