and then bounded at Jaden. Jaden pulled the knife from his bicep and readied himself.
The Umbaran came at him in a frenzy, all knees and fists, a swirl of motion and gauzy darkness. Jaden sidestepped a punch for his throat and stabbed at the Umbaran with the vibroblade. The blade nicked the Umbaran’s side, but barely, and he spun, locking Jaden’s arm under his armpit and wrenching his wrist. Pain ran the length of Jaden’s forearm and the vibroblade fell from his hand.
Grunting, the Umbaran threw a reverse elbow and caught Jaden in the cheek. Jaden staggered, but managed to wrest his arm free and loose a wild punch at the Umbaran’s jaw.
The Umbaran ducked under it and tripped Jaden with a leg sweep. Jaden hit the ground, rolled into a backflip, and regained his feet, then retreated as the Umbaran loosed a flurry of punches and kicks. Jaden backed up, blocking, ducking, counterattacking where he could.
Blood poured from his arm. He was weakening, slowing, and the Umbaran must have known it. The Umbaran left off his attack and circled, playing for time.
“I wanted to spill your blood,” he said. “For my sister I wanted that. But now …”
The Umbaran relaxed, then spoke a phrase in a language Jaden did not understand. He eyed Jaden as if expecting the words to have some effect on him, as if they were a magic incantation. The Umbaran’s eyes widened when Jaden apparently did not respond as he expected.
“How can—”
Seeing an opportunity, Jaden charged, leading with a series of spinning kicks that the Umbaran blocked but which allowed Jaden to take the initiative. Unleashing a spinning back punch, he caught the Umbaran on the cheek, staggering him. Jaden ducked under the Umbaran’s wild counterpunch, and launched an uppercut into his midsection. The blow doubled the Umbaran over and Jaden put a knee into his face.
The Umbaran crumpled to the ground on his backside, but his dazed eyes remained open and he held his hands awkwardly before him in a defensive posture. Jaden did not hesitate. He leapt atop the Umbaran and squirmed around him until he had him straddled from behind. There, he closed his forearms around the Umbaran’s throat and began to squeeze.
The Umbaran clawed at Jaden’s hands, flailed his legs, but to no avail. He died in seconds.
Jaden tried to stand, managed to get up on wobbly legs. He looked down. Blood drained from his slit arm, peppered the floor. The room spun. He was going to fall. A blurry form materialized before him, his height. He thought it might be Marr.
His vision went dark and he fell.
Marr opened his eyes. He lay flat on his back, his body a slab of meat that felt only pain. When he inhaled he felt as if someone had slipped a knife between his ribs. His head throbbed. Blood pooled under his head, warm and sticky. He inhaled, then winced at the pain it caused.
Alarms screamed from overhead. Dim emergency lights in the ceiling flashed on and off, a confusing strobe that made it hard to focus. His thoughts coalesced, memories connected, allowing him to think clearly. Something was in his fist, a cold cylinder of hard metal.
The hilt of his lightsaber.
Little good it had done him.
It takes decades to master the weapon, Marr, his Master had told him. But you are making excellent strides.
He remembered where he was, what had happened. He remembered something hitting him in the back of the head, a kick that staved in his ribs, the Umbaran’s face.
“Master,” he said.
Adrenaline fueled by concern for Jaden allowed him to move, to support himself on his elbow.
Two meters away from him a figure knelt over Jaden. The figure held a lightsaber in his right hand, the red blade bathing Jaden’s still form in crimson.
Jaden’s voice again sounded in his mind. The point to remember is that wielding the weapon is not a test of your physicality. It is fed by your relationship to the Force.
When Marr’s eyes focused clearly on the person standing over Jaden, he gasped.
It was Jaden. Or rather, another clone of Jaden. Not the clone from the frozen moon, but another, a perfect simulacrum of Marr’s Master. He wore modern clothing, and his hair and beard were neatly trimmed. For a time, Marr could do nothing but watch, sickly fascinated, his mind moving through various possibilities, trying to figure out how there could be two clones of his Master, one born in a Thrawn-era cloning lab, and one