The Huntress had already considered and discarded that idea.
'Same problem as the force pikes. You have to get in too close for them to be effective. And the carbonite will only freeze him for a few minutes. What are we supposed to do when he thaws out?'
'The tangle guns aren't any better,' he countered. 'A lightsaber will slice through the webbing like it was made of flimsi.'
'They aren't meant to hold him,' the Iktotchi explained. 'They only have to slow him down long enough for me to administer the senflax.'
She held up a long, thin blade to illustrate her point. The edge was coated with the potent neurotoxin. According to the princess, any wound deep enough to draw blood would get the poison into his system.
'After the toxin is introduced, we'll have to keep the pressure on,' she reminded the captain. 'If we even give him a chance to breathe, he'll recognize that the drug is in his system. He might have some way to counter it with the Force.'
'How long after you cut him before that stuff starts to take effect?'
'Thirty, maybe forty seconds.' Assuming Serra knows what she's talking about.
'That's a long time for a bunch of soldiers to go toe-to-toe with a Sith.'
There really wasn't anything she could say to reassure him, so she didn't bother with an answer.
'Make sure your unit remembers that this is a two-stage attack,' she told him. 'The first stage needs to distract him long enough to give me an opening. After that, hit him with everything we've got.'
'Can you really see the future?' the captain asked after passing on her instructions to the team.
'Sometimes. The future is always in motion. It's not always clear.'
'Are we going to get out of this alive?'
'Some of us might,' she replied, not mentioning the vision she had of Jedder's broken body lying lifeless on the mansion's marble floor.
When Bane returned to Ciutric, he was surprised to find Zannah's ship still gone, but he was grateful that she wouldn't be waiting for him back at the mansion. He was in no shape to do battle with her now; he was even too tired to come up with a lie to explain his absence without raising her suspicions. Yet as his airspeeder approached his mansion on the horizon, he knew that even if Zannah had been waiting for him, his journey would still have been worthwhile. Andeddu's knowledge was his now; over the past few days his brain had processed the raw information he had stolen to the point of full comprehension. He fully understood the ritual of essence transfer; he had learned the techniques that would allow him to move his consciousness from his own failing body into another. He just needed to select an appropriate victim.
Finding a new body to inhabit was the most difficult part of the ritual. He needed someone physically strong enough to withstand the massive quantities of dark side energy he would call on over the coming years, but at the same time he needed someone mentally vulnerable enough for him to overpower their will. The best candidate would be an engineered clone body, an empty shell with no thoughts or identity of its own. But creating a suitable clone could take years, and Bane wasn't convinced he had that much time left.
He would have to try to possess the body of a living victim:a very dangerous course of action. He would only have one chance: no matter the outcome, his own body would be destroyed in the process. And if his target possessed a will strong enough to resist his assault, the attempt would fail, banishing his spirit to the void for all eternity.
He brought the airspeeder in for a landing and climbed from the vehicle, pausing only to grab his travel pack-a simple duffel bag with the Holocron tucked safely away inside. With slow, heavy steps he approached the front door of the mansion.
Has to be someone young. Under thirty.
He opened the door and stepped inside, letting it swing shut behind him.
Naive and inexperienced. Maybe-He froze. Someone else was in the mansion. He could feel the intruders everywhere: hiding around corners in the hallways, crouched on the stairs, ducking behind the furniture, perched on the balcony above.
All this flashed through Bane's mind in less than a tenth of a second-just enough time for it to register before the sonic detonators on either side of him went off.
Their earsplitting shriek staggered Bane, causing him to stumble forward into the room and away from the door and possible escape. His hands instinctively flew up and clutched at his ears, his travel pack dropping to the floor. And then the enemy fell upon him.
They poured out like a swarm of insects, bursting into view from every side. Four soldiers armed with stun rifles sent a barrage of bolts raining down from the balcony; Bane-still reeling from the sonic detonators-barely had enough time throw up a protective barrier to shield him from the assault.
As he did so, he felt something fighting him. Some power was trying to block his ability to call upon the Force to shield himself. It wasn't strong enough to stop him, but it did hinder his efforts just enough so that a flicker of energy passed through the barrier.
His muscles seized as he was hit; his back arched and his arms and head were thrown back. Every nerve in Bane's body lit up as if it were on fire. The pain lasted only an instant, but it was enough to knock him to the floor in a crumpled heap.
He didn't stay down, however. He sprang back to his feet, simultaneously drawing his lightsaber with his right hand as he sent a blast of lightning out from the fingertips of his left. The violet bolts should have incinerated all four of his targets on the balcony, yet again the strange power interfering with his ability to draw upon the Force hindered his efforts.
Three of the victims were electrocuted, dying before they even had a chance to scream. The fourth, however, managed to throw herself back from the balcony's edge, evading the deadly attack.
Bane never got a chance to finish her off. A pair of soldiers emerged from a hallway on the left, and three more appeared from the hall on the right. They opened fire with tangle guns, sending out long streams of sticky, synthetic webbing.
The soldiers were smart; they coordinated their efforts. Two fired at his feet, looking to glue him to the floor. The others aimed for the chest and torso, looking to pin his arms to his sides with the viscous strings. But Bane wasn't about to let himself become immobilized.
Leaping up, he grabbed onto the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, holding himself with his free hand. Swinging his legs to build momentum, he launched himself up over the railing and onto the balcony, giving him the advantage of higher ground.
He came down with a heavy thud, the inexplicable power that still impeded his connection to the Force robbing him of a graceful landing. The bodies of the three dead soldiers were scattered about him. To his right were the stairs leading back down to the foyer; straight ahead was a long hall leading to another wing of the mansion.
A female Iktotchi stood at the far end of the hall, a long, thin knife held in each hand. She grinned at Bane, and in that moment he knew who was interfering with his ability to use the Force.
She broke into a run, charging down the hall toward him. Bane dropped into a fighting crouch to meet her attack, knowing her knives were no match for his lightsaber. It was only then that he noticed the flash grenades lying by the dead bodies at his feet.
They exploded with a burst of intense light and chemical smoke that blinded Bane. Disoriented, he fell back against the balcony's railing. An instant later he felt the sole of the Iktotchi's boots strike him hard in the chest, sending him tumbling backward over the banister to the marble floor four meters below.
He hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his body, leaving him gasping for air. The impact jarred his lightsaber from his grip, sending it skittering across the floor. An instant later his prone form was enveloped by the webbing from the tangle guns, pinning him to the ground.
Blind and immobilized, Darth Bane's fury saved him. Years of training allowed him to focus all his pain and rage in one single instant, drawing on it so he could unleash the full power of the dark side. Once again he felt the Iktotchi's barrier opposing his efforts, but this time he tore through it like it wasn't even there.
For a moment it was as if the world around him was frozen in place. Though his eyes were still suffering the effects of the flash grenade, the Force rushing through his body gave him an otherworldly awareness of his
