“Keep going!” he called to Loden, who had slowed his mount slightly. “Don’t let the other Nihil get that family to their ship! I’ll take care of these monsters and join you as soon as I can.”

Loden nodded without a word, and he and Bell raced ahead, deflecting a few errant shots as they went.

Porter Engle stood alone in the canyon, the body of his dead mount not far away, a noble animal who had only done her best.

“You think you’re smart, eh?” he called up. “Shot my steelee right out from under me.”

Silence from up in the hills. No shots, no movement. Perhaps they were, in fact, smarter than he gave them credit for. They were undoubtedly circling around, trying to get a bead on him from a new spot. Let them.

He shouted up toward the tumbled rocks above.

“Before you killed my steelee, I will admit I had not decided how to deal with you. All possibilities were on the table. But that creature lived in the light, and you stole it away. You had no right. Thank you for showing me exactly what you are. Makes things much simpler for me.”

He rotated slowly, his lightsaber up, scanning the hills. He knew what was going to happen. Anyone who aimed for a man’s mount rather than shooting at him fair and square, anyone who attacked from ambush, was also the sort of man who would—

Blasterfire, three shots, right at his back. Of course.

Porter spun, blocking the first, the second, and sending the third right back from where it had come. Movement from up in the rocks, and he leapt, higher than he was sure these Nihil cowards would have thought possible. Straight up, and he saw the man who had shot at him. Porter threw his lightsaber, and it sliced out, a spinning disk, inescapable.

The Nihil sniper ducked behind an ironstone outcropping, thinking it would shelter him. It did not. The blade sliced through the rock, and then it sliced through the man, and Porter regretted that a living, thinking being, a child of the Force, had made choices that brought him to such an end.

The second ambusher shot at Porter before he had landed from his great leap, and before he could retrieve his lightsaber. He was in midair, without his primary form of protection, making the situation a bit complex to handle—but Jedi lost their weapons from time to time, and any Jedi Knight worth the title put in the hours developing strategies for unarmed defense.

Porter Engle reached out with both the Force and his hand, palm out, and deflected the bolt back, sending it caroming back off toward the hills. Not strictly necessary. He could have pushed it away with his mind, or frozen it in place. But flicking a blaster bolt away like an insect…it made a certain statement.