Ardam found the two Jedi in an atrium, lightsabers already blazing blue, both wearing the traditional robes of their order. The Knight, a tall rodian male with bluer-than-normal skin, looked calm and determined. He clearly didn’t think Ardam much of a threat, no doubt used to ‘pacifying’ the better-equipped criminals he no doubt resembled. The padawan, a human female of no more than fourteen years, looked terrified: her blue eyes were wide, her dark skin glistening faintly with nervous sweat. Ardam faced them both, a placid expression on his face behind the grey faceplate of his combat suit. His left hand rested on a grenade at his hip, his right snaked towards the blaster slung across his chest. None of them moved.

The knight broke the pregnant silence. “You will lay down your weapons and allow yourself to be taken prisoner.”

The placid expression turned into a smirk. What defined ‘weak minded’ was always vague, but the training he had received (and developed, partially), was more than enough to stop the compulsion. Ardam wanted to simply remain still, just to toy with the Jedi, but time was of the essence, and now that the Jedi had declared his opening Ardam had a sense of the rodian.

First, he threw the grenade: a squat cylinder with light yellow stripes around its center. Predictably, the Jedi reacted quicker than even Ardam’s augments, and pushed the grenade back as Ardam unslung the blaster shotgun, closing the distance with force-aided strides. The grenade flew far behind Ardam, and if it had been deadly, it would have knocked Ardam off balance long enough to be impaled on the saber, armor or no. Fortunately for Ardam, the grenade just exploded with an unbearable bang, and lit the room up with the power of a small sun. The knight staggered, going off balance as he raised his arm to console his temporarily-blind eyes, and Ardam had all the time in the world to aim and fire.

A cone of red plasma arced out, barely dodged by the knight and singing the turquoise skin of his right arm as he dodged. The padawan came on next, saber swinging much less expertly. The padawan dodged the second cone of fire much more dexterously, obviously less harmed by the flashbang than her master, and cut a low arc towards Ardam’s legs. ‘Less effected’ was a far cry from ‘unaffected’, however, and, taking advantage of his young foe’s disorientation, kicked the girl right in the face.

A gout of blood splattered on the steel toe of his boot as the girl’s nose broke. At a glance, she looked to still be conscious, but Ardam thought that would not last. He did not have time to dwell, however, as he felt himself fly bodily through the air, propelled by the Force, and he crashed into the ground, skidding along the tiles with a high-pitched screeching. Looking ‘up’ towards his opponents, just in time he saw the rodian leaping improbably far through the air, seeking to strike the finishing blow. Clearly hoping to use gravity’s help to slice the head from Ardam’s shoulders, the rodian had to use the force to push himself out of the way of the jet of fire that sprung from Ardam’s left hand.

The impromptu life-saving maneuver spared the rodian from a fiery death, but it did allow Ardam, springing to his feet, to draw his vibroblade, with which he parried the second strike by the knight. They ran through a lengthy and nerve-wracking series of parries and ripostes, leaving Ardam the clear loser with a number of burns and cuts in his suit. Seeking a quick way out of the fight, Ardam pulled the pin from another flashbang on his belt while still defending himself with the vibroblade. The jedi did not see it coming, and was blinded for the second time. Recoiling in pain, and now almost certainly permanent deaf-blind agony, Ardam stepped forward and sliced the Jedi’s head off.

The first sound he heard was the head hitting the floor. The second was someone vomiting at the other end of the room. The padawan had been struggling to her feet, but was forced to crumple back to a kneeling posture as she evacuated her stomach. The knight’s body toppled a second later, having jumped in the air slightly with the spasms of death.

Ardam walked over to her, his hands still shaking slightly from adrenaline and fear. “Don’t stand up, girl, if you want to live.”

She made one more attempt to stand, for which he forgave her. Everyone has pride, and killing people over it when they’re already beaten achieves little. After her failure, however, she remained slouched on the ground. Ardam stopped ten paces away, blaster shotgun draw and ready.

“I can’t let you leave, you understa-“

“Fuck your sister, you monster!”. She still could speak, it seemed. “I’ll kill you, I’ll avenge Andoorni, and I’ll give your head to the council.”

Ardam waited to make sure she was finished. “I’m sure you’ll get the chance. Not now, however. I have business with the governor. If I were you, I would thank the Force for bacta tanks.”

“What?” The look of confusion played on her face until Ardam raised his foot and kicked her in the head once more, this time knocking her cold. He then broke her left leg at the knee with a hard stomp, before cuffing her arms and legs. He never did like hurting children, but he had learned that, with jedi, one can never be too careful.

His first piece of business handled, Ardam resumed his trek to the Governor’s office.