"Echuta!" she snarled as the fire raked the tree she was crouching behind -- the at least the Mandos took the bait and walked the fire toward her. But when the fire stopped. she steeled herself to ready the lightsaber. When the first Mando came down on plumes of jet exhaust, setting fire to the canopy, liana and underbrush of the jungle, she came out in a roll behind the tree, using the momentum to come into the sort of deliberate swing she used as a lightsaber technique. Powerful, deliberate strokes of the lightsaber that could, with effort, cut through the armor they wore -- it was heavy stuff, and laced with Mandalorian iron. It didn't cut easily, and left her mando alive. 

She brought the saber around with the momentum of the backswing and aimed for a different point, turning the lightsaber with her wrists in mid air to generate more movement before steadying it, last moment, with her wrists so she could bring the blade through the relatively softer material under the helmet.

Zhiss was an accomplished lightsaber duelist, but Mandalorian armor was thick and these Mandos took some work to kill-- these were not the Hutt cartel thugs she'd had previous experience in dealing with, but real warriors, well equipped and at least decently trained. There were friendly blasters working now, putting Mandos down under fire and killing some, but it took several shots to get past the plates of durasteel and beskar to pull it off. That information filed away, she looked for her next Mandalorian, exchanging fire with some of the Republic soldiers, using a repeating blaster to suppress with rapid blaster bolts going *spack* against the cover of the Republic position when they hit a rock or tree trunk, but otherwise putting down a hail of fire that kept the return fire intermittent and snapped back quickly rather than aimed precisely -- which was the only real way to find the weak spots in Mando armor.

She used the opportunity on the flank to push the repeating blaster gunner with the Force as she launched herself in the air, lightsaber turned off again. The Republic soldiers would probably see it as the tactics of a suicide, a Jedi leaping into the air, soaring through it. At the end of her extended leap, she ignited the lightsaber and brought it down on the Mando gunner; it turned out that the signature 'guardian leap' put enough momentum into the strike to crack the armor on first try. 

---

Dral was a veteran Mandalorian warrior, as the red armor among blues showed. They were expecting Republic forces when they jumped into what amounted to a clearing on this karking swamp pit of a planet, and had a general idea of what the tactics would be. Then he saw the blades -- glowing, lethal, and seemingly flying all over the place. He couldn't get an accurate count because they were moving that kriffing fast, in and out of trees. He'd never seen Jedi in action, and the mobility was the most disconcerting element of it. That and having the blaster bolts come back at them when someone deflected bolts.

[b]"Watch it, boys, these are jetiise! Use grenades and get your blades out, you're going to need them!"[/b] But he'd gone in with a squad of twelve and was already down, by his count, something like four.

Five -- he saw Carud crumple under the force of one of the Jedi's assault. Kark, he had the repeating blaster. Well, the kriffing Jedi had to get in the fight sooner or later. In a sense, the Mandalorians relished the idea of fighting the Jedi. They were worthy warriors, dangerous opponents with abilities well beyond the normal ken of the average Republic soldier. Though, Dral noted as he got his vibrosword out and ready, scoping the field for likely opponents, he wasn't entirely sure about the Jedi with the eyes covered up. It was sort of cruel to send a blind woman into a battle, at least to his way of seeing it...