Free Star Wars - The Last Battle of Colonel Jace Malcom by Alexander Freed Page B

splash of a birthmark on his neck. He walked down the command ship corridor, sidearm holstered, eating a ration bar.
    Three steps, and Jace was out of his hiding place, gloved hands bringing the butt of his rifle onto the sentry’s head. The man crumpled to the floor with barely a sound. Jace gasped in pain.
    “Are you all right?” Immel asked, the comlink barely carrying her voice.
    “Fine,” Jace said. “Took a bolt on the lower deck. Fused some skin to the armor, but I’m fine.” It was true, and the kolto injections dulled the pain. What bothered him was that he noticed the pain at all. The gifts of old age.
    “Beacons are all set, fighters are almost on-site. I’d join you, but you might have noticed that ship just took off.”
    “I noticed. I’ll be okay.” Jace followed the sentry’s path toward a heavy blast door—the entrance to the bridge. “What do you think of Private Kayle?” he asked.
    “Bad shot, can’t read a label, probably poison himself one day. Knows his faults and takes orders.”
    “Could be your new forward on the null-racket team. Plays a mean game. Think about it.”
    Immel’s reply was a long time coming. “You going somewhere?”
    “Might be,” Jace said. “Just keep him in mind. It’s good to spend time with your squad.”
    Jace muted his comm and hit the control panel. The blast door irised open and the bridge came into view—black metal and blinking consoles, and a transparisteel dome looking out onto fog and sky. Only a handful of officers manned their stations; forty years of instinct and threat assessments told Jace they wouldn’t be a problem.
    The Sith overseer was a different matter.

    The Sith stood in the center of the bridge, a black cloud of dark robes with a metal armor core and the face of an etched brass mask. Jace didn’t wait for the mask to turn before running, boots slamming against the deck, directly toward his opponent.
    There were no tricks to fighting Sith, Jace had explained to more officers and grunts than he cared to remember. Sith were powerful, and fast, and they broke just as easily as anyone else. You couldn’t afford to fear them—not even for a moment. The rest was just smart fighting.
    The robed figure narrowed and twirled like a dancer, evading Jace’s blaster bursts as he closed the distance. She—was it a woman?—reached for the lightsaber at her belt even as Jace howled and crashed into her, letting the weight of his armor take them both down.
    Jace felt something give beneath him—a robed arm twisted out of position or a rib broken somewhere—even as he slammed an elbow toward where the Sith’s head seemed to be. The hard impact of the deck told him he missed, and a second later a hand closed over his helmet and his vision turned white.
    Heat stabbed at his face, lancing into his temples and trickling down his nose like sweat. He rolled, and blinked away spots in time to see the last arcs of electricity jump from the Sith’s hand toward him. Any longer, or without the helmet, and the Sith’s sorcery would’ve charred his skull.
    Somehow, Jace had held on to his rifle. He tried to stand, unable to feel his legs, as the Sith reached for her lightsaber again—only to find it gone, dropped to the deck barely a meter away.
    Jace squeezed his rifle’s trigger. This time, the bolts struck heart and lung, even as his helmet filters pixilated from the electrical damage. He heard a muffled sound from the Sith, some final command, as she died.
    For an instant, as Jace heard the shouting, saw the officers run toward the exit of the bridge, he felt the rush of victory. The command ship was his. Kalandis Seven was going to the Republic. Immel and her team could win the whole blasted planet.
    Then the voice came over the bridge speakers:
    “Self-destruct initiated.”
    The consoles ripped apart, metal and plastic and glass burning and streaking through the air. The transparisteel cockpit dome shattered, raining knives. Jace swore and