Dodging weapons fire from tram-track to building and back again, Starkiller felt a familiar calm creeping over him. It was a calm born not of peace or tranquillity, but of violence and anger. Countless hours of meditating on the dark side, fueling the negative energies that Darth Vader encouraged him to embrace, made this kind of combat trance almost second nature to him. Fighting people was harder than fighting PROXY droids, but there was a greater pleasure in it too, more of a challenge. A warrior who fought only rationally and without emotion fought exactly like a droid. People were stranger, more unpredictable, and therefore fundamentally more difficult to defeat. He swung his lightsabers as though in slow motion. He watched reflected energy bolts creep between him and his targets with a laziness that belied their deadly power.

Chapter 3