by James Luceno
Shirka’s allusion was clear. A wounded Imperial soldier Leia rescued had been the first to tell of Palpatine’s superweapon, the Death Star.
“Regardless of who gained what,” she said after a moment, “is it Ralltiir’s intention to remain neutral in the coming storm to avoid disturbing the privileged lives of its wealthy residents and investors?”
Anger mottled Shirka’s face. “This conversation is over, Ambassador,” he said, and terminated the connection.
Leia glanced at C-3PO and blew out her breath. “Of all the—”
“Ambassador,” the same raspy voice interrupted. “Governor-General Amer Tariq of Rhinnal on channel four.”
C-3PO pressed another tile, and a miniature image of Tariq rose from the holoprojector.
“Leia,” the elder statesman and noted physician began, “I’m so glad to see you safe and sound.” Tariq wore an impeccably tailored suit, whose mix of colors was too vivid for the holo.
“Thank you, Amer. Did you receive my message?”
“I did, Leia. But I’m sorry to report that I don’t have encouraging news. Rhinnal cannot possibly accept additional refugees at this time, even on a temporary basis.”
Leia was confounded. “Amer, if this is about funds—”
He gave his head a firm shake. “Don’t confuse Rhinnal with Ralltiir, my dear. It’s simply that the ten thousand refugees we received from Ord Mantell have strained our resources to the breaking point. Just yesterday we were forced to reroute more than two thousand to the Ruan system.”
Leia’s eyebrows went up. “Ruan is still accepting exiles?”
“More than accepting; Ruan is actually soliciting. In fact, I’m certain that Ruan would be willing and able to accommodate everyone you evacuated from Gyndine.”
One of a host of agricultural worlds managed by Salliche Ag Corporation, Ruan, on the edge of the Deep Core between Coruscant and the Empress Teta system, was by galactic standards only a short jump away.
“Let’s hope so, Amer,” Leia said.
“My humblest apologies, my dear.”
The transmission ended abruptly, and Leia collapsed into a chair. She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. “Maybe I’ll get some rest after Ruan,” she started to tell C-3PO when the comm tone sounded again.
“Yes?” she directed to the audio pickup.
“A transmission of unknown origin, relayed from Bilbringi.”
Leia sighed wearily. “What now?”
“I believe it’s your husband, Ambassador.”
A snowy image appeared on the communication console’s display screen. Leia recognized the forward cargo hold of the Millennium Falcon, though it took her a moment to recognize Han behind the beard.
“How do you like my new look?” he asked, stroking the salt-and-pepper growth.
“Han, where are you?”
He swiveled the navicomputer chair. “I’d rather not say just now.”
She nodded in a galled but knowing way. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I heard about Gyndine. Wasn’t too difficult after that. You’re still well known, whether you like it or not.”
“So are you, Han. And for all anyone knows, the Yuuzhan Vong could be hunting for you or the Falcon.”
Han’s brows beetled and his mouth formed a puckered O. “I’m not a complete blockhead, you know. That’s why I grew the beard and had the Falcon painted.”
Leia’s eyes widened. “Painted?”
“Anodized, actually. A lovely shade of matte black. She looks like a mortician’s delight.”
“What system are you planning to sneak into this time?”
“Sneak?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh, I get it. You mean maybe instead of frolicking around out here, I should be devoting my time to saving planets.”
Leia huffed. “I’m not interested in saving planets, Han. I’m interested in saving lives.”
“Well, what’d you think I’m trying to do? This is all about finding Droma’s relatives and Roa, Leia. It has nothing to do with Ord Mantell or Gyndine or anywhere else. Besides, a man’s good for only one promise at a time, and I gave mine to Droma.”
Leia exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, Han. I understand what you’re doing.” She smiled thinly. “At least we still have something in common.”
Han averted his gaze momentarily. “Speaking of which, was it you who arranged for Ord Mantell’s refugees to be transferred to Gyndine?”
“Yes—regretfully.”
Han gave her a lopsided smile. “You’re complicating my search, sweetheart.”
Leia’s frustration returned. “Am I? And who created such a muddle on Vortex that the local governor decided to renege on his promise to accept any refugees whatsoever?”
“I was only trying to—” Han’s image suddenly tilted to one side, as if the Falcon had been stood on end. “Hey, Droma, watch what you’re doing up there!” He turned back to the cam, jerking a thumb in the direction of the Falcon’s outrigger cockpit. “Guy claims to be a pilot, but you’d never know it by the way he handles a ship.”
Leia took her lower lip between her teeth in disquiet. “How are you two getting along?”
He snorted. “If I didn’t owe him my life, I’d probably jettison him right here.”
“I’m sure,” Leia said quietly.
“By the way, you might want to pass along to the fleet office that a flotilla of Yuuzhan Vong ships was spotted near Osarian. Couple of destroyer analogs and—”
“Han,” she said, cutting him off. “Droma’s sister is on Gyndine.”
He sat bolt upright. “What? How do you know that?”
“Because some of his clanmates are among the group evacuated from Gyndine. There wasn’t time to take everyone, and his sister was one of at least six Ryn I was forced to leave behind. I didn’t know until we’d already transferred everyone to the transports.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Han demanded.
“Because there’s nothing either of us can do about it. Gyndine’s occupied.”
“There are ways around that,” Han mumbled distractedly.
Leia compressed her lips. “You are infuriatingly predictable.”
“And you worry too much.”
“Someone has to.”
“Leia, will you be there for a while—on Ralltiir?”
She shook her head. “We’ll be leaving for Ruan, if I have any say in the matter. Then I’m going to Hapes.”
“Hapes?” Han said in incredulity. “And you accuse me of putting myself in the thick of things? Why there of all places?”
“With any luck, to enlist the Consortium’s help. The New Republic fleets are spread too thinly to defend the Colonies, let alone the Core. And now with Bilbringi, Corellia, perhaps even Bothawui endangered, we need all the support we can rally. Which reminds me, Han, Admiral Sovv has asked Anakin to go to Corellia to help in reenabling Centerpoint Station.”
He snorted. “It’s about time the New Republic started considering Corellia’s defense.”
“Then you’re all right with his going—without either of us?”
“How old were you when you agreed to carry the technical readouts of the Death Star? Which of us is watching over Jaina when she flies with Rogue Squadron?”
“But—”
“Besides, Anakin’s a Jedi.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Leia said, clearly unconvinced.
Han smiled ambiguously. “Be sure to say hello to Prince Isolder for me.”
“Why don’t you come with me to Hapes and tell him in person?”
He laughed at the idea. “What, and spoil your fun?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He started to reply but bit back whatever he had in mind to say, and began again. “Is there any hope for the folks you couldn’t extract from Gyndine?”
Leia shut her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not sure any of them even survived.”
“I am Chine-kal, commander of the vessel you find yourselves aboard,” the Yuuzhan Vong officer announced in expert Basic as he meandered slowly among the immobilized and shackled beings captured on Gyndine.
Slender and of towering height, he wore a turban in which a winged creature was nested, its round black eyes mere centimeters above Chine-kal’s own and identical to them. His command cloak, too, had a mind of its own, not so much trailing along the hold’s pliant deck as in tow. The designs that twined around his forearms were of a decidedly beastly motif, though of a menagerie unknown to any of the captives, and the fingers of his elongated hands sported curving talons.
“This vessel, which answers to the name Crèche in your traders’ tongue, is to be your world for the foreseeable future. In time, the purpose of its sphere cluster design will be made clear to you. But even while you grapple with its mysteries, I want you to think of it as your home, and of myself and my crew as your parents and teachers. For you, all of you, have been selected from Ord Mantell’s and Gyndine’s defeated multitudes to execute a singular service.”
Chine-kal stopped in front of Wurth Skidder, perhaps by chance, though Skidder preferred to think that some of his true nature, a touch of the Force, bled through the mental blanket he’d thrown over his identity. Behind the commander walked the tunic-wearing priest who had supervised prisoner selection on Gyndine’s surface, as well as the immolation of thousands of droids.
Skidder and the hundreds of unclothed others in the ship’s cavernous, organic hold were literally fixed in place by dollops of binding blorash jelly and fettered by the pincers of living creatures. To his right stood an elderly man—clearly a captive of some earlier campaign—made to appear younger than his years by cosmetic treatments; to his left, two of the half-dozen Ryn who had also been selected for “singular service” aboard the Yuuzhan Vong ship, which, from space, had resembled a bunch of grapes. Elsewhere were other veteran captives, some left haggard, some strengthened by whatever ordeals they had been put through.
“You have no doubt heard rumors of what occurred on the worlds you know as Dantooine, Ithor, and Obroa-skai,” Chine-kal said, back in motion, “and you have no doubt heard rumors about how the Yuuzhan Vong treat their prisoners. I can assure you that all you have heard are lies and exaggerations.
“We are only trying to bring you a truth you sadly overlooked in your climb from the primal muck. Met with resistance, we have been left with no option but to force that truth on you; met with acceptance, we have been far more charitable than your New Republic overseers would have been to us.
“Because of political affiliations and other alliances, worlds don’t often have a choice in whether to accept or decline our offer of enlightenment; the voice of a few decide the destiny of the many. But on this vessel you are individuals first, and each of you has an opportunity to decide for yourself whether to resist or to accept. You have a hand in determining your destiny—in governing your fate.”
Flanked by well-armed guards and still trailed by the priest, Chine-kal came to a halt alongside a tall statue of a creature that could only have sprung from some Yuuzhan Vong bestiary. Its convoluted body might have been modeled on a human brain, and yet the body possessed two large eyes and what appeared to be a mouth or wrinkled maw. Arms or tentacles extended from its base, some stumpy, others gracile.
“I don’t want you to think of yourselves as captives or slaves, but rather as collaborators in a grand enterprise,” the commander continued. “Serve me well, put your hearts into your work, and you will be rewarded with your lives. Fail me out of weakness, and I may be willing to forgive; but fail me with design, and punishment will be meted out swiftly and without mercy. In either case, I will be rewarded by the gods, though I’ll be forced to look elsewhere for collaborators.”
Skidder cut his eyes to the man beside him. “How long have you been aboard?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Losing track,” the captive answered in a low voice. “A couple of standard months.” With subtle movement of his chin he indicated the emaciated man to his right. “My friend and I were captured on the Jubilee Wheel at Ord Mantell. Got sucked out of the facility by some kind of space worm. First we were taken aboard a slave galley. Thought for a while we were going to be launched into a star and sacrificed. Then we were transferred to this vessel.” The man shot Skidder a glance. “You?”
“Captured on Gyndine.”
“Soldier?”
“Indigenous ground force.”
The man turned ever so slightly in Skidder’s direction. “But you’re not native to Gyndine. From the Core, I’d say.”
“On what basis?”
“Hairstyle, for one thing. The way you carry yourself. Intrusion specialist? Intelligence officer?”
“Neither.”
The man glanced downward. “Those aren’t the feet of an infantry soldier.”
“I didn’t say I was. Operated an AT-ST scout.”
The man nodded. “Okay, have it your way.”
“What’s your name?” Skidder asked.
“Roa. My friend is Fasgo. You?”
“Keyn. Any idea where we’re headed, Roa?”
“None.”
“What about this ‘singular service’?”
Roa snorted softly. “You’ll see soon enough, Keyn.”
Chine-kal’s preamble had resumed. “It’s time you had a look at the centerpiece of our endeavor,” he was saying. “Think of it for the moment as a work in progress, but one that all of you will help to complete.”
Behind the commander rose a membranous partition, beyond which—Skidder was certain—lay the nucleus of the ship. When Chine-kal turned, the membrane parted like a stage curtain.
Though Skidder had never seen one in the flesh, he knew immediately that he was gazing at the living model for the statue that adorned the hold: a maturing war coordinator—the grotesque biogenetic creature the Yuuzhan Vong called a yammosk.
SIX
A cool mist obscured the flowering crowns of Yavin 4’s tallest trees. The steep stairways of the ancient temples the Rebel Alliance had claimed so many years before and that had since become a training ground for the Jedi Knights climbed into the mist and vanished. Chucklucks and chitterwebs, ordinarily raucous at that time of the morning, perched on the low branches of Massassi trees, waiting for the sky to clear. Stinger lizards and stintaril rodents sat motionless as statues. Even the gas giant Yavin was not to be seen, though it backlighted the mist a deep orange color.
Stopped in a pathway that meandered to the Great Temple, Luke Skywalker drank in the stillness. The Force, ordinarily lucid, seemed blanketed by the mist, as well, and could manage little more than a whisper.
Somewhere in the ghostly, virid surroundings a belly-bird cooed. But Luke knew that what struck his ear as melodic was only the bird proclaiming its territory, warning others away. He listened more intently, catching the sounds of creatures foraging or on the hunt for food. It was the way of the Force that some should survive and others perish. Death without malicious intent, for nature didn’t have a dark side. One couldn’t compare the crystal snake’s search for prey with what the Emperor had done during his cruel reign and what the Yuuzhan Vong were doing now. But Luke had been asking himself, almost since the start of the invasion, how did life reveal itself to Yuuzhan Vong eyes and ears?
He stared into the mist. It was as if someone had thrown a gauzy veil over his eyes. Images came to him of insects disguising themselves as leaves, twigs, and flower blossoms, and of small animals mimicking the variegated litter of the forest floor. Camouflage, Luke thought.
Deception, stealth, misdirection …
The Yuuzhan Vong had swept into the galaxy like one of the unpredictable storms that blew across Yavin 4. Their faith in their gods was like Palpatine’s faith in the dark side of the Force. And yet, for all the evil they embodied, they were not Sith; they were not emissaries of the dark side. Blind obedience provided justifi
cation for even their most hideous actions. What made them servants of evil was not their faith but their need to force that faith on others and to destroy wantonly any who stood in their path. They failed to recognize light or dark because in some sense they saw existence as an illusion. Lacking any intrinsic value, life was to be lived in service to the gods, and the reward for that service waited in a life beyond.
When Luke or other Jedi had tried to peer into them, the Yuuzhan Vong had been found to be voids in the Force, absent the animated luminosity that embraced all living things. But if the Force did not flow through them, was it possible that the Force was likewise nonexistent in the galaxy in which they had evolved? Could the Force be specific to one place and not another, as if the result of an evolutionary occurrence unique in the universe? Or was it rather that the Force was lacking only in the Yuuzhan Vong—and in their living weapons, of course, which were little more than extensions of themselves?
In all likelihood Mara had fallen victim to one of those weapons—an illness the Yuuzhan Vong had introduced—and while her strength in the Force had held the illness in check where it had overwhelmed others, Luke wasn’t absolutely certain that the Force would have been the ultimate victor in Mara’s battle. Not when her recent return to better health owed to an antidote introduced indirectly by the Yuuzhan Vong.
Deception, stealth, misdirection …
For all his intense curiosity, Luke understood that it was imperative that the invaders be defeated. If defeat could be accomplished short of exterminating the Yuuzhan Vong, so much the better, for then some of his questions might one day be answered. But until such time the Jedi were obligated to aid and abet in the war that had been thrust upon the galaxy. How best to execute the Jedi obligation to peace and justice was an issue he was still grappling with.
The cryptic murmuring of the Force returned him to the moment. He recognized that his visitor had ceased talking some time ago, and he swung to face him now.
“I’m sorry, Talon, you were saying?”
Talon Karrde smiled faintly. But instead of picking up where he’d left off, he smoothed the ends of his dark mustache and continued to observe the Jedi Master with candid interest.
