Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  “Jaina Solo,” he said with some amusement, “you’re as much a politician as your mother.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “As it was intended.”

  When the line to the Grand Admiral closed, Jag faced Jaina with a frown.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  It was Tahiri who answered him.

  “Trust,” she said. “If we don’t use the Imperials, they’ll feel as though they’re being left out, and then they’ll wonder why. If we’re not actively keeping secrets from them, then we should let them participate in everything we do. I suspect that this is why peace accords with the Empire have failed in the past. A lack of fighting isn’t peace; it’s just a temporary cessation of war.”

  Jaina nodded. “If we’re going to work together, the Empire and the Galactic Alliance have to not just communicate with each other, but use each other, also. Talking isn’t enough. Until we fight together, risk our lives alongside one another, we will always be apart.”

  “I’ll give the squadrons some work to do until you’re ready to commandeer what you need,” Captain Mayn interjected into the conversation. “As the ranking Jedi here, I’ll take your instructions on what you require the Selonia to do in support of your mission.”

  It hit Jaina, then, that she was effectively in charge. Yes, she was relaying her orders, but the finer points would be under her command. Even the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet was prepared to take her recommendations. It was strange, but she didn’t feel discomforted by the authority she suddenly found herself carrying.

  “Tahiri and I will confer,” she said. “I’ll issue instructions within the hour. Keep everyone on red alert. If our situation changes, we’ll need to act immediately.”

  “Understood,” Mayn said. She signed off.

  “Well,” Jag said, nodding as if impressed. “Check out Chief Jaina.”

  “You should watch yourself,” she said. “I could have you up for insubordination with talk like that.”

  “Is that so? You may be able to throw your weight around here, Colonel Solo, but when next we meet on the sparring mats it will be a different story altogether, I assure you.”

  “Funny, but if I recall, it was me who had the upper hand last time we clashed, back on Mon Cal.”

  Tahiri’s laugh surprised them both. Together they turned to face her.

  “What’s so amusing?” Jaina asked.

  “You two,” Tahiri said. There was a smile on her face the likes of which Jaina hadn’t seen in a long time. She’d smiled before, but not like this—not so completely. “If Anakin were here, I’m sure he would have told the two of you to get a room or something.”

  Jaina returned the smile, certain that both of them felt the same pang of grief below the happy memory—and certain, too, now, that Tahiri was going to be all right.

  Saba felt as though she were drowning in fragrance. The kidnappers, many of them riding giant, three-legged creatures they called carapods, followed Senshi down a steep, wriggling path into a deep valley, the sides of which hung with thick vines that cascaded down the slopes like a green, still-life waterfall. As they descended, the air grew thicker and hotter, and was heavily laden with pollens and moisture. It made Saba’s head spin; her pulse raced and her skin itched as her body worked to combat the extra heat.

  The steady rainfall wasn’t helping, either. The air was so humid that evaporation was almost impossible. She felt as if she were surrounded by a boiling fog, a swirling glow in infrared that turned the green of leaves and moss to crimson.

  “How much farther?” Jacen asked the Ferroan ahead of them, a muscular woman with her hair folded back in a fat bun.

  “Not far,” the woman said without looking back.

  Saba could feel the young Jedi’s irritation. He was concerned about Danni, who was strapped to the carapod behind them—just as Jabitha was to another beast ahead of them. She still hadn’t woken from the blow that had knocked her unconscious. That worried Saba, too. Neither of them was a healer, and they had exhausted their ability to help her very early on. Danni didn’t seem to be worsening, but neither was she improving. If she remained as she was for much longer, getting her to Tekli would become a priority.

  Saba then fixed her thoughts on their destination. She sensed a knot of darkness ahead, deep in the valley; a break in the flow of life sweeping through Zonama. When she probed at it and tried to picture it in her mind, the image that came was of a whirlpool storm in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Normal flows continued around it more or less undisturbed, bending only slightly to make way for its presence, but anything that came too close was sucked in and devoured.

  Senshi was leading them down into that heart of darkness. It called Saba through the fog, whispering directly into her mind. But the darkness wasn’t deliberately calling her, she knew; it was just triggering the darkness that was already in her—the doubts of her self-worth, and the residual guilt for the loss of her homeworld …

  No! she told herself firmly, pushing the emotions from her mind. She wasn’t about to allow this darkness to take hold of her thoughts. It was not real; she had to stay focused!

  Thankfully, the dark allure receded slightly in response to her determination, and she continued resolutely to follow Senshi on their downward trek.

  Everything was ready. A shuttle supplied by the Imperials had stocked the gutted yorik-stronha picket ship analog that had once been called Hrosha-Gul—a name that meant “price of pain,” Tahiri knew. Jaina had immediately rechristened it Collaborator upon assuming control.

  Tahiri stood amid the wreckage that had once been the bridge and pondered what that name indicated for her future. Things seemed to be going well in her mind, but she was ever vigilant for signs of disturbance. While the part that had once been Riina had reservations about attacking the Yuuzhan Vong, there was no resistance to the plan Jaina had devised.

  The part that had once been … The words seemed strange, irrelevant. She was thinking with one mind now, not two. Her thoughts were her own, and the time when her body had carried both Tahiri and Riina was little more than a bad dream—an increasingly distant one at that. The knowledge they shared didn’t come in words, as though from separate minds. It felt more as one would converse with a conscience, a part of oneself. It felt right.

  The Yuuzhan Vong did this to me, she told herself. Whether I was Tahiri or Riina, they abused my mind and left me to suffer. And then they took Anakin away from me. For that, if nothing else, I will fight them.

  Earlier, she had located the lingering remnants of a villip choir. Setting up a primitive nutrient feed, she had coaxed it back into a semblance of functionality. She didn’t know how well it would work, but it would definitely transmit, and possibly receive, too. The latter depended on how fundamentally the coral hull of the picket ship had been damaged. The equivalent of an antenna threaded through the yorik coral in the form of spiraling fibers, attuned to the subtle vibrations of the Yuuzhan Vong communications system.

  Tahiri took a deep breath and activated the choir. She could feel the stares of the others in the mission, staying silent and watchful out of range of the villips. For the moment, everything depended on her performance.

  The villips folded themselves inside out and the two surviving beacons quivered to life.

  “I, Riina of Domain Kwaad, seek to humble myself before Commander B’shith Vorrik,” she said, loudly and clearly in the Yuuzhan Vong language.

  The villips fluttered like aquatic creatures feeding in an inrushing tide. Strange patterns fluttered across the choir’s field of view, tantalizing but never quite taking coherent form. A liquid, static-filled voice tried to speak to her but emerged as nothing but grating vowels.

  She tried again. “Riina of Domain Kwaad calls from the valiant husk of Hrosha-Gul. I abase my unworthy self in hope of an audience. My service to Yun-Yuuzhan’s glorious cause has not yet ended.”

  More grating sounds, then suddenly a
harsh, guttural voice coalesced out of the noise.

  “The commander does not waste time with failed domains.”

  “Domain Kwaad did not fail. I am Riina, a warrior, shaped to obey. Hear me out if you wish your enemies delivered.”

  “Your words are lies, and your lies are empty.”

  “My only lies are to our mutual enemies. It is they I send to their deaths.”

  There was a slight delay. Then, after a pause sufficient to be insulting, a new voice growled at her:

  “Speak, feeble one.”

  “Do I have the honor of the commander’s attention?”

  “No. You are unworthy to inhabit the same universe as him. Speak!”

  “I bring intelligence of the enemy’s movements,” she said. “The infidels have taken me into their trust. I will betray their conspiracy in order to further Commander Vorrik’s glory.”

  “And who are you to promise such things?”

  “I am Riina of Domain Kwaad. I am the one-who-was-shaped.”

  Another pause. “I have heard of this heresy. You are a Jeedai abomination.”

  “I am the pride of Yun-Harla. The shapers made me to obey. I abase myself now in the hope that you will allow me to perform my sacred duty, so that I might return to the fold of the mighty Yuuzhan Vong.”

  Yet another pause, this one longer than the previous. She suspected she was being transferred to someone still higher along the hierarchal chain. Sure enough, when the quiet was finally broken, the voice belonged to another warrior.

  “Your claims offend my ears. You have the time it would take for me to drain the blood from a heretic to convince me not to blow your worthless life out of the skies!”

  And so it went. The process was laborious, but necessary. Every Yuuzhan Vong leader relied on this process of trial by underling to ensure that anything reaching him was worth listening to. If it wasn’t, every one of those underlings in the chain would pay dearly, and they knew it. But with every underling she convinced, Tahiri became increasingly certain that she would soon be talking to the commander himself, and that she would be able to convince him as she had his underlings.

  Finally, the roughest, foulest voice of all spoke to her from the damaged villip choir. It had to be the commander. His insults echoed those she had already received in regard to content, but the tone was infinitely more malicious.

  “Your visage offends my eyes,” he said slowly, precisely, venom dripping from every syllable. “Your very existence is an affront to the proper order of the universe. You will offer yourself as sacrifice to Yun-Yammka at the first opportunity to ensure that no others attempt what the Kwaad heretics attempted.”

  Tahiri lowered her eyes. She had expected something like this. “Lord Commander, I shall obey. The Slayer may take me through your very hands, if you wish. Once I have delivered victory over the infidels to you, I will have no further reason to live.”

  This seemed to please him, marginally. “Speak, then, of how this victory may be accomplished.”

  “I have convinced the Jedi that I can be trusted, and that I will provide safe passage onto the surface of the planet Esfandia. In exchange for their trust, and for your assistance in expediting our safe journey, I will betray them at the first opportunity and reveal to you the location of the communications base you seek.”

  “How do I know that you can be trusted? You speak as a Yuuzhan Vong, but your appearance is that of an infidel!”

  “You can see me that well, Great Commander?”

  “The image is poor, but clear enough to cause me revulsion.”

  “As it should, Commander. Were I not to be sacrificed, I would beg the shapers to give me a body more suitable of service to Yun-Yammka.” She took a deep breath and concentrated. “As it is, I wish only to prove my dedication to the gods. I am a faithful servant of Yun-Harla. The Cloaked Goddess protects me among the infidels. She keeps my true face hidden. But it is there, beneath this foul visage. I ask her for a sign that will prove my loyalty to you. I beseech the Trickster for one last chance to cleanse myself of the stain of abomination!”

  Tahiri tipped her head back. The old scars on her forehead burned as she sent the Force through them. Inflicted by the Shaper Mezhan Kwaad during the implantation of Riina, Tahiri had kept the scars as a memento of her trials. They had come to symbolize everything from her loss of self on Yavin 4 to the death of Anakin. They were to play a much more important role now.

  Under her will, the deep wounds opened afresh. Blood trickled down her temples and face as her skin parted and peeled back. She was careful not to show any emotion but joy, keeping her mind focused on the Force rather than the pain. The villip would be showing Commander Vorrik everything. The slightest flicker of humanity, and he would know that she was lying.

  Eventually Vorrik spoke. “Enough,” he said. “You will be given the chance you request.”

  Tahiri tipped her face forward. Blood dripped from her chin to her chest, but she ignored it. “I am not worthy, commander.”

  “Today, abomination, Yun-Harla favors you. That is enough for me. The yorik-stronha you have commandeered will be allowed to enter the planet’s atmosphere. Any other craft attempting to escort you, however, will be destroyed.”

  “Yes, Great One. This vessel will appear to descend under an uncontrolled burn. The Imperial infidels will ignore it, as they would ignore any other piece of space junk. I ask only that you ignore it, too.”

  “It shall be done. We shall await your signal. Do not fail me, Riina of Domain Kwaad, or this will be merely the beginning of your torment.”

  Tahiri bowed. “I won’t, Commander.”

  Tahiri straightened and stroked the villip choir’s control nodule. The ball-shaped organisms inverted with a sigh, as though they knew that their usefulness had been exceeded, and that they could now die in peace. As soon as she was sure the choir had ceased transmitting, Tahiri let herself relax.

  “Hu-carjen tok!” she cried out as the pain of her reopened wounds rushed in.

  Jaina ran out of hiding to soothe her. “You didn’t need to do that,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Tahiri nodded, but didn’t argue about need. There had been little choice. She wasn’t little Tahiri any more; she was someone new—and this someone didn’t balk at what had to be done.

  Jag was looking at her in a way he had never done before—almost as if he was reevaluating his opinion of her.

  “We’ll start the burn in five minutes,” Jaina went on, applying synthflesh to the wounds on Tahiri’s forehead. “That’ll give you an hour to go into a healing trance. And I’m ordering you to do just that, okay? I need as many hands on deck as possible.”

  Tahiri nodded. She was a warrior and a Jedi, and both sides of her knew to follow orders when they made sense. After receiving a spray hypo of painkiller, she took a crash couch at the rear of the hollowed-out space and closed her eyes.

  The Millennium Falcon seemed empty without Droma and Han. Leia had little do but wait as the plan was put into effect. The mission to the communications transponder had left two hours earlier. Leia had been there as Han had suited up and tested the controls of his speeder bike.

  “Sure you don’t want to come?” he’d asked her, his voice muffled behind the transparent visor of his flexible enviro-suit. He’d smiled wryly and added, “Could be romantic, the two of us slipping away from the others to do a bit of sight-seeing.”

  She’d laughed at this. “Sight-seeing on a planet with an atmosphere of methane and hydrogen? I think I’ll pass, thanks all the same.”

  The suits were designed to keep the deep cold of Esfandia at bay as well as provide the right atmospheric mix for several species. They could accommodate many different body types, which was fortunate given the people on the mission. As well as Han, there was another human communications technician, the Noghri security head, Eniknar—“Where I can keep an eye on him,” as Han had put it—a hefty Klatooinian security guard, and Droma, whose tail was snugly
tucked away down one leg of the suit.

  “Besides,” she’d said as she watched the motley bunch ready themselves for the mission, “somebody needs to stay behind to mind the ship.”

  He couldn’t argue that point. As much as he would have loved for Leia to be with him, he was practical enough to know the importance of keeping an eye on his freighter.

  She had kissed his visor and wished him luck. Once outside the base and beyond the confines of the nesting plain tunnels, the five speeder bikes were under strict comm silence. The slightest transmission would alert the Yuuzhan Vong ground teams to their whereabouts. If they maintained the ban on emissions and kept low to the surface, it was unlikely they would be discovered—unless, of course, they were unlucky enough to run into one of those ground teams along the way.

  Commander Ashpidar had offered Leia a refreshment in her office, and she had accepted. They had talked for perhaps half an hour about anything other than their situation, and she couldn’t help wonder if the mood-sensitive Gotal was trying to distract Leia from her concerns. Ashpidar talked about life on Antar 4, where she’d met a commercial interpreter and planned to raise a family. Her mate had died in a mining accident, however, and Ashpidar, stricken with grief, had left her home to explore the larger galaxy. That was twenty standard years ago, she said, and she’d never looked back.

  “Tell me about the Cold Ones,” Leia said, using the commander’s own term for the species of intelligent life indigenous to Esfandia—a term considerably easier to pronounce than Brrbrlpp. “When were they taught to speak trinary? And by whom?”

  “That was the previous base commander,” Ashpidar replied. “Before my time. Communications traffic was less, then, and the full-time crew correspondingly smaller. Commander Si was an exiled Gran, and lonely with it. In his off-duty hours he studied the Cold Ones and deciphered their calls, noting what no one else had: despite the lack of physical evidence such as tools, it was clear that the creatures had a culture. As proof of this, he taught them to speak trinary, which is much easier to understand than their native tongue. They communicate exclusively with us in that language now, keeping us informed of their movements so we’re aware at all times of their whereabouts.”