Edge of Victory 2 Rebirth

by Greg Keyes

  "More than once a day," Cilghal said. "I can strengthen the power of

  your body to fight. I can cleanse it of some toxins. I can fight the

  symptoms. But the disease itself ... there's nothing. No, I can think of

  nothing else to do." Despair and failure seemed to drift from the healer.

  "I need your help, Cilghal," Mara said. "Don't give up on me yet."

  "I would never, Mara."

  "Good. I need to eat, but I'm not hungry, and I can't keep anything

  down. I'm sure you can help me with that, right?"

  "That I can help with," Cilghal replied.

  "It's one thing at a time, old friend," Mara said. "Every parsec begins

  with a centimeter."

  Cilghal nodded and went off to gather some things from storage. Mara

  lay back, suddenly dizzy, wishing she felt half of the confidence she

  espoused.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Master Kae Kwaad was as lean as one of Nen Yim's shaping fingers. He

  walked with an odd limp and a strange twist to his shoulders. His headdress

  was a ropy, unkempt mess. He wore a masquer to conceal his real face, a

  fashion among the Praetorite Vong but not common among shapers of any domain

  for decades. The masquer portrayed young, clear features, with

  scarlet-tinted yellow eyes. His real age was difficult to determine, though

  his skin had the smoothness of relative youth.

  "Ah, my adept," Kae said as Nen Yim made the genuflection of greeting.

  "My willing adept."

  Nen Yim tried to keep her expression neutral, but she heard something

  in his voice that suggested a leer behind his masquer. And the way his eyes

  traveled over her-what sort of master was this? Masters were above the

  carnal, beyond it.

  No, she remembered. That was what was taught, but her old master Mezhan

  Kwaad's downfall had had much to do with her forbidden affair with a

  warrior. Masters were supposed to be lustless. Supposing it did not make it

  so.

  The master brought up the seven shaping fingers of his left hand and

  touched them to her chin. To her distraction, the fingers seemed cramped, or

  paralyzed. "Yes," he murmured. "A very talented adept, I'm told." He noticed

  her regarding his hand. "Ah," he mused. "My hands are quite dead, you see.

  They died some years ago. I do not know why, and the other masters did not

  deign to replace them."

  "That is unfortunate, Master."

  He chucked her under the chin. "But you will be my hands, my dear-what

  was your name?"

  "Nen Yim, Master."

  He nodded sagely. "Yim. Yim Yim Yim." He clubbed his twisted, dead

  hands together. His eyes were open but seemed to see nothing. "Yim," he

  concluded.

  Yun-Yuuzhan, what part of you was he? she wondered, quills of disgust

  pricking up her spine.

  "I do not like that name," Kae Kwaad said in a sudden, angry burst. "It

  offends me." "It is my name, Master."

  "No." Wiry muscles quivered in his arms, as if he were on the verge of

  attacking her. "No," he repeated more calmly. "Tsup shall be your name. Nen

  Tsup."

  Nen Yim stiffened further. Tsup was the name of no creche or domain she

  had ever heard of. It was, however, an antique word for the sorts of slave

  who tended their masters in unseemly ways. The word itself was so obscene it

  was rarely used anymore.

  "Come, then," the master said, with an air of detachment. "Acquaint me

  with my demesne." "Yes, Master Kae Kwaad."

  Feeling ill, Nen Yim led him through the moldering halls of the

  worldship to the shapers' quarters, through a tremor-ing hall that had begun

  to have periodic spasms, past her own quarters to the master's apartments,

  which had stood empty since before her coming to Baanu Miir. Five slaves

  staggered behind them, nearly buckling beneath the weight of enormous

  transport envelopers.

  When the opening dilated, the master stood, staring into , space.

  "Where am I?" he asked, after a time. "Your quarters, Master."

  "Quarters? What, by the gods, are you talking about? Where am I?"

  "On the Baanu Miir, Master Kae Kwaad." "Well, where is it?" he

  screeched. "The coordinates. The exact location. Must I repeat myself?"

  Nen Yim found herself twisting her fingers together, like a terrified

  crecheling. She stopped it immediately. "I do not know, Master. I can

  discover it."

  "Do so!" His eyes narrowed. "Who are you "Your adept, Nen Yim."

  A crafty look came over his face. "I do not like that name. Use the one

  I gave you." "Nen Tsup," she said softly.

  He blinked, slowly, then snorted. "What a vulgar little thing you are."

  He sneered. "Hurry. Find out where we are. And then we shall shape

  something, yes? It will amuse us." "Master, I wish to speak to you about the

  ship's rikyam, when you have the time."

  "Time? What is that? It is nothing. The brain will die. You do not

  confuse me with your talk, Adept. No, you do not confuse or amuse or

  titillate me, though you think it. Yun-Haria herself could not have me!

  Flattering yourself. Trying to trick me. Get out of my sight."

  When she was alone, Nen Yim sank down into a crouch and softly beat the

  heels of her hands against her head.

  He is mad, she thought. Mad and crippled. Tjulan Kwaad sent him to

  taunt me, nothing more.

  Beneath her feet, she noticed, a patch of the inner hull was rotting.

  A day passed without her seeing him, but when Nen Yim entered her

  laboratory, there was the twisted, demented Kae Kwaad. He'd somehow unsealed

  the dermal shelf where her experiments were hidden and was stroking her

  personal qahsa with the carapace of his right hand. She hadn't tried

  particularly hard to hide anything, reasoning that doing so was wasted

  effort. Her modifications to the ship were ample evidence of her heresy.

  Hiding the experiments would only delay the inevitable.

  "I like this," Kae Kwaad said, waving at her tissue samples. "I like

  the colors." He smiled vaguely and pointed his useless digits to his eyes.

  "They trickle in here, don't they? After that they don't get out. They just

  talk and whistle, wriggle and curl." He scratched one dead hand absently

  against the other.

  "Tell me what you're doing, Adept," he said.

  "Master, I'm only doing my best to heal the ship. If I have

  strained protocol, it was only because I thought it best for the

  Yuuzhan Vong."

  "Strained it? Strained it?" He laughed, an unpleasant scratching sound.

  Then, as abruptly, he folded down onto one of the slowly shifting benches

  and placed his head between his hands.

  "I requested a master because I do not have access to protocol records

  above the fifth cortex," Nen Yim went on. "I had no answer to the rikyam's

  dilemma, so I sought one."

  "And now you have a master." Kae Kwaad chortled, "And now we shall

  shape."

  "Perhaps Master Kae Kwaad would like to review the damage to the spiral

  arm."

  "Perhaps the master would have his adept listen instead of speak. Today

  we are shaping. Recall the protocol of Hon Akua."

  Nen Yim stared at him. "We are to form a grutchin? But the fleet is

  replete with gr
utchins."

  "Inferior grutchins. Your generation! In your haste to make them

  stronger, faster, tougher, you have forgotten the most important aspect of

  shaping! The essence!"

  "What is that, Master?"

  "Form. Have you ever seen a perfect grutchin, Adept?"

  "I... do not know, Master."

  "You haven't! You have not! In the mind of Yun-Yuuzhan is a perfect

  grutchin. It has never been seen by Yuuzhan Vong except in the

  protocols-never in living form. You and I, Adept, will incarnate the

  grutchin in the mind of Yun-Yuuzhan. It shall be perfect in form and

  proportion, precise in hue. When we are done, Yun-Yuuzhan will know us for

  true shapers, who create in his image."

  "But the rikyam-"

  "The rikyam? How can you even think of such a mun dane matter when we

  are to embark upon this? Once we have created the perfect grutchin, do you

  really expect Yun-Yuuzhan-or those simpletons Yun-Harla or Yun-Ne'Shel- will

  deny us anything? Now we must work!"

  It was soon after this that Nen Yim began to seriously consider the

  murder of Master Kae Kwaad.

  PART III

  DESCENT

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Leia found Jacen where he had been for the last several days-tinkering

  with one of the captured E-wings. Since they had taken the freighter, he had

  hardly said a word to anyone, and on their return to the Maw he had thrown

  himself into the project of fitting the fighter with augmented shields and

  readying her for extended flight. Han had been almost as sullen. Her husband

  was tough, but there was only so much loss that even Han Solo could take. It

  had been good to see something of his old cocky, arrogant self reemerge,

  though she wasn't going to admit that to him aloud.

  But Han's good humor had been short-lived. His fight with Jacen and the

  following silence had managed to leak most of the fuel from his engines.

  Jacen glanced down at her from near the astromech housing, but didn't

  say anything.

  "Jacen," Leia said, "could I talk to you, please? Or do you intend

  never to speak to me again?"

  Jacen gazed down again. "What's there to talk about? I think you and

  Dad have presented your point of view from pretty much every angle there is,

  and I think you know mine."

  "It must be nice to be so sure about everything," Leia told him.

  Jacen uttered a short, guttural laugh. "Yeah," he replied, "must be."

  That had a raw sound to it that bothered Leia. How could someone so

  young sound so cynical? Especially Jacen, whose ideals had always been lofty

  ones. Of course,

  she knew better than anyone that most cynics were crash-burned

  idealists. Was Jacen that hurt?

  It made what she had come to say all the harder, but she had to say it.

  "Anyway," she said, taking the plunge, "you're wrong. There is another

  angle to look at this from."

  "And what would that be?" Jacen asked. She didn't know whether he

  sounded more like Han or herself in that moment of caustic sarcasm, and she

  wasn't sure which would make her angrier.

  "Jacen, would you knock off the rebellious teen act for just a minute?

  And maybe consider for just a second that the entire galaxy doesn't spin

  around you and your moral decisions?"

  Jacen continued to stare stonily at her, but he lifted his shoulders

  lightly, as if accepting yet another onerous burden, "lean try that," he

  said. "What have I missed?"

  "You've missed that your father needs you, that's what. That I need

  you."

  "That's not fair," Jacen said. "I don't want to be a pirate, so you'll

  try emotional blackmail?"

  "Is that what you call it? Jacen, maybe we weren't the best of parents.

  Maybe we weren't around as much as we could have been, and maybe this is

  your way of paying us back. But if your only interpretation of your father

  needs you' is that I'm trying to manipulate you, then I've been a far worse

  mother than I ever dreamed. If that's all you see, by all means, go. I

  wouldn't want you on those terms."

  "Mom, I-" His voice went strange, and with a sudden start she saw he

  had tears in his eyes.

  "Oh, Jacen-" she began.

  "No, Mom, it's all right." He clambered down from the craft and wiped

  at his eyes. "I deserved that."

  "I didn't come here to hurt you. I'm not even sure I came here to

  persuade you to stay with us. I just wanted to try to explain why your

  father is acting the way he is. Jacen, your dad is always proud of you even

  when he doesn't understand you, which is most of the time. He's always tried

  to be supportive of your decision to become a Jedi Knight, even

  though the farther you step into that world the farther you go from

  him. You're more a part of Luke's universe than you are of his, and his

  biggest fear is that you're ashamed of him, or somehow think him less

  because of what he is, because he can never be or even fully understand what

  you're becoming. Deep down he knows he's losing you a little more each day,

  and that soon enough you'll be strangers. This little spat of yours has only

  served to confirm that for him."

  "He told you all of this?"

  "Of course not. Han doesn't talk about things like that. But I know

  him, Jacen."

  "You're right, then."

  Leia frowned, a little confused by this sudden turnabout. "About what?"

  "You're right-I hadn't quite seen things from that vector. Thanks.

  Thanks for telling me."

  She reached to embrace him, and to her relief, he folded willingly into

  her arms.

  "How could he ever think I was ashamed of him?" Jacen whispered.

  They parted, and Jacen looked at her through tear-sparkled eyes. "This

  is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," he said.

  Leia's heart felt like neutronium. "You're still going?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "I decided to stay with you guys two days ago."

  "What?"

  "Dad was right. Or part of what he said was right. I made a commitment

  when I came out here with you. I'm holding to that commitment. And with me

  along, we're more likely to be able to hijack these ships without hurting

  anyone. I'll be able to tell if there are captives on board. Turning my back

  on this whole thing feels worse than being a part of it. I still don't like

  it, but I'll do it. I won't fight Dad anymore."

  "Then why have you been working on the E-wing?"

  Jacen shrugged. "It was something to do other than sit

  around waiting to get into another fight. Somebody can use it. That's

  why we took it, right?"

  "Right," Leia assented.

  "So when do we head back out?"

  "Soon. The captain of the freighter gave up some interesting

  information. They came via Wayland, which is where they picked up the

  weapons, but most of the cargo originated on Kuat."

  "Kuat?"

  "Yes," Leia said. "Of course, we don't know exactly who sent the

  supplies-the company name they gave was a shell, and we haven't worked back

  to who's really the source of the funds, but we will."

  "Jaina thought there was something rotten about the senator from Kuat,

&nbs
p; Viqi Shesh, when they met back on Duro. You don't think . . . ?"

  "I don't trust Viqi Shesh as far as an Ewok could throw her," Leia

  said. "But it's still too early to make accusations." She paused. "By the

  way, there's something else you should know-there's news from Coruscant.

  Chief Fey'Iya ordered Luke's arrest."

  "You're kidding. He really made good on that threat?"

  "Maybe, or maybe it was just a more elaborate bluff. Luke and Mara

  didn't take any chances, though. They left before the arrest could be made

  and joined up with Booster." Her voice softened. "So you see, there are

  other things you could be doing."

  "Now you're trying to change my mind again?"

  "No," Leia said firmly.

  "Fine," Jacen answered. "What else did you learn from the captain?"

  "That there will be another ship along in a few days-a freighter full

  of captives."

  Jacen tried on a little smile. "Well, I'd better finish up with this

  E-wing today, then, if the Princess of Blood is going to be there to meet

  it."

  "Don't you start that nonsense, too. Just because you're going with us

  doesn't mean you have to indulge every

  stupid thing your father comes up with, you know," Leia said.

  "No, you're right to the core, Mom. We Solo men have to stick together.

  And I kinda like the name. I've been thinking about something to paint on

  the side-"

  "This conversation is now over," Leia said, as seriously as she could.

  But she felt she could breathe freely again for the first time in several

  days, as if her lungs were suddenly twice the size they had been.

  "Let me tell Dad, huh?" Jacen said.

  "You've got it." With a lighter step, she went to make her own

  preparations.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The reversion to realspace was different in the Yuuzhan Vong ship,

  somehow. Slower, maybe. Anakin made a mental note to try to discover whether

  that was merely perceptual or real. If the latter, were the alien ships more

  vulnerable during reversion? It would be worth knowing.

  "Well?" Corran said, studying the changed star chart. "Where are we?

  Are we surrounded again?"

  Beneath the hood, Tahiri turned her head this way and that, as if

  looking for something.

  "Nothing that I see," she said. "There are plenty of ships in the

  system-most of them around that planet with three moons-but none of them