by Greg Keyes
look like Yuuzhan Vong yorik coral. And none of them seems to be paying
attention to us."
"Interesting," Corran mused. "Three moons, eh? Is there a space station
near that planet?"
"That could be what that is," Tahiri said.
"From your description, this likely is the Yag'DhuJ system. The Givin
have pretty good detection equipment. I wonder if this ship somehow dampens
the hyperwave shock during reversion? Or if it's fully cloaked?"
"I'll ask the ship if you want," Tahiri said.
"Do that."
After a brief pause, Tahiri shook her head. "It doesn't know, or I'm
not asking the right question. But it doesn't detect any probes locked on
us."
"Maybe that's why the slower reversion," Anakin speculated.
"You noticed that too, huh?" Corran said. He rubbed his hands together.
"Well, at least we didn't jump straight from a supernova into a neutron
star. Though I suspect we don't have a lot of time here. Tahiri, any sense
of what this ship was supposed to do once here?"
This time Tahiri nodded in the affirmative. "Yes. We're supposed to
scent the readiness of the enemy."
"So it is a scout ship," Anakin said.
"Which means the main fleet will be expecting intelligence from us,"
Corran concluded. "The question is, how long will they wait before deciding
something has gone wrong? Tahiri, can you fake a message? Stall them a
little?"
Tahiri shook her head. "No. I'd have to use a villip, which means they
would see my face."
Anakin watched Corran ponder that unhappily for a few seconds. "There
are always the prisoners," he told the older Jedi.
"I realize that," Corran said, "though I doubt we can hope for their
cooperation. It's worth a try, though. Meantime, we have to make contact
with Yag'Dhul. Any ideas there?"
"The warmaster had a villip modified to broadcast on our frequencies,"
Anakin said.
"True. Can you do that?"
"No," Anakin confessed.
"Tahiri?"
"The ship doesn't know how to, and neither do I. We can fire a remote
villip at a ship if it gets near enough."
Corran barked a phrase of laughter. "Which would certainly be
interpreted as an attack. That's a last-ditch option. Anything else?"
"Sure," Anakin said. "I can modify the emergency beacon in the survival
pack and run it through one of our wrist comm units."
"Do it, then," Corran told him. "Meanwhile, I'll interrogate prisoners
while Tahiri keeps an eye on surrounding space and an ear up for queries
from the fleet. Anakin, be back here in half an hour."
Corran surveyed the prisoners. The prison was makeshift- there probably
was a real one someplace, but Corran hadn't wanted to waste the time looking
for it. Using medical tape from the survival pack, Corran had fastened the
living captives to the walls of the corridor leading to the helm, where he
could keep an eye on them.
He studied the shapers first. They both had headdresses that looked
like squirming masses of snakes. One had a hand that resembled some sort of
sea creature, except that the fingers had tool attachments: pincers, a
knife, and so on. Tahiri had insisted that the shapers needed to be
strip-searched, and Corran had agreed to a hasty one. The search had
produced several dubious organisms that had been placed in another chamber
some distance away.
The remaining survivors Anakin and Tahiri had identified as members of
the Shamed caste-workers who maintained the more unpleasant functions of the
ship.
He didn't see anything in any of their eyes he thought he could work
with-no fear or uncertainty, just a nearly uniform and haughty anger. Still,
with a species you didn't know, it was hard to tell what facial expressions
meant.
"Do any of you speak Basic?" he asked.
One of the shapers lifted his head, his orange-limned eyes fierce. "I
speak your infidel tongue. It tastes like the waste excretions of an ill
vhlor on my tongue, but I can speak it. Please, ask me something so I may
deny it to you."
Not too promising. "We infidels don't normally sample the waste
excretions of ill animals, so I don't fully understand the reference,"
Corran said. "I suppose that such delicacies are reserved for the Chosen."
"It's not possible for you to mock me," the shaper said softly.
"Sure it is. You may be dense enough not to recognize it, but I can
certainly mock you."
"What do you want with me, infidel?"
"What's your name?"
"I am Kotaa of the glorious Domain Zun-qin," he replied.
"Who was designated to make contact with the fleet once this ship was
in the Yag'Dhul system, Kotaa Zun-qin? What was he supposed to say?"
"He will say nothing. You killed him. The warriors are in
charge of this mission, of course. And do not think I will aid you in
any scheme to defraud my people, Jeedai. Our fleet is poised to strike, as
you must know, and strike it will."
Corran's eyes narrowed-not at Kotaa's words, but at something he had
caught from the corner of his eye when the shaper had said the word Jeedai.
"I don't suppose you want to tell me when they will strike if they
don't hear from us?"
"I would be happy to vivisect you," the shaper offered. "So that your
death might offer the Yuuzhan Vong knowledge and thus have meaning. I am
inclined to do you no other favor."
"I'll keep that in mind," Corran said. "I don't get an offer like that
every day. Every other day, maybe ..." He turned away from the shaper and
looked more closely at the others. "Anyone else care to insult me?"
"I alone am able to mutter in your tuneless language," Kotaa Zun-qin
said.
"That's fine," Corran said. "I have a translator." He approached one of
the Shamed Ones. This was a smallish female, her only identifying marks a
trio of poorly healed puckered burns on each cheek. He cut her free of the
med tape binding her to the bulkhead. The shaper yammered something at the
Shamed One in Yuuzhan Vong, and she answered tersely.
Corran pulled his blaster and motioned for the Shamed One to go ahead
of him. Together they went up the corridor and into the control room.
"What's going on, Tahiri?" Corran asked.
"Not much. We're still not noticed, so far as I can tell, and no more
Yuuzhan Vong ships have jumped."
"No news is good news. Can you talk to one of the Vong for me?"
"Yuuzhan Vong," Tahiri corrected.
"Whatever. Can you translate?"
"Sure," she said cheerfully, removing the control mask from her head.
When the Shamed One saw Tahiti's scars, her eyes widened, and she
gabbled something in her own language.
"What did she say?" Corran asked. He really hated having to rely on
secondhand information. He hated having no information even more.
"She noticed my scars," Tahiri explained. "She asked if I am the
Jedi-who-was-shaped."
"She's heard of you?"
"I guess so."
Very, very interesting, Corran thought. Unless this one was actually at
Yavin-and what w
ould the odds of that be?-word was getting around, even
among the Shamed Ones. Maybe especially among the Shamed Ones.
"Ask her name," Corran instructed.
"It's Taan," Tahiri said after consulting with the Yuuzhan Vong.
"Tell Taan I saw her make a strange face when the shaper called me a
Jedi," Corran said. "Ask her what that meant."
Tahiri conversed with the Shamed One briefly, then turned her green
eyes up to Corran.
"She wants to know if it's true what they say about the Jedi."
"What do they say?"
"That the Jedi are the salvation of the Shamed Ones."
Corran considered that. "She thinks of you as something special,
doesn't she?"
Tahiti's cheeks pinkened. "Apparently the story of what happened on
Yavin Four is a popular one among the Shamed Ones. Or a version of the
story, anyway."
"Really. Can you get the short version from her? And be sure not to
correct her if her story conflicts with the facts."
Looking a bit puzzled, Tahiri asked the question and received a lengthy
answer. She translated it for Corran verbatim, in pieces.
"The Jedi have powers that no Yuuzhan Vong has. We know the warriors,
the shapers, and the intendants are jealous of these powers. Some even fear
them. At first we feared the Jedi, too, for they were infidels and dangerous
foes. But on Yavin Four, two Jedi came. They came to redeem Vila Rapuung,
once a mighty warrior who was marked with Shame by the shaper Mezhan Kwaad.
One of the Jedi
had been captured by this same shaper, and another became the comrade
of Vua Rapuung. Together, side by side, the Shamed One and the Jedi defeated
the shaper and redeemed Vua Rapuung. He died as no other warrior has died,
saluting an infidel. The gods not only permitted this, they must have aided
it. Now many say that perhaps the high castes do not know the will of the
gods as well as they say, or perhaps they are hiding our redemption from us.
Perhaps Shamed Ones are not shamed because it was ordained. Perhaps the
Shamed Ones are not shamed because the gods hate them. Perhaps instead, our
status is imposed on us by the high castes so they will have hands to do the
least and most onerous of tasks, so they may live lives of glory and not
debase themselves with the mundane. Perhaps the Jedi are our salvation. The
legend of Vua Rapuung and the Jedi suggests it, and is often told."
"Wow," Corran said, when the recitation was done. "Are you sure you got
all of that right?"
"Pretty sure," Tahiri said. "I might have used a different word here
and there, but it still comes out to the same thing."
"Ask her if she believes this."
Again, his query was translated and asked.
"She wasn't sure. Now that she sees our might, she thinks it may be
so."
"Ask her if she is willing to work with us, as Vua Rapuung did."
More unintelligible chatter; then Tahiri grinned. "She says she will
help us, if there is anything someone as humble as she can do."
"There is something we can try, at least," Corran said. "It may not
work, but it should be better than nothing."
Anakin returned to the helm, lugging the communication device he had
patched together from the beacon and his comlink. He found Corran and Tahiri
with a Yuuzhan Vong of the Shamed caste. The Shamed One was talking to a
villip. The villip had modeled itself to the massively scarred visage of a
warrior.
"What-" he began, but Corran cut him off with a severe look and a
finger held to his lip. Anakin took the hint-the villip might pick up his
extraneous sound and transmit it, as well. He chewed his lips restlessly.
The face on the villip scowled and barked, hissed, and finally, more calmly,
seemed to give a series of instructions. Then the villip relaxed into its
normal, neutral form.
Corran glanced at Tahiri. "Well?" he demanded.
"I think it went pretty well," she said.
"What went pretty well?" Anakin asked.
"Our friend here just spun off quite a tale," Corran told him, nodding
at the Yuuzhan Vong. "She told the commander of the fleet that when they
came out of hyperspace, something went wrong. She didn't know what, because
she is merely a Shamed One. She was tending the grutchin larvae, located
near the primary dovin basal, and felt a weird jolt. When she didn't receive
any orders for a time, she went to see what was needed of her and found the
whole crew dead, in fact, hardly recognizable, pasted all over the
bulkheads."
Anakin pursed his lips and then chopped his head forward. "I like it,"
he said. "That leaves a couple of possibilities for the commander to think
about. Either she's lying, and there's been a revolt on board the ship, or
she's telling the truth. If she's telling the truth, they'll know that what
she described was the result of a complete failure of the dovin basal's
ability to negate inertia-except right at the base of the basal. After that,
they have to decide if the Stalking Moon ran into something natural-I dunno,
a quantum black hole that made the basal recoil, something like that- or
some superweapon the Givin have in place to wreck unwanted ships."
Corran nodded. "Glad you approve," he said sarcastically. But beneath
his tone Anakin sensed a cool admiration that made him feel suddenly
self-conscious.
"You ever consider a career in covert security?" the older Jedi asked.
"Anyway, yes, that's basically what I was thinking. Even if they think
option one is the case-"
"Revolt?" Tahiri said doubtfully. "I don't think so. Even
if they could conceive of Shamed Ones killing warriors and shapers,
they wouldn't want to admit it. Do you know what would happen to the
commander who let something like that happen on his watch?"
"As I was saying," Corran went on, a little testily, "even if they
consider one, they have to consider the others before they bring a whole
fleet here or even a second ship. They're trying to explain to Taan how to
relay the telemetry of the sensing nodules, and she's pretending to
cooperate. So. Let's hope they're for real and we have a bit of time.
Anakin, you were successful?"
"Yes. The signal isn't that strong, so it may take a few moments to
tune."
"Get started, then."
Anakin nodded and set to work. "Why Yag'Dhul, do you think?" he asked
Corran, as he fiddled with the gain, focusing on the distant hum of
hyperwave noise from farther insystem. "I mean, if they want Coruscant, they
already have Duro to stage from."
"They're closing their back door. Yag'Dhul sits on the intersection of
the Rimma Trade Route and the Corellian Trade Spine. It also gives them a
clean shot at Thyferra."
"Oh!"Tahirisaid. "Bacta!"
"Right. If they control bacta production, they control the health of
everyone in the galaxy. Or maybe it's a ruse-the New Republic puts a lot of
ships and materiel at Thyferra, and the Yuuzhan Vong try to take Fondor
again or push on to a less-defended Coruscant from Duro. Either way, holding
Yag'Dhul gives them a lot more options."
&nb
sp; Anakin had a steady feedback response. "All right," he said. "We're
ready."
"Hail the planetary defense force," Corran said. He closed his eyes,
concentrating. "Try . . ." He reeled off a quadratic equation, then smiled
wearily. "It might not be right, but it ought to get their attention."
"Hailing, Captain," Anakin said.
Five minutes later, there was still no response. Anakin modulated the
wave form, sharpened the gain, and repeated.
"It ought to be working," Anakin muttered. "Unless they're deaf."
"Or unless their attention is focused elsewhere," Corran mused.
"What do you mean?" Anakin asked. "Why wouldn't they be watching their
borders?"
"You don't see any ships or even probes in this region, do you? The
Yuuzhan Vong have softened up other worlds with internal conflict and other
methods of espionage. They may already have agents here."
"Or maybe they've already poisoned Yag'Dhul, like they didBelkadan."
"Too slow. Word would get out," Corran said.
"Unless they use something we haven't seen yet," Tahiti pointed out.
"That's what shapers do, you know, come up with new things."
Corran nodded. "They do seem to keep condensing weapons out of nebular
gas," he allowed. "But-"
Their speculation was cut off by a whine and sputter from Anakin's
rewired comm unit. Behind a sleet of gravitic interference, the naturally
armored figure of a Givin glowered at them with empty eyes. More than
anything his- her?-face resembled a large human skull that had been melted,
allowed to sag, and re-form.
"Yag'Dhul primary bastion to unidentified ship," the Givin said. "You
have used an outdated and illegal hail code. However, your ship conforms to
the configuration ofa Yuuzhan Vong reconnaissance vessel." Then the mouth
slit clattered something unidentifiable.
To Anakin, anyway. Tahiri gave a little gasp of horror.
"What did he say?" Corran demanded.
Tahiri turned her aventurine gaze on the other two Jedi.
"It's Yuuzhan Vong. He said, 'Welcome. We've been expecting you.' ''
TWENTY-SIX
Wedge Antilles pinched his face in a scowl. Unlike some other things
about him, time had only made his glare more impressive. Jaina felt it brush
her and shivered, though she knew she wasn't its intended target. That would
be Kyp, seated between her and Gavin at the roughly finished wooden table.
