Edge of Victory 2 Rebirth

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.