Star Wars The New Jedi Order - Hero's Trial - Book 4

by James Luceno

  "Master Skywalker," Gron Marrab interrupted, one bulging eye fixed on the Jedi while the other continued to regard Kalenda. "This probably doesn't need to be stated, but I want it made clear that you should feel under no obligation in this matter."

  "Of course not," Senator Praget added, with a twisted grin. "After all, it's not as if the Jedi were in service to the New Republic."

  "That was uncalled for, Senator," Shesh said in rebuke.

  But Skywalker appeared indifferent to Praget's remark. "We will discuss it," he said at last. "Personally, though, I can say that I'm eager to meet with the priestess."

  Everyone fell silent for a moment, then Shesh spoke up once more. "Colonel Kalenda, what is the nature of the intelligence Elan furnished?"

  "The Yuuzhan Vong's next target - Ord Mantell."

  With her back to the gentle sea that washed Worlport's sand-fringed southern coast, Leia took a moment to gaze at the buttes that soared from the smog-blanketed northern wastes, out past the expansive junkyards, all the way to Ten Mile Plateau. Her view from the transparisteel crown of Ord Mantell's Government House - site of the Conclave on the Plight of the Refugees - encompassed much of the vertiginous capital city as well, with its once grand examples of Corellian classic-revival architecture. However, most of the ornate spires, great sweeping colonnades, and huge rotundas, with their tall round-topped arches, monolithic lintels, and carved entablatures, were now engulfed by a sprawl of ersatz rococo domes and obelisks, which catered to the banal tastes of the gamblers and hedonists who frequented the planet in droves, and the whole of it was fissured by a labyrinth of narrow stairways, curving ramps, sheltered bridges, and dank tunnels.

  Easy to lose your way in that maze , Leia told herself, as indeed she had lost her way some twenty-five years earlier at the end of her tenure as princess and diplomat but before Hoth and Endor, and long before marriage and children. Mentally, she tried to trace a route from Government House down to the brown plains far below, a game to occupy the moment, to keep her from wondering about the kids, or where Han might be -

  "Ambassador Organa Solo," the representative from Balmorra intruded, "is something wrong?"

  Leia surfaced from her ruminations and steered a contrite smile across the table. "Excuse me. You were saying ..."

  "I was saying that you haven't answered my question," the slender, starched human said in a miffed tone. "How does the New Republic justify such a request, when countless habitable worlds exist where refugees might be sheltered, without the danger of their jeopardizing the economic well-being of native populations?"

  Leia fought to maintain diplomatic aplomb. "Of course we have the means to transport tens of millions of refugees to any number of planets in outlying sectors. But our aim is not simply to rid ourselves of an inconvenience. We're talking about peoples who contribute significantly to the stability and prosperity of the New Republic, and who have lost everything - homes, livelihood, in many cases family members or entire kin groups."

  "What good are such groups without worlds," someone at the table scoffed.

  "Precisely the point," Leia said. "What the Senate Select Committee for Refugees requires are worlds with intact infrastructures - not only with habitable land, but also planetary defenses, spaceports, surface transportation networks, arid dependable communication with Coruscant and the Core Worlds."

  Alsakan's ringlet-haired representative sniffed. "A very laudable ideal, Ambassador, but who's going to feed and clothe these displaced billions? Who's going to construct the shelters and install the irradiators to ensure that the native populations are protected against whatever diseases the refugees might be harboring?"

  "The senate has already allocated funds to address those very concerns."

  "But for how long?" the twin-horned envoy from Devaron asked. "Should the New Republic renege on its promises - or be forced to by circumstance - economic responsibilities will fall to the host worlds, which by then will hardly be in a position to banish the groups they accepted in all good faith. The result could be economic catastrophe."

  Leia allowed some of her frustration to show. "Need I remind you that we are in the midst of a war that threatens the very existence of that economy - not to mention the freedoms all of us have enjoyed since the defeat of the Empire?"

  When she was certain she had their attention, she went on. "We have the capacity to move populations from the Outer Rim to worlds closer to the Core. Where necessary - and where they can be spared - we will make use of bulk transports and freighters to relocate tens of thousands at a time. But before that can happen, some of you are going to have to volunteer to accept these peoples, as Mon Calamari did with the displaced Ithorians, and as Bimmisaari has recently done with those who fled Obroa-skai.

  "Our goal is to create self-sufficient enclaves, to be managed by appropriate individuals selected from within the refugee populations - administrators, physicians, teachers, technicians. However, these enclaves will serve as temporary facilities only. Little by little, we will relocate specific groups or species to suitable worlds, or perhaps introduce populations to currently uninhabited worlds."

  "Individual enclaves for each species?" Jagga-Two's delegate asked.

  "Where possible," Leia said. "Otherwise, we plan to place compatible groups together."

  "And see to the diverse needs of those groups?"

  "Of course."

  "And what happens when antagonistic groups are required to share the same enclave?" the representative from a repopulated world in the Koornacht Cluster asked.

  "We'll deal with those problems as they arise."

  "How - by providing security forces?"

  "Some forces will be necessary, yes."

  The Balmorran loosed an incredulous laugh. "You use the word enclaves , but what you mean to say is containment camps."

  The Devaronian glared at Leia. "What if additional worlds should fall to the Yuuzhan Vong? How many refugees will we be asked to accept? Is there a limit, or does the New Republic plan to squeeze the populations of thousands of worlds onto hundreds?"

  "We will limit the number," Leia replied. She turned to Ord Mantell's representative. "Ord Mantell could inaugurate the plan by allowing people stranded on the Jubilee Wheel to settle in temporary camps north of the city."

  The planet's button-nosed female representative looked aghast. "I'm afraid that's impossible, Ambassador. Why, for one thing, the area around Ten Mile Plateau is one of our most important tourist attractions."

  "Tourist attractions?" Leia said in disbelief. "Ord Mantell lies practically on the edge of contested space. How many tourists do you expect to receive in the coming months?"

  The woman made her face long. "Ord Mantell appears to have been spared the horrors. We anticipate an upswing in tourism very soon."

  Leia took a calming breath. "Farther to the west, then," she suggested.

  The woman ridiculed the proposal with a condescending laugh. "I'm very sorry, but those lands have been set aside as reserves for the Mantellian savrip. Hunters come from great distances for the honor of stalking the beasts."

  Leia exhaled in exasperation. "Is there no one here who will step forward?"

  The representative of Gyndine and the Circarpous system spoke up. "Gyndine will accept some of those stranded on the Jubilee Wheel ."

  "Thank you," Leia said.

  "As will Ruan," delegate Borert Harbright of Salliche Ag announced proudly. "House Harbright will do whatever it can for the cause."

  Leia smiled appreciatively, but she had to force it. A powerful and wealthy corporation, Salliche Ag controlled a string of worlds on the fringe of the Deep Core, with Ruan and a host of similar worlds ideally suited to relocation centers. But there was something about the supercilious Count Harbright that put her instantly on guard. Duplicity seemed to shine from his coal-black eyes and lurk behind his obliging smile.

  But Leia thanked him anyway. "On behalf of the thousands whose lives your generosity will save, the Advisory
Council applauds you." Her gaze swept the table. "Now, perhaps some of the rest of you can be persuaded to follow the count's lead."

  When the meeting adjourned for lunch, Leia hurried to exit the circular room before anyone had a chance to get her ear. Olmahk, one of her Noghri bodyguards, was waiting in the hallway, along with C-3PO.

  "I do hope the meeting went well, Mistress Leia," C-3PO said, hurrying to match her pace.

  "As well as could be expected," Leia muttered. They made their way to a turbolift and descended to Government House's spacious and ostentatious lobby, where every droid in sight appeared to be moving with uncommon haste toward the building's several exits. "What's all this about?" Leia stopped to ask. "I can scarcely imagine," C-3PO answered. "But I'll do my best to find out."

  C-3PO angled across the lobby, placing himself directly in the path of an administrative droid, whose head was shaped like an inverted test tube. The 3D-4X was forced to come to a skittering halt on the polished floor. In an impossibly rapid exchange, the pair traded information like two insects meeting on a forage trail.

  A moment later, C-3PO whirled and headed back toward Leia, stiff-backed and arms pumping in a way she had come to associate with trouble.

  "Mistress Leia, I have just received the most distressing news," C-3PO sputtered. "It seems that Ord Mantell has been targeted for attack by the Yuuzhan Vong!"

  THIRTEEN "The brute might have killed you, mistress," Vergere remarked in the secret tongue of the deception sect, while she ministered to the injuries Elan had received at the hands of the assassin.

  The priestess moved Vergere aside so she could regard her image in the mirror Showolter had provided. "I never feared for my life. I feared only for the development of the bo'tous. The fool's blows might have damaged the carriers or retarded their growth."

  Vergere sat back on her reverse-articulated legs, and her long ears pricked up. "Do you think they survived?"

  Elan ran her hand over her lower chest and smiled maliciously. "I can feel them ripening, Vergere. They whisper to me. They await the four breaths that will liberate them. I can feel their eagerness."

  "Theirs or yours?"

  Elan turned from the mirror to regard her familiar. "For loosing their deadly toxin, my reward will be great. Word may well reach the ear of Supreme Overlord Shimrra."

  "Without question," Vergere assured. "Although it will be the members of your domain who profit."

  Elan continued to regard her. "You have so little faith that Harrar will be able to retrieve us after I have dispensed with the Jedi?"

  Misgiving narrowed Vergere's slanted eyes and ruffled the short feathers at the back of her neck. "I trust that Harrar will do all in his power to find you. But our movements won't be easily monitored from this point on. Not after the assassin's attack. Showolter will jump us about until we're so deeply entrenched in New Republic space that even Nom Anor won't be able to reach us."

  His injuries notwithstanding, the ever attentive Major Showolter had been careful not to identify the world to which they had been moved, though by all appearances it was even more remote and primitive than the last. On arriving, Elan had had the briefest view of impenetrable forests of peculiar trees. From snatches of overheard conversation it was clear that the planet boasted at least one small city, but also clear that Elan, Vergere, and the Intelligence operatives were far removed from it.

  Elan stroked Vergere's downy back. "If my duties demand that I die, then so be it, my pet. My domain will prosper. My father will be escalated to the rank of most-high priest."

  "And the determined Harrar will prosper."

  "That is not our concern."

  Vergere folded her arms and bowed her elongated head. "I will remain by your side, mistress."

  Gingerly, Elan examined the raw bruises the assassin's powerful fingers had left on her neck. "I know the one Harrar sent," she said after a moment. "He apprenticed under the Shai."

  Vergere pressed her hands to her eyes and applied some of her tears to Elan's abraded flesh. "The same sect that spawned Commander Shedao Domain Shai."

  "The very same. Those of Domain Shai delight in inflicting pain for pain's own sake - to themselves or to others unfortunate enough to stray into their reach. To the Shai, there is no higher calling than torment, the 'embrace of pain.' Pain is the beginning and the end." Elan sighed relievedly. "Your tears refresh, my pet."

  Vergere continued to minister to her. "Harrar's aim was to convince our captors of your importance, and in that he chose wisely. Better the New Republic thinks the Yuuzhan Vong intractable than reasonable."

  Elan nodded, without comment.

  Though Vergere might have been born of the Yuuzhan Vong's masterful talent for genetic manipulation, the exotic creature had in fact been transported to the main fleet two generations earlier by one of the first reams to reconnoiter the galaxy that had produced the Jedi. The scouting party had returned dozens of specimens to the worldships, including humans, Verpine, Talz, and others. After extensive experiments, some had expired and others had been sacrificed, but a few had been awarded as pets to children of select elite, such as Elan, youngest daughter of an adviser to Supreme Overlord Shimrra. Vergere's uniqueness was thought by some to be sacred. Through the long years of negotiating the intergalactic void, through the long years of Elan's rigorous training in the deception sect, Vergere had been her constant companion, confidante, friend, even tutor.

  "Does it cheer you to be back among your own kind?" Elan asked carefully.

  "Hardly my own kind, mistress."

  "Among your home species, then?"

  Vergere's large eyes smiled. "We Fosh were never at home among them. We were too few in number. Humankind had filled all the evolutionary gaps, bringing about the extinction of species like mine, which were merely holding a place, a niche in the continuum."

  "But you are delighted with the food."

  "Ah, the food," Vergere said, laughing. "That is another matter."

  Elan grew serious. "You could reveal the truth to Showolter and escape back into your own realm."

  Vergere reached for Elan's patterned hand and caressed it. "I am your familiar. Were it not for you, I would have been sacrificed or disposed of. We are linked until one of us dies."

  Elan exhaled with intent. "Despite what you say or what you choose to reveal, you know these species better than anyone else - even Nom Anor."

  Vergere shook her head. "The executor has made it his mission to study them - to know them better than they know themselves. We Fosh were more devoted to concealing ourselves."

  "From what little you know, then, are Showolter and the women who visited us taken in?"

  "Were I privy to the debriefing I might be able to answer with certainty. Undoubtedly the assassin's dedication to duty has helped to allay some of Showolter's initial misgivings."

  Elan's expression changed. "He is most accommodating, that one."

  "Because you have charmed him - as you do all."

  "Or course you would say that. Then you believe they will provide me with an opportunity to meet with the Jedi?"

  "It is too soon to tell, mistress. Should Commander Tla deem it wise to furnish the New Republic with a victory to support the data you provided, you may yet meet with them."

  Elan considered it in silence. "Did you know of them in your time here?"

  "As I say, the Fosh moved discreetly, but of course we knew of the Jedi. They were manifold. I was surprised to learn that they are now few." She paused briefly. "I thank you for revealing nothing of my past to Harrar, mistress."

  Elan merely smiled. "Did you ever witness the Jedi employ the Force?"

  "The Jedi consider the Force to be all around us, permeating all living things. So in that regard, I'm certain I witnessed the Force at work."

  "Perhaps it would benefit the Yuuzhan Vong to learn how to use it."

  Vergere took a moment to respond. "The Force is a sword with two edges, mistress. Cut one way and vanquish. But be careless
on the backswing, or allow your mind to wander, and you risk undoing all you've accomplished." She gazed at Elan. "Indeed, it might befit the Yuuzhan Vong to become aware of the Force, but it is not for all to employ. Such power should be reserved for those with the strength to heft the sword and the wisdom to know when to wield it."

  ***

  Squadrons of T-65A3 X-wings, E-wings, and TIE interceptors dropped from the forward launch bay of the Erinnic , an Imperial II -class Star Destroyer parked between Ord Mantell's like-sized and close-quartered moons.

  "Fighter groups are away," an enlisted-rating reported from one of the crew pits below the overbridge's command walkway. "Dispersing to assigned coordinates."

  "May the Force be with you," Vice Admiral Ark Poinard sent over the command net.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a wry smile take shape on the deeply lined face of General Yald Sutel, onetime adversary turned ally in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. "Problem, General?" Poinard asked, raising one bushy white eyebrow as he turned to Sutel.

  Sutel shook his blockish head but kept smiling. "It's just that I'm still not used to hearing you say it."

  Poinard snorted. "Believe it or not, I used to say it to myself even when this ship carried only TIE fighters."

  "I don't believe that for a moment," Sutel said. "Despite appearances, I always held the Force in high esteem." Hands clasped behind their backs, the two elderly veterans continued to advance on the bridge's semicircular expanse of triangular windows. As an accommodation to both the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant, Poinard had retained his honorific as captain of the flagship, while Sutel had been designated task force commander.

  Of the sixteen vessels that comprised the group, some flew escort to the Erinnic , but most - including a Mediator -class Mon Calamari battle cruiser, two Quasar Fire -class cruiser-carriers, three escort frigates, and five Ranger -class gunships - had taken up positions above the bright side of the star system's fifth planet. Since any ships jumping from Yuuzhan Vong-held space would have to enter the Bright Jewel Cluster Rimward of the planet, it was hoped that concealment would further enhance the element of surprise.