Star Wars The New Jedi Order - The Final Prophecy - Book 19

by Greg Keyes

  Star Wars

  New Jedi Order

  The Final Prophecy

  by Greg Keyes

  As the bestselling New Jedi Order series

  approaches its epic climax, the secrets

  of the Yuuzhan Vong - who they are,

  where they came from, what terrible

  forces drive them - are at last exposed.

  But will this knowledge aid the Jedi...

  or doom them?

  PROLOGUE

  Three kilometers beneath the surface of Yuuzhan'tar-the world once known

  as Coruscant-the sound of chanting drifted up a shaft nearly as wide as it was

  deep, the melan-choly strains yearning toward the few distant stars that could

  be seen from the bottom. In the pale blue light of lumen reeds, the faces of

  the chanters appeared ravaged, their bodies misshapen.

  These were the Shamed Ones of the Yuuzhan Vong, and they chanted to their

  Prophet.

  Nom Anor felt his bile rise at the sight. Even after all this time as the

  "Prophet," it was difficult to shake the long years of contempt he had held

  for them.

  But they were his hope, now. They were his army. Once, not long ago, he

  had dared to dream that with them behind him he could pull Shimrra-Supreme

  Overlord of the Yuu-zhan Vong-from his polyp throne, cast him into the pits,

  and assume his place.

  But there had been setbacks. His eyes and ears within Shimrra's palace

  had been uncovered and killed. More of his followers were discovered every

  day, and fewer answered the call.

  Their faith was wavering, and it was time to give it back to them.

  "Hear me!" he called, his voice soaring above the Prayer of Redemption.

  "Hear the voice of prophecy!"

  1

  The chanting subsided, and an eager silence descended.

  "I have fasted," he said. "I have meditated. Last night I sat here,

  beneath the stars, waiting for I knew not what. And in the darkest hours, a

  great light fell about me, a cleansing light, the light of redemption. I

  looked up and there, where the stars gaze down upon us, was an orb-a world, a

  planet in the skies above us. Its beauty made me tremble, and its power

  pressed down on me. I felt love and terror at once. And then those emotions

  subsided, and I felt-belonging. I knew that the planet itself was alive, wel-

  coming me. It is the planet of the source, the planet of the Jeedai,their

  secret temple and fount of their knowledge and wisdom-and I saw us, the

  Shamed, walking with the Jeedai upon its surface, one with them, one with the

  planet."

  He dropped his tone from singsong to a near growl.

  "And in the distance, I heard Shimrra's wail of despair, for he knows

  this planet-this living planet-is our salvation and his doom. And he knows it

  will come for him, one day, because it will come for us."

  He lowered his hands, and for a moment the silence pre-vailed. Then a

  great roar went up, keen and joyful, and Nom Anor heard what he most wanted to

  hear-the sound of hope, the cry of the zealot-his name on the lips of a

  multitude. What matter that he had put the story together from a few

  conversations and rumors he had collected from Shimrra's palace before his

  informant died? There was a planet, rumored to be alive in some unusual way.

  Shimrra was terrified of it, and had had the commander who brought the news of

  it slaughtered out of hand, along with all his crew.

  His story would give his people hope. It would encourage them to fight.

  And when they were captured, and told the prophecy to their punishers, it

  would get back to Shimrra, and bring his fear back home.

  Better, Nom Anor had heard from old sources in the Galactic Alliance that

  the Jedi had mounted a search for just such a planet. What they wanted with it

  he did not know, but it seemed the planet had repelled at least one Yuu-zhan

  Vong battle group, so perhaps its people had potent weapons.

  In any event, rumor would build on rumor, reinforcing the veracity of his

  vision, strengthening the resolve of his followers, knitting their single

  strands into ropes and the ropes into cables until they were strong enough to

  knot around Shimrra's neck and strangle him.

  Strength swept through him as the sound of his adopted name built toward

  the heavens. He looked out over them, and this time was much less offended by

  their faces.

  PART ONE

  VISION

  ONE

  She was being followed.

  She paused and wiped a damp wisp of yellow hair from her forehead,

  touching in passing the scars that marked her as a member of Domain Kwaad. Her

  green eyes scanned through the many-legged gnarltrees, but her stalkers

  weren't yet showing themselves to the usual senses. They were waiting for

  something-reinforcements, probably.

  She hissed a mild shaper's curse under her breath and started off again,

  picking her way over moldering logs, through sluggish mists and dense brakes

  of hissing cane.

  The air was a wet fever, and the chirps and trills and bub-bling gulps

  from canopy and marsh were oddly comforting.

  She kept her pace the same-there was no reason to let them know she was

  on to them, not yet. She did alter her path subtly-no point in going to the

  cave until this was dealt with.

  Or I could lead them there,she mused,attack them while they deal with

  their inner demons...

  No.

  That seemed somehow like sacrilege. Yoda had come here. Luke Skywalker

  had, too, and so had Anakin. Now it was her turn. Tahiri's turn.

  Anakin's parents hadn't very much liked the idea of her coming to Dagobah

  alone, but she'd managed to convince them of the necessity. She believed that

  the human and Yuu-zhan Vong personalities that had once shared her body had

  become one seamless entity. It felt that way, felt right. But Anakin had seen

  a vision of her, a melding of Jedi and Yuu-zhan Vong, and it hadn't been a

  pretty vision. She'd thought at first, after the joining that had nearly

  driven her mad, that she had avoided that outcome. But before she moved on,

  before she put those she loved at risk, she had to con-sider the possibility

  that the fusion of Tahiri Veila with Riina of Domain Kwaad was a step in the

  fulfillment of that vision.

  Anakin, after all, had known her better than anyone. And Anakin had been

  very strong.

  If the creature he had seen was lurking in her, the time to face it was

  now, not later.

  So she'd come here, to Dagobah, where the Force was so strong it almost

  seemed to sing aloud. The cycle of life and death and new birth was all around

  here, none of it twisted by Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, none of it poisoned by

  the machines, greed, and exploitation all too native to this galaxy. She'd

  come to visit the cave to explore her inner self and see what she was really

&nb
sp; made of.

  But she had also come to Dagobah to meditate on the alternatives. What

  Anakin had seen was all of the worst of Yuuzhan Vong and Jedi traits bundled

  into one being. Avoiding becoming that was paramount, but she had a goal

  beyond-to find the balance, to embody the best of her mixed heritage. Not just

  for herself, but because the reconciliation of her dual identity had left her

  with one firm belief-that the Yuuzhan Vong and the peoples of the galaxy they

  had invaded could learn a lot from each other, and they could live in peace.

  She was sure of it. The only question was how to make it happen.

  The Yuuzhan Vong would never create industrial waste-lands like Duro,

  Bonadan, or Eriadu. On the other hand, what they did to life-breaking it and

  twisting it until it suited their needs, wiping it out entirely when it didn't

  please-was really no better. It wasn't that they loved life, but that they

  hated machines.

  There had to be some sort of common ground, some pivot point that could

  open the eyes of both sides and end the ongoing terror and destruction of the

  war. The Force was key to that understanding. The Yuuzhan Vong were somehow

  blind to it. If they could actually feel the Force around them, if they could

  feel the wrongness of their creations, they might find a better path, one less

  bent on destruction. If the Jedi could feel the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force,

  they might find-not better ways to fight them - but paths to conciliation.

  She needed more than that, though. It wasn't enough to know what was

  wrong-she also had to know how to make things right.

  Tahiri had no delusions of grandeur. She was no savior, no prophet, no

  super-Jedi. She was the result of a Yuuzhan Vong experiment gone wrong. But

  she did understand both sides of the problem, and if there was any chance she

  could help Master Skywalker find the solution her galaxy so des-perately

  needed-well, she had to take it. It was a role she accepted with humility and

  great caution. Those trying to do good often committed the most atrocious

  crimes. They were gaining on her, getting clumsier. Soon she would have to do

  something.

  They must have followed her to Dagobah. How?

  Or maybe they had known where she was going before she left. Maybe she

  had been betrayed. But that meant Han and Leia-

  No. There was another answer. Paranoid reflexes were a survival trait

  growing up in a creche, but even deeper in-stincts told her that her friends-

  a dopted parents, almost-could never do such a thing. Someone had been watching

  her, someone she hadn't noticed. Peace Brigade maybe. Probably. They would

  imagine they could curry a lot of favor by turn-ing her over to Shimrra.

  She twisted her way through a maze of gnarltrees and then clambered

  quickly and silently up their cablelike roots. They had once been legs, those

  roots, as she'd learned when she came here less than a decade and more than a

  lifetime ago. The immature form of the tree was a sort of spider that lost its

  mobility in adulthood. She'd been with Anakin, here to face his trial, to

  discover if having the name of his grandfather would bring him the same fate.

  I miss you Anakin, she thought.

  More now than ever.

  About four meters off the ground, she secreted herself in a hollow and

  waited. If she could simply avoid them, she would. At one level her instincts

  cried out for battle, but at a deeper level she knew that her Yuuzhan Vong

  fighting re-flexes had inevitable connections with fury, and she was here to

  avoid becoming Anakin's vision, not embrace it.

  There was a part of her plan that she hadn't told Han and Leia about-the

  part where, if the cave confirmed her worst fears, she would cripple her X-

  wing beyond repair and spend the rest of her life on the jungle planet.

  Perhaps, like the spiders, she would sink her limbs into the swamp and

  become a tree.

  She reached out with the Force, to better assess her pursuit.

  They weren't there. And she suddenly realized that she hadn't felt them

  in the Force, but with her Vongsense. It had come so naturally she hadn't even

  questioned it. That could only mean her pursuers were Yuuzhan Vong, maybe six

  of them, give or take one or two. Vongsense wasn't as precise as the Force.

  She reached for her lightsaber, but didn't unhook it, and continued to

  wait.

  Soon she actually heard them. Whoever they were, they weren't hunters-

  they moved through the jungle clumsily, and though they pitched their voices

  low enough that she couldn't actually understand what they were saying, they

  seemed to be gabbling almost constantly. They must be very confident of their

  success.

  A dark shadow glided soundlessly through the under-growth, and she

  snapped her gaze up in time to see some-thing very large blot the fragments of

  sky not occluded by the distant canopy.

  Native life, or a Yuuzhan Vong flier?

  Pursing her lips, she waited. Soon the distant muttering became coherent.

  As she'd thought, the language was that of her creche.

  "Are you certain she came this way?" a raspy voice asked.

  "She did. See? The impression in the moss?"

  "She isjeedai. Perhaps she left these signs to confuse us."

  "Perhaps."

  "But you think she is near?"

  "Yes."

  "And knows we are following her?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why not simply call out to her?"

  And hope I answer the battle challenge? Tahiri thought, grimly. So they

  did have a tracker with them. Could she slip around them, back to her X-wing?

  Or must she fight them?

  Moving very slowly, Tahiri shifted in the direction of the voices. She

  could make out several figures through the under-story, but not distinctly.

  "At some point we must, I suppose," the tracker said.

  "Else she will think we wish her harm."

  What? Tahiri frowned, trying to fit that into her presuppositions. She

  couldn't.

  "Jeedai!" the tracker called. "I think you can hear us. We humbly request

  an audience."

  No warrior would do that, Tahiri thought. No warrior would use such

  honorless trickery. But a shaper... Yes, a shaper or a priest might, a member

  of the deception sect. Still...

  She leaned out for a better view, and found herself staring straight into

  the yellow eyes of a Yuuzhan Vong.

  He was perhaps six meters away. She gasped at the sight of him, and

  revulsion jolted through her. His face was like an open wound.

  A Shamed One, despised by the gods. He dared-her hand went to her

  lightsaber.

  Then the shadow was back, and suddenly something sleeted through the

  branches, shredding the leaves and vines around her. She snarled a war cry and

  ignited her weapon, swirling it up to send two thud bugs burning off through

  the jungle.

  Above her, through the now open canopy, she saw a Yuu-zhan Vong tsik vai,

  an atmospheric flier, huge and ray-shaped, and from it snaked long cables. To

  each cable clung a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. One passed less than two meters from

  her, and she braced for the fight, but he went on past, oblivious to her

  presence, striking the jungle
floor and uncoiling his amphistaff in the same

  motion.

  A terrible wail went up from her pursuers. She could see them now, all

  horribly disfigured, all Shamed Ones. They raised their short clubs and faced

  the warriors.

  They didn't have a chance-she saw that immediately.

  For an instant, the tracker held her eye, and she thought he would give

  her away, but instead his expression went grim.

  "Run!" he shouted. "We cannot win here!"

  Tahiri hesitated only an instant longer, then made a series of steplike

  leaps to the ground. The first of the Shamed Ones had already fallen when her

  feet touched the spongy soil.

  A warrior caught her motion from the corner of his eye and turned to meet

  her, snarling a war cry. His face transfig-ured in surprise when she answered

  it in his own language.

  He whirled his amphistaff toward her, a lateral strike aimed at her

  scapula. She caught the blade and cut toward his knuckles, but he parried with

  distance, pulled his weapon free of the bind, and lunged deep with the

  venomous tip. She caught it in a high sweep and stepped in, cut to his

  shoulder where the vonduun crab armor shed its fury in a shower of sparks,

  then dodged past, reversing the weapon and plung-ing its fiery point into the

  vulnerable spot in the armpit. The warrior gasped and sank to his knees, and

  she whipped the weapon around to decapitate him even as she launched herself

  at the next foe.

  Combat was a blur, after that. Eight warriors had dropped from the flier.

  Seven were left, and fully half the Shamed Ones were bleeding on the ground.

  She had an image of the tracker, his arms knotted in a neck-breaking hold. She

  saw another Shamed One strike a warrior on the temple with his club only to be

  run through from behind.

  Mostly she saw the lightning-quick amphistaff strikes of the two warriors

  trying to flank her. She cut at a knee, smelled the scorch of flesh as the

  blade severed through armor. An amphistaff whipped toward her back and she had

  to roll be-neath the blow.

  Parry, thrust, and cut became her entire existence.

  Spattered with Yuuzhan Vong blood and bleeding from several cuts of her

  own, she suddenly found herself back to back with the tracker. He was all that