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

by Greg Keyes

  "I wish to see Zonama Sekot," the shaper said. "If you have come to take

  me there, then yes."

  "We should talk about this later," Corran said.

  "We will," Tahiri said. "We certainly will. After we've gotten out of

  here but long before we reach Zonama Sekot. Do you understand me?"

  "I understand you," Nen Yim replied. "But for now, if we're to escape,

  you must do as I say."

  "Time's wasting," Corran said. "What do we do?"

  "The warriors I killed. Use your weapons on them." Corran grinned wryly.

  "I thought so." He did as in-structed, cutting through the wounds that were

  already there, erasing any sign that they had been killed by a shaper's hand.

  Tahiri watched in disgust. A Yuuzhan Vong ought to own the violence she did.

  "Next?"

  "I need an opening in that wall, large enough for this ship to pass

  through. I'm certain your infi-your weapons can accomplish it."

  Tahiri nodded at Corran, and together they moved to the coral wall

  indicated and began carving chunks from it. While they were still less than

  half done, shouts went up be-hind them.

  Before Corran could react, Tahiri spun and charged the new attackers.

  There were three of them.

  "Finish!" she cried. "I'll take these."

  All three bore amphistaffs. She hurled herself at them as if committed to

  a full-on charge, but at the last instant stopped short. As a result, the

  counterattack from the lead warrior was also short. She picked up the rigid

  end of his staff in a high bind and cut down through the juncture of neck and

  shoulder, sweeping her blade around to catch a second attacker in a high

  parry. Then she dropped, instinc-tively ducking the slash from the third. Even

  so, the second warrior recovered quickly and wrapped his suddenly flexible

  staff around her ankle. Tahiri used the Force to leap away, and the warrior

  yanked her back, which was what she'd been planning. She went with the pull,

  and both of her feet hit him in the face. He grunted and fell back, but didn't

  re-lease the staff. As she fell, she reversed her weapon and let the third

  warrior impale himself through the armpit. Black I vapor exploded from the

  wound and the scent of burning blood sang in her nostrils.

  She rolled to get back to her feet, but the remaining war-rior kicked her

  in the side of the head. The blow rang in her skull, and white lights

  threatened to blot out her vision. She swung wildly, but failed to connect

  with anything. Then everything went strange as something hard and sharp went

  through her shoulder.

  "Oh," she said. "Oh." Her arms were suddenly rubber.

  The warrior grinned in triumph.

  "No," she told him. "No, absolutely not."

  She grabbed the amphistaff that had impaled her, but she barely felt it.

  She tried to focus beyond the pain, use the Force to throw herself back, but

  all she saw was the snarling face of the warrior who was about to kill her,

  and all she felt was her body husking out, going light, fading...

  She saw the warrior look away, and then suddenly he was headless. His

  body dropped away almost gently.

  Corran stood above her. "Come on," he said.

  "Poison," Tahiri mumbled. She tried to stand, but her legs were already

  beyond answering her demands.

  She was vaguely aware that Corran got her up on his shoulder and was

  taking her toward the strange ship. After that, time condensed. She remembered

  yelling, and concus-sions, and the ship shivering. New voices, then nothing.

  Nen Yim settled in the pilot's couch and placed the cogni-tion hood on her

  head. The ship hadn't come with one, but it had been an easy matter to implant

  a Yuuzhan Vong matrix ganglia to the alien but relatively straightforward

  neural web. It ought to respond like any Yuuzhan Vong ship.

  She hadn't been able to regenerate all the ship's systems, and had

  replaced them with specially bioengineered equiva-lents. She had installed

  dovin basals in place of the abomi-nable machine drive; she wouldn't have

  known how to repair that even if she had wanted to. The frame she could do

  nothing about, and she'd left many of the other bits of infidel technology in

  place because she either wasn't sure what they did or because it was unclear

  whether the ship would function properly without them.

  A flutter of tension moved through her as she melded with the ship's

  senses. The ship felt confused, uncertain, as if it was wondering-as she was-

  whether the repairs and modifications would work. Her experiments suggested

  they would, but of course she had never flown it.

  We'll try this together, yes? she thought to the ship, and received a

  tentative affirmation. Where were the Jedi?

  She could not see them from the transparent cockpit, so she activated the

  ship's exterior optical sensors and quickly located them. They seemed to have

  gotten into another fight, and the yellow-haired one was down, wounded. That

  wasn't entirely bad, Nen Yim considered. Things might go more smoothly if the

  girl died.

  A few moments later, the two were on board and Nen Yim dilated the inner

  and outer locks.

  "Tahiri's hurt," the male Jedi called. "It's an amphistaff wound."

  "Do what you can for her," she told him. "I can't help at the moment. We

  have to leave."

  Hoping once again that the inelegant mixture of Sekotan and Yuuzhan Vong

  technology wouldn't fail her, she willed the ship to fly.

  In a blur they were through the opening, though she felt it scrape along

  her skin on one side. No damage, though-the hull could shed starstuff for a

  time, so yorik coral was no real problem. She might even have been able to

  break through the wall with the nose of the ship, but the Jedi h a d, been

  there with their swords, so why not use them?

  "We're meeting the Prophet at the shrine of Yun-Harla," the Jedi told

  her. She didn't like his tone of voice. It sounded as if he imagined she was

  under his orders.

  "I'm aware of that," she said, trying to remain cab J when all her

  instincts told her that she was far too high; above the ground, that she was

  going to fall.

  There was the shrine, the same one she'd met Harrar at I what seemed like

  a very long time ago. The skies were still! eerily quiet, as if Yuuzhan'tar

  were asleep, as if they hadn't j just fled from the compound of the Dread

  Overlord himself.; Oddly, the quiet brought a sense of doom that she hadn't

  felt up until now.

  She settled the ship down next to the shrine and opened the hatch.

  Outside, a breeze was blowing, thick with the as-tringent scent of blister

  flowers. She was glad they'd bloomed before she left-she'd wondered what they

  would smell like. She noticed a movement from behind the shrine, and saw the

  grotesque figure of a Shamed One coming toward her.

  "This, then, must be the Prophet," she murmured. He was tall, and his

  body looked well formed enough, save for, a lump beneath his left arm that was

  probably a limpin im-plant gone bad. He wore a masquer that bore every markot

  the Shamed she could imagine, as if he had cataloged every possible

  disfigurement before having it made, as if he was determined
to carry the

  burden of all the Shamed on his own neck.

  It was both revolting and oddly intriguing. What sort of Yuuzhan Vong

  would do such a thing? And why?

  "I am Yu'shaa," he said as he boarded. His gaze fastened on her, intense,

  nearly animal. This was no simpering Shamed One, no. This was an altogether

  different breed of the creature. He carried his marks with impossible dignity.

  "lamNenYim."

  "I am honored, Master," the Prophet replied. "You undertake a great task.

  All went well?"

  "Could have gone a bit more smoothly," Corran muttered.

  "According to plan," Nen Yim said.

  "Tahiri being stabbed was not in the plan," Corran said.

  "The one-who-was-shaped is injured!" the Prophet exclaimed.

  "A risk we all take," Nen Yim pointed out.

  "She's dying!" Corran said. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

  "I will heal her," Nen Yim said, "when I have the chance."

  "You'll heal her..."

  He stoppe d when someone else stepped into the ship. He yanked out his

  infidel weapon and ignited it.

  "No!" Nen Yim shouted. "This is Harrar, a priest. He's going with us."

  The male Jedi crouched into a fighting stance. "No, I..."

  A blast of plasma slammed into the ship-the skies were no longer quiet.

  Cursing, Nen Yim realized she had disen-gaged from the long-range sensors. As

  she reengaged now, she saw a flier above them and ten more within range. She

  closed the hatch and jolted the dovin basals to life. The ship jumped straight

  up, slamming into the atmospheric flier.

  The flier flipped over and smashed into the shrine, then slid into the

  water below, food for the p'hiili.

  The other fliers quickly dwindled, but faster ships were coming, from

  everywhere. She turned toward what she perceived to be the most open space.

  Far above, the rainbow bridge was a faint band in the sky, another legacy of

  their con-quest of Yuuzhan'tar. They had shattered a moon to make it. She saw

  with some relief that she was faster than the pursuing ships, if only

  marginally so. Most Yuuzhan Vong space-craft had been designed primarily for

  space, and were clumsy in atmospheres. The Sekotan ship was sleeker,

  streamlined. Once they were in vacuum, it might be a different matter.

  "Prepare for a darkspace jump," she called back.

  "Bloody..." the male Jedi sputtered. "No... Not this close to the planet.

  We're still in the atmosphere!"

  "That's bad?" Nen Yim asked.

  "Yes, that's bad. Have you even laid in a jump?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "You've never flown?"

  "No."

  "Watch her," Corran told the Prophet, casting a glance at the priest as

  he did so. This thing was going sourer every second. He moved quickly to stand

  next to the shaper.

  "Okay," he said, "let's-look, we'll make a short jump first-Borleias. Do

  you have a star chart in there, anything like that?"

  She shook her head. "No," she said. "Or maybe. I'm not attuned enough to

  see it if there is one. But there are ships approaching."

  "Any way to show me the ships?"

  "Yes."

  A nearby wall panel coruscated, revealing a surface that raised icons to

  represent ships and their movements.

  "I can't tell how close they are, because I don't know the scale here,"

  Corran said. "But I think you ought to bear aught-six-two-aught-aught-one."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "That way!" Corran pointed, feeling an entirely appro-priate deja vu.

  "Do not order me."

  "Look, I'm a pilot. You certainly aren't. Anyone knows a hyperspace jump

  this near a singularity is suicide."

  She ignored the comment. "There are ships that way, too," she reported.

  "Yeah, I see them. Does this thing have any guns?"

  "Not that I'm aware of."

  "Well-fly fast. And figure out how to plot a jump."

  A coralskipper came up on their tail and started to fire. The first few

  shots missed, but the next connected, and the ship shuddered slightly. It

  almost seemed to cry faintly, as if remembering its earlier trauma from such

  weapons. That shook Corran a bit-was the ship sentient? And if so, why did he

  hear it when Nen Yim was the one under the cognition hood?

  But then he understood. The ship existed in the Force.

  He'd assumed from its obvious organic nature that this was a new model of

  Yuuzhan Vong ship. Now he didn't know what it was.

  The coralskipper unloaded again.

  "Jink!" Corran said. "Jink!"

  "I've no idea what you mean by that," Nen Yim said.

  Corran felt like strangling something-possibly himself, for letting such

  a relatively simple mission get so far out of control. "Why can't any of these

  stinking ships have normal controls?" he muttered.

  "You mean controls of metal and plasteel?" the shaper asked.

  "Yes. Yes!"

  "It does," she replied. "This ship is a grafting of machine and

  biotechnology. The original controls were-I could not understand them."

  A grafting of machine and bio - later. "You took them out?"

  "No, they're beneath that screen, covered by a lamina. The sight of them

  offended me."

  "Oh, I see," Corran said, as he staggered toward the place she had

  indicated. "You're completely insane. You've appointed yourself pilot, you've

  no idea what you're doing, and you don't mention to the only qualified pilot

  that there are controls..." He ripped off the lamina, revealing an entirely

  familiar set of instruments.

  "I can fly this," Corran grunted. "I can fly this! Get back there and

  help Tahiri!"

  "I don't..."

  "...know what you're doing," he repeated. "We'll all be killed, here,

  now, and you'll never see your mystery planet."

  "Very well," Nen Yim said. She removed the cognition hood and started

  back toward Tahiri.

  "If she doesn't live," Corran called back to her, "the whole deal is off.

  "

  "Then she will live," Nen Yim shot back.

  Corran threw the ship into a scissor-roll, dodging a fresh barrage of

  plasma bursts. One scorched along the hull, and he felt the ship's cry of

  pain.

  Then he felt the wound close, itch, and heal. Interesting.

  The controls were on the old-fashioned side, but the ship itself handled

  like nothing he'd ever flown. And despite what Nen Yim had said, he found

  controls for lasers and-something else.

  Well, let's see if they work.

  He veered hard port and up, making the turn in half the time a ship this

  size ought to, and came in above one of the pursuing skips. Hopefully, he

  squeezed off a few shots.

  The console said he had four forward lasers. Only one fired. The beam

  scorched out-and was swallowed by the skip's void.

  Corran wisped by the skip, feeling rather than seeing the other two on

  his tail, and then pulled up, hard, and grinned when the fire from the two

  pursuing skips struck the one he'd just shot at.

  "I guess they don't have their war coordinator on-line yet," he said.

  "It's being jammed," Nen Yim's voice floated up from the back. "I've seen

  to it."

  Useful, this shaper. Annoying and incredibly dange
rous, but useful.

  "How is Tahiri?"

  "I told you. She will live."

  A wave of relief swept through him, and he turned his full attention back

  to the problem at hand.

  Ships were everywhere now, and not just in the direction he was leaving,

  and not all just skips. He began working out a jump, but not knowing the

  engine capabilities made that tricky-he'd have to get it right, not almost

  right. There wasn't going to be time...

  "Hello," Corran murmured to himself. "What's that?"

  The silhouette looked familiar, but he couldn't be sure. It might not

  even still be functioning, but at the moment it was his only hope. He changed

  course toward the object. A skip whirled in from below starboard, and from

  sheer curiosity, he tried the other weapon the ship seemed to have, but

  nothing happened. The skip, on a wrong vector to keep up with him, missed its

  own shot and went on, banking to come after him but losing kilometers in the

  process.

  "Fine," he muttered. Obviously, whatever the weapon was, it didn't work.

  Six or seven skips were going to have a shot at him in about a minute,

  but the satellite he'd seen at long range was pretty close now. Basically a

  five-meter-diameter sphere bristling with knoblike protrusions, it hung

  quietly in its orbit.

  As Tahiri had said earlier, there must have been millions or billions of

  satellites around Coruscant when the Yuu-zhan Vong took it. The new tenants

  had been working to clear them out, but that was a huge job. Some had fallen

  of their own accord, but some...

  He fired his single laser at the sphere, and whooped when the blue sheen

  of a shield went up.

  Laser light was suddenly everywhere as the sphere began i to whirl in

  complex maneuvers, firing at every ship it saw. I Corran ignored those shots

  directed at him and just punched i the drive as hard as it would go, which was

  hard.

  The skips I went wild, spinning around the satellite, firing at it. Only

  one or two recovered from the surprise quickly enough to follow his new

  vector, and by the time they were even thinking about catching him he'd laid

  in his calculations and was watching the stars sleet away.

  "Whew," he said, finally able to relax.

  "What was that, some sort of war machine?"

  With a start, Corran realized the Prophet was standing just next to him.

  "No," he said. "It's a training device for star pilots. Once fired on, it