FORTY

The final curve of the Citadel stairway terminated in a immense interior space with a convex ceiling of yorik coral as jagged as the hulls of Yuuzhan Vong war vessels. A wide circular aperture at the ceiling’s lowest point was the mouth of the turbolift analog chute Jacen had detected with his Vong-sense. Bioluminescent wall lichen projected a pool of green on the floor directly below the opening. Jacen was certain that the chute accessed the crown of Shimrra’s holy mountain, but the dovin basal that controlled the chute was either malfunctioning or refusing to admit anyone other than Yuuzhan Vong, because nothing happened when Luke positioned himself in the shaft of olive light.

“I guess we climb,” he told his niece and nephew.

Abandoning the watch for Yuuzhan Vong warriors, they turned to see Luke spring high into the chute. At the apex of his leap he pressed his back to the curved wall and his feet opposite. Then he began to chimney himself along.

Jaina and Jacen followed, recognizing that they were in some sense leaving the Citadel itself and entering an enormous escape vessel, much like the one Jacen had described as encompassing the World Brain. Ascending through an outer shell of yorik coral, they passed through a layer of metal-bearing nacelles, wrapped around the vigorous organisms that had created them. Next came a layer of nutrient capillaries, then one of musculature and tendons. Ultimately they emerged in an antechamber with a vaulted ceiling and great curving walls, the innermost of which contained a large but unadorned osmotic membrane.

Jacen wasn’t surprised to find the antechamber unoccupied. “Shimrra’s expecting us,” he said.

Jaina tightened her ringed grip on the pommel of her light-saber.

“We should at least announce ourselves,” Luke said.

He aimed the tip of his lightsaber at the membrane. Jacen and Jaina brought their lightsabers close to his, and the three of them pushed the glowing blades through. A rancid smell permeated the antechamber, and the thick membrane began to melt. Finally the lock retracted with an audible pop!

Luke gestured for Jaina and Jacen to withdraw to either side of the opening, and not a second later a shower of thud bugs whizzed out into the antechamber, caroming off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The three Jedi raised their blades, deflecting some of the winged creatures back through the portal, stunning others, and killing the few that remained.

While Jaina was dispatching the last of them, Luke whirled and leapt through the opening. Landing in a crouch five meters from the membrane, he held the lightsaber in a one-handed grip extended to his right and slightly behind him. Jacen was the next through, assuming a bent-legged forward stance, with his blade held straight out in front of him. Then Jaina came through, moving swiftly but vigilantly to Luke’s left side, with her blade raised over her right shoulder.

Though the floor was level, the walls of Shimrra’s circular, high-ceilinged lair were curved. A simple throne occupied the center of a raised dais that was encircled by a shallow moat flowing with what might have been diluted Yuuzhan Vong blood. The far wall contained a much more elaborate entry portal, and to the right of the throne a stairway climbed into the summit of the Citadel, presumably to the command and control areas of the escape vessel itself.

Between the moat and the Jedi stood fifteen warriors of modest stature, arrayed in a semicircle and armed with hissing amphistaffs. They affected no armor, but their burnished and blood-smeared flesh looked as impenetrable as vonduun crab topshells.

Luke recognized them from Han and Leia’s description as examples of the specially engineered warriors they had faced on Caluula, and against whom even Kyp had failed. The slayers presented a daunting obstacle, but they were surpassed by the one they were deployed to protect.

When Luke had been brought before the Emperor, Palpatine’s visage had been familiar to him from images that had reached even remote Tatooine, and his inherent power was immediately evident. The Supreme Overlord, however, was a void Luke could not fathom. He wasn’t a shell of a human in a hooded cloak, more energy than flesh. Nor was his face that of a Sith Master, prematurely wizened by years of calling on dark power. Instead, Shimrra was very much alive, and all the more intimidating for it. In him was concentrated the combined strength of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and if he couldn’t be defeated, then all that Luke had done to reach this point would amount to nothing.

He was the largest Yuuzhan Vong Luke had ever seen, with lean limbs, a massive head, and an upper body so thoroughly branded and tattooed it was impossible to distinguish flesh from garment. Widely placed, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed in shifting colors. He wore a ceremonial cape made of tanned hide. Curled sedately around his left forearm was a thick-bodied amphistaff with an intricately patterned head. Only in his bemusement was Shimrra similar to the enemy Luke had confronted at Endor, on the incomplete Death Star. Much as the Emperor had trusted in the power of the dark side of the Force, the Supreme Overlord trusted entirely in the power of the gods. And similar to that pivotal moment in the Galactic Civil War, a battle was raging in the skies. But Shimrra’s lair permitted no view of the contest; only the muffled sounds of distant explosions infiltrated the sealed space.

If Luke was at all worried about Jaina and Jacen, if he had any regrets about having brought them to the very heart of the war, he kept his concerns so deeply to himself that they could not be felt by his charges, even through the Force. The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.

Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force.

Shimrra’s warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear—only the full measure of their intent to protect their god-king at all costs.

“The Master and the twins,” Shimrra murmured from the throne, in passable Basic. “How long we have anticipated this meeting.”

“As we have,” Luke answered.

Shimrra beckoned with the fingers of his left hand. “Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai.”

Luke stayed put—and yet something began to move him forward. Just short of the moat, and much to the amusement of the slayers, he dropped to his knees, and bent at the waist. His extended left arm shook as it fought to prevent him from pressing his face to the floor, and the lightsaber was nearly yanked from his grip.

It’s not Shimrra, Jacen said through the Force.

A dovin basal, Luke guessed.

He sensed Jacen abandon the meld momentarily, presumably to call on his Vongsense to disable the gravitic powers of the biot. Luke began to feel as if he were shedding weight by the second. Gradually, he raised his face to Shimrra, then—and as if defying gravity—he drew himself erect with a proud air.

Incredulity almost raised Shimrra out of his throne. For a split second his glowing eyes fell on Jacen, who by then had returned to the Force-meld.

Jaina and Jacen sidestepped away from Luke to create three separate fronts. Then Luke did something neither twin had ever seen him do. Shifting his stance, he called the lightsaber into his left hand. Abandoning form, he encouraged the warriors to attack him.

In swift response the fifteen divided themselves into three groups of four, four, and seven. The quartets began to square off with Luke and Jacen, while the larger group formed up opposite Jaina. Sensing that Luke and Jacen were the stronger fighters, the slayers had decided to reserve most of their might for the Jedi they perceived as being the weakest, guessing that Luke and Jacen would always go to Jaina’s aid before attempting to reach Shimrra.

No one moved.

Just when it seemed that the moment would be forever frozen in time, the slayers charged, some with amphistaffs stiffened, others unfurling them like whips, and still others prompting their weapons to spit venom. There were no attempts to engage Luke, Jacen, or Jaina in single combat for personal glory, as had happened on Yag’Dhul and other worlds. The war had gone on too long. All that mattered now was that the conflict be decided, and that there be winners and losers.

Luke’s lightsaber was a blur of pure energy as he parried a four-pronged attack. His blade found exposed flesh time and again, but the slayers sustained each searing blow without surrendering ground. The amphistaffs hammered at the light-saber with such force that flashes of blinding radiance filled the room, projecting giant silhouettes up along the curved walls. In an attempt to forge a united front, and despite battling warriors on three sides, Luke and Jaina began to move toward one another. For a moment, several slayers found themselves trapped between the two Jedi and the lashing movements of their comrades’ amphistaffs. Pierced simultaneously from either side, one warrior dropped to the floor; then a second.

Luke vaulted through a half-twisting front flip that landed him back to back with Jaina, killing a third warrior on the way down, with a strike to the top of the head. With some effort, Luke saw Jacen through the Force, pressed hard by the four slayers who had dedicated themselves to him. Again Luke leapt, swinging his blade through the air and cleaving the neck of the most formidable of the slayers attacking his nephew. Two slender amphistaffs shot for Luke’s legs, but he managed to jump over both, as if skipping rope, then decapitated the slower amphistaff before it could withdraw.

A coufee swooshed through the air millimeters from his right ear. Crouching, he extended one foot and pivoted on the other, knocking the feet out from under the knife wielder, then amputating the warrior’s left foot with a return swing of the lightsaber. Seeing an opening, Luke made a move for Shimrra—only to be dragged down by the dovin basal. Immediately, he rolled to one side, toppling two slayers and removing himself from the gravity field.

Jacen leapt to Jaina’s side of the bunker, and the two of them began working in concert to drive a trio of warriors back toward the moat that encircled Shimrra’s throne. One of the slayers nearly stumbled into the flow, but caught himself in time. Surging after him, Jacen swung his blade through a backhanded crosscut, which the warrior parried, then answered with a fast chop aimed at Jacen’s left knee. Jacen jumped straight up, but not quickly enough, and the amphistaff struck him on the ankle. Landing off balance, he staggered into the wall. Two warriors hurried after him, but made it only halfway when the entire bunker tipped to the right.

The unexpected movement sent everyone, slayers and Jedi alike, scurrying, sailing, and tumbling into the opposite wall. As if mounted on gimbals, the bunker tipped again, this time in the direction of the ruined osmotic membrane, bunching everyone against that wall.

Guessing that Shimrra was responsible, Luke spared a glance at the throne. The Supreme Overlord’s clawed hands were indeed in motion, but the expression on Shimrra’s face was one of benign bafflement.

The dhuryam, Jacen sent through the Force.

Luke understood.

The World Brain, joining the Shamed Ones in revolt, was causing the entire Citadel to shake, perhaps by rocking the cradle to which it was wed, or by some means beyond Luke’s imagining. Self-contained, the bunker was attempting to keep itself level. But cut off from the dhuryam, it couldn’t anticipate the Citadel’s behavior. Shimrra’s hand movements were just that—the idle flutters of a god-king who was forced to accept that he had lost his most powerful ally and weapon. Without the dhuryam’s cooperation, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan’tar. Even if victorious in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong would have failed to re-create their ancestral home-world.

And yet there was a look in Shimrra’s blazing eyes that promised Luke he had not seen the last of the Supreme Overlord’s tricks. Shimrra was concealing something—a secret of such power that it enabled him to remain seated on his throne, even with his world teetering around him.

Luke noticed then, for the first time, that Shimrra wasn’t alone on the dais. Behind the throne crouched another Yuuzhan Vong, whose asymmetrically swollen head and downcast features identified him as a Shamed One. Aware that he had been glimpsed, the Shamed One withdrew into the shadow cast by the throne, as if in an attempt to make himself small and unnoticeable.

But Luke had no time to think further about Shimrra’s companion.

The bunker was suddenly in motion again.

The Yuuzhan Vong armada had suffered grievous losses at Muscave, but not nearly to the extent the Alliance had suffered. Molten blobs that had been starfighters and frigates drifted aimlessly against the distant backdrop of stars. The hulks of Alliance warships, nimbused by escape pods, languished. The battle would go down in history as second only to the epic confrontation that ended the Cremlevian War. And the name Nas Choka would join the revered ranks of Yo’gand and other legendary warriors.

The warmaster left the command chamber’s blister transparency to stand before the villip visages of the six Supreme Commanders he had tasked with defeating Zonama Sekot.

“The surface-based weapons have fallen silent,” Supreme Commander Tivvik reported. “The living ships it threw into its sky have lost their wings and are going to ground like a flock of exhausted birds. Fearsome One, the planet is beaten.”

Nas Choka’s expression betrayed neither satisfaction nor doubt. “Press the attack,” he said evenly. “The mataloks of Domains Tivvik and Tsun will escort the dying craft to the surface. All other vessels will withdraw to avoid contagion. The pilots of any coralskippers remaining in the atmosphere of the living world after the poison has been delivered are commanded to drive themselves into the planet and destroy themselves. No vessel that has had close contact with the dying craft can be permitted to survive.”

“Your will be done, Warmaster.”

“May our deaths serve to harden your victory,” Supreme Commander Sla Tsun added.

Nas Choka nodded his head in salute. “Rrush’hok ichnar vinim’hok! Die well, brave warrior!” Then he turned to his tactician, whose restlessness bespoke an uncommon urgency.

“Communication with Yuuzhan’tar has become garbled, Warmaster, but we have learned that Alliance warriors and several Jeedai have penetrated the Citadel.”

Nas Choka folded his arms across his chest. “Give no thought to Shimrra’s capture or death. The gods would never permit it—especially on bearing witness to our victory at Zonama Sekot. Our mettle has been tested, and we have prevailed.” He regarded the tactician for a long moment, then said, “My words provide so little consolation?”

The tactician frowned. “Warmaster, Yuuzhan’tar has grown as serene as Zonama Sekot. Our weapons are silent, our beasts slumber, the fires are contained. Shamed Ones and renegade warriors hold sway over much of the sacred precinct. Supreme Overlord Shimrra would not have permitted this. Our fear is that the World Brain has been killed.”

“Then it will be the duty of the shapers to train a new dhuryam. With the enemy defeated, we need be in no rush to give Yuuzhan’tar proper shape.” Again, Nas Choka appraised his subordinate. “The last of it, tactician.”

“Ralroost and other warships speed for Yuuzhan’tar. I realize that you had hoped to witness the death of Zonama Sekot, but—”

Nas Choka waved him silent. “Zonama Sekot’s death does not depend on my presence.”

“On Kre’fey’s heels, then?”

The warmaster nodded. “Place his vessel in our sights.”

Buried under half a dozen blood-smeared bodies when the bunker had shifted, Jaina used what little maneuvering space she had to avoid amphistaff fangs and venom, the serrated edges of coufees, and the sharpened teeth and hardened elbows and knees of warriors. Out of sheer desperation she tried to use the Force to throw everyone off her, and was bewildered when the crushing weight of the warriors abated—or at least until she realized that the sudden turnabout had nothing to do with the Force. Shimrra’s lair had simply tilted again, and now she and the same warriors were sent flying and tumbling toward the opposite wall.

Hurled headfirst for the curved expanse of yorik coral, she just managed to get her free hand out in front of her and brace for impact. Loud grunts escaped the warriors as everyone hit the wall midway to the arched ceiling, then slid in a jumble to the floor as the bunker attempted to right itself.

Backward-somersaulting from the heap, Jaina shot to her feet and was preparing to Force-leap toward Shimrra when the chamber canted again. This time she used the Force to hold herself to the floor as the half a dozen slayers went rushing past her out of control, some running faster than their legs could carry them, and others sliding on their bellies or backs. Loose amphistaffs tried to sidewind for the safety of the moat, but only a few made it, and the rest were flung hard into the wall. Once more the lair leveled out before tilting a full thirty degrees, and those warriors still on their feet launched themselves at Jaina, only to slip on whatever it was that had sloshed from the moat and was fast slicking the entire floor.

Close to the osmotic membrane, Luke and a sturdy warrior were in the midst of a fierce duel, their free hands clamped on the burned edges of the breach the lightsabers had opened. Though Jaina couldn’t see Jacen, she could perceive him behind her, and she could hear the burning hiss of his lightsaber as it connected with the slayers’ weapons and armored flesh. In the center of the bunker, giant Shimrra had left his throne and was tottering toward the moat, his powerful amphistaff unfurled and serving as a kind of walking stick. Also in motion was Shimrra’s companion, who was making steady if tortuous progress toward the curving stairway that climbed into the summit.

Jaina had first noticed him moments earlier when the bunker had shifted, somehow maintaining his balance despite his asymmetry. Unarmed, he had seemed intent on hiding himself. But it occurred to her now that the Shamed One might be heading for the summit to carry out one of Shimrra’s commands; so instead of reengaging any of the slayers, she set out after him, reaching the base of the stairway just as the Shamed One was disappearing around a curve above.

Pressing her back to the wall, she began to ascend a step at a time, her lightsaber ready in her left hand. She felt Luke and Jacen reaching out to her through the Force, somewhat baffled by her actions. But instinct compelled her to continue following Shimrra’s furtive partner.

Reaching the top stair, she saw that the next level was a vast ready room, similar to the organiform cabin spaces of the Yuuzhan Vong ship she had pirated from Myrkr. Half a dozen dilating hatches led to adjacent cabin spaces, and yet another stairway—more a ladder—climbed into what could only be the vessel’s cockpit. Jaina rushed to grab hold of the ladder as the bunker tilted. From below came the sounds of bodies being hurled first one way, then the other. In the midst of the swaying she heard the thrum of Luke’s and Jacen’s lightsabers, and the agonized cries of at least two slayers.

There was no sign of Shimrra’s companion in the ready room, and no dilating locks that might have been opened to access other areas of the sphere, so the misshapen figure had to have climbed into the cockpit.

Her instincts came alive even before she glanced up into the ladder well.

The Shamed One was already plummeting directly for her.

She raised her lightsaber over her head, but the Yuuzhan Vong managed to evade the blade and land feetfirst on her shoulders, driving her to the deck. Bent over her, he wrenched the lightsaber from her hands and tossed it aside. Then, grabbing her by the right ankle, he sent her sliding across the floor. She hit the wall solidly, but sprang to her feet. Shimrra’s companion was on her just as quickly, driving his fanglike tooth into her right arm as his powerful hands pressed her to the wall.

Even before he stepped back, she had lost feeling and movement in her arm, and now she could feel the numbness beginning to spread like a dark tide, coursing through her armpit into her upper chest, spreading across her chest and into her other arm, up into her neck and head, and down through her torso and legs. She became as pliable as soft leather. She remained alert but her lips and tongue couldn’t form words. Her eyelids fluttered, and sounds grew indistinct.

One thought kept repeating itself in her mind as she slipped into the blackest of voids.

Before he had dropped on her, she had sensed him through the Force!

Buffeted by updrafts warmed by fires raging in the canyon, the Sekotan airship swayed precariously as it descended toward the landing platform. In the gondola’s cramped cabin, Magister Jabitha, Cilghal, Tekli, Danni, and two male Ferroan pilots kept their gloomy silence. With the cold sky raked by the fiery streaks of attacking coralskippers, the trip to the cave had been dangerous and, in the end, in vain. If in retreat there, Sekot had refused to speak with any of them.

Danni sat closest to the cabin door, trying without success to warm her fingers with her breath. The temperature was still a degree or two above freezing, but she felt colder than she had been at Helska 4, so many years earlier, trapped under kilometers of ice. Born of dread and sadness, the chill rose from inside her, and she was powerless against it.

No matter what Luke or any of the others said, she was not a Jedi.

She couldn’t even wield a lightsaber properly, much less warm herself by drawing on the Force, as tall Cilghal and diminutive Tekli had obviously done. Whatever skills she had demonstrated while serving as sensor officer aboard the Wild Knights’ blastboat, or helping Cilghal fashion yammosk jammers, they did not owe to the Force, but to a talent for science she had inherited from her astrophysicist mother, and to twenty-four years of working closely with droids and cutting-edge technology. Yes, like the Jedi she could sometimes intuit the Yuuzhan Vong as voids in the spectrum of life, but if she were truly as Force-sensitive as Luke, Jacen, and Cilghal claimed her to be, then how had she failed to recognize Yomin Carr as not only a threat to her ExGal-4 science team on Belkadan, but also a harbinger of a new evil about to be unleashed on the galaxy?

She was not a Jedi.

She thought of herself as a sky-watcher who had been in the right place at the wrong time. First to be taken captive by the Yuuzhan Vong at the start of the invasion; first to have had an up-close look at their biotech; first to have witnessed the breaking of a Jedi Knight—and because of those events, catapulted to the center of a war from which she might otherwise have hidden.

Had Jacen not heard her distress cry through the Force, had he not come to her rescue in his iceborer, she would have died at Helska 4, or perhaps been broken and remade into a Yuuzhan Vong, as had nearly happened to Tahiri. She owed her life to Jacen, and at one point had come close to falling in love with him. But as indebted to him as she was—and to Luke and the others, for allowing her to see and do things she might never have—she sometimes felt as if she had been conscripted into the Jedi order. Much as Jaina had been named the Sword of the Jedi, and much as Jacen was seen as almost emblematic of a new awareness of the Force, Danni saw herself as the would-be Jedi—part technical officer, part familiar.

Spokesperson at Agamar—how proud her bureaucratic dad must have been—member of the Eclipse base team, reconnaissance agent on occupied Coruscant, and, for the better part of the past year, visitor on the living world of Zonama Sekot. On her arrival, the planetary consciousness had used her in a counterfeit kidnapping plot, and only weeks earlier had used her as a resource for information about yammosks and dovin basals. And yet even after all she had been through, Danni had no true understanding of what she was really doing on Zonama Sekot, or why Sekot had specifically asked that she remain onworld, rather than accompany the Skywalkers and Solos to Coruscant.

Perhaps Sekot merely wanted a would-be Jedi to bear witness to the end of the world. For what with the Sekotan fighters spiraling back down to the canyon-rim landing platform from which they had launched, and Zonama about to be poisoned by a vessel infected with Alpha Red, no other course seemed possible.

It was while stationed at Mon Calamari that she had first heard rumors of the Yuuzhan Vong–specific bioweapon. She had mentioned the rumors to Jacen and, for months following Vergere’s theft of the prototype batch, had held herself partly responsible for much of what had happened. Ultimately she had learned that Vergere had actually overheard Luke and Mara discussing Alpha Red in private, and had acted on the knowledge. And now, all these months later, the Chiss-manufactured poison had found her again—though the end-of-the-war scenario for which it had been created had taken an ironic and tragic shift …

With most of the Ferroans secluded in the shelters, an eerie silence prevailed. To Danni, Zonama felt more adrift than when it had been lost in the Unknown Regions, and an autumnal spell had fallen over the tampasi.

A few Sekotan fighters were already grounded. Corran, Kyp, Alema, and Zekk were waiting on the canyon-rim landing platform when the airship finally touched down. Everyone retreated to the shelter of the giant boras as plasma fire and windborne cinders rained down.

“Were you able to locate Sekot?” Kyp was first to ask.

“Sekot is everywhere,” Jabitha told him. Her dismay was evident, but her tone was sincere. “Sekot is merely silent.”

“Silence is one thing,” Corran said, “but ignoring a threat is another.” He gestured overhead. “Somewhere out there is a vessel that could end up killing this planet. Maybe not as quickly as Ithor died, but just as thoroughly.”

The Magister compressed her lips. “I’m certain Sekot is aware of the threat.”

Alema blew out her breath in exasperation. “We could try to reach Jade Shadow,” she said, mostly to Kyp. “It’s better suited to preventing the Alpha Red craft from going to ground.”

“We can’t simply blow the vessel to pieces,” Cilghal said. “Not without risking sowing the atmosphere with poison. We have to trust that Sekot has reasons for taking the actions it did.”

Kyp glanced at everyone in puzzlement. “Why go to the trouble of creating ships if the aim all along was to surrender?”

“That wasn’t the aim,” Danni said. “None of us knew about the poisoned ship, so how could Sekot have known? As for why Sekot brought your fighters down, I have an idea—even though I hope I’m wrong.”

“Say it anyway,” Kyp said.

Danni glanced around. “I think Sekot’s goal is to allow the poison to reach the surface so that Zonama can contain it—to keep Alpha Red from being spread to the rest of the galaxy.”

Corran shook his head slowly. “I can’t see Sekot martyring itself. Besides, what’s to prevent any of us from spreading the toxin offworld by accident? Unless Sekot plans to keep us grounded, permanently.”

“It’s highly improbable that Alpha Red can be spread by human contagion,” Cilghal said. “Early tests of the bioweapon support that. Kyp, Han, and Leia were already exposed at Caluula, and ruled out as potential carriers.”

Corran’s eyes darted about. “What about Mon Calamarians, Cilghal? What about Chadra-Fans or Twi’leks—or Ferroans, for that matter?” He shook his head again. “I don’t think Sekot would risk it.”

“If Sekot had kept the fighters airborne, we could have at least held the Yuuzhan Vong back until everyone was evacuated,” Zekk said.

“Is there any chance Sekot’s planning to jump Zonama to hyperspace?” Kyp asked.

“The hyperdrive cores are as silent as Sekot,” Jabitha said.

“Errant Venture might be able to evacuate everyone in time,” Danni said.

“Sure, if we could reach Booster,” Kyp said. “But we’re getting nothing on the comlinks.”

“Sekot could be blocking the signals deliberately,” Zekk said.

Jabitha turned to him. “You’re assigning dark designs to a consciousness that knows little or nothing of subversion. Next you’ll be accusing Sekot of refusing to allow your warships to land on the surface, as a means of marooning you here.”

“I’m only saying that Sekot strikes me as a quick learner,” Zekk said.

“What makes you think that Sekot would wish to sabotage us?” Cilghal said.

Zekk shrugged. “Only what I’ve been hearing about Sekot’s belief in the Potentium. If there’s no distinction between the light and dark sides, then it won’t matter what happens here—or even at Coruscant.”

“Sekot wouldn’t have agreed to return from the Unknown Regions just to die here,” Cilghal said firmly. “That would hardly be the action of a world that considers itself the caretaker of the Force.”

“The self-appointed caretaker,” Alema said.

Jabitha sucked in her breath in surprise, then looked at Danni. “Danni Quee. Sekot wishes to speak with you.”

Only the Force was keeping Jacen from succumbing to the pain—the Force and what he had learned from Vergere during the indeterminate amount of time she had kept him in the Embrace of Pain—breaking him. While under his mentor’s tutelage he had been able to go into himself to meet the pain on its own terms. Now he didn’t have that curious luxury, because he was having to call on all his abilities to keep from being killed.

If not for the swaying of the Citadel and the effects of its unpredictable oscillations of Shimrra’s coffer—his escape vessel—Jacen figured he would already be dead. That was the World Brain, having finally decided which side it was on. The trouble was, that decision mattered only to the reshaping of Coruscant and not to the Supreme Overlord, who was clearly able to control objects in his immediate environment without need of the dhuryam.

The slayers, for one thing.

Where initially they had been moving with individual vigilance and of their own accord, they were now moving as coralskippers did under the control of a battle coordinator. The change had come simultaneously with Shimrra’s rising from the throne, and the escape of his Shamed One companion, whom Jaina had pursued into the summit of the Citadel. Jacen knew that her exit had been prompted by something she had perceived through the Force, but he and Luke could have used her lightsaber now.

Three slayers had Jacen backed to the bunker’s outer wall. Even through his Vongsense he could not predict their actions, or where their thrashing and thrusting amphistaffs were going to strike next. He had managed to evade copious sprays of venom, but his torso had taken countless lashings; his limbs were bruised by the heads and coils of the serpentine weapons—though none had yet been successful in sinking fangs into him. His lightsaber had returned as many blows, but the slayers seemed to be largely immune to pain, if not indestructible.

A half dozen corpses were sprawled on the floor, sliding or rolling with each random cant of the Citadel. But more than the lightsaber, it was acrobatics that was keeping Jacen from being overwhelmed by the specially engineered warriors. Time and again last-moment leaps had carried him out of the range of their shapeshifting weapons, as the fight moved along the perimeter of the throne room. The gravity-tweaking dovin basal set in the base of the throne made it impossible for Jacen or his opponents to venture closer to the throne than the shallow moat that encircled it without being tugged violently to the yorik coral floor.

Jacen took advantage of the gravitic anomaly now, as one of the slayers lunged for him. He leapt high into the air, and the warrior flew under his feet, only to be pulled to the floor facefirst, so that by the time Jacen had twisted in the air and landed he was able to drive his blade into the small of the warrior’s back, almost pinioning him to the floor. The other two immediately rushed him from behind. Unleashing his amphistaff, one warrior managed to wind the weapon around Jacen’s legs, while the other swung his amphistaff at Jacen’s head. Ducking the swing, Jacen leapt again, taking the attenuated amphistaff with him. Yanked from the warrior’s grasp, the weapon unwound and dropped before it could strike.

Across the room Shimrra was moving stiffly toward Luke, who was being set upon by four warriors. The enormous Vong overlord stepped across the moat as if crossing a final line. Seemingly entranced—in sway of the Yuuzhan Vong gods—he fixed his glowing eye implants on his prey. He held the thick-bodied amphistaff diagonally in front of him, with his giant left hand closed around the middle of the weapon’s three-meter-long body.

Jacen sent a warning to his uncle through the Force, which Luke acknowledged—not only through the Force but also by spinning away from the warriors to provide himself with enough fighting room to confront Shimrra. Whirling through a cartwheel, Luke caught one of the warriors on the chin with the heels of his boots, unbalancing him enough so that Luke could get inside the arm that held the amphistaff and drive his lightsaber through the warrior’s neck. As he quickly withdrew the blade, a second warrior was ready to pounce; Luke stretched out his left hand and impaled the slayer through the right eye. At once the other two converged on him, battering him with their amphistaffs and coufees, opening ragged wounds in his upper arms and chest.

Abruptly, the Citadel rocked and the room tilted to the right. Luke dropped to one knee, holding his lightsaber arm up to protect his head, then dived, somersaulting on landing and spinning to his feet to face the warriors’ charge. His green blade moved up from the floor in a diagonal motion, cutting off the weapon arm of one of the warriors, then on the downswing grated across the abdomen of the second, leaving a sizzling burn in the slayer’s hardened flesh. Wincing, the warrior tried to take hold of the energy blade itself and fell forward on his knees. Luke pierced him through the chest, then pivoted on one foot to take on the others.

One of the warriors stalking Jacen abandoned him to engage Luke. Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen’s right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen’s right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back. The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor.

Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his assailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim’s forehead.

Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force.

From Luke’s left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force. As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree.

Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff. Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer’s armpit.

The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra. Without thinking—and without his lightsaber—he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen’s intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was hit squarely in the center of the chest.

Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.

When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra’s follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke’s lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.

The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson.

Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke’s torso, pinning his right arm and light-saber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake’s uppermost coils and avert the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff. Feeling his uncle’s suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra’s head.

The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen’s lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape—and extracted a lightsaber! With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar snap-hiss.

Jacen recognized it immediately.

Anakin’s lightsaber.

“Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr,” Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed. “Conveyed to Yuuzhan’tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the Jeedai Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels.”

Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move.

Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke’s head.

Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff’s throat to grab Shimrra’s right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke’s chest.

Luke screamed in pain.

The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: “One thrust and the deed is done!”

Then all at once, Anakin’s lightsaber flew from Shimrra’s grip into Luke’s left hand.

Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra’s astonishment and dismay.

In a motion almost too swift for Jacen’s eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra’s amphistaff. As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lighsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff’s body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke’s neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra’s neck. The blades burned clean through. Shimrra’s decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud thud! and his body crumbled.

Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord’s body and collapsed against the wall.

“Jaina,” he said weakly. Swinging his left hand, he sent Anakin’s lightsaber in a high arc across the room.

Jacen scrambled to his feet and had just started for the lightsaber when the floor dropped to the right and he stumbled. Jacen regained his balance and leapt for the lightsaber, but it flew past him and rolled beyond his reach.

The vision! Jacen thought.

He looked at his uncle for confirmation.

“Leave it,” Luke said.

Lips compressed in determination, Jacen raised himself from the floor and raced for the stairway that curved up into the Citadel’s towerlike summit.