THIRTY-EIGHT

Jag thought of himself first and foremost as a starfighter pilot, not a dirt flier. He had accepted the assignment to lead Twins Suns onto Coruscant, but without the enthusiasm he might have demonstrated for a space mission. Like many who had earned their wings in zero-g, atmosphere was anathema. Maneuvers weren’t so much performed as wrested from a craft—no matter how aerodynamic the design or how responsive the repulsorlift engine. The carbon-scored green X-wing he had been given at Westport felt sluggish and unwieldy, especially compared to a clawcraft. But Jag’s complaints were only that. There was a mission to execute, and he was not about to shirk his commitment to seeing it through.

Streaking east from the now-Alliance-occupied landing field, he wove the snubfighter through a hail of ascending plasma fire and descending wreckage. Dominating the forward view was the rounded summit of Shimrra’s fortress, rising from the thick blanket of cloud cover and smoke that smothered most of the sacred precinct. Only two years earlier the elegant summits of dozens of spacescrapers would have been visible above the clouds, but now there was only the craggy mountaintop.

Somewhere below, Jaina was moving toward the same target, with her brother and uncle, and a small team of commandos and droids. Take care of yourself, she had said to him on the flooded balcony where the Millennium Falcon had set the Jedi down. And Jag meant to do just that. When he had urged Jaina to do the same, she had replied, The Force will take care of me.

He hadn’t debated the matter. He wanted it to be true with all his heart.

Ahead of him, twenty starfighters were circling the Citadel, loosing laser bolts, proton torpedoes, and concussion missiles at the summit. A sense of hopelessness began to erode Jag’s resolve. Even without the insatiable voids that were engulfing nearly every starfighter volley, the Citadel appeared to be impregnable. It was like attempting to blow apart a mountain. There were no coralskippers to contend with, but outpourings of plasma from deep pits in the Citadel walls were effortlessly overwhelming the shields of the starfighters.

The X-wing’s droid sent flight information to the cockpit displays. Jag dialed the comm to the tactical net.

“This is worse than punching past the orbital dovin basals,” a pilot was saying.

“Keep a hand on your grab-safety toggle, or those voids’ll take you down,” another said.

“They’re swallowing every bolt I’m feeding them.”

“Just watch out they don’t take a fancy to you.”

“Yeah, they’ve developed a real taste for starfighters.”

“Especially yellow ones with black stripes.”

“Copy that, Rogue Leader.”

“All ships form up on me for a portwise sweep. Set your weapons for stutterfire and follow up with whatever torps and missiles you’ve got left. Remember: it may look like a mountain but it’s actually a ship. Which means it can be cracked open.”

“Following you in, Rogue One.”

Jag saw that two of the fighters off his starboard wingtip were clawcraft, and he opened a channel to the closest one.

“Twin Suns Four, I’ve got your port side.”

“Jag!” the pilot returned. “I thought you were dead!”

“Saved by a tree, of all things, Shawnkyr.”

“Are you about ready to go home now?”

“As soon as we finish this—you have my word.”

She laughed shortly. “This part of the galaxy has made a romantic of you, Fel.”

“Still watching my back, is that it?”

“Who will if I won’t?” Shawnkyr said. “Oh, I forgot. And just where is the Sword?”

“Below—moving west.”

“Then we’d better take care not to bring this mountain down on her head.”

“After he did so well with the mon duul,” Jaina found time to say between swings of her lightsaber.

Pinned down in a grove of fingerleaf trees one hundred meters from the westernmost of the walkways that accessed the Citadel, she and Luke were fending off streams of attack bugs that were hurtling down from lookout aeries in the holy mountain. Closer to Shimrra’s haunt, Jacen was trying without success to pacify the beasts that were rapidly devouring the walkway itself. A trio of YVH droids had tried less subtle means of persuasion, only to have been ripped apart and ingested.

“At least Shimrra can’t speak through these two,” Luke said.

“I’d say that’s exactly what Shimrra’s doing,” Jaina hollered back.

Gargantuan symbiots, Sgauru and Tu-Scart were partners in the walkway devastation. Considering that the former was female and the latter male, it was something of a marriage. At Gateway settlement on Duro, the couple had demonstrated their talent for demolishing buildings, and they were doing an equally skilled job of dismantling and consuming the yorik coral concourse. Hard-shelled, segmented Sgauru was doing most of the grunt work. Beady black eyes dotted her white head, and her mouth writhed with dozens of feeder-tendrils. Her powerful rear pincers gripped around the upper coils of her snakelike mate, she was using her stubby front legs and enormous head to smash the span to pieces. Loose chunks didn’t fly far before being pulverized by sleek black Tu-Scart’s elongated body.

Absent their usual team of handlers, the creatures had emerged from a massive hollow beneath the concourse, through which the esplanade river cascaded thunderously into the square at the base of the Citadel. Lashed by rain and howling winds, the monolithic fortress loomed above the Jedi, rising up into the battle-torn sky like the rough-hewn blade of a coufee. Though winged, mottled with patches of dark green moss, and bedecked with vines whose seeds had taken root in the worldship’s nooks and crannies, the Citadel was simply too sheer to scale, even with the aid of the Force. Starfighters were still circling the rounded summit, but not one had managed to come within a thousand meters of Shimrra’s lair without being destroyed. The remains of those that had tried littered the uneven, inundated terrain for kilometers around.

Far below the concourse, at the base of the Citadel, a dark maw accessed the lower depths of the mountain. But that opening was heavily guarded by reptoid slave soldiers. Rocketing down the terraced wall of the urban canyon, Page’s Commandos and YVH droids were taking up firing positions above the Chazrach, but the enemy was well entrenched and answering Alliance blaster bolts with spouts of firejelly and highly flammable sparkbee honey.

If the Jedi were to infiltrate the Citadel, Jacen had to persuade Sgauru and Tu-Scart to halt their destruction of the western concourse while a narrow stretch still remained intact. He risked a few cautious steps toward the beasts, then stopped when temblors began to rock the fragile span at regular intervals.

“Now what?” Jaina yelled to Luke. “Is Zonama Sekot making another fly-by?”

The temblors grew louder and more forceful. Jacen managed to keep his balance on the swaying concourse, but the steady jolts proved too much for the unbroken expanse. Fissured, the yorik coral span gave way, plummeting in fragments into the whitewater torrent. At the same time, two armored quadrupeds appeared from around the curved base of the Citadel, lumbering in concert and settling into fortifying positions behind the slave soldiers. Planting their splayed front claws in the raging river, they lowered their triangular heads. Plasma streamed from the thick horns that branched from their bony foreheads, spattering against the walls of the canyon and forcing the commandos and YVH droids to retreat to the rim.

With the cavernous entrance at the base of the Citadel effectively sealed, Jacen saw Sgauru and Tu-Scart as the only hope. The beasts had to be coaxed into breaching the wall of the Citadel. Jacen sensed that his best chance of accomplishing this would require him to abandon the Force and give himself over fully to his Vongsense—something he had been unable to do since arriving on Coruscant. He felt like a switch being thrown between two poles; Force at one pole, Vongsense at the other. He understood further that the only way to compel Sgauru and Tu-Scart into action was by communicating with them through the World Brain.

It was while aboard the seedship that had delivered Jacen and the dhuryam to Coruscant that they had first reached an understanding. By destroying the brain’s would-be rivals, Jacen had essentially determined which of several dhuryams was to have the honor of transforming Coruscant into “Yuuzhan’tar.” More important, he had installed a World Brain whose very disposition was informed by the rapport it shared with him. All that the planet had become since then—beautiful and monstrous, delicate and coarse, symbiotic, and parasitic—owed something to Jacen. And yet when he reached out with his Vongsense he again found himself in competition for the brain’s attention. Some of that was due to the brain’s preoccupation with Coruscant. Over and above that, there was the energy the brain was pouring into executing Shimrra’s requests.

Aboard the seedship and afterward Jacen had found the dhuryam to be an intelligent creature, but specifically engineered to be intractable. Now the dhuryam was twisted by conflict and anger. Shimrra had succeeded in cajoling it into believing that the fires and drenching rains, the demolition and destruction were necessary to repair the damage done to Yuuzhan’tar by Zonama Sekot’s close passage. But in doing so, the brain understood that it was destroying much of what it had created, in addition to reneging on its pledge to compel Shimrra and the Yuuzhan Vong to accept compromise. Neither accustomed to being disobedient nor inclined to tolerate disorder, the brain was at war with itself for having brought harm to the world in its trust. As on the seedship, it understood that its domain was suddenly falling to ruin and becoming a wasteland. The brain was struggling with the idea that it might do better by simply ignoring Shimrra.

Calling on his Vongsense, Jacen promised the dhuryam that he would help put an end to its inner conflict. He told it that he would force Shimrra to release his hold. In return he could feel it reaching out to him as one might a friend in time of need. A wave of gratitude, a plea for salvation washed through him …

Abruptly Sgauru and Tu-Scart turned toward him, clearly under the influence of the brain.

Jacen grasped that the moment had come for him to demonstrate his faith in the agreement he and the brain had forged.

Ignoring Luke and Jaina’s loud-voiced misgivings, he advanced on the coupled symbiots.

Almost immediately his waist was encircled by two twisting appendages. Then Sgauru picked him up off the demolished concourse and swung him out over the canyon. Not toward the Citadel, though, but as if to drop him directly into the midst of the slave soldiers and their artillery beasts.

From the Falcon’s cockpit comlink came the sound of blasterfire and cries for help. C-3PO recognized the voice of Captain Solo.

“Threepio, lower the landing ramp! Threepio! Threepio!”

The protocol droid stopped his worried pacing long enough to raise his hands in distress to R2-D2, whose extensible computer interface arm was inserted into an access port in the ring corridor, near the head of the ramp.

“Artoo, do something before its too late!”

Stiffly, C-3PO hurried into the cockpit. All he could see through the viewport panes was an impenetrable tangle of heavily thorned branches. He made a clumsy about-face and shambled back to the ring corridor, where he began to pound his hand against the landing ramp switch.

“Oh, it’s no use! The thorn hedge has the Millennium Falcon in a death lock! Captain Solo and the Princess will die, and we’ll be imprisoned like museum exhibits!”

R2-D2 toodled an encouraging phrase, and C-3PO ceased his pounding to stare at him.

“You can do what? Reroute power from the deflector shield to send a charge through the hull?” C-3PO’s hands flew up once again. “Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

The little blue-and-white astromech chirped and chittered in protest.

“Nonsense,” C-3PO rejoined. “You’re simply trying to frighten me. You’re never content until you’ve succeeded in working me into a frenzy.”

R2-D2 issued a series of solemn beeps.

C-3PO adopted an akimbo stance. “Don’t you start that again. ‘Everything terminates; face it bravely …’ I’ll have you know I’ve been facing my termination bravely since the beginning of this war. Indeed, long before I had the misfortune of meeting the likes of you. Now, do as you suggested and send a charge through the hull!”

Shuffling back to the juncture of the ring and outrigger corridors, C-3PO placed himself where he could peer through the forward viewport, as well as keep a photoreceptor on his counterpart. A moment later, R2-D2’s interface arm began to rotate—first in one direction, then the other—and an electrical crackling could be heard dancing across the Falcon’s skin. The olfactory sensor at the top of C-3PO’s chest monitored smells of ozone and singed wood.

“It’s working, Artoo!” he shouted. “The thorn hedge is retracting! Thank the maker, we’re free!”

R2-D2 squawked a question.

“Yes, of course you should lower the landing ramp!” C-3PO said as he hurried for it. “The sooner we leave this ship, the better!”

Skidding through a left-hand turn, he stepped onto the canted ramp just as its foot was striking the paving stones of the plaza.

“Freedom, Artoo—agghh!”

Without knowing precisely why, R2-D2 squealed in alarm. He might have squealed even louder had he realized that a tattooed and battle-scarred Yuuzhan Vong warrior was rushing up the ramp.

Too panicked to move, and certainly without thinking, C-3PO said, “You’re not allowed aboard!”

The warrior only growled in contempt and continued his charge. He was halfway to the top when a blaster discharged behind him and a crimson-tinged blasterbolt burned its way through the front of his neck, sending him facefirst to the ramp, not a meter from where C-3PO was standing.

At the foot of the ramp stood Captain Solo, his aged weapon in hand. C-3PO saw his master staring wide-eyed at something off to his left, at which he began firing, even as Harrar, Princess Leia, Cakhmaim, and Meewalh were hastening up the ramp, all but crawling when they reached the body of the dead Yuuzhan Vong.

“Threepio, get ready to close the ramp!” Captain Solo yelled. He fired off several blasterbolts, then ducked a hurled amphistaff and threw himself onto the ramp. “Close it!”

“But, sir—”

“Leia, get into the cockpit! Raise the ship!”

Captain Solo was still bellying up the ramp when a sudden growth spurt sent the branches through the gap between the starboard docking arm and the ramp, preventing it from elevating entirely. Into the gap grew long, thick thorns.

“They’re lethal!” Harrar shouted.

While the priest, the two Noghri, and the two humans began twisting and contorting themselves to avoid the rapidly lengthening thorns, a hail of thud bugs slammed into the Falcon’s underside. In the confined space of the ramp, Princess Leia activated her lightsaber and started hacking at the lengthening branches.

“It’s no use! They’re growing back faster than I can cut them!” Deactivating the lightsaber, she scrambled past C-3PO, heading for the cockpit.

“Artoo,” C-3PO said, “charge the hull again!”

A second crackling jolt passed through the ship. The hedge branches retreated, but instead of closing, the ramp tilted down. Two more warriors leapt in, only to be dropped by bolts from Cakhmaim, whose right arm narrowly missed being pierced by a half-meter-long thorn. By the time the ramp started to close, the hedges had returned, stopping it from sealing.

C-3PO heard the Falcon’s repulsorlift come on-line, but the freighter levitated no more than two meters before the engines began protesting.

“Han, I can’t raise her!” Leia shouted.

Another electrical charge shot through the hull. Once again the vines withdrew, and once again the ramp lowered to the paving stones.

“Artoo, no!” C-3PO yelled.

There was no halting the warriors this time—or the branches, which grew back in such profusion that the ramp refused to budge. Cakhmaim and Meewalh did what they could to keep the invaders from entering the ship, but after shooting the first half a dozen, they were overwhelmed, disarmed, and pinned to the deck. Han shot a few more as they raced into the ring corridor, but reinforcements kept coming, backing him and Leia toward the forward compartment. Some warriors had the foresight to run through the Falcon and enter the main cabin space from the port side.

Pressed against the dejarik table with his blaster in one hand and his other gripping Leia’s shoulder, Han dodged lashes and amphistaffs and thrusts from coufees, but he refused to yield until at last one of the warriors managed to press the tip of his serpentine weapon to Leia’s throat. Then, grimacing, he dropped his blaster arm to his side in a gesture of surrender.

“All right, you’ve got us,” he said to the advancing warriors. “I’m sure we can work something out …”

It was unlikely that any of them understood Basic, but they took Han’s meaning when he set his blaster down and Leia did the same with her deactivated lightsaber.

Moments later a female Yuuzhan Vong with a crest of tentacles and an eight-fingered right hand edged through the tight press of warriors in the forward compartment. On seeing her, R2-D2 loosed a prolonged and mournful whistle.

C-3PO nodded his head. “You’re right, Artoo—a shaper!”

The shaper appraised Han and Leia, then turned to one of her warriors. C-3PO understood her to say: “ ‘Gather their weapons, and bring everyone out of the vessel.’ ”

Cakhmaim, Meewalh, R2-D2, C-3PO, Leia, and Han were marched from the Falcon in single file. Harrar was already outside the ship. As they were being prodded toward the entrance of the yorik coral dome, two Yuuzhan Vong males emerged, both of them finely clothed, and the shorter of the pair wearing a high turban.

“High Prefect Drathul and High Priest Jakan,” Harrar whispered to Han and Leia.

The shaper waved her hand in a way that flung droplets of sweat or some other bodily secretion on the thorn hedge, which immediately began to sprout new branches.

Within moments the Falcon was fully encased.

“I’m told that this particular ship has been the cause of much unrest,” the shaper told Drathul and Jakan. She gestured to her seven prisoners. “Worthy captives. Including a Jeedai, no less.”

Jakan’s eyes widened in delight when they fell on Harrar. “All of us thought you were in the Outer Rim!” He laid his thin hands on the priest’s shoulders. “You’re home now, my friend. In fact, you will have the honor of officiating at the sacrifice we will perform in the Well of the World Brain.”

Harrar held Jakan’s gaze but didn’t return his relieved smile. “You fail to grasp the truth, High Priest,” he said in Yuuzhan Vong. “I’ve come to neutralize the brain.”

Near the outer-system world of Muscave the battle was still raging. Hundreds of coralskippers and fighter craft, and dozens of war vessels had been sacrificed to an engagement that had degenerated into a shameless brawl. Local space was a constantly shifting web of fire and light, harnessed to ill purpose.

Warmaster Nas Choka couldn’t have been more pleased.

He stood in the most forward area of the command chamber’s blister transparency as if a bowsprit figurehead, his folded arms resting on his slightly protruding belly and his finely whiskered jaw raised in defiance.

“The enemy commanders continue to trade blows with us not because they are valorous, but because they believe that by feigning honor they hold us from returning to Yuuzhan’tar. They rely on the fact that we would never be the first to quit a contest of such magnitude.” He turned slightly to face his chief tactician. “We will encourage their blunder. Order our Supreme Commanders to allow their vessels to fall back and begin to disperse. Let the Alliance admirals think they have us on the run.”

The command chamber shook as a burst of turbolaser fire evaded the vessel’s shielding singularities and blasted pieces of yorik coral from the starboard hull. Thick fluid poured from an already damaged area of bulkhead, and strips of the luminescent lichen died, increasing the gloom.

“How much more can Yammka endure?” Nas Choka asked of the vessel’s shaper.

“Six of our principal dovin basals are dead,” the shaper was quick to say, “and many of our plasma launchers have been destroyed. Perhaps, Warmaster, if you would consider withdrawing Yammka from the vanguard array—”

“No. I want the attention of the enemy focused on us. We must remain a primary target.”

“We could be destroyed, Warmaster,” the tactician said carefully.

Nas Choka nodded. “An acceptable risk. For today we serve our species as no Yuuzhan Vong have. We prove our worth to the gods who fashioned us. If we are to die, we do so discharging a transcendent obligation.”

The command chamber’s lock dilated and the vessel’s Supreme Commander entered, snapping his fists to his opposite shoulders in salute. “Warmaster, from our scouts: Ralroost and forty other warships have just reverted from darkspace.”

Nas Choka faced forward, his gaze directed toward the imperceptible enemy fleet. “That would be Traest Kre’fey.” He grinned faintly. “All this is as it should be. The gods look out for us.”

The Supreme Commander genuflected. “Warmaster, there isn’t a commander who wouldn’t gladly substitute his vessel for yours—or die in your stead.”

Nas Choka betrayed no emotion. “Return to your duties, Supreme Commander.”

The warrior rose and saluted again. When he had exited, the tactician moved to Nas Choka’s left side.

“You have the unconditional fealty of your warriors, Fearsome One. They would follow your every order—even those orders that might countermand their faith.”

Nas Choka’s gaze remained fixed on the battle. “Tell me of Yuuzhan’tar, tactician.”

“Enemy fighter craft have broken through our dovin basal shields, and war parties are on the surface. Some one thousand ground warriors battle ours in the sacred precinct. Others have gone to the aid of the heretics. Fortunately, the dhuryam has taken steps to confuse matters.”

“How so?”

“With fires, and by loosing some of our beasts. Nevertheless, the territory surrounding the Citadel is in great turmoil.”

Nas Choka waved his hand in unconcern. “Structures can be remade. Where is Shimrra?”

“The Supreme Overlord is in his coffer.”

“Then that, too, is as it should be.”

“He wishes it relayed to you, Warmaster, that you do honor to your elite rank. The Supreme Overlord proclaims that your name will live on as an inspiration to others. You will be the zenith all those who follow you will seek to attain.”

“That means little unless we are successful at Zonama Sekot.”

The tactician nodded. “Hapan warships are still arrayed in a blockade, preventing our vessels from escorting the poisoned one to the surface.”

Nas Choka frowned. “I thought the Hapans had settled their score with us at Obroa-skai. But, no matter. It is the nature of vendettas that they continue to escalate, until one or the other party is wiped out.”

He gave the tactician a sideways glance. “Divert to Zonama Sekot the vessels of Domains Tivvik, Tsun, Karsh, and Vorrik. Caution the commanders not to make their intentions too obvious—even if this requires their taking additional time to reach the living world. We will make the Hapans suffer as they did at Fondor. Then our barb will find its mark, and, with the gods at our backs, we will rid this galaxy of vendetta and warfare.”

Mara heard Tahiri call that she had found Nom Anor. Buried in the ferocious tangle of heretics and warriors, and even while dodging amphistaffs and coufees, Mara had had to stand on the crumpled body of a warrior to see him. The look hadn’t lasted long—just long enough for her to see the fear in his eye—then he was gone, slithering his way through the crowd. Unable to track him through the Force, she did the next best thing, which was to Force-leap to the edge of the embattled crowd, then to the top of a flight of stairs, and there watch for some sign of him.

True to their nature, Shamed Ones and warriors alike were running toward the melee rather than fleeing from it, no matter how bloodied they were or who was winning, as the outcome kept changing hands. But it wasn’t long before Mara spied a lone figure slinking away, then scurrying down into a public square that was surrounded on three sides by groundquake-damaged structures. Though the relatively short figure was wearing the robeskin of a Shamed One, he ran with the stealth of an executor.

Taking a moment to touch Tahiri and Kenth through the Force, Mara vaulted from the steps to the high platform of a temple, then dropped down to the ground and raced after Nom Anor, her lightsaber close at hand to deal with anyone who might try to stand in her way. Rushing into the square, she stopped to scan the several exits, and again spotted her quarry disappearing around the toppled end of a high wall. She fairly flew after him, pursuing him up and over piles of rubble and debris, through stands of towering fire-blackened trees, then on a zigzag path down into what once had been the Column Commons—a midlevel area of open spaces studded with thick columns that supported the sprawling cityscape overhead. Hundreds of HoloNet and holodrama publishers had kept offices there, along with all the major media bureaus. During the Galactic Civil War, the commons had crawled with COMPNOR truth officers, who had ensured that everything published was in keeping with the propaganda of the Empire.

Mara was certain she was more familiar with the area—even in ruins—than Nom Anor was. But in his guise as the Prophet he had obviously gotten to know Coruscant’s canyons and depths as well as any slythmonger or death stick peddler, because he led her on a chase that was as labyrinthine as the tracings of a conduit worm. The deeper they descended, the darker and danker became the surroundings. But Mara had already decided that she would chase him to the core of the planet if that was what it would take to apprehend him.

The pursuit led ever downward, into darker levels, where fetid water dripped from cracked ceilings, and the only light was that which found its way down through gaps in the crushed buildings and the riotously verdant areas that now roofed them.

Closing the gap between them, she saw him grab hold of a fall of vines and swing himself across a wide chasm. Securing the vines on his side of the abyss, he stopped to smirk at her, confident that his escape was secure. She came to a brief standstill opposite him—just long enough to answer his sneering grin with a glare—then dashed for a narrower place in the chasm and leapt to the far side.

By then Nom Anor had disappeared into the ruins of a news bureau building. She could hear him stumbling forward, crunching through expanses of transparisteel debris and smashing through wooden doors. There, too, shafts of dismal light dappled the puddled floors, and a stinging odor of rot and decay pervaded the thick air.

She second-guessed him when he tried to set a trap for her—making it appear that he had gone through a doorway, on the other side of which there was a half-kilometer plunge into pitch darkness. And she outwitted him again by stopping just in time when he used his uncommon strength to dislodge a girder that supported a fractured slab ceiling.

He remained as steadfast in his desire to escape as she did in her desire to hunt him down. He began to scamper through a warren of rooms in a building where residual power allowed him to seal doorways behind him. But Mara merely kicked through them, and when she couldn’t, she found alternate routes, never surrendering her momentum.

Breathing hard and stumbling more often, Nom Anor was beginning to tire. Mara’s acute hearing told her that much—and more. As she was kicking down a final door, she heard a hand blaster’s safety click off, and entered the room to discover Nom Anor hiding behind the putrid remains of a Twi’lek, still dressed in security guard garb.

Mara used the Force to call her lightsaber to hand, even as Nom Anor was triggering off the first bolts. Her blade deflected one after the next, until he had emptied the blaster of fuel. He had sense enough not to hurl the depleted weapon at her. Instead, he began to scrabble backward on the palms of his hands and feet, his gaze riveted on her as she advanced, calm but coldly fixed on her prey.

A wall brought an abrupt end to his retreat.

Growling, he shot to his feet, coufee in hand, and began to slash wildly at her, the lightsaber notwithstanding.

She leapt backward, out of reach, then deactivated the blade and encouraged him to charge. Her hands moved in a dexterous blur as she deflected his knife blows and got inside his frantic movements to slap and tap him in the chest or the jaw, never hard enough to stun him, let alone incapacitate him, but driving him backward with each smack. Ducking his increasingly desperate lunges and crosscuts, she swept his feet out from under him with a circling sidekick, then allowed him to come to his feet only long enough for her to cripple his knee with the toe of her right boot. He flung himself at her, but she sidestepped his headlong rush and sent him hurtling into a wall.

She continued to hurt him, telling herself: This is for Monor Two, where she had fallen victim to the coomb spores he had unleashed; and this is for the trouble you stirred up at Rhommamool.

Knocking the coufee from his grip, she thrust her stiffened fingers into his windpipe, then sent him reeling with an upper-cut. This is for founding the Peace Brigade; for your part in sending Elan to assassinate the Jedi with bo’tous; for your double dealings with the Hutts and Viqi Shesh; and for sabotaging the refugee settlements on Duro.

Making the most of her agility, she left deliberate openings in her defense, luring him into striking, only to set up combinations aimed at punishing his bald head; his flat-nosed face; his blue right eye, with its stripe of feline pupil. This is for the false appeals you made to Leia and Han at Bilbringi; for your disdainful appearance before the Senate; for whatever role you played in the deaths of Chewbacca and Anakin; for your attempt to deliver Jacen into the hands of Tsavong Lah; for your sabotage at Zonama Sekot …

Her blows were beginning to do damage. Deftly she moved inside his flailing arms, using her elbows and the backs of her clenched hands to bloody his scarred lips and swell his ears, ever mindful of that dangerous left eye of his, which she was certain he was saving as a last resort. She pivoted on her left foot and kicked him hard with her right, forcing the wind from him. He dropped to his knees, his right hand pressed to his chest.

He had trouble getting to his feet, but when he did, she sent him down again with a fist to the face. Dread shone in his real eye. He had spent too long among beings who cherished life, and he had come to cherish it himself. Unlike those fighting to the death in the streets and squares above, Nom Anor wanted desperately to live. Mara could read it in his wretched look; she could smell it coming off of him in waves. He backed away from her until his back was pressed to a wall, then he sank slowly to his knees.

Mara ignited her lightsaber and held it with the tip low and to her right. One upward swing and she could send his head five meters.

Nom Anor bent at the waist and pressed his face to the littered floor in a posture of servility.

“You’ve defeated me, Mara Jade Skywalker,” he said without lifting his head. “I beg for mercy.” When she made no immediate reply, he risked raising his face to her, and when he saw that she hadn’t moved forward he continued. “What would killing me accomplish now? Yes, it will satisfy you, but will it put an end to the war?”

“For the moment, I’ll content myself with satisfaction,” she told him.

He gulped, then found his voice. “I am a dissembler and a killer. I have brought woe to you and many others. But were you any less when you were in service to the Emperor? To Darth Vader? An executor, you did what you were trained to do. We all serve a master, Mara Skywalker. But I was given to believe that you now served the Force.”

As Mara stepped forward, his pleas became more frenzied.

“You’re a mother now! What if your son were watching you? Is this what you would want him to learn—the art of murdering in cold blood?”

Mara’s nostril’s quivered. “You almost robbed me of any chance of having a child.”

“I know that,” he said, holding her gaze. “But am I not part of life as your infant is—part of the Force?” He gestured to himself. “I am helpless!”

Mara took another step, raising her lightsaber.

“I can help!” he screamed. “I’ve changed. You saw me leading the Shamed Ones. Just as you do, I want to see the war ended. I would have been an ally of yours already if Vergere and Jacen had agreed to take me off Coruscant in the coralcraft I had built just for that purpose. You see, Mara Skywalker? I say Coruscant. I know this world is yours. It has always been yours, and it will remain so even if we are victorious. One last chance. Let me prove myself to you.”

She brought the glowing blade of the lightsaber close to his neck, then deactivated it and clipped the handle to her belt.

The expression on Nom Anor’s face was unreadable. Clearly he hadn’t expected leniency. He recognized that his words hadn’t caused her to stay her hand—they had spilled from his mouth by rote. Something else had influenced her decision; something beyond his comprehension. For a long moment he regarded her in perplexity.

“A Yuuzhan Vong warrior would have been disgusted by my actions,” he said at last. “He would have killed me as easily as if I were a droid. And yet you didn’t find my cowardice contemptible. You let me live.”

Mara narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe a word you said, and I’ve known from the first that you’re a coward. You’re guilty of too many crimes to list, but I won’t be your executioner. Your ultimate disposition is a matter that will be decided by others.” She gestured for him to stand up. “If you really wanted to put an end to the war, you shouldn’t have interfered at Zonama Sekot.”

“I was only trying to spare the planet,” Nom Anor said. “Even now Shimrra is out to destroy it. He believes it was given to the Jedi by the gods, as a means of testing our worthiness. He claims to have a poison capable of killing Zonama Sekot.”

A chill laddered up Mara’s spine. “What poison?”

Nom Anor heaved his shoulders in a shrug of indifference. “Something concocted by the Alliance and deployed on a world called Caluula.”

Alpha Red, Mara realized in anguish.

She grabbed Nom Anor by the shoulder and shoved him toward the closest exit from the building. “You’re going to show me you’re deserving of the extra time I’ve given you.”

Echoing the shape of the worldship Citadel, Shimrra’s coffer—his bunker in the crown of the fortress—was a huge vaulted space with polished walls and stately columns. From the eastern side of its circular floor a stairway of yorik coral spiraled into an upper level, where some said resided the controls that could launch the summit of the Citadel into space, in much the same way that the Well of the World Brain could be launched, to ensure that the Supreme Overlord and the dhuryam survived, no matter what befell the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong and their multitude of biots.

The coffer contained a throne, but Shimrra had yet to take it since entering the coffer from the lavish shaft that accessed the bunker—a dovin basal version of a turbolift. The Supreme Overlord was too restless to remain seated, too mesmerized by villip-assembled images of Yuuzhan’tar engulfed in flames; of Shamed Ones running loose in the streets; of Alliance troops locked in battle with warriors; and of fighter craft darting through the smoke-filled sky, stinging the Citadel with packets of energized light.

Shimrra’s slayer bodyguards were with him, as was Onimi, perhaps the only Shamed One on Yuuzhan’tar or any other occupied world still content to curl at the feet of the elite. A shaper doubled as a villip mistress to make certain that the Supreme Overlord didn’t miss a moment of the devastation he had called down on the planet.

“We should be rejoicing,” Shimrra was saying as he meandered about, much to the consternation of his limited audience. He gestured to Onimi, who was squatting almost possessively close to the austere throne. “What, no rhymes from you this day? No words of ridicule or mockery? No capering about while Yuuzhan’tar burns?”

Solemn-faced, Onimi got to his feet to recite a poem, though absent his characteristic self-amusement, and with his gaze not on Shimrra or any of the others in the bunker, but raised to the high, arched ceiling or perhaps the sky beyond.

Shimrra stood silent for a moment, then began to nod. “Yes, Onimi, you’re right to give them fair warning. Is it not just as I planned, just as I imagined? Zonama Sekot will die, its living ships will perish, the Jedi will be stripped of their weapons, and the gods will have been defeated—I will have done away with them. Yuuzhan’tar will recover, and I will rid the universe of all vermin.”

The shaper waited until Shimrra was finished, then stepped forward from her villip-choir. “Dread Lord, High Priest Jakan reports that saboteurs have been seized at the Well of the World Brain. Apparently the priest Harrar is among them.”

“Harrar!” Onimi said, then caught himself and hunkered down.

Shimrra glanced at him, then turned back to the shaper. “Too clever even for Nom Anor, that one. It’s no wonder he survived. But now on the side of the enemy … Enlisted or conscripted, I wonder?” He swung to Onimi again. “Betrayal is rife in our fair kingdom, my familiar. The gods breaking faith with their creations. Shamed Ones rising up against those who have for so long suffered them. And now our esteemed Harrar, giving up the elite …”

“Assuming that it meets with your blessing, Dread Lord,” the shaper said, “the prisoners will be prepared for sacrifice.”

“With all speed, set to it,” Shimrra said. “Join them there. Let us give the gods their last ounce of flesh before we dispense with them.”

Muffled explosions punctuated the silence as the shaper exited. The coffer trembled as the enemy’s aerial bombardment continued.

Admitted into the bunker, a wounded warrior in vonduun crab armor saluted and began to stagger toward the throne. He didn’t make it halfway before he collapsed onto his knees, black blood curdled in a wound to his right armpit.

“Lord,” he began weakly. “Enemy warriors have surrounded the Citadel, and even now are attempting to battle their way inside.”

Shimrra approached the warrior to have a closer look at his wound. “No blaster made that injury.”

“Three Jedi, Lord. At the western gate.”

The slayers stepped forward, but Shimrra waved them back.

“Let the Jedi come to us.” He looked at Onimi. “After all, diversion needn’t be the exclusive province of the warmaster.”