Star by Star (36 page)

With the hum of the invading core enveloped on all sides by the high-pitched whirring of infidel forces, the situation sounded precarious at best. Had not a sour odor filled Nom Anor’s nostrils as he moved through the enemy blaze bugs near the entrance of the room, he might have worried. As it was, the reek of disorganization and poor battle preparedness assured a swift Yuuzhan Vong victory, and the executor’s success in dividing the New Republic Senate was undoubtedly responsible for the strongest part of that smell. Certainly, that was why the warmaster had left orders for him to report the instant of his return—or so Nom Anor hoped. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

He passed through the infidel areas into the Yuuzhan Vong invasion column, where the sour reek of confusion was replaced by the clyriz-like odor of organization and purpose. Instead of swirling about in confusion when he passed through, as had the blaze bugs in the New Republic section of the room, the bugs
here simply fluttered aside, then returned to their places once he was gone.

As Nom Anor drew near the center of the chamber, the warmaster’s cognition throne grew more distinct. A little smaller than an infidel landspeeder, the chair lumbered about on six squat legs, flashing a constant series of instructions to the blaze bugs via the soft glowtips at the ends of its hundred antennae.

The warmaster himself sat atop the throne in a neural cusp, his head swaddled in wormlike sensory feeds, his hands thrust into control sacks on the armrests alongside his body. Though Nom Anor had never himself mounted a cognition throne, he knew a skilled rider could join the creature so completely that he experienced the totality of the strategic situation at once. Each blaze bug’s coded wingbeats identified not only the class and name of the vessel represented, but also the ship’s condition and estimated combat effectiveness. The subtle undertones of odor suggested the morale of the captain and crew—estimates based on a complicated formula of known experience, effectiveness in previous battles, and the general tactical situation. Though Nom would never have said so aloud, he suspected the estimates tended to rate Yuuzhan Vong ships unduly high and infidel ships outrageously low.

The usual crowd of apprentices, subalterns, and readers parted to let Nom Anor pass, but only the apprentices and subalterns crossed their arms over their breasts. An amalgam of diviners and military analysts, the readers were responsible for gathering information on enemy capabilities and translating their knowledge into the blaze bug swarm. Each was also a priest of one of the many different gods to whom the Yuuzhan Vong paid homage, and as such technically subordinate to the
Sunulok
’s priestess, Vaecta, rather than the warmaster—a fact they took every opportunity to emphasize. Nom Anor knew the arrangement to be a constant fang in Tsavong Lah’s heel, but, at least to those who believed in such things, the precaution was necessary to avoid placing any of the other gods in symbolic servitude to Yun-Yammka the Slayer.

Trying not to read anything into the lack of envy in the eyes of those around him, Nom Anor stopped before the cognition
throne and pounded his own chest in salute. “I come straight from the docking chamber, my master.”

Tsavong Lah peered down from the throne, little more than eyes and mouth visible through his cocoon of sensory feeds. “As ordered—good.”

Nom Anor’s mouth went dry. No words of welcome, no hint of praise. “I am sorry that it took me this long to rejoin the fleet. My journey was delayed by the difficulties of leaving Coruscant.”

“Not an easy thing to do with all of Planetary Defense hunting you, I am sure,” Vergere’s thin voice said. She pushed through the crowd and peered up from between two readers. “You are to be congratulated on your escape. It was most ingenious.”

“Yes, planning is everything.” Nom Anor had difficulty keeping the rage out of his voice, for he was convinced that Vergere lay behind the attempt on Fey’lya’s life. He had considered the matter from every angle, and she had more to gain from it than anyone. “I’m only sorry it was necessary to disappoint you.”

“Why would I be disappointed in your escape?” Vergere spread her arms. “Your value to our cause is well known to all.”

As accustomed as Nom Anor was to the gamesmanship of politics, the subtle mockery of this half-pagan creature was too much. Not only had she interfered with his mission and nearly gotten him imprisoned, now she was ridiculing him before his master and peers.

“There is no need to play the shy bunish, Vergere.” Nom Anor had to struggle to keep his voice icy, and even then his fury was tangible enough to draw a quiet murmur. “You are to be applauded on your ingenuity. I had not thought a mere pet capable of so much cunning—or daring.”

Had Vergere been a Yuuzhan Vong, Nom Anor’s words would have been enough to draw a blood challenge. As it was, the little creature only pricked her antennae. “Do you accuse me of what happened in the senate?”

“A bold attempt to remove a rival,” Nom Anor confirmed. “Whether or not the assassination succeeds, I am blamed by the infidels and the warmaster both.” He shifted his attention to Tsavong Lah. “The fact of my return stands as proof both of my
worth to the Great Doctrine and of my faith in the warmaster’s ability to see beyond such primitive ruses.”

Vergere’s beakish mouth opened as though she might hiss, then she caught herself and seemed to calm. “Do not blame me for your failures on Coruscant. It only makes you look more the—”

“Enough.”

Though the warmaster spoke quietly, the mere sound of his voice was enough to silence Vergere—and save her life. Had she uttered the fateful
fool
, Nom Anor would have been not only within his rights, but
expected
to kill her on the spot.

“The assassination of Borsk Fey’lya—or the
attempt
—holds little interest for me.” The shadow of a smile came to Tsavong Lah’s lips. He manipulated something in an arm sack, and the throne’s legs folded, lowering the warmaster to a more comfortable speaking level. “Before you arrived, Nom Anor, we were discussing General Bel Iblis’s pathetic scheme to undermine the morale of our warriors with this nonsense about
Jeedai
twins. How did he think of such an idea?”

Nom Anor knew what Tsavong Lah wanted to hear, but he was not foolish enough to lie in the warmaster’s presence—not with Vergere waiting to pounce on his every word. “I have no knowledge of how Bel Iblis prepares his plans.”

“Then guess,” Tsavong Lah said. “I command it.”

Nom Anor’s throat grew scratchy. The blaze bugs, temporarily released from their station by the idleness of the throne, began to descend on the group. The touch of their hot abdomens stung more than the stab of their proboscises, but such was the price of service. No one did more than shoo the ravenous creatures away from their eyes, and the readers did not do that much.

“My master, humans are not like Yuuzhan Vong. Twins are not an infrequent occurrence,” Nom Anor said. In all of Yuuzhan Vong history, there had been only a few twin births—and these only when the gods wished it so. In each instance, one had murdered the other in childhood, then matured to lead the empire through a time of grave crisis. Lord Shimrra himself had murdered his twin brother before growing up to have the dream that foretold the finding of this new galaxy. “Their birth suggests no special favor of the gods.”

“Then you are saying the Solo children
are
twins?” The reader who asked this was Kol Yabu of the Undying Flame, a “half-and-half” whose burn-melded body had been carefully shaped to appear male from one profile and female from the other. As an apostle of the Undying Flame, Kol Yabu worshiped the twins Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q’aah, brother and sister gods of love and hate and all things opposite. “You admit that Jacen and Jaina Solo
are
twin
Jeedai
brother and sister?”

Nom Anor tried to wet his throat, but found his swallow as dry as bone dust. “
I
admit nothing, Reader.” He looked toward Tsavong Lah and decided it was probably well that the warmaster’s face remained hidden behind a glowing mask of blaze bugs. “Our spy, Viqi Shesh, claims the two Solos are twins, and that their mother and uncle are also twins. Perhaps she is the one we should ask about Bel Iblis’s plan.”

Tsavong Lah avoided the half-and-half’s gaze by glaring at Nom Anor. “Viqi is either a traitor to her own people, or an infidel double agent. I have no faith in her.”

“In this matter, we can trust only the opinion of a Yuuzhan Vong,” Vergere agreed. Unlike the others, she was not limned in scintillating blaze bug light—perhaps because she kept ruffling her feathers to keep the hungry creatures at bay. “And Nom Anor was on Coruscant. Surely he took time to investigate a matter of such importance before fleeing?”

Nom would have liked to claim there had been no time, but he knew better than to think he could defeat Vergere’s trap so easily. Deciding his only hope lay in the unexpected, he took a deep breath, then looked the warmaster in the eye and told the truth.

“There were many records to support Shesh’s claim, my master, and I doubt they were planted. Even in obscure sources, I found nothing to contradict her.” When the blaze bugs began to leave the warmaster’s angry face and take wing, Nom Anor decided his only hope of redemption lay in a risky strategy. “Clearly, fortune was smiling on us when the one named Jacen escaped you at Duro.”

The cognition throne trembled and hopped forward—no doubt in response to the clenched fists inside its arm sacks.

“Tell me how.” The warmaster’s voice was low and harsh, for
he did not enjoy being reminded of how Jacen had used the Jedi sorcery a year earlier to rob him of a foot and prevent the sacrifice of Leia Organa Solo.

Nom Anor took a deep breath, then turned to Kol Yabu. “How would Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q’aah view the sacrifice of only one twin?”

The half-and-half considered this for a moment, then said, “The Twins do not demand sacrifices, but the Balance is all.”

“That is not what the executor asked,” Tsavong Lah said, glowering at the priest. “Answer clearly, or I will ask for a reader who does.”

Kol Yabu’s eyesacks paled; he—or she, Nom Anor had never checked to see which—answered to Vaecta, but such a request from the warmaster would not be ignored. “
Offended
is not the word, Warmaster. The Great Dance would grow unstable.”

Tsavong Lah considered this and nodded. “I thought as much.”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Nom Anor said, determined to exploit his gains. “Perhaps Lord Shimrra would look favorably on a sacrifice of twin Jedi? You could have them fight each other, as Lord Shimrra fought his brother, just as the gods have ordained that twins must do since the beginning of Yuuzhan Vong history.”

Tsavong Lah sat back in the cognition throne, considering. “It would make a great gift to Yun-Yuuzhan, would it not?”

There was no reader to answer, for only Lord Shimrra himself communed with Yun-Yuuzhan, the Cosmic Lord.

“They will never fight each other,” Vergere said, always eager to undermine Nom Anor. “They are as close as a pilot and his coralskipper, these two.”

Nom Anor was spared the necessity of countering her argument by the warmaster himself.

“We will have to break them first, that is all,” Tsavong Lah said. “And Nom Anor should arrange to netcast the combat for the New Republic, I think.”

“As you wish, Great Warmaster.” Nom Anor allowed himself a quick smirk in Vergere’s direction, then said, “Nothing could dishearten the Jedi more, I am sure.”

A nasal Bith voice keened in anguish somewhere in the middle of the
Exquisite Death
’s frigid hold, and Jaina knew Ulaha was in the jaws of the voxyn again. Like the rest of the strike team, Jaina sat facing a wall of red yorik coral, bent uncomfortably forward with her elbows between her knees, her ankles and wrists fastened to the floor by gummy masses of blorash jelly. She was barely clothed and filthy and in too much pain to care, though she did wish it were not so cold. She was shivering, and shivering made everything hurt more.

Ulaha screamed again, and Alema Rar, sitting next to Jaina in much the same condition, mumbled something through swollen lips. Jaina, who was having trouble collecting her thoughts after the voxyn screeched in her face, recalled something about teamwork and opened her emotions to her companions. Immediately, she felt Jacen weaving them into a single entity, calling upon their mutual confidence and fellowship to lend strength to their suffering comrade.

Though everyone except Ganner—who was being held somewhere else in the mistaken belief that he was the group’s leader—had faced the breaking at least once, Duman Yaght kept returning to Ulaha, allowing the Bith just enough time to drop into a Jedi healing trance before awakening her to begin again. Poor Ulaha had been to the center of the hold so many times that the others were attempting to prolong their own sessions to buy time for the Bith to recover. Jaina recalled dimly that she had managed only one answer before an angry Duman Yaght pushed her at the creature’s face, drawing the compressed-wave screech that had blasted her into unconsciousness.

When Ulaha’s cries grew quiet, Duman Yaght said, “Growing accustomed to the drool, are we, Bighead?” His favorite torture was to place Ulaha’s wound beneath the voxyn’s acid-slavering jaws. “We shall have to try something new.”

Ulaha screamed. Jaina struggled to look over her shoulder, but could turn only far enough to see Anakin, Jacen, and several others straining to do the same. For her, that was the worst part of the breaking, the listening to friends scream without knowing what was happening to them. She felt Jacen drawing upon her concern to reinforce the Bith. Ulaha’s scream grew a little less visceral, and Duman Yaght sensed the change. He always sensed the change.

“You don’t have to tell me where to find the
Jeedai
base,” the Yuuzhan Vong said. “Just admit there is one.”

Ulaha’s scream returned to its anguished pitch, and this time Jacen seemed unable to relieve the Bith’s distress. Jaina looked to her other side, where Eryl Besa sat stiff-bodied and wide-eyed, the victim of a neural tail shock—a voxyn attack form they had not known about until Duman Yaght suggested that Eryl experience it. After a moment, Jaina finally caught the other woman’s eye and raised her brow.