The Final Prophecy (21 page)

But this was the first time he had really discussed the matter with one of
them
.

“Here is my dilemma,” Harrar said. “I do not understand how a people who placed such value on Ithor could also hold dear the abomination that was Coruscant.”

Corran snorted. “And I don’t understand how a people who claim to worship life would destroy a pristine planet,” he replied.

“So you’ve said once already. But since you said it, I’ve been thinking about it. You may be right. There may be a contradiction there.”

“May?”
Corran studied the Yuuzhan Vong’s face for signs of mockery. The near-human visage suddenly seemed more alien than ever.

“Understand,” Harrar said, “all life ends. Killing is in itself no wrongdoing. Even here, in this forest, plants are eaten by animals, animals devour one another, the dead form the food for the plants. My earlier concern for the saplings you cut was that the planet might take it as an attack, since we are from outside, not because I felt it was wrong on some intrinsic level for you to cut them. In the end, every living thing dies. Planets die. But life itself should go on. Your technology threatens that—ours does not. A world like Coruscant proves that a world could exist without forests or true seas. And if the living sentients in its belly were replaced by the machines-that-mock-life you call droids, there could be completion. Machines could spread without benefit of life. They could replace it. That, my people cannot—would never—allow. We would fight until all of us were dead to prevent it, even the Shamed who now rise against us.”

“But—”

Harrar raised a hand. “Please. Allow me to finish answering your question. When we destroy life—even an entire planet, as with Ithor—we replace it with new life.”

“Yuuzhan Vong bioformed life.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So you think that makes it okay?” Corran asked.

“Yes,” the priest answered.

Corran shrugged. “So if that’s your view, where is the contradiction?”

“Because in my heart,” Harrar said, pronouncing each
word carefully and distinctly, “I feel the destruction of Ithor was wrong.”

Corran regarded the priest for a long moment, wishing the Force could help him decide if he was lying or not. Of course, before he’d learned to know the Force, natural suspicion and CorSec training had served pretty well. To those ears, Harrar sounded sincere.

“What do you want from me?” Corran asked, finally.

Harrar steepled his fingers together. “I’ve spoken of the contradiction in my people. I want to understand the contradiction in yours.”

“Oh. That’s simple—we’re not really one people. There are thousands of ‘peoples’ in this galaxy, and often we don’t have a whole lot in common. If there’s one thing you can say about ‘us,’ it’s that we’re a diverse lot. There are some cultures that probably would have made Ithor like Coruscant or a wasteland like Bonadan. There are beings in this galaxy who don’t value life at all, and others who worship it to the exclusion of all else. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Believe it or not, technology and ‘life’ really can coexist.”

“That is what I’m struggling with.
You
believe that. My people do not. Whatever Zonama Sekot represents, whatever promise it holds for my people, I do not know that it can ever bring peace between you and me. I do not think the Yuuzhan Vong could ever make peace with machines, especially thinking ones—or the people who use them.”

“That’s an interesting thing to tell me,” Corran said. “You mean that you and I may have to fight after all?”

“Not you and I—not unless it is by your choice. But our peoples …” Harrar shook his head. “I see no end to the war here.”

“Well, we’ve only just arrived,” Corran said. “Maybe there’s something neither of us is seeing.”

“Perhaps.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Corran slipping into reverie of the battle for Ithor and the terrible thing that the Yuuzhan Vong had done to the garden of the galaxy.

What if Harrar was right? What if there was no way to make peace with the Yuuzhan Vong?

He sighed, rose, and looked around the edge of the cave until he saw what he was looking for—a slope that kept going up.

“Where are you going?” Harrar asked.

“I want to check out what’s up above our happy-home-to-be,” Corran said. “Don’t want any nasty monsters or giant bugs coming down to eat us in the night.”

“You’ve more experience with wild planets than I.”

“Doesn’t seem too wild to me, this planet,” Corran said, not entirely certain what he meant.

“Well.
Natural
planets then. Nonbioformed worlds.”

“I think this world
is
bioformed,” Corran replied. “I think it bioformed itself.”

“Then you believe the planet itself is alive, sentient, as Yu’shaa claims?”

“That’s the rumor. That’s what your shaper is here to find out, right?”

“Among other things. I’m not entirely certain I understand Nen Yim’s interests.”

Three different castes, three different agendas
, Corran thought.

They reached the top of the ridge in a few moments, which gave them an excellent view of the valley below. In fact, Corran could see the wrecked Sekotan ship, which was good. If anyone came looking from the air, that’s what they would spot, and they would be near should such a search come.

But not
too
near if the searchers were unfriendly.

“What is that?” Harrar asked.

Corran turned and looked the other way.

The priest wasn’t pointing. He didn’t have to. Rising from the forest were three gigantic identical metal vanes. They looked to be at least three hundred meters tall. They were utterly familiar, but it still took him a long moment to recognize them. When he did, he felt suddenly light-headed.

“I’m not sure,” he lied.

“Perhaps we should investigate.” Did Harrar sound suspicious?

“Not today,” Corran said. “It’ll be dark in a few hours, and we’ll want to have the important stuff moved up here by then.”

“Very well.”

He was just delaying the inevitable, he knew. But given Harrar’s little speech just now, when the Yuuzhan Vong did figure out what those vanes were, they weren’t going to be very happy. Not happy at all.

He wanted a little time to prepare for that.

Wedge had a hurried conference via hyperwave transceiver with his commanders, and then began transmitting battle plans. Their only hope now was to do the very thing they had begun as a feint—knock out one of the interdictors. If they tried to run, the ships would just follow them.

“We’ll line up for the outsystem interdictor,” he said. “Spoke formation. We’ll cut a fire lane and hope some of the starfighters can get there in time. Pick your squadrons, commanders.”

“Wedge, do you see that?” Pash Cracken asked excitedly.

He had, and he didn’t believe it. More than half the approaching insystem force was dropping away from the fight. The interdictor was still there, and a healthy force to guard it, but now the fight was suddenly more or less even.

What were the Yuuzhan Vong up to?

“Five minutes until maximum firing range, sir,” Cel reported.

“Very good,” he said, still staring at the monitor.

The retreating ships increased their speed and suddenly vanished into hyperspace.

“What in the space lanes—?” he wondered.

Suddenly he felt a little smile carve itself on his face, and he vented a brief laugh.

“Sir?” Cel asked.

“This worked better than we ever dreamed it would,” he
explained. “They’re so convinced this is a feint they’ve sent half their ships someplace else.”

“I wonder where?”

“Who cares? The odds are almost even, now. Attack groups, lining up for an insystem run.
Ithor
, you take the outside.”

The massive ships began turning their backs to the outsystem forces, which were now greater than those toward the shipyards.

“Accelerate half speed,” he said.

“New estimation for maximum firing range, two minutes,” Cel said.

“Thank you.” The Yuuzhan Vong in the outer system seemed to be holding their ground, perhaps suspecting he wanted them to abandon the interdictor. That was fine; he didn’t want a two-front battle.

He continued to study the tactical readouts, and saw something else strange. Some of the coralskippers were breaking formation, streaming toward the insystem interdictor, probably anticipating his push for it.

Then he saw that wasn’t what they were doing at all. They were dropping into its artificial gravity well at steep angles.

“They’re doing the Solo Slingshot!” Lieutenant Cel exclaimed.

Even as she said it, the first of the skips slingshoted around the massive spicule, whirling with terrific speed toward the Alliance battle group.

“Minimum range.”

“Fire when ready. Clear a lane to the lead capital ships.”

Laserfire stretched out between the two fleets, and plumes of plasma rushed to greet them. The coralskippers, meanwhile, were arcing in with unnatural speed on parabolic vectors that did not cross the fire lanes being opened. That
meant the enemy starfighters were going to be in the heart of the fleet in just a few moments.

“Tell the starfighters to drop formation as needed. I don’t know what they’re doing, but it can’t be good.”

“I’m never going to let Dad forget this,” Jaina grumbled. “He taught them a new trick!”

And not a bad one. The skips were screaming down into the middle fleet, and at twice their usual speed, speeds the starfighters couldn’t match, with the possible exception of the A-wings. In the squadrons under her command, that meant the Scimitar Squadron.

“Is that some new sort of skip?” Alema Rar asked. “Something looks strange about them.”

“Look like plain old skips to me,” Jaina replied.

She watched as a clump of skips tore past Wraith Squadron, hammering them hard and zooming past them before the Wraiths could get off more than a couple of shots. And now their trajectory was bringing them into Twin Suns territory, where they were escorting
Mon Mothma
.

She did a quick calculation.

“Twin Suns, on my mark, turn to point oh-oh-seven-one and go full throttle. Scimitar Leader, we’re only going to get a few shots at them as they go past. Then they’re yours, if you can catch them.”

“Turn our tails to the enemy?” Ijix Harona asked incredulously.

“They’ll overshoot you before you reach full acceleration,” Jaina explained. “Then you’ll be behind them at almost matching speed.”

“Copy, Twin Leader,” Harona replied. “I understand. Shouldn’t have asked.”

“What about our tails?” Twin Two asked.

“On my mark, tendi maneuver. Three, you’re the fan.”

“Copy.”

“Copy,” Jag said. “We’ve got it.”

Now they were building toward full acceleration, flying along the projected flight path of the fast skips. She could almost feel them coming up behind. Three, two—

“Go!” she said.

Three cut his jets and flipped around, firing. Since she and Two were still under acceleration, he was quickly positioned as a shield between them and the approaching skips. After the skips got past him, they had time for a single quick shot at Jaina and her wingmate. She, on the other hand, had built up speed approaching two-thirds that of the skips, so she had the leisure for quite a few shots at them once they were past her and before they were out of range.

She got one in her sights and used a proton torpedo while it still made sense, then needled it with laserfire until the torp got there and blew it into molten slag.

Jaina narrowed her eyes. There
was
something strange. The vessel she had just destroyed looked like every other she had ever put her sights on—except that something was trailing behind it.

“Twin One,” Rar asked, “did you see what that was attached to it?” Her tone very much said, “I told you so.”

“Don’t know,” Jaina replied. “I didn’t really see it until the detonation. Looked like a tail.”

“Skips don’t usually have tails,” Rar responded.

“It might have been a cofferdam.”

“Mine’s got one, too,” Jag said. “I thought I saw something bleeding out of it.”

Stifling an uneasy feeling, Jaina used lasers as the skips pulled ahead, and nailed one right through the dovin basal. In the flare she saw that this one had a tail as well. Or a big sack of some sort, now empty.

Several more skips flared as they approached the A-wings.

Now the skips had a choice. They could either retain
their speed, but end up with A-wings on their tails, or they could—

“They’re slowing down,” Jag said.

“Yep. Scimitars, break off. You don’t want them behind you now. Come back to the party.”

“Copy, Sticks,” Harona confirmed.

The A-wings peeled out of formation and scattered. Jaina dropped in behind a skip and started firing, lasers only. The skip juked and jinked, its dovin-basal-generated voids absorbing her shots. So intent was she on getting the skip firmly in her sights that she almost didn’t see the thing in time. Her reflexes did, though, yanking at the stick as what she thought was a half-meter-wide chunk of rock was about to smash through her cockpit. She rolled, and it scraped centimeters from her screen.

It kicked as it went by.

Cursing silently, she chinned her microphone. “Be advised,
Mon Mothma
control. The skips are dropping grutchins.”

Grutchins were insectlike creatures the Yuuzhan Vong had developed that could survive for a time in vacuum. Their mandibles secreted a solvent that could cut through hull metal.

“That explains the suicide runs,” Jag said. “There must be grutchins everywhere, and the fleets haven’t even engaged. They’re probably going for the Star Destroyers.”

“Advised,” the voice of control said.

Jaina, meanwhile, had flown straight into one of the release trails. She kept up a steady stream of laserfire, blazing any of the bugs that got in front of her. The remaining skips suddenly broke formation, curving up from her operational horizon.

Something thumped against her hull, and Cappie, her astromech, reported a grutchin on the hull. Snarling, Jaina pulled the stick, hard, and pushed the drive to maximum,
then rolled like crazy, trying to detach it before it could start making a meal of her starfighter.