The Unifying Force (27 page)

“Pray, just what is it that your priests and seers have been telling you, Warmaster, since your words are the first I’ve
heard of such matters?” Shimrra asked. “Surely you harbor no doubts that your mighty armada can prevail.”

“No, Great Lord, of that I have no doubts. It is instinct that compels me to ask: at what cost to us?”

Shimrra motioned to him. “Continue, Warmaster, so that all here gathered might get a glimmer of the inner workings of so strategic a thinker.”

Nas Choka raised his gaze. “Great Lord, I do not counsel against striking Mon Calamari. I question only the timing of the assault.”

Shimrra adopted a look of perplexity. “Of what timing do you speak? Are the stars in this peculiar sky out of alignment? Do the days of the sacred calendar auger for caution? Are you not in the proper
mood
to mete out punishment? Speak plainly, Warmaster. I will think only the more of you for it.”

Nas Choka snapped his fists to his shoulders in salute. “Great Lord, I would prefer to concentrate our efforts on securing further those worlds we hold, in the regions our enemy catalogs as Core, Colonies, Inner Rim, and Expansion Region. That much accomplished, we will have created an impenetrable wall against incursion, and from inside that wall we can continue to make forays out into the Mid Rim and other sectors, until we have at last driven the forces of our enemy into a region where they might be subdued by attrition or with one final stroke.”

“Is that not what we have already done?” Shimrra asked. “As we speak they are consolidated at Mon Calamari. We have pushed them to the extremes of their own galaxy.”

“Some of the enemy, Gracious Lord, but not all. Pockets of strong resistance remain. To subdue the Hutts fully required years, and it may take as many to subjugate the Hapes Consortium, the Chiss empire, the Corporate Sector. In all those places, to name but a few, the enemy is strong. I won’t argue that many of their fleets are now united at Mon Calamari. But our campaigns in the Remnant, at Esfandia, and Bilbringi yet again, have cost us dearly. War vessels need to be grown and nurtured—weapons, craft, and coralskippers alike. Our armada is weakest in the very vessels needed to
move it. More, we need to be better equipped for surface contests—unless it is our design to poison more worlds than we already have, and risk having the gods misunderstand our intentions, and pronounce us callous toward life.”

Nom Anor was impressed, and wished he had the courage to support Nas Choka openly, but he couldn’t chance adding his voice to the warmaster’s—not without jeopardizing his special relationship with Shimrra. But if the truth could be told, Nom Anor would have confessed that he wanted only to protect the world with which he had been entrusted. Having struggled for so long to attain a rank of authority, he had no desire to see the privileges that came with his station disappear because of some blunder by Shimrra.

The Supreme Overlord himself was too keen a strategist to take issue with all that Nas Choka was saying. But the warmaster was ignorant about the one unknown quantity that was compelling Shimrra to move quickly—and in seeming defiance of the belief that he was being shortsighted.

That one unknown was Zonama Sekot.

“I appreciate your concerns, Warmaster,” Shimrra said, “and indeed, if anyone is worthy of the honorific it is you, for your insight is sharp as a honed coufee.” He paused just long enough for Nas Choka to regain his confidence before adding: “But you are in error. I assure you that Yun-Yuuzhan was greatly pleased by the deaths of so many heretics at the Place of Bones. Trust to him, to Yun-Yuuzhan, to allay the concerns of the Slayer and the other gods. You will be rewarded with victory, Warmaster, and praises will be sung to you and your commanders, now and for generations to come.”

Nom Anor smiled inwardly.

Shimrra was brilliant at playing the game. All his talk of mollifying the gods was nothing more than a subterfuge—something beyond debate by the priests, since the Supreme Overlord was their only real conduit to the gods.

And it struck Nom Anor that Shimrra was right about what he had said at their most recent meeting: the Yuuzhan Vong
had
outgrown the gods. It wasn’t that the gods didn’t exist, so much as the Yuuzhan Vong no longer needed them.

All at once, he felt someone’s eyes on him. He looked to Shimrra, but Shimrra was still gazing down on Nas Choka.

It was Onimi who was watching Nom Anor.

In his command grotto, deep in the bowels of the holy mountain that was the worldship Citadel, Nas Choka, his chief tactician, and a warrior-seer studied a display of blaze bugs, moving about in their yorik coral niche. Insects capable of hovering in flight, or glowing or darkening at the behest of a yammosk, the bugs provided a visual representation of Yuuzhan Vong and enemy forces marshaled at Mon Calamari and the relatively neighboring worlds of Toong’l and Caluula.

The frenzied motion of the insects mirrored the swirling of Nas Choka’s thoughts.

“Shimrra is deranged,” the female seer said. “Smiling as if bequeathed more than his usual knowledge of events.”

Nas Choka looked at his blood-smeared subordinate. “You are safe herein, seer, but were I you, I would exercise caution about what words fly from my mouth. Shimrra has ears throughout the Citadel, and in more places than you can imagine. And who, seer, would you bid go to staffs with one of the Supreme Overlord’s newly enhanced warriors should you be challenged?”

The seer bowed at the waist. “Your forgiveness, Warmaster.”

“There is no swaying Shimrra. What matters now is that we do not fail him.” Nas Choka turned to face his cardinal subalterns. “None of you need fear expressing your opinions here. But take care elsewhere—both on and distant from Yuuzhan’tar.” He returned his attention to the blaze bug display. “The enemy fleet remains, augmented now by ships from star systems far removed from the war.”

The tactician, attired in high turban and long cloak, nodded. “As I feared, they are allying against us. We were wrong to move quickly in the Remnant and in the Koornacht Cluster. We might well have been able to make use of the so-called Imperials and the barbaric Yevetha. We might have at least led them by their noses long enough to consider that there was greater profit in allying with us.”

Nas Choka snorted in agreement. “Had I to do it over again, I might even have kept the Hutts on our side.”

“They have themselves to blame,” the tactician said. “Their offer of support was tendered only as a means of positioning themselves safely between us and the enemy. That they underestimated us is reason enough not to extend them any honor.”

Nas Choka nodded. “Their species is arrogant. Sooner or later they would have attempted to betray us, and it would have come down to contest. Nothing would be different now.”

“Except perhaps that Nas Choka wouldn’t have been escalated to warmaster,” the seer said.

“Another instance of escalation by default,” Nas Choka said harshly. “Tsavong Lah became too fixed on the
Jeedai
. He made the war personal. He displayed pride in having a vua’sa grown, merely so that he could slay it and claim one of its legs as his own. His insolence was his undoing. It blinded him to the truth. The
Jeedai
are a nuisance, but they are hardly the secret weapon we first thought them to be. As their numbers dwindle, so apparently does their ability to call on the Force.” He laughed shortly. “Tsavong Lah would have directed the armada against a handful of upstarts with magic swords. It would be frankly laughable were it not so tragic.”

Again the warmaster scrutinized the blaze bug display. “It intrigues me that they remain at Mon Calamari. By installing yammosks at Toong’l and Caluula, we have made clear as rainwater our intent to assault Mon Calamari. Sovv, Kre’fey, and the rest of the Alliance commanders must be blind not to see what is coming. But obviously I misconstrue them. My purpose was to persuade them to disband their battle groups, and thus subvert the possibility of a final battle of this nature, for I suspected that Shimrra was pursuing such thinking. And yet the enemy does nothing to suggest that they received our message. Either they have misconstrued me, or they have devised a way to counter us.”

“Even so, Warmaster,” the tactician said, “it makes little sense for them to make a stand at Mon Calamari. They are vastly outnumbered, and it is unlikely they would wish to
visit destruction on the world they have chosen as their new capital.”

Nas Choka considered it. “Yes, I fear that, in the end, they
will
scatter.”

The tactician was puzzled. “Was that not your original wish, Warmaster?”

“To have them disband without our having to travel clear across the galaxy to prompt them. Now we are committed. We will arrive, they will disperse, and we will be left with no choice but to chase them into the galactic arms and back—because Shimrra will not have it otherwise.”

“Such actions will require many years, and consume many resources.”

“It is the pattern our ancestors faced time and again in the home galaxy,” the seer interjected. “Wars that lingered for generations.”

The tactician regarded the blaze bugs. “What if the enemy should surprise us by electing to stand and fight?”

Nas Choka smiled. “I will know then, with certainty, that Kre’fey and the rest have contrived a counterstrategy.”

The seer was not pleased by the statement. “Would the infidels dare strike at Yuuzhan’tar in your absence?”

“I have given careful thought to that,” Nas Choka said. “I have calculated the amount of damage they can do, based on their bringing to bear three times the number of ships we know to exist in sectors other than Mon Calamari. I remain confident that they cannot inflict unacceptable damage. I have planned for that eventuality, nevertheless. Should they jump their
entire
fleet here, so much the better for us.”

“They could interpret the groundwork we’ve laid as an attempt to encourage them to attack Yuuzhan’tar,” the tactician said.

Nas Choka betrayed no concern. “Either way benefits us. But we’re a long way from seeing all sides of this. We must bide what little time remains before Shimrra declares the omens favorable to launch the fleet.”

The seer deliberately placed herself in the warmaster’s gaze. “I have spoken to the other seers regarding the omens. We have agreed to stretch the truth, in order to grant your forces additional time to prepare.”

“Shimrra will see through you,” Nas Choka cautioned. “Especially in light of the appeal I attempted today. Regardless, he will suffer your lies as an accommodation to me, just as he suffers you and your cohorts as an accommodation to the elite. Refrain from attempting to grant us too much delay.” He paused, then said, “In the meantime, we should awaken our masqued spies and infiltrators on all occupied and contested worlds, and instruct them to report on any unusual activity involving the movements of ships, matériel, and couriers.”

“Kre’fey will expect as much,” the tactician thought to point out. “Bear in mind, Warmaster, that enemy disinformation was at least partially responsible for drawing Tsavong Lah to his death.”

Nas Choka touched him on the shoulder in appreciation. “Trust nothing from our network of agents on Mon Calamari. They live only because the Alliance feels there may be some further use for them. Also instruct our masqued spies that while they should keep their noses lifted to the winds, they are to refrain from taking any actions or interfering in any way. I want nothing more than information. I will separate the truth from the deceptions. Above all, I want to give the Alliance just enough vine to hang itself.”

PART TWO
FORCE AND COUNTERFORCE

Stars filled the sky.

Head tipped back, eyes raised, Luke turned through a small circle, feeling infinitesimal under the giant boras, under the light-strewn expanse. The night was cold—made colder by a polar breeze—but there wasn’t a cloud overhead. Beside him, R2-D2 zithered and twittered, then fluted in what approximated relief.

Luke looked down at the readout on the droid’s dome. “You’re sure about that, little fella?”

The silver dome of the droid’s head revolved, taking his primary photoreceptor through a second survey of the stars and clusters. After comparing the results of his scans to the charts he had downloaded from
Widowmaker
’s data banks, R2-D2 mewled, chirped, then twittered some more.

Luke smiled and placed his hand on the droid’s dome. “At least we’re closer to known space. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see where Sekot’s next hyperspace jump lands us.”

Rocking side to side on his treads, R2-D2 tootled and fluted.

Luke had been one of the first to emerge from the shelter scooped into the notched cliff face that was home to hundreds of Ferroan families. Similar to other shelters in the Middle Distance, it was a vast vaulted space, excavated sometime during the Crossings that had taken Zonama Sekot from its original orbit in the Gardaji Rift, through several star systems, and finally into the Unknown Regions, where Sekot had selected Klasse Ephemora as the planet’s new home and sanctuary.