The Unifying Force (29 page)

Nas Choka folded his massive arms. “Our commander agreed to this?”

The tactician nodded. “In the interest of rapid and effortless pacification, and for the sake of the yammosk, he granted provisional approval. So as not to subject our people to lifeless technology, he assigned security of the spaceport to Peace Brigaders. Now, however, the petition to allow scientists to visit Caluula rests in the hands of High Prefect Drathul. He, in turn, will defer to the sagacity of High Priest Jakan.”

For several moments Nas Choka paced in silence. “This interests me,” he said finally. “Much of the enemy fleet remains at Mon Calamari. Elsewhere ships scurry about in seeming abandon. And following weeks of noble fighting by the defenders of its orbital facility, Caluula surrenders without contest.” He let his statements hang in the air, then turned to the tactician. “Tell Eminence Jakan that I wish a word with him before he renders any judgment on the petition.”

The tactician bowed. “Anything else, Fearsome One?”

“Who commands the yammosk emplacement at Caluula?”

“I can provide the answer momentarily, Warmaster.”

Nas Choka paced to his bench. “Return not only with the name, but also with the commander’s dedicated villip. I need to speak with him, as well.”

The Yuuzhan Vong warrior at Caluula spaceport made it clear that he was ready to unleash his amphistaff at the slightest provocation. The sight of the tattooed and scarred warrior standing against a backdrop of shuttles and landing craft was just absurd enough to widen Han’s eyes, but he knew better than to smile. Several Yuuzhan Vong warships
were in orbit above Caluula, though not nearly as many as Han had expected to see.

“You are the scientist—Meloque?” the warrior said in Basic to the female Ho’Din on whom the entire infiltration mission rested.

More than two meters tall, with sucker-equipped four-fingered hands, a purple crown of erect thermographic receptors, and a reptilian-complected lipless face, she might almost have been a Yuuzhan Vong shaper. Indeed, among all the species of the galaxy, the bipedal Ho’Din were treated with particular favor by the invaders, not only because of their devotion to plant life, but also because of their aversion to technology.

“Yes, I am Meloque,” she answered in Yuuzhan Vong.

The warrior extended a sinewy hand. “Your authentication.”

Meloque displayed the fist-sized nugget of flesh and fur that had been delivered to her on Obroa-skai. The warrior took the creature between his hands, squeezed it, and studied the pungent droppings it left on a piece of leathery parchment. Then he nodded and motioned to Han, Leia, Kyp, Judder Page, and the Bothan Intelligence officer, Wraw.

“The members of my support team,” Meloque said. “Their names should also be contained by the lumpen.” Having lived among the Yuuzhan Vong for close to four years on the enemy-occupied library world, she knew how to deal with them, as well as speak to them.

The warrior squeezed the lumpen so hard it squealed, and another batch of droppings fell to the parchment. It took a moment for the warrior to confirm that the names and descriptions detailed in the droppings matched the counterfeit identities of the humans and humanoids in front of him, but ultimately he nodded again.

“The lumpen will remain here until your departure. If all of you have not returned in three days, you will be hunted down, imprisoned, and punished for your insolence. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Meloque answered for all of them.

“Then proceed inside.”

A surprise to everyone—and some cause for suspicion—Yuuzhan’tar had granted permission for a few select scientists
to visit Caluula, to observe what was called the Nocturne of the Winged-Stars, an allegedly extraordinary natural phenomenon that occurred once every three hundred standard years. As Han understood it, the local governor had cut the deal in secret, even while the orbital station was still under siege.

At the mission briefing on Mon Calamari only two days earlier, Han had voiced his misgivings, telling Dif Scaur that the last time he had checked, the Yuuzhan Vong weren’t in the public relations business.

The cadaverously thin Intelligence director, who had had a hand in organizing the mission to destroy Caluula’s yammosk, had offered other examples of the Yuuzhan Vong’s recent attempts to win the hearts and minds of defeated populations—as against their usual tactic of plucking them out at the first sign of resistance. Regarding Caluula, Scaur believed that the nature of the negotiation—centered, as it was, on the observance of a rare natural phenomenon—might have appealed to whatever priests had been tasked with ruling on the request. Not that it mattered. If the Yuuzhan Vong had refused consent, the execution team would have gone in, regardless.

The last-minute addition of Kyp Durron to the team had been cause for further concern, because yammosks were believed to have the ability to sense Jedi, as had happened aboard an enemy vessel to the late Wurth Skidder. Kyp had countered that being a Jedi had nothing to do with it. Yammosks could detect the Force, and Kyp maintained that Leia was as strong in the Force as he was.

Han was not at all eased by the explanation. “A Bothan and a Jedi,” he told Kyp. “We might as well be wearing Galactic Alliance insignias.”

On the other hand, having Kyp along on the mission made it something of a family affair, since Kyp had figured prominently in Han’s life for close to twenty years—ever since Han and Chewbacca had rescued the sixteen-year-old fledgling Jedi from imprisonment in the spice mines of Kessel. Han’s trust in Kyp had been tested by the many trials Kyp had himself endured—on Yavin, against the spirit of a long-dead Sith Lord; in Kyp’s feverish quest for vengeance against
Imperial admiral Daala; in bringing the Sun Crusher to bear on the planet Carida; and in nearly destroying the
Millennium Falcon
, and Han, in the process. More recently Kyp had tricked Jaina into helping him annihilate a civilian Yuuzhan Vong worldship at Sernpidal. And yet, following the events at Myrkr, he had been instrumental in keeping her from going to the dark side—thanks in part to Leia’s warning Kyp that if he
ever
again hurt Jaina or any member of Leia’s family, he would be safer turning himself over to the Yuuzhan Vong.

“I’m through with travel if it means carrying a lumpen instead of an identichip,” Wraw said to Han while they were entering the spaceport terminal.

“We’re here to make sure you don’t have to,” Han said. “We’ve got enough unhappy Bothans without adding you to the list.”

Wraw laughed hoarsely. “As good with his mouth as he is with his blaster. That’s what I’ve always heard about you.”

“I aim true, if that’s what you mean.” Han had more to say, but Leia touched his arm in a gesture of restraint. From the start, he and the long-faced Bothan spy had butted heads, but he appreciated Leia’s reminding him of mission priorities.

Where Yuuzhan Vong warriors and bissop hounds held sway over the landing field, Peace Brigaders—Nikto, Weequays, a couple of Gammoreans, and other alien traitors—oversaw luggage inspection and terminal security. The modular, prefabricated building had been stripped of technology, but it hadn’t yet been transformed by the Yuuzhan Vong. Three other teams of scientists were having their equipment inspected, and being subjected to constant harassment by bribe-seeking Brigaders. Flanking the building’s only exit were a pair of exceedingly tall humans—or, more likely, ooglith-masquer-wearing Yuuzhan Vong.

Team Meloque’s equipment was being pawed through by a Klatooinian and a Codru-Ji, whose four arms were buried to the elbows in Han’s backpack. The Yuuzhan Vong had prohibited the import or use of recording devices other than sketch pads and writing implements. But they had allowed tents and camping gear, since the expeditions were destined
for the rugged mountains that walled Caluula City on three sides. As rudimentary as they were, the Brigaders’ scanners were capable of detecting most weapons, so blasters had been left off the packing list. Leia’s and Kyp’s lightsabers, however, were included among the cooking supplies, disguised as handles for self-warming fry pans.

The Klatooinian put the field kitchen duffel on the inspection table. “I’m going to need to go through all of this,” he said as the lofty Meloque approached, a sheathlike skirt making her appear even taller than she was.

Kyp stepped up to the table and made a subtle hand motion. “You don’t need to inspect this bag.”

The canine-faced humanoid stared at the Jedi and blinked his heavy lidded eyes. “We don’t need to inspect this bag.”

Momentarily confused, the Codru-Ji eventually nodded in agreement.

“Gather your belongings and leave.”

“Gather your belongings and leave.”

Kyp caught Han’s look while the two of them were shouldering the duffels. “Problem?”

“I thought that wasn’t allowed or something.”

Kyp shrugged. “We can debate Jedi philosophy some other time.”

Han laughed through his nose. “Don’t get me wrong, kid. If I had the ability, I’d be using it every chance I could.”

“You only think you would,” Leia said, slipping into her backpack as she caught up with them. “Would you use it when you play sabacc?”

Han considered it. “Might take some of the fun out of the game.”

“And I know you wouldn’t want that,” she said.

No sooner had they exited the terminal than clouds of indigenous flitnats surrounded them. The insects weren’t the biting variety, but that didn’t make them any less irritating.

“Hope you remembered to pack the repellent,” Han said to Leia.

“Wouldn’t help,” Wraw rasped. “Every visitor to Caluula gets assigned one hundred flitnats, and those hundred stick with you for your entire stay.”

Han laughted shortly at the Bothan’s joke. “Well, everybody’s got their own idea about what makes a good vacation.”

What Han didn’t say was that the tiny pests were already sticking to the cosmetic that lightened his complexion and the adhesive that secured his gray beard, mustache, and woolly eyebrows, and that he was even more uncomfortable than he had been on Aphran IV two years earlier, where he had worn a similar getup. Leia was the only other one also in disguise, her hair concealed under a wig of closely cropped silver locks, and her skin a faint shade of green, thanks to some pill Intelligence had had her swallow. Even though he was a Jedi, Kyp’s keen face wasn’t well known, and Page was so nondescript that a moment after meeting him one practically forgot what he looked like.

Still, for all his discomfort, Han was happy not to be wearing one of the ooglith-masquer-like “brands” developed by Wraith Squadron’s Baljos Arnjak and being worn by all the team members assigned to killing the yammosk on Toong’l, which was guarded only by Yuuzhan Vong.

Apart from the off-the-rack spaceport terminal, Caluula was about as basic a world as Han had visited in a long while—a world where the stones that formed the walls of most buildings had been given shape by other stones, and where most of the human and humanoid population had more in common with the Yuuzhan Vong than they probably realized. It took him a moment to come to grips with the fact that on Caluula and hundreds of similarly primitive worlds, life simply went on. Even though deprived of technology, even though forced to live in the shadow of new temples, beings fell in love, got married, had children, got into squabbles with their neighbors … They learned to adapt to new foods, use Yuuzhan Vong tools, swore allegiance to the new conquerors—even while continuing to worship their own gods in secret.

“Here come our guides,” Page said.

A Rodian and a Ryn, they were wearing rustic trousers and shirts, beat-up footwear, fabric belts, and tight-fitting woven skullcaps. And clearly they were comfortable around
the saddled mounts they rode and led. The size of small dew-backs, the long-snouted quadrupeds were nearly as shaggy as banthas, but lacked horns or tusks of any sort.

“I’m Sasso,” the Rodian said as the pair came within earshot of Han and the others.

“Ferfer,” the Ryn said under his breath, adding: “Gatherer one-six-four, out of Balmorra.”

Han reached up to shake hands with the Ryn. “How’s your boss?”

“On the run,” Ferfer said.

Han nodded, thinking of Droma, the Ryn who had befriended him at Chewbacca’s death, and who was rumored to head the Gatherers. “That figures.”

As introductions were being made all around, Han found himself thinking that Sasso and Ferfer reminded him of many of the folk he had had dealings with during his early years in the Corporate Sector—on Duroon, Deltooine, and other worlds. Folk who were often hardened by circumstance but true to their word.

Lately when he wasn’t thinking about the war or dwelling on the deaths of Anakin and Chewbacca, he would often catch himself reminiscing about the old days, or wondering what it would be like to return to the worlds of his youth without his tall, thick-furred sidekick, but with Leia and the kids. The person who had scammed his way through half the Outer Rim was very much alive inside him, and for all the lavish parties on Coruscant, the diplomatic affairs, state dinners, and royal weddings he’d been obliged to attend during the past twenty-some years, he was still more comfortable around beings like Sasso and Ferfer than he was around Senators and princes, the wealthy and influential. Weather-beaten faces and hands callused from hard work; the great outdoors instead of some refresher; food dug from the soil or yanked from the trees instead of factory-produced foodstuffs …

Maybe someday he and Leia would get the chance, he told himself.

Sasso pointed him to his mount, which was known locally as a timbu. Han planted his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself onto the immense saddle. The timbu grunted and
turned his big, floppy-eared head to regard Han through a liquid-black eye.

“Whatever you do, don’t jerk the reins too hard,” he told Leia as she nimbly mounted a smaller timbu.

“Why, what happens?”

“Think about the worst gob of spittle you ever saw a tauntaun launch, then multiply that times ten.”

“Scary.”

“You’ve ridden a timbu before,” Sasso stated rather than asked.