The Unifying Force (42 page)

“There’s no room for neutrality at this stage,” Brand said. “You’re part of the Alliance or you’re against it.”

Gilad Pellaeon broke a brief but uneasy silence.

“I’ve been reluctant to broach this. But Imperial records suggest that former Grand Moff Tarkin once expressed interest in Zonama Sekot, based on rumors that the planet was capable of producing
living
ships.”

Sovv and the others watched Luke.

“Is that the planet’s secret?” the Sullustan asked. “Is Zonama Sekot planning to wage its own war on the Yuuzhan Vong?”

“Zonama Sekot will not produce warships,” Luke said flatly.

Kre’fey gave his head a mournful shake. “Master Skywalker, unless Zonama Sekot’s governing body is at least willing to permit the planet to be employed as a staging area for the assault on Coruscant, it is of no use to us.”

“The … governing body won’t permit that.”

“Then can we at least employ it as a diversion?” Brand asked. “If, as you say, it has already destabilized the Yuuzhan Vong, perhaps we can make it appear more of an actual threat. If the Vong can be induced to attack Zonama Sekot, we may have a clear shot at Coruscant.”

Luke considered it. “It may be willing to do that.”

Kre’fey put his hands flat on the table. “It’s now or never. I’ll grant that attacking Coruscant constitutes a perilous risk, but it’s one we have to take. We can’t afford to be placed on the defensive again. Scatter the fleets, and who knows how many additional systems might fall. We simply don’t have the resources to jump from one to the other each time the enemy launches an attack. Attrition will become our enemy.” He looked at Luke and the others. “I realize that the Yuuzhan Vong are still strong. But battles aren’t always about numbers—as you well know, Master Skywalker, having turned the tide of the Civil War with a couple of well-placed proton torpedoes.”

“I had help with that,” Luke said.

“Are you suggesting that the Force isn’t with us now?” Sovv asked.

“The Force is always with us, Admiral.”

“Then we can rely on your help?” Kre’fey said.

Luke nodded and motioned to the Anx Jedi, Madurrin. “What Jedi we can spare will continue to serve on the bridges of our capital ships, as they did at Ebaq Nine and Mon Calamari.” He was about to add more, when Tycho Celchu suddenly entered the war room.

Before Tycho so much as uttered a word, Luke caught Cilghal’s sharp intake of breath.

“Please forgive the interruption, Admiral Sovv,” the blue-eyed human general said in a low voice. “I regret to inform everyone that my wife, Winter, has just contacted me from Mon Calamari, with news that retired admiral Ackbar has died.”

As she approached Zonama Sekot’s landing platform, Jaina saw that Corran, Kyp, Tekli, Alema, and several of the other Jedi had gathered while she had been off searching for Jacen.

With five seed-partners apiece, Kyp and Saba had bonded with the highest number. Fist-sized, fuzzy white orbs, the seed-partners had attached themselves to Kyp’s robe and Saba’s tunic. Corran had four, while Kyle, Lowbacca, Alema, and the other candidates were hosting only two apiece.

Jabitha had said that Anakin Skywalker had bonded with nine—the highest number
anyone
had ever bonded with. The Magister had also explained that when the seed-partners eventually sloughed their shells they would be able to crawl about on four tiny legs, and issue shrieks and whimpers.

Thinking about it only increased Jaina’s disappointment and confusion.

Zonama Sekot’s air was still a comfortable temperature, though not as warm as it had been when she first arrived. Reuniting with everyone had been wonderful, but after two local-days of swapping stories the inactivity was starting to get to her. She recalled having felt the same on Mon Calamari after her return from Hapes, while Luke had been occupied
matching wits with Vergere, Jacen had been off reef-diving with Danni, and the members of the Smugglers’ Alliance had been busy rigging the election of Cal Omas.

With Coruscant a microjump sunward and a final confrontation with the Yuuzhan Vong looming on the horizon, she wanted more than ever to be back in the cockpit of her X-wing, if only to keep from losing her edge. But Twin Suns One, along with the
Millennium Falcon
, Tesar Sabatyne’s skipray blastboat, and the other starfighters, remained in stationary orbit. That left only the Sekotan shuttle, which was off-limits to her, and the planet’s numerous airships, which were more for sailors than fighter pilots.

She was considering her options, when Jacen stepped from a dense growth of boras.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said. “Where were you—practicing making yourself small or something?”

Jacen emerged from his trance or musings—or daydreams, for all Jaina knew—and gazed at her. “The Force is strong here. The usual methods don’t work.”

“That’s for sure,” she muttered.

Jacen watched her for a moment. “Are you angry about something?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I guess I’m just disappointed.”

Jacen glanced at Kyp and the others and understood immediately. “Because none of the seed-partners bonded with you.”

“What else?” she snapped. “I mean, I’m as good a pilot as Kyp, Saba, or Corran, and they bonded with seed-partners right away. At Mon Calamari, I flew my X-wing into combat with only one engine!”

“Piloting skills have little to do with the bonding process,” Jacen said. “Or with courage, for that matter.”

She forced a sigh. “Great. Then I guess I’m just not as attuned to the Force as they are.”

“You know that isn’t it.” Jacen placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. “It could be that Sekot sees some other purpose for you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Easy for you to say. You didn’t even
try
bonding with the seed-partners.”

The idea appeared to amuse him. “I’m not anything close to a pilot.”

“Yeah, well, neither am I. I’m just the official Sword of the Jedi—whatever that means.” She fell silent for a moment, then said, “Jacen, do the Yuuzhan Vong pose a threat to the Force?”

He shook his head. “They’re a threat to the Jedi, because they’d have all of us embrace their religion and their gods, and see the universe strictly as they see it. But no matter how the war is decided, individuals will continue to find their way to the Force. It’s not a flame the Yuuzhan Vong can extinguish—any more than the Sith could.”

“And you’re still willing to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“In my own way. I’ve learned something about myself since Centerpoint.”

“From Vergere, you mean.”

“From Vergere, from Sekot, from all of you. I’m starting to think that the Force—at least as we understand it—is only one facet of a finely-cut gemstone, and that maybe the sum of it is even greater than its parts.”

Jaina looked over at Kyp and the others. “At least Zonama Sekot is willing to fight alongside us.”

“That will be Sekot’s decision.”

She turned to him. “Based on what? On whose interests the Jedi are serving?”

“We serve the Force,” Jacen said. “None other.”

“Is that justification enough for obliterating the Yuuzhan Vong?”

“No,” he said, seemingly more firmly than he had intended. “They are not outside the Force. According to Sekot, they have been
stripped
of the Force.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jaina said. “But, then, what do you think the Force wants for the Yuuzhan Vong?”

Jacen smiled lightly. “If I knew, we’d have the answer to ending the war.”

“Look at you—cowering like a herd of yanskacs!” the Supreme Overlord railed at the elite from his spike-backed throne in the Citadel’s Hall of Confluence. “On the eve of victory you allow yourselves to be frightened by an illusion—a piece of celestial chicanery!”

Even while cringing with the rest of them, Nom Anor had to give Shimrra credit. Despite the tremors that continued to rock Yuuzhan’tar, and the dangerous innuendoes that threatened to undermine his divine right to rule, the Supreme Overlord refused to be intimidated—if not entirely unmoved. With his long arms jerking about and his legs quivering, he looked like a puppet in a shadow play. Some said that his implanted eyes, too, were rarely still, and were constantly shifting color.

Shimrra raised the Scepter of Power toward the hall’s ribbed ceiling. “Some of you are whispering that the bright light that rises at sunset is an omen of doom—a living world rumored to have been encountered during the rule of my predecessor, whose name I will not deign to mention.
I
am not unacquainted with this rumor. Following my ascension to the throne I dispatched forces to search out this world—this Zonama Sekot—only to be informed that it was not to be found. So I asked myself: had it disappeared? Had Zonama Sekot been destroyed? Or was it nothing more than a lie perpetrated by my predecessor in an attempt to keep us from conquering and occupying what was by gods-given right our entitled domain?”

While Shimrra paused, Onimi circulated among the audience, baiting members of the elite to respond. Much to the displeasure of High Prefect Drathul, Nom Anor had conveyed
Shimrra’s orders to the priests of the temples, enjoining them to devote their attention to Yun-Harla rather than Yun-Yuuzhan or Yun-Yammka. As a result, the royal seers were beside themselves with apprehension—expecting deception and manipulation of the worst sort—and the elite were wondering whether Shimrra’s actions had been undertaken for the benefit of the Yuuzhan Vong or for Shimrra himself.

“I will reveal the truth of it,” the Supreme Overlord said at last. “The bright light is not a trick of the eye. It is in fact the same living world!”

The audience was stunned into even more profound silence, especially Drathul and his coterie of Quoreal supporters. But the pronouncement was every bit as staggering to Nom Anor.

Coming clean was the last thing he had expected Shimrra to do.

“How could the gods allow this?
you ask yourselves,” Shimrra went on in a tone of theatrical melancholy.
“How, after all we have done to provide them with sacrifices and converts, after all we have done to cleanse this galaxy of infidels and heretics, could the gods turn on us?
Again, I will supply the answer: this ill-omened world has been placed in the hands of our enemy as a final test of our worthiness to reign over them—a final test to gauge the strength of the Yuuzhan Vong heart!”

Shimrra pounded the floor with his amphistaff in a demand for silence.

“And yet what a daunting test they have set before us. A weak-minded person—a dissenter or a skeptic—might be tempted to believe that the gods have abandoned us, and that there is no possible way for us to succeed. I have thought long and hard about this. I have prayed, and I have ventured beyond contemplation and entreaty to look deep into our history for answers. And the gods have rewarded my search.”

Shimrra paused again, while a tremor rumbled the Citadel. Then he pointed the scepter to Qelah Kwaad and her adepts.

“The shapers know what I’m referring to when I speak of the eighth cortex. But for you commanders and intendants—even
for some of you priests—I will explain. A cortex contains the protocols for shapings—the protocols that originally guided the hands of our ancestors in creating dovin basals and villips, coralskippers and yammosks. It is not a place but a state of mind. And as one approaches the superlative cortex—the eighth cortex—one comes full circle to the beginnings of the Yuuzhan Vong, to our primordial state of being. And what I found there, after enduring much pain and letting much blood—so much blood that my body howled in torment—was the solution, cast in the form of a simple lesson, such as might be taught to our spawn in the crèches.

“The lesson is this: that when they fashioned the universe—and ultimately the Yuuzhan Vong—the gods dispensed with all inequities by ensuring that the qualities of one creation would always balance the qualities of another. Where a poisonous tree takes root, adjacent to it stands a tree that provides the antidote for the poison. Where there are deserts, there are oases of water. And where the waters are vast, there emerge islands of sand and stone. This is the way of the gods—ensuring balance at every turn. I held this thought in mind when, in the depths of the eighth cortex, I heard a voice utter …”

“The rainbow bridge will appear and disappear,”
Onimi recited from the center of the hall.
“And the gods will make it seem that they are the authors of a great conflict. When the eclipse of the sun will then be, the divine omen will be seen in plain sight. Quite otherwise will one interpret it, for when a menacing stranger appears at the portal, look close at hand for the amphistaff that will send the stranger on its way.”

“A revelation, I told myself.” Shimrra took over. “Clearly from Yun-Harla. So I ordered the temple priests to beseech the goddess for help—to sacrifice to her, and to treat her as if she were Supreme Overlord of the universe. And our supplications have not gone unnoticed, for she has provided us with the solution to the test the gods have placed at our portal.”

Nom Anor could barely keep his features from mirroring his inner state of confoundment. He wasn’t the only person in the Hall of Confluence who knew that the eighth cortex
was nothing more than a pretense—empty as the gravitic yield of a dovin basal. So what was Shimrra doing, conjuring revelations from nonexistent protocols? Obviously he had concocted the riddle and its resolution, but to what end?

Once more, the elite had to wait, while a more powerful quake shook the Citadel, causing yorik coral dust to rain from the vaulted ceiling, high overhead.

“The solution has only just been delivered to Yuuzhan’tar,” Shimrra said. “Delivered in the form of a stricken space vessel and its crew of afflicted slayers and a dying shaper. On a remote and insignificant world known as Caluula, the vessel and its passengers fell prey to a virulent chemical agent created by our enemy and released in the hope of destroying all things Yuuzhan Vong—from myself down to the simplest of our creations.

“The chemical agent might have done just that, had it not been for the acuity of the shaper, the unconventional actions of his valorous crew of warriors, and the perceptiveness of your Supreme Overlord, who ordered that the vessel be kept from setting down on Yuuzhan’tar, or coming in contact with any other vessels.