The Unifying Force (52 page)

“Would it matter?”

She gripped her hands on his upper arms. “You promised me on Zonama Sekot that both of us have a lot more living to do.”

He smiled and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingertips. “You think I’d drop you into the midst of all this to make you a widow—or me a widower?”

She shook her head. “That’s not your style.”

“Then go with them.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “Not because I want to. But because I trust you.”

Airborne at the extreme edge of the tempest that was lashing the northern quarter of the sacred precinct, the
Falcon
banked toward the former Legislative District. Owing to the toughness of its honeycomb and crumple zone engineering, the Senate itself had survived the Yuuzhan Vong barrage, but now the famed edifice was covered by the half-kilometer-high hemisphere that sheltered the World Brain.

“No mystery why we’re not taking flak from plasma emplacements,” Han said, as he and Leia powered the freighter through a reconnaissance fly-by. “Nothing short of a planet-buster is going to crack that skullcap.”

“The yorik coral has enzymatically digested and absorbed the Senate’s duracrete and transparisteel,” Harrar explained from the navigator’s chair. “The constituent materials have been used to fashion a new exoskeleton that goes deep underground and forms an impervious sphere around the dhuryam—the brain.”

C-3PO had a tight grip on the chair next to Harrar’s, and R2-D2 was securely planted behind his counterpart. Cakhmaim was in the dorsal gun turret; Meewalh in the forward compartment.

“How impervious?” Han asked over his shoulder.

“Sufficient to allow the dhuryam to survive an invasion as a self-contained, and possibly self-propelled, vessel—similar to that which constitutes the crown of the Citadel.”

“An escape pod,” Leia said.

“But massive,” Harrar elaborated. “Capable not only of preserving the dhuryam—with all its engineered genetics and learned skills—but also of preserving the lives of any who happen to be in the Well when the sphere launches.”

“Oh, my,” C-3PO remarked.

R2-D2 seconded the protocol droid’s stupefaction with a long whistle.

Han growled and rubbed his head. “So how are we supposed to get inside the thing, if you’re telling me that bombs can’t?”

Harrar leaned toward the viewport. “Complete your overflight. Let us see if we can’t locate the entrance to the secret passageway Jacen and Vergere used to escape from the Well.”

As Han banked the
Falcon
to the west, Leia gazed at the sprawl of vegetation-clad structures below, then pointed toward the extreme southwest projection of the dome. “Borsk Fey’lya’s office would have been right about there.”

Han sighted down her finger. “Right there, buried under who knows how many tons of yorik coral.”

Leia glanced at him. “I guess the dome has spread out since Jacen was here.”

“You could say that.”

“An unexpected turn of events,” Harrar said.

Han growled. “I’m getting tired of surprises. There has to be another way in.”

“Perhaps the front door,” C-3PO said.

“Yeah, we’ll just go up and knock,” Han said. “Isn’t that how you got yourself into Jabba’s palace?”

“Actually, Captain Solo—”

“The front entrance may prove problematic,” Harrar interrupted. “Continue your circle, and I’ll show you why.”

Lit from within by explosions and flashes of lightning, the northern horizon was a towering anvil of black clouds. Han veered east around the two-kilometer-wide dome, and a long elongated tunnel came into view, protruding from the dome. The hemispherical corridor appeared to be made of the interwoven branches of thousands of slender trees.

“The hedge maze,” Harrar said. “The ceremonial avenue that leads to the atrium of the Well.”

Han laughed. “A walk in the park. Unless you’re going to tell me a hedge is impervious to weapons.”

“The hedge is not only as solid and fire resistant as your durasteel, but the trees that comprise it are studded with needle-sharp thorns that range in size from that of your thumbnail to that of your arm. The thorns contain a neurotoxin potent enough to devastate the nervous system of any creature hapless enough to be pricked by them.”

Han tightened his lips in frustration. “I say we see how it handles a couple of concussion missiles.”

“A waste of armament,” Harrar said. “Any damage the missiles render, the dhuryam will quickly repair.”

“Yeah, well, since you’re so smart, you think of a plan to get us inside.”

“I already have. How wide is your craft, Han Solo?”

“Twenty-five meters, give or take. Why?”

Harrar took a breath. “A tight fit. But given your piloting skills I think it can be done.”

Leia swiveled her chair around to face him. “You think what can be done?”

“A flight through the hedge tunnel, directly to the entry portal.”

Leia’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“Princess Leia is correct,” C-3PO said as R2-D2 was mewling. “Please confirm that your statement was in jest.”

A slow grin took shape on Han’s face. “He’s serious—and he’s right.” He looked at Leia. “We can do it.”

Leia started to speak, but swallowed whatever she had in mind to say and began again. “Well, you said he’d think of something, and I guess he has.”

Han patted her left arm with affection. “Better tighten up your crash webbing. You, too, Goldenrod.”

C-3PO canted his head in apprehension. “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d prefer to adjourn to the forward compartment with Artoo.”

“Suit yourself. But be quick about it.”

Han brought the headset mike close to his mouth. “Cakhmaim, get yourself to the forward cabin space with Meewalh.”

He sent the
Falcon
into a broad circle, from which they emerged staring directly down the throat of the hedge tunnel.

“You’re sure about this,” Leia said while Han was flipping switches on the console.

“No. But luckily we don’t have time to think about it.”

Han dropped the freighter lower and accelerated. The thorned half circle of mouth grew larger and larger in the viewport. Reflexively, Leia leaned back in her chair and clamped her hands on the armrests.

“Hang on,” Han said. “Hang on …”

And suddenly they were inside the maze.

But the
Falcon
wasn’t even all the way through the opening when the three of them realized that the ride was going to be worse than they had imagined. The resilient knitted branches knocked the ship harshly from one side to the other. The
Falcon
rattled and shuddered, in danger of being spun completely around. The longest of the thorns drew prolonged and deafening screeches from the hull. External components groaned and squealed as they were ripped away—cowlings, rectenna, fuel-driver pressure stabilizers … And ahead of them, the throat of the hedge maze was closing—narrowing as they watched.

“Fire the concussion missiles!” Han said.

Leia squeezed the trigger, sending one pair, then another streaking down the tunnel, tearing through the thorns and branches and ultimately exploding against whatever constituted the entrance to the dome.

“Angle the deflectors!”

Leia raised the forward shields as a boiling torrent of fire and debris came back at them, washing over the
Falcon
, stripping away more parts, and scoring and scorching the hull plates.

Then, suddenly, the ship broke through to a broad, wedge-shaped causeway formed by the limbs of great trees, whose leaf-bearing branches—now aflame—tangled toward the sky on either side. The foot of the causeway was a hundred meters high, but it tapered to an arrowhead as it rose, forming a thorn-hedged ramp whose point touched the massive, ruined hatch sphincter that had long ago enveloped the Great Door of the Senate.

Han fought to keep the ship stabilized as it skidded across the former plaza and raced into the second stretch of hedge. But the durasteel-hard branches prevailed, slowing, then snagging the spasming ship. Stalled, the
Falcon
came to a final rest angled to one side and ten meters from the missile-damaged entrance. While two of the landing disks were in touch with the paving stones, the entire port side of the ship was upended and held fast by the interlocked branches.

“Guess this is as far as we go,” Han said, staring straight ahead, with his hands still clenched on the control yoke.

Leia blew out her breath and swallowed hard. “Nothing like a quiet arrival.”

She, Han, and Harrar freed themselves from the chairs and staggered into the ring corridor, which was strewn with objects that had found their way there from all over the ship.

“We’ll clean up later,” Leia said.

Han uttered a laugh. “We could have Threepio do it.”

“I was hoping you would say just that, sir,” the droid said, as he, R2-D2, and the two Noghri appeared from the forward compartment, leaning against the corridor’s curving walls for support. “That would be a delightful chore.”

R2-D2 began to twitter and toodle in protest.

“We’ll have no complaints from you, Artoo. If Captain Solo wants us to remain on the ship rather than accompany him into the Well of the World Brain, the least we can do is—”

R2-D2 razzed loudly.

C-3PO straightened in a huff. “Never satisfied.”

“All right, you two, quit arguing,” Han said. “Forget the mess. Just keep the ship warmed up and stick close to the comlink.”

Han extended the landing ramp, which didn’t drop far before hitting solid ground.

“Once we are inside the Well, we will be safe from ambushes by warriors,” Harrar said. “But whatever you do between here and there, Han Solo, you must not kill the shaper. We will need his or her scent markers to get us safely into the Well. I know certain things about the brain, but not enough to incapacitate it.”

Han passed out thermal charges to the Noghri, then clipped two onto his own belt. “Just in case we have any trouble persuading it to surrender.”

Leia activated her lightsaber and narrowed her eyes. “And I promised I’d never set foot in the Senate again.”

Han nodded at her. “We’ve all had to break promises we made to ourselves.”

The five of them hurried down the angled ramp and through the slowly sealing breach the concussion missiles had blown in the thick hatch sphincter. The hideously torn membrane opened onto a vast, dimly lit cavern of yorik coral. Han scarcely had time to look around, when fifty or
more warriors armed with amphistaffs poured from a narrow corridor in the curved wall opposite the hatch.

Someone shouted commands in Yuuzhan Vong that needed no translation.

A flock of whizzing bugs and hurled amphistaffs flew for the
Falcon
’s company.

“I thought you said there wouldn’t be warriors inside the Well!” Han yelled as he and the Noghri were ducking and triggering blaster rounds.

“This isn’t the Well,” the priest said. “This is merely the atrium!”

Batting aside thud and razor bugs, Leia led the retreat. They backed through the iris hatch, firing at their pursuers without aiming. Stumbling into the plaza, they raced for the
Falcon
, only to find her completely enclosed by the thorned hedge.

Despite the impetus that the Prophet’s rallying cry had given the heretics, the counteroffensive was not going well. Caught in a violent storm, the Shamed Ones and their newfound allies were being sliced to pieces by coufees, knocked unconscious by thud bugs, slashed and split by amphistaffs. Nom Anor himself was bloodied, slipping on hailstones and his own black flow as he fought with coufee in one hand, amphistaff in the other. The now-drenched throng of would-be insurgents had managed to fight their way out of the Place of Hierarchy, but Shimrra’s avengers were attempting to herd them toward the Place of Bones. If the warriors succeeded in trapping them in the sunken amphitheater, there would be no escape, no hope.

Nom Anor was trading strikes and stabs with a warrior a head taller than himself when he heard the clamor of running feet and raised voices. When the warrior turned in the direction of the commotion, Nom Anor availed himself of the moment of distraction to send the point of his amphistaff through his opponent’s right eye. All around him other warriors were beginning to add their voices to the tumult and to press the attack.

Reinforcements, Nom Anor told himself bitterly.

The heretics would be lucky now if they even made it to the Place of Bones. Unexpectedly, though, the war cries of the Citadel guard began to fade, and the crowd was pushed back toward the Place of Hierarchy. It was the heretics who were being reinforced!

Nom Anor was suddenly inflamed.

If every cell of Shamed Ones could find the courage to rise up, there was a chance, though slim, that the heretics would yet win the day. His conviction surged as the reports of stun and flash grenades began to echo and rebound from the walls of the temples and the dormitories of the intendants. Hundreds were instantly flattened to the saturated ground. Then blaster bolts rang out.

Resistance fighters and Alliance commandos!
Nom Anor realized.

It was the
warriors
who were trapped!

Nom Anor charged into the brawl, slashing throats and hamstrings. Overwhelmed, the warriors fought brutally and valiantly, but more and more of them were falling and being trampled underfoot. Nom Anor was in the thick of things when new sounds drew his attention and he froze in surprise and dread.

Snap-hiss! Thrummm …

He risked a sideways glance to discover three Jedi, parrying and slashing with their lightsabers. Worse, one of them was Mara Jade Skywalker. The very Jedi who had fallen victim to Nom Anor’s coomb spores so long ago, now fighting all but alongside of him. Not far away from the red-golden-haired Skywalker was Tahiri Veila, the Jedi who had almost been shaped into a Yuuzhan Vong, and with whom Nom Anor had fought and escaped from on Zonama Sekot. And beside Tahiri, a tall, older male Jedi whom Nom Anor didn’t recognize.

He tried to conceal himself by wading deeper into the battle, but the conflict was too frenzied for him to make any headway. He began to angle toward the northwest entrance to the Place of Hierarchy, but there, too, he was rapidly hemmed in by clashing warriors and heretics. No matter which direction he attempted to move, he wound up being pushed inexorably closer to the two Jedi women.