The Unifying Force (64 page)

Immediately the vessel spasmed, as if it had been struck by turbolaser fire, or had in fact sustained a kind of stroke. Color and warmth drained from the living console, and the instruments took on an arthritic look. Cognition hoods and villips grew desiccated. Blaze bugs fell out of formation and died on the floor of their niche. Coral fractured, and the already scant green light faded. With its dovin basal dying, the vessel almost succumbed to a last grab by Coruscant; then it lurched forward once more, aimed resolutely for the heart of the battle.

When Leia finally came back to herself, Jacen had lifted Jaina from the horns on which she had been suspended, and was cradling her in his arms.

“You wouldn’t let me help you,” she said.

Jacen comforted her with a smile. “I needed you to help yourself.”

Nom Anor watched in awe as Onimi disappeared into the deck of the bridge, his body dissolved by whatever corrosive poisons he had fabricated to use against Jacen Solo. Death had come to the Shamed One who had brought shaper Nen Yim to Coruscant; the Shamed One whom Nom Anor had once followed to a secret shaper grashal; the Shamed One
who had sat at the feet of Shimrra, and whose rhymes had been a constant irritant to the elite.

The Shamed One who had tricked everyone into believing that Shimrra was the Supreme Overlord.

The Supreme Overlord who was now dead.

Nom Anor stared at the discoloration that had been Onimi. Even if he lived to tell it, would anyone believe his tale? Would the Jedi be willing to corroborate it?

A prolonged paroxysm from the vessel snapped him back into awareness of his perilous dilemma. His real eye darted from the Jedi twins to their parents. There was still time to render them unconscious where they stood, then pilot Onimi’s vessel to rendezvous with whatever was left of Nas Choka’s mighty armada—

But perhaps not.

Jacen Solo was as dangerous a foe as could be imagined. What’s more, Onimi’s vessel, though roused from stasis, might not respond to Nom Anor. If he was to escape with his life, he needed a more foolproof plan.

The solution presented itself when the vessel lurched again, and the controls began to surrender their suppleness.

“Onimi was wedded to this ship,” he said in a rush. “With his death, it has begun to die, and we will perish with it.”

When Jacen nodded in confirmation, Jaina said, “Mara is searching for us.”

Han rushed to the console and peered through the blister transparency. “Then the
Falcon
’s, gotta be out there somewhere.” He turned to Nom Anor. “I’ve seen Yuuzhan Vong evacuate their ships, wearing those gnullith masks—”

“There’s a better way.” Nom Anor cut him off. “This vessel is equipped with a yorik-trema. What you call a ‘crate’—a landing craft.”

Han showed him a long-suffering look. “What, you were waiting for me to
ask?”

Quickly, Nom Anor led the Solo family out of the bridge and through a bewildering maze of corridors, whose throbbing walls were already showing signs of imminent collapse. The palm of his right hand opened lock after dilating lock, allowing them to weave their way clear across the vessel to
the port-side bulkhead, and ultimately into a small grotto, equipped with a semicircular array of locks.

Nom Anor opened what appeared to be the most exterior of the locks, and gestured everyone inside. “Get settled, while I arm the launch organ!”

Han clasped his left arm around his daughter’s waist and started for the lock. But Jacen stopped him.

“This doesn’t lead to the yorik-trema.” He turned slightly and pointed to the innermost lock. “That’s the correct one.”

Jaina glanced around the grotto. “Jacen’s right.” She nodded to the lock Nom Anor had opened. “It leads to a waste disposal area.”

Jacen regarded Nom Anor. “Once you had sealed us inside, you would have been able to pilot the landing craft to safety.” Disappointment tugged at his features. “And yet despite your attempt at treachery we owe you our lives, because I doubt I would have been able to find my way to this grotto.”

Nom Anor glanced from the first lock to the second, then forced a relieved sigh. “Thank you for catching my error, Jacen Solo. What with leading the Shamed Ones in rebellion and witnessing Onimi’s death, I was momentarily confused—”

Han drew his blaster. “Save it.”

Nom Anor raised his hands in surrender. “It was an innocent mistake! Now isn’t the time to argue!” He risked a step toward Han. “We must board the escape craft before this vessel—”

Nom Anor lunged forward.

“His eye!” Jaina yelled.

Poison spewed from the plaeryin bol. Han was too encumbered to twist himself or Jaina out of its path. In a blur, Jacen interposed himself between Nom Anor and his father, and took the lethal gush full in the face.

Even better than hoped for!
Nom Anor thought. With Jacen out of the way, he could easily incapacitate the others. With his right hand, he reached for the little finger of his left. At the same time, he steeled himself for a dash across the grotto. It would take a moment for the knockout gas released by the false digit to reach full effect, and that moment constituted all the time he had to reach the escape craft lock and seal it behind him.

In the instant his hands met, he heard the
snap-hiss
of a lightsaber.

And in the interminable instant that followed, he watched Leia’s energy blade sever his left hand at the wrist, and watched himself falling to his knees in shock and searing pain. Worse, it was
Jacen
who came to his side, weakened by the plaeryin bol’s venom, but very much alive.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” the young Jedi said.

Nom Anor clasped his stump of forearm in his right hand. “Didn’t it,
Jeedai
?” He smirked. “Even if words from you kept me from execution or life imprisonment, what course was left to me? Just as my atheism renders me unfit for Yuuzhan Vong society, my utter contempt for the Force makes me unfit to live among any species that recognize it. I’ve been a stranger to all worlds. Even Yu’shaa, leader of the Shamed Ones, was just another role for me—another lie.” A rueful laugh escaped him. “Ooglith masquers can’t hide everything,
Jeedai.”

On the other side of the grotto, Jaina was pressing her hand against the lock’s sensor organ, to no apparent effect.

“It responds only to the flesh of Yuuzhan Vong,” Nom Anor said. He felt Jacen’s eyes on him.

“Then we’ll use your severed hand,” Jacen said.

Nom Anor blew out his breath and rose to his feet. Crossing the grotto, he pressed the palm of his right hand to the bulkhead sensor. “Get inside,” he said when the lock dilated. “The landing craft will scarcely outlive the vessel that birthed it.”

Han and Leia helped their daughter into the yorik-trema; then Han reappeared, blaster in hand, to usher his son aboard. He stood at the lock for a long moment, coming to his own decision. Nom Anor watched Han’s jaw bunch with fury, then relax. In the end, Han lowered his blaster and gestured for Nom Anor to enter the craft.

Instead, Nom Anor took a backward step and shook his head. “If I’m clear on one point, it’s this: I want no part of whatever new order is in the making. I will die here with Onimi, for we have been two of a kind from the start.”

With that, he shoved Han back through the lock and pressed his right hand to the bulkhead, launching the craft into space.

*  *  *

Nas Choka paced back and forth in front of
Yammka
’s transparency, his troubled gaze fixed on Shimrra’s vessel as it climbed out of Yuuzhan’tar’s reach in fits and starts.

“Ralroost
wallows in our sights,” the tactician reported.

“Shimrra approaches,” the Supreme Commander said from beneath his cognition hood, “though he still refrains from communicating with us.”

Nas Choka traded glances with the tactician before replying. “Give him time.”

He had no sooner swung back to the transparency to track the vessel’s course than it began to stutter in flight and enter into an end-over-end roll.

“The dovin basal has failed!” the commander shouted. “The vessel is dismembering!”

Nas Choka wanted to tear his eyes away but couldn’t. Atmosphere and other gases were beginning to puff and stream from fractures in the vessel’s hull. Fluids leaked from the dovin basal blastulas, trailing behind like frozen streamers. Vital components shut down and went spinning off into space. Broadening and deepening, the fissures joined, creating a network of cracks, from which hunks of yorik coral began to tumble. Then, just at the leading edge of the planetary flotilla, Shimrra’s coffer exploded, sundering like a disintegrated planet and loosing a shock wave that crippled countless war vessels before it dispersed.

A fearful silence descended on
Yammka
’s, command chamber. For a long moment, Nas Choka could only gape in incredulity at what had occurred. Never in their long history had the Yuuzhan Vong been without a Supreme Overlord—their holy intercessor. Despite the success at Zonama Sekot, the armada was
nothing
without Shimrra. They had been cut off from the divine, deprived of any means of appealing to Yun-Yuuzhan or Yun-Yammka for guidance or support.

What had lighted the Yuuzhan Vong universe had been extinguished. Truly the gods had abandoned the Yuuzhan Vong and allied with the infidels. They had withdrawn their guardianship of Shimrra, and the Yuuzhan Vong had become Shamed Ones—rejected, passed over, a hopeless godless species.

Defeated!

Nas Choka could feel the expectant gazes of his commanders and subalterns. He grasped the question implied by every look—the question every Yuuzhan Vong on or off Coruscant was asking:
Is there purpose to fighting to the death without any hope for salvation in the afterlife?

Nas Choka martialed his pride and moved to the villipchoir. “All Supreme Commanders,” he told the villip mistress; then, when the villips had taken on the likenesses of his chief subordinates, he said: “The war is ended. We are defeated by the gods and by their allies. Though they have abandoned us, we will suffer our defeat with honor, because it is what the gods would expect. But any of you who wish to follow the Supreme Overlord’s example and die as warriors may do so; just as any of you who wish to commit ritual death may do so. Those who choose neither will join me in accepting the shame of surrender, and finding what nobility we can in capture and graceless execution.

“Rrush’hok ichnar vinim’hok!”

Even while the vessel’s Supreme Commander, chief tactician, and priest were opening themselves with coufees, Nas Choka moved back to the transparency. Across the entire embattled face of Yuuzhan’tar—of
Coruscant
—coralskippers, pickets, and cruisers were veering into collision courses with Alliance ships.

Errant Venture
hung over Zonama Sekot like a freshly forged spearpoint, her blazing turbolasers providing cover fire for the modified shuttles, yachts, and blockade runners that plummeted from the forward launching bay. On detecting the smugglers’ ships, the coralskippers that had been harassing the Star Destroyer regrouped and set after what must have seemed like more assailable prey.

Lady Luck
had been first out of the bay, with
Wild Karrde
close behind. In the cockpit of the SoroSuub yacht, Lando and Tendra were busy at separate tasks when Talon commed them.

“Two skips on your starboard,” he warned.

“Got ’em,” Lando said into his headset mike. He nodded for Tendra to raise the yacht’s rear deflector screen.

“If you two would allow me the honor …”

“No need to stand on ceremony, Talon.”

Lando pushed the control yoke away from him, dropping
Lady Luck
into Zonama Sekot’s gravity well. The ship bucked and began to vibrate as the atmosphere thickened. Tendra called a starboard view to the console displays in time to see angry bursts of laserfire spew from the Corellian transport’s triple batteries. Struck full force, the lead coralskipper farthest from
Lady Luck
crumbled. The second skip slewed hard to port in an effort to come alongside the yacht, but
Wild Karrde
’s, follow-up bursts caught the enemy vessel while it was still outside the yacht’s shields, and it, too, disintegrated.

“We owe you one,” Lando said.

“Actually, that’s two,” Talon replied. “But who’s counting?”

Tendra eased the angle of the yacht’s descent and set a course for the Middle Distance. By approaching from the east, they could avoid the hail of plasma missiles that were pounding the central canyon. The adjusted course took
Lady Luck, Wild Karrde
, and some of the other rescue craft almost directly beneath
Jade Shadow
. While it remained in stationary orbit, Mara’s ship had sustained heavy damage.

Below, youthful mountains poked from opaque white clouds, their flanks and foothills cloaked with unspoiled boras. To the west the forest was interrupted by expanses of grasslands. Where those ended, the virgin terrain undulated, rose again to lofty heights, then angled down toward the central canyon, which was blanketed in layers of thick smoke.

Toning proximity alarms told Lando and Tendra that
Lady Luck
had attracted the attention of some of the coralskippers that were strafing the canyon and surrounding woodlands. Four skips were already climbing out of the smoke to welcome the yacht to the fight.

“Talon, we might need your help again,” Lando started to say when two of the coralskippers were cracked open and knocked out of the sky by laserfire. The trailing pair deployed singularities, but the shields bought them mere moments of refuge before proton torpedoes blew them apart.

An instant later, two red X-wings streaked past
Lady Luck
from astern, banking broadly to the south before coming about to assume the same approach vector the smugglers were taking. Lando opened a channel to the starfighters.

“Thanks from
Lady Luck
for clearing the way.”

“Red Two at your service,” a familiar voice responded.

“Wedge!” Lando said around a broad grin. “How much grease did it take to get you installed in that snubfighter?”