Chapter 21

A nasal Bith voice keened in anguish somewhere in the middle of the Exquisite Death's frigid hold, and Jaina knew Ulaha was in the jaws of the voxyn again. Like the rest of the strike team, Jaina sat facing a wall of red yorik coral, bent uncomfortably forward with her elbows between her knees, her ankles and wrists fastened to the floor by gummy masses of blorash jelly. She was barely clothed and filthy and in too much pain to care, though she did wish it were not so cold. She was shivering, and shivering made everything hurt more.

Ulaha screamed again, and Alema Rar, sitting next to Jaina in much the same condition, mumbled something through swollen lips. Jaina, who was having trouble collecting her thoughts after the voxyn screeched in her face, recalled something about teamwork and opened her emotions to her companions. Immediately, she felt Jacen weaving them into a single entity, calling upon their mutual confidence and fellowship to lend strength to their suffering comrade.

Though everyone except Ganner - who was being held somewhere else in the mistaken belief that he was the group's leader - had faced the breaking at least once, Duman Yaght kept returning to Ulaha, allowing the Bith just enough time to drop into a Jedi healing trance before awakening her to begin again. Poor Ulaha had been to the center of the hold so many times that the others were attempting to prolong their own sessions to buy time for the Bith to recover. Jaina recalled dimly that she had managed only one answer before an angry Duman Yaght pushed her at the creature's face, drawing the compressed-wave screech that had blasted her into unconsciousness.

When Ulaha's cries grew quiet, Duman Yaght said, "Growing accustomed to the drool, are we, Bighead?" His favorite torture was to place Ulaha's wound beneath the voxyn's acid-slavering jaws. "We shall have to try something new."

Ulaha screamed. Jaina struggled to look over her shoulder, but could turn only far enough to see Anakin, Jacen, and several others straining to do the same. For her, that was the worst part of the breaking, the listening to friends scream without knowing what was happening to them. She felt Jacen drawing upon her concern to reinforce the Bith. Ulaha's scream grew a little less visceral, and Duman Yaght sensed the change. He always sensed the change.

"You don't have to tell me where to find the Jeedai base," the Yuuzhan Vong said. "Just admit there is one."

Ulaha's scream returned to its anguished pitch, and this time Jacen seemed unable to relieve the Bith's distress. Jaina looked to her other side, where Eryl Besa sat stiff-bodied and wide-eyed, the victim of a neural tail shock - a voxyn attack form they had not known about until Duman Yaght suggested that Eryl experience it. After a moment, Jaina finally caught the other woman's eye and raised her brow.

Eryl frowned in puzzlement, then seemed to understand and shook her head. The daughter of a fanatic space racer, Eryl had been conceived and born on a long cross-galaxy run, then spent most of her childhood speeding up and down the mapped arms of the galaxy. Somewhere along the way, she had developed the ability to tell by the texture of the Force where she was in the galaxy at any given moment. It was her job to alert Anakin once they were safely behind Yuuzhan Vong lines, where they would be far less likely to run into space mines and curious picket ships. Unfortunately, it was taking longer to cross the war zone than anyone expected - perhaps, Jaina suspected, because Duman Yaght hoped to make a name for himself by returning to his masters with the location of the Jedi base.

"What harm is there in admitting it?" Duman Yaght asked. "The Yuuzhan Vong already know of its existence. Just admit what we know already, and you can rest. You can go into your healing sleep."

"There ... is ... no base ..."

"No, don't lie." Duman Yaght's voice remained as eerily calm as always. "Give me your hand. I want to tell you about the neuropoison."

An involuntary whistle of terror escaped Ulaha's nasal cavities, but she said nothing. Jaina imagined the commander holding the Bith's hand over the sensory bristles along the voxyn's back, for Cilghal had detected a powerful neurotoxin coating the spines. There would be an antidote in the equipment pod, but it was as untested as the rest of the inoculations and antivenins she and Tekli had administered before the strike team's departure.

"Your skin is so thin, and the tiniest puncture will inject the poison," Duman Yaght said. "Our shapers claim the effect is not the same on all species. Some fall into convulsions and sink into an endless sleep of pain. Others weaken over many hours, slowly growing so feeble they can no longer breathe or swallow. Some drown in their own saliva."

In the silence that followed, Ulaha's pain and fear grew heavy in the Force. Jaina opened herself to both sensations, hoping to ease her comrade's burden by taking some upon herself, but she was too frightened to be of much help. Bith had only one lung, and the coufee attack aboard the Lady Luck had pierced Ulaha's. If she had to fight a neurotoxin, as well ... Jaina wanted her to admit the existence of Eclipse. She couldn't help it; she just did not want to see Ulaha die.

No sooner had she given thought to this emotion than she felt a flood of similar feelings from the others. Jaina knew that persuading Ulaha to admit the planet's existence was only the first step of the breaking, but what harm was there, really? The strike team would be seizing the ship soon, and at least Ulaha would still be alive. She felt a flash of alarm from Alema and a certain bewilderment from the Barabels, but there was no doubting the general feeling of the group. They agreed.

"Bighead, you must think carefully before you answer," Duman Yaght said. "This may be your last chance. Is there a Jeedai base?"

Tell him! Jaina wanted to scream.

"You know ... the answer," Ulaha gasped.

"I am sorry, Bighead. That is not good enough."

Say it!

"Yes!" Ulaha cried.

The group let out an emotional sigh of relief, but now Alema seemed worried and the Barabels sad.

"Yes what?" Duman demanded.

"Yes, there is a Jedi base," Jaina said, yelling into the wall. "She admitted it! Now let her rest."

"Jaina, be quiet!" Alema hissed. "He's trying to break -"

The admonishment was interrupted by a hollow crack, and Jaina looked over to see a Yuuzhan Vong warrior holding the butt of an amphistaff over the Twi'lek's unconscious form. There was a surge of anger from the other Jedi, but Jaina felt only guilt. It had been her outburst that prompted Alema to speak without permission.

Duman Yaght said something in his own language, and the guard tossed a small button-shaped beetle on the floor beside each of Jaina's wrists and ankles. The blorash jelly released its adhesive hold on her flesh and slid away to encase the struggling insects. The guard jerked Jaina to her feet and spun her toward the center of the room, where the commander stood holding Ulaha's hand over the voxyn's sensory bristles. The Bith's normally pale skin had gone translucent with blood loss, and she was so weak that a Yuuzhan Vong warrior had to hold her up. The rest of the strike team sat along the edge of the small hold, partially clothed, filthy, and facing the walls. Only Ganner, whose presence they sometimes sensed forward and sometimes not at all, was absent.

Duman Yaght studied Jaina, then asked, "You think I do not keep my word?"

Jaina fixed her eye on Ulaha's hand. "That remains to be seen."

The commander seemed confused by her challenging tone, then recovered and smirked. "Very well. You are the one in control here."

He said something to the guard holding Ulaha, who returned the injured Jedi to her place next to Tekli, laying the Bith on her back instead of the uncomfortable sitting position in which everyone else was bound.

"The Bith may rest and heal." Duman Yaght smiled at Jaina. "And you will determine how long."

Jaina began to feel sick and frightened, but forced herself to raise her head and step forward without being summoned. Warm feelings of encouragement and confidence flooded into her as the others reached out to prepare her for the breaking. She felt fairly confident that Duman Yaght would not let the voxyn kill her - he had already bragged to her about the place he had been promised at the Great Sacrifice - so she saw every reason to think that with her companions supporting her, she could buy Ulaha enough time to enter a healing trance and stabilize her wounded lung.

But Jaina's confidence was not enough to keep her from trembling as she approached. Only the strength flowing to her through the Force had prevented her from wailing like an infant the first time Duman Yaght tried to break her, and this time would be worse - much worse. The commander could not allow her to challenge him and succeed, and there were so many ways he could hurt her without killing her, so many things to remove or disfigure or break.

A fresh surge of confidence buoyed Jaina up as Jacen relayed Anakin's resolve to keep her healthy, Zekk's admiration of her bravery, Ulaha's weary gratitude, Tekli's calm assurance that all of their injuries could be repaired. She stopped before Duman Yaght and looked up into his face.

"I hope you don't expect me to thank you."

He soured her stomach by clasping the back of her neck. "No need."

He guided her to the voxyn's head. Though the creature's malicious hunger rippled through the Force with a carnal urgency, the thing seemed very much the master of its instincts, quivering with excitement, yet keeping its yellow eyes fixed on its master to await his command. Duman Yaght paused a meter from its jaws, turning Jaina to watch the beads of sour-smelling drool as they dripped from the voxyn's fangs and landed, smoking, on the floor. Jaina swallowed; her back was covered with thumb-sized circles where the drops had fallen the time before. She started to kneel.

Duman Yaght's hand tightened, holding her up. "That is not what I was thinking." He guided her past the voxyn to the wall where her brothers sat affixed to the floor. "Choose."

"What?" Jaina felt the shock of his demand not only in the hollowness of her own stomach, but in the stunned outrage coming to her through the Force. "Choose what?"

"You are the one in control, Jaina Solo. Who will be next?" He kicked first Anakin in the kidneys, then Jacen. "Your brother, or your twin?"

"They're both my brothers." In Jaina's shock, it registered only vaguely that Duman Yaght now realized her relationship to Jacen. "And I choose neither. I choose me."

Duman Yaght shook his head. "That is not your choice. You must choose Anakin or Jacen." Again, he kicked them, drawing involuntary groans from both. "Choose one, or I will be forced to return Ulaha to the breaking. The warmaster knows of her wound, so no one will think anything of it should she happen to die. You are the master now, Jaina Solo."

Jaina felt a surge of anger and would have whirled on Duman Yaght to attack, had a flash of alarm from her brothers not brought her up short. Each wanted to be the one chosen - she would have felt that much from her brothers even without the group's emotional bond - and her tie to Jacen went farther yet. She could sense that for him it was more than a matter of being noble, that he had good reason to believe himself the best choice. Jaina suspected those reasons included the fact that Anakin would need a clear head when the time came to escape - it had to be soon, she hoped - but she could not be certain; even the bond between the twins was not strong enough to share complete thoughts.

"Your choice?" Duman Yaght demanded.

"You can't ask that," Jaina said. She told herself that as facilitator of the battle meld, Jacen was just as important as Anakin, but the truth was that she could not bring herself to harm either one. Though Anakin was a war hero and leader to everyone else, he would always be a little brother to her - someone to look after, protect, keep out of trouble. And Jacen had always been her best friend, the person who understood her when she did not understand herself, the presence that enveloped her like a second skin. How could she send either of them? She looked away from Duman Yaght. "I can't choose."

"No?" His hand tightened on the back of her neck, and he started to pull her away. "A pity for the Bith, then."

Anakin craned his head around. "Jaina, you can choose." The weight of the Force was behind his words, not as much to compel her as to make clear that this was an order. "You can choose me."

Jaina's connection to the others diminished as Jacen withdrew into himself. He looked toward their younger brother.

"Anakin -"

"Be quiet, Jacen." Anakin continued to stare at Jaina. "Choose."

Duman Yaght looked at her expectantly. "The Bith will probably die anyway, you know."

Jaina closed her eyes. "Anakin," she said. "Take Anakin."

Duman Yaght nodded to the guard standing behind her brothers, then said something to another standing beside one of the gelatinous membranes that covered the hold doorways. The warrior tickled the membrane until it drew aside, then disappeared into the next room with a thin smile of anticipation.

Instead of returning Jaina to her place on the wall, Duman Yaght forced her to stand beside him as Anakin was secured to the floor facedown. The commander summoned his pet forward and began to give orders, and for the next quarter hour Jaina was forced to watch.

Bolstered by the support of the strike team, Anakin never cried out. Eventually even Duman Yaght clucked his tongue in admiration.

"He takes pain well, your brother," the commander said. "Perhaps we try something new, yes?"

He barked a command, and the voxyn held a foot over Anakin's back. The sharp claws were coated in green slime - the medium, Jaina knew, for the retroviruses that flourished in the thing's toe pads.

"Is that fear in your eyes, Jaina Solo?" Duman asked. "Then there is no need to tell you about the fevers. You know what will become of your brother if he is scratched."

"You wouldn't disappoint your priests." As Jaina spoke, she reached out to the others, sharing with them the uncertainty her brave words concealed. The vaccine Cilghal had given them was untested; it might destroy all the diseases or only some, and she was not happy about experimenting with her brother's life. "Not when they have promised you a place at our sacrifices."

"True, but think of my place if I could tell them in which region the Jeedai base is located," Duman Yaght said. "I would be only a few tiers behind the warmaster, close enough so that you could see the gratitude in my eyes."

An overwhelming sense of defiance came to Jaina - Anakin's feelings on the matter, no doubt, as relayed by Jacen.

"You'll just have to watch from the back," Jaina retorted.

Duman Yaght's hand tightened on her neck. "You believe I won't do this?"

He whistled sharply, and the voxyn raked its claw down Anakin's back. Jaina felt a shock through the Force, but somehow her brother still did not scream.

"You overestimate your brother's value," Duman Yaght said. "The priests will be happy as long as I return with you and Jacen. You two are the twins."

He said the word twins as though it were some sort of state secret. There was something there Jaina did not understand, but it hardly mattered. One way or the other, she and Jacen were going to disappoint both Duman Yaght and the priests.

The guard who had been sent out earlier reappeared at the hold door. Duman Yaght had a pair of guards lay a lump of blorash jelly over the voxyn's two rear feet, trapping the creature in place. They moved Anakin well beyond the voxyn's reach and secured him to the floor by a single foot.

This was something new, and Jaina did not like the look of it. "What are you preparing, a stare-down?"

Duman Yaght cracked a smile. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

He nodded to the door guard, who stood aside and stretched the membrane back to admit what looked like a small tree. About the size of a grown Wookiee, the plant had a small but thick crown of foliage. In the center of its trunk was a single knothole with a glassy black orb, which it turned in the commander's direction. Duman Yaght pointed at the center of the hold, and the tree clumped forward on three gnarled root burls.

As the thing approached, the voxyn's forked tongue flickered out to test the air. The sensory bristles rose on its back, then it strained to curl its long body around and look behind it.

The tree was about seven meters away when the voxyn went wild, hissing madly and gouging furrows into the floor as it tried to tear itself free. The creature seemed to have lost all its intelligence, acting more like a mindless beast than the shrewd predator the Jedi had learned to fear.

The tree continued to advance, and two meters later Jaina lost all contact with her companions. She reached out with the Force and felt nothing. Then, as the tree drew nearer and the rest of the strike team struggled to see what was cutting them off from the Force, Jaina glimpsed a lizardlike shape clinging to the back of the tree - no doubt trying to hide itself from the voracious predator clambering to get it.

"An ysalamiri," Jaina said loudly. She was a little puzzled, for ysalamiri usually created a much larger bubble of Force absence. "What are you going to do with that?"

"An interesting question." Duman Yaght nodded to the guard who had brought the walking tree into the room. "Show her."

The guard stepped forward and took the ysalamiri from its perch. The creature's hook-shaped claws tore small chunks of bark out of the trunk, drawing a pained leaf-rustle from the tree. With a crooked ridge of vertebrae running down its gaunt back and red sores flecking its smooth hide, the ysalamiri itself looked half dead. The voxyn was mad to get at it, lunging and flicking its tongue at the wary guard as he laid the thing on Anakin's shoulders.

The ysalamiri slid down behind Anakin's back and held on. The voxyn lunged at its restraints, threatening to pull its rear legs out of socket.

"The shapers cannot understand why, but ysalamiri drive voxyn mad," Duman Yaght said. "The voxyn lose their natural cunning. In experiments similar to this, I have seen them tear off their own legs to get the ysalamiri."

"Your point?"

"You know my point," Duman Yaght said. "Sooner or later, the voxyn will stop trying to eat its problem and kill it."

Jaina could not take her eyes off her brother, now so coated in blood he looked almost clothed. In the equipment pod, there was a way to make the ysalamiri leave the hold, of course, but Anakin and Ganner were the only ones who could activate the war droids and get at it. If they both died, the droids would automatically activate to search for strike team survivors - hardly the way Jaina wanted to deal with the problem of the ysalamiri.

"In what region will we find the Jeedai base?" Duman Yaght asked. "Take all the time you wish to answer. I am in no hurry."

Jaina tore her gaze from Anakin. Now she understood. In dragging Ulaha before the voxyn all those times, Duman Yaght had not been trying to break the Bith. He had been trying to break the rest of the strike team - and Jaina had shown the first crack. Her body did not seem large enough to hold the disappointment she felt in herself. Lando had warned them, and she clearly had not listened.

Without looking at her tormentor, she asked, "You'll release Anakin if I answer?"

"If that is what you wish," Duman Yaght answered. "You are the one controlling things."

"The Core," Jaina answered. Technically, it was true, though the only way to reach it was via a short hyperlane shaving the edge of the Deep Core. "That should come as no surprise."

Duman Yaght nodded. "It confirms what the readers have surmised." He nodded, and Anakin's guard tore the ysalamiri free, then tossed it to the voxyn. "Never deny a killer her reward."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jaina said. As the voxyn gulped down its treat, her contact with the Force returned, and she felt a surge of support from her companions. "What about my brother?"

"Of course. Just tell me who is next."

Jaina's heart fell. She had expected something like this and knew there was only one response. "Me."

"Not possible."

"It's my only answer."

"Then Anakin will stay. Perhaps he will die."

"You said you would release him," Jaina said. "I thought Yuuzhan Vong were honorable."

The blue beneath the commander's eyes grew darker, but he turned to Anakin's guard and nodded. "Return him to his place and bring the Bith."

Jaina sensed a torrent of conflicting emotions from the rest of the strike team. Some seemed frightened for Ulaha, others supportive of her defiance, but Jacen brought one feeling to the fore - Anakin's calmness and determination. He had a plan; Jaina had no idea what, but just knowing that much gave her the strength to remain silent.

Three meters from the wall, Anakin pulled out of his guard's grasp and, yelling for Ulaha to wake, sprang to her side. He dropped to his knees and whispered frantically into her ear. Ulaha's lidless eyes continued to stare vacantly at the ceiling, but a groggy hint of disappointment in the Force suggested she was more alert than she appeared. Anakin managed another half a dozen words before a guard's amphistaff slammed him in the head. He sank into a place of quiet darkness, and even the strike team's apprehension could not summon him back.

The guard secured him in place with blorash jelly, then released Ulaha and, still holding his amphistaff in one hand, dragged the Bith to the center of the hold. The voxyn tried to face them, but found its rear feet still secured and settled for watching out of one eye. The creature seemed in control of itself again, but its hunger burned through the Force as hot as a blaster bolt.

Too weak to stand on her own, Ulaha was trembling visibly and seemed unwilling to lift her gaze from the floor. Lando had said they would need to do things that sat poorly with their consciences, but Jaina could not believe he had meant standing by while the Yuuzhan Vong killed someone on their team.

"The choice is yours, Jaina." Duman Yaght twisted his scarified face into the semblance of a smirk. "A name or a life."

Jaina reached out to Eryl Besa through the Force, praying for some sign that they had crossed the war zone, that they could finally call the war droids to blast them out of this mess. No such reassurance came.

Jaina lowered her head. There was only one way to correct her mistake, only one way to defeat the breaking, but she could not bring herself to let Ulaha die - to actually speak the words that would kill her.

Jaina did not look up. "This is the last name."

"If you wish it so."

Duman Yaght's mocking tone provoked a sense of deep humiliation. Jaina had been broken. Everyone knew.

Ulaha's feeble voice came to her, and with it a sense of shame not unlike her own. "You mustn't, Jaina ... Don't let them use me -"

She was silenced by a sharp smack.

"The name, Jaina," Duman Yaght demanded. "Who is next?"

Jaina finally raised her gaze and saw Ulaha struggling to recover her feet. The guard was practically dangling the Bith by her arm, holding her hand over the sensory bristles along the voxyn's spine.

Ulaha turned toward Jacen, gasped, "Give me strength."

"Quiet!" The warrior jerked Ulaha to her feet.

The Force surged with encouragement, support, and something else - something electric and raw, like the zap of a stun bolt. Suddenly, Ulaha gathered her legs beneath her. The strange energy continued to flow through the Force, and she grew stronger by the moment, pushing her hand down ... down onto the sensory bristles. It was all the guard could do to keep the Bith from impaling her own palm.

Jaina felt sick. Could this have been Anakin's plan? The anger spilling out of Jacen made clear what he thought, but Jaina could not believe Anakin would order anyone to take her own life - not when he still felt Chewbacca's death so acutely.

Ulaha proved too weak to push her hand down all the way. She appeared to give up - then snatched her captor's coufee from its sheath and flicked the blade across the Yuuzhan Vong's throat. A cascade of blood poured out. With impossible speed for one so wounded, Ulaha jerked him around and caught the voxyn's striking tail on his back.

The barb snapped against the warrior's vonduun crab armor. Duman Yaght roared a command that sent half a dozen warriors dashing in. The voxyn opened its mouth to screech, and Jaina thought it was over for Ulaha. Then Jacen let the battle meld drop, and she felt him reaching out, attuning himself to the voxyn's emotions, infusing it with the idea that Ulaha's attack was only a diversion, that the real danger lay with the Yuuzhan Vong rushing in from the flank. It was a desperate gamble, one that could ruin the mission if Duman Yaght came to understand how the Jedi were playing him. Jaina expected nothing else from a Solo.

The voxyn swung its head around and burped a bubble of green mucilage over the closest guard. The Yuuzhan Vong stumbled half a dozen steps more, groaning, screaming, dissolving. Ulaha used the distraction to slip forward and drive the coufee down between the voxyn's eyes.

The creature shuddered to the floor and began to convulse, and even that ceased when the Bith twisted the blade. Purple blood oozed around the wound, turning to brown fume as it contacted the air. Ulaha staggered back with a hand clasped over her face. She made a second step, then collapsed.

The surviving guards stopped outside the brown cloud. Duman Yaght barked something harsh, and one warrior tossed a ball of bio-rash onto the coufee knife, sealing the wound. Another covered his mouth and nose and dashed in to recover Ulaha.

She allowed the guard to drag her clear of the toxin cloud, then gathered her legs beneath her and rose. Wide Yuuzhan Vong eyes and gaping Yuuzhan Vong mouths betrayed their surprise at seeing such a mangled body rise, and even Duman Yaght gasped.

A familiar sissing sounded from the far side of the hold, where all three Barabels were sniggering hysterically, their heads twisted around backward and their reptilian eyes glazed with exhaustion.

Jaina allowed herself a smirk, then returned her gaze to Duman Yaght. "Perhaps you have another voxyn to amuse us?"

The Yuuzhan Vong glared down and, much to her surprise, smiled. "That would be foolish, don't you think? I see why the warmaster is so determined to destroy you Jeedai." He motioned a pair of guards over, then thrust her into their arms. "Know that we are done playing, Jaina Solo. If you try anything now, the consequences will be fatal."

"Perhaps." Jaina smiled back at him. "But not for us."

The comment drew feelings of alarm from many on the strike team, but Jaina knew by the sudden darkness under Duman Yaght's eyes that she had said exactly the right thing. He turned away, already calling for the star reader to plot a faster course to the rendezvous.

 

Chapter 22

It would have been simpler to take a tray down to the mess hall and order breakfast from one of Eclipse's military food processors, but Mara was grilling dustcrepes and nausage - a Tatooine favorite - over the single thermpad assigned to the Skywalker living quarters. Hardly a chef under the best of circumstances, she had somehow browned the dustcrepes and puffed the nausage, but she refused to admit defeat. Fetching breakfast would have meant opening the door to the rest of the base, and after a rare full night in her husband's company - a night through which Ben had slept blissfully - Mara wanted Luke to herself for just a few minutes more.

R2-D2 whistled from the other side of the work counter, then ran an urgent message across the sitting room vidscreen.

"There's no reason to alert Emergency Control," she said. "This isn't a fire."

R2-D2 tweedled an objection.

"This isn't cooking, it's ... heating," Mara growled. "Any suggestion otherwise will earn you a memory wipe. Clear?"

R2-D2 trilled scornfully, then fell silent.

Mara looked down to see the nausage in her makeshift skillet collapsing into black crumbs. Luke picked that moment to emerge from the refresher, pulling a fresh tunic over his wet hair.

"Smells good." He popped a morsel of blackened nausage into his mouth, somehow avoiding a sour face and nodding in approval. "Just like we used to make back home."

"Really?" Mara asked doubtfully. "And I always thought the reason you left Tatooine was to join the Rebellion and save the galaxy."

Luke maintained a deadpan expression. "No, it was the food - definitely the food."

He took a rubbery dustcrepe and began to chew, rolling his eyes as though he were enjoying a bowl of green thakitillo. Disarmed as always by Luke's humble good nature, Mara laughed and leaned across the counter to kiss him.

To everyone else on Eclipse, he might be the enigmatic Jedi Master and last best hope for an imperiled galaxy, but to her he was the gentle husband who always knew what to say, the unassuming moisture farmer who had seen value in her when she could not find it herself. Even knowing of all the things she had done in Palpatine's service, all the lies told and the lives taken, he had accepted her first as a peer, then a friend, and finally - after it had dawned on Mara that the Force was steering them toward a very different relationship than the one envisioned by Emperor Palpatine - a lover and a spouse.

She pulled away from her husband's lips and smiled. "For last night."

Luke glanced across the room to where Ben was sleeping in his crib, watched over by an updated version of the same TDL nanny droid that had tended Anakin and the twins when they were young, and did not need to say what he was thinking. Mara took his hand and started toward the sleeping chamber.

They had almost reached the door when R2-D2 whistled for their attention.

Mara did not even turn around. "Not now, Artoo."

R2-D2 whistled again, then sent a live feed of the hangar to the sitting room vidscreen. Mara glimpsed the Shadow and Falcon sitting with a dozen other large vessels on the far side of the cavernous bay, where several support technicians were jockeying blastboats to make room for an arriving ship. The central area was packed with seventy new XJ3 X-wings that Admiral Kre'fey had quietly rotated out of his fleet onto Eclipse, while Saba Sebatyne's motley assortment of starfighters and Kyp Durron's battle-scarred X-wings sat untended and inaccessible on the close side of the hangar.

The picture zoomed in on the area between the new X-wings and the older starfighters. Corran Horn stood surrounded by pilots from Kyp's Dozen, the Wild Knights, and the Shockers. This last squadron was Eclipse's own, made up equally of untested Jedi and space-blooded non-Jedi veterans. The three leaders, Kyp Durron, Saba Sebatyne, and the non-Jedi Rigard Matl, were all talking at once while an impatient-looking Corran Horn stood looking into the ceiling holocam.

Luke sighed, then asked Mara, "Do you mind?"

"I'll mind more if we don't win this war," she said. "Corran might seem rigid and moralistic, but he's not the sort who calls for help unless he needs it. Artoo, give us some sound."

Kyp Durron's impatient voice came over the speaker. "... don't see what we're waiting for. Maybe Danni will figure out how to jam the yammosks and maybe she won't, but in the meantime the Yuuzhan Vong have Anakin and the others." Like most pilots who had not promised to remain at Eclipse, Kyp had not yet been informed that the strike team's capture was a ruse. "While we train, they move deeper into Yuuzhan Vong territory."

"We'll go after them when Master Skywalker says we go after them," Corran replied. "Until then, we sit tight and wait for orders."

"Orders?" Kyp scoffed. "This isn't the military, Corran. Jedi don't wait for orders while the enemy carries their friends off for sacrifice."

"Perhaps not, but they don't rush into battle ill prepared," Rigard said. A former TIE pilot with a battle-scarred face nearly as gruesome as a Yuuzhan Vong's, Rigard hated war with a passion, yet had somehow found himself fighting on one side or the other - and sometimes both - in every major galactic conflict since the Rebellion. "We're waiting for more to fall in place than Danni's research on gravitic modulation. We don't want to lock in our cards until everything's ready."

"It is locking in the cardz that worries this one." Saba Sebatyne addressed this to the holocam, making clear that she was speaking directly to Luke. "She is thinking that when someone stickz an arm out too far, she is liable to lose a hand."

"Blasters!" Luke hissed, echoing a curse Mara had not heard since Jaina and Jacen were at the Jedi academy. "Kyp again."

"Better get down there," Mara said, reaching across the work counter for her comlink. "I'll let Corran know we're coming."

Mara and Luke dressed and, leaving instructions with the nanny droid to comm them when Ben woke, left for the hangar bay. They had to bundle themselves in thermal cloaks, for the base's cooling system was working too well now; the corridors were in constant danger of icing over.

As they twined their way through the passages, Mara sensed the disharmony welling up inside Luke. Though their bond was not quite deep enough for her to read his thoughts all the time, she knew he was once again struggling with the difficulties of leadership and family. In a time when the Jedi needed him most, he was worried that Mara's recovery - as mysterious as the disease itself - would not hold. In a time when he needed to be at her side learning to be a good father, he was struggling to hold the fractious Jedi together and find the wisest course along which to guide them.

They rounded a corner and started down the passage toward the big emergency air lock outside the hangar bay, and Mara took his hand.

"Skywalker, sometimes I think I should just kick you in the head."

Not looking all that surprised, Luke glanced over at her. "Really?"

Mara waved a hand at the hangar ahead. "Everything you're doing with the Jedi, it is for us." She palmed the air lock's control pad, and its hatch irised open. "Ben is strong in the Force. I know you've felt it, too."

Luke nodded. "I have."

"So the Jedi must win this war," Mara said. "If we don't, where will Ben be safe?"

Luke stopped, and Mara felt the disharmony in him melting away. He motioned her into the air lock. "I hadn't thought of it quite like that."

"Of course not. You're too selfless." She opened the door to the hangar. "But I'm not. Now, are you going to set Kyp and Saba straight - or am I?"

She felt Luke's smile in the back of her head.

"I'd better do it myself. It wouldn't be fair to let you loose on them."

"Fair?" Mara echoed. "What makes you think I care about fair?"

They stepped out of the air lock and walked down a clear path to the gathering of pilots. Danni Quee had also joined the group, no doubt summoned the instant Saba learned Luke was coming. Convinced the strike team could never withstand the breaking, she had been pressing Luke to send a backup mission almost since the Wild Knights' return from Arkania. Luke had yet to rule out the possibility, in part because he feared Saba would take her squadron and attempt the mission herself - but also because he worried Danni was right.

Corran stepped aside, yielding his place at the head of the gathering to Luke.

Luke allowed a note of irritation to creep into his voice and focused only on Corran. "Corran, what's happening here? Why aren't you analyzing the morning exercise?"

Corran's eyes betrayed surprise at Luke's stern tone, but he stiffened his bearing. "Master Skywalker, our exercise came to an early end when the Lady Luck entered the system. It should be arriving shortly."

Luke heard Han and Leia approaching and, with a dart of his eyes, sent Mara to intercept them. The sense of purpose he felt from her confirmed that she understood what she needed to do.

As Mara departed, Luke continued to look at Corran. "I don't understand." His voice remained even but firm. "If Lando was in trouble, what are you doing here?"

Saba Sebatyne stepped forward. "It is not Jedi Horn's fault, Master Skywalker. This one left."

Luke raised his brow and waited.

"This one wanted to hear how it went."

"How what went?" Kyp demanded, completely ignorant of the part Lando had played in Anakin's "capture". "Somebody had better tell me what's going on around here before I take the Dozen and leave."

Luke stepped toward Kyp. "How can we tell you anything, when you are always so ready to leave us?"

Kyp frowned, then glanced over his shoulder at his pilots. "Are you saying you can't trust us?"

"It isn't a matter of trust," Luke replied.

He let the statement hang and continued to study Kyp as Han and Leia came up behind him. Neither spoke, and they both fixed silent gazes on Kyp.

Finally, Kyp looked from Luke to Saba. "Saba knows what this is all about," he complained. "And she isn't promising to stay."

"Saba has a right to know. Her son is with Anakin," Luke said. "So are her apprentices."

Kyp considered this for a moment, then turned to Saba. "We don't have to take this, you know. We can go after them ourselves."

Han shook his head. "No, kid, you can't." He pointed at the blast doors. "You can take the Dozen and leave if you like, but you can't go after Anakin and the twins - not if friendship means anything to you."

A look of stunned confusion came over Kyp. "Those are your kids, Han. You should want us to go after them!"

"I want them back alive," Han said. "And that's not going to happen if you go after them."

"Depending on what Lando Calrissian has to report," Saba corrected. "If he has learned through his villip that the breaking worked -"

"There won't be a backup mission," Luke said. He saw Han stiffen and felt Leia's dismay through the Force, but Mara had prepared them well enough that they betrayed no other sign of concern. "The strike team must succeed or fail on its own. Even if we could reach them, we'll be too busy with other things."

"Strike team?" Kyp looked to Han for enlightenment. "What other things?"

"Sorry, Kyp. You'll have to ask Luke." Ever the gambler, Han sweetened the pot. "There's too much at risk for me to talk out of turn."

Kyp looked back to Luke. "Have you figured out what that feint at Arkania was about? Are we finally going to take the war to the Yuuzhan Vong?"

Luke fought to keep a deadpan face. "I don't know that 'we' are going to do anything." As he spoke, the Lady Luck appeared outside the hangar door and hovered on the other side of the magnetic containment field while the technicians moved the last vessel, Tendra Risant Calrissian's Gentleman Caller, out of the way. "If you want to be part of this, I need your promise."

Kyp looked wary. "What kind of promise?"

"An oath of allegiance. What kind do you think?" Han asked, his tone almost angry. "You promise to obey Luke and do what he says as long as he'll have you. If you won't do that, pack your bags and get out now." Han paused, and his tone grew a little more gentle. "It's time you started acting like a Jedi Knight."

Kyp's eyes flared at the admonition. Luke thought for a moment Han had overplayed his hand, but, as usual, the Corellian knew how far to press a bet. Kyp's gaze slowly softened, and something fatherly in Han seemed to get through to him.

He turned to his pilots. "What do you think? Do we throw in with the Jedi and pretend like we're in a real space navy?"

"You know what we want," an insectoid Verpine pilot buzzed - one whose name Luke was ashamed to realize he did not know. "As long as we fight Yuuzhan Vong."

Kyp looked to the rest of his squadron. When they voiced similar sentiments, he turned and nodded to Han. "Okay, we promise."

"Not me, kid." Han quietly pointed to Luke. "He's the boss around here."

Kyp's face reddened, but he swallowed his pride and turned to Luke. "You have our oath, Master Skywalker. We'll stay as long as you'll have us."

"And follow orders?" This from Corran Horn.

Kyp made a sour face. "If we have to."

"You do." Luke saw the Lady Luck drifting into the docking bay and turned to Saba Sebatyne. "How about the Wild Knights?"

"Of course, if the Jedi truly intend to carry the war to the invaders," Saba said. "So you have determined the warmaster's purpose in feinting at Arkania?"

"We're still working on that," Luke said. "But we are going to carry the war to the Yuuzhan Vong. I would never have risked your son and apprentices if we weren't."

 

Chapter 23

A groggy Wbokiee groan reverberated through the frigid hold of the Exquisite Death. Cautiously, Anakin craned his neck around. Lowbacca and many others remained hidden behind a small grove of ysalamiri-laden trees the Yuuzhan Vong had marched into the hold, but he could see Jaina and Eryl opposite him and Jovan and the Barabels on the wall adjacent. Still secured to the floor with their hands between their knees, they were all fidgeting, trying to relieve the strain on their back and legs. The Barabels seemed especially uncomfortable, with their thick tails stretched straight behind them and secured at the tip with blorash jelly.

Anakin glanced over at Zekk and his brother and raised his brow. Zekk nodded eagerly, but Jacen closed his eyes and looked away. Unable to imagine what was troubling his moody brother - and not sure he cared - Anakin lowered his chin toward his left armpit.

"Activate escape," he whispered.

There was a hot tingle as the subcutaneous implant relayed the message, then a heavy foot scuffed the floor behind him. Anakin ducked and caught the expected strike on his much-bruised shoulder.

"Quiet, Jeedai" the guard said. "Another word, and I fill your mouth with blorash jelly."

Uncertain how long the war droids would need - or even whether they were still attached to the ship - Anakin fixed his gaze on the floor. The guard hovered another thirty seconds, then shuffled off.

Many minutes later, a series of distant thuds sounded forward in the ship. From the next hold back came a much louder whumpf, then the muffled roar of explosive decompression and the clatter and shriek of equipment and creatures tumbling into the void. In the back of the Jedi's hold, the door membranes bowed dangerously outward, but held long enough to turn opaque and stiffen into durasteel-like panels.

The subaltern barked something in Yuuzhan Vong. When no response came from his shoulder villip, he sent two guards forward to investigate, assigned eight more to watch the Jedi prisoners, and took the last two to the rear of the hold. Anakin knew that by now, 2-1S would be standing guard as 2-4S sealed the breach, using emergency patching foam to mate the open equipment pod to the Death's exterior hull. He watched the guards carefully, alert for any hint of an order coming through their shoulder villips.

The subaltern pressed his face close to the door as though to breathe on it, but then a cannon bolt came blasting through the opaque membrane and sprayed black gore everywhere. Anakin's ears popped as the hold pressures equalized, and the subaltern's two escorts were reduced to so much smoking flesh by a series of strobelike weapon flashes.

The rest of the Yuuzhan Vong reached for thud bugs and amphistaffs. Some turned to assault the strike team and fell to a flurry of screaming green bolts as 2-1S crashed into the hold. A coat of icy rime was forming on his space-cold armor, and his photoreceptors were fogging over; Anakin feared the droid would be forced to stand idle while his surface temperature stabilized. Instead, 2-1S activated a thermal defogger and cut down two more enemies as they dived for cover. He raised his other arm and began knocking ysalamiri from their trees with an optional electroray discharger.

Anakin's guard yelled something about Jeedai and spun to attack Anakin and was cut in half by a torrent of rapid-fire blaster bolts. The stream swept down the wall, chopping through an ysalamiri tree to dismember a Yuuzhan Vong whirling on Jacen. As 2-1S did all this, he was advancing into the hold, taking thud bugs in the chest and scorching two warriors near Jaina with electrorays. It could not have escaped anyone's notice that the droid was protecting the three Solos - a programming adjustment Lando had neglected to mention - but the others had no cause to complain.

YVH 2-4S entered the hold on the heels of 2-1S, one arm firing a blaster cannon, the other minirockets. He shot through the elbows of a Yuuzhan Vong attempting to behead Jovan Drark, then chased another away from Tekli with a self-guiding minirocket.

Only Tesar had to defend himself, ripping his tail free of the blorash jelly and, leaving the tip behind, sweeping his attacker off his feet. The Yuuzhan Vong landed hard, but leveled his amphistaff at Tesar's midsection - only to have his arms pinned to the floor by Bela's tail, also tipless. Krasov finished the fight by smashing her tail - tipless, as well - across his windpipe.

"Surprise!" Tesar rasped.

This launched the three Barabels into a bewildering fit of laughter. Tesar used the raw end of his tipless tail to flip open the dead Yuuzhan Vong's waist pouch and began flicking beetles at the blorash jelly binding nearby Jedi to the floor.

Anakin looked across the hold to 2-1S. "Secure the doors," he ordered.

A beetle landed beside Anakin's ankle, then several more between him and Jacen, and soon they were free. He assigned one group to retrieve weapons and equipment from the pod, another to dispose of the ysalamiri, and the rest of the Jedi to evaluate the group's medical condition and tend to Ulaha. Only then did he join 2-1S at the forward door, where the droid was peering through the translucent membrane down a long access corridor.

"Report."

"Sir, we are fifteen seconds ahead of schedule. Two-Four-S was able to penetrate the hull with ten coma-gas canisters; effectiveness assessment currently unavailable. Three voxyn were detected in the stern hold and attacked with class-C thermal detonators; postblast sensor sweep detected no sign of surviving life-forms."

"And the vessel itself?" Anakin asked. Tekli appeared beside him, her pudgy Chadra-Fan snout twitching incessantly as she reached up to spray a pain-numbing antiseptic over his raw back. He nodded his thanks, but kept his attention fixed on 2-1S. "Were you able to do any internal mapping?"

"Sir, we are aboard a corvette-analog picket boat, length one hundred twenty-two meters, estimated crew ninety-eight," 2-1S said. "Ultrasonic soundings suggest a two-level design with back-to-back decks sharing a common floor, four main access corridors, three aft holds, forward-facing bridge in the bow, and a substantial network of nondiagrammed ducts."

Anakin groaned inwardly; the ducts would make it easy for the enemy to move around undetected. The Barabels came up behind him loaded with weapons, equipment, and bulky jumpsuits.

"One-One-A fished these out of the flushlock," Tesar said, passing Anakin's lightsaber to him.

As Anakin took it, the lambent crystal inside opened him to the presence of the Yuuzhan Vong, an indistinct fury somewhere forward in the ship.

Bela pointed to a gob of frozen gunk on the handle. "Want that meat?"

"Uh, not really."

Anakin knocked the garbage off the handle and clipped the weapon to the equipment harness Tesar was holding out to him. The Barabels exchanged expressionless reptilian glances, then Krasov retrieved the gunk and divided it into three even pieces. Anakin rolled his eyes and selected a blaster pistol and half a dozen stun grenades from the small arsenal Tesar was carrying, then called the rest of the group over while Tahiri, who had insisted on taking the duty over from Tekli, plastered his back with bacta bandages.

Bela passed jumpsuits to those who were not yet dressed, and within moments everyone on the strike team was garbed in a simple brown uniform that made the Jedi Knights seem both efficient and intimidating. The jumpsuits were also light armor, for they were lined with the same alternating layers of molytex and quantum fiber that made the YVH droids' laminanium armor so impenetrable. In a pinch, they could even serve as vac suits; they had been designed to work with the emergency suits worn back on Eclipse, but attached independently to the appendage pieces and could be made airtight in their own right.

Anakin divided the strike team into two squads - assault and support - and outlined his plan. After allowing everyone a few moments to meditate and rejuvenate their anguished bodies through the Force, they opened their emotions to each other.

As Jacen weaved the battle meld, Anakin sensed a certain reservation in his brother, some misgiving that sent unsettling ripples through the entire strike team. He immediately regretted not sending Jacen back with Lando, but swallowed his irritation and focused on the task at hand. The team would sense his resentment through their emotional bond, and such distractions were the last thing they needed now.

Anakin fitted a breath mask over his nose and mouth, then affixed the attachable hood to his jumpsuit to protect his head. When the others did the same, he was so awed by the effect that he instantly felt better.

"Astral!" he exclaimed. "Let's go do this."

YVH 2-1S opened his elbow and fired a pair of flash grenades down the corridor, then stepped through the tattered door membrane. Thud bugs began to plink at his laminanium armor. He silenced the source with a flurry of blaster bolts, and the Jedi followed him forward. The interior of the ship looked oddly cavern-like and murky, with hazy circles of bioluminescent lichen clinging to the walls and clouds of coma gas swirling through the air and door valves sagging open every two meters.

Anakin advanced with lightsaber in hand and blaster holstered. Behind him came Tesar Sebatyne, a big B-100 power blaster cradled in both arms, then Alema Rar and the rest of the assault squad. Jacen was in the middle with Tenel Ka, followed by an indignant Tahiri - she wanted to be in front with Anakin - and Bela and Krasov Hara. Last came 2-4S, who was tasked with covering Lowbacca while the Wookiee used a laser drill to insert flechette mines into the system ducts. Jaina remained behind with Ulaha and the support squad, covering the other corridors with powerful blaster minicannons.

As Anakin and the others moved toward the bridge, it grew apparent that the coma gas had done its job well. Unconscious Yuuzhan Vong lay sprawled across sagging door valves, curled up in sleeping nests, slumped over duty stations in shielding nodules and weapon turrets. Several had fallen to the floor in front of gnulliths - the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of breath masks - and one crew member had even managed to lay the thing on his face before falling prey to the neural effects of the coma gas.

The strike team was attacked only once, when Anakin sensed a sudden flare of enemy anxiety behind a half-open door valve. By the time he turned to warn the others, a gnullith-masked warrior was flinging a pair of thud bugs into Bela's shoulder. The projectiles smashed harmlessly against her jumpsuit's armored lining, and she barely flinched before jerking her attacker from his hiding place and skewering him on her sister's waiting lightsaber.

As they drew near the bow, the assault team lost contact with the Force - no doubt because ysalamiri were near. Anakin lost his sense of the Yuuzhan Vong, as well - a hint that the lambent crystal was somehow connected to the Force. It was good to know, he supposed, but he really didn't care as long as it worked when the Force returned.

Ten meters ahead, the corridor ended in a vertical bulkhead, where an unconscious Yuuzhan Vong warrior hung as though pinned to the wall. The strange sight confused no one; like all good starship designers, the enemy made the most of shipboard space, utilizing their dovin basals to orient gravity in the most convenient direction. The bulkhead looked like a wall from the assault squad's current perspective, but it would become a floor as soon as they crossed the open area and placed a foot on it.

A gentle whumpf shook the corridor behind them, and 2-1S said, "Two-Four-S reports mine detonation in the main elimination duct. Ultrasonic soundings suggest the triggering agent was a voxyn, injured but not crippled."

"Voxyn?" Anakin demanded from behind his breath mask. "I thought Two-Four-S disintegrated them!"

"There was a point zero eight chance of a single survival," 2-1S pointed out. "Two-Four-S calculates the odds of a double survival -"

"Don't tell me," Anakin said, raising a hand. "I really don't want to know."

He used his comlink to warn Jaina about the voxyn and sent 2-4S back to watch ducts for her, then asked 2-1S for a see-through sensor sweep.

"Eleven conscious warriors waiting on the deck below, in a cabin adjacent to the bulkhead ahead," the droid reported. "Tactical analysis suggests the likelihood of an ambush."

"You don't say," Anakin said. "What about Ganner?"

"Implant triangulation fixes Ganner Rhysode at five meters starboard and moving forward. Passive acoustics suggest the company of several guards. Vital readings satisfactory, heart rate and respiration indicate deep sleep."

"Coma-gassed, but moving," Anakin surmised. "They must be cutting their way from one cabin to another, or Jaina's squad would see them."

"And they have ysalamiri." Alema Rar laid a hand on Anakin's arm and spoke so quietly that he had to lean his ear toward her breath mask. "The Yuuzhan Vong believe we are soft. They will try to use him against us."

"Against us?" Anakin found himself staring almost hypnotically into Alema's pale Twi'lek eyes. "As bait?"

When she nodded, Anakin disengaged himself and ignited his lightsaber. Being careful not to penetrate all the way through, he plunged the blade into the floor and began to cut a circle. He had no real plan yet except to avoid the ambush, but walking into a trap was not going to save Ganner, either. The yorik coral was easier to cut than durasteel, but it popped and cracked loudly as it melted, and Anakin worried that the enemy would not be as surprised as he hoped.

Jacen stepped to Anakin's side. "What are you doing?" The disappointment was evident in his face, and Anakin knew others could see it, too. "We should be going after Ganner."

"No, we must destroy the ambush party first," Alema said. "This is better."

"Better how?" Jacen asked. "Anakin can't keep sacrificing others to make his plans work. That way lies the dark side."

"Sacrificing others?" Anakin did not look away from his work. "What are you talking about?"

"Ulaha, and now Ganner," Jacen said. "You told Ulaha to attack the voxyn, and now you're abandoning Ganner."

The accusations hit Anakin almost physically. His lightsaber slipped and cut a deep furrow across the floor, and he found himself glaring at his brother, sick with anger and hurt.

"How can you think that?" he demanded. "Ulaha disobeyed orders. I wanted her to tell Duman Yaght the name of the base. I did not say to attack!"

Jacen's cheeks flushed, then his jaw dropped, and he stood speechless for a long time. Finally, he stammered, "Anakin, I-I'm sorry. When Ulaha attacked, I thought ... I just assumed -"

"I know what you assumed," Anakin said. Though his brother's regret was evident on his crimson face, no apology could erase the doubt he had expressed about Anakin's character - nor the fact that he had been so quick to believe the worst, just as their father had when Chewbacca died. Anakin plunged his lightsaber back into the floor and continued to cut. "Get away from me. You're holding things up."

Jacen started to reply, but Tenel Ka caught him by the arm and pulled him away. "This cannot be resolved now, Jacen. You must wait until later."

With Alema's help, Anakin cut the circle to within a few millimeters of the other side, then activated his comlink to warn Jaina about what they were doing. She and 2-4S were busy keeping the wounded voxyn trapped in the systems ducts, but she paused long enough to warn Zekk and Raynar not to fire when figures started appearing in their corridor.

Bela and Krasov kicked the circle out, then lay on their bellies and vanished, one after the other, into the floor. The muffled zing of their repeating blasters immediately came back through the hole. Alema went next, diving headfirst, then Anakin, lightsaber in one hand, concussion grenade in the other. On the other side, he slowed and landed feetfirst on what felt like the ceiling.

The whine of blasterfire and drone-splat of striking thud bugs drove Anakin against the wall. Mind struggling to reorient, he thumbed the arming switch of his grenade. A trio of would-be ambushers lay at the end of the corridor, vonduun crab armor stitched with holes from the Barabel sisters' repeating blasters.

The thud bugs came from the open door of the ambushers' cabin, and also from the bulkhead itself, where a pair of bridge guards wearing gnulliths were attacking through a jagged melt hole. He saw no sign of Ganner, but had not expected to.

Anakin nodded across the corridor to Alema. She armed her own grenade, then they tossed the weapons into the ambush cabin. There were two bright flashes and a gut-deep jolt, and a tongue of flame shot into the corridor reeking of scorched flesh.

Waving the others to follow, Anakin charged forward behind the fiery curtain. A line of thud bugs crackled along the wall, then one took him in the chest and slammed him down on his back. Bela and Krasov pounded past, pouring blasterfire into the bulkhead, and Alema came next, pausing to pull him to his feet. It hurt to breathe and he might have a cracked rib, but his jumpsuit's armored liner had spared him any blood or deep pain. He activated his comlink.

"Two-One-S, secure the bulkhead."

The droid appeared at the end of corridor and dropped onto the bulkhead, now standing perpendicular to Anakin. The bridge guards swarmed him with thud bugs and magma pebbles, burning thumb-sized pits into his armor. He counterattacked with sensor-targeted blaster bolts and electrorays, and the enemy fire withered.

A sporadic stream of thud bugs began to assail 2-1S from the deck where they had first located Ganner. The droid ignored this nuisance and dropped to his knees beside the melt holes, then fired into the bridge itself. Anakin sent Alema and the Barabel sisters to support the droid, then returned to the hole in the floor and dropped back through to the other side.

Tesar and Lowbacca were in the forward cabin, already outlining a new doorway with elastic detonite. As Anakin approached, the pair pressed themselves flat against the wall and ignited the charge with the tip of Lowie's lightsaber. There was a sharp crack and the clatter of spraying shrapnel, then smoke filled the air and the new door remained closed. Tesar stepped away from the wall and sprang into the yorik coral feetfirst.

The slab flew into the adjacent cabin, slammed into something large, and drew a startled Yuuzhan Vong curse. Tesar silenced the voice with the staccato roar of his power blaster, then Lowbacca charged in behind him. Anakin ignited his own lightsaber and ... heard the all-too-familiar burp of a voxyn expelling acid.

Anakin's thoughts leapt to Lowbacca - he could not bear the thought of telling Chewbacca's family that another member had died with him - then the brown mucus came shooting out of the makeshift door and splashed against the far wall. From inside came a Wookiee growl and the shrill sizzle of a lightsaber straining to cut, then a ghostly squeal of pain that quickly modulated into the opening burst of a screech attack.

Tesar's power blaster roared again.

The screech choked to an end. Anakin stepped through the doorway and found himself looking into a large wardroom, where a blaster-scorched voxyn was scurrying toward a lopsided hole in the rear wall. The thing was missing at least a tail and two rear legs, but remained quick enough to dodge a blaster bolt.

Scattered across the floor were nearly a dozen coma-gassed Yuuzhan Vong, but two more stood behind the claw-scarred remnants of a ysalamiri tree, their faces half hidden behind gnulliths, amphistaffs held ready. Tesar disposed of the sickly looking ysalamiri with a quick shot from his power blaster, and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors rushed to do battle.

Tesar brought his power blaster around and burned a hole through the chest armor of the first one, hurling him back against the wall. Anakin intercepted the second, freeing Lowbacca to make one last stab at the vanishing voxyn.

The Yuuzhan Vong tried to pin Anakin against the wall, changing his amphistaff into whip form and nicking the fanged head at the Jedi's eyes. It was a tired tactic, almost disrespectful. Anakin feigned a stumble and dropped into a crouch, catching the attack on his lightsaber's fiery blade.

The serpent recoiled. Anakin posted his free hand, whipped his feet around and trapped the Yuuzhan Vong's knees, scissored his legs. The warrior yelled and hit the floor like a bag of rocks. The amphistaff struck again. Anakin blocked, flicked the thing away, brought his own blade down across the enemy's throat.

As the head rolled away, he spun toward the rear wall and was relieved to find Lowbacca holding yet another voxyn leg. The Wookiee's disappointed growls left no doubt that the creature had escaped, but Anakin was happy enough to see him standing. He gathered his own feet beneath him and saw, as he had feared, no sign of Ganner in the room.

Anakin noticed a chill along his spine and realized that his sense of the Yuuzhan Vong had returned, then he felt Jacen's touch brush his mind. There was also another sensation, the familiar hunger of the voxyn, wounded and angry, lurking somewhere in the ducts. They would hunt it down later, after the vessel was secure. Waving his lightsaber out the door to avoid being blasted by a minicannon, Anakin motioned Tesar and Lowbacca after him and stepped into the corridor.

Jaina's voice came over the comlink. "What's that I feel? It can't be a voxyn. Two-Four-S and I killed it. I'm looking at its body right now."

"Just keep an eye on those ducts," Anakin said, resisting the urge to comm 2-1S about the odds of all three escaping the thermal detonator. "There's another one."

He turned toward the bulkhead and found 2-1S kneeling over the shredded door valve, firing an intimidating but relatively harmless stream of nonlethal bolts into the bridge. There was no return fire, but the droid's armor was pocked and smoking from head to foot, with several fist-deep craters where the Yuuzhan Vong had managed to concentrate their attacks. Anakin dropped down beside the droid and the rest of the assault squad. There was a definite Yuuzhan Vong presence on the bridge, but the feeling was too murky for him to tell how many or what condition.

YVH 2-1S turned toward him. "Bulkhead secure, but the enemy is holding one captive - Jedi Rhysode - on the bridge." His photoreceptors were shattered and smeared with thud bug juice. "Currently two minutes eleven seconds ahead of schedule."

"You expected something else?" Anakin had intended to sound cocky like his father, but the effect was ruined when a pang from his bruised ribs made him squeak out the last two words. He glanced onto the bridge, then said, "You don't look so good, Two-One-S. We'll finish without you."

"Affirmative," the droid answered. "Sensor systems unstable."

Rather than risk a security trap by entering through the bridge's battered entrance valve, Anakin dropped to his belly beside the melt holes and peered through. On the other side lay more than a dozen Yuuzhan Vong, most deep in a coma-gas sleep. Some had gnulliths fastened over their faces, no doubt placed there by well-meaning comrades who had not realized that an antidote agent would be required to awaken their comrades. A handful of warriors lay in the awkward positions of their death throes, their wounds still smoking from the heat of the fatal blaster strike.

The cognition hood used to steer the vessel dangled a few centimeters above the comatose pilot's blank face, while the neural interface gloves employed in regulating the ship's systems lay draped over several different control consoles, usually with the hands of a dozing Yuuzhan Vong crew member still wearing them. Anakin was disappointed to find the command chair empty and no one lying within three meters of it; Duman Yaght had escaped the coma gas.

"It doesn't look like there's much happening," Anakin said, speaking to Lowbacca, Tesar, and the rest of the assault squad. "But be careful. We don't want to get careless and blast Ganner by mistake."

"You're sure?" Tahiri asked, drawing a laugh from the others.

Anakin allowed himself a chuckle, but said, "At least for now."

He ignited his lightsaber and dived through the melt hole headfirst, then felt an attack coming and brought his blade around to block. The thud bug sizzled out of existence with a sharp hiss, and Anakin spun in the direction of the assault, stepping forward to protect those who would be following him.

"Very impressive, Jeedai."

Anakin looked toward the voice and found Duman Yaght wearing a gnullith and standing behind an instrument console, Ganner Rhysode's limp form held in front with a coufee to the throat.

"There you are." Anakin peered around the bridge. "All alone, it seems."

"Lay down your weapons," the commander said cautiously, "and your leader will live to meet our warmaster."

Anakin thumbed off his lightsaber - then, as Lowbacca and Tesar stepped onto the bridge, drew his blaster pistol.

"You really don't know Ganner, do you?" Anakin asked. "What makes you think he's that important?"

"You came after him, did you not?" Duman Yaght retreated a few steps, bringing Ganner around to shield him from all three Jedi. "We have studied you Jeedai. When it comes to the death of your fellows, you are soft."

"Not that soft." Anakin leveled his blaster pistol at the commander's head, and Tesar did the same with his power blaster. "But I'll offer you a deal. If you surrender, we'll put you off in the shuttle with the rest of your crew."

Duman Yaght's eyes hardened. "And dishonor Domain Yaght?" He ran the coufee lightly along Ganner's throat, drawing a two-centimeter-long trickle of blood. "Yuuzhan Vong do not surrender."

"Really?"

Anakin reached out with the Force and used it to push the coufee away from Ganner's neck. Eyes growing wide, Duman Yaght struggled for a moment to bring the blade back to his captive's throat, then snarled something in his own language and let it fly from his grasp.

When the other hand twitched and started to rise, his head vanished in a convergence of blasterfire.

"By this one's broken tail!" Tesar slung his power blaster over his shoulder and stepped forward to pluck Ganner out of the mess. "They don't surrender."

 

Chapter 24

Nom Anor could not believe even Vergere would dare suggest that the warmaster waste his time playing an infidel game - much less survive the affront. Yet there she sat across from Tsavong Lah, studying a shaper's version of a dejarik board complete with animate monsters and a mat of living terrain. The warmaster was down to a pair of monnoks and a single miniature mantellion savrip, while his feathery pet still boasted a kintan strider and three k'lor'slugs. Though Nom Anor had never really enjoyed the game, he had frequently been forced to play holographic versions during his time in the galaxy - often enough to recognize a master when he saw one. And Vergere was, undoubtedly, a master.

"If New Republic strategists were the only ones who practiced this game, it would not be worth the learning," Vergere was saying. "But there are suggestions that dejarik was once a favorite study of Jedi Knights."

That explained how she had enticed the warmaster into such a blasphemy, Nom Anor realized. Tsavong Lah would do anything that might help him defeat the Jedi.

"The strategies are more subtle than they appear, Nom Anor," Tsavong Lah said, not looking away from the game mat - and surprising Nom Anor, who had thought the warmaster too absorbed to notice the scrutiny. "And a warrior must know the mind of his enemy."

"The game is popular throughout the galaxy," Nom Anor replied. "I have played a few times myself."

"Indeed?" Tsavong Lah tore his gaze from the board. "Then perhaps you have some insight as to the route Jacen and his sister will be taking home?"

"Home?" Nom Anor was confused. The Exquisite Death was more than a day overdue, but such delays were not unusual for picket ships, which operated just inside enemy territory and had to be very careful choosing their routes. "I did not know they had escaped."

"You didn't?" Tsavong Lah looked back to the dejarik game, then nudged his savrip forward between two of Vergere's k'lor'-slugs. "Interesting. By now, I would have thought that obvious to any dejarik player."

An angry heat filled Nom Anor's eyesacks. "The supreme commander's last report claimed that this Duman Yaght has things well in hand. Has there been a communication I'm unaware of?"

"Not yet." Tsavong Lah smiled as Vergere sent her strider up to upend his savrip, then he slipped his little monnok through the vacated space to slay her strider from behind. Taking advantage of the surprise-kill second move, the warmaster threatened a k'lor'-slug, then smiled across the table at Vergere. "But the Jeedai mind is growing clearer to me. They will keep a low profile, then strike when their captor has grown complacent."

Vergere returned the smirk with one of her own. "They will strike, but not where we think." Instead of moving a second k'lor'-slug to defend the first, she sent it slinking two squares toward Tsavong Lah's side of the mat. "The dejarik vids call that the kintan strider death gambit. It defeats with promises."

She now had her three k'lor'slugs arranged in a right angle, with each of his monnoks trapped between two of her monsters. No matter which he attacked first, both of the others would be in a position to counterstrike from behind, take a surprise move, and trap his remaining monster in an inescapable vise. The warmaster took all this in with a glance, his eyesacks growing dangerously dark as he realized how cleanly Vergere had defeated him.

"I see what you mean." He cleared the game mat with a swipe of his hand, then stood and looked through an exterior viewing lens at the swarm of black-faceted vessels hanging in the starlight beside the Sunulok. "So, they have tricked us. To what purpose?"

"The Jedi do not think so differently from you." Vergere scanned through the holographic images of the tiny monsters and selected one, then projected it on the game mat. "They will strike hardest at what they fear most."

Tsavong Lah turned away from the viewing lens and, finding the rancor alone on the mat, nodded.

"I suppose it would be wise to assume the worst." He turned to Nom Anor. "You will take the Ksstarr and start for Baanu Rass at once."

Nom Anor nodded, needing no explanation. Currently orbiting the planet Myrkr, Baanu Rass was the largest of the worldships to enter the galaxy so far. With a dying brain that could no longer control its spin - the shapers there now used dovin basals to give it gravity - Baanu Rass was also three-quarters abandoned, a perfect home for the voxyn cloning program that was proving so effective against the Jedi.

"And the Jeedai?"

"Do what is necessary, but the Solo twins have been promised to Lord Shimrra. Those you must bring back alive."

"As you command."

The feeling that filled Nom Anor's heart was closer to triumph than joy. While the warmaster had proven surprisingly tolerant of events on Coruscant, neither had he chastened Vergere for interfering with his mission. Nom Anor crossed his fists over his breast and backed toward the door, already planning how he would convert this assignment into a sector prefecture.

"Warmaster, I believe this to be a mistake." Vergere spoke quietly, so that Nom Anor would be forced to admit that he was eavesdropping if he wished to challenge her words. "Given that your reputation with Lord Shimrra is at stake, would it not be wiser to send someone with a more certain touch?"

Nom Anor held his tongue - just barely - and continued to back toward the door, ears straining for the warmaster's reply.

"If you are referring to events on Coruscant, I know what happened," Tsavong Lah said. "Nom Anor is not to blame. He did well to return to us at all."

More to Nom Anor's astonishment than his anger, Vergere continued to press. "We must also consider the debacle with Elan and the Peace Brigade, and his failures against Mara Jade Skywalker. Nom Anor has faced Jedi many times and done poorly."

The door valve opened behind Nom Anor, but he remained where he was, not so certain of his position that he could bring himself to depart.

Tsavong Lah turned to face him. "You understand what is at risk, Nom Anor? Vergere's words are rooted in rivalry, but there is substance to what she says. If you are not confident of success, say so now and let us find a better solution together." ,

"There is no cause for concern, Warmaster." Nom Anor understood perfectly well what was at risk: his prefecture and perhaps his life. "Now that I know you see through Vergere's intrigues, I have no doubts at all."

Tsavong Lah's face darkened. "And you did before?"

"My master, I did not mean to say I doubted you, only my own understanding of your methods."

Tsavong Lah motioned him back into the chamber. "And what, exactly, did you not understand?" The warmaster's tone was sharp. "And do not insult me again by lying."

Nom Anor took a deep breath and returned to the dejarik mat. "My master, the sentients of this galaxy also play another game called sabacc, where the chip-cards change identities before their eyes." He cast a pointed glance at his rival. "Vergere was the infidels' prisoner for many weeks, and she has yet to provide a satisfactory explanation of her escape."

"The readers were satisfied," Vergere replied. "As were all of Yun-Harla's priests."

"They have not met Han Solo." Nom Anor kept his eyes fixed on Tsavong Lah. "He is not the type to let an enemy escape."

"He did not let me do anything," Vergere replied. "There is more to me than you know."

"And they were in the middle of a battle caused by the ineptitude of your hirelings," Tsavong Lah added. "More importantly, Vergere learned more during her captivity than how to play dejarik. Her insights have saved thousands of vessels, and we have destroyed three New Republic fleets when she guessed correctly about their intentions."

"A small price for your favor." The retort was out of Nom Anor's mouth almost before he realized it was in his mind. "I certainly don't mean that Vergere is a traitor -"

"Of course not," Tsavong Lah said. "Only that I lack the judgment to tell if she were."

Nom Anor closed his eyes. "I would never disparage -"

"You just did," Tsavong Lah said. "But that is not what concerns me."

The warmaster fell silent and remained so until Nom Anor dared to open his eyes.

"What concerns me is that you are foolish enough to think I do not see through you." Tsavong Lah studied Nom Anor for a long time, then said, "This assignment is more important than any other I have given you. I think it would be wise for you to take an advisor along."

Having disparaged the warmaster's judgment once that day, Nom Anor knew better than to do so again. "If the warmaster thinks it wise."

"The warmaster does." Tsavong Lah turned to Vergere and, in a voice as stern as he had been using with Nom Anor, said, "You will accompany Nom Anor."

Vergere's feathers bristled. "As his advisor?" she gasped. "One does not advise k'lor'slugs. This will never work."

"It had better." Tsavong Lah gave them both a hard smile. "I have had enough of this jealousy between you two. From this moment on, you succeed - or fail - together."

 

Chapter 25

"What was I to think when Ulaha attacked?" Jacen asked. Despite his frustration, he kept his voice low to avoid disturbing Ulaha or any of the others lying in healing trances in the Yuuzhan Vong nestbunks. "It looked as though Anakin had ordered her to - and I'm not the only one who thought so."

"Fact," Tenel Ka agreed. She sat hunched into a nestbunk beside him, her shoulder touching his in a manner that was a little more than comfortable. Their lightsabers lay close at hand; with the voxyn still at large in the ship's duct system, they were taking no chances. "But you are his brother. What seems a mistake in others is judgmental from you. And your objections to Lando's advice do not help matters."

"Gamblers and spies can afford to dispense with morality," Jacen replied. "Jedi cannot. It's too easy for our power to lead us down a dark path, and we're not the only ones who suffer when that happens."

"This is so," Tenel Ka said. "But, Jacen, do you remember my first lightsaber?"

"How could I forget?" Jacen asked, wondering where this was going. Tenel Ka had made the mistake of building her first lightsaber in a hurry, and a flawed crystal had caused it to fail during a sparring match with Jacen. His blade had sliced off her left arm - his first painful lesson in the burden of wielding great power. "For a long time I felt responsible for that accident - I still do, at least partly - but I don't see what that has to do with Anakin and me."

"The accident was no one's fault but mine." Tenel Ka tapped her chest with her one hand to emphasize the point. "What I believed to be confidence in my fighting abilities was arrogance, and that is why I built a faulty lightsaber."

"Arrogance," Jacen repeated. Try as he might, he could not quite see how his mistake resembled Tenel Ka's. "And?"

"Do you believe you are the only Jedi among us who understands the danger of the dark side?"

"Of course not. Most of us have had trouble with the Shadow Academy, and Zekk even turned ..." Jacen let the sentence trail off, finally comprehending Tenel Ka's point. Anakin knew the danger of the dark side as well as any of them. To believe him capable of ordering Ulaha's mad attack was to doubt more than his judgment; it was to doubt his very character. Jacen shook his head in guilty regret. "That was a mistake. A bad one."

"Fact." Tenel Ka bumped him with her shoulder. "But there is no need to sulk. I will always be fond of you."

Jacen's stomach grew hollow. "You think he's that angry?"

Tenel Ka rolled her eyes, then took a canister of bacta lotion and slipped off the nestbunk to check on their insensate fellows. "It was a joke, Jacen."

"Ah." Jacen grabbed his lightsaber and followed close behind. "Aha. You have a lot to learn about jokes."

She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Actually, I thought it quite good." She came to Ulaha, who was breathing fitfully even in her healing trance, and lifted the Bith's blanket. "Trust him to forgive, Jacen, and things will return to normal."

She rubbed a fresh coat of lotion over Ulaha's wounds. It wasn't nearly as effective as immersion in a tank, but it was better than almost anything else they could do for her.

 

On the deck below, a Yuuzhan Vong targeting brain lay open on a wardroom table, its nutrient bath filling the chamber with the stink of rotten seaweed. Nestled in a nutlike shell no larger than a human fist, the organ was a tangle of axons and dendrons webbing together a gelatinous muddle of neuron clusters. Though Jaina found the structure of the biotic computer hopelessly bewildering, Lowbacca was engrossed in dissecting the thing, using a small set of steristeel tools to snip here and move there, grunting in satisfaction as the fibers reattached themselves in new locations. Finally, he fused a short thread of axon between two lengths of dendron, then chortled in delight as an eyestalk hanging from the front of the casing rose and focused on Jaina.

Lowbacca growled a request, which Em Teedee, recently retrieved from the equipment pod, translated as, "Master Lowbacca asks if you would be kind enough to circumnavigate the table."

Though Jaina understood Wookiee well enough to know Lowbacca had phrased the request somewhat less eloquently, she did as asked. The eye followed her progress, using a control stem on the back of the shell to spin the brain around as she circled.

"Lowie, get some help," Jaina laughed. "That's just Sith."

Lowbacca growled a chuckle, then steadied the shell with a big hand and slipped a pair of needle-nosed fiber snips inside. Turning away from the targeting brain, Jaina found Zekk waiting with a photon trap from their equipment pod's sensor system.

"There weren't any extra detector films in the droid kit," he said. "Maybe we can take a sheet from this and trim one down."

"It's worth a try."

Jaina led the way across the wardroom to where 2-1S stood, silently regrowing his laminanium armor and running internal diagnostics. Since awakening from their healing trances, Jaina, Zekk, and Lowbacca had been working nonstop to help the war droid repair himself, but 2-1S still looked like he had grabbed the wrong end of a turbolaser. They had replaced his recessed photoreceptors with extras from the repair kit Lando had included in the equipment pod, but several thud bugs had penetrated deep inside the skull casing, smashing circuit boards and detection mediums beyond all hope of repair. Fortunately, having spent much of his life as an equipment forager in Coruscant's dangerous undercity, Zekk had a Force-enhanced talent for finding things. So far, he had scavenged substitutes for the infrared and ultrasonic sensors, and now possibly the gamma analyzers, as well.

Jaina took the thin sheet of detector film from the photon trap and held it up for 2-1S. "What about this for your gamma system?"

YVH 2-1S ran his photoreceptors over the sheet, then crackled, "Affirmative." His voice was a static-filled ghost of Lando's, but that was the least of their worries. "Double the thickness."

"Another success for Zekk," Jaina said. She turned and found herself looking directly into his green two-tone eyes, a sentiment much deeper than friendship evident in the way he held her gaze. Jaina waited a moment for him to look away, and, when he did not, passed the detector film back to him. "Hold this while I get the cutter."

Though hardly blind to the disappointment that clouded Zekk's face, Jaina was careful to maintain a neutral expression as she reached for the lasicutter. Her reaction was not because she lacked feelings for Zekk - in fact, a few years ago she had found it difficult to keep her thoughts off him - but over time her feelings had changed from infatuation to something closer to what she felt for her brothers. It was love, certainly, but nothing physical - nothing like the spark that had passed through her on the Tafanda Bay, when Jag Fel had ignored Borsk Fey'lya's entire cabinet to introduce himself to her.

That had made her stomach flutter ... but she was being silly. She had no idea where Jag Fel was - probably not even in the known galaxy - and even less whether they were ever likely to meet again. If she insisted on waiting for a jolt like that again, she would be Mara's age before she ever ...

"Jaina?" Zekk fluttered the detector film in her face. "Are you going to cut or not?"

"Of course, but we need measurements." Jaina turned away to hide her blush. "Where did I put that hydrospanner?"

 

Only a few meters away, crawling on his belly through the black muck in the Exquisite Death's central elimination duct, Tesar Sebatyne heard the hiss of a large creature drawing deep breath. He immediately raised his makeshift durasteel shield and used the Force to push it down the low conduit. There was a muffled burp and a loud sizzling as the acid struck, then a dull clang as the shield slammed into the voxyn.

Sissing with laughter, Tesar used the Force to shove voxyn and shield down the duct. When the creature snarled and tried to push its snout through the holes its acid had eaten in the durasteel, the Barabel brought up his blaster pistol and loosed a single bolt. The creature's nose exploded in a spray of black blood, filling the conduit with toxic fumes. Tesar sissed into his breath mask and fired again.

The voxyn roared and, knocking the makeshift shield from its snout, vanished up the duct. Tesar pictured the beast and reached out to his hatchmates with an impression of movement in his mind, and of the creature growing larger.

A moment later, Bela replied with an image of the creature's body glow. Like most Barabels, she could see into the infrared spectrum and often tracked her prey by the heat of its body. She sent a sensation of impending danger, and Tesar knew he had to get clear. He retreated two meters and squeezed himself into a side feed.

He counted three slow reptilian heartbeats before a series of whumpf-thumpfs reverberated through the yorik coral. The duct lit with the flashing brilliance of his hatchmates' minicannons, arranged at right angles to each other at the next intersection, and he had to close his eyes. The voxyn's shrill screech sliced through the dank air like a lightsaber, then dropped in tone and began to undulate.

Had they missed? Tesar wondered. How could they?

The irritation his hatchmates shot his way convinced him they had not. His earplugs detected a sudden redshift in the voxyn's squeal and closed tight, sealing his ears against the disorienting impact of a compression wave. He experienced a deep, hard vibration in the pit of his stomach, but shared in the exhilaration of his hatchmates as they continued to pour bolts at their prey. By his cold blood, how he loved hunting with his hatchmates!

Finally, the minicannons fell silent and his earplugs opened again. He flicked his tongue into the breath mask and smelled filter-scrubbed ozone and scorched yorik coral - and an antiseptic, coppery odor he recognized as detoxified voxyn blood.

He sent a question-sense the sisters' way, and received back only an impression of uncertainty. Though Tesar could not exactly feel his hatchmates' actions through the Force, he had lived with them side by side all his life and intuitively knew they would be activating a glow stick to supplement their infrared vision. An image of smoking scales came to his mind, then of a voxyn's blaster-scorched leg.

Then Anakin's voice came over the comlink. "Tesar! What's going on back there?"

The sound of clicking claws sounded from around the corner, and Tesar thought, Uh-oh. He worked a hand under his chest up toward the comlink clipped to his collar, at the same time worming his way backward down the duct. It was slow going, for the side feed was little larger than Tesar himself, and he was crawling against the lay of his scales. Even through his thick jumpsuit, the rough walls kept catching the tips and bringing his progress to a painful halt.

The voxyn's head appeared at the corner, a red heat silhouette barely two meters in front of him.

"Tesar?" Anakin demanded. "What's going on back there?"

Tesar fired at the voxyn and saw his bolt ricochet off. He should have scales like that! The creature pulled its head out of sight, but pink heat-wisps of breath continued to curl past the corner.

Tesar finally reached his comlink. "You told us to watch the voxyn."

"And?"

"And to call for help if ..." The pink wisps vanished ahead, and Tesar heard a sharp intake of air. "Uh, keep talking."

He ripped his comlink off and tossed it down the duct. Anakin's distant voice continued to demand an explanation, but Tesar squirmed away as fast as he could. A mangled snout pushed around the corner and buried the squawking instrument beneath a weak stream of acid. Tesar stopped moving and, using the Force to project his voice down the duct, screamed as loud as he could.

He sensed approval from Krasov and, through her, perceived Anakin's panic. He had to be on the comlink, screaming for Tesar to answer.

Bela found this funny; Tesar could feel her sissing. He knew without looking that she would be creeping down the main duct behind the voxyn, lightsaber in hand. Krasov was following along behind, a big T-21 repeating blaster pointed over her sister's shoulder. The voxyn hauled itself around the corner, its claws digging into the yorik coral walls and pulling it forward. Tesar could not see its wounds in infrared, but the creature was definitely moving slowly and in great weariness. It paused at the small pit its acid had burned into the floor, then, not finding the expected body, raised its head and peered down the duct.

Tesar resumed his retreat, firing blaster bolts into the creature's head. Many ricocheted off, but many burned through the armored scales and failed to kill it. Wasting no time with another of its screeches, the voxyn pursued him down the duct, stubby legs pulling it forward faster than the Barabel could retreat. For the first time, Tesar's scales rippled with fear; the beast learned from its mistakes.

Big trouble, he thought.

He sensed the alarm in his hatchmates and heard them begin to splash and rattle in the main duct as they tried to draw the voxyn's attention. Too clever for such antics, the creature pulled to within a meter of Tesar and let out a burp, but either its acid was depleted or the efflux tube had been burned shut; nothing came out. Tesar fired point-blank and smelled scorched flesh.

The voxyn lurched ahead, its mouth closing around the barrel of the Merr-Sonn blaster. Tesar squeezed the trigger - then snarled in pain as the safety circuits sensed a clog in the emitter nozzle and shut down the actuating module. Releasing the weapon into the voxyn's mouth, he squirmed away, pressing his back against the duct roof in what he felt fairly certain would be a futile attempt to free his lightsaber.

Bela's white blade hissed to life somewhere behind the voxyn, but the creature filled the duct so completely that only a few stray rays of light showed past. The beast lunged; Tesar barely saved his breath mask by jerking away, then lashed out and felt his finger talons sink into the thing's wounded snout.

The voxyn continued to drag itself forward, its jaws snapping at the hand clawing on its muzzle. Tesar shoved its head against the wall.

Tesar exuded triumph to his hatchmates. A heavy foot came forward to catch his elbow, its disease-tipped claws dimpling his jumpsuit's molytex lining and nearly pushing through. To his sense of triumph, he added urgency.

The drone of Bela's blade grew louder - then vanished beneath the sharp crack of exploding detonite. An unexpected weight settled on Tesar's back, and suddenly the duct was filled with the soft green light of the bioluminescent wall lichen that illuminated the interior of the Exquisite Death. Tesar glimpsed the tangled mass of broken fang and scorched flesh that was the voxyn's mutilated snout, then felt himself rising through the top of the duct as someone levitated him into the cabin above.

The blaster-scarred voxyn scrambled past beneath him, whole chunks of body missing, the stumps of four rear legs dragging uselessly behind.

"You bantha head! It escaped!" Tesar looked over and found himself staring into the blue eyes of Ganner Rhysode, one of the largest and - to judge by his own attitude, at least - most handsome of the human Jedi. "Now it will be twice as hard to kill!"

"Hunting season's over, my scaly friend." Ganner lowered Tesar to the passage floor, then called into the hole. "Come out of there, girls. Anakin wants us on the bridge."

 

In the adjacent sleeping cabin, Raynar Thul awoke from his healing trance to find himself watching Eryl's bare back as she sat up and stretched on the opposite side of a narrow walkway. Her skin was freckled and milky, with only the faintest hint of the acid scars and claw slashes he had come to know so well during the first voxyn watch. With the others deep in healing trances or busy learning to fly the ship, he and Eryl had spent a great deal of time talking and rubbing bacta lotion into each other's wounds. He had a dim memory of a long lingering kiss just before they finally sank into their own bunks, but it seemed so hazy now it might have been only a dream.

Eryl lowered her arms and, glancing over her shoulder, caught him looking. Instead of covering up, she smiled and asked, "How do I look?"

Raynar's teeth clacked as he snapped his jaw shut, then he managed to stammer, "Fine." Maybe the kiss hadn't been a dream after all. "J-just great, in fact."

Eryl frowned and craned her neck to look down her back, then laughed and, still not covering up, said, "I was talking about my scars, young man. Are they healed?"

"Oh yes." Raynar wanted to drop back onto his bunk and sink into a healing trance. "That's what I meant."

Eryl looked doubtful. "Sure." She reached for her jumpsuit. "But it's okay. After all that bacta rubbing, I don't think anyone on the strike team has any secrets."

"No, I don't think so," Raynar said.

Still, as he reached for his own jumpsuit, Raynar did try to hide his disappointment. Eryl might be only a year or two older, but being called a young man had disabused him of any wrong impressions about their relationship.

Tekli appeared from a few bunks down, her brown fur tousled and gray eyes sparkling as she buckled her equipment harness.

"Sleep well? "she asked.

"Yes, very," Raynar answered. "And you?"

"Good." She gave them a tight smile, then lifted her brow as the ship gave a subtle shudder. "We must be coming out of hyperspace."

Both Raynar and Tekli looked to Eryl, who closed her green eyes and reached out with the Force. When she opened them a moment later, she looked just a little younger and more innocent than before.

"I'll have to see some stars to be certain, but it feels right," she said. "We've reached Myrkr."

 

Chapter 26

As the Exquisite Death sped insystem, shedding velocity and swinging into Myrkr's gravity well, the planet swelled from a greenish pinpoint to an emerald disk the size of a thumbnail. Though Anakin did not recall the world having a moon, the pearly fleck hanging beside it was too bright to be a background star and too steady to be an optical illusion. He turned to the sensor station, where Lowbacca sat with his emergency vac suit pulled over his jumpsuit, his head buried in a cognition hood, and his huge hands squeezed into a pair of control gloves.

"Lowie, anything?" Anakin asked.

The Wookiee groaned a reply, which Em Teedee, hovering alongside, translated as, "Master Lowbacca continues to apply his best efforts and assures you he will inform you the moment he succeeds."

Anakin knew well enough what Lowbacca had really said, but he did not remark on the gentle editing or unnecessary translation. Not everyone knew the language, and Em Teedee insisted it was his duty to make certain the whole strike team understood Lowbacca as well as he did them.

Lowbacca growled something short, and Em Teedee added, "He also wishes me to suggest that frequent requests for information only interrupt his concentration."

"I know," Anakin said. "Sorry."

Though the strike team had quickly mastered most of the Exquisite Death's systems - having studied all available data on Yuuzhan Vong vessels and even experimented with a captured assault boat - the sensors remained a problem. In contrast to the externally oriented observation technologies of the New Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong gathered information by analyzing the infinitesimal distortions that the gravity of distant objects caused in the ship's internal space-time. Given that the galaxy's finest scientists were still struggling to comprehend the basic science of Yuuzhan Vong sensors, it was no wonder Lowbacca was having difficulties operating them - even with Tahiri at his side translating and providing insight into how Yuuzhan Vong thought.

When Anakin looked back to Myrkr, the planet had grown to a cloud-mottled circle the size of Ulaha's head. The gray fleck beside it was now a tiny disk.

"Definitely a moon," Anakin said. At this distance, he could not expect to feel anything through the lambent crystal. But he knew what he was seeing. "A Yuuzhan Vong moon."

Lowbacca let out a victorious growl, and Em Teedee reported, "Master Lowbacca feels it is, indeed, a Yuuzhan Vong worldship." Lowbacca grunted and yowled a few more times, and the translation droid added, "There are several corvette analogs in orbit around it, though the diameter is quite large for a worldship - approximately one hundred and twenty kilometers."

That was as large as the first Death Star. Anakin whistled softly to himself, then reached out toward the distant fleck with the Force. Not one to rule out the possibility of coincidence, he was nevertheless suspicious enough of it to inspect it carefully. He felt an all-too-familiar stirring, the feral agitation of a voxyn - but also something else, another presence full of terror and pain ... and surprise.

A clear, sharp presence, not hazy. Jedi, not Yuuzhan Vong.

Anakin did not realize he had gasped until a hand took his arm and Alema asked what was wrong. Not answering, he continued to focus on the worldship. The presence touched him back, still full of pain and fear, but now also pity - not for itself, he thought, but for him. He filled his heart with comforting emotions, trying to project an aura of confidence and hope, though he knew the vagaries of the Force might not be capable of conveying the message he wanted. The presence at the other end maintained contact for only a moment longer before abruptly withdrawing, closing itself off to Anakin without any hint of whether it had comprehended what he was trying to communicate.

Tahiri clasped his arm. "Anakin?"

"There are Jedi there," he said. "With the voxyn."

"Well, that puts Plan A right out the lock," Ganner said. Plan A called for them to sneak as close as possible to the cloning facility and destroy it with a baradium-packed missile, then use the resulting confusion to confirm the queen's destruction and escape. "We'll have to try something else."

"That is very brave, of course," Alema said. Standing beside the commander's chair opposite Tahiri, she laid a hand on Anakin's arm and turned to him with a look of entreaty. "But if we forgo our best plan, we stand to lose more Jedi than we would save."

Jacen emerged from the back of the bridge, his eyes rolling at the Twi'lek's pouty tone. "Alema, I think Anakin knows what's at stake here."

"I can handle this, Jacen," Anakin said, doing his best to keep the irritation out of his voice. "And there is no need to remind me about the dark side. I understand the consequences of killing our own."

"Anakin, I only meant -"

"Shouldn't you be at your battle station?" Anakin asked, deliberately cutting Jacen off. He cast a meaningful look at both Alema and Tahiri. "Shouldn't everyone?"

Jacen's face reddened, and Tahiri's eyes narrowed, but all three retreated to their assigned places and left Anakin to his thoughts. This was one of those times Lando had warned them about, when any choice he made felt like the wrong one - but Lando did not have the Force to guide him, and Anakin still had a few minutes before he had to decide anything. If he waited, maybe things would work out for the better; they almost always did.

Jaina swung the Exquisite Death into an approach pattern, and the edge of Myrkr's enormous green disk began to slide across the port side of the bridge. From space, at least, there was no visible sign of Yuuzhan Vong planet-shaping; it remained the same steam-shrouded forest world depicted in holovids.

The worldship was rapidly filling the viewing dome, swelling from a little smaller than a Kuati banquet plate to the size of a high command conference table. A thin halo of twinkling stars hinted at the escape of radiant heat, while blotchy circles of gray and brown began to define the planetoid's pocked surface.

Expecting the hailing villip in front of him to activate at any moment, Anakin waved Tahiri close, then used the holoshroud unit on his equipment harness to cloak himself in the prerecorded image of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. Whether the tattoos and scarrings were appropriate for the commander of a corvette-analog vessel was anybody's guess; there seemed to be the right amount, but New Republic Intelligence was still struggling to learn the significance - if any - of individual patterns.

Lowbacca moaned a warning from the sensor console, informing Anakin that a trio of Yuuzhan Vong corvettes had just appeared from the far side of Myrkr and were lining up for approach behind the Exquisite Death. Anakin ordered Jaina to continue as before. Though her face was hidden beneath the pilot's hood she wore to interface with the vessel, he could feel her apprehension. Not knowing the proper procedure for entering a Yuuzhan Vong base, they had opted to try an open approach, trusting that procedural mistakes would prove less alarming than a furtive advance.

Jaina rolled them to starboard and angled into line behind a string of dark specks drifting across the face of the worldship, now so large that it completely filled the dome. Anakin had Ulaha activate a holocam and begin feeding mapping information to her datapad. The long journey between galaxies had left the massive spacecraft dilapidated and spent. A few black, jagged scars denoted breaches in the outer shell, but most of the planetoid seemed a mottled patchwork of gray dust and jagged yorik coral. A sparse network of surface utility lanes curved along the surface, occasionally converging in starburst intersections or vanishing down the dark mouth of an interior access portal.

The worldship still did not hail them, and the back of Anakin's neck began to prickle with danger sense. No New Republic base would allow any ship to approach so closely without making contact. Jaina maintained her spacing behind the other ships, following them around the curve of the planetoid. A complex of cone-shaped grashal peaks appeared on the horizon, protruding up through the outer shell, a little to the starboard of the long line of vessels they were following. Even with the naked eye, Anakin could see that the buildings emerged from the surface close to the city-sized square of a huge black pit.

"Maxmag that, Ulaha," he said. "What's it like?"

Ulaha turned her holocam on the complex and increased the magnification. "It appears to be some kind of spaceport," she wheezed. Though the Bith was much improved after her healing trance, she remained weak and colorless. "There is a large pit surrounded by many entrances, with what look to be loading facilities."

"Abandoned?"

"Empty," Ulaha corrected. "No vessels in sight, but the landing pads are stacked with cargo pods ... and cages."

Anakin reached out to the facility with the Force. He no longer felt the pained presence he had noticed before, but the hungry stirring of voxyn was still powerful. The tingle in the back of his neck became a nettling, and, noting that their current approach would keep them well away from the complex, he suddenly understood why the worldship had not yet hailed them.

"They're trying to lead us into a trap. Jaina, turn toward that complex now!" Anakin activated the comlink. "Ganner, you and Tesar ready that missile. Stand by for targeting coordinates. Everybody, secure your vac suits. We're in for a rough ride."

As Jaina swung the ship around, Lowbacca rumbled an alarm. "Oh, dear," Em Teedee chirped at Anakin's collar. "Master Lowbacca says there's a cruiser -"

"I heard him," Anakin said.

A distant ovoid of yorik coral floated over the horizon, moving to position itself between the Exquisite Death and what Anakin now felt certain was the loading area for the cloning complex. Lowbacca warned that the corvettes coming from Myrkr were accelerating and spreading out, and the half-dozen vessels they had been following were turning toward the cruiser. When Em Teedee attempted to repeat this information in Basic, Anakin switched him off.

One of the small villips next to the ship's hailing villip suddenly pushed through its eversion orifice, taking the shape of a lumpy Yuuzhan Vong head ringed around the brow by goiterlike growths. "Gadma dar, Ganner Rhysode."

Anakin turned to Tahiri for a translation, but the villip began to speak in Basic before she could supply it.

"Stroke the hailing villip, Jeedai, so that we can speak."

Before obeying, Anakin said, "Jaina, continue on course. Lowie, get a targeting lock on that cruiser and feed the coordinates to Ganner and Tesar."

The Yuuzhan Vong grew impatient. "It should be the leathery disk next to this one, Jeedai."

Anakin stroked the appropriate villip. Instead of everting, its central orifice opened and extended toward him a short tentacle with a black eye at the end. The Yuuzhan Vong - or rather, his villip - raised his brow and started to demand something in his own language, then caught himself and smiled.

"Very good, Ganner Rhysode. I see we are not the only ones who use masquers."

Seeing no reason to disabuse an enemy of his mistake, Anakin left the holoshroud on. "I'm sure this is more than a social call, shipmaster."

"Commander," the officer corrected. "It is my obligation to recover the vessel you have stolen."

"Stolen?" Anakin asked. "We're just borrowing it. You can have it back when we finish."

The commander's villip went blank for a moment, then frowned. "I fear it is needed now. Surrender to the matalok ahead, and you will be the only one who suffers for the ... misuse ... of the Exquisite Death."

Anakin glanced through the bridge dome and saw an ovoid as long his arm. The distance between the vessels had to be no more than a dozen kilometers, and still the cruiser had not opened fire. Perhaps the commander had dreams himself of presenting Tsavong Lah with seventeen Jedi - or perhaps he did not think his cruiser had much to fear from a ship as small as the Exquisite Death.

Lowbacca growled a report saying there were half a dozen coralskippers and as many corvette analogs moving into position over the cloning facility.

"It would be futile to make my matalok attack, Jeedai" the commander warned. "My trap was well laid, and the warmaster has said that if we must open fire, the Talfaglion hostages are forfeit."

"Has he?" Anakin opened his emotions to the others so they would be ready for what he intended. "I see we have no choice."

Hoping Luke had everything ready on his side of the galaxy, Anakin snatched his lightsaber from his belt and, thumbing the ignition switch, slashed the hailing villip apart.

"Full ahead, Jaina." He activated his comlink. "Ganner, target cruiser. Set fuse to proximity, fire when ready."

"Missile loose."

The report came almost before the order was finished, but it took Anakin until the missile flashed past to realize Ganner had known what Anakin intended. The strike team had established its battle meld automatically, perhaps even unconsciously, as soon as the likelihood of combat became apparent.

The missile's unexpected appearance confused the Yuuzhan Vong for only a few seconds. A flurry of plasma balls boiled out to intercept the missile, causing the droid brain to activate its counter-measure program. The missile diverted some of its power to shields and continued toward its target in an evasive corkscrew. Anakin did not need to tell his sister to circle around the target. Baradium was the same substance that made thermal detonators such fearsome weapons, and the missile was carrying enough of the explosive to equip an entire assault division.

The Yuuzhan Vong gunners tried in vain for another few seconds to hit the spiraling target, then gave up and turned the ship's defense over to the shielding crews. A black dot appeared half a kilometer from the ship and sucked the missile toward its doom.

As soon as the droid brain detected the existence of a shielding singularity, it used its guidance laser to measure the distance to target, calculated that 98 percent of the mass fell within its blast radius, and triggered a thousand kilograms of baradium. The cruiser vanished in a blinding sphere of white fire that resembled, for a few seconds, a one-kilometer sun.

The Exquisite Death shook beneath the shock wave, then Ganner's voice came over the comlink. "What now? Plan D?"

"Sort of." Anakin looked toward the cloning compound and saw a dozen yorik coral flecks swarming over the buildings. They were not coming out to attack, so it seemed apparent they were conserving their energies and would not open fire until the Exquisite Death reached point-blank range. Given the likelihood of a miss hitting the corvette analogs streaking in behind the Death, it seemed a wise strategy. "Here's what I want."

Anakin had barely described his plan before Ulaha held out her datapad.

"What's that?"

"I must be the one to stay with the ship," she said.

Anakin felt his sister's alarm as acutely as his own. "No offense, Ulaha," Jaina said, "but you're hardly up to something like this."

"Perhaps not, but I am a pilot - and the Exquisite Death is hardly a starfighter." Ulaha pressed the datapad into Anakin's hand. "As stated, your plan has a twenty-one percent success probability, with a casualty projection in excess of ninety percent. Without me to burden you on the ground, your success probability rises to almost fifty percent."

"That high?" Anakin did not even want to hear the casualty projections. "Okay, but just drop Two-One-S's shuttle and go. Do you need anything?"

Ulaha thought for a moment, then said, "If there is time, I would like a length of metal tubing from the droid kit. Leave it in the corridor."

"Count on it." Anakin wanted to hug her or shake her hand or something, but that all seemed so final, so irrevocable. Instead, he sent Jaina after the rest of the team, already gathering in the first hold, then paused at the door valve and looked back. "No heroics, Ulaha. That's an order. Just drop Two-One-S and go."

The Bith nodded at him. "It's okay, Anakin. This is the right thing." She turned away and reached for the cognition hood. "Now hurry; every minute of delay reduces the mission's success probability by zero point two percent."

Feeling a little lonely and hollow inside, Anakin rushed down the corridor into the first hold, where the Jedi were already packing themselves and their equipment into five Yuuzhan Vong cargo pods. He left the tubing in the corridor for Ulaha, then sealed the hold door and turned to join the others.

Zekk was packing Tesar in with Ganner, Jovan, and Tenel Ka. "You are sure we have enough thermal detonatorz?" Tesar rasped. "We are going to need many detonatorz for the voxyn."

"I packed all four cases." Zekk pushed the pod shut.

"Only four?" Tesar demanded.

Zekk shook his head, then sealed the seam with a glob of bio-rash jelly and motioned Anakin into a pod with Raynar, Eryl, and Tahiri. "We're the last. I thought it best to separate families and equipment."

There was no need to explain the precaution. Anakin nodded, then pulled up his vac suit hood and crouched beside Tahiri, opposite Eryl and Raynar. Zekk squeezed in beside Anakin, then lit a glow stick and sealed the seam from the inside. The Exquisite Death continued forward unopposed for what seemed an eternity, and, through the battle meld, Anakin felt Ulaha's anxiety slowly giving way to bewilderment.

"They are coming out to meet us, but they do not fire," Ulaha commed. "Now they are spreading out, and arrest tentacles are extending from the noses of some ships."

"They're still trying to take us alive!" Anakin gasped. "Why risk so much?"

"They are alienz," one of the Barabel sisters commed. "There is no sense trying to understand them."

The Exquisite Death swung sharply to port, then lurched back onto course, dipped sharply, and began to jink like a fighter.

"You must start the drop," Ulaha commed. The ship began to shudder. "They are shooting tentacles at us."

"Projected drop zone two kilometers from spaceport at bearing one-twenty-two," 2-1S reported from the shuttle. "Surprise likelihood high."

Anakin gave the go order, and Ulaha put the Exquisite Death into a coral-crackling climb. At the end of the long line of cargo pods, 2-4S used his blaster cannon to open a makeshift bomb bay, and the hold decompressed with a tremendous roaring. Anakin's pod began to slide across the floor toward the breach.

"Decoy away," 2-4S commed.

Anakin's pod, number five, slid toward the hole faster.

"Pod one away." There was a moment of silence, then 2-4S reported, "Enemy arrest tentacle has captured decoy pod."

Anakin held his breath. He had intended the decoy to detonate on the ground, but as long as it convinced the Yuuzhan Vong they were dropping bombs instead of a strike team ...

A burst of static crackled across the comlinks, then 2-1S's barely audible voice said, "Decoy detonation. Heavy damage to enemy vessel."

The Barabels sissed over the comm channel.

"Pod two away," 2-4S reported. "Pod three ..."

Anakin did not hear the next report, for a tremendous growling reverberated through their pod as it scraped over the edge of the hole and fell free. His stomach grew queasy with weightlessness and all five of them began to float.

"Two-Four-S away," 2-4S reported.

Tahiri grabbed Anakin's arm, and Eryl began an audible countdown. Anakin opened himself to the Force as completely as possible, alert to any emotion that might suggest the others had been grabbed by an arresting tentacle, or targeted by a defensive blast of plasma. He sensed only apprehensions similar to his own - except from the Barabels, who were radiating the emotional equivalent of a big "yipeee!"

Finally, Eryl said, "Fifteen seconds - mark!"

According to calculations, at least, they were now only a thousand meters above the surface of the worldship. Anakin caught their vessel with the invisible hand of the Force, cushioning their descent just enough so that the deceleration kept them pinned to the floor. The war droids had calculated that a deceleration of approximately one and a half standard gravities would not be overly noticeable, yet the resulting landing would be 99 percent survivable.

Anakin remained silent through the descent, wishing that he could see the surface, or feel the nonexistent atmosphere buffeting them, or anything. After a few more seconds, he decided that they had to be almost down and began to slow their descent still further - and then the bone-jarring shock of impact slammed everyone to the floor. They went weightless as the capsule bounced, then came down on their side and rolled more times than Anakin could count before coming to a rest in a jumbled tangle.

Anakin used the Force to move the others off him, then ignited his lightsaber and hacked through the blorash jelly seam. He had barely opened a fist-sized hole before Zekk and the others activated the delay on four grenades and used the Force to push them up through the crack. Two seconds later, a roiling fireball erupted fifty meters overhead.

Hoping the explosion would look realistic enough from a distance, Anakin finished opening the pod and stepped out into a dusty basin of brown, dead yorik coral. Perhaps three meters deep, the bowl was easily three hundred long and a hundred wide, probably not an impact crater, but the scar of some ancient mishap. In the far corner, almost directly opposite Anakin, sat the broken husk of a distant cargo pod, a group of minuscule figures scurrying around its base. One of the Jedi felt him watching and waved in greeting, then all four turned and started in his direction. A moment later, the pod vanished in the brilliant flare of a thermal detonator.

Anakin's attention was drawn skyward by a flash of movement. He looked up in time to see a small, unidentifiable shape arc into the near corner of the field, then erupt in a tremendous fireball. Thinking they were under fire from a Yuuzhan Vong warship, he almost dived for the ground - but stopped when he saw the black, star-spangled camouflage armor of a Tendrando Arms YVH S-series war droid emerge from the dust cloud and come toward him at an impossibly fast run.

Anakin assigned Raynar and Eryl to unload their pod and sent Zekk to the basin rim to reconnoiter, then took a moment to concentrate on the others. He sensed a couple of fuzzy heads and a few aches and pains, but the team appeared to be 99 percent intact - just as the droids had promised.

Anakin retrieved the electrobinoculars and turned them overhead. Without the blue glow of streaking ion drives to draw attention to the ships, it took a moment to locate the space battle, which had already drifted far across the sky toward Myrkr. YVH 2-1S was just parting ways with Ulaha, his lumpy black shuttle corkscrewing wildly back toward the worldship as the Bith veered off into deep space in the Exquisite Death.

To Anakin's disappointment, the Yuuzhan Vong had swallowed the bait only partially. The coralskippers and four corvettes were surrounding 2-1S's shuttle, arrest tentacles lashing out to capture the careening rock - but the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong were pursuing the Death.

A pair of heavy steps came up beside Anakin, then Ganner said over the vac suit comm net, "We're good to go, Anakin. We have the bearings to the spaceport, and Two-Four-S's sensors show no sign they realize we're here."

Anakin lowered the electrobinoculars and turned away. He would have liked to stay and see whether they escaped - they deserved that much - but he knew neither 2-1S nor Ulaha would want that. Every minute of delay reduced the mission's success probability by 0.2 percent.

 

The strike team had traveled only five hundred meters when 2-4S's metallic voice came over the comm channel. "Two-One-S reports zero survivability rating. Now optimizing -"

An orange fireball blossomed in the sky, drowning the droid's last two words in a tempest of electronic interference. Anakin raised the electrobinoculars in time to see a trio of enemy corvettes burst into white sprays of yorik coral. The fourth vessel, a mere splinter at this distance, spiraled away out of control.

"Loss ratio optimized," 2-4S reported.

Anakin nodded and said, "Maximum efficiency."

They all knew from the training sessions with 1-1A that it was the highest tribute that could be made to one of Lando's droids, and several Jedi repeated the compliment. They continued toward the spaceport, using the Force to smooth the dust behind them and keep it from billowing into the airless sky.

A few minutes later, 2-4S detected two coralskippers approaching. The strike team had to conceal itself beneath the dust and wait as the pair swept over in a slow, curving search pattern. Once the pilots reached the drop zone, they would find four huge baradium craters and nothing to suggest the Exquisite Death had dropped anything but four poorly targeted bombs, and they would return to base laughing at their enemy's incompetence. Until then, the Jedi would have to wait and be patient.

Though no one said as much, all of their thoughts were on Ulaha alone in the Exquisite Death, with five corvette analogs and a host of skips on her tail. Though the Bith was growing more distant in the battle meld, Anakin could feel her consumed with the tasks at hand, weary and in pain, but without fear - at peace, even. Daring to hope Ulaha's tranquility meant she was escaping, Anakin raised the electrobinoculars as soon as the search craft were gone and combed the darkness above for the Exquisite Death, but it was an impossible task. Even if he were looking in the right direction, by now the Bith and her pursuers would be too distant for electrobinoculars to detect.

The strike team resumed its march. Ulaha's presence continued to fade, then finally vanished altogether. Anakin could tell by the surge of anxiety in the battle meld that the same fear had leapt into the minds of all the Jedi.

Tahiri asked, "Is she -"

"No," Jacen interrupted. "We would have felt that."

"Maybe she jumped to hyperspace," Anakin said. "Two-Four-S?"

"Negative," the droid reported. "Exquisite Death still within sensor range."

Then the music started, a reedy, haunting melody that came to Anakin inside his mind. Though there was a mournful hint to it, the strain was more tranquil than sad, and perhaps the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. He turned and found the others staring skyward, some with heads cocked listening, others with a tear or two running down inside their face masks.

"Exquisite Death and pursuers decelerating," 2-4S reported. "Analysis suggests tentacle arrest."

No one seemed to hear the report. "I wish ..." Jaina fell silent as the song drifted into a flighty passage and began to gather energy. "I wish I could record this."

"Yes," Jacen said. "I'm sure Tionne would like it for her archives ... it's a sad loss for the Jedi."

Anakin could not tell from his brother's flat tone whether Jacen was criticizing or just saying aloud what they all felt. There was no question of Ulaha surrendering the Death. Even were she to survive the boarding party's initial assault, she could not endure another breaking.

The music repeated its opening refrain, but more powerfully now and without any hint of sadness, then rose to a robust crescendo ...

In the sudden silence, Tahiri gasped.

 

Chapter 27

In the dim planetglow shining down from Myrkr's emerald face, the flattened senalak shafts looked more like ice spikes than any security system Anakin had ever seen. The rigid stalks were only knee-high and no thicker than a finger, but as Jovan Drark's invisible Force wave pushed a safe furrow through the field, their blunt blue caps released a meter-long strand of thorns. The barbed cord would flail around in the vacuum for a couple of seconds, presumably entwining and capturing - if not killing - whatever had disturbed it.

Had Alema not warned them about the trap, the strike team would have entered the security field completely unprepared. Given the trap they had already flown into aboard the Exquisite Death, Anakin was beginning to wonder if they were really prepared for this. Ulaha had given them less than a 50 percent chance of success, and as far as he could tell, things were not getting any better. He was beginning to wonder if coming after the voxyn queen had been such a good idea after all.

"Anakin, this has to be done - and you're not making it any easier with that big negatude." Tahiri was crawling along behind Anakin, her blond hair spilling out behind her faceplate.

"So they were expecting us. You dealt with it, and now they aren't."

"Sorry. Thought I had that stuff closed off."

"You did." Tahiri rolled her eyes. "This is me, Anakin." The last of the senalaks fell to Jovan's Force wave, and they found themselves at the edge of the spaceport. Basically a huge pit thirty meters deep and a kilometer across, it was surrounded by a cavernous colonnade sealed behind a transparent membrane and accessed by a ring of air-locked valveways. Twenty biotic berthing bays lay spaced evenly across the floor, all covered by retractable carapaces and sized to accommodate corvette-analog vessels.

On the near side of the spaceport, the latest rescue transport to return from the space battle was just berthing, the two halves of the bay carapace rising up to press themselves against the lumpy hull. Though Anakin and the others had not been able to see the battle as they stole across the worldship's pocked surface, the steady stream of rescue vessels returning from space told them that their comrades had put up a good fight. They also knew the outcome; 2-1S had burst-commed a final situation report to 2-4S, and they had all felt Ulaha's death - one of the reasons, no doubt, for Anakin's "negatude."

Perhaps five kilometers beyond the landing pit rose the hive-shaped grashal peaks they had seen from space. Anakin did not need to stretch out with the Force to know that was where the voxyn were kept. He could feel their hunger clearly, coming straight from that direction. The Jedi prisoner was another matter. He could not sense him - or her, or them - at all, even when he exerted himself.

"Ysalamiri?" Alema asked. She crawled up beside him on the side opposite Tahiri, stopping so that the shoulder of her vac suit touched his. "If they've got a Jedi, they'd need ysalamiri."

Anakin was not really surprised to have the Twi'lek anticipating him. During the trip from the drop zone, the strike team had found itself acting in such harmony that, at times, it seemed they were sharing thoughts.

"I don't think he's dead," Tahiri said. "I realize we don't know who he is or anything, but I still think we'd know."

Anakin did not think so, but there was only one way to find out. He turned to call for the ysalamiri mating pheromones Cilghal had supplied - then grimaced when Jacen was waiting to press the capsule into his glove.

"This is getting weird," he said. "Tesar could have said something."

A grin showed in Jacen's eyes. "Try it from my end." He grew more serious, an aura of distress rising around him. "Anakin, before we start, there's something -"

"Not now, Jacen." Anakin looked away. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Jacen's feelings, but he had seen at Centerpoint Station what happened when he listened to his brother. "I need to do this my own way."

"I know. I only want to -"

"Please."

Anakin flicked the capsule toward the far side of the landing pit, where a service crew was busy moving provisions out of an open air lock. In Myrkr's greenish planetglow, he quickly lost sight of the tiny capsule, but felt it stop when it entered the lock and came to the inner valve. A few minutes later, the crew finished its task and entered the air lock together. Anakin started to tell the others to be ready, then thought better of it. They were.

The outer valve was just closing when 2-4S reported, "Incoming vessel, enemy, frigate analog."

The report meant the ship's arrival was imminent - as marvelous as YVH war droids were, their sensor package lacked the power for deep-space detection. The news sent a prickle of danger sense down Anakin's spine, but he refused to be rushed. Until he knew where the Jedi was being kept, entering the spaceport would only place the captive - and themselves - at risk.

Finally, a swarm of distant squiggles scurried out of an archway about a third of the way around the colonnade. More than a dozen Yuuzhan Vong followed, stooped over and half stumbling as they attempted to retrieve the escapees. One of the warriors grabbed a squirming form, then jerked his hand back and stomped the creature. Ysalamiri had sharp teeth.

It did not take long before all eyes - at least all eyes visible through transparent membrane - were fixed on the disturbance. Anakin backed away from the edge and stood. When he turned to order the holoshrouds activated, he found himself facing a long line of what looked like Yuuzhan Vong.

"I suppose you know the plan, too?"

"Straight to the ysalamiri house," Bela - or was it Krasov - answered.

"Then back -"

"To steal the rescue shuttle," Ganner finished. "We've got it, Jedi. Two-Four-S and I will cover the descent."

"Well, then."

Anakin activated his own holoshroud and stepped over the edge, dropping alongside the wall and using the Force to cushion his landing. When he did not feel any surge of Yuuzhan Vong alarm through the lambent crystal, he turned to find himself standing before a rancor-sized air lock, a warren of murky tunnels and murkier doorways barely visible through its translucent door valves. He could feel a handful of Yuuzhan Vong somewhere back in the darkness, but his sense of them was too fuzzy to tell whether they were alarmed by his sudden appearance - or even aware of it.

Alema, Tesar, and the others began to arrive beside him. Knowing the Twi'lek to be the most experienced at infiltrating enemy lines, he assigned her to lead the way through the air lock, while he kept an eye on the rest of the spaceport. The landing pit appeared even larger from the floor than from above. In the murky green light, the excitement at the opposite end was visible only as a mass of shadows scurrying around behind the window membrane, and even figures in nearby warrens were difficult to see unless they were silhouetted against a patch of bioluminescent wall lichen. Only the rescue vessel, sitting pinched in its biotic berthing bay, was distinct and easy to see.

By the time Anakin had completed his survey, Ganner and 2-4S were on the floor behind him. They followed the others through the air lock and let their faceplates and breath masks hang over their collars, leaving their throat mikes and earpieces in place so they could communicate quietly. Anakin took the lead and began to hurry along the colonnade at the fastest pace he could without drawing too much attention; the power packs in their holoshrouds would last only two minutes before growing unreliable and needing to be changed.

As they went by the rescue ship, they also passed a rampway leading down to a bustling work level under the landing pit. An unarmored Yuuzhan Vong started up the slope, gesturing at them and calling in his own language. A wave of alarm shot through the strike team, but it was quickly quelled when Jacen used the battle meld to direct everyone's attention to Alema's unruffled composure. The Yuuzhan Vong reached the door and said something more insistent.

Tahiri's voice sounded in everyone's earpieces, giving the proper response. Ganner, who had the most Yuuzhan Vong-like voice, stepped out of line and faced the scarhead.

"Pol dwag, kane a bar."

"Kanabar?" the Yuuzhan Vong asked.

There was a moment's pause while Tahiri gave the reply, then Ganner said, "Dwi, kane a, bar!"

"Tadag dakl, ignot!"

The Yuuzhan Vong raised both arms in a rude gesture, then disappeared back down the ramp.

"What was that about?" Anakin whispered.

"Ganner called him the dung of a meat maggot," Tahiri said. "I told him to say kanabar, not kane a bar."

"Kane a bar was better," Tesar rasped. "How do you say slime under my scales?"

This drew a chorus of sissing from the Hara sisters - and an order from Anakin to save the jokes. 2-4S reported that the incoming enemy vessel was indeed a frigate analog and had gone into orbit around the worldship. The prickles returned to Anakin's neck and did not subside. With a frigate in orbit around the worldship, they would have to be careful about the timing of their escape.

They reached the dark archway leading into the ysalamiri warren. Anakin knew instantly they were in the right place, for the air stank of unwashed bodies, old blood, and even fouler things. The battle meld vanished three steps into the tunnel, and he saw that the passage ahead was lined with walking trees similar to those they had seen aboard the Death. Most had broken claws protruding from the trunks, but a handful of the trees still had ysalamiri clinging to them. A pair of Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood behind a yorik coral lobby counter, adroitly plaiting a living cord into a braided whip and somehow ignoring the anguished screams rolling up the corridor.

As Anakin approached, both warriors stopped work and crossed their arms over their chest.

"Remaga corlat, migan yam?" the taller one asked.

Anakin walked straight to the gateway.

"Remaga corlat?" the tallest guard asked again, now pulling his amphistaff off his waist and stepping to block Anakin's way.

Anakin's answer was sharp, if not quite angry. "Kane a bar."

The Yuuzhan Vong's saggy eyes looked more confused than angry, but he lowered his amphistaff toward Anakin's chest. "Yaga?"

Anakin pointed his lightsaber and thumbed the activation switch. The crimson blade shot through the guard's throat and came out through his neck, narrowly missing the warrior behind him. This second Yuuzhan Vong hurled himself backward and opened his mouth to shout the alarm, but was interrupted by the snap-hiss of Alema's silver lightsaber slicing through his head.

Anakin switched off his holoshroud and made assignments, sending Jacen, Ganner, and 2-4S to watch the entrance and Jaina, Raynar, and Eryl to dispose of the remaining ysalamiri. Everyone else, he led down the corridor toward the torture sounds. When he reached the doorway and peered around the corner, he found himself staring at a Yuuzhan Vong's vonduun-crab-armored chest.

The warrior gave a startled cry and started to bring his amphistaff around, but Anakin was already slashing his lightsaber across the Yuuzhan Vong's throat. He thrust-kicked the collapsing body back into the chamber, then heard the telltale drone of thud bugs coming his way and dived to the floor. He rolled over his shoulder, trying to scan the chamber as he moved. There was an ysalamiri tree in one corner and two figures spread-eagle against the rear wall, and two more figures moving on his right. He came up with his lightsaber in a high guard - then dropped flat as Tesar's minicannon bolts began whumpfing past his head.

The ysalamiri tree erupted into splinters, and Anakin's contact with the Force returned as the ysalamiri itself was vaporized. He heard the drone of a thud bug coming his way and allowed his Jedi senses to guide his lightsaber around to deflect it, then spun toward the source and found a Yuuzhan Vong charging him with amphistaff in hand. Before Anakin could parry, a bolt from Tesar's minicannon hurled the warrior across the room, and Alema rushed in to thrust her silver lightsaber through the shattered armor.

Only one Yuuzhan Vong remained, smaller than most and thinner, with a spectral female face and a variety of hooked and serrated talons protruding from her eight fingers, wrists, and even elbows. A shaper. Anakin stood and started toward her, but a web of shimmering energy lines crackled into existence around her body before he had taken two steps. He thought it was a personal shield of some kind - until her eyes widened and she spat something angry.

Anakin focused his thoughts on the web and felt the familiar energies of the Force, but colder and tainted with darkness. He glanced toward the back wall, where the two prisoners still hung spread-eagle, each bleeding from a profusion of wounds. One, a powerfully built woman with dark hair and darker eyes, was glaring at the shaper, quietly mouthing words Anakin did not understand.

The Yuuzhan Vong tried to pluck a strand of the Force energy from her body and succeeded only in severing three fingers. The dark woman smiled, and the web slowly began to shrink, slowly cutting into the shaper's flesh.

Anakin was overcome by a deep sense of wrongness, of hatred and anger ... and evil. This woman was acting not out of wartime necessity, but out of bloodlust and vengeance. He started toward her. "No! This is wrong."

She ignored him, and the Yuuzhan Vong screamed in anguish. Blood began to patter on the floor, and something larger, as well. Anakin glanced back to see small cubes of flesh dropping off the body of the female shaper.

"Stop!"

Anakin raised the butt of his lightsaber and stepped forward to enforce his command, but the Yuuzhan Vong's scream ended abruptly in a wettish plopping sound. When he glanced back, he found her body heaped on the floor in diced sections. The smell was as horrible as the sight, and he had to fight not to vomit.

That was when Jacen's voice came over his earpiece. "That frigate's sending down a shuttle, Little Brother."

"O-okay," Anakin gasped. "Keep me ... posted."

There was a pause, then Jacen asked, "Is something wrong?"

"We're fine," Anakin said. "Just a surprise. I'll tell you later."

An acknowledging click came over the comlink, then Anakin turned to find Alema at the back wall, already freeing the dark woman from the blorash jelly holding her in place.

"... a fascinating technique," the Twi'lek was cooing. "Do you think I could learn it?"

"No, you couldn't," Anakin said. "That attack was cruel. Unnecessarily so."

Alema spun on him, her pale Twi'lek eyes as cold and hard as a Hothan lake. "You may lecture me about cruel when a voxyn has burned the flesh from your sister's face." She turned back to the dark woman, who was now free of the wall. "Perhaps I want to be cruel."

The woman gave her an encouraging smile. "There is nothing wrong with vengeance. It is a noble emotion - a powerful one."

"Spoken like a true Nightsister," Zekk said, stepping into the chamber. He glanced from the dark woman to the young man, who was still hanging on the wall behind her. "Hello, Welk."

Welk, a blond-haired human a year or two older than Anakin, narrowed his eyes at Zekk. "Hello, traitor."

"You two know each other?" Anakin asked.

Zekk nodded. "From the Shadow Academy. Welk here was Tamith Kai's best student - after Vilas died, of course."

"After you killed him," Welk corrected, glaring at Zekk. "And Zekk was the Darkest Knight - our leader, until he betrayed the Second Imperium at Yavin Four."

Anakin frowned at this. Though he had been too young to participate in the defense of the Jedi academy when Tamith Kai's Dark Jedi attacked, many of the Jedi Knights on his strike team - including both of his siblings, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Raynar - had fought valiantly in the battle. They would not be happy to learn that they had just risked their lives to save one of the attackers.

Tesar, who had never even been to Yavin 4, was the first to object. "We risked our lives to save Dark Jedi?" The Barabel trained his minicannon on the pair. "Blaster boltz!"

"Check that, Tesar." Anakin pushed the minicannon down, then turned to the dark woman. "Are there any Jedi -"

"We are Jedi," she replied. Though she was oozing blood from a hundred different wounds, the pain seemed to trouble the woman no more than it would a Yuuzhan Vong. "But in answer to your question: not alive. We were the ones you sensed when you entered the system."

"All the same, there's no harm in looking around." Anakin nodded to Tesar and his hatchmates. "Be careful."

"Do as you wish, young Solo." The woman smiled. "But there is no need to doubt us. We will be happy to help destroy the voxyn."

"How do you know -"

"You are certainly not here to rescue us." Leaving Welk pinned on the wall behind her, she started for the door. "My name, by the way, is Lomi Plo. Perhaps I should start by telling you what we know of this place."

Anakin raised his brow. "You aren't holding that to bargain? What makes you think we won't leave you?"

Lomi regarded him coldly. "And who would be the dark one then, Anakin?"

Anakin was still trying to figure out how she knew his identity when his earpiece activated again.

"We've got trouble, Little Brother." This time it was Ganner on the other end. "That shuttle? You won't believe who's on it."

"I don't," Jacen added. "It looks like Norn Anor!"