by Troy Denning
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.
T
he 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 blorash 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 th
eir 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.
TWENTY-TWO
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.