Star by Star

by Troy Denning

  “It is the twins, my servant,” Shimrra said. “The gods will give us Coruscant, and you will give them these twins.”

  “It will be so, Supreme One,” Tsavong Lah said. “Even now, my servants are running them to ground.”

  “You are certain?” Shimrra asked. “The gods will not be disappointed again.”

  “My servants assure me their plan is an excellent one.” It did not escape Tsavong Lah’s notice that Nom Anor’s words had been much the same as his own to Lord Shimrra. “There is no escape.”

  “Let it be so.” Shimrra was silent for a moment, then said, “See and be seen, my servant.”

  Tsavong raised his head, but said nothing. He had been invited to look, not speak.

  “Know this, Tsavong Lah,” Shimrra said. “In allowing your villip tender to live, you have kept for yourself one who should belong to the gods.”

  Tsavong Lah went cold inside. “Supreme One, this is so, but it was not my intention—”

  “It pleases the gods to let you keep her. Do not insult them by explaining what they know.” Shimrra’s villip began to invert. “Use her well, my servant. All things are forgiven in victory.”

  FORTY

  Tattooed sparsely beneath his sagging eyes and bearing no mutilations except a hole beneath his lip that looked like a second mouth, the Yuuzhan Vong was clearly a raw recruit, probably assigned to point duty for the sole purpose of drawing fire. Praying that the shadows in the tunnel were deep enough to hide her, Jaina used the Force to press her back more tightly to the ceiling. She held her breath as the warrior crawled another meter into the cave. Holding an activated lambent at arm’s length, he used his amphistaff to prod the floor beneath Jaina. She could see the weapon’s snakish shape and knew her own silhouette had to be just as visible, but the Yuuzhan Vong did not look up. He merely gagged on the stench of the place and retreated. When he reached the entrance, he rose and yelled “fas!” and continued up the main passage.

  Jaina remained where she was, watching vonduun-crab-armored legs march past, desperately hoping the next thing to peer inside would not be a voxyn. Though they had already killed four of the beasts—Lowbacca had blasted the last one at the cave-in—the possibility that Nom Anor had brought more than the standard number was the one weak point in the strike team’s plan. The Yuuzhan Vong could be expected to miss the Jedi’s detour, but a voxyn could not. A voxyn would feel the change of direction.

  A second Yuuzhan Vong, this time with the fringed earlobes and heavily branded face of a veteran, thrust his lambent crystal into the jagged tunnel. Like most of the Jedi on the strike team, Jaina had toyed with the idea of capturing one of the crystals, but it was certainly not worth the risk. Anakin’s bond to his was unique, no doubt because of his role in growing it, and even he doubted that he could re-create the feat. Certainly, no one in the Eclipse Program had even been able to figure how the things reproduced. This time, the warrior searched the ceiling as well as the floor, but he rose and continued up the main passage without crawling inside.

  Finally allowing herself a full breath, Jaina removed the flechette mine from her equipment harness. She set the signal feature to their comlink frequency and attached it to the ceiling in front of her. She did not activate it. Once she set the detonation selector to “motion,” she would have only three seconds to leave sensor range, and she could not risk moving until all the Yuuzhan Vong had gone by.

  The company seemed to take forever to pass. Without their pet voxyn to warn when Jedi were near, they moved warily, keeping a five-meter interval and looking for booby traps. Despite everything, the strike team remained alive, mobile, and—with a little help from the Force—capable of destroying the queen. Were Anakin in one piece, Jaina would have considered that a victory in itself.

  She alternated between being scared for her brother and furious with him. She could not really blame Anakin for coming to her rescue—she would have done the same for him or Jacen—but she did. It had been a reckless and typically Anakin thing to do, spectacular, rash, effective—foolish. Tekli had made clear what would happen if they didn’t find time to let him heal, and Anakin had made it just as clear that they were to place the mission above his life. Jaina was determined to do both, but if she had to make a choice … well, she had only two brothers, and she did not intend to leave either one behind.

  Jaina felt Jacen reaching out to her through their twin bond and knew that, somewhere deeper in the tunnel, the others had encountered the first of the feral voxyn. She opened herself to the battle meld and was relieved to discover that Anakin’s wound had drawn the group back together, though Zekk remained resentful about the Dark Jedi, and the others were distracted by concern for Anakin. Worried that any battle sounds from behind her would reverberate into the main passage, she summoned to mind the stillness of a Massassi temple and used the Force to expand this silence outside herself, creating—she hoped—a sphere of quiet between her companions and the Yuuzhan Vong.

  Another set of vonduun-crab-armored legs passed the mouth of the tunnel. A pair of thin, reverse-articulated legs arrived next. They paused, folded down on themselves, and lowered a feathered torso into view. Jaina had to calm herself for fear that her pounding heartbeats would break the sphere of silence. A simian face with slanted eyes and delicate whiskers appeared atop the featherball and peered into the tunnel.

  Vergere, or some being like her.

  An alien presence touched Jaina’s mind, startling her so badly she lost her concentration and dropped a hand’s breadth before she regained composure and lifted herself back to the ceiling. She leveled her blaster pistol at Vergere’s face.

  A wry smile crossed the odd being’s lips, and Jaina knew Vergere had touched her on purpose. But how—through the Force? It didn’t seem possible. If Vergere was a Force-wielder, then the voxyn would hunt her, as well. Wouldn’t they?

  A thicket of vonduun-crab-armored legs gathered outside the tunnel. The silence barrier prevented Jaina from hearing whether the Yuuzhan Vong were speaking, but she did not doubt that Vergere knew of her proximity—even if she had not actually seen her. The alien presence was still touching her, taunting her, almost daring her to attack.

  Jaina activated the flechette mine, then pushed herself back out of sensor range. Vergere’s smile changed to a smirk, and the alien touch faded from Jaina’s mind so quickly she began to wonder if she had felt it at all.

  Vergere spoke to someone behind her. Jaina thumbed off her blaster safety lock, but her target turned and hopped up the passage before she could fire. The Yuuzhan Vong followed, and then even the memory of the alien touch dwindled away.

  Jaina lowered her blaster and, shaking so hard she had to use both hands, reengaged the weapon’s safety lock. She did not understand why she was so frightened. The creature had not even known she was there.

  The other end of the voxyn tunnel opened into a grand corridor, six or seven meters high and wide enough to be a hovercar lane, but still dank and foul-smelling. Even in the small area lit by Jacen’s glow stick, it curved away noticeably but gently, vanishing into darkness at both ends. The wall opposite the strike team’s hiding place was breached by a pair of archways, set about twenty meters apart and each large enough for a rancor. Between these arches stood Wookiee-sized alcoves containing sculptures of the Yuuzhan Vong’s bulbous-headed, many-tentacled god of war, Yun-Yammka. Above every alcove hung another alcove, empty and upside down, with the top pointing at the floor.

  Once, Lomi had explained, the giant worldship had spun on an axis, generating artificial gravity through centrifugal force just as smaller versions did. Sometime during the journey between galaxies, the central brain had lost its ability to control the spin, breaking off the vessel’s spiral arms and destabilizing the whole system. The shapers had switched to dovin basal–induced gravity, forcing the entire worldship to reorient its concept of up and down. There were a few places, such as this, where signs of the transition remained.

  Through the a
rchways whispered the ceaseless rustling of scales and—occasionally—the belch of an angry voxyn. Jacen could feel more than a dozen of the creatures lurking in the darkness just beyond the light of his glow stick, as patient as spice spiders and far more deadly.

  “Looks like the outside of an arena,” Anakin whispered. He was lying on the tunnel floor next to Jacen. “A really big one.”

  “Or a temple,” Lomi said. She and Ganner were squatting on their haunches above the brothers’ feet, with Tesar and Krasov stooped behind them, and everyone else waiting deeper in the cramped tunnel. “If Jacen can use his power to keep the grand corridor clear, perhaps we can sneak—”

  “We can’t,” Anakin interrupted. “One way or another, we have to fight. How many, Jacen?”

  “Too many.”

  Jacen could not perceive individual creatures well enough to make an accurate count, but he could sense them hiding in the cavity of darkness beyond the archways, scattered along the slopes of a bowl-shaped depression that felt easily a kilometer across. He recognized in most of the creatures the same determination to defend their territory that he had sensed in many species, but there was something fanatic about it, the suggestion of a familiar kind of selfless devotion.

  “Nests!” The outline of a plan began to form in Jacen’s mind. “They’re defending their nests.”

  “Nests?” Lomi demanded. “What do clones need with—”

  Anakin silenced her with a raised hand. “Let him concentrate.”

  “Not too long,” Ganner said from somewhere in back. “Sooner or later, even Nom Anor will notice we’ve slipped away.”

  Jacen focused on the voxyn across the way and sensed not protectiveness, nor even hunger, but something closer to longing. One by one, he reached out to the other creatures beneath the arches and, perceiving a similar craving, knew he had guessed right. He backed deeper into the tunnel and faced Tesar and Krasov.

  “I have an idea—”

  “Do it,” Tesar rasped. “Bela will be honored.”

  “Do what?” Welk demanded, looking from one Jedi to another. “How come nobody around here ever finishes a sentence?”

  “No time,” Ganner said. “Let’s go. The Yuuzhan Vong have got to have noticed we’re gone.”

  Jacen ignored him and asked Krasov, “You understand—”

  “She gave her life to the Jedi,” Krasov said. She and Tesar squeezed aside, then levitated their hatchmate forward in between them. “Her body is nothing.”

  They rubbed their muzzles briefly against hers, then removed Bela’s equipment harness and vac suit pack. Tesar set the timer of a class-A thermal detonator to four minutes, then secured it deep within her reptilian throat. Krasov affixed her sister’s lightsaber in hand with synthflesh, and they exchanged places with Lomi and Ganner and floated Bela’s body into the grand corridor.

  Choking back tears—and wondering if he could have done the same thing had it been Anakin’s body—Jacen watched in horror as more than a dozen feral voxyn rushed into the light of his glow stick. The creatures filled the corridor with sonic screeches, and his earplugs activated. Tesar used the Force to ignite Bela’s lightsaber and slice the muzzle off the first voxyn to reach her body. The second bit the arm off at the shoulder. The third bowled the corpse over and straddled it.

  The other voxyn hurled themselves into this one, snarling and snapping at its legs. Several together caught hold and dragged the beast down the corridor, where the battle erupted into a vicious acid-belching melee that reduced the combatants to smoking heaps of scales. The rest continued in a more restrained manner, each trying to straddle Bela’s body, the others fighting to unseat the current possessor, slowly dragging her down the corridor toward one of the archways.

  The battle moved into the darkness, and the strike team was left to listen as the snarling and hissing grew more distant and muffled. Finally, the crackle of a thermal detonator shattered the quiet, and a brilliant glare flashed through an archway far down the corridor. Jacen reached out to the voxyn with soothing thoughts, trying to reassure them the light would not come again. The surviving creatures—and it felt like there were plenty—greeted his efforts with sonic squeals and clattering claws, but gradually settled down and returned to their nests.

  Jacen checked to make sure no voxyn lurked in ambush, then led the way out into the grand corridor. The stench was so bad that even his breath mask could not filter it out. He reached out to summon Jaina and felt her already approaching, apprehensive and baffled, but not panicked.

  Anakin joined the Barabels and began to speak with them quietly. Though Jacen knew Tesar and Krasov would be more unsettled by an apology than gratified by it, he kept his distance. Anakin needed his talk with the Barabels; maybe they would do for him what Jacen could not.

  Jaina arrived and, at Ganner’s insistence, the team set off up the corridor. Anakin reluctantly allowed Tesar and Krasov to assume their usual position in front, though only because they appeared insulted by the suggestion that it was someone else’s turn at point. Every thirty meters, another archway led into the rustling darkness. Though Jacen never perceived more voxyn lurking in these openings, the Barabels took no chances. They always leapt onto the wall and, extending their claws to hold themselves in place, peered through the opening to be certain.

  Jacen stepped to his sister’s side. “Everything okay back there? You seem uneasy.”

  “Fact,” Tenel Ka said, joining them. “You have more furrows between your eyebrows than a Hutt’s purser.”

  “Thanks,” Jaina said. “I saw Vergere.”

  Jacen waited, then finally asked, “And?”

  Jaina’s eyes went vacant. “And nothing … she left.” She pointed her chin ahead. “How’s Little Brother doing?”

  Jacen looked forward to where Anakin was keeping pace with Lowbacca’s long stride. Their brother was so powerful in the Force that it was difficult to tell how much pain he was burying, or how much strength he was burning, but Jacen could feel the fatigue nipping at the edges of Anakin’s carefully maintained facade of vigor.

  “Hard to know,” he said. “I’m scared.”

  Jaina fell quiet, then surprised Jacen by grasping his arm. “Don’t be. We’re not going to let anything happen to him.”

  Tenel Ka took Jacen’s other arm. “Fact.”

  Anakin followed Tesar and Krasov up the grand corridor. Every time they leapt onto a wall to peer around the haunch of an archway, he cringed. His efforts to explain how sorry he was about Bela’s death had only bewildered them, prompting the pair to apologize to him for the strike team’s other casualties. He had ended up feeling more guilty than before, and the Barabels had seemed vaguely affronted by the idea they might need comforting. Reminding the hatchmates to be careful was out of the question, but the Force in the immense chamber beyond the arches was full of brutish agitation, and he kept expecting a mass of brown bile to blast one or both of them.

  Instead, he felt a sudden surge of primal longing. Anakin ignited his lightsaber and, along with everyone else, shouted. A pair of open jaws darted into view. Krasov hissed and pulled back—not quickly enough. A tooth snagged her breath mask and tore it free.

  Anakin jumped forward, slashed the voxyn under the jaw, reversed strokes and cut off the muzzle. The creature reared, then Tesar and Krasov swung down in front of him and severed its swiping claws.

  What remained of the voxyn’s jaws began to open. Krasov dragged her white blade across its throat, then staggered back, her face covered in gummy acid. Tesar used the Force to hold the reeling voxyn upright as Anakin drove his lightsaber into its chest and spun away, pulling his purple blade through its body. The voxyn went limp and hung suspended in the air.

  Krasov’s face was masked by rising fumes, but the sizzle of melting keratin left no doubt about what was happening to her. “Tesar!” she gasped. “My eyes …”

  “Here, Krasov.”

  Leaving the voxyn to fall, Tesar pulled her out of the archway.

>   A loud clatter sounded from the darkness beyond. Anakin pulled a thermal detonator off his harness and threw it well down into the room. There was a familiar sizzle and a bright flash, but no shock wave or heat blast. Precision was what made thermal detonators so useful. Everything within the blast radius was utterly disintegrated; everything beyond remained completely untouched.

  When Anakin sensed no more voxyn charging the door, he turned to call Tekli and found her already guiding Krasov to a seat against the wall. The Chadra-Fan began to scrape off the sticky bile with the blade of a multitool. Too many scales came with it.

  Anakin looked away, said nothing. Every decision cost someone something. Their mission began to seem distant and impossible.

  “Trouble coming!”

  Anakin barely heard Jacen’s words. He did not want to make any more decisions, cause any more casualties.

  “Anakin?”

  He felt Jacen probing, checking to see if the battle had caused his wound to open. It had not. The pain remained bearable, and the Force gave Anakin strength.

  A muffled rustling came down the corridor from both directions.

  “Sith blood!” Jaina cursed. “He’s cracking.”

  Someone fired a blaster. Someone else fired in the other direction. The Force became permeated with primal longing, and voxyn poured into the grand corridor to both sides of the strike team. The blasterfire grew deafening. Anakin drew his own weapon. It would be easier this way; no decisions to make. All he had to do was aim and fire.

  Anakin started forward, and Lowbacca clamped hold of his shoulder and pointed toward the arch at their backs and groaned a question.

  Anakin shook his head. “Tahiri can keep watch. I’m fighting with everyone else.”

  “Better if you watch,” Tesar rasped. He pushed Anakin toward the arch. “For Krasov.”

  “I’m not hurt.” Anakin followed the Barabel toward the battle line. “I can still fight.”

  “Anakin! Will you stay?” Jaina pointed her blaster into the arch. “Get yourself together.”