by Greg Keyes
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (male human)
Harrar; priest (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Isolder; Hapan prince (male human)
Jagged Fel; commander, Chiss squadron (male human)
Jaina Solo; Jedi Knight (female human)
Khalee Lah; warrior (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Kyp Durron; Jedi Master (male human)
Leia Organa Solo; Republic ambassador (female human)
Lowbacca; Jedi Knight (male Wookiee)
Ta'a Chume; former Hapan queen (female human)
Tenel Ka; Jedi Knight (female human)
Teneniel Djo; Hapan queen (female human)
Trisdin Gheer; courtesan (male human)
Tsavong Lah; warmaster (male Yuuzhan Vong)
Zekk; Jedi Knight (male human)
ONE
A sunrise corona limned one edge of the planet Myrkr, setting its vast northern forests alight with a verdant glow. Viewed from space, the planet appeared as lush and green as Yuuzhan'tar, the long-lost homeworld of Yuuzhan Vong legend.
Two Yuuzhan Vong males stood at the viewport of a priestship, deep in contemplation of the scene before them. One was tall and gaunt, with a sloping forehead and sharp, aristocratic features scarred by many acts of devotion. These marks, and his cunningly wrapped head cloth, identified him as a priest of high rank. His companion was younger, broader, and so physically imposing that a first glance yielded no perceptible boundaries between armor and weapons and the warrior who wore them. He struck the eye in a single blow, leaving an indelible impression of a complex, living weapon. His countenance was somber, and there was an intensity about him that suggested movement even though he stood at respectful attention.
The priest swept a three-fingered hand toward the scene below. "Dawn bright death of mortal night," he recited.
Harrar's words followed the well-worn path of proverb, but there was genuine reverence in his eyes as he gazed upon the distant world. The young warrior touched two fingers to his forehead in a pious gesture, but his attention
was absorbed less by the glowing vision of Myrkr than by the battle raging above it.
Silhouetted against the green world was a fist-sized lump of black yorik coral. This, an aging worldship housing hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong and their slaves and creature-servants, looked to be nothing more than lifeless rock. But as Harrar's priestship drew closer, he could make out signs of battle-tiny coral fliers buzzing and stinging like fire gnats, plasma bolts surging in a frantic, erratic pulse. If life was pain, then the worldship was very much alive.
"Our arrival is timely," the priest observed, glancing at the young warrior. "These young Jeedai seem determined to prove themselves a worthy sacrifice!" "As you say, Eminence."
The words were polite, but distracted, as if the warrior gave scant attention. Harrar turned a measuring gaze upon his companion. Discord between the priest and warrior castes was growing more common, but he could discern nothing amiss in Khalee Lah.
The son of Warmaster Tsavong Lah stood tall among the Yuuzhan Vong. His skin's original gray hue was visible only in the faint strips and whorls separating numerous black scars and tattoos. A cloak of command flowed from hooks embedded in his shoulders. Other implants added spikes to his elbows and to the knuckles on his hands. A single short, thick horn thrust out from the center of his forehead-a difficult implant, and the mark of a truly worthy host.
Harrar knew himself honored when this promising warrior was assigned to his military escort, but he was also wary and more than a little intrigued. Like any true priest of Yun-Harla, goddess of trickery, Harrar relished games of deception and strategy. His old friend Tsavong Lah was a master of the multilayered agenda, and Harrar expected nothing less from the young commander.
Khalee turned to meet the priest's scrutiny. His gaze was respectful, but direct. "May I speak freely, Eminence?"
Harrar began to suspect Tsavong Lah's purpose in sending his son to a Trickster priest. Candor was a weakness-a potentially fatal one.
"In this matter, consider the warmaster's judgment," he advised, hiding words of caution in seeming assent.
The young male nodded solemnly. "Tsavong Lah entrusted you with the sacrifice of the twin Jeedai. The success of his latest implant is still in the hands of the gods, and you are his chosen intercessor. What the warmaster honors, I reverence." He concluded his words by dropping to one knee and lowering his head in a respectful bow.
This was hardly the message Harrar intended to send, but Khalee Lah seemed content with their exchange. He rose and directed his attention back to the worldship.
"In plain speech, then. It appears the battle is not going as well as anticipated. Perhaps not even as well as Nom Anor reported."
Harrar's scarred forehead creased in a scowl. He himself held a dubious opinion of the Yuuzhan Vong spy. But Nom Anor enjoyed the rank of executor and was not to be lightly criticized.
"Such words veer dangerously close to treason, my young friend."
"Truth is never treason," Khalee Lah stated.
The priest carefully weighed these words. To the priesthood of Yun-Harla and among certain other factions, this proverb was an ironic jest, but there was no mistaking the ringing sincerity in the younger male's tones.
Harrar schooled his face to match the warrior's earnest expression. "Explain."
Khalee Lah pointed to a small, dark shape hurtling away from the worldship at an oblique vector to the
priestship's approach. "That is the Ksstarr, the frigate that brought Nom Anor to Myrkr."
The priest leaned closer to the viewport, but his eyes were not nearly as keen as Khalee Lah's enhanced implants. He tapped one hand against the portal. In response, a thin membrane nictitated from side to side, cleaning the transparent surface. The living tissue reshaped, exaggerating the convex curve to provide sharper focus and faint magnification.
"Yes," the priest murmured, noting the distinctive knobs and bumps on the underside of the approaching ship. "And if the battle against the Jeedai is all but won, as Nom Anor reported, why does he flee? I must speak to him at once!"
Khalee Lah turned toward the door and repeated Harrar's words as an order. The guards stationed there thumped their fists to opposite shoulders and strode off to tend their commander's bidding.
The swift click of chitinous boots announced a subordinate's approach. A female warrior garishly tattooed in green and yellow entered the room, a crenellated form cradled in her taloned hands. She bowed, presented the villip to Harrar, and placed it on a small stand.
The priest dismissed her with an absent wave and began to stroke the sentient globe. The outer layer peeled back, and the soft tissue within began to rearrange itself into a rough semblance of Nom Anor's scarred visage. One eye socket was empty and sunken, and the bruised eyelid seemed to sag into the blue crescent sack beneath. The venom-spitting plaeyrin bol that had once distinguished Nom Anor's countenance was gone, and evidently he had not yet been permitted to replace it.
Harrar's eyes narrowed in satisfaction. Nom Anor had failed repeatedly, but never once had he accepted responsibility for his actions. In a manner most unworthy a Yuu-zhan Vong, he had foisted blame upon others. Harrar
had suffered a temporary demotion for his part in a failed espionage scheme; Nom Anor had merely received a reprimand, even though his agents played a significant role in the plot's failure. In Harrar's opinion, the blurred face testified that the gods' justice would, in time, be served.
The image of Nom Anor, imprecise though it was, nevertheless managed to convey a sense of impatience, perhaps even anxie
ty.
"Your Eminence," Nom Anor began.
"Your report," Harrar broke in curtly.
Nom Anor's one eye narrowed, and for a moment Harrar thought the executor would protest. As a field agent, Nom Anor was seldom required to answer to the priesthood. His silence stretched beyond the bounds of pride, however, and Harrar began to fear that Khalee Lah's suspicions had fallen short of grim truth.
"You have lost?"
"We have losses," Nom Anor corrected. "The voxyn queen and her spawn were destroyed. Two Jedi prisoners held on the worldship were freed. They escaped, as did several of the others."
Harrar looked to Khalee Lah. "You have sighted the infidels' escape ship?"
The warrior's eyes widened, and for a moment his scarred face held horrified enlightenment-a fleeting emotion that swiftly darkened to wrath.
"Ask who flies the Ksstarr the executor or the infidels?"
This possibility had not occurred to Harrar. He quickly relayed the question through the attuned villip.
"Some of the Jedi managed to commandeer the frigate," Nom Anor admitted. "We are pursuing, and feel confident that we will add the capture of this ship to our other victories."
Capture. Harrar's gut tightened, for that single word confirmed the identity of the escaped Jedi.
"Capture!" Khalee Lah echoed derisively. "Better to reduce the defiled thing to coral dust! What Yuuzhan Vong pilot would wish to enjoin with an infidel-tainted ship?"
"Several Jedi fell to our warriors," Nom Anor continued, oblivious to both the priest's epiphany and the warrior's scorn. "The younger Solo brother was slain. The warmaster will be pleased to learn that Jacen Solo is alive, and our captive."
"Jacen Solo," Harrar repeated. "What of Jaina Solo, his twin?"
The silence held for so long that the villip began to invert back to its original form.
"We are in pursuit," Nom Anor said at last. "The Jedi will not be able to fly a ship such as the Ksstarr well or long."
"It is an outrage that they fly it at all!" Khalee Lah interjected.
Harrar sent him a stern glance and then turned back to the villip. "I assume that you will not take this Jacen Solo with you as you pursue his twin. It is said the Jeedai can communicate with each oth er over long distances, without either villips or mechanical abominations to aid them. If this is so, he will surely warn his female counterpart of your approach."
Khalee Lah sniffed scornfully. "What manner of hunter hangs bells around the necks of his bissop pack?"
This remark, impolitic though it was, surprised a smirk from Harrar. In his opinion, Nom Anor had become tainted by the infidels' decadence and weakness. The image of the executor plunging through muck and swamp water on the heels of a pack of fierce lizard-hounds was both incongruous and appealing.
The executor took time to consider Harrar's observation. "You have a military escort?"
"Twelve coralskippers accompany the priestship, yes. Do you wish us to break off in pursuit of Jaina Solo?"
The villip face-shape rolled downward and back in a semblance of a nod. "As you rightly observed, the risk of contact between these twin Jedi is considerable. I will take Jacen Solo directly to the warmaster."
"And so the glory goes to the executor, while his failure is thrust upon the priest," Khalee Lah said, snarling.
Harrar turned away from the villip. "You are learning," he observed softly. "But for the moment, let us disregard Nom Anor's ambitions. You were assigned to accompany me to Myrkr, no more. It is my task to oversee the sacrifice of the twin Jeedai. I must pursue. You are not obligated to accompany me."
The warrior didn't require time to consider. "This Jeedai, this Jaina Solo, flies upon a living vessel. That offends me. She escaped a worldship. That should not have been possible. She is a twin, which is rightly reserved as the province of the gods, or a portent of greatness. That is blasphemy. I would pursue her to the most wretched corner of this galaxy if it meant adhering myself to a pair of molting grutchins."
"Forcefully argued," Harrar said dryly. He turned back to the waiting executor. "We will retrieve Jaina Solo."
"You hesitate. Are you certain you can succeed?" "It is the warmaster's command," Harrar said simply. He glanced at Khalee Lah and added with a touch of asperity, "And a holy crusade."
His sarcasm was lost on Khalee Lah. The warrior inclined his head in grave agreement, and his face shone with something Harrar had occasionally glimpsed, but never quite embraced.
A sudden chill shuddered down the priest's spine. Fervor such as Khalee Lah's had always struck Harrar as
vaguely dangerous. The warrior's faith held a shaper's art, imbuing Harrar's facetious words with the sly irony the priest had always associated with his goddess.
And was it not said that Yun-Harla reserved her most cunning tricks for those who served her best?
TWO
Anakin is dead. Jacen is gone.
These thoughts resounded through Jaina Solo's benumbed senses, echoing through an inner silence as profound as that of the watchful stars.
These thoughts drowned out the sounds of battle, and the frantic, running commentary of the seven young Jedi who struggled to fly the stolen Yuuzhan Vong ship. Like her companions, Jaina was battered and filthy from days of captivity, and from a battle that had lasted too long and cost too much.
Only nine Jedi had fought their way out of the world-ship and onto this smaller ship, bringing with them the body of their young leader. The survivors had taken the Yuuzhan Vong frigate analog quickly, with astonishing ease. Jaina had a dim recollection of searing anger and killing light, of her friend Zekk pushing her away from the pilot's seat and into the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of a gunner's chair. She perched there now on the edge of the too-large seat, firing missiles of molten rock at the coralskippers pursuing the Jedi and their stolen ship.
Jaina watched with a strange sense of detachment as the alien ship released plasma at her command, as the death of coralskippers and their Yuuzhan Vong pilots was painted in brief, brilliant splashes against the dark canvas of space. All of this was a fever dream, nothing more, and Jaina was merely a character caught in her own nightmare. Jacen is gone.
It didn't seem possible. It wasn't possible. Jacen was alive. He had to be. How could she be alive if Jacen was not? Her twin brother had been a part of her, and she of him, since before their birth. What they were could not be separated from what they were to each other.
Her thoughts tumbled like an X-wing in an out-of-control spiral. Jaina's pilot instincts kicked in, and she eased herself out of the spin.
Reaching out through the Force, she strained beyond the boundaries of her power and training as she sought her brother. Where Jacen had been was only blackness, as unfathomable as space. She went deep within, frantically seeking the place within her that had always been Jacen's. That, too, was veiled.
Jacen was gone. Jaina did not feel bereft, but sundered.
A burst of plasma flared toward the stolen ship. Jaina responded with one of her own. It streamed toward the incoming plasma bolt like a vengeful comet. The two missiles met like waves from opposing oceans, casting sprays of bright plasma into the darkness.
Zekk threw himself to one side, straining the umbilical on the pilot's gloves in his attempt to pull the ship aside from the killing spray.
Fortunately for the Jedi, their Yuuzhan Vong pursuers were also forced to turn aside. This bought them a moment of relative peace-no immediate danger, no obvious target.
Jaina twisted in her seat until she could see the world-ship where Anakin had fallen, where Jacen had been abandoned. It seemed odd, and somehow wrong, that such a terrible place could be reduced to a small lump of black coral.
"We'll be back, Jacen," she promised. "You hold on, and we'll come for you."
/'// come for you, she added silently. She would go after Jacen alone, if it came down to that, as Anakin had ; gone to Yavin 4 to rescue Tahiri.
Now Anakin was dead, and a battered and heartbrok
en Tahiri watched over his body. The small blond girl blazed in the Force like a nova-Jaina couldn't help but feel her anguish. The bond between Anakin and Tahiri was different from that shared by twins, but perhaps no less intense.
The realization hit her like a thud bug. Anakin and Tahiri. How strange-and yet it felt right and perfect.
Tears filled Jaina's eyes, refracting an incoming streak of molten gold into lethal rainbows. In the pilot's seat, Zekk muttered a curse and wrenched the frigate's nose up and hard to port. The alien ship rose in a sharp, gut-wrenching arc. Plasma scorched along the frigate's underside, sheering off the irregular coral nodules with a shrill, ululating screech.
Jaina jerked her left hand from its living glove and fisted away her tears through the cognition hood that covered her face. Meanwhile the fingers of her right hand slid and circled as she deftly brought her target into focus. She jammed her left hand back into the glove and squeezed it into a fist, releasing a burst of plasma at the attacking coralskipper-an instant before it launched a second plasma.
Jaina's missile struck the Yuuzhan Vong ship in that minuscule interval between shielding and attack. Shards of black coral exploded from its hull, and the snout heated to an ominous red as molten rock washed over it. Cracks fissured through the Yuuzhan Vong pilot's viewport.
Again Jaina fired, and again, timing the attacks with skill honed through two long years and too many missions. The coralskipper's projected gravity well swallowed
A small voice nudged into Jaina's consciousness, barely audible over the screaming dive and the thrum and groan of the abused ship. In some dim corner of her mind huddled a small figure, weeping in anguish and indecision. Jaina slammed the door and silenced her broken heart.
"I need Ganner to take over for me," she said as soon as she could speak.
A look of concern crossed Tenel Ka's face, but she shrugged off her restraints and rose. In moments she returned with the older Jedi.
"Someone has to take my place as gunner," Jaina explained. She stood up without removing either the gloves or hood. "No time for a learning curve-better work with me until you get the feel of it. The seat's big enough for both of us."