He turned to the high priest. “Priest Jakan, I direct that the priests inform the people of the danger of this heresy. Tell them from me, from their Supreme Overlord, that the Jeedai are not emanations of the gods. Tell them that such beliefs are unsound and forbidden. Those workers who are properly obedient to their superiors will then know to avoid any such contamination in the future.”
“And”—the priest bowed—“if they persist in their error?”
“You may kill any heretics you come across, as publicly as you like,” Shimrra said. “But I wish no large-scale investigation of the masses of workers, no rewards for accusations. When we win the war”—he nodded at Jakan—“then we may have a more thorough inquiry. But for the present, I want the Yuuzhan Vong focused on defeating our enemies, not interrogating each other.”
Jakan’s face had fallen, but he bowed and acceded with grace. “It shall be as you wish, Supreme One.”
“You may return to your seat, High Priest Jakan.”
With great dignity, the priest returned to his desk. Behind him, Onimi sneered and scratched himself again.
Fury raged in Nom Anor as he watched the misshapen figure scratch. How he would love to have those fingers beneath his boot!
An agreeable expression crossed Shimrra’s face. “The Shamed One reminds me,” he said, “that I should ask the shapers how their work progresses? How goes the worldshaping of Yuuzhan’tar?”
“Supreme One,” Ch’Gang Hool said, “it goes well.”
“This news is pleasing,” Shimrra said. “May we inquire of the master whether there have been any problems?”
A look of caution crossed the master shaper’s face. He spoke quickly. “Some difficulties are inevitable, Supreme One. We are dealing with an alien environment that we have largely destroyed, and some of the native life-forms—microscopic ones, mostly—are proving persistent. Perhaps,” he admitted, “some of you have experienced some … minor discomforts … as the result of a fungal infection. We are attempting to, ah—”
“And the nature of this minor discomfort?” the Supreme Overlord asked sweetly.
Ch’Gang Hool hesitated. “Ah—itching, Supreme One—persistent itching.”
Nom Anor’s nerves flamed at the very mention of the word itch. Anger began to simmer in his blood.
Ch’Gang Hool gave what was probably intended to be a confident growl. “A mere itch, Supreme One. Nothing that any member of the higher castes cannot overcome with the discipline demonstrated in the course of earning rank and honor.”
“And you are, of course, a disciplined member of the highest caste,” Shimrra said.
Ch’Gang Hool rose to his feet, lordly in his ceremonial robes. “I have earned that distinction, Supreme One.”
Shimrra jumped to his feet, both fists smashing the arms of his throne, and roared at the top of his lungs. “Then why have I watched your surreptitious scratching through this whole meeting?”
Ch’Gang Hool froze. In the sudden ominous silence Onimi jumped to his feet, rags of uniforms swirling around him, and scratched himself with abandon. Then he sat down with a broad grin on his face.
The Supreme Overlord pointed one long-clawed, implanted finger at the master shaper. “The worldshaping of our new homeworld is being botched. Do you think I don’t know that this plague has spread among our entire population here? Even I was infected within hours of landing on Yuuzhan’tar!”
Anger erupted in Nom Anor’s mind. This wasn’t just about his own personal torture by this demonic itch. What was this whole war about, if not to re-create the perfection of the long-lost homeworld? What a catastrophe it would be if the worldshaping failed!
“Supreme One,” Ch’Gang Hool said, “this complete reconstruction of an entire ecosystem is a complex matter, and though perfect success is within reach, it may take longer than our earlier estimates—”
Shimrra gave a scornful laugh. “It’s not simply the fungus, though, is it, master shaper? Do you think I haven’t heard of the grashals intended for worker barracks that melted down into a mass of undifferentiated protein? Or the crop of villips that grew imprinted on some local animal, and could only transmit the beast’s screech of a mating call? The blorash jelly that attempted to devour the shapers who tended it?”
“Supreme One, I—” Ch’Gang Hool attempted again to protest, then sagged in defeat. “I confess the fault,” he said.
“Death!” someone roared in Nom Anor’s ear.
The Supreme Overlord himself growled his rage. “The worldshaping shall be placed in more competent hands than yours,” he said, and then he turned to the group of warriors behind Tsavong Lah. “Commander! Subalterns! Take this imposter of a master shaper and carry him from this chamber. Execute him as soon as you get him out of our sight! Make him pay for his incompetence!”
ELEVEN
Dif Scaur, the head of New Republic Intelligence, was alone in his office when his secure comm chimed. This was a comm unit that was used for one purpose only, and he tried to control the sudden lurch of his heart as he reached for the comm with one long, pale hand.
The display brightened, and he saw the caller. The caller with flame-colored eyes.
“Yes?” Scaur said. Anticipation hummed in his nerves.
“The experiment was a success.”
Scaur took a breath. “Very well,” he said.
“I believe I can now guarantee the success of the project.”
Scaur gave a single, deliberate nod. “Then I will make the necessary arrangements.”
“We will need a larger facility. And we will also need the silence of certain individuals.”
“That has already been arranged.” Scaur hesitated. “We should meet in person.”
“Very well.” The caller seemed satisfied. “I will await your arrival.”
Transmission ceased. Scaur reached out a hand to turn off the comm unit, and when he drew it back in, he realized it was trembling.
Now everything has changed, he thought. Now I am the Slayer.
* * *
The shipyards of Mon Calamari glittered in the light of its sun, structures as graceful and strong as the ships they produced. Luke could see three cruisers partially completed, each in the MC80 class, each different in appearance from the others. Half a dozen smaller craft were also in various stages of completion. One always wished the Mon Cals would develop a sense of urgency, at least in wartime, but their desire to customize and perfect each vessel never abated, and each was lovingly crafted and beautified and refined until it became both a work of art and the deadliest force in the New Republic arsenal.
Beneath a transparent dome, Luke and Mara stood on a graceful mezzanine thrust out over the main concourse of the Fleet Command annex. Both gazed upward at the glittering silver shipyards afloat over the brilliant blue of the planet, both set off by the depthless velvet night of space and its spray of stars. The scene, the emptiness and beauty and the blue jewel of life set within it, settled around Luke like a cloak, a vision of peace and perfection. “It’s the turning point,” he said.
Mara gave him a quizzical look. “Do you know what made you say that yesterday?” she asked.
After that strange moment, when he’d been touched by something that reminded him of Jacen, he’d gone into deep meditation and a Force trance in the hope of regaining the fleeting contact, but he’d been unable to find the answers to any of his questions.
Now that he’d made contact with Jacen a second time, he had begun to suspect he knew what had spoken to him.
“It may have come from the Force itself,” he said.
Distant stars reflected in her jade-colored eyes as Mara considered this. “The Force can offer us a view of what is to come,” she said. “But usually it’s … a bit less spontaneous.”
“I’m more sure than ever that Jacen has a special destiny.” He turned to Mara and squeezed her hand.
Mara’s eyes widened. “Do you think Jacen himself knows his destiny?”
“I
don’t know. And I don’t know if he would accept it if he did—he’s always questioned his purpose as a Jedi, and even the meaning of the Force. I can’t imagine him not questioning any fate that lay in store for him.” His thoughts darkened, and he looked at Mara soberly. “And a special destiny is not always something joyous, or easy to bear. My father had a special destiny, and see where it took him.”
Mara’s look turned grave. “We must help him,” she said.
“If he’ll let us. He hasn’t always been cooperative that way.”
Luke raised his head to gaze out the great dome, and to the dome of star-spangled blackness beyond, where Jacen’s coral craft, caught in the tractor beams of one of the fleet’s MC80A cruisers, was being carried to a nearby docking bay. Though the craft itself was too distant for Luke to see it, Luke thought he saw the Mon Cal cruiser, a distant wink of light swooping gracefully toward the annex.
“Hey!” called a loud voice from the concourse below. “It’s Senator Sneakaway! And Senator Scramblefree!” This was followed by booming laughter, and then. “Yes! You! I’m talking to you!”
Wordlessly Luke and Mara drifted to the mezzanine rail and looked down onto the concourse. Below, the tallest Phindian Luke had ever seen, her long arms thrusting out of the sleeves of her Defense Force uniform, lunged toward a human and a Sullustan who had just emerged from a consular ship docked at the annex. Luke recognized both the newcomers as members of the Senate.
The Phindian stepped into the path of the two Senators, then reeled. Luke realized that the Phindian was drunk; she had probably just stormed out of the officers’ club beneath the mezzanine.
The Phindian thrust out her tiny little chin. “Do you know how many friends I lost at Coruscant?” she asked. “Do you?”
The two Senators remained silent, their lips pressed closely together. They tried moving around the Phindian, but her long, long arms blocked their way.
“Ten thousand?” the Phindian boomed, extending one finger from a delicate-looking fist. “Twenty thousand? Thirty thousand comrades lost?” Two more fingers thrust out. “F-forty?” The Phindian tried to hold out a fourth finger, but then seemed a little late to realize there were only three fingers on her hand.
“We all lost friends on Coruscant,” the human Senator said grimly, and tried to push one of the Phindian’s enveloping arms out of his way. The Phindian blocked him again. Her yellow eyes tried to focus on his face.
“Too bad you didn’t think about your friends when you ran away, Senator Sneakaway!” she said. “Too bad that when you commandeered Alamania, you left your friends to die!”
Luke felt Mara’s hand on his arm. “Should we intervene?” she asked in a low voice.
“Not unless it turns violent,” Luke said. “And I don’t think it’s going to.” He glanced directly below the mezzanine rail at a group of officers who were quietly watching the confrontation from the officers’ club. “Look there.”
Mara turned her gaze to the group of officers. “They’re not intervening, either.”
“No,” Luke said significantly. “They’re not.”
“Please stand aside, Captain,” the Sullustan Senator said to the Phindian. “We have important business here on Mon Calamari.”
“Important business!” the Phindian said. “Is that anything like the important business that required you to order Green Squadron to escort you and your shuttle into hyperspace? Green Squadron, which was covering my Pride of Honor? My poor Pride, which got hammered by the Yuuzhan Vong and suffered two hundred and forty-one dead? My poor Pride, which barely made it to Mon Calamari and is going to have to be scrapped, because it simply isn’t worth the expense it would take to patch it back together? What business was so important that it was worth two hundred and forty-one lives, Senator Scramblefree?” One spindly hand prodded the Sullustan in the chest. “Eh?” the Phindian asked. “Senator Flyaway? Senator Cowardheart? Senator Curdleguts? Eh?”
“Take care, Captain,” the human Senator said. “You’re endangering your commission.”
“You’ve already taken away my ship!” the Phindian said. “You’ve already killed half my crew! You’ve already cost us the capital!” She hooted with laughter. “Do you think I care about my commission? Do you think there’s anything you could do to me that’s worse than what you’ve already done? Do you think I care about the solemn oath I swore to protect craven little bootlickers like you? Do you think any of us care?”
The Phindian waved one long arm in the direction of the officers on the threshold of the club. The two Senators turned and saw the solemn group who watched this confrontation in silence.
The Senators stared. The officers stared back. And for the first time, the Senators seemed nervous.
The Phindian still stood with her long arm extended, pointing to the officers’ club, and the human ducked beneath it and walked briskly for the exit. When the drunken Phindian swung around after the human, the Sullustan dodged around her and scuttled after his human colleague.
But even if her arms were longer than her legs, the Phindian was fast in pursuit. She caught the two and draped her arms around their shoulders as if they were old friends.
“Tell you what,” the Phindian said. “There’s nothing you can do to me, but there’s something you can do for me. There’s a fleet appropriations bill coming up in the new session—it will be in your committee, Senator Decamp—and you’re going to vote for it. Because if you don’t, we won’t be able to go on protecting cowards and thieves and politicians from the Yuuzhan Vong, will we? And besides, if you don’t give us the money—” The Senators stopped dead in their tracks as the Phindian caught their heads in her elbow joints, half strangling them. Her yellow eyes glittered. “If you don’t give us the money,” the Phindian said drunkenly, importantly, “we’ll take it. After all, we’ve got the guns, and we already know how brave you are around guns, don’t we?”
She released her two captives, and the Senators hastened for the exit. The Phindian raised her tiny chin and called after them. “One more thing, Senators! Don’t ever expect to run from the enemy on a fleet ship ever again! Because if you ever try to commandeer one more fleet vessel, we’re going to pack you into an escape pod and fire you straight at the Yuuzhan Vong. And that’s a solemn oath, and we’ve all sworn it!”
The Senators were gone. The Phindian stared after them for a moment, her long arms dangling past her knees, then wheeled and returned to her friends.
The group of officers burst into applause. There were cheers. They put their arms around the Phindian and half carried her into the club for a celebration.
Luke and Mara stood on the mezzanine in the sudden weighty silence and thought about what they had just seen.
“Natural high spirits?” Mara suggested.
“You know that’s not what it was.”
“Mutiny?”
“Not mutiny. Not yet.” Luke looked at the blank doors through which the two Senators had fled. “But it’s close. The military haven’t had anything but defeats in this war, and they know it’s not their fault. They know the leadership has been corrupt and stupid and cowardly and inept. They know that Coruscant might have fallen because of politicians like those two.” He paused as he heard a muffled cheer from the officers below. “I’d feel better,” he said, “if one of those cheering weren’t wearing the insignia of a fleet commander.”
“Me, too,” Mara said. She gave a nervous glance over her shoulder. “We’d better get a government the fleet can respect, and soon. If the military break free of the civilian government and start grabbing resources at blasterpoint, they’re no more than pirates.”
“Extremely well-armed pirates,” Luke added.
It’s the turning point, he reminded himself. And hoped it wasn’t turning the wrong way.
He glanced overhead again, out the great dome, and this time he could see Jacen’s coral craft with the naked eye, suspended by tractor beams below the great scalloped hull of the MC80A cruiser. The alien
origin of the pod was clear: the coral hull and its bulbous organic form were unlike anything else in the sky. The graceful Mon Cal structures, with their fluid curves, imitated nature; but the Yuuzhan Vong pod was nature, and extragalactic nature at that.
Doors slid open behind Luke, and a file of soldiers trotted onto the mezzanine, all armed and armored for combat, their faces masked to keep out alien poisons. They were followed by a combat droid that brandished half a dozen weapons on the ends of its brazen arms.
The military was clearly taking no chances with a Yuuzhan Vong pod docking in vital New Republic space. Not only was an armed escort meeting the vessel, but the vessel was being docked not to Fleet Command, but to its annex, which could be completely sealed off from the headquarters itself and, if necessary, jettisoned into space by firing explosive bolts.
The young officer commanding the soldiers approached Luke and Mara and saluted.
“Masters Skywalker,” he said to both of them. “Admiral Sovv’s compliments, and after Jacen Solo and his companion are brought on board, he would be honored if you would all join him for refreshment.”
Poor Sien Sovv, Luke thought. As Supreme Commander of the Defense Force, he’d been held responsible for the multiple catastrophes that had befallen the military. Last Luke had heard, Sovv had been wandering Mon Calamari trying to find someone to submit his resignation to—but without a Chief of State, no one was in a position to take it.
“I would be delighted to see the admiral,” Luke answered, “provided, of course, that my nephew doesn’t require medical attention.”
“Of course, sir. Understood.”
Luke and Mara followed the soldiers to the docking port. The soldiers took positions left and right of the hatch, and the droid directly in front of it, multiple weaponry directed forward. Luke looked at Mara. She was focused inward, her eyes half closed.
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