by James Luceno
Everyone turned to Harrar.
"It depends on who knows what, and, if anything, how The priest stroked his chin with his three-fingered hand. "
thev have some limited understanding of Zonama Sekot, the war-
would first have to be convinced that they weren't defying the
j bv attacking the planet." He raised his head in sudden apprehen-
"Unless Shimrra has managed to convince them that Zonama
is some sort of Jeedai weapon or fabrication that must be
destroyed."
"How soon before the living ships are flight-ready?" Kyp asked
jabitha in a rush.
"In time," the Magister said. "Sekot will make certain of it."
• mff armas
armaster Nas Choka gave Yuuzhan'tar a final glance as Tammka's Mount's powerful dovin basals prepared to tug the vessel into darkspace for the short journey to the outer-system world known as Muscave. Aswirl with clouds, the green hemisphere that was Yuuzhan'tar had changed dramatically in the short time since the armada had launched for Mon Calamari. Smoke was chimneying from volcanic vents, it was absent one of its moons, and the bridge of the gods had collapsed—all but force-fed rock by rock to the orbiting dovin basals tasked with shielding the world from attack. And no grand ceremony on this occasion. No farewell blessings from Shimrra; no fresh coats of sacrificial blood for warriors and war vessels.
Yuuzhan'tar appeared exposed, ill prepared to defend itself. But Nas Choka trusted that Supreme Overlord Shimrra would attend to that. More important, Yuuzhan'tar would fall to the enemy only iftne armada failed in its mission to destroy Zonama Sekot. In that case, Nas Choka wouldn't be alive to see the planet reclaimed. Judge unworthy by the gods, the Yuuzhan Vong would die, individually an as a species, and the gods would be forced once more to fashio beings worthy of nurture, as they had done three times before Yuuzhan Vong had been brought into being.
Nas Choka had accepted Shimrra's wisdom on the matter
Sekot. Again the Supreme Overlord had demonstrated his c and that had reinforced Nas Choka's belief that he had he correct choice in siding with Shimrra when it had come to line: Quoreal from the polyp throne.
'P ,t"Nas Choka nursed a secret distrust for the Trickster goddess,
Harla. The feathered traitor, Vergere, had been the familiar of
sses of Yun-Harla. Too, Eminence Harrar had been devoted to
nd he had apparently vanished off the face of Yuuzhan'tar.
V rSe the Trickster, without intervention, had for a time allowed her
• e to be adopted by one of the Jedi. So what was to stop her from
•traying the Yuuzhan Vong now? Weary of being patronized by
Y n-Yuuzhan and Yun-Yammka, perhaps she wished to bring about
the destruction of Yun-Yuuzhan's creation, by tricking Shimrra into
trusting to a false revelation.
To shore up his own faith and that of his warriors, Nas Choka had commanded a coven of Yun-Yammka priests to accompany the armada. Having drawn blood from the tongues and earlobes of each and every Supreme Commander, the priests had pumped the bloated ngdins that had absorbed the sacrificial offerings into a coralskipper and dispatched it into the void, in advance of the armada.
Hands clasped behind his back, the warmaster spun away from the view of Yuuzhan'tar. Several strides across the coarse deck took him to the villip-choir, where the mistress in charge of the array bowed her head in subordination.
"I would speak with the shaper aboard the failing vessel," Nas Choka said.
The mistress stroked the appropriate villip, which inverted and ssumed the sickly likeness of the shaper who had been poisoned at Caluula.
'My only surviving villip is dying, Warmaster," the ashen shaper orted. "It lacks the vigor to portray your visage, but I suspect it is CaPable of relaying your words."
^Peak to the health of yourself and your crew, shaper," Nas a said. "Do you have the vigor to carry out what has been com-landed of you?"
e villip's thick lips formed words. "Four slayers have died; si
six
336
e only e
remain—a sufficient number to pilot this ailing vessel. I am aliv, by dint of chemical compounds I managed to mix and ingest onset of my paralysis, but my time is short, Warmaster."
"If need be I will send hale warriors and youthful villips to you, shaper. But only you can keep the vessel itself alive. If it d before we reach Zonama Sekot, then all is lost."
"I fear it is incapable of going to darkspace, Warmaster."
Nas Choka ground his filed teeth and swung to his chief tacti ' "Advise me of our options."
"Allow it to be ingested by a larger vessel, Warmaster," the tacti cian said. "A sacrifice of yet another vessel and its crew, but essent' 1 to our task."
Nas Choka nodded and turned back to the transmitting villin "Shaper, command the vessel's dovin basals, villips, and weapons to rest. I will dispatch a vessel of sufficient size to engulf yours and carry it through darkspace to Zonama Sekot. Once there, the slayers will pilot your vessel from its carapace. Then, under whatever escort I deem necessary, you will consign yourself and your vessel to the living world."
"An honor that finds me undeserving, Warmaster."
"Succeed, and undreamed-of rewards await you, shaper. Fail, and suffer the disgrace of having sentenced our entire species to oblivion."
When the shaper's villip had resumed its familiar shape, Nas Choka gestured for the tactician to follow him into the command chamber's blister transparency.
"What have you learned of our enemy's plan?"
"Muscave has become the gathering place for the Alliance battle group that struck Corulag, and an even larger force of capital ships sent from Contruum. The enemy is now poised between us and our target."
"Part of our trial," Nas Choka said evenly. "Before we can even engage the planet the gods have placed in their hands, we must brea through the enemy's line."
"At the same time, the enemy entices us away from Yuuzhan ta
Nas Choka grunted. "They have devised a clever assault."
"Though ignorant of the fact, they have the complicity of the . '•>
?lKas Choka clenched his right hand. "We will do the same at
,e by offering ourselves as an enticement, so that our poisoned
-,' flv true to its mark. We will present ourselves as a war-
u.-irp Cull ILJ
would, brandishing his amphistaff in challenge on the battle-°l „" jje nodded in self-assurance. "When will the infidels arrive at
Yuuzhan'tar?"
"The Alliance commanders have already sundered the fleet they embled at Contruum," the tactician said. "We suspect that the van-• hed battle groups have jumped to darkspace and will emerge in our hsence, to all sides of Yuuzhan'tar, and from unfamiliar vectors. A study of villip memories of the battle at Ebaq Nine has revealed worthwhile comparisons. There, too, the enemy made use of dark-space corridors of which we had no knowledge. But the comparison ends there. After our spear has been thrust into Zonama Sekot's flesh, there will be no need for a ground assault, or an ill-conceived hunt for Jeedai. Satisfied that we have overcome the trial, the gods will add their might to our armada and we will be able to wipe the Jeedai from existence."
Nas Choka smiled lightly. "It is a rare occasion when well-matched warriors have an opportunity to face each other a second time, in a different arena." He paused for a moment, then said: "As yet no communication from Domains Muyel and Lacap?"
"No," the tactician said. "Their war vessels remain in the star systems awarded to them by Supreme Overlord Shimrra."
Nas Choka's tattooed upper lip curled in anger. "Their punishment, too, will be swift and lethal."
One didn't have to be a native of Coruscant to know that the >wnet had seen better days. Holos displayed at the premission brief-?s didn't do justice to the extent to which the Yuuzhan Vong had 'nsformed the world and Zonama Sekot had wo
unded it. Once as -en as the Chiss capital of Csilla was white, vast areas were now by fire and fractured by sinuous flows of lava.
Jag absorbed the desolation in a glance as his clawcraft from the open belly of the Star Destroyer Right to Rule. T
ml <^|^<,i
complement of clawcraft and X-wings streaked behind him ' trailing wedge. Off to Jag's port side, and slightly to stern, flew R * Squadron; to starboard, the Wraiths and Taanab Yellow Aces r C tered and shielded by the near wing of starfighters were three li h armed troop transports. Two were of the same vintage as the 17n meter-long bulbous-lobed Record Time, which had been sacrificed Coruscant shortly after the planet's capture. The third was a Empire vessel, almost four hundred meters long, and might have be a precursor of Right to Rule herself.
The main body of the Yuuzhan Vong armada had made the jurnn to lightspeed only an hour earlier, but Warmaster Nas Choka had left enough vessels in orbit to test the mettle of the Alliance. Even with Star Destroyers, Mon Cal cruisers, and Corellian gunships arriving from unguarded insertion points, the Yuuzhan Vong were capable of engaging each separate battle group.
The enemy flotilla that rushed to meet the Fourth Fleet was made up of light cruiser and assault cruiser analogs, from whose hull panels jutted forked arms housing plasma cannon emplacements and clusters of coralskippers. Simultaneous with the emergence of the starfighters, the skips had dropped from their barnaclelike perches and were now racing outward from the edge of Coruscant's envelope, eager for contest.
"Shield trios," Jag commanded his group over the tactical net. "Stick close to the transports, and stay alert for course corrections. Don't allow yourselves to be drawn into individual conflicts."
The group was split evenly between Chiss and Alliance pilots, but for the first time since Twin Suns' inception at the Jedi base known as Eclipse, there wasn't a Force-user among them. Jag had originally flown with Twin Suns at Borleias, when the squadron had bee handed over to Jaina, and he had flown with her for most of the p year at Galantos, Bakura, and in other campaigns. Their training, c° pled with his deep affection for her, sometimes made him wondei i hadn't become sensitized to the Force—or at least to Jaina's use o
At Hapes, and as recently as Mon Calamari, where Jaina's
. uad been crippled, he seemed to be able to intuit her needs
ests. Incapable of communicating with her squadron, she had
°f h d out through the Force and Jag had heard her—clear enough,
r£ilC r rate, to have anticipated and relayed Jaina's orders to her
ates. With Jaina absent—on Zonama Sekot, according to Gavin
n rklighter—the starfighter group felt less responsive, though Jag
. tajned a strong combat bond with the Chiss pilots, especially
Shawnkyr and Eprill.
"Twin Sun Leader," said the voice of Right to Rule control. "Bring vour group to Sector Sabacc, zero-six-six. We're getting ready
to light things up."
Jag had flown with Grand Admiral Pellaeon's vessel at Esfandia, and the voice was reassuring.
"Copy, Right to Rule. Coming about to zero-six-six."
The broad bank sunward placed the trio of transports and their starfighter escorts over daybreak Coruscant. No sooner was the task force clear of Right to Rule than all its starboard quad laser batteries belched fire. Not far from the Star Destroyer, and similarly aligned to the planet, two Mon Cal MCSOBs and the cruiser Dauntless added their blinding salvos to the light storm. Half the amassed firepower was directed at the onrushing coralskippers, dozens of which were instantly vaporized. The other half was aimed at what remained of Coruscant's short-lived planetary ring. Hammered by massive packets of coherent light and high-yield proton torpedoes, the largest pieces of what had once been a moon broke into thousands of even smaller fragments, creating a meteor storm the likes of which Coruscant probably hadn't confronted since it had coalesced into a planet.
Enormous singularities began to open as the chunks were sent
Ambling into the upper reaches of the envelope. But the orbital dovin
asals that had created the gravitic anomalies were already over-
ro-ened, and many of the fragments plummeted past them, be-ming fiery streaks as they entered the atmosphere. Jag knew that scanners aboard the Alliance capital ships were
ady analyzing the relative strengths of the singularities and
monitoring the trajectories of the meteors that had slipped th the gravitic shield. Once the areas of greatest stress were their locations would be relayed to the transports and starfighte Not quite two years earlier, the troop transport Record
n
delivered its cargo of Wraiths and Jedi to the surface of Coruscai single-person containers. But that was before the dovin basals been seeded into orbit. More important, there was no reason stealth now. As someone at Contruum had said to Jag, "If we drop a moon on them, we can at least make it rain rocks."
"Twin Suns," Right to Rule control said, "you have open wi dows at coordinates four-two-three and four-two-five. Rothana tran port is reorienting to follow you through."
Jag passed the word to his pilots, even though the navicomputers on each starfighter had certainly received the course corrections. Configured into pairs and trios, Twin Suns formed up along both sides of the antique wedge-shaped ship and began to herd it toward the infiltration zone. Adapting their vectors to match those of the escort starfighters, coralskippers attacked from all sides, threading through the fragment cloud and augmenting it with plasma missiles and gouts of molten stone.
Flying just at the perimeter of the transport's shields, Jag's claw-craft was jarred by every projectile that found its target. The comm channel was a babble of voices, as pilots issued warnings of strafing runs or declared the status of their ships. Explosive light washed into the spherical cockpit of Twin Suns One from astern, and Jag glanced at his displays to see Twin Eight and Eleven vanish from the grid. With scant room to maneuver, he tried to make the most of ever)' squeeze of the trigger, but the skips had the advantage of being able to take evasive action, whereas the starfighters were intent on protecting their ward.
Carefully trained laser bolts from Right to Rule created a sudden corridor of destructive energy around the transport and fighters. dozen more skips became extra fodder for the meteor-gobbling dovl basals. Still in darkness, a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser stabbed by corr»c gent blasts from three separate Alliance ships cracked open and t
A second vessel, spewing blades of flame from its midsection, . laziiv out of orbit and began to fall into the atmosphere. r°The dovin basals were trying desperately to prioritize, but more ore rock fragments were getting past them. As overtaxed as they the gigantic biots still posed a threat to any ship that ventured 'lose For that reason the transports had been retrofitted with m-an-designed HIMS generators, which should have allowed them stain momentum even in an interdiction field. At Contruum, few °d expressed confidence in the retrofitting, and Jag was one of the
first pilots to see why.
His group of vanguard starfighters was just passing between a pair
c ^g Yuuzhan Vong orbital monstrosities when two overlapping singularities yawned, catching the pointed bow of the transport and dragging it hard to starboard. The ship's aged cylindrical thrusters tried to compensate for the unexpected tug of gravity, but they weren't up to the challenge. The jury-rigged HIMS failed, and the deflector shields followed. The transport twisted over on its side and began to founder. Armor flayed from the hull and surface modules disappeared into the swirling black mouth of the singularity. Breaches opened, venting precious atmosphere and unsecured objects. Then, deep within the vessel, an explosion flashed, and it split wide open. Ground-effect vehicles, combat droids, and acceleration couches spun outward—some of the latter with commandos still strapped into them.
In the blink of an eye Twin Suns lost another three fighters. To port, trimmed in golden sunlight, one of the newer transports was banking as quic
kly as its bulk allowed. Rogue Squadron had re-formed around the ship and was just beginning to shepherd it into the atmosphere. Jag looked to his right and overhead for the second transport, but couldn't find it. What he found instead were the Wraiths, winning their duels with coralskippers even as they blazed toward Twin Suns. R-ijfht to Rule control boomed in Jag's ears. "Twin Suns Leader,
°me about to zero-zero-three. You are redesignated escort for •irnber one transport. As soon as your group is clear, we're going to trV to burn a tunnel to the surface."
Jag hauled on the control yoke, gravitational forces all but bu • him in the seat as he slewed to port. The dozen remaining memb ^ his group followed in formation, sticking close enough to one anoth provide adjuvant shielding. Ahead of them, transport one had dro inside the tier of dovin basals and was rushing for the surface, blunt aglow from friction. Twenty years earlier Coruscant had been liber from Imperial forces by loosing a group of criminals to sow confus' and by sabotaging the planet's shield generators. Now liberation would depend largely on the actions of a thousand commandos and a handfi I of resistance fighters, and the off chance of their being able to mobiliz the Yuuzhan Vong heretics into an insurgent force.
As promised, coordinated laserfire came from the capital ships Sizzling through the atmosphere, the sustained fusillade annihilated everything in its path and burned a ragged bald patch in Coruscant's verdant surface. It was toward the denuded area that the starfighters and transport raced, firing on the run at the few coralskippers that had survived the laser shower.
The control yoke shuddered in Jag's grip as he powered the claw-craft into denser air. The ship rattled, as if on the verge of coming apart, but it held together. Surface features of Coruscant began to come into focus: forest-covered spires and mounds, wide crevasses brimming with mist yet to be burned off by the sun. Gradually he decreased the angle of his descent until he was flying into the sun, and parallel to the undulating terrain. Frightened by the roar of the approaching craft, flocks of black birds with three-meter wingspans took flight from the branching crowns of emergent trees.