The Unifying Force

by James Luceno

  e of Bones. If the warriors succeeded in trapping them in the

  nken amphitheater, there would be no escape, no hope. Nom Anor was trading strikes and stabs with a warrior a head er than himself when he heard the clamor of running feet and

  raised voices. When the warrior turned in the direction of the tion, Nom Anor availed himself of the moment of distraction the point of his amphistaff through his opponent's right around him other warriors were beginning to add their voice tumult and to press the attack.

  Reinforcements, Nom Anor told himself bitterly.

  The heretics would be lucky now if they even made it to the T>i of Bones. Unexpectedly, though, the war cries of the Citadel e began to fade, and the crowd was pushed back toward the Plao Hierarchy. It was the heretics who were being reinforced!

  Nom Anor was suddenly inflamed.

  If every cell of Shamed Ones could find the courage to rise UD there was a chance, though slim, that the heretics would yet win the day. His conviction surged as the reports of stun and flash grenades began to echo and rebound from the walls of the temples and the dormitories of the intendants. Hundreds were instantly flattened to the saturated ground. Then blaster bolts rang out.

  Resistance fighters and Alliance commandos! Nom Anor realized.

  It was the warriors who were trapped!

  Nom Anor charged into the brawl, slashing throats and hamstrings. Overwhelmed, the warriors fought brutally and valiantly, but more and more of them were falling and being trampled underfoot. Nom Anor was in the thick of things when new sounds drew his attention and he froze in surprise and dread.

  Snap-hiss! Thrummm . . .

  He risked a sideways glance to discover three Jedi, parrying and slashing with their lightsabers. Worse, one of them was Mara Jade Skywalker. The very Jedi who had fallen victim to Nom Anor's coomb spores so long ago, now fighting all but alongside of him. I far away from the red-golden-haired Skywalker was Tahiri Veils the Jedi who had almost been shaped into a-Yuuzhan Vong, an with whom Nom Anor had fought and escaped from on Zonal Sekot. And beside Tahiri, a tall, older male Jedi whom Nom Anc didn't recognize.

  He tried to conceal himself by wading deeper into the battle, the conflict was too frenzied for him to make any headway. He t

  I toward the northwest entrance to the Place of Hierarchy, but he was rapidly hemmed in by clashing warriors and

  , ,.-p tO*-o

  NO matter which direction he attempted to move, he wound '. pushed inexorably closer to the two Jedi women. Whirling' he slit the throat of a Shamed One and placed himself

  - the gushing blood could wash over his face. He found a sodden

  on the ground and pulled it down over his forehead, only to

  • unwind and flop uselessly over his shoulders. He cursed himself

  not having thought to carry an ooglith masquer with him.

  A group of enraged warriors made a sudden sally, forcing the h retics away from the Place of Hierarchy and out into the broad boulevard that ran north to the Citadel. Again Nom Anor heard the distinctive thrum of a lightsaber, and shortly found himself pressed shoulder to shoulder with youthful Tahiri, who was shouting alternately in Basic and Yuuzhan Vong as her blue blade deflected overhead strikes from amphistaffs and lateral swipes from coufees.

  Nom Anor's attempts to squirm away were in vain. He turned his back at the same time the Jedi did, but surges in the crowd kept shoving them hard into each other. All at once, Nom Anor could feel small Tahiti's body tense against his.

  He pivoted in time to see Tahiri throw up her hands in some sort of Force gesture, and a dozen warriors hit the ground as if struck by a swarm of invisible thud bugs. A Force Wall! Nom Anor thought. Tahiri used her Jedi powers a second time to create an even wider circle of clear space, then whirled and grabbed Nom Anor by the arm, spinning him around to face her, her eyes already wide with discovery. Sending his amphistarT flying with a Force command, she immobi-zed him by clutching the yoke of his robeskin. Then she turned and gesticulated toward her fellow Jedi. "Mara, I have Nom Anor!"

  Over the heads of combatants, through the hail, misted blood, forest of flailing arms, Nom Anor could see Skywalker gazing Pcctly at him in eager peril.

  Summoning his strength, Nom Anor slashed upward with his ee, missing Tahiri by a blade but succeeding in cutting the "U of robe she had gripped. Momentum propelled him backward

  •-

  archy. There, where the crowd was thinner, he elbowed through a cluster of warriors and broke fast for the stairs and fre H

  Ucr-way 'orn.

  Much like Millennium Falcon, Lady Luck had in the past five v undergone an atavistic transition from pleasantly appointed fam'i craft to war vessel. But where Han's Falcon was as armed as it was f Lando's fifty-meter-long SoroSuub yacht relied as ever on stealth' speed, and advanced sensor arrays that allowed it to observe and scr tinize vessels at far remove. With three lasers and a reinforced hull Talon Karrde's Corellian transport was better configured for battle although hardly a match for a Yuuzhan Vong task force. Which was why the two ships were flying at the fringe of the battle zone and leaving most of the dirty work to Errant Venture, and to the Hapans.

  Tenel Ka's flotilla had arrived moments after the Yuuzhan Vong capital ships had begun their move against Zonama Sekot, and had immediately arrayed themselves in a blockade. The new-generation Battle Dragons were twin-saucered ships with turbolasers and ion cannons placed along the rims, made all the more lethal since the New Republic had finally shared its weapons-recharge technology with the Hapan navy. The enhanced Dragons were also equipped with pulse mass mine launchers that were nearly as effective as dovin basal singularities when it came to deflecting weapons fire and interdicting ships from jumping to hyperspace. In contrast, the shape and sleekness or the Consortium's Nova-class cruisers brought to mind Old Republic-era hand blasters. As agile as starfighters and as deadly as warships twice their size, the cruisers were preventing Yuuzhan Vong vessels from penetrating the Dragons' daunting barricade.

  Closer to Zonama Sekot, flaming red Errant Venture, along wl squadrons of X-wings and Hapan Miy'til fighters were preying on

  advance coralskippers the task force had dispatched to test the defenses. Trapped between the deep-space squadrons and the atn

  aft flown by the Jedi, the coralskippers were being deci-spheriC ^ d now that capital ships were involved, the planet itself had mated' out its big guns, firing salvos of stunning ion fire from the br°Ught of mountains twelve kilometers high. SUllinlltSidistant from the task force and blockade, Lando and Tendra

  F ui

  UlCUSLalil- "

  overview of the entire battle, but Lady Luck's seeming brazen-had made her the object of unwanted attention, and the Calris-were being forced to do more running than spying. Their

  jjs weic >^"-D --

  j rpc of enemy maneuvers had twice saved Booster Terrik

  updates w '

  being taken by surprise, and they were a critical link in relaying

  • telligence between the Star Destroyer and the Jedi pilots, who, at 1 st word, had finally managed to talk their living ships into returning

  fire.

  The Yuuzhan Vong gave every indication of having been thrown

  into disorder by their obvious miscalculation. The pilots of the skips were fighting for their lives, and the task force itself was fast coming unglued, with cruiser and destroyer analogs maneuvering without rhyme or reason, making themselves easy targets for the precision lasers of the Hapan cruisers and the ranged weapons of the Dragons.

  Only total confusion could account for the fact that some of the vessels in the task force were actually turning on one of their own.

  The victim was the vessel that originally had been flying at the center of the Yuuzhan Vong's elongated diamond formation. It had remained at the center all through the initial coralskipper assault on Zonama Sekot, but was now being raked with plasma fire by four of the surrounding cruisers. Lando and Tendra saw the vessel spl
it wide °pen, and yet instead of exploding, the cleaved vessel released a smaller vessel that was concealed inside.

  A corvette analog, the six-armed craft had a scaled hull and an "Praised, curving stern.

  ^ot unlike two vessels Errant Venture had destroyed at Caluula. A slayer ship.

  They're supposed to be hyperspace-capable," Lando said. "So y did they need to transport this one?" "It looks off," Tendra said.

  One eyebrow raised, Lando glanced at her. "Off course?"

  She shook her head. "Off color. It looks ill."

  Lando's blood ran cold. He commanded the scanners to n

  him with a close-up and analyze the vessel's signature. TK ^

  commed Errant Venture. ^

  task

  "Booster, we're sending you signature data on a vessel in th force," Lando began.

  "We're busy, Lando," Booster snapped.

  "You're not too busy for this. Run a comparison with what you've got stored in the Venture's memory, and tell me if we set

  o*-t S

  hit."

  "Hold tight," Booster said. When after a long moment he spoke again, his voice was riddled with apprehension. "The signature you sent matches the ship that evaded us at Caluula."

  "The ship carrying Alpha Red," Lando said.

  And now closing on Zonama Sekot.

  thought of himself first and foremost as a starfighter pilot, not a dirt flier. He had accepted the assignment to lead Twins Suns onto Coruscant, but without the enthusiasm he might have demonstrated for a space mission. Like many who had earned their wings in zero-g, atmosphere was anathema. Maneuvers weren't so much performed as wrested from a craft—no matter how aerodynamic the design or how responsive the repulsorlift engine. The carbon-scored green X-wing he had been given at Westport felt sluggish and unwieldy, especially compared to a clawcraft. But Jag's complaints were only that. There was a mission to execute, and he was not about to shirk his commitment to seeing it through.

  Streaking east from the now-Alliance-occupied landing field, he

  wove the snubfighter through a hail of ascending plasma fire and

  tending wreckage. Dominating the forward view was the rounded

  •urnrnit of Shimrra's fortress, rising from the thick blanket of cloud

  ver and smoke that smothered most of the sacred precinct. Only

  > years earlier the elegant summits of dozens of spacescrapers would

  " been visible above the clouds, but now there was only the craggy

  m°untaintop.

  somewhere below, Jaina was moving toward the same target, with brother and uncle, and a small team of commandos and droids.

  397

  Take care of yourself, she had said to him on the flooded balconv the Millennium Falcon had set the Jedi down. And Jag meant- ^ just that. When he had urged Jaina to do the same, she had i-

  The Force will take care of me.

  heart.

  all hi.

  He hadn't debated the matter. He wanted it to be true with

  -•*-

  Ahead of him, twenty starfighters were circling the Citadel 1 laser bolts, proton torpedoes, and concussion missiles at the surnm sense of hopelessness began to erode Jag's resolve. Even without h insatiable voids that were engulfing nearly every starfighter volley t-1 Citadel appeared to be impregnable. It was like attempting to bl apart a mountain. There were no coralskippers to contend with b outpourings of plasma from deep pits in the Citadel walls were effortlessly overwhelming the shields of the starfighters.

  The X-wing's droid sent flight information to the cockpit displays Jag dialed the comm to the tactical net.

  "This is worse than punching past the orbital dovin basals," a pilot was saying.

  "Keep a hand on your grab-safety toggle, or those voids'll take you down," another said.

  "They're swallowing every bolt I'm feeding them."

  "Just watch out they don't take a fancy to you."

  "Yeah, they've developed a real taste for starfighters."

  "Especially yellow ones with black stripes."

  "Copy that, Rogue Leader."

  "All ships form up on me for a portwise sweep. Set your weapon: for stutterfire and follow up with whatever torps and missiles you've got left. Remember: it may look like a mountain but it's actually a ship. Which means it can be cracked open."

  "Following you in, Rogue One."

  Jag saw that two of the fighters off his starboard wingtip w clawcraft, and he opened a channel to the closest one.

  "Twin Suns Four, I've got your port side."

  "Jag!" the pilot returned. "I thought you were dead!" "Saved by a tree, of all things, Shawnkyr."

  «Are you about ready to go home now?"

  soon as we finish this—you have my word."

  laughed shortly. "This part of the galaxy has made a romantic

  f vou, Fel" ' uStiii watching my back, is that it?"

  "Who will if I won't?" Shawnkyr said. "Oh, I forgot. And just .here is the Sword?"

  "Below—moving west.

  "Then we'd better take care not to bring this mountain down on

  her head."

  "After he did so well with the mon duul," Jaina found time to say between swings of her lightsaber.

  Pinned down in a grove of fingerleaf trees one hundred meters from the westernmost of the walkways that accessed the Citadel, she and Luke were fending off streams of attack bugs that were hurtling down from lookout aeries in the holy mountain. Closer to Shimrra's haunt, Jacen was trying without success to pacify the beasts that were rapidly devouring the walkway itself. A trio of YVH droids had tried less subtle means of persuasion, only to have been ripped apart and ingested.

  "At least Shimrra can't speak through these two," Luke said.

  "I'd say that's exactly what Shimrra's doing," Jaina hollered back.

  Gargantuan symbiots, Sgauru and Tu-Scart were partners in the

  walkway devastation. Considering that the former was female and the

  latter male, it was something of a marriage. At Gateway settlement on

  Duro, the couple had demonstrated their talent for demolishing

  buildings, and they were doing an equally skilled job of dismantling

  and consuming the yorik coral concourse. Hard-shelled, segmented

  Jgauru was doing most of the grunt work. Beady black eyes dotted

  er Wuite head, and her mouth writhed with dozens of feeder-tendrils.

  er powerful rear pincers gripped around the upper coils of her

  be

  elike mate, she was using her stubby front legs and enormous L ad to smash the span to pieces. Loose chunks didn't fly far before

  ;ing pulverized by sleek black Tu-Scart's elongated body. Absent their usual team of handlers, the creatures had emerged

  from a massive hollow beneath the concourse, through vly esplanade river cascaded thunderously into the square at the h the Citadel. Lashed by rain and howling winds, the mo fortress loomed above the Jedi, rising up into the battle-torn In the rough-hewn blade of a coufee. Though winged, mottled patches of dark green moss, and bedecked with vines whose seed taken root in the worldship's nooks and crannies, the Citad I simply too sheer to scale, even with the aid of the Force. Starfish were still circling the rounded summit, but not one had man to come within a thousand meters of Shimrra's lair without h ' destroyed. The remains of those that had tried littered the une • inundated terrain for kilometers around.

  Far below the concourse, at the base of the Citadel, a dark maw accessed the lower depths of the mountain. But that opening was heavily guarded by reptoid slave soldiers. Rocketing down the terraced wall of the urban canyon, Page's Commandos and YVH droids were taking up firing positions above the Chazrach, but the enemy was well entrenched and answering Alliance blaster bolts with spouts of firejelly and highly flammable sparkbee honey.

  If the Jedi were to infiltrate the Citadel, Jacen had to persuade Sgauru and Tu-Scart to halt their destruction of the western concour
se while a narrow stretch still remained intact. He risked a few cautious steps toward the beasts, then stopped when temblors began to rock the fragile span at regular intervals.

  "Now what?" Jaina yelled to Luke. "Is Zonama Sekot making another fly-by?"

  The temblors grew louder and more forceful. Jacen managed to keep his balance on the swaying concourse, but the steady jolts proved too much for the unbroken expanse. Fissured, the yorik coral spar gave way, plummeting in fragments into the Whitewater torrent, the same time, two armored quadrupeds appeared from around curved base of the Citadel, lumbering in concert and settling into tifying positions behind the slave soldiers. Planting their splayed claws in the raging river, they lowered their triangular heads. 1 streamed from the thick horns that branched from their bony

  lttering against the walls of the canyon and forcing the com-d YVH droids to retreat to the rim.

  ,dosandxvnu1"""'

  •ni

  , tjie cavernous entrance at the base of the Citadel effectively

  Tacen saw Sgauru and Tu-Scart as the only hope. The beasts ^i£ ', e C0axed into breaching the wall of the Citadel. Jacen sensed ll%l u-c best chance of accomplishing this would require him to don the Force and give himself over fully to his Vongsense— 1 thing he had been unable to do since arriving on Coruscant. He i-ke a switch being thrown between two poles; Force at one pole, , esense at the other. He understood further that the only way to 1 Sgauru and Tu-Scart into action was by communicating with them through the World Brain.

  It was while aboard the seedship that had delivered Jacen and the dhurvam to Coruscant that they had first reached an understanding. Bv destroying the brain's would-be rivals, Jacen had essentially determined which of several dhuryams was to have the honor of transforming Coruscant into "Yuuzhan'tar." More important, he had installed a World Brain whose very disposition was informed by the rapport it shared with him. All that the planet had become since then—beautiful and monstrous, delicate and coarse, symbiotic, and parasitic—owed something to Jacen. And yet when he reached out with his Vongsense he again found himself in competition for the brain's attention. Some of that was due to the brain's preoccupation with Coruscant. Over and above that, there was the energy the brain was pouring into executing Shimrra's requests.