“That’s why you have to wear the stupid helmet?”
“That’s why I have to wear the stupid helmet.” Tam extended his hand. “I’m Tam.”
The boy took it. “I’m Tarc. It’s not my real name. That’s just what everybody calls me. Nobody calls me Dab anymore.”
“What are you in here for, Tarc?”
“You know the other day, when the scarheads made their big attack, and Lusankya bombarded their guts out?”
“I know about it. I fell unconscious just as it was starting.”
“Well, they got close enough to shoot at the main building, and some plasma stuff burned through the shields and the wall where I was, and some of it splashed on me. My leg got burned.” Tarc whipped his sheet off, displaying the bandage on his right calf. “But I get out today.” His tone suggested that he was making a break from prison rather than leaving a hospital.
“I get out—well, I guess I can leave whenever I want.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“No place to go, I guess. No one trusts me. Anyone who does, shouldn’t.” Tam leaned back, grimacing at the painful reality of those words.
“But you fought back! You won. That’s what everyone says.”
“I should have fought back from the start. I should have let it kill me before I did anything bad.”
Tarc looked at him, wide-eyed, and then his expression turned to one of scorn. “Does everybody just get stupid when they grow up?”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s a stupid thing to say.”
“Tarc, listen. I’m just some guy who was of no use to anybody, and then the Yuuzhan Vong grabbed me, chewed me up, and spat me out in one of their plots.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Tam gave him a closer look. “Huh?”
“Me, too. The Yuuzhan Vong grabbed me, chewed me up, and spat me out, just like you said.” Tarc leaned back, his weary posture an imitation of Tam’s. “I look just like Anakin Solo. You know, Han Solo’s son. The dead one. On Coruscant, this lady spy for the Yuuzhan Vong made me go with her to the Solos so they’d be weird and distracted, so she could kidnap Ben Skywalker. Then I guess I was supposed to die, but the Solos brought me here, even though it hurts their feelings to look at me.” He looked away and his face became very still. “I don’t know where my real family is. Maybe still on Coruscant.” He didn’t have to add, Maybe dead.
“There aren’t a lot of kids here. Not a lot of civilians of any sort. What do you do when you’re not recovering from burn wounds?”
Tarc grinned. “I stay with Han and Leia Solo. ’Cept they’re gone a lot, like now. So I explore.” He lost his smile; his expression became melancholy. “And I have to study.”
“Not even having a world knocked out from under your feet can change some things, Tarc. How would you like to learn to be a holocam operator?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, anytime you see a holocast, the image is being recorded by a holocam. The holocam is worked by a holocam operator. That’s what I do.”
“That’s … interesting.” Tarc sounded dubious.
“Give it a try. I need to find Wolam Tser and see if he needs my services. Want to come along?”
Tarc’s eyes got bigger. “You know Wolam Tser? My parents used to watch him.”
Tam mocked his tone. “You know Han and Leia Solo? Sure, kid. I’m Wolam’s holocam operator.”
“I’ll come along.”
“Good.” Tam leaned back and shrugged to himself. Well, at least it would give him something to do.
Yuuzhan Vong Worldship, Coruscant Orbit
The shaper, Ghithra Dal, looked upon Tsavong Lah’s arm and hesitated.
The warmaster knew the news would be unfavorable. He could feel the increased activity of the carrion-eaters in his arm, could see and feel the emergence of new spines in the Yuuzhan Vong flesh above the join. “Speak,” he said. “Your words cannot anger me. Nor your conclusions. If they are presented in a quick and correct fashion, you have nothing to fear from me.”
The shaper bowed in gratitude. “It is growing worse, Warmaster. I fear for your arm. All my shaper’s arts are not saving it.”
“So I am doomed to become one of the Shamed Ones.” Tsavong Lah leaned forward on his chair, staring off into the distance, into the future, paying the shaper no more mind. “No, that will never happen. When my arm is at its worst, but before I am truly among the Shamed, I will offer myself in sacrifice, or throw myself against the enemy and die appropriately. My only concern now is to support a new warmaster who can lead the Yuuzhan Vong ably and well.” He cupped his chin in his good hand and considered. “I think Gukandar Huath will serve best, don’t you?”
It was a ploy, one that Tsavong Lah would have considered appropriately cruel had he merely been offering it for his own amusement, but it had a purpose. Gukandar Huath was a fine warrior and war leader, but was well known for the support he offered the priests of Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla, and for his barely disguised indifference to the Creator god, Yun-Yuuzhan. If, in fact, Ghithra Dal was part of some conspiracy with Yun-Yuuzhan’s priests, he would be forced now to offer—
“If I may, Warmaster, I said that the shaper’s craft was inadequate to the task … not that you were doomed,” Ghithra Dal said. “You may have one other avenue left to you—and it is an avenue of attack, not an avenue of retreat.”
Tsavong Lah considered the shaper as if he’d just been reminded that he was still there. He did not allow any hope to creep into his expression or tone. “Speak, my servant.”
Ghithra Dal lowered his tone as if to thwart eavesdroppers. “The shaper’s arts cannot help you, I am certain, because the one force in the universe more powerful than those arts afflicts you. The will, the anger of the gods is what you suffer.”
“No, Ghithra Dal. I bring victory to the twin gods, and they know that soon I will have a twin sacrifice for them. Their priests tell me of the gods’ pleasure with my successes.”
“Their priests, yes. Their priests rejoice, and the priests of Yun-Yammka anticipate your father’s victories in the Pyria system, so that they may occupy the rich world there. But though they are the gods whose names are most upon the lips of our warriors and great leaders, they are not the only gods.”
Tsavong Lah settled back in his chair and allowed some doubt to become evident in his voice. “Of course they are not. We have many gods. But what could I have done to offend any of them? I have offered no defiance to them, no curses.”
“You have—I suspect you have—neglected some. Offering sacrifices not quite in proportion to their greatness. The twin gods, blessed and mighty may their names be, give us success, and you celebrate success. But another gave you life, and you do not seem to celebrate that life.”
“Yun-Yuuzhan? But his myriad eyes do not focus upon us so closely. So the priests say.”
“So some of the priests say. And if they are wrong, if following their opinions has angered Yun-Yuuzhan, you might continue to follow their advice until it truly does doom you.”
“Some of the priests. Do you know any who preach a different discipline?”
“I do. He is young, perhaps not known to you. His name is Takhaff Uul.”
“I know of him.” Tsavong Lah looked at the join of his arm and considered it for a long moment. “I will speak with him. You are dismissed.”
“But I must remain to see the effects of my latest treatment.”
“You have just said that the shaper’s arts are not relevant here. Your latest treatment will fail. So there is no reason for you to stay and monitor that failure.” Tsavong Lah gestured toward the exit from the chamber.
With another bow, Ghithra Dal withdrew. The portal stretched open to permit his departure. Before it had closed again, when Ghithra Dal could still hear, Tsavong Lah thundered, “Summon Takhaff Uul to me.”
Then it was closed. No one moved to do his bidding. Nor were his guards and closest advisers su
pposed to. They had been carefully instructed in what to do, how to act. Takhaff Uul would indeed be summoned … but only in a few minutes.
Another portal widened and Nen Yim entered at a hurried pace. Once at his side, she pulled tool-creatures from her garments and headdress and began scraping and prodding at his arm, just at the join, taking flesh, capturing flesh-eaters. At any other time, touching him without permission would have been a crime punishable by the most ignoble of deaths, but he had instructed her to do so, to waste no time with words.
He ignored her and turned to Denua Ku, who stood as if on guard duty among his other bodyguards. “Was it done?”
Denua Ku bowed his head. “It was. I flung the tracer spineray onto his back, and he did not react, did not acknowledge its presence. It will spawn within minutes, and its spawn will spread.”
The warmaster nodded, satisfied.
It was not enough to take the heads of the traitors he already knew and suspected. He would have to tear this conspiracy out by the roots so that it could not grow again. The agony the conspirators felt in the last weeks of their lives, the shame they and their families would bear, would become legendary among the Yuuzhan Vong.
FOUR
Now a crew of men and women, most of the same species as the tall man but some furrier or rounder, labored at the black wall.
One of them used a flame device like Ryuk’s to heat the wall. Then he nodded and stepped back, and a woman stepped up and used her own device. Whiteness sprayed from the hose she held, the hose attached to the tank on her back, and the air got cold, very cold. The whiteness struck the heated stone.
The stone shrieked. The tall man liked the sound of that.
But only a small bit of the stone fell free. The tall man picked it up. It stung his fingers with lingering heat. It was heavy, far heavier than stone should be.
The man and the woman looked over the tiny crack formed in the wall’s surface. They made noises at one another. Then the woman, apprehension on her face, turned to the tall man, forming images. The tall man reached out and plucked them forth.
The hot-and-cold would succeed, she told him. In a long time.
What is a long time? he asked. A light and a dark?
Many lights and darks, she said. Many groundshakes would come and go, the plants would make many more buildings fall, small things would grow and old things would die.
The tall man growled, and the woman staggered back from the force of his anger.
But she had another thought, and she forced her way forward to give it to him. It was a machine with arms and knobs and treads, and she imagined it standing before the wall, using its own cutting flames and pounding knobs to shatter the stone.
With contempt, he dismissed the idea. He imagined himself standing side by side with the machine, striking the wall himself, neither of them doing any harm to its surface.
She shook her head, a sign he’d come to understand, and changed his image. In it, he became smaller and smaller, until he was nothing but a tiny dot standing beside one of the machine’s treads.
He scowled at her, not understanding.
She showed herself beside him, also tiny, and drew him into her eyes. He saw through them as she looked up, and up, and up at the machine.
He understood, then. He hadn’t shrunk. He’d misunderstood. The machine was vast, the width of a gap between buildings, as tall as this enormous chamber.
The tall man laughed. The woman and all the other workers, suffused with his humor, also laughed. Weaker than he, they laughed until they coughed, laughed until they fell over, while he watched them in good cheer. Only when some of them began coughing out blood did he relent.
He stood over the woman with all the thoughts and made one of her own. In it, she found one of those machines and brought it here.
She nodded, but, too weak to obey immediately, it was minutes before she could rise and go about her new errand.
Borleias
Jag was waiting for Jaina when she emerged from her briefing with General Antilles. “A moment of your time, Great One?” he asked.
She cocked her head as if considering the demands on her time, then nodded. “A moment.”
He led her from the office and gestured down the hall to a little-used conference room.
When they were within, and the door shut behind them, she wrapped her arms around his neck, felt his strength as he pulled her to him. She overbalanced him, shoving him toward the wall beside the door, and kissed him. The boom of Jag’s shoulders hitting the wall startled her out of the kiss and she laughed.
“There goes discretion,” Jag said. He smiled, the expression characteristically subtle enough to be missed by most observers.
“Got carried away,” she said. “I’d like to be carried away.”
“I have the time if you do.”
She shook her head, regretful. “I have to find a pilot to bring into Twin Suns. Your uncle is giving me a B-wing, the same one Lando used to escape from the Record Time mission, and I need a pilot for it.” She gave him a wicked smile. “I get to go to anyone I want and see if I can persuade him to leave his squadron. Another reason for all the other squadron commanders to hate me.”
“They don’t need any more reasons. You’re a better pilot than any of them. And you’re even prettier than Colonel Darklighter of the Rogues.”
She thumped his chest.
“All right, you’re prettier than Captain Reth with the Blackmoons.”
She thumped him harder.
“Prettier than Wes Janson with the Yellow Aces?”
“I’m going to break a bone you’ll need later.”
He finally grinned, pleased with her reaction to his teasing. “Do you have any pilots in mind?”
“I was thinking of asking Zekk.”
Jag frowned. “He’s not that good.”
“Well, he’s adequate, and I don’t plan for the B-wing to be a major contributor to our skirmishes. I’m going to have it fitted as a control station for some of my goddess stunts. It’ll be a little mobile headquarters.”
“All the more reason to have a top-notch pilot in it. If it’s not going to be an assault craft, it needs to be able to dodge and outfly pursuers.”
“Do you have a pilot in mind?”
He considered, then nodded. “Shuttle pilot named Beelyath. He flies rescue missions picking up EV pilots. I’ve seen him do some pretty good tricks with his shuttle and fly into enemy fire to pick up pilots. He was one of the ones who helped us retrieve those ejected victims when the Yuuzhan Vong worldship came into the system. And he’s Mon Cal. I know he has starfighter experience, which makes me suspect he has B-wing experience.”
“I’ll talk to him.” She could feel her spirits sag just a little, could feel the smile leave her face. “I have to go. We just can’t seem to find much time, can we?”
“Do you have another sixty seconds?”
“Yes.”
He leaned down for another kiss.
Yuuzhan Vong Worldship, Coruscant Orbit
“Speak,” Tsavong Lah said.
Nen Yim straightened from her bow. “I have subjected the samples I took from your arm to analysis.”
“Is my situation favorable?”
“It is, Warmaster. The cure to your situation is no more complicated than refusing any further treatments at the hands of Ghithra Dal. Material I found upon your arm, material that must have come from Ghithra Dal touching you, inspires the radank leg to continue growing. It is absorbed into your skin and carried into the depths of your arm by the carrion-eaters. Remove the material and the condition should end.”
“Yet if I were to discontinue treatment at the hands of Ghithra Dal, he would know that I suspect him.”
Wisely, Nen Yim chose not to reply. Whether she had an opinion on the matter or not, she knew it was not her place to advise the warmaster on matters of strategy; any recommendation she could make would not be well received.
“Can you shape a material that
would negate the effects of Ghithra Dal’s doings while allowing him to continue to treat me?”
“Perhaps, Warmaster. But the material that coaxes your radank leg to grow as it does is very subtle, very complex. It could be that Ghithra Dal has been developing it for a very long time. Just having the samples I obtained, being able to observe their effects on other radank flesh, is not the same as knowing exactly how it works its effects, which is the first step toward counteracting it. It could take some considerable time to shape a defensive material. Time, or access to Ghithra Dal’s shaping chambers.”
Tsavong Lah considered, then nodded. “I will find a way to give you one, if not both. Withdraw.”
When she was gone, he allowed himself to revel in an all-too-rare moment of simple elation. Doom was not upon him. The gods did not punish him. He faced nothing more serious than treachery … and treachery was something he well knew how to deal with.
Less familiar to him was the notion of reward, especially as it applied to one who was not Yuuzhan Vong, one who was not a loyal warrior or adviser. “Send in Viqi Shesh,” he said.
Viqi entered the chamber, somewhat thrown off her rhythm by the fact that her escort guards, instead of staying beside her as she passed through the portal, remained behind. She hesitated just within the chamber, her quick glance taking in the presence of Tsavong Lah on his seat of command, of his advisers and servants staying well away along the walls.
“Come to me, my servant,” the warmaster said.
Viqi Shesh offered a glowing, though entirely insincere, smile at Tsavong Lah and stepped forward to bow before him. She straightened and awaited his words, but he offered none until, at his gesture, three Yuuzhan Vong in his command chamber departed.
“I have summoned you,” the warmaster said, “to acknowledge that you do indeed have worth. Your analysis of the situation with my arm was correct. I was afflicted with treachery. I offer you my congratulations.”
Viqi actually felt her knees go weak. It wasn’t from relief at being proven right. No, the story she’d concocted was supposed to be one that would buy her a considerable amount of time to find a way to escape. But she’d been right, the conspiracy had been rooted out, and her time was at an end.
Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II Page 7