Star Wars - The New Jedi Order - Traitor

by Matthew Stover

  "Nobody's dead and nobody's hurt," Ganner said coolly, voice as even as his lightsaber's hum, "but that can change. Anytime. It's your call."

  The four Force-invisible white-robes, scattered around the small chamber off balance or off their feet entirely, hesitated. The middle-aged man stood motionless. Ganner couldn't restrain the hint of a smile. Not only am I good at this, he thought reflexively, I do it with style. He squashed the thought the instant it registered, exasperated with himself. Just when I think I'm making progress...

  He gathered his caution in layers like body armor.

  "All right," he said, calm, quiet, and slow. He held the eye of the middle-aged man and twitched the lightsaber; within the red-rimmed shadows cast upward on his face by the blade's yellow glow, the man's stare was as stony as ever.

  "Back up. Toward the door."

  The man's stare softened into something like resignation, and he shook his head in sad refusal.

  "I'm not bluffing," Ganner said. "You and I are going to have a talk in the corridor. As long as nobody does something stupid, there's no reason why we shouldn't all live through this. Now move."

  Another twitch of the lightsaber, enough to shave a micrometer of skin off the man's collarbone--and the man only sighed. "Ganner, you dope."

  Ganner licked his lips. He says that like he knows me. "You don't seem to understand..."

  "You're the one who doesn't understand," the man said tiredly. "We're being watched. Right now. If I so much as step outside this chamber, a Yuuzhan Vong pilot watching us will trigger a dovin basal concealed not very far from here. It will take all of ten seconds for this whole ship to collapse into a quantum black hole. A hundred million people will die."

  Ganner's mouth dropped open. "What... how... I mean, why, why would..."

  "Because they don't trust me yet," he said sadly. "You shouldn't have come back, Ganner. Now you can't leave this room alive."

  "I got in easily enough..."

  "Getting out is different. And even if you do get away, knowing only what you know already..."

  "If I get away? Who's holding the lightsaber here?"

  "It's not a bluff, Ganner. I only wish it was."

  Ganner could hear the conviction in his voice, and in the Force he felt truth behind his words. But I already know he's stronger than me. He could be faking the truth I'm feeling, and I'd never know it. And even if it were true, he couldn't get any of this to make sense... He couldn't begin to guess what might actually be going on, or what he should be doing about it.

  "I'm telling you this," the man went on, "because the same thing will happen if I am killed. In case my conscience tempts me to sacrifice myself. As I said, they don't trust me yet."

  "But... but..." Ganner sputtered. That feeling of being in over his head thickened. He was drowning in it. Taking a two-handed grip on his lightsaber to keep the blade from trembling, he tried to recover control of the situation. "All I want," he said, almost plaintively, "is to hear what you know about Jacen Solo. Start talking, or I'll have to take the chance that you're bluffing."

  The man looked at Ganner like he knew him, like he'd known him for years, like he saw through him with the melancholy perception of a disappointed parent.

  Again, he sighed. "Talking won't help."

  "You don't have a choice."

  "There's always a choice." Slowly, deliberately, without any hint of a threatening speed, he lifted a hand. He pressed a spot on the side of his nose, and his face split in half. Ganner took an involuntary step back. The man's face peeled open like the rind of an Ithorian bloodfruit, thick meaty flaps pulling away from each other, taking with them his thinning lank hair, the defeated pouches under his eyes, the jowls that had thickened his jawline. A network of hair-thin filaments slowly retracted from the pores of the face revealed beneath, leaking blood. Beneath the retracting masque; the face Ganner saw was thin, chiseled, fringed with a raggedly scruffy beard, topped with blood-matted hair that might have been brown. Even through the streaks of blood and the distortion caused by the withdrawal of the masquer's feeder filaments, Ganner knew this face... though it was a face too old, too lined with privation and pain, set with eyes too sadly experienced, to be the face he knew it was. Ganner's mouth dropped open. His fingers loosened as his hands fell to his sides; his lightsaber's blade vanished and the handle clattered on the floor.

  When he could finally speak, the only word that could pass through his nerveless mouth was "Jacen..."

  "Hi, Ganner," Jacen said tiredly. He reached into his sleeve and withdrew a small pouch, which he teased open, turning it inside out as he drew it over his hand like a mitten, revealing a small fabric pad that had been inside the pouch. He tossed it to Ganner. "Here, catch."

  Ganner was too astonished to do anything other than catch it reflexively. The pad was damp to his touch, and warm with Jacen's body heat.

  "Jacen? What's going on?" Numbness gathered in the center of his palm, and began to climb his wrist. He frowned down at the pad in his hand. "What is this?"

  "The tears of a friend of mine," Jacen said. "They're a contact poison."

  "What?" He stared. "You're kidding, right?"

  "I don't have much sense of humor these days." Jacen peeled the pouch off his hand and tossed it aside. "You'll be unconscious in about fifteen seconds."

  Ganner's hand was already dead, and his right arm hung limp; the numbness washed into his chest, and when it touched his heart it shot throughout his body. He pitched forward, unable even to lift an arm to break his fall--but Jacen caught him and lowered him gently to the floor.

  "Wake the villip," Jacen said to one of the others--Yuuzhan Vong warriors, Ganner now knew they must be. "Tell Nom Anor that our trap has failed. Other Jedi will follow this one. We must return home."

  Nom Anor? Return home? Ganner thought as darkness closed in around his mind. They've done it. They got Jacen. They've turned him.

  One of the warriors barked in their harsh tongue.

  Jacen shook his head. "No. We'll take him with us."

  Cough hack snarl—

  "Because I say so," Jacen answered. "Do you dare dispute my word?"

  With a final convulsion of his will, Ganner reached out through the Force and seized his lightsaber, lifting it with his mind, squeezing its activation plate to snap the blade to sizzling life. One of the warriors barked a warning in their guttural tongue. Jacen gestured, and Ganner felt a stronger mind than his take hold of the lightsaber and wrench it from his control. The lightsaber's blade vanished. The handgrip bobbed gently in the air between Jacen and the warriors.

  "Do not soil yourself by touching the blasphemous weapon," Jacen said.

  The last thing Ganner saw as darkness swallowed him was an amphistaff snaking out from Jacen Solo's sleeve, to slice the handle of Ganner's lightsaber neatly in half.

  "We will take this pathetic excuse for a Jedi to Yuuzhan'tar," Jacen Solo said. "Then we'll kill him."

  Inside a camp ship, a chamber moved. This chamber had been grown specially, bred into this particular camp ship for this particular purpose. It had appeared to be just another chamber within the million-celled honeycomb--but now it cast itself loose and slid along under the camp ship's hull like a parasite digging its way out through an animal's skin. This particular chamber enclosed a pod of yorik coral that had its own dovin basal. This dovin basal could have been used in either of two ways. With one command, it could have generated a gravity field intense enough to crush the entire camp ship into a point mass smaller than a grain of sand; but it had been given the other command, and so it would drive the chamber and its occupants across the galaxy.

  The skin of the camp ship developed a small boil. This boil bulged on the ship's dark side. When it burst, it spat forth the chamber, which instantly streaked away, accelerating frantically into hyperspace, heading for Yuuzhan'tar. Within that chamber were four warriors of the Yuuzhan Vong, one pilot within the coral pod, and two humans. One of the humans sat in silent meditation.
The other lay paralyzed, unconscious, but even in the dark void where he seemed to float, he held on to one thought. He didn't know where he was being taken, he didn't know what would happen to him; he didn't even know, really, who he was. He knew only one thing.

  This was the one lone thought to which he gave all his strength, to fix it forever in his memory: Jacen Solo is a traitor.

  TWELVE

  THE LIGHT OF THE TRUE WAY

  On the surface of an alien planet, a Jedi Knight lies dreaming. Organisms that are devices join with devices that are organisms to tend the needs of his body; glucose and saline circulate through his bloodstream, along with potent alkaloids that sink his consciousness deep beneath the surface of the dream. The planet that holds him is scarred with splotches of riotous jungle over a skeleton of ruined city, and its sky is bounded by a Bridge woven of rainbow.

  The Jedi Knight dreams of aliens and Yuuzhan Vong. He dreams of traitors who are Jedi, and Jedi who are traitors. And sometimes, in the dream, the traitor turns to him and says, If I'm not a Jedi, am I still a traitor? If I'm not a traitor, am I still a Jedi?

  Another figure in his dream: a skeletal Yuuzhan Vong whom he somehow understands is Nom Anor, the Prophet of Rhommamool. The Nom Anor of Duro. Of Myrkr. And there is one more figure in the dream: small, lithe and agile, a feather-crested alien of unknown species, a white fountain of the Force. The Jedi Knight also dreams himself, lying motionless as though dead, tangled in a net of vines and woody limbs that is half hammock and half spiderweb. He watches from outside himself, floating, far, far above in some astral orbit, too far to hear voices though he somehow knows what they say, too far to see faces though he somehow knows how they look--And he somehow knows that they are talking about killing him.

  He no longer pays close attention; he has had this dream many, many times.

  It replays in his head like a corrupted data loop. The dream always begins:

  Not that I question the sincerity of your conversion, the Nom Anor figure murmurs slyly to the traitor, but you must understand how this would look to, say, Warmaster Tsavong Lah. He might feel that if you were, in fact, devoted to the True Way, you would have slaughtered this pathetic Jedi without mercy back at the camp ship, rather than carting him all the way here.

  The traitor counters expressionlessly, And deprive the True Gods of a full formal sacrifice?

  The feather-crested alien nods in fond approval, and soon the Prophet must agree.

  Any Jedi is a worthwhile captive, he allows. We can sacrifice him this very day.

  In fact...--Here fleshless lips draw back to reveal a smile like a mouthful of needles.--you can sacrifice him. To slaughter one of your former brethren will go far to ease... the, ah, warmaster's doubts.

  Of course. The traitor agrees with a nod, and here the Jedi Knight's dream always becomes a nightmare: trapped once more inside his motionless, helpless, silent body, as though a corpse already, drowning in horror. He tries to reach into the Force, to touch the traitor's cold and treacherous heart--and receives, to his astonishment, a distinct feeling of warmth and good cheer, as though the traitor has given him a wink and a friendly squeeze on the arm.

  But we can do better. We can make this a dry run: a rehearsal, with this one standing in for my sister. In the way of dreams, the Jedi Knight understands that the trap into which he has fallen was set for Jaina. There's something wrong with that, though; something he can't quite remember. If they had really wanted to catch Jaina, there must have been a better option, but what it might be he cannot summon. As always, the Prophet objects to the traitor's plan: even the existence of the traitor is a closely held secret. Too many people, Yuuzhan Vong and slave, would participate in this rehearsal; the secret would inevitably be lost. Secrecy has outlived its usefulness, the traitor counters serenely.

  My conversion to the True Way

  serves no purpose if it remains secret. I will proclaim the Gospel of the True Gods to the whole galaxy on the day we take my sister--but we must prepare. We must practice, if the ceremony is to be flawless.

  I must practice.

  Practice what? the Prophet asks. A sacrifice is not a complex ritual. The alien speaks: The Great Sacrifice, when it comes, will be a willing sacrifice: the Other Twin will walk to her death eagerly, with head high and joy in her heart, knowing that she brings the Truth to this galaxy.

  As will this one, the traitor claims. This is why you have made me what I am. I must bring him to the Truth. To the Light. He will hear Truth ring from my mouth, and see the Light of the God I Am shine from my eye.

  The Prophet appears skeptical, but he says: Preparations will take some time.

  Take whatever time you require, the traitor says. When all is prepared, I will speak to this Jedi. And always, the Jedi Knight reaches into the Force here, to pound the traitor's brain with the hammer of his refusal, and receives in return another invisible Force wink. The traitor never makes any other indication he's aware of the Jedi Knight's presence; and here he turns to the Prophet. On that day, Ganner Rhysode will walk proudly at my heel, as I lead him into the Well of the World Brain, where we will together offer up his death to the glory of the True Gods. It is always at this point that a familiar clench of dread squeezes him back down into darkness for a time, until he surfaces once more and begins the dream again. So it goes, over and over and over, etched in psychic acid upon his brain. Over and over and over and over until...

  With a great shuddering gasp, Ganner Rhysode awoke. Waking up hurt.

  Somebody had stuck his whole arm to the elbow down Ganner's throat, fingers jammed into his bronchi; now the fingers and hand and wrist and arm slowly withdrew, dry and hard and rough as a scab, grating up the inside of Ganner's throat as he choked and retched and tried to cough. At the same time, tubes and wires and needles pulled out of his veins and nerves and through his stretching skin...

  Ganner Rhysode, awaken! Awake and arise! It is commanded! He knew he had been dreaming, and he knew he was waking up, but he couldn't fight free of the dream.

  It stretched around him, gluey, clinging, membranes of goo dividing into thin strings and sagging ropes that bound him with impossible things: wild fantasies of having been captured by a dozen Yuuzhan Vong warriors who all looked like Jacen Solo, mad images of sacrifice and aliens and Jaina and that Nom Anor character...

  His eyelids cranked open like rusted-shut hatches. The arm that withdrew from his windpipe was less an arm than it was a branch, its bark coated with blood-tinged slime. The tubes that pulled free of his veins through his skin looked like ovipositors of immense bloated wasps that had grown like galls on the trunks of stunted trees to either side of him. He lay in a hammock that seemed to have been made of vines--but the vines writhed muscularly beneath him, flexing and squeezing like a net woven of snakes.

  More vines dangled from the ceiling, long ropy vines, knotted and coiled--but they weren't vines, they were more like tentacles, because vines couldn't uncoil and coil again, untie and retie themselves in impossibly complex knots--and they weren't tentacles, because tentacles don't end in huge round glowing red eyes that even through all the coiling and tying seem to always focus on you with unblinking concentration...

  Drugs, he thought groggily. They drugged me. I'm hallucinating.

  "Awaken, Ganner Rhysode! Awaken to the Truth!"

  This had to be a hallucination--had to be, because when he rolled his head to the side to blearily stare at whoever was giving him these pompous, vaguely stupid-sounding orders, the guy looked just like Jacen Solo.

  Ganner blinked, and lifted a hand to wipe sleep gunk from his eyes--which was how he discovered he was no longer paralyzed, nor was he restrained.

  But he might as well have been: the alkaloids still circulating through his bloodstream made his hand feel only a couple of grams lighter than the Sun Crusher. When he looked again, with slightly clearer vision, it was still Jacen.

  But he was no longer the boy Ganner remembered. Jacen was taller now, and broad
er across the shoulders. His brown curls had been sun-bleached to streaks of golden blond, and a dark beard sprang wiry from his jaw.

  His face had thinned, sharpened, refined: he had lost that impish softness, that playful roguishness that once had made him resemble his father, and replaced it with a cold-forged durasteel expression that reminded Ganner of Leia denouncing a corrupt Senator from the Chief of State's Podium of the Great Rotunda. He wore a long, flowing robe of black so dark that its folds vanished into formless night. Along his sleeves spidered an intricate design that glowed with a light of its own, chased in scarlet and viridian like a network of external arteries that pulsed light instead of blood. Draped over his shoulders he wore a surplice of shimmering white on which strange, unidentifiable sigils wrote themselves in twists of shining gold.

  He opened his mouth to ask Jacen what kind of stupid masked ball he was planning to crash in this ridiculous costume, but before his drug-numbed lips could shape the words, he remembered: Jacen Solo is a traitor.

  "Do not fear, Ganner Rhysode," he said, in a weird dark voice like a bad imitation of a hypnotist. "Instead rejoice! The day of your Blessed Release has arrived!"

  "Does..." Ganner had to hack a wad of haven't-talked-in-days out of his throat. "Does this mean... you're going to let me go?"

  "The Gifts of the True Gods are three." His words fell like boulders down a well. "Life They give us, that we may serve Their Glory: this is the least of Their Gifts. Pain They give us, that we may learn Life's value lies only in Their Service: this is a greater Gift. But the Greatest Gift of the Gods is Death: it is Their Release from the Burden of Pain and the Curse of Life. It is their reward, their grace, their mercy, granted liberally even to the unjust and the infidel."

  Captured. Drugged. Helpless. About to be murdered. Boy, it's a good thing I was so cautious and unobtrusive, Ganner thought muzzily. Otherwise I might have gotten myself into trouble.