by Greg Keyes
Lensi hesitated, looking at the patch. “Colonel Solo,” he said, “I was there, after Sernpidal, when you slapped Kyp Durron for lying to us. You know what it feels like to be betrayed, to fight without knowing what you’re really fighting for.”
She raised her eyes and regarded him steadily. “I know what lots of things feel like,” she said. “And you know what? I’m still fighting. I’m going to keep fighting until there isn’t a single threat left in this galaxy. You think you’re the only person who has lost something in this war? Grow up, Lensi.”
The Duros regarded her for another long moment.
“Did you know?” he asked.
“No. But if I had, I wouldn’t have told anyone. General Antilles did the right thing.”
Lensi nodded curtly, turned, and left. He still had the insignia with him.
“General Antilles?”
Wedge stopped tapping his fingers on the Kashyyyk-wood conference table and acknowledged the heavy-jowled Sullustan.
“Yes, Admiral Sovv?” he said.
“What is your opinion on the matter?”
“We should have told Col,” Wedge said, bluntly. “I should have broken orders and told him myself. He had a right to know exactly what he was getting his people into.”
“Under perfect circumstances, yes,” Admiral Kre’fey said. “But the circumstances were far from perfect. Bothan intelligence had—has—information that the Yuuzhan Vong have a spy placed high in the command structure of the Duros government-in-exile. Indeed, it was through that leak that the Yuuzhan Vong ‘discovered’ our plans to invade the Duro system—as we planned.”
“Col might have been brought in,” Wedge replied. “He was a hothead, but he could be trusted with a secret.”
“Perhaps,” the white-furred Bothan replied, “perhaps not. As it is, our plan was fulfilled.”
“With more losses than necessary.”
“Still fewer than projected,” General Garm Bel Iblis said, from across the table. “The battle at Fondor was a total rout. We did them great damage, and now we have a secure position from which to strike at Coruscant.”
“Gentlemen,” Sien Sovv said, “I’m declaring the matter closed from a military point of view. Certainly General Antilles is not to blame. He followed the orders this council gave him. I refuse to allocate any resources for an internal investigation, not at this point in our war against the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“That tables the matter of the Duros protest,” Kre’fey said. “It’s time we move on to what we do next.”
Admiral Sovv nodded. “General Bel Iblis, how long before the shipyards at Fondor become productive again?”
“That will take some time,” the aging general admitted. “Two, three months before any facility can go on-line. Ships—six months perhaps. Probably not sooner. But once construction actually begins, they will be quite productive. They should position us well for a push toward the Core.”
“Good,” Sien Sovv said. “In the meantime we should continue the process of isolating Coruscant from the rest of Yuuzhan Vong territory. Which brings me to this.” He tapped the table, and a hologram of the galaxy appeared.
“Yag’Dhul and Thyferra are secure, finally, and Fondor is ours.” Three stars near the dense, glowing center of the galaxy winked green, indicating the positions of the systems named.
“Coruscant, however, is still well supplied.” Coruscant—or whatever it was the Yuuzhan Vong had renamed it—lit up, on the other side of the Core from the other three.
“It’s time to threaten that.”
A final star lit.
“Bilbringi,” Wedge said.
“Yes. There is some evidence that the shipyards there are partially intact. More, it gives us a base from which to harry both the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route.”
“It’s too close to Coruscant,” Bel Iblis said. “And too far from our own secure zone. We can never hold it.” He shook his head. “We don’t want another Borleias. No offense, General Antilles.”
“None taken. Our actions at Borleias served their intended purpose. We never imagined we would keep it.”
He turned to Sien Sovv. “But he’s right, the Yuuzhan Vong can hardly ignore a threat that close to Coruscant. I don’t think we have the ships to take it if they have advance warning. If they don’t, I doubt we could hold it very long. Not and keep our own systems secure.”
“They have the same problem,” the Sullustan admiral pointed out. “As we’ve proven to them, they’ve taken more systems than they can hold. There’s not much in the Bilbringi system, but there are no habitable planets. In any event, I have a tactical reason for choosing Bilbringi as a target.”
Wedge raised an eyebrow and waited, as another sector of the galaxy lit up, this one Rimward.
“The Imperial Remnant,” he murmured.
“Indeed,” Sovv said. “Admiral Pellaeon has agreed to lend us his support in this enterprise, and Bilbringi lies within good striking distance of the Empire. Between us, we can carve a corridor through the Rim, eventually cutting Coruscant off completely.”
Wedge bit back a protest. He’d spent most of his life fighting the Empire, and his opinion of Pellaeon was a mixed one, the recent alliance notwithstanding. But he decided to hear Sovv out.
“It’s true Pellaeon can reach Bilbringi without passing through Yuuzhan Vong territory,” Kre’fey said. “The same is not true for us.”
“No. We will have to fight our way through several hyperspace jumps. Here is what I propose.”
Lines began drawing themselves across the galaxy. “Our main fleet will launch from Mon Calamari, under Admiral Kre’fey,” he said. “Part of the fleet at Fondor will move to meet them, under General Antilles. When they converge, they will be joined by a detachment from the Imperial fleet.”
“The Vong will suspect a trick,” Bel Iblis said, “after what we did to them at Fondor.”
“Exactly,” Sovv said. “But the only trick in this case is overwhelming force. I expect them to hold back reinforcements, fearing it is another feint, perhaps to draw defenses from Coruscant itself.”
“Interesting,” Wedge allowed. “Though there will be a trick in the coordination. The hyperspace routes are uncertain these days. If one of our fleets arrives too early, or too late—”
“The HoloNet is functioning at high efficiency in those areas. We should be able to coordinate down to the second.”
“What’s the Empire getting out of this?” Bel Iblis asked.
“Exactly what I was wondering,” Wedge replied.
Sovv shrugged. “We long made efforts to convince Pellaeon that we must work together to free the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong threat. Our efforts have paid off, so far to our great benefit.”
“I’m aware of our diplomatic efforts,” Bel Iblis said. “As well as the Empire’s recent aid to us—in return for help we gave them, I might add. I’m also aware that they want some of our planets in return.”
Sovv’s brows lowered. “They aren’t ‘our’ planets anymore, General Bel Iblis. The planets in question belong to the Yuuzhan Vong now. Most are not even recognizable as the worlds they were a few years ago. I’m convinced we need the Empire’s help to win this war. If that means showing them a little goodwill afterward, I don’t see the harm. In any case, they aren’t making any specific demands at this time—this is an effort to establish their good intentions, nothing more.”
Good intentions that will place at least some of them as an occupation force spitting distance from Coruscant, Wedge thought.
Unfortunately, despite that, he agreed with Sovv.
“We can strike now,” Wedge said, “press our advantage while we have one, or we can wait—wait for the Vong to grow more ships, breed more warriors, invent new bioweapons. Right now, they’ve bit off a little more of this galaxy than they can easily chew, as we’ve shown them in the last few months. We have to keep it that way.”
He looked around. Everyone but Sovv was nodding.
“You mean Alpha Red, the biological agent developed by the Chiss?” Wedge said. “Not as far as I’m concerned. Genocide is what the Emperor did. It’s what the Yuuzhan Vong do. It’s not what we do. If it is, I’m fighting for the wrong cause.”
“Even if it’s our only choice for survival?” Sovv asked.
“It’s not,” Wedge replied, flatly.
“The Yuuzhan Vong will not stop after one defeat, ten, a hundred. They will fight until every last warrior is dead. Even if they win, the cost that will exact from our people will be tremendous—”
“That question is moot at present,” Kre’fey broke in, “and would seem a waste of our valuable time to discuss it.”
“Very well. I trust there are no other objections to pursuing the offensive against the Yuuzhan Vong at present?” the commander said.
There were not.
“Then let us discuss details.”
FIVE
Kneeling in the presence of Supreme Overlord Shimrra, Nen Yim believed in the gods. It was impossible not to.
At other times, she had her doubts. Her late master, Mezhan Kwaad, had flatly denied their existence. In the clear light of logic, Nen Yim herself saw no particular reason to give them credence. Indeed, the fact that she herself created, with her own mind and shaping hands, things that all but a few of her people believed to be gifts from the gods suggested that all such evidence of their existence was similarly tainted.
But in the presence of Shimrra, her mind could not tolerate doubt. It was crushed from her by a presence so powerful it could not have mortal origin. It pressed away the years of her learning, of studied cynicism, of anything resembling logic, and left her an insignificant insect, a crècheling terrified by the shadows of her elders and the terrible mystery that was the world.
Afterward, she always wondered how he did it. Was it some modification of yammosk technology? Something erased from the protocols entirely? Or was it an invention of some heretical predecessor of herself?
He was shadow and dread, awesome and unreachable. She crouched at his feet and was nothing.
Onimi leered almost gently at her as she rose, shaking, to speak to her master.
“You have studied the thing?”
“I have, Dread One,” Nen Yim replied. “Not exhaustively, as there hasn’t been time, but—”
“There will be more time. Tell me what you have discovered thus far.”
“It is a ship,” Nen Yim replied. “Like our own ships, it is a living organism.”
“Not at all,” Shimrra interrupted. “It has no dovin basals. Its engines are like the infidel engines, dead metal.”
“True,” Nen Yim agreed. “And parts of its structure are not alive. But—”
“Then it is an infidel thing!” Shimrra thundered. “It is nothing like our ships.”
Nen Yim actually reeled at the force of the statement, and for a moment she stood paralyzed, unable to think. To contradict Shimrra—
She drew her strength back to her core. “That is so, Dread One,” she admitted. “As it is, it is an abomination. And yet, at its heart the biotechnology is similar to our own. The infidel engines, for instance, could be withdrawn and replaced with dovin basals. The living structure of one of our own vessels could have such a ship grown around it. This biotechnology is compatible with our own.”
“Compatible?” Shimrra growled. “Are you saying that this is one of our ships, somehow transfigured by the infidels?”
“No,” Nen Yim replied. “In outward form, this thing is very different from our vessels. The hull is not yorik coral. The architectures of our ships were derived from various creatures of the homeworld, and those structures can still be recognized in their design. The alien technology is different. It begins with relatively undifferentiated organisms that specialize as the ship grows. I suspect that some sort of manipulation is involved in the ontological process to guide the final outcome. That is why they used a rigid frame to grow the ship around—developmentally, it had no internal code to produce such a structure on its own.”
“And yet you still maintain it is similar to our gods-given ships?”
“At the most basic level, yes. Cellularly. Molecularly. And that is the most unlikely level at which we should expect to find resemblance.”
“Again. Could the infidels have stolen our technology and distorted it?”
“It’s possible. But according to the qahsa, the planet of its origin is itself a living organism—”
“That is a lie,” Shimrra said. “It is a lie because it is impossible. Ekh’m Val was deluded. He was duped by the infidels.”
Nen Yim hesitated at that, but could not directly dispute it even if she wanted to.
Instead, she took another approach.
“I’m relieved to hear this,” she said. “I thought the tale unlikely myself.” She drew herself straighter. “Still, there is nothing in the protocols that could account for a ship like this, nor do I think this technology is a result of the manipulation of our technology. It is both alien and similar to our own.”
Shimrra was silent for a moment. Then his voice came again, leashed terror.
“It is not superior.”
“No, Dread Lord. Just different.”
“Of course. And you can develop weapons against it?”
“I can. Indeed, Lord, there are already weapons in the protocols that would be most effective against technology of this sort. Oddly, they are weapons we have never built or had use for.”
“As if the gods anticipated this necessity.”
Nen Yim tried to keep her thoughts quiet.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Excellent. You will assign a team to develop these weapons immediately. And you will continue to study the ship.”
“It would be helpful, Great Lord, if I had other examples of the technology.”
“No such exists. The planet was destroyed. You have all that remains.”
Then why do you want weapons against … Nen Yim started to think, but savagely cut herself off.
“Yes, Supreme Overlord.”
With a wave of his massive hand, Shimrra dismissed her.
A cycle later, Nen Yim settled onto a sitting hummock in her private hortium and regarded Ahsi Yim. The younger shaper was narrower in every dimension than Nen Yim, and her blue-gray flesh had an opalescent sheen about it. Her attentive eyes were a rare shade of bronze.
Her master’s hand was very new, but they were peers.
“What brought you to the heresy, Ahsi Yim?” she asked softly.
The other master considered this quietly for a moment. The fine silver tendrils of lim trees groped feebly about the room in search of sustenance. Plants from the homeworld with no obvious use, Nen Yim had resurrected them from genetic patterns in the Qang qahsa. They pleased her.
“I worked on the changing of Duro,” she said at last. “On the surface of things, on the record, we worked strictly by the protocols. And yet, often the protocols were not suitable. They were not sufficiently flexible for what needed to be done. Some of us—did what was necessary. Later I was assigned here, to Yuuzhan’tar, where so much went wrong. The strange itching plague—well. The masters there were very orthodox. I saw the shortcomings of that. At the same time, I saw evidence of the infidels’ ability to adapt, to change their abominable technology not just in small ways, but in large ones. I determined that in time, because of this, they must ultimately triumph unless we did the same. So I practiced heresy.”
“And were discovered. You would have been sacrificed to the gods if I had not had you brought here.”
“I serve my people,” Ahsi Yim said. “The protocols do not. I would die for that.”
“So would I,” Nen Yim said. “And so I risk both of our lives once more. Do you understand?”
Ahsi Yim did not blink. “Yes.”
“You may have heard that the Supreme Overlord brought me something t
o examine.”
“Yes.” Eagerness showed in Ahsi Yim’s eyes.
“It is a ship,” Nen Yim said, “a ship based on a biotechnology much like ours. The phenotype is radically different, but the genotype is similar. More similar than anything in this galaxy thus far. And the protocols have in them certain weapons that seem designed peculiarly well to deal with it. Shimrra claims the gods must have anticipated our need. What do you think?”
Again, that long moment of consideration, but this time accompanied by an excited writhing of tendrils on her headdress.
“I think that is not true,” Ahsi said softly. “The protocols have not changed in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. They have not ‘anticipated’ anything else in this galaxy. Why should they anticipate this?”
“Perhaps nothing else here required the intervention of the gods.”
Ahsi made a dismissive motion. “There is much here we could have used the help of the gods with. The Jeedai, for instance. And yet there is nothing in the protocols that even hints of them.”
Nen Yim nodded. “I grant I believe as you do. Then what explanation do you offer?”
“Our ancestors met this technology in the past. We battled against it, and the weapons from that battle remain in the Qang qahsa.”
“And yet no record of any such event exists.”
Ahsi Yim smiled faintly. “Even the Qang qahsa can be made to forget. More recent events have been elided. Have you ever tried to learn of Shimrra’s ascension to Supreme Overlord?”
“Yes,” Nen Yim replied.
“The record of that seems implausibly thin.”
Nen Yim shrugged. “I agree that records can be erased. But why erase knowledge of a threat?”
“You think this ship a threat?”
“Oh, yes. Shall I tell you a tale?”
“I would be honored.”
“I have in my possession the personal qahsa of Ekh’m Val, the commander who brought this ship to Lord Shimrra. He was sent years ago to explore the galaxy. He came across a planet named Zonama Sekot.”
Ahsi Yim’s eyes narrowed.
“What? This means something to you?”