The Final Prophecy: Edge of Victory III

by Greg Keyes

  Quoreal had been right. They should never have come here.

  But Nom Anor had set that to rights.

  He crossed the narrow area, stepped over a gap in the next lightning flash, and saw that the way widened a bit ahead.

  But from the corner of his eye—

  Someone crashed into him, chopping viciously at the side of his neck. The force of the blow knocked him sprawling, and his chin grated against stone. With a roar he kicked back and rolled. A foot caught him under his savaged chin, but he managed to catch it and twist. His attacker fell heavily. Nom Anor scrambled back, trying to regain his footing, but found himself teetering on the edge of a cliff. Lighting ripped the sky, and he saw a silhouette rising against it. Another flash came, this one behind him, and he made out Harrar’s face, terrifying, as if the very gods had put their light of vengeance in him.

  “Nom Anor,” the priest shouted through the rain. “Prepare to die, perfidious one.”

  “This planet has driven you mad, Harrar,” Nom Anor snapped. “You side with Jedi against me?”

  “I side with Zonama Sekot,” Harrar said. “And you—you are accursed by Shimrra, you honorless qorih. I would have killed you anyway.”

  “Zonama Sekot is a lie, you fool—a tale I told my followers so that they would obey me.”

  “You know nothing,” Harrar said. “You know less than nothing. Do you think you know the secrets of the priesthood? Do you think we share all we know? It is Shimrra who has lied to us. Zonama Sekot is the truth. If you would be of service to your people, you will tell me what you have done.”

  Nom Anor felt the lightsaber in his hand. Harrar was advancing, and a single kick would be enough to send Nom Anor plunging to his death. He dared not use the plaeryin bol—even if it still contained poison, the rain would at best deflect it, at worst wash in onto him. The Jedi weapon was his only chance.

  “Telling you will do no good,” he sneered at Harrar. “Nothing can reverse the damage now.”

  “I believe you,” Harrar said, his face twisting as he took a quick step toward Nom Anor.

  Nom Anor pressed the stud on the lightsaber and the cutting beam blazed out, hissing and trailing steam in the downpour. It felt strange, a weapon with no weight other than its grip. He cut at the priest’s knee, but his position and the unfamiliar blade made the cut awkward. At the appearance of the blade, however, Harrar tried to stop his forward motion and jerked his leg away from the attack; he slipped on the wet rocks and stumbled, falling past Nom Anor and over the cliff.

  His howl of rage and frustration was quickly cut short.

  Panting, Nom Anor rose, extinguished the lightsaber, and continued on his way. The gods were with him again, it seemed. Certainly they were no longer with Harrar.

  When the turbolift jarred to a halt, Corran ignited his lightsaber and cut through the roof of the car, stepping aside as the circle of metal clanged to the floor. After waiting a few seconds for the plating to cool, he leapt up and caught the edge of the hole, then drew himself up into the shaft.

  In the dim emergency lighting, he could see the door some ten meters above. The lift was magnetic, so the walls were glassy smooth, and the power cables were buried in them. There were no rungs and nothing to give purchase. He could cut handholds for himself and climb, but that would take a long time.

  He dropped back down into the car and examined the control panel. He didn’t know the language. The up and down icons were obvious, but the others would take a little figuring out.

  Nom Anor must have cut the power from above somehow, but the car hadn’t fallen—presumably there was an emergency battery system to prevent that happening. But would the emergency system be able to finish the ascent, or was it doing its best just to keep him from falling?

  He pushed a red button with two vertical lines and a triangle, with no result. He tried a few of the others, again with no result. Frustrated, he tapped the up key.

  The car started moving, though much more slowly than before. He felt like pounding his head against the wall: the emergency system was separate from the normal one—he needed only to tell the car where he wanted to go.

  A few minutes later, he emerged from the lift, ready to fight—but there was no one to fight. The room was empty. There were light spatters of black blood on the floor, but other than that, no clues as to exactly what had happened.

  He was about to go outside when he heard a faint noise behind him, in the maintenance shaft. Peering over, he saw Tahiri pulling herself up the superconductor cable, about twenty meters below.

  “Are you okay?” he shouted.

  “I’m fine,” she called back up, her voice shaking. She seemed to be having trouble climbing. “Nom Anor got away,” she added. “You have to stop him—I’ll join you when I can.”

  “And leave you dangling? No. I don’t think so. You just hang on there.”

  He went back to the lifts. Someone had indeed cut through the power couplings—with a lightsaber, it appeared. He reached cautiously inside and grabbed a rope-sized fiberoptic conduit and began to pull it out. When he thought he had enough, he cut it with his weapon and then tied a loop in the end.

  Tahiri hadn’t made much progress in the intervening time. He threw the loop end down to her.

  “Put your foot in that,” he said, “and hang on with your hands. I’ll pull you up.”

  She nodded wearily and did as instructed. Bracing his end of the rope over the safety rail, Corran hauled her up.

  When she had pulled herself over the rail, he saw her hands.

  “Let me see those,” he said.

  “They’re all right,” she protested.

  “Let me see them.”

  They were badly friction-burned, but it looked as if her tendons were undamaged, which was good. The scar on her old amphistaff wound had torn a bit and was leaking blood, but not too much.

  “Well, at least you got to slide down the cable,” he said. “Was it as fun as you imagined it would be?”

  “That and loads more,” Tahiri said.

  “What happened here?”

  “I let my guard down,” she said. “Nom Anor has something in one of his eyes that shoots poison.”

  “Did he hit you with it?”

  “No. But when I dodged, I hit the rail, and then he knocked me over it.”

  “And Harrar?”

  “I don’t know. He attacked Nom Anor, I think. Maybe he’s gone after him. Which is what we ought to do.”

  Corran peered outside at the dark and the rain. “I agree. But how to track them in this, without the Force?”

  “I have my Vongsense,” Tahiri said. “If he hasn’t gone far, I might be able to sense him.”

  Corran produced a small glow rod, and in its light they found muddy, water-filled footprints leading back toward the heights. They followed the prints until they came to a narrow ridge of stone.

  “At least there’s only one way to go,” Corran said.

  As they ascended, the lightning reached a crescendo, striking in the valley where they had been staying every few seconds or so. The roar was so steady they couldn’t hear each other speak. Then—rather abruptly—it was over. The rain slacked off, and then ended, and the wind subsided to a clean, wet breeze.

  The ridge continued until it joined a larger one, ascending the whole time.

  “He’s going for high ground,” Corran said. “Can you sense your lightsaber?”

  “No,” she said. “There’s something interfering—more than usual.”

  “I feel it, too,” Corran said. “It’s Zonama Sekot. Something’s wrong.”

  “We failed,” Tahiri said. “Whatever Nom Anor was going to do, he’s already done it, I’m sure of it.”

  “There may still be time to stop him,” Corran replied. “Concentrate. Use your Vongsense.”

  She closed her eyes, and he felt her relax, reaching out to someplace he couldn’t go.

  “I feel him,” she said at last. “Up ahead.”

  B
y the time the east was gray with dawn, they had reached a broad, upland plateau that showed signs of recent convulsion. The stone beneath the soil had split in places, rearing up to reveal its strata. The soil was black and ashy, and the vegetation was low when there was any at all, though the charred trunks of larger boras still stood here and there, like the columns of ruined temples.

  “I’ve lost him,” Tahiri said, a tinge of despair in her voice. “He could be anywhere up here.”

  Corran agreed. Where there was soil, it was spongy with a dark green web of grass that resisted tracks.

  “We’ll keep going in the same general direction,” Corran said, “unless—”

  Far above, they heard a faint report, like very distant and brief lightning.

  “Sonic boom,” he murmured, searching the skies with his gaze. The clouds had cleared away, leaving only a few thin ones very far up.

  “There,” Tahiri said. She pointed to a swiftly moving spot, high above.

  “Good eyes,” Corran told her. “I’ll give you one guess where that’s going.”

  “Wherever Nom Anor is.”

  The dot was descending rapidly toward the plateau. Corran peered along its projected path and caught a hint of motion near a copse of low trees.

  “Come on,” Corran said. “If we run, we might get there in time.”

  “We will,” Tahiri swore.

  Nom Anor was watching the ship approach when the ground beneath his feet suddenly shuddered. It lasted for only an instant, but he knew it was only the beginning. He looked off toward the still-visible field guides and saw a white plume curling up toward the sky. He curled his lip—if he had timed this wrong, if he died in the explosion he had caused, how the gods would laugh.

  The grass off to his left rustled, and from the corner of his eye, Nom Anor glimpsed unnatural color. Turning as if in a dream, he beheld Corran Horn stepping into the clearing, his eyes full of death.

  Nom Anor glanced up at the approaching ship. It was only moments away, but that was longer than it would take for the Jedi to kill him. He touched his hand to the stolen lightsaber—

  And ran, into the low-sprawling copse of trees behind him. He need only buy enough time for Choka’s ship to land and dispatch warriors.

  Corran Horn shouted and ran after him.

  Nom Anor dodged through the trees, leaping an old fissure, then bore to his left, hoping to circle back to the clearing. The ground trembled again, not enough to upset his footing, but almost. He glanced back over his shoulder, saw Horn gaining on him, turned to redouble his pace.

  Just in time to see the blade of a foot, level with his eyes. Behind the foot was an airborne Tahiri, her body horizontal to the ground.

  The kick caught him above the nostrils, snapping his head back and knocking him completely off his feet. He crashed into the trunk of a tree, and half of the wind blew out of him. He clawed for the Jedi weapon he’d thrust in his sash, but it was missing.

  In fact, it was in Tahiri’s hands, the energy blade already on.

  “This is mine,” she said.

  Corran had come up behind her. “Don’t kill him,” the older Jedi said.

  “I won’t,” Tahiri replied, but Nom Anor heard the tone in her voice. It was not a human tone at all—although she was speaking Basic, every nuance of her speech was Yuuzhan Vong. There was no mercy in it, but promises aplenty.

  “I’m going to cut off his feet, though,” she continued, stepping nearer. “And then his hands. Unless he tells us how to stop what he’s done to Sekot.”

  “Do what you will,” Nom Anor said, forcing as much contempt into his voice as he could. “It has already begun. You cannot stop it.”

  “Where’s Harrar?” Corran asked.

  “He’s dead,” Nom Anor replied. “I killed him.” He watched the tip of Tahiri’s blade dip toward his foot, and then winced as she traced a shallow burn across the ankle.

  “Tahiri, no,” Corran commanded.

  Her eyes narrowed further, then she withdrew the blade.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Get up, Anor.”

  Nom Anor began coming slowly to his feet.

  “The ship’s landing, Corran,” Tahiri said.

  “But he’s not going on it,” Corran said. “You have a villip, don’t you, Nom Anor? You’ll call them off, now, or I’ll cut your head off myself. And that, my friend, is absolutely not a bluff.”

  “They will not obey me,” Nom Anor said.

  “Maybe they won’t,” Corran told him, “but you’d sure better try to make them.”

  Nom Anor stared into the man’s eyes and knew he was not lying.

  He reached for the villip beneath his arm, thinking furiously.

  Then Zonama Sekot tried to throw them all into space.

  The ground bucked beneath them and an anguished cry exploded in the Force, filling Tahiri’s head with such agony that she hardly noticed when she thudded back to the ground. Desperately she tried to shut out the world’s pain and regain her feet, but the will behind it was too strong. She felt as if a trillion needles were growing from her heart, pushing through her heart and lungs and bone. She clutched at her head, screaming with Zonama Sekot’s voice.

  Through her blurred vision, she saw Nom Anor running off through the crazily tilted trees.

  No! Sekot, he’s the one doing this to you!

  She was never sure if Sekot somehow heard her, or if that gave her the extra strength she needed to push away the sick pain, but she levered herself to her feet.

  Corran was up, leaning heavily against a tree.

  “Corran—”

  “Just a second,” he said. “I—okay. I think I’ve got it under control now.”

  The two Jedi stumbled through the newly broken terrain. The ship was on the ground, and Nom Anor was running toward it. Tahiri ran as she never had before, drawing on the turbulent Force around them. Corran was just ahead of her. They were gaining on the executor. If they could reach him before the warriors on the ship could debark, they might yet be able to save Sekot. She clung to that hope, as the breath ripped at her lungs and her heart stuttered unevenly.

  Without warning, Corran lashed out at her, sending her sprawling. Even before a sense of betrayal could register, she saw he was going down, too. Less than a heartbeat later, a swarm of thud bugs whirred through the space where they’d just been.

  She suddenly understood that she and Corran must have been occupied with Sekot’s pain for longer than she’d thought. The warriors had already come out of the ship and hidden themselves around the clearing. Corran and she were completely surrounded.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “Okay, folks,” Han said as the reversion warning began sounding. “Hang on. If Wedge is still here, it’s probably because the Vong have interdictors to keep him from leaving, which means we’ll probably get pulled out early. Again.”

  “I hope he isn’t here,” C-3PO said. “I so dislike unplanned reversions. They cause an unpleasant resonance in my circuits.”

  “That’s great,” Han said. “All I need now is a hypochondriac droid.”

  “Sir, it is quite impossible for a droid to be a hypochondriac.”

  “If you say so, Goldenrod. Okay, here goes.”

  Han pulled back on the levers, and the Falcon decanted as effortlessly as she ever had—in fact, more smoothly than usual. “Well, whaddya know,” he said. “We came out normally. Guess that means—”

  “—that we’re too far from the interdictor,” Leia finished. “Just barely.”

  Leia was right. His instruments showed the gravitic profile of not one dovin basal interdictor, but two. The Falcon had flashed into existence marginally outside the field of effect of the nearest. If he’d been set to revert just a little farther in, he would have made good on his prediction.

  “Oh, dear,” C-3PO said. “It looks as if General Antilles is here. And not doing very well!”

  “Yeah,” Han agreed. “You can say that again.” He looked sha
rply at the droid. “But don’t.”

  The system was swarming with Yuuzhan Vong ships. The nearest was one of the interdictors, hanging in space like a sword with two blades and no grip. Beyond it was a stationary mass of skips and a few cruisers, apparently guarding the interdictor against attack. Farther insystem was the main battle, where ten Yuuzhan Vong capital ships—two of which were behemoths—were engaged with what was left of Wedge’s battle group.

  Which wasn’t much—Han counted four Alliance ships of frigate size or larger. They were clustered together, trying to avoid being encircled, but—as C-3PO had pointed out—it didn’t seem to be going so well.

  Beyond all of that was another interdictor. It, like the one near the Falcon, was keeping its distance, moving only to keep the Alliance ships from going to hyperspace.

  “Ouch,” Han said. “He needs reinforcements, and he needs them now.”

  “It’s a disaster,” Leia murmured. Then she straightened and got that Jedi look in her eye.

  “What?”

  “It’s Jaina.”

  He waited for her to continue, his heart frozen in his chest.

  “She’s alive,” Leia said, “and I don’t think she’s injured. But something’s wrong.”

  “If she’s down there, I guess so,” Han said, swallowing.

  “There must be something we can do!” C-3PO wailed.

  “There is,” Leia told him.

  “Yeah,” Han said, looking at the interdictor. “There is.”

  “Whatever—sir, you’re not going to attack the interdictor? We barely survived the last time!”

  “They haven’t noticed we’re here yet,” Han said. “They don’t even have any ships on this side. We’ve got a good clean shot at them. With a little surprise on our side, a little know-how—sure, why not?”