VISION

ONE

SHE WAS BEING followed.

She paused and wiped a damp wisp of yellow hair from her forehead, touching in passing the scars that marked her as a member of Domain Kwaad. Her green eyes scanned through the many-legged gnarltrees, but her stalkers weren’t yet showing themselves to the usual senses. They were waiting for something—reinforcements, probably.

She hissed a mild shaper’s curse under her breath and started off again, picking her way over moldering logs, through sluggish mists and dense brakes of hissing cane. The air was a wet fever, and the chirps and trills and bubbling gulps from canopy and marsh were oddly comforting. She kept her pace the same—there was no reason to let them know she was on to them, not yet. She did alter her path subtly—no point in going to the cave until this was dealt with.

Or I could lead them there, she mused, attack them while they deal with their inner demons …

No. That seemed somehow like sacrilege. Yoda had come here. Luke Skywalker had, too, and so had Anakin. Now it was her turn. Tahiri’s turn.

Anakin’s parents hadn’t very much liked the idea of her coming to Dagobah alone, but she’d managed to convince them of the necessity. She believed that the human and Yuuzhan Vong personalities that had once shared her body had become one seamless entity. It felt that way, felt right. But Anakin had seen a vision of her, a melding of Jedi and Yuuzhan Vong, and it hadn’t been a pretty vision. She’d thought at first, after the joining that had nearly driven her mad, that she had avoided that outcome. But before she moved on, before she put those she loved at risk, she had to consider the possibility that the fusion of Tahiri Veila with Riina of Domain Kwaad was a step in the fulfillment of that vision.

Anakin, after all, had known her better than anyone. And Anakin had been very strong.

If the creature he had seen was lurking in her, the time to face it was now, not later.

So she’d come here, to Dagobah, where the Force was so strong it almost seemed to sing aloud. The cycle of life and death and new birth was all around here, none of it twisted by Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, none of it poisoned by the machines, greed, and exploitation all too native to this galaxy. She’d come to visit the cave to explore her inner self and see what she was really made of.

But she had also come to Dagobah to meditate on the alternatives. What Anakin had seen was all of the worst of Yuuzhan Vong and Jedi traits bundled into one being. Avoiding becoming that was paramount, but she had a goal beyond—to find the balance, to embody the best of her mixed heritage. Not just for herself, but because the reconciliation of her dual identity had left her with one firm belief—that the Yuuzhan Vong and the peoples of the galaxy they had invaded could learn a lot from each other, and they could live in peace. She was sure of it. The only question was how to make it happen.

The Yuuzhan Vong would never create industrial wastelands like Duro, Bonadan, or Eriadu. On the other hand, what they did to life—breaking it and twisting it until it suited their needs, wiping it out entirely when it didn’t please—was really no better. It wasn’t that they loved life, but that they hated machines.

There had to be some sort of common ground, some pivot point that could open the eyes of both sides and end the ongoing terror and destruction of the war.

The Force was key to that understanding. The Yuuzhan Vong were somehow blind to it. If they could actually feel the Force around them, if they could feel the wrongness of their creations, they might find a better path, one less bent on destruction. If the Jedi could feel the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, they might find—not better ways to fight them—but paths to conciliation.

She needed more than that, though. It wasn’t enough to know what was wrong—she also had to know how to make things right.

Tahiri had no delusions of grandeur. She was no savior, no prophet, no super-Jedi. She was the result of a Yuuzhan Vong experiment gone wrong. But she did understand both sides of the problem, and if there was any chance she could help Master Skywalker find the solution her galaxy so desperately needed—well, she had to take it. It was a role she accepted with humility and great caution. Those trying to do good often committed the most atrocious crimes.

They were gaining on her, getting clumsier. Soon she would have to do something.

They must have followed her to Dagobah. How?

Or maybe they had known where she was going before she left. Maybe she had been betrayed. But that meant Han and Leia—

No. There was another answer. Paranoid reflexes were a survival trait growing up in a crèche, but even deeper instincts told her that her friends—adopted parents, almost—could never do such a thing. Someone had been watching her, someone she hadn’t noticed. Peace Brigade maybe. Probably. They would imagine they could curry a lot of favor by turning her over to Shimrra.

She twisted her way through a maze of gnarltrees and then clambered quickly and silently up their cablelike roots. They had once been legs, those roots, as she’d learned when she came here less than a decade and more than a lifetime ago. The immature form of the tree was a sort of spider that lost its mobility in adulthood.

She’d been with Anakin, here to face his trial, to discover if having the name of his grandfather would bring him the same fate.

I miss you Anakin, she thought. More now than ever.

About four meters off the ground, she secreted herself in a hollow and waited. If she could simply avoid them, she would. At one level her instincts cried out for battle, but at a deeper level she knew that her Yuuzhan Vong fighting reflexes had inevitable connections with fury, and she was here to avoid becoming Anakin’s vision, not embrace it. There was a part of her plan that she hadn’t told Han and Leia about—the part where, if the cave confirmed her worst fears, she would cripple her X-wing beyond repair and spend the rest of her life on the jungle planet.

Perhaps, like the spiders, she would sink her limbs into the swamp and become a tree.

She reached out with the Force, to better assess her pursuit.

They weren’t there. And she suddenly realized that she hadn’t felt them in the Force, but with her Vongsense. It had come so naturally she hadn’t even questioned it.

That could only mean her pursuers were Yuuzhan Vong, maybe six of them, give or take one or two. Vongsense wasn’t as precise as the Force.

She reached for her lightsaber, but didn’t unhook it, and continued to wait.

Soon she actually heard them. Whoever they were, they weren’t hunters—they moved through the jungle clumsily, and though they pitched their voices low enough that she couldn’t actually understand what they were saying, they seemed to be gabbling almost constantly. They must be very confident of their success.

A dark shadow glided soundlessly through the undergrowth, and she snapped her gaze up in time to see something very large blot the fragments of sky not occluded by the distant canopy.

Native life, or a Yuuzhan Vong flier?

Pursing her lips, she waited. Soon the distant muttering became coherent. As she’d thought, the language was that of her crèche.

“Are you certain she came this way?” a raspy voice asked.

“She did. See? The impression in the moss?”

“She is Jeedai. Perhaps she left these signs to confuse us.”

“Perhaps.”

“But you think she is near?”

“Yes.”

“And knows we are following her?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not simply call out to her?”

And hope I answer the battle challenge? Tahiri thought, grimly. So they did have a tracker with them. Could she slip around them, back to her X-wing? Or must she fight them?

Moving very slowly, Tahiri shifted in the direction of the voices. She could make out several figures through the under-story, but not distinctly.

“At some point we must, I suppose,” the tracker said. “Else she will think we wish her harm.”

What? Tahiri frowned, trying to fit that into her presuppositions. She couldn’t.

“Jeedai!” the tracker called. “I think you can hear us. We humbly request an audience.”

No warrior would do that, Tahiri thought. No warrior would use such honorless trickery. But a shaper …

Yes, a shaper or a priest might, a member of the deception sect. Still—

She leaned out for a better view, and found herself staring straight into the yellow eyes of a Yuuzhan Vong.

He was perhaps six meters away. She gasped at the sight of him, and revulsion jolted through her. His face was like an open wound.

A Shamed One, despised by the gods. He dared—her hand went to her lightsaber.

Then the shadow was back, and suddenly something sleeted through the branches, shredding the leaves and vines around her. She snarled a war cry and ignited her weapon, swirling it up to send two thud bugs burning off through the jungle.

Above her, through the now open canopy, she saw a Yuuzhan Vong tsik vai, an atmospheric flier, huge and ray-shaped, and from it snaked long cables. To each cable clung a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. One passed less than two meters from her, and she braced for the fight, but he went on past, oblivious to her presence, striking the jungle floor and uncoiling his amphistaff in the same motion.

A terrible wail went up from her pursuers. She could see them now, all horribly disfigured, all Shamed Ones. They raised their short clubs and faced the warriors.

They didn’t have a chance—she saw that immediately. For an instant, the tracker held her eye, and she thought he would give her away, but instead his expression went grim.

“Run!” he shouted. “We cannot win here!”

Tahiri hesitated only an instant longer, then made a series of steplike leaps to the ground. The first of the Shamed Ones had already fallen when her feet touched the spongy soil.

A warrior caught her motion from the corner of his eye and turned to meet her, snarling a war cry. His face transfigured in surprise when she answered it in his own language. He whirled his amphistaff toward her, a lateral strike aimed at her scapula. She caught the blade and cut toward his knuckles, but he parried with distance, pulled his weapon free of the bind, and lunged deep with the venomous tip. She caught it in a high sweep and stepped in, cut to his shoulder where the vonduun crab armor shed its fury in a shower of sparks, then dodged past, reversing the weapon and plunging its fiery point into the vulnerable spot in the armpit. The warrior gasped and sank to his knees, and she whipped the weapon around to decapitate him even as she launched herself at the next foe.

Combat was a blur, after that. Eight warriors had dropped from the flier. Seven were left, and fully half the Shamed Ones were bleeding on the ground. She had an image of the tracker, his arms knotted in a neck-breaking hold. She saw another Shamed One strike a warrior on the temple with his club only to be run through from behind. Mostly she saw the lightning-quick amphistaff strikes of the two warriors trying to flank her. She cut at a knee, smelled the scorch of flesh as the blade severed through armor. An amphistaff whipped toward her back and she had to roll beneath the blow. Parry, thrust, and cut became her entire existence.

Spattered with Yuuzhan Vong blood and bleeding from several cuts of her own, she suddenly found herself back to back with the tracker. He was all that remained of the six who had initially been following her, but there remained only three warriors.

For a moment, they stood like that. The warriors backed away a bit. The leader was massive. His ears were cut into fractal patterns; great trenchlike scars stood on his cheeks.

“I’ve heard of you, abomination,” he snarled. “The one-who-was-shaped. Is it true what they say? These pathetic maw luur excretions worship you?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Tahiri said. “But I know when I see a dishonorable fight. They were not only outnumbered, but poorly armed. How can you call yourselves warriors, to attack in such a way?”

“They are Shamed Ones,” the warrior sneered back. “They are outside honor. They are worse than infidels; they are heretic traitors, not to be fought but to be exterminated.”

“You fear us,” the tracker rasped. “You fear us because we know the truth. You lap at Shimrra’s feet, yet Shimrra is the true heretic. See how this Jeedai has laid you low. The gods favor her, not you.”

“If the gods favor her, they do not favor you,” the warrior snapped.

“They are delaying us,” the tracker told Tahiri. She noticed he had blood on his lips. “They delay us while another tsik vai arrives.”

“Quiet, heretic,” the war leader bellowed, “and you may yet live to snivel a little longer. There are questions we would ask of you.” His expression softened. “Renounce your heresy. This Jeedai is a great prize. Help us win her, and perhaps the gods will forgive you and grant you an honorable death.”

“No death is more honorable than dying by the side of a Jeedai,” the tracker answered. “Vua Rapuung proved that.”

“Vua Rapuung,” the warrior all but spat. “That story is a heretic’s lie. Vua Rapuung died in disgrace.”

For answer the Shamed One suddenly bolted forward, so quickly he took the leader by surprise, bowling into him before he could raise his weapon. The other two turned to help, but Tahiri danced forward, feinting at the knee and then cutting high through the warrior’s throat when he dropped his guard to parry. She exchanged a flurry of blows with the second, though it ended the same, with the warrior flopping lifeless to the ground.

She turned to find the tracker impaling the leader with his own amphistaff. For a moment they stared at each other, the Shamed One and she. Then the Yuuzhan Vong suddenly dropped to his knees.

“I prayed it was you!” he said.

Tahiri opened her mouth, but heard the stir of treetops that could only be another flier arriving.

“Come on,” she said. “We can’t stay here.”

The warrior nodded and bounded to his feet. Together they ran from the clearing.

An hour or so later, Tahiri finally halted. The fliers seemed to have lost them for the time being, and the tracker had been gradually dropping behind. Now he staggered against a tree and slid to the ground.

“A little farther,” she said. “Just over here.”

“My legs will no longer bear me,” the tracker said. “You must leave me for the time being.”

“Just under this shelf of stone,” she said. “Please. It may hide us from the fliers if they sweep here.”

He nodded wearily. She saw he was clutching his side, and that blood covered his flank.

They scooted up beneath the overhang.

“Let me see that,” she said.

He shook his head. “I must speak to you first,” he said.

“What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

His eyes widened. “No!” he said, so vehemently that blood sputtered from between his lips. Then, more quietly, “No. We thieved a ship from an intendant and came here to find the world of prophecy. We saw you land—is this the place, one-who-was-shaped? Is this the world the Prophet saw?”

“I’m sorry,” Tahiri said. “I don’t know what you mean. This is Dagobah. I came here for … personal reasons.”

“But it cannot be coincidence,” the tracker said. “It cannot.”

“Please,” Tahiri said. “Let me see your wound. I know a little about healing. Maybe I can—”

“I am dead already,” the tracker gruffed. “I know this. But I must know if I have failed.”

Tahiri shook her head helplessly.

The tracker straightened a bit, and his voice strengthened. “I am Hul Qat, once a hunter. Or I was, until the gods seemed to reject me. I was stripped of my title, my clan. I was Shamed. My implants festered and my scars opened like wounds. I gave up hope and waited for dishonorable death. But then I heard the word of the Prophet, and of the Jeedai Anakin—”

“Anakin,” Tahiri whispered. The name twisted a blade in her.

“Yes, and you, whom Mezhan Kwaad shaped. And Vua Rapuung who fought—you were there, were you not?”

A deep chill ran through Tahiri. She had been Riina, then, and Tahiri, and she had nearly killed Anakin.

“I was there.”

“Then you know. You know our redemption belongs with you. And now the Prophet has seen a world, a world where there are no Shamed Ones because it will redeem us, where the true way can be—” He coughed violently and slumped again, and for an instant Tahiri thought he was already dead. But then his eyes turned toward her.

“My companions and I wanted to find the planet for our Prophet. One of us, Kuhqo, had been a shaper. He used a genetic slicer to get access to an executor’s qahsa and steal its secrets. He found intelligence gathered about the Jeedai, and evidence that there was some connection between you and this world. Some of your greatest came here, yes? And now you. And so please, tell me. Have I found it?”

He shuddered, and his eyes rolled. “Have I?” he begged again, so weakly this time it might have been no more than a breath.

Tahiri reached out and took his hand. “Yes,” she lied, not even knowing exactly what lie she was telling. “Yes, you’re right. You found it. Don’t worry about anything now.”

His eyes filled with tears. “You must help me,” he said. “I cannot take the news myself. The Prophet must know where this world is.”

“I will do it,” Tahiri said.

This time she was not lying.

Hul Qat closed his eyes, and even without using the Force, Tahiri felt him leave.

Tahiri glanced at the opening of the cave, so near, and she knew that was not what she had come for at all. This was why she had come. The Force had brought her here, to meet this man, to make this promise.

She rose. The fliers would find her if she remained still for too long. She hoped they hadn’t discovered her ship yet, but figured the odds were against it, since they hadn’t been looking for her and she had concealed it pretty well. Even so, she might have a little trouble getting out of the system, depending on how many and what sort of ships were orbiting overhead.

It didn’t matter, though. She had a promise to keep.

Even if she could figure out exactly what she had promised.

TWO

THE PORT SHIELDS of Mon Mothma collapsed and plasma punched through the hull like a fist through flimsiplast. At the point of impact, matter became ions, and supersonic droplets of molten hull metal sleeted through the next four decks, arriving before the sound or vibration of impact, shredding the frail life-forms within before their nervous systems had time to register anything amiss. Behind that came a shock wave of superheated air expanding with such fury that blast shields bent and warped, and the wave-front swept the decks end to end, searing everything in its path. Two hundred sentient beings winked out in an instant, and a hundred more in marginal areas fell—perforated, burned, or both.

Then, like a giant taking back its breath, space sucked everything out through the gaping hole, leaving vacuum behind, and quiet.

At the helm of the Star Destroyer, it was far from quiet. Claxons blared and panicked young officers stuttered through emergency procedures. Simulated gravity vanished, and someone shrieked.

Wedge Antilles closed his eyes as the illusion of weight faded and reasserted itself.

I’m so tired of this, he thought.

He opened his eyes to a barrage of smaller plasma blasts aimed directly, it seemed, at his face as a squadron of Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers made a run straight at the bridge. Turbolasers flared three of them into debris. The rest peeled away at the last instant to avoid impacting the still-functioning bridge shields.

Wedge didn’t even blink. The skips weren’t their problem right now. That would be the Yuuzhan Vong Dreadnaught analog that had just popped into existence and blasted a hole in their side.

“Twenty degrees starboard and twelve above horizon,” Wedge commanded. “Now. Commence firing.”

He swung on the lieutenant at tactical. “What else has joined our little party?” he demanded.

“Four frigate analogs, sir,” the lieutenant told him. “Coralskippers—we’re not sure how many flights, yet. And of course, the Dreadnaught. Sir, I’d say the Yuuzhan Vong reinforcements have arrived.”

“Yes. We’ll wait a bit to see if there are any more. Tell Memory of Ithor to watch our wounded flank. We’ll have to slug this out.”

His whole body itched at the prospect. In his heart and in the caves of his reflexes, Wedge was a starfighter pilot. Sure, capital ships had firepower, but they were so slow maneuvering. He’d feel a lot better in an X-wing.

He’d feel better without the weight of dead crew on his shoulders. Losing a wingmate was hard enough. Losing two hundred …

But he wasn’t in an X-wing, and when he’d come out of retirement as a general, he’d known what he was getting himself into. So he watched, lips pursed, as the monstrous ovoid of a ship swung into view, as the Mothma’s turbolasers razoring toward yorik coral returned blossoms of plasma. Most of the lasers arrowed straight, then abruptly curved into sharp hooks and vanished as the tiny singularities the Yuuzhan Vong vessel projected pulled the light into them. About every third beam went through, however, scribbling glowing red lines in the coral hull.

“Sir, the Memory is unable to come to our aid. She’s engaged with one of the frigates, and she’s taking quite a beating.”

“Well, get somebody there. We can’t let them hit us in that flank again.”

The controller looked up from his station. “Sir, Duro Squadron is requesting the honor of protecting our flank.”

Wedge hesitated infinitesimally. Duro Squadron was a bit of a wild card, a collection of pilots—some with military experience, some without—dedicated to the liberation of their home system.

The fact that it was precisely that system they were fighting in right now could be a problem, for various reasons.

But it didn’t look like he had any other choice.

“Tell them yes, without our thanks,” Wedge said.

“Three more ships just reverted, sir,” Lieutenant Cel informed him, a catch in her voice that might be the start of panic.

“That’s it,” Wedge said. “Or it had better be. Get me General Bel Iblis.”

A moment later, a hologram of the aging general appeared.

“The reinforcements are here,” Wedge told him. “Listening posts have them coming through the Corellian Trade Spine, so they’re most likely our buddies.”

“Is it too many to handle, General Antilles?” Bel Iblis asked.

“I hope not, sir. Is your force ready?”

“We’re on our way. Good luck, General.”

“And to you.”

The image vanished. Wedge set his mouth grimly, watching the battle reports.

They had already spent a standard day in heavy fighting, driving through the outer defenses of the Duro system in a matter of hours. The inner system had put up more of a fight, but they’d been close to mopping up when Yuuzhan Vong reinforcements arrived.

Wedge had been expecting the reinforcements—counting on them, really—but they’d hit hard and fast. A reassessment of the situation put the odds marginally in favor of the Yuuzhan Vong, which again was no surprise.

It was also okay—they hadn’t come here to win, but they couldn’t leave yet, either.

“Prepare interdiction,” Wedge said.

Four more Yuuzhan Vong frigates jumped into the Duro system, changing the odds yet again.

“Sir?”

“Interdict,” he said.

The great ship’s gravity-well generators came on-line, as did those of Memory of Ithor and Olovin.

Positioned as they were around the Yuuzhan Vong force, they would prevent the Vong from leaving the system, at least until the interdiction perimeter was reduced to dust.

Of course, none of the Galactic Alliance ships could leave, either.

“Break off the attack and form up in containment positions,” Wedge said calmly. “I don’t want any of those ships reaching hyperspace.”

“What about Duro, sir?” Cel asked.

“Duro is no longer our concern, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Cel said, clearly baffled.

Good. If his own people were confused, hopefully the Vong were more so.

The Alliance ships broke off their push toward the planet and retreated into a broad hemisphere, putting the Yuuzhan Vong fleet with the planet at its back, handing them back the defensive advantage that Wedge’s earlier push had taken from them, but also trapping them more securely in the system.

“Hold the line,” Wedge commanded. “We stick here.”

Spreading the battle group so thinly gave the Yuuzhan Vong an obvious advantage, but the Vong ships seemed to hesitate, perhaps suspecting another of the traps they had been so often led into lately.

Still, caution was not natural to the Yuuzhan Vong, and they now clearly had the advantage in numbers. Several destroyers began forming up for an assault on the wall the Galactic Alliance had built.

“Do they have any interdictors of their own?” Wedge asked.

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, Commander Yurf Col is requesting communication.”

Wedge repressed a sigh. “Put him on.”

A moment later a holo of the Duros commander appeared. His flat face was unreadable in terms of human expression, but Wedge had enough experience with Duros to know he was radiating a cold fury.

“Commander,” Wedge said, nodding.

The Duros came bluntly to the point.

“What in the space lanes are you up to, General Antilles? I’ve lost good pilots today, and now it appears you’ve given up our target.”

“I’m sure you are as aware of the situation as I am, Commander,” Wedge said. “The reinforcements make further assaults untenable.”

“Then why are you interdicting? That makes no sense. I happen to know that we have twice as many ships in reserve. Summon them, and let’s finish this.”

Patience, Wedge thought.

“Perhaps you aren’t aware that the Yuuzhan Vong have means of tapping our communications,” he said mildly. “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that you might have just passed on important intelligence to the enemy.”

“If we obliterate that enemy, what they learn will be of little consequence. I don’t know why you want to hold them here. They still don’t have a decisive advantage—we can win this, if we attack instead of—whatever you’re doing. And with a few reinforcements, we could certainly prevail.”

“Commander, I understand this is your home system. I understand that for you, this fight is personal. That is, in fact, one of the many reasons I am in charge of this operation and you are not. You agreed to fight under my command, and you will do so. Do you understand?”

“I understand you have bungled this from the start. We could have won in the first few hours if you had followed my advice.”

“That is your opinion,” Wedge replied. “It is not mine, and mine is the one that counts right now.”

The Duros’s eyes narrowed. “When this is over, Antilles—”

“I suggest you worry about the present, Commander. The Vong are trying to punch through and open two fronts. If they succeed, this reduces our future options considerably.”

“You are the one limiting our options. Two more frigates—”

Wedge cut him off. “Get used to this idea, Commander,” he said, “and get used to it quickly—there are no reinforcements. Nor am I yet prepared to abandon this system. Do your part, Commander, and everything will go well.”

Col remained unconvinced. “I warn you, General Antilles,” he snapped, “if you don’t explain this to me, I will force your hand.”

“You will follow your orders, period,” Wedge replied.

“General—” the Duros began, but Wedge waved the contact off and studied the reports. The attack looked like a feint to draw his net tight in one place while they hit it in another. But where?

The battle computers searched for the answer. By Wedge’s reckoning, unless the Yuuzhan Vong pulled off something amazing, he would be able to hold them off for five or six hours without significant losses. That should be enough.

He studied the on-spec chart their sensors were building of the system—after all, the Yuuzhan Vong had occupied it for more than two standard years now, which meant his intelligence of it was probably a bit behind, to say the least. At this point, an unfortunate surprise was the last thing that interested him.

When the surprise came, it came not from some hidden Yuuzhan Vong trap, but from within his own ranks.

“Sir,” control reported, “Dpso, Redheart, and Coriolis have broken formation, as has all of Duro Squadron.”

“Have they.” Wedge took a deep breath. “Get me Yurf Col again, immediately.”

A few moments later, the Duros’s hologram reappeared.

“Commander,” Wedge said, trying to keep his tone even, “there must be a glitch in our communications. You seem to be forming an assault wedge when you were ordered to hold position.”

“I have removed myself from your command, General Antilles,” Col replied. “I will not have my people sit idle in their own system, not without a good explanation. You have refused to give me one. If you will not sustain the re-conquest of Duro, I am forced to do it myself.”

“You’re committing suicide and placing this entire mission in jeopardy.”

“Not if you join me.”

“I won’t.”

“Then our deaths will be on your head.”

“I’m not bluffing, Commander Col.”

“You laid this course, Antilles.”

“Commander—”

“You cut me off earlier. I return the favor. Join us or not.”

The connection ended, and Wedge watched helplessly as the Duros ships dropped out of the perimeter, formed up, and drove straight for the largest concentration of enemy ships.

“Sir,” Cel said, “the Duros ships are taking heavy fire.”

“I can see that,” Wedge told her.

“Sir, what are they doing?”

“They’re trying to make me attack,” Wedge said.

“Then it’s a bluff, sir?”

A lightning storm was raging between the Duros ships and the Yuuzhan Vong vanguard. “No,” he said, “it’s not a bluff.”

He turned to control. “No one else breaks formation,” he said. “No one.”

“Sir, they’ll be slaughtered.”

“Yes,” Wedge said, gruffly, “they will.”

One by one, over the course of the next few hours, the Duros ships vanished in bursts of plasma. Three hours after the last was gone, another message came over the comm board. Wedge gave the order to cease interdiction, and the Galactic Alliance ships jumped, leaving Duro once again to the Yuuzhan Vong.

THREE

A DISTORTED GRIN sliced Onimi’s crooked head in a sign of mock regard. “Sweet Nen Yim,” he croaked. “How delightful your presence.”

How disgusting yours, Nen Yim thought. She did not say it, and she did not need to. The tendrils of her headdress writhed and curled in revulsion, and her multifingered master’s hand spasmed into a knot.

If the Supreme Overlord’s jester noticed any of this, he made no sign, but stood there grinning at her as if they were close crèche-mates sharing a joke. They weren’t; she was the most important of all shapers, and he was an appalling example of a Shamed One, a being upon whom the gods had placed a permanent stamp of unreserved disapproval. Why Shimrra, the chosen of the gods—the Supreme Overlord of her entire species—should choose him as emissary was utterly beyond her comprehension. It was more than an affront, it was a misery to even be in his presence, especially when she remembered—and she could hardly forget—that those fingers had once touched her, when he had disguised himself as a master shaper.

For that alone, he deserved the most ignominious death imaginable. She had plotted his murder even when she believed him to be her superior, and blessed by the gods. Now, when she had the means at her disposal and knew what he really was, she did not dare.

But she could still dream.

Onimi simpered and smiled. “Your thoughts croon toward me,” he said. “Your tendrils ache for my touch. So much I can see of you, Nen Yim.”

Well, he had noticed something, she reflected. He merely mistook her passion.

“Have you come on some errand, Onimi, or merely to waste my time in foolish conversation?”

“Conversation is not foolish that begs the fool,” Onimi said, winking, as if that actually meant something.

“Yes, as you wish,” she said, sighing. “Do you bring word from the Supreme Overlord?”

“I bring a dainty,” Onimi said. “A glistering pustule from the gods, a gift for my sweet little—”

“Address me as master,” Nen Yim said, stiffly. “I am no ‘little’ anything of yours. And come to the point. Whatever else the Supreme Overlord wants of me, I doubt he wants much of my time taken up, not with so much that needs doing.”

From the corner of her eye she caught one of her assistants suppressing a smile, and reminded herself to reprimand her later.

Onimi’s eyes went wide, and then he set a finger to his lips, leaned near, and whispered, “Fleeting time laps hours, devours days, months and years, passes them like gas.”

She said nothing. What other response was there? But Onimi gestured, and with a great deal of reluctance she followed him down the mycoluminescent corridor of her central damutek, through the laboratories where she worked her heretical science to produce the miracles the Yuuzhan Vong needed to take their rightful place in a galaxy of infidels. When they passed into a corridor secured even from her, she began to grow intrigued, and more easily ignored the off-key singing of the jester, who was blasphemously describing in ancient octameter certain activities of the goddess Yun-Harla of which Nen Yim—thankfully—had never heard.

Of course that was spoiled now.

At last they arrived in a dim space. Something irregular and large bulked ahead. Light was in it, a faint shifting radiance so delicate it could almost be the colors of the dark behind her eyes.

She walked nearer, her shaping fingers outstretched to feel and taste the surface. It was smooth, almost slick. It tasted of long carbon chains, and water, and silicates. It tasted quick and familiar.

“This is alive,” she whispered. “What is this?” She gestured impatiently. “I need more light.”

“Eyes are the senses’ gluttons,” Onimi chortled. “They always want more, but they often tell us less.”

But brighter lights came up, revealing the thing.

Sleek, that was the first impression. The glasslike surface curved into four long lozenges that sharpened almost to needles on one end and ended rounded on the other. The lobes were joined around a central axis, though she could not see how. She was reminded of the taaphur, a sea creature that existed now only as a genetic blueprint in the memory qahsa of the shapers and in its biotechnological derivatives.

Damaged, that was the second impression. The life that hummed beneath her fingers flickered in some places and was absent in others, where the hull—yes, hull—had gone dark.

“This is a ship,” Nen Yim murmured, more to herself than to the useless Onimi. “A living ship, but not Yuuzhan Vong. This came from one of the infidel peoples?”

“Folds the mystery, and folds again to crumple, our chart is all torn.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Nen Yim asked, impatiently.

For answer, Onimi reached for her. Her tendrils prickled, bumps rose on her flesh, and her nostrils flared.

But he did not touch her. He handed her something instead—a small, portable qahsa.

“Secrets are like knives,” he said softly. “Of your tongue a secret make, and your mouth is cut.”

He left, then, and she watched him go with disdain. Idiotic, to warn her of secrets. She was a heretic, a heretic secretly kept by the Supreme Overlord. Everything she did was done in obscurity.

“Master Nen Yim?”

Nen Yim looked up from the qahsa. Her junior assistant Qelah Kwaad stood a few feet away, a look of great concern on her face.

“Adept,” Nen Yim acknowledged softly.

“I hope it is not too impertinent, but my project—”

“I will examine your progress in due time,” Nen Yim said. “My time.”

Qelah Kwaad’s tendrils retracted a bit. “Yes, Master Yim,” she replied.

“And, Adept?”

“Yes, Master Yim?”

“I understand you are not used to the presence of Onimi and the effect he can have. But I will not have my subordinates laughing behind my back. Is that understood?”

The adept’s eyes grew round with consternation.

“Master Yim, you cannot believe—”

“Do not use the word can in reference to me, Adept, in either the affirmative or negative form. What I can and cannot do is entirely beyond your control.”

“Yes, Master.”

Nen Yim sighed. “It is bad enough, Adept, that we have to bear the presence of such an abomination. It is worse to let him know he has caused amusement.”

“I understand, Master Yim. But—why? Why must we bear his presence at all? He is a Shamed One, cursed by the gods.”

“He is Supreme Overlord Shimrra’s jester, and, when it pleases him, his emissary.”

“I don’t understand. How can such a thing be? A jester, yes, but to entrust him with secret information—”

“What secret information might that be, Adept?” Nen Yim asked sharply.

“Your pardon, Master Yim, but the jester came, took you to the restricted area, and you returned with a portable qahsa. It seems obvious that he revealed something to you.”

Nen Yim studied the adept appraisingly.

“Just so,” she said. “You are correct. But perhaps you ought to concentrate more on your work and less on my activities.”

Again, the adept looked abashed.

“You have great promise, Qelah Kwaad,” Nen Yim said. “But in this place, we must all take care. We live outside the world of our people, and this place has rules of its own.”

The adept straightened. “I am proud of my service here, Master. The Supreme Overlord has vindicated what the other shapers see as heresy.”

“He has not,” Nen Yim said. “Not publicly. Nor will he. Have you not noticed the guards?”

“Of course we are guarded. Our work is of great importance. If the infidels learn of us, they will surely try to destroy us.”

“That is true,” Nen Yim told her. “But a wall that keeps something out can also keep something in. No warrior, no priest, no outside shaper will ever learn what we do here. Shimrra values our heresy, yes—we produce new weapons and technology badly needed for the war effort. But he will never allow anyone beyond these to know how that technology comes into being.”

“But why?”

“You are intelligent, Adept. Figure it out for yourself—and then never, never speak it aloud. Do you understand me?”

“I—I think so.”

“Good. Now leave me.”

Qelah Kwaad made the sign of obeisance and did as she was told. Nen Yim spared her a single glance.

Because, Adept, Shimrra must maintain the fiction that our inventions are gifts from the gods, and that he is the intermediary through whom these things flow. If the truth is discovered, and the Supreme Overlord shown to be a fraud …

Well, suffice to say, Adept, none of us will leave this service alive.

Which was fine with Nen Yim. It was her pride and her duty to serve the Yuuzhan Vong, and to die honorably for her people when the time came.

Putting the whole matter from her mind, she settled the qahsa before her and interfaced with it.

As she began to understand, her excitement grew—and her trepidation.