Reunion (33 page)

“If you aren’t prepared to do what needs to be done,” Luke said smoothly, “then I will do it for you.”

“This is unacceptable!” Rowel exclaimed. “Recall those fighters immediately or—”

Mara rose to her feet and placed both hands defiantly on her hips. “Or what, exactly?”

“You don’t intimidate me,” Rowel said—although the tremor in his voice belied his words. “Nor do you intimidate Sekot! Remember, it is only by its goodwill that you are here at all. Push that goodwill too far, and your fate will be the same as that of the Far Outsiders!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mara said. “Maybe that’s
why
you’re lying to us—to provoke us into getting on your precious planet’s bad side!”

“That’s preposterous! Why would we bother going to such lengths—”

“You tell me,” Mara said, coming around the table to face Rowel.

He retreated a step, eyes widening. “Great is the Potentium,” he whispered hastily, as though in prayer. “Great is the life of Sekot!”

Luke sent a mental prompt to Mara, and she backed
off. “We’re not here to threaten you,” he said to Darak. “We’d just like to help, that’s all.”

Rowel snorted. “Sekot is the only help we require.”

“Really?” Luke said. “Suppose one of the Far Outsiders’ ships managed to survive the attack we saw; what do you think would happen if the pilot of that ship slipped out of your bubble of safety and reported to his superiors about what he found here? The next thing you know, you’d have a fleet ten times bigger than the one you saw here yesterday bearing down upon you. Could Sekot defend you against that?”

“Easily,” Darak said.

“And the fleet after that?”

“Of course!”

“And the one after
that
?” he pressed.

She hesitated this time, the notion of repetitive attacks clearly dawning behind her confident facade.

Before anyone could speak again, Luke’s comlink bleeped. He answered the call. “Yes?”

“The fighters are approaching the moon,” Captain Yage reported. “I’ll patch a live telemetry feed through to
Jade Shadow
. Tekli can relay the information to you from there.”

There was a delay of two seconds before the Chadra-Fan’s voice came over the line.

“I’ll do my best to describe what’s going on,” she said. “There are three TIEs closing in on the source of the gravity waves.”

“I insist you turn them back,” Rowel said.

With a look from Mara, the Ferroan fell silent and stormed from the room.

“The source is steady,” Tekli continued. “It’s a regular pulse coming from behind M-Three.”

“Does it match any known dovin basal patterns?”

“No, it’s not something we’ve seen before. It could be
a beacon, or a long-range carrier wave of some kind.” There was a slight pause. “The TIEs are conducting a preliminary survey of the moon now. It’s old with a rugged, heavily cratered surface. Deep and cold—it’s perfect for hiding in. There seems to be traces of several recent flybys.”

“We occasionally mine this moon for selenium,” Darak said when Mara faced her questioningly.

“Recently?” she asked.

“No, but—”

“They’ve found the source,” Tekli said. “It’s a deep pit on the far side.
Very
deep, in fact. One of them is going in to investigate.”

“Tell them to be careful,” Luke said.

“They’re taking every precaution,” Captain Yage assured him over the line. “They’re following standard Imperial search procedures. Two remain back while one sweeps the location. If they see anything they’ll pull back immediately to report. Depending on the data—”

Yage came to an abrupt halt.

Luke stiffened, feeling a premonition through the Force. “Captain Yage? Tekli? Report!”

“The emissions just spiked,” Tekli said after a few seconds’ silence. “There’s definitely something in there. Whatever it is, it reacted when the TIE came closer to take a look. The TIE is moving in for a second pass. The gravity waves are all over the place and there are seismic vibrations—”

Again the transmission ceased in midsentence. The break was only for two seconds, but it felt longer to Luke. “It’s out!” Tekli cried. “They flushed it out! It looks like a coralskipper, and it’s making a break for it!”

Luke spoke rapidly into the comlink. “That ship cannot be allowed to leave the system! Captain Yage, you must deploy all available forces to intercept. Whatever is required, it
has
to be stopped!”

“There is no ship,” Darak fumed as she hurriedly exited the room also. “This is just a ruse to allow you to mobilize your forces against us!”

“Check your sensors if you still don’t believe us,” Mara called after her. “You couldn’t possibly be missing this.”

“The
Widowmaker
has deployed all its TIEs and broken orbit itself,” Tekli reported. “The skip is evading pursuit, using Mobus’s gravity to whip itself out to the edge of the system. The three TIEs that found it are following as best they can.”

“Is it going to get away?” Luke asked.

There was another pause. “It might.”

Luke could hear Mara’s teeth grinding in nervous tension. “If we had
Jade Shadow
, none of this would be a problem.”

Darak returned with Rowel, with a small contingent of Ferroan guards in tow.

“Our sensors show nothing,” Rowel said. “The system is empty! You have betrayed our trust—just as we knew you would!”

“Seize them!” Darak pointed and the guards moved in on Luke, Mara, and Dr. Hegerty.

In a flash, Mara was on her feet, lightsaber in hand. Luke joined her, his bright green blade in front of him and the doctor safely behind.

The guards hesitated, and in the brief silence before anyone spoke, Luke found himself wondering in dismay how the quest for Zonama Sekot could have come to this. Whatever Vergere had intended by sending them here, it now looked like it was going to come to naught.

“This isn’t going to solve anything,” Hegerty said. “There has to be an explanation for what’s going on!”

“Name one that doesn’t involve your duplicity,” Darak sneered.

“Bioscreens,” the elderly scientist suggested quickly.
“Something the Yuuzhan Vong have developed that interferes with your sensors, perhaps, but not ours. They could have been spying on you for ages without your knowing—until we came and flushed them out!”

“If there are any intruders in our system,” Darak said, “then Sekot will be able to deal with them. We don’t need your help.”

“If we can’t catch this thing,” Mara said, “then how do you expect to?”

“Sekot has powers far beyond your own. If it so chose, it could reach across this system and snuff the life out of a single cell.” Then, with a dark expression, she added, “It could sterilize your
Widowmaker
with little more than a thought.”

Luke sensed his wife beside him tense at the threat. While he questioned Darak’s statement, the thought of Yage and her crew being destroyed made him feel ill.

“If you insist there is something in our system evading our senses,” Darak went on, “then Sekot can choose to destroy everything in that sector, just to be on the safe side.”

Mara glanced at Luke. “That would certainly fix the problem. We should tell Yage to get those TIEs out of there and let Sekot do its stuff.”

“I’m not saying it
will
do this,” Darak said. “Sekot takes its own counsel. The decision does not lie with you or me.”

Mara was watching Luke closely, waiting for his decision. But for the moment he had no words to offer, no orders to give. His mind was stuck on how Sekot could act across such a vast distance quickly enough to stop the fleeing coralskipper. Conventional weapons simply wouldn’t work in this instance, he knew, and the Force, of course, wouldn’t work against the Yuuzhan Vong. And even if it did …

Great is the Potentium
, Rowel had said.
Great is the life of Sekot
.

The Potentium was an unusual view of the Force, and not one that Luke found he could easily relate to. Its teachings didn’t acknowledge the existence of the dark side. Jabitha had indicated that she regarded the intention behind an action to be more important than how the act was executed: the same argument, in other words, that others had advocated in the early days of the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. The ends justified the means. But the dark side was ultimately corrupting, and would turn anyone who used it against the very ones they were trying to defend.

Anakin killed with the strength of his mind. Until that moment, we had not known that such things were possible …

“Sekot must not act,” Luke said finally.

“What?” said Mara and Darak at the same time.

“Call it off,” he insisted. “I don’t care how you do it, but Sekot must not attack that coralskipper!”

Renewed suspicion filled Darak’s eyes. “You would only say that if you’d been lying all along. There
is
no coralskipper, is there?”

Luke didn’t have time to argue his case with the stubborn Ferroan. He closed his eyes, looking for inspiration and strength to do what his instinct told him he had to do.

Taking his comlink, he quickly contacted the
Widowmaker
. “Captain Yage, recall the TIEs and return to orbit. Under no circumstances are you to provoke Sekot.”

There was uncertainty in the heartbeat of silence before Yage spoke. “Understood.”

“The TIEs are turning back,” Tekli confirmed a couple of seconds later. “The skip has a clear run for the edge of the system.”

Mara was staring at her husband as though he’d lost his mind. “Luke, if that skip gets away—”

“I know, Mara,” he said. “Trust me.”

Better that the coralskipper escapes and tells the Yuuzhan Vong where Sekot is
, he thought to himself,
than Sekot turns to the dark side
.

The thought of a living planet serving the forces of destruction and terror—the same planet that was the symbol of the Yuuzhan Vong occupation of the galaxy—was a disturbing one. All it would take was a single step in the wrong direction for Sekot to begin the long, inevitable fall. And that step could be something as simple as the destruction of that Yuuzhan Vong skip …

“The coralskipper,” Tekli said over the comlink, breaking into his thoughts. “Something’s happening to it!”

REVELATION

Ngaaluh joined Nom Anor and Kunra deep beneath the quarters she had most recently been assigned. A double shift of guards outside the Prophet’s personal chambers let her through after checking with their master. Her expression was wary, concerned.

“Master.” She bowed her head in respect and nodded a more cursory acknowledgment of Kunra. “I came as quickly as I could. What is the emergency?”

“The emergency has passed, for now. I called you here to keep you informed.” In an unhurried, matter-of-fact tone, Nom Anor explained to his chief spy in the court of Shimrra what had happened the previous night. As she learned of Shoon-mi’s betrayal, her eyes widened. Even after years of training in the deceptive arts, she was unable to completely hide her shock.

“This is impossible,” she said at one point, shaking her head as though refusing to hear. “I cannot accept that Shoon-mi would do this.”

Nom Anor lowered the collar he had worn high all day, revealing the gash the traitor had put in his throat. “It happened,” he said. His tone remained calm, belying the rage still burning in his gut and the dark suspicion that was rising to take its place. “The fool dared raise his hand against me, and has paid for it. But I wonder if this is not the end of it.”

“I have asked around,” Kunra said, his expression
grim. “Shoon-mi was not alone in his discontent. There is a feeling growing that we are not moving quickly or decisively enough.”

“And I wonder at Shoon-mi’s boldness,” Nom Anor added. “He simply didn’t have the brains to organize such a coup on his own. There has to be someone else behind it.”

Ngaaluh glanced at Kunra, then back at her Prophet. Her eyes were full of confusion and uncertainty. “Who would that be, Master?”

“At this point,” Nom Anor said, “your guess is as good as mine. But we will find them, and eliminate them.”

“There are rivals,” Kunra said. “There are at least two subordinate acolytes, Idrish and V’tel, who would take power for themselves, if they thought they could get away with it.”

“I find it …” Ngaaluh struggled for the right words. “…  appalling and inconceivable that someone in whom you have placed so much trust would consider turning on you.”

“That they would consider it is what makes them such good emissaries.” Nom Anor examined her alarm at the thought and found it sincere but puzzling. “Why does this surprise you? You are an expert at deception. You know that it is in everyone’s nature to betray—if not Shimmra, then me, or both of us.”

“But no—” She swallowed. “To attack
you
would undermine everything we have worked for. It is not something the
Jeedai
would sanction.”

Ah
. The words of a true fanatic to whom the movement was as pure and incorruptible as its ideals. To Nom Anor, a realist, the heresy was something quite different, and it behaved as such. To him it was a means of attaining power, and there was nothing stopping others within the movement from trying to use it toward exactly the same end.