Star by Star (61 page)

“This hole is breathing.” Eyes twinkling, she took Anakin’s hand and held it in the steady breeze that carried the foul stench from the voxyn tunnel. “It goes somewhere big, and it bisects whatever we’re circling around. It could be a shortcut.”

“Not one we can use,” Jacen said. “The voxyn are protecting something down there. I’m trying to make them think they need to stay with it.”

The sound of tramping began to roll up the passage. They all glanced back toward their unseen pursuers.

Ganner said, “Then you make the voxyn leave instead.” He turned to Anakin. “We’ve got to do something.”

Even before Anakin turned to ask if what Ganner suggested was possible, Jacen gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Anakin looked to Lomi. “What’s down there?”

The Dark Jedi shrugged. “Voxyn, I am sure—but the snake-head may be right. It could be a shortcut. There are more tunnels like this one near the gate.”

“Gate?” Anakin was already imagining the difficulty of fighting through a company of gate guards with Nom Anor rushing them from behind. “A guarded gate?”

Lomi nodded. “You can be certain.”

Anakin began to feel sick. There was no way, no escape.

The tramping grew louder.

“Anakin?” Ganner asked.

“There’s no choice,” Jaina said, inserting herself between the two. “We need time for your healing trance.”

“We are unlikely to buy much time in a cavern full of voxyn,” Tenel Ka observed. “Quite the opposite, I am sure.”

Anakin glanced guiltily in Bela’s direction. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had been wrong so many times on this mission, and every time, someone fell. Now he had to choose again. No matter what he decided, more Jedi would die. Maybe they all would.

“Young Solo?” Lomi inquired. “We are waiting.”

Anakin turned to Jacen. “What do—”

“Thanks for asking,” Jacen interrupted, not quite hiding his surprise. He took a thermal detonator from his equipment harness and dropped to his hands and knees in front of the foul-smelling tunnel. “But you know what we need to do. I think we
all
do.”

The smell was more sweet than rank, at least to Tsavong Lah, whose limb was the one rotting. The radank leg with which the shapers had replaced his arm was overbonding to his elbow, the aggressive linking cells attacking and killing his own tissue well above the amputation point. Scales and spines were already emerging as high up as his swollen biceps, and above that his arm swarmed with the diptera maggots seeded by the shapers to eat away his dying flesh.

If the alteration stopped at his shoulder, he would be accorded the respect of one who had sacrificed much and risked more in his devotion to the gods. If it continued onto his torso proper, or he lost the arm itself, he would be excused from his duties and shunned by his caste as a Shamed One, disfigured by the gods as a sign of their displeasure. Tsavong Lah suspected that where the alteration stopped would depend on how long he allowed the loss of his Reecee fleet to delay the capture of Coruscant—and that, in turn, depended on how long it required Nom Anor and Vergere to capture the Solo twins. With half his assault force now gone, and the possibility—no, likelihood—that the
Jeedai
had captured a live yammosk, he did not dare attack until he had secured the blessing of the gods.

His mind made up, the warmaster grasped a villip resting beside him and began to tickle it awake. Though he was sitting naked in the purifying steams of his private cleansing cell, Tsavong Lah did not bother to cover himself. The villip in his servant’s possession would show only a head.

After an irritating wait of nearly a minute, the villip everted into the likeness of a huffing Nom Anor. Giving the executor no
opportunity to apologize for making him wait, Tsavong Lah scowled.

“I trust you are chasing the
Jeedai
, Nom Anor, and not fleeing them.”

“Never,” the executor assured him. “Even as we speak, I am leading the
Ksstarr
’s Two Scourge in pursuit.”

“Will you catch them?”

“Yes,” Nom Anor said. “We are taking casualties, but Three Scourge is waiting in ambush at the end of this transit. There is no escape this time.”

The casualties did not interest Tsavong Lah. He had already heard how many vessels the
Jeedai
had destroyed above Myrkr and how they had slain the
Ksstarr
’s first company—One Scourge—to a warrior, and he would have considered twice the losses insignificant.

“You will not harm the twin Solos.” It had to be the fourth or fifth time Tsavong Lah had given the order, but, now more than ever, he wanted Nom Anor to understand. “Your warriors understand the fate awaiting the one who kills either of them?”

“As do I, Warmaster,” Nom Anor said. “The twins are forbidden targets. I have also commanded Yal Phaath to have his own troops stand off—though he bristles at my authority. It would be wise of you to underscore the order.”

“As you suggest,” Tsavong Lah agreed, ignoring for the moment his servant’s audacity in telling him what to do. “I need those sacrifices, Nom Anor. Our situation is deteriorating while I wait for you.”

“You will not need to wait much longer, Warmaster,” Nom Anor promised. “My plan is an excellent one.”

“That would be healthy for you,” Tsavong Lah warned. “I expect to hear from you soon.”

He pressed his thumb into the villip’s cheek, causing it to break contact and invert. The warmaster set this one aside and picked up Viqi Shesh’s, considering whether the time had come to expend this particular asset. Since her removal from the New Republic’s military oversight committee, she had been working doubly hard to prove her usefulness to the Yuuzhan Vong—less out of greed or power lust, Tsavong Lah thought, than a simple thirst
for vengeance. Such weapons tended to be very explosive—which could be good or bad, depending on when they were detonated.

The steam-cell door spiraled open behind him, admitting a cool draft that wafted pleasantly across his naked back. Without turning around, he snapped, “Did I not say I was cleansing? How dare you disturb me.”

“My life in payment, Warmaster.” The voice belonged to Seef, his female communications assistant. “But the choice was not mine. Lord Shimrra’s villip has everted.”

Not bothering to cover himself, Tsavong Lah stood and turned, already reaching for the coufee Seef held ready for him. Except in circumstances involving breeding, it was forbidden for a subordinate to look upon his naked body and live—but when he saw her eyes flickering away from the suppurating flesh above his graft, he left the weapon in her hand. If he killed her now, the gods might well believe that he was simply trying to keep the condition of his arm a secret.

Tsavong Lah studied the communications officer a moment, pushed the coufee away, and narrowed his eyes in a way that left no doubt about his intentions. “You will prepare yourself.”

“Yes, Warmaster.” Her face betraying no hint of whether she considered this a better fate than death, Seef returned the coufee to its sheath and inclined her head. “I will await you in your chamber.”

After she stepped aside, Tsavong Lah left his steam cell and draped a cloak over his shoulder hooks, taking care to keep the sleeve well above his elbow so that the condition of his graft would be visible to all. He found Lord Shimrra’s villip set out on the table, its features cloaked in obscurity beneath the cowl-like protrusion of an epidermal mane. The warmaster touched his breast in salute and placed his palm and new talon on the table in front of the villip, then pressed his forehead to the back of his hands.

“Supreme One,” he said. “Forgive the delay. I was cleansing.”

“The gods value the pure.” Shimrra’s voice was a wispy rumble. “But also the triumphant. What of this fleet you lost?”

“The gods have reason to be displeased. The loss was total—six clusters.”

“An expensive feint, my servant.”

Tsavong’s throat went dry. “Supreme One, it was no—”

“I am sure your plan warrants the sacrifice,” Shimrra said, cutting him off. “That is not why we are speaking.”

“Indeed?” Tsavong did not try to correct Shimrra; if the supreme overlord declared the fleet’s loss a feint, then it was so. The warmaster’s mind leapt immediately to the problem of shattering Coruscant’s formidable defenses with only a single-pronged attack—perhaps a variation of the mine-sweeping moon he had intended to use at Borleias, or something involving refugee ships. Refugee ships would be good—the furor over the hostages at Talfaglio had proven how vulnerable to such techniques the New Republic really was. As the rough outline of an idea began to take shape in the warmaster’s mind, he said, “I assure you my plan is an excellent one, Supreme One, but I am honored to speak with you regarding any matter.”

Before continuing, Shimrra hesitated just long enough to express his displeasure without speaking it, then said, “The success of your new grafting is in doubt?”

“It is so,” Tsavong Lah answered. He did not ask, even of himself, how Lord Shimrra knew of his troubles with the radank leg. “I fear my arm may have offended the gods.”

“It is not your arm, my servant. I saw nothing of that.”

Tsavong Lah remained quiet, desperately trying to work out in his own mind whether Shimrra’s vision was the reason they were speaking or merely the excuse.

“It is the twins, my servant,” Shimrra said. “The gods will give us Coruscant, and you will give them these twins.”

“It will be so, Supreme One,” Tsavong Lah said. “Even now, my servants are running them to ground.”

“You are certain?” Shimrra asked. “The gods will not be disappointed again.”

“My servants assure me their plan is an excellent one.” It did not escape Tsavong Lah’s notice that Nom Anor’s words had been much the same as his own to Lord Shimrra. “There is no escape.”

“Let it be so.” Shimrra was silent for a moment, then said, “See and be seen, my servant.”

Tsavong raised his head, but said nothing. He had been invited to look, not speak.

“Know this, Tsavong Lah,” Shimrra said. “In allowing your villip tender to live, you have kept for yourself one who should belong to the gods.”

Tsavong Lah went cold inside. “Supreme One, this is so, but it was not my intention—”

“It pleases the gods to let you keep her. Do not insult them by explaining what they know.” Shimrra’s villip began to invert. “Use her well, my servant. All things are forgiven in victory.”

Tattooed sparsely beneath his sagging eyes and bearing no mutilations except a hole beneath his lip that looked like a second mouth, the Yuuzhan Vong was clearly a raw recruit, probably assigned to point duty for the sole purpose of drawing fire. Praying that the shadows in the tunnel were deep enough to hide her, Jaina used the Force to press her back more tightly to the ceiling. She held her breath as the warrior crawled another meter into the cave. Holding an activated lambent at arm’s length, he used his amphistaff to prod the floor beneath Jaina. She could see the weapon’s snakish shape and knew her own silhouette had to be just as visible, but the Yuuzhan Vong did not look up. He merely gagged on the stench of the place and retreated. When he reached the entrance, he rose and yelled “
fas
!” and continued up the main passage.

Jaina remained where she was, watching vonduun-crab-armored legs march past, desperately hoping the next thing to peer inside would not be a voxyn. Though they had already killed four of the beasts—Lowbacca had blasted the last one at the cave-in—the possibility that Nom Anor had brought more than the standard number was the one weak point in the strike team’s plan. The Yuuzhan Vong could be expected to miss the Jedi’s detour, but a voxyn could not. A voxyn would
feel
the change of direction.

A second Yuuzhan Vong, this time with the fringed earlobes and heavily branded face of a veteran, thrust his lambent crystal into the jagged tunnel. Like most of the Jedi on the strike team, Jaina had toyed with the idea of capturing one of the crystals, but it was certainly not worth the risk. Anakin’s bond to his was unique, no doubt because of his role in growing it, and even he
doubted that he could re-create the feat. Certainly, no one in the Eclipse Program had even been able to figure how the things reproduced. This time, the warrior searched the ceiling as well as the floor, but he rose and continued up the main passage without crawling inside.

Finally allowing herself a full breath, Jaina removed the flechette mine from her equipment harness. She set the signal feature to their comlink frequency and attached it to the ceiling in front of her. She did not activate it. Once she set the detonation selector to “motion,” she would have only three seconds to leave sensor range, and she could not risk moving until all the Yuuzhan Vong had gone by.

The company seemed to take forever to pass. Without their pet voxyn to warn when Jedi were near, they moved warily, keeping a five-meter interval and looking for booby traps. Despite everything, the strike team remained alive, mobile, and—with a little help from the Force—capable of destroying the queen. Were Anakin in one piece, Jaina would have considered that a victory in itself.

She alternated between being scared for her brother and furious with him. She could not really blame Anakin for coming to her rescue—she would have done the same for him or Jacen—but she did. It had been a reckless and typically Anakin thing to do, spectacular, rash, effective—foolish. Tekli had made clear what would happen if they didn’t find time to let him heal, and Anakin had made it just as clear that they were to place the mission above his life. Jaina was determined to do both, but if she had to make a choice … well, she had only two brothers, and she did not intend to leave either one behind.

Jaina felt Jacen reaching out to her through their twin bond and knew that, somewhere deeper in the tunnel, the others had encountered the first of the feral voxyn. She opened herself to the battle meld and was relieved to discover that Anakin’s wound had drawn the group back together, though Zekk remained resentful about the Dark Jedi, and the others were distracted by concern for Anakin. Worried that any battle sounds from behind her would reverberate into the main passage, she summoned to mind the stillness of a Massassi temple and used the Force to expand
this silence outside herself, creating—she hoped—a sphere of quiet between her companions and the Yuuzhan Vong.