The Unifying Force (60 page)

“Is there any chance Sekot’s planning to jump Zonama to hyperspace?” Kyp asked.

“The hyperdrive cores are as silent as Sekot,” Jabitha said.

“Errant Venture
might be able to evacuate everyone in time,” Danni said.

“Sure, if we could reach Booster,” Kyp said. “But we’re getting nothing on the comlinks.”

“Sekot could be blocking the signals deliberately,” Zekk said.

Jabitha turned to him. “You’re assigning dark designs to a consciousness that knows little or nothing of subversion. Next you’ll be accusing Sekot of refusing to allow your warships to land on the surface, as a means of marooning you here.”

“I’m only saying that Sekot strikes me as a quick learner,” Zekk said.

“What makes you think that Sekot would wish to sabotage us?” Cilghal said.

Zekk shrugged. “Only what I’ve been hearing about Sekot’s belief in the Potentium. If there’s no distinction between the light and dark sides, then it won’t matter what happens here—or even at Coruscant.”

“Sekot wouldn’t have agreed to return from the Unknown
Regions just to die here,” Cilghal said firmly. “That would hardly be the action of a world that considers itself the caretaker of the Force.”

“The self-appointed caretaker,” Alema said.

Jabitha sucked in her breath in surprise, then looked at Danni. “Danni Quee. Sekot wishes to speak with you.”

Only the Force was keeping Jacen from succumbing to the pain—the Force and what he had learned from Vergere during the indeterminate amount of time she had kept him in the Embrace of Pain—
breaking
him. While under his mentor’s tutelage he had been able to go into himself to meet the pain on its own terms. Now he didn’t have that curious luxury, because he was having to call on all his abilities to keep from being killed.

If not for the swaying of the Citadel and the effects of its unpredictable oscillations of Shimrra’s coffer—his escape vessel—Jacen figured he would already be dead. That was the World Brain, having finally decided which side it was on. The trouble was, that decision mattered only to the reshaping of Coruscant and not to the Supreme Overlord, who was clearly able to control objects in his immediate environment without need of the dhuryam.

The slayers, for one thing.

Where initially they had been moving with individual vigilance and of their own accord, they were now moving as coralskippers did under the control of a battle coordinator. The change had come simultaneously with Shimrra’s rising from the throne, and the escape of his Shamed One companion, whom Jaina had pursued into the summit of the Citadel. Jacen knew that her exit had been prompted by something she had perceived through the Force, but he and Luke could have used her lightsaber now.

Three slayers had Jacen backed to the bunker’s outer wall. Even through his Vongsense he could not predict their actions, or where their thrashing and thrusting amphistaffs were going to strike next. He had managed to evade copious sprays of venom, but his torso had taken countless lashings; his limbs were bruised by the heads and coils of the serpentine weapons—though none had yet been successful in sinking
fangs into him. His lightsaber had returned as many blows, but the slayers seemed to be largely immune to pain, if not indestructible.

A half dozen corpses were sprawled on the floor, sliding or rolling with each random cant of the Citadel. But more than the lightsaber, it was acrobatics that was keeping Jacen from being overwhelmed by the specially engineered warriors. Time and again last-moment leaps had carried him out of the range of their shapeshifting weapons, as the fight moved along the perimeter of the throne room. The gravity-tweaking dovin basal set in the base of the throne made it impossible for Jacen or his opponents to venture closer to the throne than the shallow moat that encircled it without being tugged violently to the yorik coral floor.

Jacen took advantage of the gravitic anomaly now, as one of the slayers lunged for him. He leapt high into the air, and the warrior flew under his feet, only to be pulled to the floor facefirst, so that by the time Jacen had twisted in the air and landed he was able to drive his blade into the small of the warrior’s back, almost pinioning him to the floor. The other two immediately rushed him from behind. Unleashing his amphistaff, one warrior managed to wind the weapon around Jacen’s legs, while the other swung his amphistaff at Jacen’s head. Ducking the swing, Jacen leapt again, taking the attenuated amphistaff with him. Yanked from the warrior’s grasp, the weapon unwound and dropped before it could strike.

Across the room Shimrra was moving stiffly toward Luke, who was being set upon by four warriors. The enormous Vong overlord stepped across the moat as if crossing a final line. Seemingly entranced—in sway of the Yuuzhan Vong gods—he fixed his glowing eye implants on his prey. He held the thick-bodied amphistaff diagonally in front of him, with his giant left hand closed around the middle of the weapon’s three-meter-long body.

Jacen sent a warning to his uncle through the Force, which Luke acknowledged—not only through the Force but also by spinning away from the warriors to provide himself with enough fighting room to confront Shimrra. Whirling through a cartwheel, Luke caught one of the warriors on the chin with the heels of his boots, unbalancing him enough so that
Luke could get inside the arm that held the amphistaff and drive his lightsaber through the warrior’s neck. As he quickly withdrew the blade, a second warrior was ready to pounce; Luke stretched out his left hand and impaled the slayer through the right eye. At once the other two converged on him, battering him with their amphistaffs and coufees, opening ragged wounds in his upper arms and chest.

Abruptly, the Citadel rocked and the room tilted to the right. Luke dropped to one knee, holding his lightsaber arm up to protect his head, then dived, somersaulting on landing and spinning to his feet to face the warriors’ charge. His green blade moved up from the floor in a diagonal motion, cutting off the weapon arm of one of the warriors, then on the downswing grated across the abdomen of the second, leaving a sizzling burn in the slayer’s hardened flesh. Wincing, the warrior tried to take hold of the energy blade itself and fell forward on his knees. Luke pierced him through the chest, then pivoted on one foot to take on the others.

One of the warriors stalking Jacen abandoned him to engage Luke. Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen’s right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen’s right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back. The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor.

Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his assailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim’s forehead.

Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force.

From Luke’s left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force.
As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree.

Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff. Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer’s armpit.

The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra. Without thinking—and without his lightsaber—he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen’s intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was hit squarely in the center of the chest.

Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.

When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra’s follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke’s lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.

The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked
, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson.

Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke’s torso, pinning his right arm and light-saber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake’s uppermost coils and avert the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff. Feeling his uncle’s suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra’s head.

The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen’s lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape—and extracted a lightsaber! With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar
snap-hiss
.

Jacen recognized it immediately.

Anakin
’s lightsaber.

“Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr,” Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed. “Conveyed to Yuuzhan’tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the
Jeedai
Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels.”

Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move.

Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke’s head.

Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff’s throat to grab Shimrra’s right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke’s chest.

Luke screamed in pain.

The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: “One thrust and the deed is done!”

Then all at once, Anakin’s lightsaber flew from Shimrra’s grip into Luke’s left hand.

Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra’s astonishment and dismay.

In a motion almost too swift for Jacen’s eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra’s amphistaff. As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lighsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff’s body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke’s neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra’s neck. The blades burned clean through. Shimrra’s decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud
thud!
and his body crumbled.

Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord’s body and collapsed against the wall.

“Jaina,” he said weakly. Swinging his left hand, he sent Anakin’s lightsaber in a high arc across the room.

Jacen scrambled to his feet and had just started for the lightsaber when the floor dropped to the right and he stumbled. Jacen regained his balance and leapt for the lightsaber, but it flew past him and rolled beyond his reach.

The vision!
Jacen thought.

He looked at his uncle for confirmation.

“Leave it,” Luke said.

Lips compressed in determination, Jacen raised himself from the floor and raced for the stairway that curved up into the Citadel’s towerlike summit.

Nom Anor had his first look at the devastation that had been visited on Coruscant when Han Solo landed the
Millennium Falcon
in the public square that fronted the Citadel. What structures had not been gutted by Shimrra’s fires had been toppled by roving beasts or blown apart by Alliance torpedoes and missiles. The sky continued to flash with explosions and dozens of starfighters were in the air, but the beasts and fires had settled down and most of the warriors and Chazrach that had attempted to defend the holy mountain were dead.

The scene inside the shaking Citadel was even worse.

When he had been stirring the Shamed Ones to rebel, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them in the streets, he had felt exhilarated by the prospect of bringing down the existing order, of spearheading something grand for his people, something revolutionary—and, better still, with Nom Anor at the top of the heap. Now, separated from his impassioned followers and in the full knowledge that the war was lost, the sight of so many dead warriors in the Hall of Confluence filled him with despair and self-loathing. Just there was where he had sat beside High Prefect Drathul and other high-caste intendants; and over there had kneeled Nas Choka’s warriors. The pews dedicated to the priests and to the shapers stood empty, as did the special platform that had been grown for the seers. At the center, Shimrra’s spike-backed throne was tipped to the cold floor, and the dovin basal responsible for bringing subjects to their bellies was dead. Every surface was slicked black with spilled blood and piled high with the bodies of those who had fought to the end. And across the great hall, a hundred or more defeated
warriors, deprived of their weapons and held fast by nets or encased by adhesive foam, were being denied the dignity of honorable death.

Otherwise the hall was filled with armed soldiers and Yuuzhan Vong hunter-killer droids.

Droids
inside the Citadel!

What had he done?

The feeling had been building in him since the surrender of the World Brain. An unthinkable development in and of itself, though he suspected that Jacen Solo had had something to do with persuading the dhuryam to rebel. Still on the side of Coruscant, perhaps, but no longer on the side of Shimrra and the Yuuzhan Vong. Nom Anor could only wonder at the irony of being able to sympathize with the creature—though his own disloyalty owed more to self-preservation than any real desire to protect what he had sired. And yet he still faced an uncertain future, including the possibility of execution. Which was why he was calculating his every word and move, in the hope that he could save his neck.