Remnant: Force Heretic I (18 page)

Those remaining turned their attention to Nom Anor. This was the first time he had heard the story in its entirety, and they were curious to see what his reaction would be. If he was as moved by the story as they obviously were, then he was clearly one of them. Even though he had been with them a couple of weeks now, helping them establish their new home and working around the camp as needed, he had still not been fully embraced into the fold. He had learned very quickly that trust among the Shamed Ones was more important than virtually anything else, and their sharing of the tale with him was the first indication of that trust being extended to him.

The former warrior Niiriit Esh was watching for his response more than anyone else, studying him closely through the thin flames from the fire that licked at the darkness. He stared back at her, unsure of how the tale had made him feel. The story was without doubt different from the one he had taken from his research on the Yavin 4 shaper heresy. The order of events was wrong in places, and some words had been said by others than those they were attributed to. Even the very essence of the story had changed. This story had resonance, clearly—a resonance that even he was not immune to. And perhaps that might explain how it had spread, despite the odds. Hearing that a pro-Jedi sentiment was spreading through the ranks of the Shamed Ones on Yavin 4, Warmaster Tsavong Lah had ordered all the Shamed Ones sacrificed in order to cleanse the world of heresy. And yet, somehow, the story had still managed to get out.

The thing that struck Nom Anor most about the story was that he himself, who had studied the incident in
some detail, and who had access to the recordings of the original events, had not remembered the disgraced warrior at the center of it. Rapuung was just a Shamed One who’d been betrayed by his ex-lover, the shaper who had feared he might expose her heresy to her superiors. But now she was dead, while his name continued to live in the whispers of all Shamed Ones across the galaxy. His deeds had given hope to all those like him. Vua Rapuung was a legend.

As were the Jedi. Somehow their passive role in Rapuung’s death had been transformed into a myth of hope for the Shamed Ones. If they ever knew …

“I can tell that you are moved,” Niiriit said to him. “Do you see now why we live as we do?”

He nodded, understanding for the first time that it was more than simply preferring squalor to indignity. “It is a powerful message.” He looked over to I’pan. “How did you come to hear it?”

“It was first told to me by one in my work detail on Duro,” he answered, picking at the stringy meat of a partially cooked hawk-bat. “Varesh had heard it from his crèche-mate who in turn had heard it from one of her friends shipped here from Sriluur. Since then I have heard it many times from many people—each time slightly different from the last.” Without the animation of his storytelling to hide behind, I’pan appeared once again awkward and self-conscious. “The version I have told is but one of many.”

“Then how can you be sure it is the truth?” Nom Anor asked.

“I cannot,” I’pan admitted. “I have no way of knowing whether the version I first heard, the one I have related to you, is more true than any of the others.” He paused to spit a bit of gristle into the fire, glancing up to
Nom Anor as it sizzled in the flames. “But it is the one that feels right to me.”

There was a murmur of assent from those remaining. By the reddish light of the fire, Nom Anor could see their unblinking eyes still filled with the scenes that I’pan had related. The misshapen, dirty, rejected band clearly
wanted
the story to be true. If there was hope for Vua Rapuung, then there might be hope for them, too. Exactly what the hope was for, Nom Anor couldn’t tell. He didn’t know if the Shamed Ones expected the Jedi to swoop in and rescue them from their pitiful lives; perhaps they believed that by consciously mimicking the characteristics of the abominable enemy they might somehow become worthy of their farcical Force—whatever
that
was.

“Well?” Kunra asked in a challenging voice, from the far side of the circle. The disgraced warrior still didn’t fully trust the group’s latest addition, even though Nom Anor had gone out of his way to demonstrate nothing but worthiness in the time he’d spent with them. “What do you say,
Executor
?”

Nom Anor’s eye found Niiriit’s; they were shining almost supernaturally bright. There was an expression of such intensity on her face that he found it almost impossible to resist. “I say thank you, I’pan, for sharing your words with me. I am honored that you think me worthy of it. I would like very much to hear more about Vua Rapuung and the Jedi, when we have the opportunity.”

Niiriit smiled, her gaze still locked on his. He offered a smile in return, and realized only as he did that it was genuine. Of all the small band living in this underground camp, Niiriit was the only one with a mind keen enough to interest him. In the weeks since his arrival, he had enjoyed his talks with this ex-warrior the most.

Kunra, on the other hand, offered nothing more than a contemptuous grunt as he stood to leave the fireside group. As he watched him move away to the shadows, Nom Anor understood that Kunra might very well be jealous of the fact that a higher-ranking male was entering the group, thus usurping his own position. If this was true then it was stupid, although not unexpected.

And perhaps, Nom Anor thought, with so many gathered, now might be the best time to address the matter …

“You do not want me here, do you, Kunra?” he called after the ex-warrior. “You do not believe I am worthy of having Vua Rapuung’s tale entrusted to me.”

Kunra stopped and faced him, his body language defensive. “I merely reserve my judgment, Executor,” he said. “As is my right.”

“Your judgment of me?”

“Of you,” Kunra confirmed, nodding. “I argued against you hearing the story of Vua Rapuung. It is the one thing in our lives that gives us hope. Our faith that the way of the
Jeedai
is a better one—a fairer one for all, not just those enslaved by the old gods—sustains us when all reason tells us that we should have given up long ago. Perhaps one day, by virtue of that faith, we will have the chance to regain our self-respect and emerge from the holes in which we cower. But you—given half a chance, I am sure you would defile it in a second if you thought it would help restore you to power.”

“Are you suggesting that I would betray you?” Nom Anor asked. “You and all of those here who have taken me in and helped me?”

The ex-warrior’s muscles sensed, his scars glistening in the light. “That is exactly what I am saying, Nom Anor.”

Nom Anor stood now, also, and the Shamed Ones closest to him took an unsteady step back. Although
much older and smaller than Kunra, he couldn’t back down now. To do so would be to admit that he was lying. Unfortunately, he had few other options. If he couldn’t talk the ex-warrior out of a fight—and he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had in Shimrra’s court without being able to do
that
—there was always the plaeryin bol. Or if he hadn’t misjudged the leader of the Shamed Ones …

She rose to her feet and stepped between the two. “I will not allow this,” she said, her voice firm and deadly as an amphistaff.

“It’s my right to challenge him,” Kunra hissed through his teeth.

“I thought we had abandoned the old ways, Kunra,” Niiriit said. “Now you wish to embrace them again? You cannot have it both ways.”

“I understand that, but—”

“No buts, Kunra. Which is it to be? You are either with us or against us. And the same goes for you, Nom Anor,” she said, suddenly turning on him. “We are too few to fight among ourselves.”

Nom Anor bowed his head to her, partly to hide a smile of triumph. No, he hadn’t misjudged Niiriit at all. “I apologize,” he said to her. He then turned to his challenger and did the same. Playing the part of peacemaker was a new experience for him, but it was no different from any other role he had played in the past. He was a good actor. “It appears to be your right to mistrust me, Kunra. Instead of fighting you, I shall do all in my power to convince you that you are mistaken in your mistrust. Is that enough to at least allow peace between us?”

“For now,” the warrior growled.

Niiriit nodded. “Good enough,” she said. “Now sit, both of you. You’re making me weary just looking at you.”

“I think,” Nom Anor said, “that I might use this excuse
to retire for the night. I have heard much that requires consideration, and I am not as young as our friend here.”

“Of course. Sleep well, Nom Anor. We shall discuss the
Jeedai
on another occasion.”

“I hope so.” He glanced quickly at Kunra as he spoke; the ex-warrior was grumpily thoughtful, but his anger had been successfully defused by Niiriit. That was good; Nom Anor didn’t want to be stabbed in his sleep. Nodding good night to those still around the fire, he picked his way to the top of the ventilation shaft and descended the spiraling ramp they had built within it. The gradient wasn’t steep, and the curvature was such that he completed a circle once every thirty meters or so. Within the circle of the walkway, rooms had been fashioned, two per level, that served as either crude quarters for the Shamed Ones or storerooms for the goods they had pilfered from the surface. The way was lit by the occasional lambent nest anchored to the shiny, layered surface that had been laid down by the chuk’a waste processor. It felt as if he were walking down the inside of an enormous shell.

He descended until he reached his room. Being the latest addition to the group, he lived in the quarters that had been most recently completed. There was still a tang in the air of the organic processes that had created the structure, and inside he had only the most rudimentary furniture: a rounded chest he had carved from a chuk’a egg and a dirt mattress. Nevertheless, it was still more comfortable than anything else he’d had since entering Yuuzhan’tar’s underworld.

Nom Anor waved the lights out and lay on the bed, still clothed in the ragged remains of the cloak and uniform he’d been wearing when he had arrived. He hadn’t
been lying when he’d said that he had much to think about. The story of Vua Rapuung and the Jedi was an opportunity he had never dreamed of finding in the depths of Yuuzhan’tar. The strange, forbidden notions passing from mouth to ear offered him hope in the most unlikely of places. The whispers circulating through the Yuuzhan Vong underground did so like an asteroid orbiting a black hole, gaining momentum with each revolution, propelled by nothing more than the need to have something to believe in. The Shamed Ones might have brought this whisper into existence spontaneously, with nothing to back it up, simply to satisfy their terrible need for direction. But he knew the events of the Vua Rapuung story were based broadly in truth, and that made them so much stronger.

The Jedi aren’t necessarily abominations. They can redeem as easily as they could kill.

He would never have heard such whispers from his usual vantage point, far above the forlorn creatures he currently associated with. Shimrra had no idea just how close to his heart the heresy was stabbing. If Nom Anor could follow the whispers to their source, if he could expose the heresy and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for spreading the word about Yavin 4, maybe then he could regain his previous standing—and perhaps be stronger than ever.

Thank you, Vua Rapuung, forgiving me hope.

Nom Anor smiled into the darkness as he thought about Kunra’s accusation that he would sell out his fellow Shamed Ones and all they stood for in a second if he thought it would help him achieve his goals. The ex-warrior was right, of course—except, perhaps, that he wouldn’t need an entire second to do it.

*  *  *

“You can’t be serious, Leia!”

Jaina rolled her eyes as she walked in on yet another of her parents’ arguments—this one, it seemed, about the mission’s itinerary. They were in the
Millennium Falcon
’s main hold, poring over charts.

“We have to start somewhere,” her mother responded. “And this seems as good a place as any.”

“But couldn’t the decision have been made based on the toss of a credit or something, rather than some obscure and anonymous message?”

“What’s going on?” Jaina asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Someone managed to get into the
Falcon
’s computers and leave us instructions on where to go if we want to walk into a trap,” her father said hotly. “Your mother has taken it as some kind of portent and has decided to make it our first port of call.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re not lowering the discussion by resorting to sarcasm,” Leia shot back with some of her own. “And I admit that it’s all very suspicious, but that just makes me all the more curious to follow it up.”

“But there’s no sense to it!” Han went on. “I mean, are you
trying
to get us all killed?”

Leia scowled at her husband, but she ignored the remark. “Of course it makes sense, Han. The Galactic Alliance has lost contact with the Koornacht Cluster, and someone needs to check it out. That’s exactly our brief, isn’t it? So where’s the problem?”

“Where’s the problem?” Jaina’s father leaned heavily over the map displays, his jaw tightening. “We’ve lost contact with Galantos and Whettam because the Yevetha have taken advantage of our little distraction and are on the move again. And you want us to go barging in there with a handful of X-wings and a rusty old frigate?
There
’s the problem, Leia.”

Jaina bristled at Twin Suns Squadron being described as a “handful of X-wings,” but she didn’t say anything. Her parents needed to fight this one out, and it was better if she stayed out of the line of fire.

Leia straightened, folding her arms in front of her. It was a clear message: she had no intentions of backing down.

“They’re fine words coming from Han Solo,” she said. “And do you have any better suggestions to go with your derision, Han?”

“Sure I have,” he said, but with less self-assuredness than a moment earlier. “What’s happening in Corellia is still anyone’s guess—and then there’s the Corporate Sector. That’s practically next door to Mon Cal, and—”