Star by Star (23 page)

“I am honored.”

Tsavong Lah was already returning to the villip. “Viqi, I have an old friend of yours here.”

“Really?” Shesh replied. She would not have seen Nom Anor enter the room. Her villip would be of the type linked directly to the warmaster and able to relay only his image and words. “Who’s there?”

“I am certain you recall Pedric Cuf,” Tsavong Lah said, using the alias by which Shesh knew Nom Anor.

The smile that came to the villip’s lips was less than sincere, for Viqi had seized the first opportunity to bypass Nom Anor and offer her services directly to the warmaster. “What a delight.”

“Viqi, repeat what happened today.” Tsavong Lah gave Nom Anor no chance to reply to her greeting. “Pedric Cuf needs to hear all.”

Viqi obediently recounted what had happened in the committee room earlier, emphasizing Jacen’s plan to ambush the Talfaglio blockade. She lingered a little too long on how cleverly she had
manipulated Borsk Fey’lya into asking for a military study, buying the Yuuzhan Vong time to prepare a counterambush.

“You may have as much as two weeks,” Shesh finished. “I will keep you informed.”

“You did well,” Tsavong Lah said, though Nom Anor knew they already had a fleet lying in wait for just such a purpose. “But tell Pedric Cuf about the envoy, Viqi.”

If she understood that Tsavong Lah was slighting her by consistently speaking only half her name, Viqi Shesh showed no sign. “There was some concern about the time required for a study, but I persuaded Borsk to ask for an envoy.” Her villip smiled. “He has no real interest in talking to you, but I convinced him the request might save the refugees long enough for the military to complete its study.”

“Very clever,” Tsavong Lah said. “You buy us time, but make them think they are the ones who stall. You are truly gifted, Viqi. On the day of our victory, your reward will be beyond imagining. Is there anything you need now?”

“Only the usual funds,” she replied.

“You will have them and more,” the warmaster promised. “Through the customary channels.”

Tsavong Lah broke the connection by stroking the villip, then turned to Nom Anor as the creature reverted into an inert blob.

“That one angers me,” he growled. “She takes me for a fool.”

“Humans often cast themselves in the best light,” Nom Anor said, unsure whether the warmaster’s displeasure extended to him as Shesh’s recruiter. “They seem unable to see the shadows they also cast.”

“A pity for you then, Nom Anor,” Tsavong Lah said.

Nom Anor sat forward, stifling a cry as the chair’s thorns tore free of his back. “Me, Warmaster?”

Tsavong Lah nodded. “Tell me, do you believe what she says about the Bothan? That he has no interest in talking to us?”

“No more than I believe
she
persuaded him to ask for an envoy,” Nom Anor said. “Borsk Fey’lya wants to talk, and Viqi Shesh fears he has something to make us listen. She hopes to protect her own position.”

“Our thinking is the same on this, Nom Anor,” the warmaster
said. “All the more reason I must command you to return to the infidels.”

“Him?” Vergere asked.

Nom Anor glared fire at the feathery pet. “Who else? Perhaps you were thinking of yourself?”

Vergere lowered her arms. “My objection praises you, Nom Anor. You have caused the New Republic too much damage. Borsk Fey’lya could not talk to you if he wanted to. The senate would vote him out of office.”

“Truly?” Tsavong Lah smiled slyly, then turned to Nom Anor and gestured at the thorn chair. “Take that with you, my servant. Consider it a gift.”

The door opened to an unfamiliar soughing sound, and Cilghal’s skin went dry. The voxyn were dead.

The
Millennium Falcon
had pulled away from the
Sweet Surprise
with its emergency hatch still open and the aft hold exposed to cold space. It was true the creatures had sealed themselves into scale cocoons and survived the resulting decompression. They had even endured the vacuum—for a time—by dropping into deep hibernation. But the cold had killed them, eventually. Han had kept the hold in a sealed vacuum and near absolute zero the entire trip, and by the time they arrived on Eclipse, the voxyn were frozen solid. She had probed their molecular structures with the Force and found every cell in their bodies burst. She had confirmed her findings via ultrasonic probe
and
thermal scan, then performed a dozen different bioscans on their space-frozen carcasses to search out any lingering sign of life. Just to be certain, she had done it all again, and only after confirming her results had she cut their claws out of the
Falcon
’s durasteel deck. They had to be dead.

Still, Cilghal was not taking chances—not with creatures that spat flesh-eating acid and stunned their prey with sonic blasts, creatures whose blood became a neurotoxin in most kinds of air, whose toe pads harbored a hundred deadly retroviruses. She was too fatigued to analyze the situation, too prone to mistakes lately to gamble with the lives of everyone on Eclipse. Cilghal backed quietly out the door, then slipped the comlink from her pocket and raised it to her lips.

A plaintive Wookiee groan rolled out of the room, and she grew aware of a strange heaviness in the Force. With a start, she realized the sound she had heard was crying.

Human
crying.

Cilghal peered through the door and saw a line of young Jedi standing on the other side of the room, looking through a transparisteel observation panel into the frozen tissue locker. At one end of the group stood Anakin, tall, lanky, and broad-shouldered in the way of human males as they crossed from adolescence into adulthood, recognizable even from behind by his sandy-brown tousled mane. Beside him, as always, stood Tahiri, small and svelte with short-cropped blond hair, feet customarily bare, her EV footwear in one hand and Anakin’s arm in the other. The Wookiee groan had come from the opposite end of the line, where russet-furred Lowbacca stood with Jaina Solo’s slender form wrapped into his hairy arm. Next to them stood Zekk and Tenel Ka, Zekk a wiry young man with shaggy black hair hanging over his collar, Tenel Ka a tall and willowy beauty with rust-colored hair and an arm amputated just above the elbow. And more or less in the center was the one Cilghal had heard crying, blond-haired Raynar Thul, standing alone with his fists pressed against the transparisteel, his shoulders rising and falling as he sobbed.

Cilghal remained outside, trying to decide whether collecting yet another tissue sample justified the intrusion. The young Jedi Knights were a close-knit group, having spent many of their formative years studying at Luke’s Jedi academy on Yavin 4. Together, they had fought off Imperial kidnappers, Dark Jedi, ruthless crime organizations, and more hazards than the Mon Calamari healer could name. Whatever was grieving them, it did not seem right to trespass on their gathering now.

She started to back away, but her presence had not gone unnoticed. Tenel Ka turned and fixed a pair of red-rimmed eyes on her.

“Do not mind us,” she said. “We are not here to disturb your work.”

Feeling the companions’ anguish through the Force but unsure of what to do about it, Cilghal entered the room and went to the closet where she kept the cryosuit she would need to collect her samples.

“Someone else has died?” she asked, fearing the truth even as she surmised it.

“Lusa,” Anakin said, voice cracking. Lusa was one of their close friends from the academy on Yavin 4, a nature-loving Chironian female. Anakin gestured vaguely toward the frozen carcasses in the tissue locker. “A pack of voxyn ran her down.”

“We just heard over the subspace,” Tahiri added. “She was at home, just running through a meadow.”

“She was supposed to be safe,” Jaina added, finally pulling her face out of Lowbacca’s fur. “Chiron is a long way from the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Cilghal felt a stab of guilt. “I am sorry to be so slow. I have learned much about these creatures, but nothing of use.”

Raynar mumbled a suggestion that she work harder. Out of respect for his grief, Cilghal pretended not to hear and began to fumble into her cryosuit.

Lowbacca was not so generous, groaning softly and admonishing the young Jedi for his rudeness. Raynar started to say something in reply, but his throat failed him and he turned back toward the tissue locker.

Jaina stepped away from Lowbacca and patted Raynar’s arm, then turned to Cilghal. “Forgive Raynar, Cilghal. He and Lusa were very close.” Though Jaina’s eyes were puffy from crying, Cilghal could feel that the red came from anger. “No one is angry at you. Jedi are dying, and the senate blames us for losing the war. Sometimes, I think we should just go off into the Unknown Regions and leave the New Republic to the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“I understand,” Cilghal said. Grief—especially young grief—had to have an outlet, or it would eat away the vessel. “But what will we do when the Yuuzhan Vong come for us there?”

Jaina’s eyes hardened, but she nodded. “I know—and I suppose there’s no guarantee the Chiss would welcome us.”

“Then I suppose we must find a way to defend this part of the galaxy.” Cilghal nearly fell as she thrust her leg into the cryosuit. “If we can.”

“Don’t these creatures have a weakness?” Tahiri asked. “The Sand People say everyone has a weakness—everyone except them.”

“The voxyn have no weakness I have found,” Cilghal answered. “As we suspected, they are part of this galaxy and part of
the Yuuzhan Vong’s, but I have not gone far beyond that. There is so much that makes no sense.”

“You are tired.” Tenel Ka came over and held one of the suit’s bulky arms. “I will help you.”

“Maybe she should rest.” Anakin turned around, revealing eyes as red as Tenel Ka’s. “It’s hard to think straight when you can’t even stand.”

Cilghal smiled at his concern. “You’re right, of course, but I cannot bring myself to sleep while others are dying.” She pushed her arm through the second sleeve. “I may as well work.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Tenel Ka asked. “We have sentry duty in an hour, but—”

“You can watch,” Cilghal said. “You can tell me how I keep contaminating these samples.”

“Contaminating them?” Tahiri asked. “What do you mean?”

“Their genetic codes always map the same,” Cilghal said. “It’s not the equipment—I have checked—so I must be contaminating the samples when I collect them.”

Tenel Ka exchanged glances with her friends, then laid a hand on Cilghal’s arm to stop her from closing the suit. “How many times have you tried?”

“Four,” Cilghal said.

“And they always map the same?” Jaina asked. “Exactly the same?”

Cilghal nodded, struggling to see what the young Jedi were driving at. “Even when Tekli gathers the samples.” Tekli was her apprentice, a young Chadra-Fan no older than Jaina. “We are making a systematic error somewhere.”

“And what if you are not?” Tenel Ka asked.

A wave of weariness came over Cilghal, and she shook her head. “We are. No two genetic sequences are identical. There are always differences.”

“Not always,” Jaina said.

Cilghal frowned, then felt her skin brighten to a pale green. “Clones?” she gasped. “They’re cloning the voxyn!”

“Why would they do that?” Tenel Ka asked. “Would it not make more sense to breed them?”

“Perhaps.” Cilghal was suddenly wide awake, her thoughts flying at lightspeed. “Unless they have only one.”

Anakin’s eyes lit with excitement—or perhaps it was determination. “That would be a weakness, definitely.”

“But these voxyn all came from the same shipment,” Tenel Ka observed. “Can we be sure that a pack from another shipment would not come from a different master?”

Cilghal thought for a moment, going over all the different kinds of tests—both scientific and through the Force—she could run. She kept coming to the same conclusion.

“There is no way to be sure,” she said. “Not from one set of samples.”

“Then we need more samples.” Anakin was already half out the door before he seemed to realize that Tahiri was the only one following. He scowled back at the others. “We need them
now
.”

The signal was scratchy, but clear enough to recognize a familiar name as the Corellian newscaster’s sober voice filled Anakin’s cockpit.

“Kuati senator Viqi Shesh said the New Republic will receive the envoy with cautious optimism.”

Anakin opened a channel to the rest of his small task force. “Are you guys getting this?” They were sitting on an asteroid on the outskirts of the Froz system, powered down and quietly keeping tabs on inbound traffic. With Kyp Durron supplying from here, it seemed a good place to look for the voxyn Cilghal needed. “The Yuuzhan Vong are sending an envoy after all.”

“Neg that commclutter, Little Brother,” Jaina ordered. Anakin was in command of the mission, but, being a veteran Rogue Squadron pilot, Jaina was in charge of tactical aspects. As Luke had put it before allowing them to leave Eclipse, Anakin decided what to do, Jaina decided how. “Stay passive. Let’s not spray rays on idle chatter. Never know who might be listening.”

Anakin clicked an acknowledgment, then Viqi Shesh’s cloying voice replaced that of the newscaster.

“I’m the last to condone bargaining with murderers, but I do think we have something to talk about,” she said. “If we can make our foes understand that the New Republic has no control over the Jedi, perhaps the Yuuzhan Vong will apply pressure where it belongs.”

“Would making the Yuuzhan Vong understand include helping them find the Jedi’s secret base?” the newscaster asked. “Isn’t that why they took hostages in the first place?”

“I’ve been a friend of the Jedi since I joined the senate, but in
this case, Luke Skywalker is thinking only of his followers. The rash acts of the Jedi have endangered the citizens of an entire world, and now he refuses to take responsibility.”

“How do you like that?” Zekk said, ignoring Jaina’s request for comm silence. While he and Jaina had been close when they were younger, they had drifted apart since she volunteered for Rogue Squadron, and now he sometimes seemed to place a premium on annoying her. “The Yuuzhan Vong threaten a billion lives, we get blamed.”