The Unifying Force (33 page)

“More to be pitied if stripped of the Force, as you contend,” Jacen said.

Vergere’s narrow shoulders sagged. “I, too, am searching for answers, Jacen. But I do not sympathize with the enemy as you appear to.”

Jacen compressed his lips. “Because of what Vergere guided me through, I’ve developed a kind of … sense for them—a Vongsense. I feel it more strongly here, not only when I speak with Harrar, but wherever I go.”

He touched the hollow space in his chest that had once housed the slave seed Vergere had implanted, and he recalled how it felt to have been racked on the Embrace of Pain; stripped of the Force.

You are forever lost to the worlds you knew
, Vergere had told him at the beginning of his process of being remade.
Your friends mourn, your father rages, your mother weeps. Your life has been terminated: a line of division has been drawn between you and everything you have ever known. You have seen the terminator that sweeps across the face of a planet, the twilit division between day and night. You have crossed that line, Jacen Solo. The bright fields of day are forever past
.

“By growing to understand you better, I grow to understand our enemy better,” Sekot said. “Do you see a contradiction there, Jedi?”

“That depends on whom Sekot serves.”

“I, too, serve the Force—but as defined by the Potentium, which does not recognize evil, except as a label. Magister Leor and the Ferroans were my guides to consciousness. But it was the Far Outsiders—the Yuuzhan Vong—who taught me that while evil does not exist, evil
actions
do exist, and it is to those that we must direct ourselves. I had the power to halt the Yuuzhan Vong when they approached me fifty years ago, and I have the power to halt them now. My instincts, such as they are, tell me that I have always had power over them.”

Jacen thought about the Force punch Sekot had delivered to those aboard
Jade Shadow
when the ship had first appeared in the Klasse Ephemora system—Sanctuary.

“And you’ll exercise that power to defeat them?” he asked carefully.

“If necessary—but without contempt. If I defeat them aggressively, if I hate them for who they have become, then I will have separated myself from the Force, and permitted my ego to triumph over my desire to merge and expand my consciousness. I will have corrupted the light with my darkness, stained it forever. Self-awareness tricks us into believing that there is us, and that there is the other. But in serving the Force we recognize that we are all the same thing; that when we act in accordance with the Force we act in accordance with the wish of all life to enlarge itself, to rise out of physicality and become something greater.

“In that sense, all living beings are seed-partners, Jacen, passionate to unite with all life, and to help give birth to grand enterprises—whether a starship, a work of art, or a deed that will echo through history as a noble action. I am no different than you in wanting to play a part in the evolution of the spirit. My consciousness yearns for this.”

“Easier said than done,” Jacen said.

“Yes, it is a matter of balance. But we are balancing the universe constantly with every action we take, some tipping it
one way, some another. To triumph over the Yuuzhan Vong we must simply go where we wish to go. That is also what I must do to return us to known space. But the task entails far more than simply focusing on a set of hyperspace coordinates. Unless the destination is a place I wish to go, nothing will work out. Even if I execute the jump flawlessly, my actions will come to nothing.

“For your interest, Jacen, that is something that Vergere taught me.”

Jacen was listening too intently to respond. Vergere had set him on the path to remaking himself. But unless he could complete the process, he would be ensnared by the very self-conscious uncertainties Sekot professed to have grown past, and prevented from merging fully with the Force.

“We must approach the turning points in our lives with purity of heart,” Sekot was saying. “We must look beyond ourselves, and when we see danger approaching or a difficult choice ahead, we must calm ourselves well in advance, so that we can navigate with a clear mind. Once we have mastered the technique, we can learn to trust that we’re doing the right thing, without thinking about it.”

“Do you know where you want to go?” Jacen asked when he realized that Sekot was waiting for him to say something.

“By analyzing Yuuzhan Vong biotech—by what I intuited from Nen Yim—I have learned much about augmenting Zonama’s hyperspace cores with energy derived from the planet itself. And the success of the trial jumps has encouraged me that I can safely return Zonama to known space. I begin to understand how the Yuuzhan Vong created what they call dovin basals, villips, yammosks, and other biots. Or perhaps I begin to
remember
.

“But I am worried about the potentially calamitous or destabilizing effects Zonama’s sudden appearance could have on any planet in close proximity to our emergence.”

From records stored in the Chiss library, Jacen and Saba had learned of the widespread seismic devastation Zonama Sekot had caused on Munlali Mafir, standard decades earlier, not only to the planet but to the indigenous Jostrans and Krizlaws, as well.

“My uncle thought you might be worried about that,” Jacen said. “He was going to tell you himself that you shouldn’t be.”

Vergere glided toward him across the water and ice. “Tell me what Master Skywalker has in mind.”

Caluula’s reddish sun was cresting the ridgeline, limning the crowns of the tallest trees and warming the air. Leia began to rub her hands together, but stopped when she realized that the chill she felt had nothing to do with the temperature.

North of the trail, in an area of trees that were snapped in half, the team had come upon a crashed coralskipper. The craft’s translucent, mica-like canopy was cracked, and inside the cavity that served as a cockpit sat the dead pilot. The cognition hood that was the pilot’s living interface with the coralskipper was shriveled and stuck to his face like a sheet of flimsiplast. Han was squatting at the craft’s blunt nose, poking at a deep red heart-shaped mass, studded with pale blue projections, that had dropped from the fractured fuselage.

“Dovin basal’s dead,” he said.

“Same with the rock spitters,” Kyp replied.

The Jedi Master was circling the craft while Wraw and Sasso inspected the cockpit. Page, Ferfer, and Meloque were scouting the forest to the north, in the direction of Caluula City. The timbus were grazing contentedly nearby.

Han stood up, put the edge of his hand to his brow, and gazed at the splintered trees. “Came in from that direction.” He pointed to a depression some distance away. “Hit the ground there, plowed its way through those bushes, and came to a stop here.”

Kyp completed his circle of the craft, nodding his head. “Only question is, what brought it down?”

“Caluula Orbital. What else?”

Kyp regarded the coralskipper. “No signs of laserfire from batteries or starfighter cannons.”

Han’s forehead wrinkled. “Can’t be.” He ducked down to appraise what he could of the underside, then stood up. “Must have caught a bolt straight through the canopy.”

“No signs of that either,” Sasso said, jumping down to the ground.

Han looked at Kyp. “Could have been stunned by an ion cannon …” He let his words trail off when he realized the impossibility of it. “No craft comes down the gravity well at terminal velocity and ends up looking like this one.”

Kyp nodded in agreement. “From the way the trees are sheared off and the depth of the initial impact crater, the skip couldn’t have been higher than three hundred meters.”

“A patrol craft,” Sasso said.

“That would explain why there’s no heat damage.” Han turned to the Rodian. “Could one of your people have shot it down? Someone in the resistance?”

Sasso shook his head. “We don’t have the weapons for that.”

Wraw leapt down from the cockpit. “So what happened, it suffered heart failure?”

Han made his lips a thin line and shrugged. “Maybe with the Yuuzhan Vong devoting almost everything they have to the armada, they’ve exiled their shoddiest biots and least experienced warriors to worlds like Caluula.” He laughed ruefully. “They’re in even worse shape than we are.”

“No,” Kyp said. “Only here are they in worse shape.”

Leia listened to them trying to convince themselves that there was a reasonable explanation for the crashed craft and the inept warriors they had ambushed. But, in fact, lack of genuine explanations had everyone on edge.

Worried that the team was under surveillance, no one had slept the previous night. In the morning they had made a decision to abandon the trail and bushwhack through the thick forest, in the hope of avoiding detection. That they hadn’t seen any reconnaissance biots or evidence of foot patrols had only added to the suspicion that they were being led into a trap.

Then their purposefully meandering path had brought them to the coralskipper.

“You know what could have happened,” Han was saying. “The yammosk could have steered it wrong.”

“I can see that,” Sasso said. “I can even see that a crash like this could take out the pilot and the dovin basal. But why would the cognition hood die? Do the hoods feed off the basals?” He stared at the coralskipper. “I’ve spent more time trying to avoid them than study them.”

“Our daughter could explain it,” Han said. “She’s actually piloted a vessel like this.”

Jaina!

A sense of deep concern flooded through Leia. But before she could begin to make sense of it, Han was yelling something at Wraw. Leia saw that the Bothan had clambered back to the cockpit and was making sketches of the interior.

“Something to show the grandchildren,” Wraw said when Han demanded to know what he was doing.

“Grandchildren? You’ll be lucky to even have kids of your own.”

Wraw closed the sketch pad. “If I do, I know I’ll have sense enough to keep them out of the war.”

Han advanced on the Bothan with menacing familiarity. “I’m going to have to teach you the ways of the world before this is over.”

Leia could see that Kyp was ready to step between them, but the confrontation went no further. “He’s Corellian,” Kyp said quietly to Wraw while Han was walking away. “They don’t make idle threats.”

Wraw only sniggered.

Sasso left to find Meloque, Page, and Ferfer. Han, Leia, and Kyp were gathering the timbus when Han said, “You realize we’re being reeled in.”

Kyp nodded. “It’s probably been that way from the beginning. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t pull this mission off. We just have to watch our backs.”

“Speaking of which, did Intelligence run backgrounds on Sasso and Ferfer?”

“You’d have to check with Wraw. I do know that both of them joined the resistance before the Yuuzhan Vong showed
up in the Caluula system. Sasso even served on Caluula Orbital for a while.”

“So at least we’re not being
sold
to the Vong.”

“As far as I can tell.”

Sasso’s whistled signal wafted into the clearing, and several moments later he, Page, the Ryn, and Meloque stepped from the trees. In her sucker-tipped hands the Ho’Din cradled a dozen or so insects, delicately winged and equipped with large bioluminescent eyespots. She set them on the ground, then sat down beside them.

“They’re dead,” she announced in an anguished tone. “The entire forest is littered with bodies. In most cases they died inside their shells. Others appear to have died in flight.”

“All of them?” Leia asked, nonplussed.

Meloque shook her head. “But the survivors are moving very lethargically.” She gazed at Leia and the others. “Something terrible has happened here.”

Han and Kyp traded dark glances.

“Let’s get moving,” Page told everyone.

Several hours of mostly downhill trudging brought Team Meloque to a low ridge that overlooked the southern portion of Caluula City, and the prominent hivelike Yuuzhan Vong minshal that harbored the yammosk.

“There are three entrances,” Sasso explained from the spot of cover the team found. “Two in the front, and one on the east side. All of them are dilating membranes that can be pierced by blaster bolts. Guards are stationed at each, usually three or four at any given time. They stand long shifts, so it would be to our advantage to strike at sundown, just when the afternoon shift is ending. The garrison is made up of about seventy-five warriors. There’s also a commander, his subaltern, at least one priest, and one of those long-tressed technicians—”

“A shaper,” Leia said.

The Rodian nodded. “As for the yammosk, I don’t know how to kill it. But I’m guessing you have some idea.”

“Leave that to me,” Kyp said.

“It’s important that we take out their villip communications while we’re at it,” Page added.

Leia gazed out over the flat rooftops of the simple city. Judging by the position of the sun, the team was in for a long wait. Ferfer volunteered to find a place to conceal the timbus. He rose, but had scarcely moved off when a gurgling exclamation of surprise rang from just inside the tree line. Everyone whirled at once to see the Ryn staggering toward them, his belly opened like a ripe fruit.

Behind him emerged four relatively short and dark-complected Yuuzhan Vong warriors.

Han shot Leia the briefest of astonished looks and drew his blaster.

Page did the same with his rifle, but he hadn’t even lifted it to firing position when it was whipped from his grip by one of the longest amphistaffs Leia had seen, and hurled through the air like a twig. Sasso was already charging the enemy wielding the amphistaff, but he didn’t get three meters when the warrior leapt over him and, on landing, whirled and thrust a coufee deep into the Rodian’s back.

Kyp and Leia ignited their lightsabers at the same instant. Continuous fire from Han and Wraw had driven two of the warriors to the ground, but neither had been hit. Kyp raced for the nearest one, catching the warrior across the chest with a powerful upswing of his blade. The Yuuzhan Vong growled and rolled, but his dark, unarmored flesh showed only a shallow bloodless furrow.