"Thank you," she babbled. "Thank you all."

More congratulations came through her Force-awareness. And then, from the flagship, "Stand by. The general's sending a message."

Keyan Farlander's voice, when it came over the comm, sounded bemused.

"I've just received a subs.p.a.ce communication from Intelligence advising me not to make the attack, or to break off if I've begun," he said.

Jaina laughed. In the heady triumph of the victory, New Republic Intelligence seemed even more behind the times than usual.

"I don't suppose they mentioned why?" Jaina responded.

"Well," Farlander said, "it seems there's a problem. It looks as if Supreme Overlord Shimrra wasn't in the flagship after all."

Chapter 5.

"Can you tell me what's going on here?"

General Keyan Farlander stood on the bridge of Man Adapyne, bent in conference with one of his captains, a spike-headed Elomin named Kartha.

He turned briefly toward Jaina, a grim expression on his face, and said, "Just a minute, Jaina. This is important."

Jaina had a hard time imagining anything more important than whether or not Supreme Overlord Shimrra had just been turned into a chunk of charred s.p.a.ce debris, but she bit back her reply and crossed the bridge to where Madurrin waited. The Anx Jedi stood more than four meters tall, with a thick tail that balanced her ma.s.sive body and pointed head.

She had volunteered for the war against the Yuuzhan Vong but could hardly be crammed into the c.o.c.kpit of a starfighter; the bridge of Mon Adapyne was far better suited to her.

"What happened?" Jaina demanded. "What's going on?"

"I don't know any more than you do." Madurrin sent rea.s.surance to Jaina through the Force. "It's all right. We did extremely well. We won.

We took the offensive and we won-for the first time."

Jaina took a breath and tried to calm her outraged nerves. "Thanks.

But what about Shimrra?"

"You saved a lot of lives today," Madurrin reminded her. "You saved us when you realized the Yuuzhan Vong were using a second yammosk." She inclined her long, pointed head toward the Elomin officer speaking to Farlander. "You saved Kartha's life, for one. He was captain of the Pulsar."

"Was?" Pulsar was one of the Corellian gunships. Was that the one she'd seen out of control?

"Pulsar's completely disabled. We'll have to scuttle her. The general's making arrangements for bringing off the crew and getting medical attention to the wounded."

The wounded . . . Jaina had been so completely focused on combat that she had forgotten about the price of the battle. The b.l.o.o.d.y toll of even a victorious fight.

She straightened. She didn't want to think about the dead and wounded now. Her service had to be to the living, and her focus on victory.

"The kill ratios were very much in our favor," Jaina said.

"Yes," Madurrin said. "They were."

Jaina scanned the bridge as she waited for Kartha and Farlander to conclude their conference. Though there were many different species aboard the cruiser, from the human Keyan Farlander on down, the bridge crew was made up entirely of Mon Gals. The brilliant display monitors, with their strange distortions, were configured for Mon Calamari eyes, and the chairs and instrument panels were adapted to their amphibious physiology. The bridge architecture, with its sh.e.l.l-like, scalloped design, suggested a peaceful subaquatic grotto. So different, Jaina thought, from the hard, geometric shapes of star-fighter controls, let alone the strange, melting organic patterns of her captured Yuuzhan Vong frigate.

Other captains entered while Farlander spoke with Kartha. Last of all came Queen Mother Tend Ka, sweeping onto the bridge with her female Hapan captains echeloned behind her, and dressed in a magnificent sky-blue admiral's uniform covered with gold insignia and braid, her red-brown hair tied back by a glittering royal diadem.

Jaina looked at her old cla.s.smate in surprise. She was more used to seeing Tenel's lithe, muscular body clad in the reptile-skin tunic of a Dathomirian Witch-warrior. This sleek look was something new.

The ruler of sixty-three planets clearly outranked a Jedi Knight, because General Farlander broke off his conference with Captain Kartha, approached Tend Ka, and gave a bow.

"Your Majesty," he said, "your fleet's arrival was well timed."

"The timing was yours," Tenel replied. She turned her gray eyes to Kartha. "And the casualties, too."

"Hapes has taken many casualties on behalf of the New Republic,"

Farlander said. "We hoped to spare you more."

"You've spared us political embarra.s.sment as well." Tenel Ka gave Farlander a frank look. "We can present this to our people as a nearly bloodless victory," she continued. "This will aid our alliance. Fact. We arc profoundly grateful."

That was the royal we, Jaina thought. Tenel Ka was fitting with surprising case into her new role as queen.

"We should return to the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter before our loyal subjects learn we're not, as we claimed, on a routine fleet exercise," Tenel went on. "But first, I'd like to know-was that Shimrra we killed or not?"

The I had been a slip, Jaina thought, indicating just how much Tenel had invested in the answer.

Farlander quirked an eyebrow. "I think I can guess how New Republic Intelligence made the mistake," he said. "They know that Supreme Overlord Shimrra is moving from the Rim to his new capital of Coruscant. They received a report that a Yuuzhan Vong big shot commanding a fleet was due in the Obroa-skai system to consult the library. They put two and two together and came up with seventeen." He shrugged. "Resistance units on the ground on Obroa-skai just confirmed that the enemy commander was someone named Supreme Commander Komm Karsh."

"Supreme Commander." Tenel's look was thoughtful. "A rank second only to warmaster. Still a notable victory."

"Yes, Majesty," General Farlander said. There was relief in his eyes. "I'm relieved as well. I put this operation together in the absence of any instructions from my superiors-" His eyes flicked to Jaina. "-and at the urging of one of my officers. Who-even if she is 3. G.o.ddess-is still rather junior."

Tenel Ka gave Jaina an appraising look.

"G.o.ddess?" she said.

"You can call me 'Great One,' " Jaina said. "Most people do."

Partly as a propaganda exercise, and partly because it suited the role she had played in the war so far, the New Republic military had gone out of its way to behave toward Jaina as if she were an emanation of the Yuuzhan Vong Trickster G.o.ddess, Yun-Harla. They hoped to take advantage of Yuuzhan Vong superst.i.tion about twins, or to outrage the orthodox and drive them into an ill-judged frenzy.

Jaina couldn't say whether this was working or not, but she had found the G.o.ddess routine amusing . . . for at least the first ten minutes. After that it had become a drudgery.

Tenel Ka's words were thoughtful. "Does a mere mortal queen dare to hug a G.o.ddess?"

"You have our permission," Jaina said.

Tenel crossed the deck between them and embraced Jaina with her single arm, hard enough so that Jama's breath went out of her.

General Farlander tactfully cleared his throat.

"Majesty, Great One, I'd like to proceed with the conference if we may," he said. "Komm Karsh may have called for reinforcements before his death, and I'd like to get out of this system while I'm ahead."

"Sensible," Tenel Ka said.

Tenel bade farewell to Madurrin, and then she and the captains retired to the cruiser's conference room, a seash.e.l.l-shaped room with subdued, shimmering blue lighting that presented the illusion of being underwater. The room's central table was a gleaming work of art, subtly curved, gleaming like mother-of-pearl beneath the hushed lights.

Tenel Ka, walking with easy dignity, took her place before the seat of honor. At her nod, everyone took their seats.

The captains first presented damage and casualty reports-Jaina was pleased to report that her unit had suffered no losses, and her ship only minor harm-and then there was discussion of what to do with Fur Thunder, a Republic-cla.s.s cruiser that had suffered significant damage, including damage to its hypers.p.a.ce drives. Farlander was inclined to abandon and scuttle the ship, but Far Thunder's Captain Hannser argued forcefully that he could repair his ship given time, and Farlander finally gave his a.s.sent. Far Thunder would be evacuated except for command, drive, and damage control crews, then make a microjump out of the Obroa-skai system under escort by the Lancer-cla.s.s frigate. A tender would be sent with the necessary spare parts to rendezvous with Far Thunder, and-with any luck-preserve the Kuat Systems cruiser for future encounters with the Yuuzhan Vong.

"We'll hope to see you at Kashyyyk," Farlander told Hannser.

"Kashyyyk?" Tenel Ka was surprised. "Why Kashyyyk?"

"We're shifting our base there, Majesty," Farlander said. "We want to be able to defend that section of the Mid Rim yet still be close enough to offer you a.s.sistance at Hapes if you should come again under attack."

Tenel nodded. "Your long-term plans?"

Farlander looked uncertain. "The fact is that we've received no instructions from headquarters since the fall of Borleias. I'm making everything up as I'm going along."

Tenel frowned. "Who is your immediate superior?"

"Admiral Traest Kre'fey. But he is a relative of Borsk Fey'lya, and was compelled to return to Bothawui for the period of official mourning."

Jaina lifted one eyebrow but otherwise remained silent. She couldn't bring herself to mourn the late Chief of State, but she supposed someone had to.

Keyan Farlander clasped his hands and leaned forward across the conference table. "Please understand, Majesty," he said. "I hope that we may once more operate together against our common enemy. I will cooperate with you to the utmost of my power, and if the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter is again attacked, I hope you will feel free to call for my a.s.sistance. But I can't speak for my superiors, and I may be superceded at any time."

"Understood," Tenel said.

Uncertainty dogged them all, Jaina thought. She had hoped, with a strike at the enemy leader, to bring things into focus. But her target had been a phantom, and even though a victory had been won, it was hard to say, in the fog of doubt, just what even such a victory really meant.

Chapter 6.

Jacen rose gently from the embrace of the Force like a man rising slowly and reluctantly from the warmth and buoyancy of a mineral spring. He paused before rising fully to the mundane world and basked for a moment in the luxurious, shining unity of all living things, and then, like a garment, he donned his ego-put himself into himself, as it were-and he opened his eyes.

"You were successful?" Vergere asked.

The strange being's feathery whiskers floated in an alien breeze, a wind heavy with warmth and the thick spoor of organics. They had escaped Coruscant in a Yuuzhan Vong coral craft., a vessel with a resinous interior that looked like half-melted ice cream and ventilation that smelled like old socks.

"I think I found them," Jacen said. "I touched my mother, and I know she recognized me. But we were cut off suddenly-I don't know why.

And I think I may have reached my uncle-my Master-Luke. And I touched my sister, briefly." He frowned as the harmonious sensation brought by his connection with the Force was disturbed by the unsettling memory. "But she was involved in a confrontation-a battle, I think, with the Yuuzhan Vong. I broke the connection before I could turn into a fatal distraction for her."

Anxiety for Jaina gnawed at his mind. "Maybe I shouldn't have.

Maybe I should have stayed with her, tried to send her calm and strength."

"You made the choice, and it was uncoerced," Vergere said. "For you to question such a choice is not simply useless, but harmful. Such doubts will chain the mind to an endless circle of pointless speculation and self-recrimination. You should prepare yourself to live with the consequences of your decisions, whatever they may be."

"It's different when the consequences are going to happen to your sister," Jacen said.

The diminutive Vergere hunkered down, the k.n.o.bs of her reverse-articulated knees rising strangely behind her. "The rise or fall of a civilization can depend on the decision made in a fragment of a second.

There are many seconds in a day. How many seconds can you regret? How many choices?"

"Only the bad ones," Jacen said.

"And if you don't know immediately whether the decision was good or bad? What if you don't find out the answer for fifty years?"

Jacen looked at her. "Fifty years," he said. "I'm not even twenty.

I can't imagine fifty years."

Her tilted eyes shimmered like waves over cold, deep water. There was unconquerable sadness in her voice. "Fifty years ago, young Jedi, I made a decision," she said. "The consequences of that decision echo down the years until today. And I still do not know whether the decision I made was the right one."

"What decision was that?" Jacen asked.

"The decision that brought about this war." Vergere's feathers rippled. "I am responsible, you see, for all the fighting, all the suffering, all the death. All because of a decision I made fifty years ago, on Zonama Sekot."

Chapter 7.

Zonama Sekot! (cried Vergere.) The Green Land. Taller than the tallest tree arc the boras, with balloon-shaped leaves in rainbow colors, and limbs with iron tips that call down the lightning. Deep valleys from which the morning mist rises in waves like ocean rollers breaking on the sh.o.r.e. A northern hemisphere of sun and bright green, and a southern hemisphere hidden in a perpetual cloud that forever cloaks its mysteries.

Zonama, Sekot! Where mobile seeds attach themselves to living clients in their eagerness to be shaped. Where airships bob gently amid the mountain peaks. Where the vines and creepers carve out terraces over which the bright blossoms spill like living waterfalls. Black-haired Ferroan colonists who live among the generous life in a kind of symbiosis. Dwellings where the walls, the roof, even the furniture is alive. Factory valleys where boras seeds are forged into living ships, the fastest ever to fly between the stars.

Zonama Sekot! Where the air itself intoxicates. Where transforming lightning ignites life rather than destroys it. A world covered with a benevolent organism in the form of its own vegetation. An entire world that sings with billions of voices a great and continual hymn to the Force.

I had become so besotted with the place that I had almost forgotten my mission. How hard it is to concentrate when the harmonies of Zonama Sekot sing in your ears! How blissful is sleep when an entire world shares with you its dreams!

But I knew that I must remain alert. Even before my arrival I sensed that a great terror lurked nearby. The Jedi Council had learned of an intrusion of a strange enemy and sent me to find them, and also, if I could, to locate the fabled Zonama Sekot. I found the second before I found the first, but from the behavior of the Ferroan natives I guessed that the intruders were near: the Ferroans were too nervous, too reticent. Zonama Sekot was overripe with secrets and about to explode.

I had come, I told the natives, to buy a ship-and this was true, for the Jedi Council wished to know of the living ships that were bred in this distant world, and were willing to pay for the knowledge. I surrendered my ingots of aurodium in payment, and I went through their ritual. I was chosen by three seed-partners, spiky creatures who clung to my garment and sang to me of the great ship they would become once transformed by the lightning and the fire. This caused a sensation-no one had been chosen by three before. The seed-partners were intrigued by my connection to the Force.