"Don't get me wrong, kid. If I had the ability, I'd be using it every chance I could."

"You only think you would," Leia said, slipping into her backpack as she caught up with them.

"Would you use it when you play sabacc?"

Han considered it.

"Might take some of the fun out of the game."

"And I know you wouldn't want that," she said.

No sooner had they exited the terminal than clouds of indigenous flitnats surrounded them. The insects weren't the biting variety, but that didn't make them any less irritating.

"Hope you remembered to pack the repellent," Han said to Leia.

"Wouldn't help," Wraw rasped. "Every visitor to Caluula gets a.s.signed one hundred flitnats, and those hundred stick with you for your entire stay."

Han laughed shortly at the Bothan's joke.

"Well, everybody's got their own idea about what makes a good vacation."

What Han didn't say was that the tiny pests were already sticking to the cosmetic that lightened his complexion and the adhesive that secured his gray beard, mustache, and woolly eyebrows, and that he was even more uncomfortable than he had been on Aphran IV two years earlier, where he had worn a similar getup. Leia was the only other one also in disguise, her hair concealed under a wig of closely cropped silver locks, and her skin a faint shade of green, thanks to some pill Intelligence had had her swallow. Even though he was a Jedi, Kyp's keen face wasn't well known, and Page was so nondescript that a moment after meeting him one practically forgot what he looked like.

Still, for all his discomfort, Han was happy not to be wearing one of the ooglith-masquer-like "brands" developed by Wraith Squadron's Baljos Arnjak and being worn by all the team members a.s.signed to killing the yammosk on Toong'l, which was guarded only by Yuuzhan Vong. Apart from the off-the-rack s.p.a.ceport terminal, Caluula was about as basic a world as Han had visited in a long while-a world where the stones that formed the walls of most buildings had been given shape by other stones, and where most of the human and humanoid population had more in common with the Yuuzhan Vong than they probably realized. It took him a moment to come to grips with the fact that on Caluula and hundreds of similarly primitive worlds, life simply went on.

Even though deprived of technology, even though forced to live in the shadow of new temples, beings fell in love, got married, had children, got into squabbles with their neighbors... They learned to adapt to new foods, use Yuuzhan Vong tools, swore allegiance to the new conquerors-even while continuing to worship their own G.o.ds in secret.

"Here come our guides," Page said.

A Rodian and a Ryn, they were wearing rustic trousers and shirts, beat-up footwear, fabric belts, and tight-fitting woven skullcaps. And clearly they were comfortable around the saddled mounts they rode and led. The size of small dewbacks, the long-snouted quadrupeds were nearly as s.h.a.ggy as banthas, but lacked horns or tusks of any sort.

"I'm Sa.s.so," the Rodian said as the pair came within earshot of Han and the others.

"Ferfer," the Ryn said under his breath, adding: "Gatherer one-six-four, out of Balmorra."

Han reached up to shake hands with the Ryn.

"How's your boss?"

"On the run," Ferfer said.

Han nodded, thinking of Droma, the Ryn who had befriended him at Chewbacca's death, and who was rumored to head the Gatherers.

"That figures."

As introductions were being made all around, Han found himself thinking that Sa.s.so and Ferfer reminded him of many of the folk he had had dealings with during his early years in the Corporate Sector-on Duroon, Deltooine, and other worlds. Folk who were often hardened by circ.u.mstance but true to their word. Lately when he wasn't thinking about the war or dwelling on the deaths of Anakin and Chewbacca, he would often catch himself reminiscing about the old days, or wondering what it would be like to return to the worlds of his youth without his tall, thick-furred sidekick, but with Leia and the kids. The person who had scammed his way through half the Outer Rim was very much alive inside him, and for all the lavish parties on Coruscant, the diplomatic affairs, state dinners, and royal weddings he'd been obliged to attend during the past twenty-some years, he was still more comfortable around beings like Sa.s.so and Ferfer than he was around Senators and princes, the wealthy and influential.

Weather-beaten faces and hands callused from hard work; the great outdoors instead of some refresher; food dug from the soil or yanked from the trees instead of factory-produced foodstuffs... Maybe someday he and Leia would get the chance, he told himself. Sa.s.so pointed him to his mount, which was known locally as a timbu. Han planted his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself onto the immense saddle. The timbu grunted and turned his big, floppy-eared head to regard Han through a liquid-black eye.

"Whatever you do, don't jerk the reins too hard," he told Leia as she nimbly mounted a smaller timbu. "Why, what happens?"

"Think about the worst gob of spittle you ever saw a tauntaun launch, then multiply that times ten."

"Scary."

"You've ridden a timbu before," Sa.s.so stated rather than asked.

Han nodded.

"On Bonadan."

The Rodian's tapered snout wiggled in a kind of smile.

"Terrific place."

Team Meloque moved out. Four-member bands of Yuuzhan Vong patrolled Caluula City's mostly unpaved streets, but the alleged scientists were allowed to pa.s.s without incident. On a lush common, two priests were overseeing a mixed group of locals and Yuuzhan Vong workers who were erecting a temple to Yun-Yuuzhan. Street and storefront electric lights had been ripped from their supports, and there wasn't a droid or a speeder to be seen.

"Welcome to the new galaxy," Kyp said.

"No slave coral," Leia said quietly.

Sa.s.so nodded. "That was one of the conditions of the surrender."

"How'd everyone feel about the surrender?" Page asked carefully.

"Let me put it this way," the Rodian said. "The governor no longer appears in public, and she's had the walls of her compound reinforced."

Han noticed that Page appeared to be right at home. He rode his timbu with practiced ease, and he knew which way to direct the beast even before the guides said anything. It was as if he had already memorized the layout of the streets and the topography of the planet. Han guessed that Page would be able converse in Caluulan if necessary, eat the food and drink the water without getting ill, catch the eye of the local women, make do as if he had been born and raised there. Wraw, in contrast, was clearly out of his element. The bristly-bearded Bothan had a habit of looking at everyone with what seemed like bemus.e.m.e.nt or mild derision, but his head fur betrayed none of the changes that were a characteristic of his species.

But Han had encountered the style before in individuals who had built their lives around inveigling secrets from others, and then seeing to it that those secrets reached the proper ears.

"How far to the yammosk?" Kyp asked Sa.s.so.

"The installation is practically the new city center-probably to discourage attempts at orbital bombardment. But our safest approach is from the south, which means crossing two ranges of hills to get there."

"The weapons are cached along our route?" Page said.

"There are weapons buried everywhere," Sa.s.so told him. "A soon as it became obvious that the Vong were interested in occupying Caluula, we began hiding as much as we could: blasters, foods, droids-you name it.

You can't dig a hole in the hills without uncovering one supply dump or another. By the time Caluula Station fell and the Vong were coming down the gravity well, we were already living like homesteaders."

"Surely the Yuuzhan Vong are aware of your actions," Meloque said.

"They are. But so far they haven't done much investigating. A few caches of arms and droids were discovered, and twenty Caluulans were sacrificed. But aside from that incident, things have been relatively quiet." Sa.s.so nodded his snout to indicate a change in direction. "We go this way."

"How soon before we'll begin to see winged-star sh.e.l.ls?" Meloque asked.

"As soon as we gain some elevation." Sa.s.so brought the train of eight timbus to a halt at the foot of a steep, uphill track that disappeared into a thickly forested ravine. A winged creature pa.s.sed soundlessly overhead, disappearing into the trees before Han could get a good look at it.

"Yuuzhan Vong biot," Ferfer said nervously. "We're being watched."

TWENTY-ONE.

Mirroring the sweeping curve of the planetary ring, the war vessels of the armada were spread above bright-side Yuuzhan'tar like fine grains of crystalline sand. Arrayed in battle groups and reprovision flotillas, each cruiser, carrier, and tender a.n.a.log had been branded with domain emblems and daubed with blood preserved from the sacrifice of the Alliance captives. Some of the vessels flew battle standards earned over countless generations. Others were necklaced hundreds strong with coralskippers. Behind the mica transparencies of observation blisters and resupply balconies, commanders and subalterns crouched on one knee, their heads lowered in obeisance, and their right fists pressed to the yorik coral decks.

There lazed Realm of Death, Blade of Sacrifice, River of Blood, Slayer's Conceit, Serpent's Kiss, and the pennant vessel, Yammka's Mount, commanded by Warmaster Nas Choka. Closer to orbitally altered Yuuzhan'tar, closer to the ma.s.sive dovin basals that were the planet's first line of defense, closer to the rainbow bridge-symbolic of Yun-Yuuzhan's traffic with the species he had created-floated the oblate yacht that had carried Shimrra and the nonwarrior elite from the surface.

Smeared with blood, the throne chamber of the yacht was also festooned with wreaths of thorn-vine and adorned with hundreds of delicately wrought fans, sacred to Yun-Yammka. In honor of the launching, all present in the chamber wore glistaweb armor, including Shimrra's prefects and seers, Qelah Kwaad and her chief shapers, High Priest Jakan, even preposterous Onimi.

The Supreme Overlord stood tall and self-possessed before a unique villip that forwarded his visage and words to every villip contained in every vessel, dedicated or choir member, warship or coralskipper.

"Yun-Yuuzhan, Great Maker," Shimrra murmured, "we beseech your blessing for these vessels we dispatch into the void, for their mission is yours also by injunction. With this final battle we fulfill our obligation to cleanse the realm you saw fit to provide us, to make it worthy, and in turn to be made worthy by victory of claiming it as our home. From this moment forward, we will set ourselves to the task of taking these humbled species under our wing, and of instructing them in the truth you bade our ancestors hear at the dawn of time.

"We pledge that from these beginnings we will carry our task through to completion, purging this realm of machines, and replacing them with our biological partners. When Yuuzhan'tar has been fully reshaped according to the ancestral architecture, and when temples to you and your sacrosanct domain crown the tops of the highest mountains and dominate the princ.i.p.al population centers of every occupied world, we will pet.i.tion that you judge our work one final time.

"The grand moment has arrived-the culmination of generations of voyage and discovery. Even now, in these unfamiliar skies, the ancestral galaxy moves into beneficent aspect with this newfound home. What was distant is near at hand, what was completed is begun anew."

In a blinding display of honor and power, the largest of the war vessels launched five thousand plasma missiles toward Yuuzhan'tar's primary. Then in groups, and led by Yammka's Mount, the armada began to move out, building momentum for the transition to darks.p.a.ce. Nom Anor watched from his a.s.signed place in the holy yacht, wondering what Nas Choka might be thinking. The outcome of the war and the future of the Yuuzhan Vong hinged on what would occur over the next quarter klekket.

The warriors and priests, lifted to ecstasy by days of fasting and dancing, were sanguine that the armada would prevail. But not everyone was so a.s.sured.

The consuls under Nom Anor's command, and the executors under their commands, had brought to his attention rumors of grave apprehension and doubt among the high caste. And beneath those vague rumblings, Nom Anor could feel the more sinister roiling of hatred among the dispossessed.

From beneath the bridge, from the dark underworld of Yuuzhan'tar, he could hear the clamor of angry voices, the words of the heretics growing louder and more forceful, venomous in the aftermath of the executions, the dissent spreading through the ranks, among not only the Shamed Ones but also others who had lost or were beginning to lose the faith in Supreme Overlord Shimrra.

A vast wave, building and building, threatening to break against the Yuuzhan Vong's every sh.o.r.e, to wipe the armada from the sky, and to pull into the depths the holy yacht and everyone aboard. Shimrra had told Nom Anor that his war was with the G.o.ds. But Shimrra had overlooked the real enemy-the enemy that surrounded him and on whose shoulders he stood.

Even Quoreal in his final days had not been the object of such suspicion and loathing. If it were left to the Shamed Ones, Nas Choka's mighty force would be routed at Mon Calamari, and Shimrra would be dragged from the throne by Yun-Shuno himself, to be devoured in public by packs of starved bissop hounds...

Nom Anor shifted his troubled gaze from the departing ships, and at the same moment Onimi shifted his, to needle Nom Anor with a meddlesome look. Nom Anor wondered if Onimi's olfactory sense was so keen that he could smell the fear coming off him. Perhaps that was just one of the reasons why Onimi's rhymes were so biting: because he could read subtle signals in all those who appeared before Shimrra.

Nom Anor stiffened in disgust and something close to dread as Onimi wobbled over to him from across the throne chamber.

"Be encouraged, Prefect," Onimi said in confidence. "As is true between the G.o.ds and the Yuuzhan Vong, Shimrra's strength flows from the combined cert.i.tude of his subjects. Falter, display doubt or weakness, and the careful balance may tip..."

Nom Anor sneered.

"Who are you to address me, Shamed One?"

Onimi's uneven mouth twisted into a frigid smile.

"Your conscience, Prefect. The still-small voice that reminds you how tenuous your position is."

Still wearing her silver-locked wig, Leia was deflating Han's and her sleeping pad when she saw Sa.s.so drop something by the smoldering campfire. A leathery creature about the size of a shock-ball, it looked like a villip with wings-and this one had been pierced by a wooden quarrel fired from the Rodian's crude bowcasterlike weapon.

"That's one that won't be able to report on us," Sa.s.so said, examining his fresh kill with the thoroughness of a born hunter. Leia went over to the fire to have a closer look at the dead creature.

"The biot we saw yesterday?"

"Maybe not the same one, but from the same flock."

Sa.s.so's green snout twitched.

"Got it on the first try. That's never happened before."

Leia regarded him questioningly.

"I hope you're not thinking of cooking it."

"I am curious... but no. I'm trying to decide whether to burn it or bury it."

"I vote for burning it," Han said from behind them. "Otherwise the bissops might be able to sniff it out."

Caluula's sun had been up for an hour, but the ravine's forest of cane trees was still waking up. Birds were abundant, and the flitnats-Leia's personal flitnats-had returned. Thanks to the netting supplied with the bedrolls, she and Han had slept flitnat-free and wonderfully, waking frequently if briefly to watch for shooting stars or listen to the calls of nocturnal creatures. Han had prepared breakfast over the fire, while she and Wraw had broken camp. It was an elemental life, but one she thought she could get used to. Under cover of darkness, Sa.s.so and the Ryn, Ferfer, had sneaked off to a nearby supply cache, and returned by first light with the bowcaster and a couple of weapons old enough to have been carried by Leia's adoptive father's bodyguards, including a thick-barreled blaster with a large hardwood handgrip; another with a finger-contoured grip and built-in scope; two black military-grade hand weapons with trigger guards and top-mounted heat radiators; and a rifle Han identified as a DC-15, with a folding stock.

The blasters were now stashed in the duffels, but not so deeply they couldn't be retrieved in a hurry. Meloque and the mustachioed Ferfer returned to camp just as Han and Wraw were about to secure the gear bags to the timbus. The docile animals were foraging for food in the tall gra.s.s. The stately Ho'Din female looked disappointed.

"Couldn't find any winged-star sh.e.l.ls?" Han said.

She shook her head.

"We found hundreds, but all of them were inactive. At least some should have opened by now."

"The weather has been off," Sa.s.so said.

"Hotter than usual for this time of year." Meloque considered it.

"I suppose that could account for it."

By firelight the previous evening, she had given everyone a biology lesson on the Nocturne of the Winged-Stars. Similar in appearance to the drone-flitters found on countless worlds, winged-stars emerged from chitinous sh.e.l.ls. Unique among flitters, however, Caluula's had but one day to perform their mating dances, display their celebrated luminosity, mate, and lay eggs, which would hatch 299 years later. The larval stage lasted less than a local week, at the end of which the surviving larvae would be encased in durable coc.o.o.ns. Those newly emerged winged-stars that weren't immediately devoured by flying lizards and other predators would die of natural causes by the time the sun set on the day of their emergence.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Meloque," Wraw said, "but unless you're aging more gracefully than a Wookiee, you've never actually observed a Nocturne."

"That's true," she told him. "But on Moltok we have been able to simulate the life cycle in controlled settings."

"Maybe the Yuuzhan Vong have something to do with the casings not opening on schedule," Han suggested. "They might have introduced some organism that's affected the ecology. Look what they did on Tynna and Duro. "

"I find that very improbable," Meloque said. "Those worlds were altered for strategic and logistical reasons, where a world like Caluula must please the Yuuzhan Vong to no end. For all the barbarity they've demonstrated, they have a reverence for life."

Wraw snorted.

"You sound like a sympathizer, Professor."