Everything here-the warriors, the dilating membranes, even the slayers'

amphistaffs-which means that their venom is probably also weakened."

"Slayers?"

"The enhanced warriors."

Han nodded.

"No wonder they were able to take us like they did." His eyes snapped open, as if he had just recalled something. "Sa.s.so. Ferfer."

"Dead," Leia said, almost swallowing the word.

Han hung his head, then stiffened in her embrace.

"Where are our weapons?"

Leia stretched out her arm.

"There."

Han followed her forefinger to where the weapons had been dumped in a heap on the far side of the chamber, close to where half a dozen Yuuzhan Vong guards were either dozing or pa.s.sed out. Every weapon, including the two lightsabers, was smeared with red blood, perhaps fresh from Sa.s.so and Ferfer.

"If this blorash keeps liquefying at the same rate," Leia said, "we should be free in no time."

She barely got the sentence out when Malik Carr shuffled into the chamber, accompanied by two ordinary warriors and a priest. The six sleeping warriors woke up and attempted to come to attention, but most of them were too weak to stand, let alone snap their fists in salute. Their amphistaffs sprawled sluggishly beside them.

"Stay where you are," Carr commanded, as the pair of warriors who braced him lowered him to a shallow step that encircled the yammosk basin. Seeming to sense the commander, the yammosk itself stirred, extending two tentacles over the rim of the basin and resting the tips on Carr's horned shoulders. The tentacles were a sickly shade of green and covered with large blisters. Carr caressed one of them.

Breathing laboriously, the priest picked up one of the military blasters and handed it to Carr, who, with some effort, squeezed off a bolt into the domed ceiling.

"Still functioning-as you appear to be," he said in Basic, gazing at his captives. His filmed eyes focused on Page. "And I thought Selvaris a terrible place. You've no obligation to tell me, Captain, but what is it that is peculiar to this cursed world that has brought illness and death on us?"

Page shook his head in ignorance.

"Maybe the insects we call winged-stars. But a lot of the ones we saw were also dead or dying. So are Caluula's flitnats."

"Something about their deaths, then," Carr mused. "If it's true, Captain, then you will have a powerful weapon to use against us. Although I heard rumor of one such weapon that affected our warriors on Garqi."

"Pollen," Wraw answered for Page. "The product of a semisentient tree from a world you destroyed. Ithor."

Carr struggled to make sense of it.

"Is there some relationship between those trees and the winged-star insects?"

"No," Meloque said.

Carr inhaled raggedly.

"I'm dying," he said in disbelief. "Neither in battle nor honorably, but of disease. Life turned against other life. It is something unknown to us, because we are symbiotic with all life-our biots, our weapons, our foodstuffs... We don't die of disease, or of starvation. Many of us live three times as long as the human species in this galaxy, and yet we have been felled by another living thing." He almost grinned. "Yun-Harla is either laughing or outraged. Who can tell anymore? I suppose I should take some measure of comfort in the fact that I will see all of you die first, but somehow the fight has gone out of me. You are infidels, yes. You are ignorant and primitive, and you have chosen to consort with machines, as if they were living beings. But though I pity you for that, I no longer hate you for it. However, you do need to die, if only on the off chance that your sacrifices will persuade the G.o.ds to spare the life of our war coordinator." He turned slightly and lifted his gaze, as if to the yammosk. "Are you even capable of directing a flight of coralskippers? I think not, poor creature. But I know that, like me, you will die trying."

The priest groaned in pain, doubled over, and collapsed on the floor. The six guards also appeared to have died. Thud bugs crept from the warriors' bandoliers and expired. Leia realized that the blorash had lost all its binding qualities. The entire place seemed to be dying at the same time. The yammosk issued an earsplitting screech of agony. Its tentacles flailed for several seconds; then the bloated beast bobbed lifelessly to the surface of the agitated pool.

Malik Carr hauled himself to his feet and lifted one of the amphistaffs, which hung over his hand like a length of rope.

"As docile as a mascot." He looked at Page. "You have won the day, Captain. I salute you."

The commander toppled like a tree. Page lifted himself from the jelly and hurried over to him. Kyp and Meloque clambered onto the step to regard the yammosk.

"It's dead," Meloque p.r.o.nounced.

A sudden commotion broke out in the antechamber. Kyp and Leia called their lightsabers to them, activating the blades while Page and Wraw hastened for the blasters.

"h.e.l.lo?" a voice called out. Into the basin room walked Lando Calrissian, Talon Karrde, and Shada D'ukal, wearing armorply combat suits, white helmets, and knee-high boots, and armed with lightweight blaster rifles. Lando's bipedal YVH 1-1A droid brought up the rear. The Hero of Taanab brought his fingertips to his brow in an informal salute.

"Kyp. Captain Page." He flashed his bright, trademark smile at Meloque. "Sorry, I haven't had the pleasure."

"Meloque," she told him.

"Agent Wraw," the Bothan said curtly, clearly vexed by the trio's sudden appearance.

Leia stared at them in astonishment.

"What in the galaxy..."

"Leia, so good to see you," Lando said. "We just wanted to show that the Smugglers' Alliance has more to offer than hunter-killer mouse droids. Booster, Mirax, and Crev Bomba.s.sa send their regards."

"Errant Venture is here?" she said, referring to Booster Terrik's personal Star Destroyer.

Karrde nodded.

"We came prepared to fight a war."

"What's the situation upside?" Page asked.

"Peaceful. We only had to deal with a small skip carrier and a couple of patrol craft."

"Patrol craft?" Page said. "Caluula was supposed to be a major staging area for Mon Calamari."

Lando nodded.

"That's what we thought." He glanced at Han. "Booster's not too happy having expended so much fuel on a mission Wild Karrde could have handled. In fact, we would have been here sooner, if we hadn't ended up in a firefight with the Peace Brigaders at the s.p.a.ceport."

"The Brigaders are all right? Healthy?" Meloque asked.

"Healthy enough to have delayed us," Karrde said. "Momentarily, that is."

Leia showed Han a skeptical look.

"You knew about this."

He shrugged.

"I didn't trust this whole operation from the start. I figured we'd been compromised somehow, so I wanted to make sure we had backup. Sorry I didn't tell you."

"That's against orders, Solo," Wraw said harshly. "So bring me up on charges when we get back to Mon Calamari."

"Don't think I won't try."

Lando glanced from the Bothan to Han.

"Has it been this way from the start?"

"Pretty much."

Lando watched Han struggle to his feet.

"Are you all right, Han?"

"He was bitten by an amphistaff whose venom wasn't working," Kyp said.

Lando glanced at Malik Carr, the priest, and the warriors.

"We've seen this everywhere we've been-at the s.p.a.ceport, in the streets... What's going on?"

Page gestured to the Yuuzhan Vong.

"They caught something. And not just the warriors. The yammosk, the weapons-"

"Oh, no," Kyp interrupted in a tone of tragic realization. "Oh, no." Blood rushed from his face, and his expression turned grim. "I know what happened here. I probably knew from the moment we saw the crashed coralskipper, but I didn't want to believe it." He looked at everyone.

"And may the Force help all of us if I'm right."

TWENTY-SIX.

Everyone was scrambling for shelter. From his perch on the rim of the abyss, Luke could see hundreds of Ferroans ma.s.sed at the mouths of the tunnels below, the combined light of dozens of glow sticks creating halos around each entrance. Through Magister Jabitha, Sekot had issued the alert that the planet was preparing to make a final jump to hypers.p.a.ce. Luke could feel Zonama shuddering as the core hyperdrives heated up. He could sense the tension and uncertainty in the boras, the seed-partners, the myriad creatures the vast tampasi supported.

He looked into the night sky. For no reason he could fathom, each jump seemed to have brought him closer to a familiarity that had nothing to do with star systems or planets. Even in the most remote realms of the Unknown Regions, his connection with the Force had never faltered. But with the previous jump he had begun to hear the whispers of his fellow Jedi, and their urgency told him that it was critical that he, Mara, and the others return. If the imminent jump didn't succeed, or if it should leave Zonama far from where Luke wanted the planet to emerge, then he would do as Mara had wished, and make use of Jade Shadow. He felt Jacen approach from behind him, but didn't turn from the view.

"Something has happened," he said finally.

"I feel it, Uncle Luke," Jacen said. "The Jedi, our friends..."

"It's not only them. The danger is widespread."

Jacen came alongside him. A gust of wind tugged at the cowl of his robe.

"Another Ithor? Another Barab One?"

"Not yet," Luke said. "But a new evil has been unleashed."

"By the Yuuzhan Vong?"

"By the dark side."

Jacen nodded.

"Your real enemy."

Luke turned to him.

"You should be thinking about your own course, Jacen, not mine."

Jacen exhaled with purpose.

"I have no one but you to look to, to know which path I should take. Our courses are entangled."

"Then I guess I'd better listen to what you've decided about me."

Jacen took a moment to collect his thoughts.

"From everything you've told me over the years about confronting your father and the Emperor, it has always seemed to me that neither of them was your real enemy. Each tried to entice you to join him. But they were never the source of your fear. You feared falling to the dark side."

Luke grinned faintly.

"Is that all?" he said finally.

Jacen shook his head.

"On Coruscant, at the ruins of the Jedi Temple, Vergere said that the Jedi had a shameful secret, and that secret was that there is no dark side. The Force is one. And since there are no separate sides, the Force can't take sides. Our notions of light and dark only reflect how little we know about the true nature of the Force. What we've chosen to call the dark side is simply the raw, unrestrained Force itself, which gives rise to life as easily as it brings death and destruction."

Luke listened closely. Now I shall show you the true nature of the Force, the Emperor had told him at Endor. On Mon Calamari, Vergere had tried to lead him down the same path, by implying that Yoda and Obi-Wan were to blame for not telling him the truth about the dark side. As a result of their neglect, when Luke had cut off his father's hand in anger, he a.s.sumed he had had a close brush with the dark side. When he stood at the side of the cloned Emperor, he had truly felt the dark side.

Ever since, he had come to equate anger with darkness itself, and he had pa.s.sed that along to the Jedi he had tutored. But in fact, according to Vergere, Luke had been misguided by his own ego.

She had maintained that, while darkness could remain in someone by invitation, it could just as easily be jettisoned by self-awareness. Once Luke accepted this, he would no longer have to fear being seduced by the dark side.

"You're suggesting that I've held myself back by not wanting to incorporate this raw power into my awareness of the Force," Luke said.

"Vergere received years of formal training in the Force," Jacen said. "The things she told me must have been common knowledge among the Jedi of the Old Republic."

"Vergere was corrupted by the years she spent living among the Yuuzhan Vong," Luke said evenly.