"I feel like we're coming to the end of a long voyage, Han, and I hate the fact that additional violence is the only thing that's going to get us there. It's like a final payment we have to make to conclude this thing, and to ensure that our children, and our children's children don't grow up with the threats we've been forced to face at every turn.

"I keep thinking that my father must have finally come to this point when he summoned the strength to save Luke from the Emperor. I know from her journal that my grandmother felt this way. And I have the strongest feeling that my mother must have also reached this stage-with war erupting all around her, her homeworld threatened... Is this what Jacen has been trying to tell us all along-that violence is never the answer, even if it seems the shortest and most direct path?"

Han shook his head.

"I don't know, Leia. But I know I'd die to give him and Jaina a better life than the one we've had." He smiled lopsidedly. "Even though I wouldn't change a day of it, because of you."

Leia nodded.

"I know. I know because I feel the same way, Han. I can't bear the thought of anything happening to you. Especially after what I saw you go through on Caluula-"

"Come on," he said, lifting her chin. "Look who you're talking to."

She smiled faintly, and sniffed.

"If bl.u.s.ter counts for anything, you'll outlive us all."

"Leia! Han!" Luke called out. "I want you to meet someone."

When they returned to the landing platform, Luke introduced them to some of Zonama Sekot's tall and pale-blue-complected indigenous residents-Ferroans-including a middle-aged woman he called Magister Jabitha.

"Sekot has agreed to fashion living ships for some of the Jedi,"

Jabitha told everyone gathered. "The process will require several days, but I promise you that it will be unlike anything any of you have ever experienced."

"Only three Jedi have ever gone through the process," Luke told Leia. "And only one of them ever piloted a Sekotan ship-Anakin Skywalker."

Our father! Leia realized. Her astonishment and elation endured for only a moment before the sadness returned. Ships, she told herself. Then it was to be war, after all. She had persuaded herself that Luke had found some other way to end the conflict. But she should have known better. The dark side was strong, and right thinking alone wasn't enough to abolish it. She struggled to resign herself to what lay ahead. For Luke, she forced a brave smile. Her brother's expression promised even greater surprises to come.

"There's someone else I want you to meet," he said for everyone to hear.

Turning to the Ferroans, he called one of them forward-a tall man, who lowered the hood of his cloak as he approached, revealing a face of tattoos and scars, a hint of nose, a sloping forehead... Leia felt Han tense beside her.

"This is Harrar," Luke said. "A high priest of the Yuuzhan Vong.

He, too, is going to help us end this war."

THIRTY.

"Our redemption is at hand!" the Shamed One cried from the mound of yorik coral rubble that was her momentary pulpit. Her rapt audience of a hundred or so heretics was sitting at the base of the mound, either oblivious or indifferent to the danger they had placed themselves in by gathering in broad daylight, in the midst of the sacred precinct, no less.

"Yu'shaa urged us to watch the sky for signs, and that sign has appeared for one and all to see!" She spread her emaciated arms wide.

"Gaze around you at what its coming wrought, and pray that Shimrra has taken its message to heart! The Shamed Ones have been granted a new home-and a more powerful one than Shimrra's. When the Prophet reappears to lead us to salvation, we will be ready!"

Seated atop the shaded litter Shimrra had sent to carry him to the Citadel, Nom Anor lowered his head by reflex, then resumed his upright posture. Though within earshot of the gathering, he was far enough removed not to have to worry about being identified, should Kunra or one of the other heretical leaders be lurking about. Besides, it would be only a matter of minutes before warriors arrived to disperse the crowd.

Despite the fact that Zonama Sekot had jumped into orbit between the system's sixth and seventh planets, aftershocks and tremors were continuing to rock Coruscant, and the living world remained visible as first to rise and brightest in the altered night sky. With one of Coruscant's moons whipped from orbit and the rainbow bridge collapsed, Shimrra's shapers were already positing that the celestial intruder would return to tug Coruscant gently away from its primary, reversing what dovin basals had done to raise the planet's surface temperature.

It was as if Zonama Sekot had proclaimed: Look at what I am capable of doing, and fear my return! Eager to launch an attack on the newly arrived enemy, Warmaster Nas Choka's armada and other battle groups had returned to Coruscant, only to be leashed by Shimrra himself. Coruscant, Nom Anor thought ruefully.

He had never been comfortable calling it Yuuzhan'tar-except, of course, when necessary. Shimrra's shapers might have fashioned a leafy ooglith cloaker for the planet, but scratch the surface and you found ferrocrete, transparisteel, kelsh, and meleenium-the foundations and skeletons of once-robust edifices and the corpses of thousands of droids.

Now more than ever-what with the remains of buildings protruding through the vegetation like bones through flesh in a compound fracture, and with each tremor exposing a bit more. Coruscant wasn't a living world like Zonama Sekot, but rather a kind of infidel worldship, shrouded in layers of technology, which-regardless of what anyone said-had a mind of its own. More, it was haunted by the members of the diverse species that had originally shaped it. And deep down, even deeper than the realms claimed by the heretics, machine systems were still operating. At night, if one listened closely, one could hear them coming on-line, moving about, humming and pinging like electronic ghosts...

Even discounting what he figured Jacen Solo had done to the World Brain, Coruscant could never have truly belonged to the Yuuzhan Vong.

Many of the workers were beginning to grasp this. Nom Anor read it in the eyes of those he had pa.s.sed on the littered journey from his residence.

Distraught folk extricating trapped creche members, searching in vain for keepsakes and valuables, offering blood sacrifices at the temples, hauling the dead to the maw luurs...

Shimrra's Citadel and the huge hemisphere of coral that protected the World Brain had survived, but many secondary structures and hundreds of minshals, damuteks, and grashals had been toppled. Forests had been flattened, and intense electrical storms had ignited countless fires. In remote areas of the planet, lava gushed from what had once been leveled and tamed mountains. Sgauru and Tu-Scart had been loosed on the sacred precinct to dismantle structures on the verge of collapse.

Ngdins writhed about, sopping up blood. Everything standing had been adorned with flowers and ferns, in an effort to keep further destruction from being visited by the lowest and most feared in the pantheon of G.o.ds. Most Yuuzhan Vong had little conception of what had happened. Except, of course, for the heretics, who had their own ideas, most of which had been inspired by Nom Anor himself.

"Brought into being by Yun-Shuno, in defiance of the other G.o.ds,"

the haggard Shamed One was saying, "the living world is a sign that the old order has come undone. And much like Yun-Shuno, we stand in defiance of Shimrra and the elite, demanding equality, freedom, and salvation!

"It is not our aim to engage the elite in contest. But we are prepared to revolt if they fail to prevail upon Shimrra to end the long war. Clearly the G.o.ds have switched sides, and now stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jeedai and the varied species of this galaxy. This galaxy Shimrra bade us invade; this promised galaxy he bade us purge and purify. In truth, this galaxy that will prove a maw luur for the Yuuzhan Vong, unless we embrace the truth!" A professional dissembler, Nom Anor couldn't help but have a grudging respect for what the heretics were attempting to do by playing on the fears Zonama Sekot's unforeseen appearance had awakened in the elite. The secret supporters of Quoreal were adding fuel to the fire by disclosing information about Shimrra and how he had come to power. Even so, Nom Anor had to wonder what the heretics expected to happen should the elite agree to ally with them. Perhaps they actually believed that Shimrra could be persuaded to make a peace overture to the Galactic Alliance, and that the Alliance would allow the Yuuzhan Vong to retain Coruscant for themselves, since the planet at least appeared to be beyond restoration.

But the heretics weren't fools. Surely they realized that the warrior caste would never acquiesce. Nas Choka's forces would battle to the last war vessel and warrior. Perhaps the heretics were counting on just that, if only to increase the chances of the other castes being spared.

But spared for what? Eminent or Shamed, those Yuuzhan Vong who survived the war would be packed into what few worldships existed and returned to the void from which they had emerged, doomed to die in deep s.p.a.ce, rather than on the living world they saw as the province of their nonexistent Yun-Shuno.

It was pathetic. The heretics' only real hope was that Shimrra would turn Nas Choka loose, and that the Alliance-and Zonama Sekot-would be defeated. Once more the heretics would be forced to accept their lot as Shamed Ones, but at least they would be alive. Nom Anor certainly felt that way. You did whatever you had to do to survive. The sound of running feet echoed from the tumbled walls, and a moment later several dozen warriors rushed onto the scene.

Without preamble they moved against the gathering of heretics, launching thud bugs and lashing out with amphistaffs, sending a fortunate few scurrying back into the creva.s.ses from which they had crawled, and leaving the paving stones spattered with blood. Struck by no fewer than four amphistaffs, the female orator was dragged roughly from her perch to the base of the rubble mound, where ultimately she collapsed in a spasming heap.

Everyone was willing to be martyred now, Nom Anor thought as he signaled his litter bearers to hurry him on his way. Word had reached the prefectory that a few bands of heretics had even forged tenuous alliances with resistance fighters. It was the duty of the intendant caste to quell the riots and put the populace at rest, but with the heretics emboldened to turn every public s.p.a.ce into a gathering, the task had become near impossible.

As had become Nom Anor's personal tasks. Without doubt, Kunra was expecting him to return to lead the heretics in open revolt, just as Drathul was expecting him to join the pro-Quoreal confederates in unmasking Shimrra. The high prefect hinted that they were ready to enthrone a new Supreme Overlord-a.s.suming, of course, that Shimrra hadn't already executed the handful of candidates.

It was what Nom Anor would have done. For absent a worthy replacement-one who would find instant favor with the G.o.ds-the high priests would be reluctant to remove Shimrra, regardless of what was brought to light about the lies he had fostered. The only question that mattered to Nom Anor was why he had been summoned to the Citadel. When the litter bearers had first arrived at his residence, he was certain that Shimrra had ordered his death for failing to have kept Zonama Sekot in the Unknown Regions. He had briefly considered fleeing into the underground and taking up the threadbare robes of the Prophet again.

But the more thought he gave the matter, the more confident he grew that his safety was a.s.sured. Shimrra had never believed that the living world wouldn't return at some point; its sudden appearance now was nothing more than bad timing. More important, while Shimrra might very well be displeased, he was in no position to announce that he knew about Zonama Sekot-not without risking an uprising by the elite. Shimrra's best approach would be to deny any knowledge of the initial contact with the living planet fifty years earlier. Failing that, he could claim to have been led astray by priests he had since put to death.

But one thing he couldn't do was admit to having had an audience with Commander Ekh'm Val, or of having put Val to death to keep the secret of Zonama Sekot. The solution would have been simple if Nom Anor had been the only person who knew about Val. But, in fact, High Prefect Drathul and perhaps dozens of others also knew about the late commander's mission to the Unknown Regions.

And if Nom Anor was wrong, and he actually was riding to his death, well, there were always ways to escape the Citadel...

"I commanded the litter bearers to make haste, Dread Lord," Nom Anor said, prostrate on the unyielding floor, "so that I might serve you all the faster."

Nom Anor could feel the force of Shimrra's enhanced vision as the Supreme Overlord gazed down from the throne in his private chambers in the crown of the Citadel.

"Let us see how quick you can be, Prefect, by telling me why I sent for you."

"Because I have failed you again, Lord. About Ebaq Nine I was duped; at Zonama Sekot I evidently did less than I should have. The living world is here, and now Yuuzhan'tar itself is threatened. Death, and nothing less, is all I warrant."

"Probably so," Shimrra said. "But not because of the arrival of Zonama Sekot. For that, it is the G.o.ds who have failed me."

With his face pressed to the floor, Nom Anor's baffled expression was hidden from view. Although out of the corner of his eye, he could see Onimi, kneeling down as if to get a closer look at his face.

"The G.o.ds, Lord?" Shimrra issued a short laugh. "You are unrivaled, Prefect. Even in this darkest hour your skepticism holds fast. You accept as truth only what your one eye shows you." He paused, then said, "You are hardly the coward many accuse you of being. And perhaps there is even a bit of wisdom in you-though I fear you do a disservice to yourself.

Rise and look upon me."

Nom Anor took a quick glance around as he was getting to his feet.

The room was absent priests, attendants, slayers, or courtesans. It was just the three of them.

"I'm certain you remember that I told you our real war was with the G.o.ds."

"I remember, Lord."

"And I'm equally certain you dismissed my words as those of someone deranged."

"Never-" Shimrra waved him silent. "I ask now that you consider all that has transpired these past few klekkets. As one whose own efforts have been undone time and again by the Jeedai, ask yourself if there is not the hand of a grand master at work here-a G.o.d's hand, if you will."

Recognizing the rhetorical nature of the question, Nom Anor said nothing.

"You and I know exactly what Zonama Sekot is. There is no denying the truth of it, and no denying the threat it represents to everything I have attempted to bring about in this galaxy. You told me that you had sabotaged the world, and I do not doubt that you tried. And yet it outwits us again."

Nom Anor waited.

"The G.o.ds deliberately saved it," Shimrra said. "They spared it your treachery, and they placed it in the hands of the Jeedai." He shook the Scepter of Power in anger. "This is an act of war on their part!

Their salvo against those who would retire them and rule in their stead!"

Fortunately, Shimrra wasn't expecting a response, because Nom Anor was speechless.

"It follows then, that if we destroy Zonama Sekot once and for all we will not only have defeated the Jeedai, but will have also vanquished the G.o.ds themselves!" Shimrra waved the formidable-looking amphistaff again. "To do that we must respond with a salvo of our own. If I can't divest the G.o.ds of their power over us, then I can at least attempt to turn them against one another!"

"How, Lord?" Nom Anor asked in complete befuddlement.

Shimrra glared at him.

"I am granting you special powers as my envoy. High Prefect Drathul will hear this from my own lips. As my envoy, it will be your duty to inform the priests in all the temples that they are to cease performing rituals to Yun-Yuuzhan and Yun-Yammka, and instead to devote all their labors to venerating Yun-Harla."

"But the Trickster is believed by many of the priests to have already played a role in our setbacks," Nom Anor said. "In the Hapes Consortium and at Borleias... The Jeedai Jaina Solo even masqueraded as her, and outlived Tsavong Lah!"

"All the better, then," Shimrra replied calmly, "because already Yun-Harla's head swells with conceit. The G.o.ds are already jealous of her, and now we will give them something to get angry about. We will do to them precisely what they did to us during the voyage through the void-set them against one another. Then, while they are occupied fighting among themselves, while their attention is diverted from us, we will strike at Zonama Sekot and be finished with all of them!"

Nom Anor nodded, trying hard to keep uncertainty from the gesture.

Onimi was regarding Shimrra with what might have been incredulity, but looked more like misgiving. For one brief instant Onimi's eyes met Nom Anor's, and that sense of apprehension was communicated. If it hadn't been obvious before, it was obvious now that Shimrra was beyond control-deranged. Events had conspired to make a believer out of one who had long prided himself on being the master of his own destiny. Nom Anor had never experienced a sadder moment, and he knew suddenly that all was lost.

Kunra and Drathul were already breathing down his neck, and now Shimrra had added his breath to the mix. He would carry out Shimrra's ridiculous edict, even though there was little point in doing so. But he no longer trusted that Shimrra would come up with a final surprise to spring on the Alliance.

Nom Anor's only option was to return to the sensibility he had shucked at Zonama Sekot. He needed to think only of himself. Survival was in his own hands. He had come full circle to the very place he had found himself in after Ebaq 9. It was Nom Anor against everyone: Shimrra, Drathul, Kunra, the Jedi, Zonama Sekot, the universe. His fight was with all of them, and yet with none of them. He wanted nothing more than simply to disappear.

THIRTY-ONE.

With the Yuuzhan Vong armada regrouped at Coruscant, Errant Venture was able to reach Contruum without incident. No sooner had the Star Destroyer reverted from hypers.p.a.ce on the frontier of Contruum's dense system of inhabited worlds than Booster Terrik sought out Luke and Mara in the main docking bay, where Jade Shadow was already being prepped for launch.

"Alliance command has ordered us to hold at Contruum Six," the ample Corellian said as he approached the warming ship. "Guess the invitation you received doesn't extend to friends."

Corran Horn's father-in-law, Terrik, had a ready smile and a pirate's glint in his rheumy eye.

"We can fix that," Luke started to say.

Booster waved in dismissal, "Don't bother. But after not being allowed to park on Zonama Sekot, I'm beginning to feel unwanted." He laughed affably to let them know he wasn't serious. "At least Lando managed to smuggle his brandy planetside."

The immense hold was stacked high with cargo containers of every conceivable shape and size. In the launching bays sat Lando and Tendra's Lady Luck and Talon's Wild Karrde, along with dozens of motley starfighters-everything from retrofitted Headhunters to uglies-the owners of which had attached themselves to the Smugglers' Alliance after the fall of Coruscant. Crev Bomba.s.sa, Talon, and Lando stood at the perimeter of Jade Shadow's landing platform.

Mara walked to the open hatch, where Booster was extending his meaty hand to Luke.

"Take care of yourself, Luke. And remember to put in a good word for us with Wedge. After coming this far, I'm not about to sit out the big one. "

"We'll do what we can," Luke said. "But we've been away for almost a year. I'm not expecting an especially warm reception."

He turned to Lando and the others and nodded his head in good-bye.

Mara walked up the ramp and Luke followed her into the ship. Kenth, Cilghal, and Madurrin were in the forward cabin, strapping in, and R2-D2 was waiting in the c.o.c.kpit. Mara dropped herself into the pilot's chair and without another word lifted Jade Shadow through the docking bay's magcon field. The several battle groups that made up the Galactic Alliance fleet were arrayed around Contruum 6.

A small, frosty planet with only two major cities, 6 was a microjump from the Perlemian Trade Route, and two from the Hydian Way.

Mara hadn't seen so many warships gathered in one place for a long while, and the sight gave her pause, especially after the long months on Zonama Sekot. One small light moving among hundreds of others, Jade Shadow began to close on the white behemoth that was Ralroost.

"The Yuuzhan Vong have done the impossible," Luke said. "They've united the galaxy."

"Nothing like war to bring folks together," Mara said.

Everyone rose as Luke, Mara, and the other Jedi entered Ralroost's war room.

"Wonderful to see you safe and sound," Admiral Traest Kre'fey said from his position of prominence at the head conference table.