Some of the red-orange light Leia had observed was the product of ma.s.sive patches of bioluminescent lichen that crusted the walls of the humid well. But most of it came from the pool, as huge bubbles broke the misted surface, washing the Rotunda with flares of scarlet and starflower yellow. Resembling nothing so much as an everted human stomach, the tentacled creature responsible for the explosive globules was thrashing about like a hooked fish. Recalling what Harrar had said about the Well actually being a self-contained sphere, capable of surviving even the destruction of Coruscant, Han couldn't help feeling that the entire quaking structure was either about to explode or lift off.

Considering the grip Leia had on his right bicep, she evidently felt the same. Han glanced at the shaper, then Harrar.

"What's it going to be?" Harrar exchanged a flurry of sharp words with Qelah Kwaad.

"She says that only Shimrra can communicate directly with the dhuryam. " Han scowled. "Yeah, well, Shimrra's not here, so she's going to have to take a crack at it." Reaching out, he grabbed the shaper by the arm and flung her to the edge of the platform. "Maybe if I just send you for a swim-"

"No!" Qelah Kwaad said in Basic. "The dhuryam cannot be touched!

Take your hands from me and I promise to do what I can."

"I figured you'd listen to reason," Han said, grinning as he let go.

The shaper composed herself and leaned over the pool. Sweat began to bead her trestled brow, then fall into the agitated pool. Almost immediately the dhuryam breached the surface-a yellow eye as big as a starfighter glaring up at those on the platform. Then its mate appeared, blinking and fixing on everyone. A spray of powerful tentacles surrounding the creature's mouth sliced through the humid air, faster than Han's eyes could follow.

"Seems a bit upset," he said, backing away from the edge and readying the detonator's thumb trigger. Inside the dhuryam's tentacle-ringed mouth gnashed giant teeth shaped like swords.

"Perhaps we should all wait outside," C-3PO started to say.

Then all at once the Well stopped shaking, and the dhuryam grew quiescent. Two of the longer tentacles stretched out to touch Qelah Kwaad, then Harrar, in what seemed a display of submission or compliance.

The shaper and the priest traded looks of incredulity.

"It's as pliant as a young yammosk," Harrar said. Han thumbed the grenade's arming trigger forward.

Leia blew out her breath in relief.

"Jacen talked to it."

Qelah Kwaad ridiculed the idea.

"If anyone convinced the dhuryam to yield, it was the Supreme Overlord. He knows that whatever you do here won't matter, because we will have proved our worthiness, and the G.o.ds will rid this galaxy of all infidels."

Harrar shook his head ruefully.

"If the G.o.ds judged us by our military might, they would never have banished us from paradise."

The shaper sniffed in derision.

"This war will take care of itself. We prove our worth by destroying Zonama Sekot." She held Harrar's gaze. "It is not long for this galaxy, Eminence. The Supreme Overlord discovered a way to poison it."

"Shimrra lies," Harrar said.

Mara shoved Nom Anor forward.

"The shaper's right," she said in a grim voice. "Nom Anor can explain. "

At Zonama Sekot the battle had reached a fevered pitch. One thousand kilometers from the living world the Hapan line was holding, but three additional Yuuzhan Vong battle groups had arrived from Muscave to strengthen the original task force. The double hulls of many a Battle Dragon were perforated, or showed great crescents at their edges where plasma b.a.l.l.s had seared through failing shields. Similarly overwhelmed, several Nova-cla.s.s cruisers had been snapped in half or blown to pieces.

Because his fighter was without display screens of any sort, Kyp was left to imagine the intense fighting, but Lando had painted a vivid picture when he had commed Kyp from Errant Venture.

Booster's Star Destroyer had been forced to retreat, with both Lady Luck and wild Karrde back on board, and six Smugglers' Alliance ships unaccounted for. Under the joint command of Wedge Antilles and Keyan Farlander, elements of the Alliance Second Fleet had withdrawn from the engagement at Muscave and launched for Zonama Sekot, but without the blessings of Kre'fey and Sovv.

With the shielding dovin basals at Coruscant overcome and thousands of commandos streaking for the surface, the two admirals had counseled for a full-scale invasion. In contrast, Warmaster Nas Choka seemed to be concentrating the armada's swiftest vessels at Zonama Sekot, as if the planet was somehow the key to winning the war. The fear among the Jedi pilots of the Sekotan fighters was that the Yuuzhan Vong knew something about Alpha Red that the Alliance didn't. Perhaps winged-stars and flitnats weren't the only life-forms that were susceptible to the bioengineered toxin, and all of Zonama Sekot was at risk.

Word that an enemy vessel contaminated with Alpha Red had been spotted flying with the original task force had placed the Ted' the offensive. Although Jabitha had been unable to contact Sekot since, the planet showed signs of having grasped the enormity of the unforeseen threat. Columns of fiery devastation half a kilometer wide were streaming upward from summits of skysc.r.a.ping mountains, boiling through layers of gauzy ice clouds to vaporize attacking coralskippers and picket vessels.

Scores had already fallen to Zonama's wrath, and scores more stood at the threshold of annihilation. Defending close to the surface, Kyp would no sooner conclude one duel than another would present itself. Now that he and his ship had finally gotten to know each other, the fighter was responding to his every whim.

But the Jedi fighters were only a dozen against hundreds, and skips were breaking through the Hapan cordon to a.s.sail the planetary weapons emplacements or make strafing runs through the deep canyons of the Middle Distance, where most of the Ferroans were holed up in the shelters. No less overwhelmed, Corran, Saba, Alema, and the others were streaking in and out of contests, their ships darting above the boras like soldier hornets protecting a nest.

As had so often happened in previous battles, the Yuuzhan Vong were slowly gaining the upper hand through sheer determination and the strength of numbers. Whether the unrelenting a.s.sault echoed the will of the individual pilots or the resoluteness of the controlling yammosk, the invaders were finding soft spots and creating openings, to a.s.sure that the Alpha Red-poisoned craft would reach the surface intact. Kyp was drawing on his ship's extraordinary speed to intercept a pair of coralskippers when a sudden coolness enveloped his right hand-the hand that the control console had engulfed, and was in fact his interface with the ship.

Almost instantly the fighter began to shed velocity and grow unresponsive. Kyp pressed the control stick trigger. Though the launchers were far from depleted, they refused to fire. Sensing that something had changed, the skip pilots began to harry him with plasma fire. With maneuverability lost, only the organic shields were keeping the ship from being destroyed. Kyp's first instinct was to blame himself. His ego had crept back into the fight, and he had lost his rapport with the ship as a result. Or maybe he had been doing too much thinking.

The frequent updates from Lando, the comm chatter with Corran and the other Jedi, the upsurge in the savagery of the fighting since word of the poisoned ship had been received...

Then Kyp realized that it wasn't only his ship that had powered down. Throughout the fire-fractured sky other Sekotan ships were abbreviating their duels. The comlink grew noisy with reports from Corran, Zekk, Lowbacca, and Saba, confirming that their fighters, too, were no longer responding. Chased by the same pair of coralskippers, Kyp swooped through evasive turns that took him over a sawtoothed mountain range just south of the Middle Distance, which had been responsible for some of the heaviest outpourings of defensive fire.

Now, though, even some of those summit weapons were beginning to fall silent. Above Kyp, flights of emboldened skips were plunging deeper into the gravity well.

"The craft Lando reported seeing at Caluula could have been a decoy," Corran said to Kyp over the comlink. "The Alpha Red vessel could have already crashed on the surface."

"That would explain why no one's been able to communicate with Sekot," Kyp said. "The planet's already poisoned."

"Then the war is lost for everyone."

Kyp gritted his teeth.

"I'm not about to see another world die, Corran."

"You and me both."

FORTY.

The final curve of the Citadel stairway terminated in a immense interior s.p.a.ce with a convex ceiling of yorik coral as jagged as the hulls of Yuuzhan Vong war vessels. A wide circular aperture at the ceiling's lowest point was the mouth of the turbolift a.n.a.log chute Jacen had detected with his Vongsense.

Bioluminescent wall lichen projected a pool of green on the floor directly below the opening. Jacen was certain that the chute accessed the crown of Shimrra's holy mountain, but the dovin basal that controlled the chute was either malfunctioning or refusing to admit anyone other than Yuuzhan Vong, because nothing happened when Luke positioned himself in the shaft of olive light.

"I guess we climb," he told his niece and nephew.

Abandoning the watch for Yuuzhan Vong warriors, they turned to see Luke spring high into the chute. At the apex of his leap he pressed his back to the curved wall and his feet opposite. Then he began to chimney himself along. Jaina and Jacen followed, recognizing that they were in some sense leaving the Citadel itself and entering an enormous escape vessel, much like the one Jacen had described as encompa.s.sing the World Brain. Ascending through an outer sh.e.l.l of yorik coral, they pa.s.sed through a layer of metal-bearing nacelles, wrapped around the vigorous organisms that had created them.

Next came a layer of nutrient capillaries, then one of musculature and tendons. Ultimately they emerged in an antechamber with a vaulted ceiling and great curving walls, the innermost of which contained a large but unadorned osmotic membrane. Jacen wasn't surprised to find the antechamber unoccupied.

"Shimrra's expecting us," he said. Jaina tightened her ringed grip on the pommel of her lightsaber.

"We should at least announce ourselves," Luke said.

He aimed the tip of his lightsaber at the membrane. Jacen and Jaina brought their lightsabers close to his, and the three of them pushed the glowing blades through. A rancid smell permeated the antechamber, and the thick membrane began to melt. Finally the lock retracted with an audible pop! Luke gestured for Jaina and Jacen to withdraw to either side of the opening, and not a second later a shower of thud bugs whizzed out into the antechamber, caroming off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The three Jedi raised their blades, deflecting some of the winged creatures back through the portal, stunning others, and killing the few that remained.

While Jaina was dispatching the last of them, Luke whirled and leapt through the opening. Landing in a crouch five meters from the membrane, he held the lightsaber in a one-handed grip extended to his right and slightly behind him.

Jacen was the next through, a.s.suming a bent-legged forward stance, with his blade held straight out in front of him. Then Jaina came through, moving swiftly but vigilantly to Luke's left side, with her blade raised over her right shoulder. Though the floor was level, the walls of Shimrra's circular, high-ceilinged lair were curved. A simple throne occupied the center of a raised dais that was encircled by a shallow moat flowing with what might have been diluted Yuuzhan Vong blood.

The far wall contained a much more elaborate entry portal, and to the right of the throne a stairway climbed into the summit of the Citadel, presumably to the command and control areas of the escape vessel itself. Between the moat and the Jedi stood fifteen warriors of modest stature, arrayed in a semicircle and armed with hissing amphistaffs.

They affected no armor, but their burnished and blood-smeared flesh looked as impenetrable as vonduun crab topsh.e.l.ls. Luke recognized them from Han and Leia's description as examples of the specially engineered warriors they had faced on Caluula, and against whom even Kyp had failed.

The slayers presented a daunting obstacle, but they were surpa.s.sed by the one they were deployed to protect.

When Luke had been brought before the Emperor, Palpatine's visage had been familiar to him from images that had reached even remote Tatooine, and his inherent power was immediately evident.

The Supreme Overlord, however, was a void Luke could not fathom. He wasn't a sh.e.l.l of a human in a hooded cloak, more energy than flesh. Nor was his face that of a Sith Master, prematurely wizened by years of calling on dark power.

Instead, Shimrra was very much alive and all the more intimidating for it. In him was concentrated the combined strength of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and if he couldn't be defeated, then all that Luke had done to reach this point would amount to nothing. He was the largest Yuuzhan Vong Luke had ever seen, with lean limbs, a ma.s.sive head, and an upper body so thoroughly branded and tattooed it was impossible to distinguish flesh from garment.

Widely placed, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed in shifting colors. He wore a ceremonial cape made of tanned hide. Curled sedately around his left forearm was a thick-bodied amphistaff with an intricately patterned head. Only in his bemus.e.m.e.nt was Shimrra similar to the enemy Luke had confronted at Endor, on the incomplete Death Star.

Much as the Emperor had trusted in the power of the dark side of the Force, the Supreme Overlord trusted entirely in the power of the G.o.ds. And similar to that pivotal moment in the Galactic Civil War, a battle was raging in the skies.

But Shimrra's lair permitted no view of the contest; only the m.u.f.fled sounds of distant explosions infiltrated the sealed s.p.a.ce. If Luke was at all worried about Jaina and Jacen, if he had any regrets about having brought them to the very heart of the war, he kept his concerns so deeply to himself that they could not be felt by his charges, even through the Force. The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.

Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force. Shimrra's warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other G.o.ds. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear-only the full measure of their intent to protect their G.o.d-king at all costs.

"The Master and the twins," Shimrra murmured from the throne, in pa.s.sable Basic. "How long we have antic.i.p.ated this meeting."

"As we have," Luke answered.

Shimrra beckoned with the fingers of his left hand.

"Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai."

Luke stayed put-and yet something began to move him forward. Just short of the moat, and much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the slayers, he dropped to his knees, and bent at the waist. His extended left arm shook as it fought to prevent him from pressing his face to the floor, and the lightsaber was nearly yanked from his grip.

It's not Shimrra, Jacen said through the Force.

A dovin basal, Luke guessed. He sensed Jacen abandon the meld momentarily, presumably to call on his Vongsense to disable the gravitic powers of the biot. Luke began to feel as if he were shedding weight by the second. Gradually, he raised his face to Shimrra, then-and as if defying gravity-he drew himself erect with a proud air.

Incredulity almost raised Shimrra out of his throne. For a split second his glowing eyes fell on Jacen, who by then had returned to the Force-meld. Jaina and Jacen sidestepped away from Luke to create three separate fronts. Then Luke did something neither twin had ever seen him do. Shifting his stance, he called the lightsaber into his left hand.

Abandoning form, he encouraged the warriors to attack him. In swift response the fifteen divided themselves into three groups of four, four, and seven.

The quartets began to square off with Luke and Jacen, while the larger group formed up opposite Jaina. Seeing that Luke and Jacen were the stronger fighters, the slayers had decided to reserve most of their might for the Jedi they perceived as being the weakest, guessing that Luke and Jacen would always go to Jaina's aid before attempting to reach Shimrra.

No one moved.

Just when it seemed that the moment would be forever frozen in time, the slayers charged, some with amphistaffs stiffened, others unfurling them like whips, and still others prompting their weapons to spit venom. There were no attempts to engage Luke, Jacen, or Jaina in single combat for personal glory, as had happened on Yag'Dhul and other worlds.

The war had gone on too long. All that mattered now was that the conflict be decided, and that there be winners and losers. Luke's lightsaber was a blur of pure energy as he parried a four-p.r.o.nged attack.

His blade found exposed flesh time and again, but the slayers sustained each searing blow without surrendering ground. The amphistaffs hammered at the lightsaber with such force that flashes of blinding radiance filled the room, projecting giant silhouettes up along the curved walls. In an attempt to forge a united front, and despite battling warriors on three sides, Luke and Jaina began to move toward one another. For a moment, several slayers found themselves trapped between the two Jedi and the lashing movements of their comrades' amphistaffs. Pierced simultaneously from either side, one warrior dropped to the floor; then a second. Luke vaulted through a half-twisting front flip that landed him back to back with Jaina, killing a third warrior on the way down, with a strike to the top of the head. With some effort, Luke saw Jacen through the Force, pressed hard by the four slayers who had dedicated themselves to him.

Again Luke leapt, swinging his blade through the air and cleaving the neck of the most formidable of the slayers attacking his nephew. Two slender amphistaffs shot for Luke's legs, but he managed to jump over both, as if skipping rope, then decapitated the slower amphistaff before it could withdraw. A coufee swooshed through the air millimeters from his right ear. Crouching, he extended one foot and pivoted on the other, knocking feet out from under the knife wielder, then amputating the warriors left foot with a return swing of the lightsaber.

Seeing an opening, Luke made a move for Shimrra-only to be dragged down by the dovin basal. Immediately, he rolled to one side, toppling two slayers and removing himself from the gravity field. Jacen leapt to Jaina's side of the bunker, and the two of them began working in concert to drive a trio of warriors back toward the moat that encircled Shimrra's throne.

One of the slayers nearly stumbled into the flow, but caught himself in time. Surging after him, Jacen swung his blade through a backhanded crosscut, which the warrior parried, then answered with a fast chop aimed at Jacen's left knee. Jacen jumped straight up, but not quickly enough, and the amphistaff struck him on the ankle. Landing off balance, he staggered into the wall. Two warriors hurried after him, but made it only halfway when the entire bunker tipped to the right.

The unexpected movement sent everyone, slayers and Jedi alike, scurrying, sailing, and tumbling into the opposite wall. As if mounted on gimbals, the bunker tipped again, this time in the direction of the ruined osmotic membrane, bunching everyone against that wall. Guessing that Shimrra was responsible, Luke spared a glance at the throne.

The Supreme Overlord's clawed hands were indeed in motion, but the expression on Shimrra's face was one of benign bafflement. The dhuryam, Jacen sent through the Force. Luke understood.

The World Brain, joining the Shamed Ones in revolt, was causing the entire Citadel to shake, perhaps by rocking the cradle to which it was wed, or by some means beyond Luke's imagining. Self-contained, the bunker was attempting to keep itself level. But cut off from the dhuryam, it couldn't antic.i.p.ate the Citadel's behavior.

Shimrra's hand movements were just that-the idle flutters of a G.o.d-king who was forced to accept that he had lost his most powerful ally and weapon. Without the dhuryam's cooperation, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan'tar. Even if victorious in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong would have failed to re-create their ancestral homeworld.

And yet there was a look in Shimrra's blazing eyes that promised Luke he had not seen the last of the Supreme Overlord's tricks. Shimrra was concealing something-a secret of such power that it enabled him to remain seated on his throne, even with his world teetering around him.

Luke noticed then, for the first time, that Shimrra wasn't alone on the dais.

Behind the throne crouched another Yuuzhan Vong, whose asymmetrically swollen head and downcast features identified him as a Shamed One. Aware that he had been glimpsed, the Shamed One withdrew into the shadow cast by the throne, as if in an attempt to make himself small and unnoticeable. But Luke had no time to think further about Shimrra's companion.

The bunker was suddenly in motion again. The Yuuzhan Vong armada had suffered grievous losses at Muscave, but not nearly to the extent the Alliance had suffered.

Molten blobs that had been starfighters and frigates drifted aimlessly against the distant backdrop of stars. The hulks of Alliance warships, nimbused by escape pods, languished. The battle would go down in history as second only to the epic confrontation that ended the Cremlevian War. And the name Nas Choka would join the revered ranks of Yo'gand and other legendary warriors. The warmaster left the command chamber's blister transparency to stand before the villip visages of the six Supreme Commanders he had tasked with defeating Zonama Sekot.

"The surface-based weapons have fallen silent," Supreme Commander Tivvik reported. "The living ships it threw into its sky have lost their wings and are going to ground like a flock of exhausted birds. Fearsome One, the planet is beaten."

Nas Choka's expression betrayed neither satisfaction nor doubt.

"Press the attack," he said evenly. "The mataloks of Domains Tivvik and Tsun will escort the dying craft to the surface. All other vessels will withdraw to avoid contagion. The pilots of any coralskippers remaining in the atmosphere of the living world after the poison has delivered are commanded to drive themselves into the planet and destroy themselves. No vessel that has had close contact with the dying craft can be permitted to survive."

"Your will be done, Warmaster."

"May our deaths serve to harden your victory," Supreme Commander Sla Tsun added.

Nas Choka nodded his head in salute.

"Rrush'hok ichnar vinim'hok! Die well, brave warrior!"

Then he turned to his tactician, whose restlessness bespoke an uncommon urgency.