Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen's right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen's right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back.

The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor. Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his a.s.sailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim's forehead.

Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force. From Luke's left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force. As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree. Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff.

Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer's armpit. The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra.

Without thinking-and without his lightsaber-he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen's intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was. .h.i.t squarely in the center of the chest. Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.

When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra's follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke's lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.

The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson. Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke's torso, pinning his right arm and lightsaber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake's uppermost coils and the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff.

Feeling his uncle's suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra's head. The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen's lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape-and extracted a lightsaber!

With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar snap-hiss. Jacen recognized it immediately. Anakin's lightsaber.

"Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr," Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed: "Conveyed to Yuuzhan'tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the Jeedai Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels."

Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move. Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke's head. Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff's throat to grab Shimrra's right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke's chest.

Luke screamed in pain.

The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: "One thrust and the deed is done!"

Then all at once, Anakin's lightsaber flew from Shimrra's grip into Luke's left hand. Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra's astonishment and dismay. In a motion almost too swift for Jacen's eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra's amphistaff.

As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lightsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff's body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke's neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra's neck.

The blades burned clean through. Shimrra's decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud thud! and his body crumbled. Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord's body and collapsed against the wall.

"Jaina," he said weakly. Swinging his left hand, he sent Anakin's lightsaber in a high arc across the room. Jacen scrambled to his feet and had just started for the lightsaber when the floor dropped to the right and he stumbled. Jacen regained his balance and leapt for the lightsaber, but it flew past him and rolled beyond his reach.

The vision! Jacen thought. He looked at his uncle for confirmation.

"Leave it," Luke said.

Lips compressed in determination, Jacen raised himself from the floor and raced for the stairway that curved up into the Citadel's towerlike summit.

FORTY-ONE.

Nom Anor had his first look at the devastation that had been visited on Coruscant when Han Solo landed the Millennium Falcon in the public square that fronted the Citadel. What structures had not been gutted by Shimrra's fires had been toppled by roving beasts or blown apart by Alliance torpedoes and missiles.

The sky continued to flash with explosions and dozens of starfighters were in the air, but the beasts and fires had settled down and most of the warriors and Chazrach that had attempted to defend the holy mountain were dead. The scene inside the shaking Citadel was even worse.

When he had been stirring the Shamed Ones to rebel, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them in the streets, he had felt exhilarated by the prospect of bringing down the existing order, of spearheading something grand for his people, something revolutionary-and, better still, with Nom Anor at the top of the heap. Now, separated from his impa.s.sioned followers and in the full knowledge that the war was lost, the sight of so many dead warriors in the Hall of Confluence filled him with despair and self-loathing. Just there was where he had sat beside High Prefect Drathul and other high-caste intendants; and over there had kneeled Nas Choka's warriors.

The pews dedicated to the priests and to the shapers stood empty, as did the special platform that had been grown for the seers. At the center, Shimrra's spike-backed throne was tipped to the cold floor, and the dovin basal responsible for bringing subjects to their bellies was dead. Every surface was slicked black with spilled blood and piled high with the bodies of those who had fought to the end.

And across the great hall, a hundred or more defeated warriors, deprived of their weapons and held fast by nets or encased by adhesive foam, were being denied the dignity of honorable death. Otherwise the hall was filled with armed soldiers and Yuuzhan Vong hunter-killer droids.

Droids inside the Citadel! What had he done?

The feeling had been building in him since the surrender of the World Brain. An unthinkable development in and of itself, though he suspected that Jacen Solo had had something to do with persuading the dhuryam to rebel. Still on the side of Coruscant, perhaps, but no longer on the side of Shimrra and the Yuuzhan Vong. Nom Anor could only wonder at the irony of being able to sympathize with the creature-though his own disloyalty owed more to self-preservation than any real desire to protect what he had sired.

And yet he still faced an uncertain future, including the possibility of execution. Which was why he was calculating his every word and move, in the hope that he could save his neck. Han and Leia Solo, Mara Skywalker, Kenth Hamner, and Tahiri-his captors as well as his protectors for the time being-were speaking with two of the commanders of the troops that had stormed the Hall of Confluence. Judder Page, the shorter of the pair, held the rank of captain; the other, a major, was Pash Cracken, who apparently had been one of the officers rescued during the heretics' raid at the Place of Sacrifice.

"Have you seen Luke or either of our children?" Leia was asking Page.

"They said they were going after Shimrra. Last we saw them was on what was left of the western concourse. After some huge creature knocked a hole in the Citadel wall, in they went."

"So where is Shimrra?" Han asked.

"We think he's somewhere up top. Some Shamed Ones I talked to said something about a 'coffer.'"

Han swung to Nom Anor.

"You know anything about this?"

"The Shamed One must have been referring to Shimrra's private chambers-his... bunker in the summit." Thinking fast, he added: "I've been there. I can lead you to it."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Han, Leia, Mara, Tahiri, and Hamner followed Nom Anor as he hurried through the dimly lit, labyrinthine corridors of the worldship Citadel, up winding staircases and dovin basal-governed chutes. Portions of the fortress had been extensively damaged by powerful groundquakes, which Nom Anor a.s.sumed had been engineered by the faithless dhuryam. Less easily explained was the lack of bodies along the route. But he decided that the three Jedi might have taken a different route to the summit-perhaps the winding stairway and lift chute used by Shimrra's guards.

When they finally arrived at the filigree-trimmed membrane to the bunker, the dilating lock recognized Nom Anor's scent and irised open.

The first thing he saw on entering the circular s.p.a.ce was Shimrra's head, burned clean from his body as only a lightsaber could do, the menacing glow gone out of his implanted eyes.

Nom Anor stared in disbelief.

Shimrra was dead.

He kept repeating it to himself, but his mind refused to accept the truth of it. In their long history, the Yuuzhan Vong had never been without a Supreme Overlord, and yet that was now the case, the evidence there on the floor for one and all to see. Ma.s.sed on one side of the room by the tilting of the Citadel were a dozen or more dead slayers, and slumped against the wall that contained the guards' entrance-which also showed the marks of a lightsaber-was Luke Skywalker, wounded, and perhaps near death.

A lightsaber dangled in his left hand, and the left side of his chest bore a deep puncture wound. Nearby, Shimrra's amphistaff lay scattered in uneven segments on the floor. The Jedi twins were nowhere to be seen. Clearly staggered by the b.l.o.o.d.y tableau, Kenth Hamner gazed at Leia. He took his comlink from his belt and headed back for the iris portal.

"Can you manage without me? Kre'fey has to be informed that Shimrra's dead."

Leia Organa Solo nodded her head wordlessly. Mara Jade Skywalker was already at her husband's side, holding his face between her hands and calling his name.

"He's been envenomated by Shimrra's amphistaff," Nom Anor said.

"There is no antidote. If the Force can't heal him, he will die."

Blood drained from Mara's face.

"We have to get him out of here!"

Just then Luke's eyes opened, and he smiled weakly.

"Luke," she said, her voice cracking. She put her arms around him and lifted him into a sitting position.

"I'm slowing the blood flow, Mara." Skywalker's gaze found Han Solo, who went down on one knee alongside him. "From the way this place was shaking, Han, I'm a.s.suming you convinced the World Brain to see reason."

Han traded brief glances with his wife, then mustered a smile.

"A bit th.o.r.n.y, but we managed."

Easing the lightsaber from her brother's grip, Leia took his left hand between hers.

"We've won, Luke. Once the word spreads that Shimrra is dead, the armada will deteriorate-if it hasn't already."

Nom Anor felt Skywalker's blue eyes fall on him, with a look that mixed disbelief, anger, pain, and resignation.

"Luke," Leia said, "where are Jaina and Jacen?"

Skywalker motioned with his chin toward the stairway. Han's eyes darted from the stairway to Nom Anor.

"What's up there?"

"The upper decks of this vessel. Command and control chambers. The bridge."

"Vessel?" Leia repeated in perplexity.

Nom Anor gestured broadly.

"This was to have been Shimrra's escape craft and shelter-similar to the one that would have kept the dhuryam alive, had it decided to flee rather than betray its makers."

Leia looked at her husband.

"Why would Jacen-"

"Shimrra's minion," Skywalker answered softly.

Nom Anor's jaw dropped. He pivoted through a circle, scanning the scattered and heaped bodies once more.

Onimi had escaped! Instead of giving his life for Shimrra, the Shamed One had fled!

"Can the minion launch this ship?" Han asked.

Nom Anor considered his response. With Shimrra dead, someone would have to serve as liaison between the Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong, and that someone might as well be Nom Anor.

"It responds only to the Supreme Overlord." He glanced around "Onimi-Shimrra's familiar-must be in hiding." Without warning, the bunker began to vibrate.

"Someone has to tell the dhuryam that enough's enough," Han said.

Nom Anor's heart began to pound. In sudden realization, he placed the palm of his left hand against the outer wall.

"The dhuryam isn't doing this! The vessel is being readied for launch! "

Wide-eyed, Han looked at the three women.

"Take Luke out of here. Nom Anor and I will find Jaina and Jacen."

He glanced at Nom Anor. "Right?"

"Of course," Nom Anor said in a distracted voice.

Leia stood up.

"Not without me, you won't."

Han regarded her, then nodded his head.

"Then get going," Mara said, as she and Tahiri carefully began to raise Skywalker to his feet. The Jedi Master pointed to something across the room.

"Anakin's lightsaber," he said weakly.

Tahiri hurried to retrieve it. Han grabbed Nom Anor by the upper arm.

"You said this ship would only respond to Shimrra."

Nom Anor nodded.

"Onimi must have found a way to deceive the controls."

Han pointed to Shimrra's head.

"You're sure that's the Supreme Overlord, and not a lookalike?"

"The Supreme Overlord is dead," Nom Anor said evenly; then thought: Or is he?

Flagship of the First Fleet, Ralroost accelerated toward Coruscant, around which the fighting was continuing unabated. The Star Destroyers of Grand Admiral Pellaeon's flotilla had overwhelmed many of the planetary dovin basals, and thousands of Alliance troops were now on the ground, but the Yuuzhan Vong home fleet wasn't yielding a cubic centimeter of s.p.a.ce. The fighting had been just as intense at Muscave when Ralroost had left, and updates from Zonama Sekot indicated that the Yuuzhan Vong elements were storming through Alliance lines and hammering the planet into submission. From the command chair on the bridge of the Bothan vessel, Admiral Kre'fey gazed at Coruscant's expanding debris cloud of starfighters and coralskippers, picket ships and frigates, destroyers and cruisers.

As he had maintained all along, Shimrra's death, recently reported by Kenth Hamner, had had no discernable effect on the enemy commanders or pilots. At the climactic battle of the Galactic Civil War, Imperial forces appeared to have been thrown into disarray by the death of Emperor Palpatine. But Shimrra was scarcely a Sith Master, capable of using his powers of battle meditation to invigorate his troops.

Nas Choka's warriors were bound together not by evil but by a need for conquest and subjugation, backed by an unflinching will to fight to the death. Until the Alliance could defeat and dismantle the armada, there could be no hope for peace.

But how? Kre'fey asked himself. How can the Alliance rid the galaxy of an enemy that will not quit? If he ordered Alliance forces to withdraw, the Yuuzhan Vong might simply reclaim Coruscant; or fall back to positions that hadn't been attacked. The former galactic capital was rife with heavily forested regions where the enemy could dig in, grow and train a dhuryam to supervise the fortifications and the construction of new war vessels.

The fighting could go on for years. The same would be true if Nas Choka decided to jump the armada to a star system still under Yuuzhan Vong control, resulting in the Alliance chasing them throughout the galaxy, as Kre'fey-at Mon Calamari-had expected the Yuuzhan Vong would be forced to do with the Alliance.