The war had to end here, at Coruscant, he thought. But at what cost? How many more would die if he pressed the attack-if he did as Nas Choka, by ordering his commanders to fight to the death? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?

The situation was untenable. He was still pondering the implications of either decision when Ralroost's captain interrupted him to report that Nas Choka's battle group had jumped from Muscave, and were expected to revert imminently at Coruscant.

Shimrra's companion shuffled about the s.p.a.cious bridge, activating the vessel's organic components with waves of his crooked hands and with what seemed to be telepathic commands. The living console began to pulse and ripple like muscle tissue.

A cognition hood unfolded itself, and an array of villips twitched.

Blaze bugs frothed in a display niche. Jaina understood that she was draped from two hooks that grew from the bridge's inner bulkhead. Though the Shamed One had yet to make offerings to any of them, carved representations of the princ.i.p.al G.o.ds of the Yuuzhan Vong pantheon stood to both sides of her, suggesting that she had become the centerpiece of a sacrificial altar. Lichen and sconced lambents imparted a dismal green glow to the yorik coral walls, ceiling, and deck.

Jacen! Uncle Luke! she called through the Force. When she reached out for them, her mind was a.s.saulted with scenes of violence. Jacen and Luke had overcome great odds, but both of them were injured. Except through their minds, she couldn't perceive the warriors, but she grasped that most of them were dead.

Abruptly, the twisted figure turned from the console to face her, almost as if he had read her mind.

"I know you can hear me," he said in a guttural Basic, "because I gave you only a taste of the poison encapsulated in my fang. Just enough to render you inert." With a glance at the console he enlivened additional living instruments and systems. It was obvious that he was preparing the vessel for launch. When the bridge began to vibrate with antic.i.p.ation, the Shamed One nodded in satisfaction and turned to her once more.

"I'm grateful you elected to pursue me, Yun-Harla," he said. "At last we have an opportunity to meet on a level battlefield. Both of us in captivity. You, hostage to my paralytic toxin; me, to the half-a-lifetime of injustices you saw fit to heap on me."

Jaina forced herself to speak.

"I'm not-"

"Who was more faithful to the G.o.ds than Onimi?" the Shamed One ranted at her. "Who was more faithful to Shimrra's domain than the shaper who discovered the truth that the eighth cortex was empty, and that the species Yun-Yuuzhan and the rest of you created was doomed to extinction?

Yes, our ancestors utilized the gifts you supplied to make war on those who would have vanquished us, but instead of rewarding our attempts to rid the galaxy of such infidels and machines, you drove us from the ancestral homeworld, bled us of further kinship with you, forced us to wander for generations in search of a new home."

Hatred gathered in his uneven eyes and shook his curled hands.

"In your omniscience, you know that's why I risked grafting yammosk cells to my own neural tissue: in the hope of being able to discover some way to escape the rack on which you had mounted us! But instead of rewarding my having the courage to emulate your bold works of creation, you condemned me. You granted me the powers to speak through the mouths of others, to manipulate them at will, to control remotely, as your yammosks do, and yet you punished me with physical deformities that shouted to one and all that my attempt at self-escalation had failed.

You Shamed me so that I could no longer consort with nor move among the elite. Not only did you deny me the rank of master shaper, you prevented me from being able to contribute to the salvation of my species.

"That was when I chose to turn against you, Yun-Harla. I was not alone in this rebellion, and yet, as if to increase my torment, you rewarded the others, while you left me to suffer in silence through the years of drifting. The long years of watching our society crumble; our creche-born starve; our warriors turn on one another... and then YOU dangled before our eyes a galaxy, filled with habitable worlds. At last it seemed a blessing-proof that you had not abandoned us in our time of need. But I soon realized that you were merely setting the stage for a new form of torture."

Again Jaina tried to respond, only to be shouted down.

"Only by means of the powers you conferred on me was I able to reach out for Shimrra and make him my puppet! My most audacious act yet.

But when I saw that you were either powerless to prevent it or welcoming the opportunity to do open battle with me, I knew that I was right to attempt to overthrow you in the same way.

"I compelled Shimrra to announce that a galaxy had been found for the taking. I bade him to install me as his familiar. And as my telepathic abilities increased, he disappeared-except of late, when my preoccupation with defeating you allowed what remained of Shimrra to re-emerge.

"When Zonama Sekot was found once more, and this time made to appear to have been bestowed on the Jedi, as a weapon, I believed for a moment that you were actually testing me. But I soon grasped the greater truth-the same one that had already been glimpsed by the heretics and some of our priests: that because I had grown past your control, you had decided to topple me."

Onimi looked hard at Jaina.

He's seeing me through the Force! she told herself. As much as the realization shocked and confused her, it gave her hope.

"Even now I can see the glow of the divine in you, Yun-Harla. As Yun-Yammka glows in the Jeedai called Skywalker; Yun-Shuno in the Jeedai called Jacen; Yun-Ne'Shel in the Jedi called Tahiri..."

Onimi allowed his words to trail off, and grew introspective. When he looked at Jaina again, his lolling eye was narrowed, as if in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Shimrra is dead," he announced. "Your G.o.d-cohorts have killed him, Yun-Harla. Now let us hope they will pursue me, as well. Then not only will I have the satisfaction of outwitting you at Zonama Sekot, but I will also have the pleasure of killing you, as my first act in exterminating everyone and everything in this foul galaxy."

Arms draped over Mara's and Kenth's shoulders, Luke was carried out of the Hall of Confluence through the warrior's membrane, then down the corridor that led to the Citadel's south entrance, where a temporary bridge linked the fortresses to the public square in which the sc.r.a.ped, scratched, and dented Millennium Falcon sat on her hardstand.

Heading for the freighter, Harrar, Tahiri, and Captain Page walked point through groups of nonplussed Shamed Ones. Elsewhere squads of commandos, resistance fighters, and YVH droids were disarming captured elites, warriors, and the few reptoid slave-troops that had survived the a.s.sault. To all sides rose piles of coufees, tactical villips, and crab armor. Three hundred amphistaffs were stacked like firewood. Smoke was drifting across the sacred precinct and the sky was a patchwork of contrails and missile tracks, but the area surrounding the Citadel had been secured.

On the far side of the square, huge armored beasts were resting quiescently. Cakhmaim, Meewalh, C-3PO, and R2-D2 were waiting at the foot of the Falcon's landing ramp. On seeing Luke-chin resting on his chest and booted feet dragging behind him-the astromech mewled plaintively.

"Master Luke has been wounded!" C-3PO cried in distress. "Someone call for a medic!"

Mara and Kenth lowered Luke to the paving stones to check his status.

"Force trance," Mara said. "He's trying to heal himself."

Turning to the Noghri and the droids, she told them to get the Falcon primed for launch. No sooner had the four disappeared than Jag Fel pushed his way through the crowd and hurried forward.

"Where's Jaina?" he asked no one in particular.

"Somewhere inside with Jacen," Kenth said. "Han, Leia, and Nom Anor are looking for them."

Jag put his hand to his brow and gazed up the summit.

"I'm going in," he said.

He hadn't moved before Mara stretched out her arm to restrain him.

"No, you're not, flyboy. We don't know what's going on in there.

We've got to get Luke to one of the hospital frigates, so if you want to help, the Falcon could use an escort."

Jag looked from Luke to Mara and nodded.

"I'll bring my starfighter around."

As Jag ran off, Harrar turned to face the knot of elite captives.

At the front, High Priest Jakan and Master Shaper Qelah Kwaad were being restrained by the Yuuzhan Vong warriors who had defected to the side of the heretics-if not the side of the Alliance.

"Supreme Overlord Shimrra is dead," Harrar said in a morose voice.

The announcement met with shouts of celebration from the Shamed Ones and bellows of dismay from the captives. Shocked and demoralized, many of the priests fell to their knees and began to mutter incantations and prayers. Genuflecting, the weaponless warriors snapped their fists to their opposite shoulders and lifted their blood-smeared faces to their captors in unabashed pride.

"Congratulations, Jeedai," Jakan said to Mara, Kenth, and Tahiri while the heretics were chanting for Yu'shaa, the Prophet. "You have brought down our civilization."

Mara answered for the three.

"As you intended to do to ours."

Harrar looked at Jakan.

"It wasn't the Jeedai. It was the G.o.ds themselves."

Kenth glanced at Harrar.

"What's going to happen when Nas Choka learns of Shimrra's death?"

The priest shook his head in uncertainty.

"The sudden death of a Supreme Overlord is... unprecedented."

Mara and Kenth raised Luke and began to move him into the ship.

They had just stepped onto the ramp when someone among the heretic contingent called out to them. Harrar's gaze found the male Shamed One who had spoken.

"He says that, if you would allow it, he can prolong Master Skywalker's life. There exists no antidote to effect a complete cure."

"Is it true?" Mara asked, disconsolately.

Harrar squinted at the heretic.

"That one is a former shaper. He'll be of more benefit to Master Skywalker than I can be-perhaps of more benefit than bacta." Jakan began to denounce the shaper who had volunteered. Harrar translated for Mara and Kenth.

"The high priest says, 'You're ready to discard your beliefs like a worn-out robeskin, over a mere military victory.'" Harrar listened to the heretic's reply. "The Shamed One answers, 'Only those beliefs that supported this war.'"

Jakan wasn't through. Harrar heard him out, then said: "The high priest says that he hopes to hear the Shamed One repeat his words when the Alliance finds him guilty of war crimes, and a machine intelligence is charged with executing him."

The former shaper heaved his shoulders in a sad shrug. Harrar's voice broke as he translated.

"The Shamed One says that death will be a far better place than any he has known on Yuuzhan'tar."

Without warning, the ground started to shake. For a moment Mara thought that the Falcon's repulsorlifts were the cause; then she realized that the Citadel was the source. Frightened faces raised to the worldship fortress, the heretics began to retreat to the far side of the square, where the great beasts were on their feet and bellowing in fear. As the shaking grew more violent, cracks formed in the facade of the Citadel and huge hunks of yorik coral began to avalanche down its sheer sides. Paving stones under the Falcon heaved, then sank, dropping the starboard landing gear disk a meter into the fractured ground.

Anakin's lightsaber slipped from Tahiri's grasp and rolled into a creva.s.se. She tried to call the lightsaber to her, but it had fallen too far.

"Leave it!" Mara said sharply, when Tahiri almost scrambled after it.

A rending sound thundered through the air. Then the bullet-shaped crown of the holy mountain slowly separated from the base and lifted into the sky. Steadying herself and Luke on the Falcon's trembling ramp, Mara whirled to Tahiri.

"Jaina and Jacen are in terrible danger."

Her features warped by sudden anguish, she glanced at Luke, then at Kenth.

"We're not letting that ship get away."

Jacen was halfway up the ladder-stairway that led finally to the command chamber when he realized that the escape vessel had parted the worldship Citadel. While the liftoff came as no surprise, it couldn't account for the mix of emotions that began to whirl through him.

Shimrra's familiar wasn't only lifting them out of the battle-away from roiling Coruscant, out of reach of his parents and many of his fellow Jedi. It was as if he were also launching them outside s.p.a.ce and time, into a separate engagement.

Jacen kept climbing. On reaching the last few high-risered stairs, he leapt through the well and landed in a defensive crouch on the deck of the vessel's immense bridge. Shimrra's familiar stood opposite him, his disfigured body listed to one side, his twisted hands waving commands at the throbbing control console.

Jaina hung between them, suspended a meter above the deck by horns of yorik coral that protruded from the inner bulkhead, surrounded by intricately rendered religious statues. Jacen perceived that she was paralyzed but conscious; warmly alive amid the cold yorik coral and bone of the bridge. She touched him through the Force, her voice little more than a whisper, but clear enough for him to grasp that the Shamed One's name was Onimi. Khalee and Tsavong Lah had been set on pitting Jaina and Jacen against each other in battle.

Onimi wanted nothing more than to kill them. He was observing Jacen from across the bridge, even while guiding the vessel through the tattered sky. Willing it through the tattered sky, Jacen realized.

Directing it the way a yammosk might.

"You will find no integrity in me, Jeedai," Onimi said in Basic, as if mimicking something Vergere had told Jacen when he was in the Embrace of Pain. "Trust that everything you perceive about me is a lie."

Jacen realized the truth. Onimi had overseen the warriors in the throne room below. Onimi, not the dhuryam, had been responsible for the quakes that had nearly toppled the Citadel...

"Shimrra was Shimrra," Onimi said, antic.i.p.ating Jacen's next thought. "I am I."

"The Supreme Overlord," Jacen said.

As the realization deepened, he recognized that his Vongsense was allowing him to see Onimi in a profound way. Onimi was open to him, and in an instant Jacen understood how the Shamed One, a former shaper, had attained such power. But even Onimi didn't understand that through his experiments he had also found a way to reverse the damage that had been done in the distant past to the Yuuzhan Vong.

He had regained the Force!

"Vergere told Nom Anor that you are the most dangerous Jeedai of all," Onimi said. "And well you should be, since you carry Yun-Shuno within you-the betrayer of all I have sought to create. But soon, when I have killed you, you will be my pa.s.sage to G.o.dhood. All you hold dear will have been destroyed. The species that gave you its blood and died to bring you worshipers. Most of all, the living world you returned from the Unknown Regions. Even now it antic.i.p.ates its own death. It gasps for breath. Can you feel it? Our vessels are plunging through the shields you tried to create, coming closer and closer to the surface. The consciousness of that world is crying out that you have failed to protect it!

"How is this so? you ask yourself. How did it come to this? Because your military created a poison that was to kill my people, and instead I have sent it back to kill the very world you persuaded to join you in the fight against us. Is there not in that the hand of a new G.o.d, Jeedai Yun-Shuno? Where is your precious Force now-the lingering exhalations of Yun-Yuuzhan-that this has been allowed to happen?"

Jacen understood that Onimi was referring to Alpha Red. The toxin had to have arrived on the vessel that had escaped Caluula. He reached out for Sekot, but the voice of Zonama's planetary consciousness was indistinct.

Something had changed.

Was Sekot deliberately concealing its presence from him or-Jacen experienced a moment of insight. He could see Onimi through the Force.

Was it possible that he would be able to find Sekot through his Vongsense! Again he reached out, touching Sekot this time, and the astonishing truth struck him like lightning.

Why hadn't he seen it earlier? But there was no time to dwell on it. Onimi was eager to train his awesome powers on Jacen, and to do that he had no need for an amphistaff or coufee. He was capable of manufacturing paralytic agents and lethal poisons. And in the same way the World Brain oversaw Coruscant, Onimi controlled the environment of the living vessel, and could turn any or all parts of it against Jacen.

Jacen realized that he was about to engage in a battle that would be decided not by knowledge of the Force, so much as fealty to its will.

This was not a duel, but a relinquishment. Once more he heard the voice of the vision he had had on Duro: Stand firm...

His heart told him that it was the voice of his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker.

FORTY-TWO.

Lando's urgent comlink transmission from Errant Venture found Wedge in the chaotic situation room of Mon Mothma, where a holographic image of Zonama Sekot rotated slowly in a cone of blue light, and bezels of various colors showed the deployment of Alliance and Yuuzhan Vong vessels. Technicians and droids were busy at every duty station, and the scrubbed air was filled with the din of voices and the incessant toning of damage - and threat-a.s.sessment screens. In the thick of the fighting, enemy mataloks and yorik-vec were blinking out at the rate of one every five minutes, but closer to the living planet, coralskippers and yorik-akaga had swept through portions of the Hapan line and were strafing the boras and inhabited canyons of the Middle Distance.