Kre'fey nodded again.

"Sir, a.s.suming a surrender is forthcoming, have you chosen someone to negotiate the terms?"

"Many are urging me to solicit the a.s.sistance of the Jedi."

Kre'fey's face twisted.

"Is that wise, sir, in light of Master Skywalker's statement at Contruum that he would consider giving Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong if he thought that would end the war?"

Omas laughed shortly.

"I never took Skywalker's remark at face value. But we do need to reach a decision regarding Coruscant's importance in the scheme of things. Perhaps the fact that we reclaimed it will be sufficient to serve as a symbol of our unity."

"With all due respect, sir," Kre'fey said evenly, "we can't allow the Yuuzhan Vong to keep even a square kilometer of Coruscant. Even if we can't reoccupy the planet for a hundred years, Coruscant is essential to the stability of the Alliance. No species will rest comfortably with the Yuuzhan Vong imprisoned at the center of our galaxy. Coruscant must be seen as a symbol that not only have we prevailed, but also that the threat has pa.s.sed, and order has been restored."

"I concur, Admiral," Omas replied in the same even tone, "but we're going to have to do something with the Yuuzhan Vong-something more than disarm them and send them back into the intergalactic void."

"I suspect that they would sooner fight to the death than return there," Kre'fey said. "In any event, we haven't ships enough to escort them from the galaxy."

"Some have suggested imprisoning them aboard their own ships," Sovv said.

Kre'fey grimaced.

"The warriors, perhaps. But do we also imprison every female, every child, every Shamed One? Wouldn't we be sentencing them to a lingering death rather than an expedient one?"

Omas heaved a sign.

"Those I trust to safeguard our financial health may not warm to the idea of spending trillions of credits to imprison warriors who are beyond being rehabilitated."

Kre'fey turned slightly to face Omas's image.

"Sir, will you consider establishing a war crimes commission?"

"Such a commission is under consideration, Admiral. But who would you have us bring to trial?"

"We could begin with Nas Choka."

Sovv shook his head.

"We're going to need him if we hope to subjugate the warrior caste.

Try Nas Choka, and you will have that fight to the death."

"I agree with Admiral Sovv," Omas said. "Shimrra is dead, as are Tsavong Lah, Nom Anor, most of the Peace Brigade... More to the point, how do we separate the 'war criminals' from the religious zealots? Should we attempt to root out those commanders responsible for attacking refugee ships, or perhaps those who were directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of hostages at Coruscant? They're all guilty-the entire species. We may as well start with their G.o.ds if we're going to initiate criminal proceedings."

Kre'fey allowed the silence to linger for some time, then said, "Sir, we still have Alpha Red."

Omas nodded solemnly.

"I respect your courage in being the first to broach the subject, Admiral. But Alpha Red is no longer an option. Use of the bioweapon isn't a decision one person, three, or even a hundred can make. I promise, however, to discuss all other matters with the members of my Advisory Council."

Kre'fey swallowed hard.

"May some wisdom accrue from it."

If jubilant celebrations were taking place on many worlds, stars were the only lights in Zonama Sekot's night sky, and by day only the remote disk that was the Coruscant system's primary.

"It's getting colder," Luke said, as he and Harrar followed Jacen through the boras. "Most of the energy Sekot dedicated to keeping the planet warm was diverted to the mountaintop defenses. Zonama can't remain in this...o...b..t for much longer-not without risk to the forests."

"Perhaps that's what Sekot wishes to discuss," Harrar said.

"Inserting Zonama into a more nourishing orbit."

Jacen glanced over his shoulder at the priest.

"We'll know soon enough. The reflecting pool isn't much farther."

Jacen had mentioned the pool several times, though Luke had never been there and was eager to see it. The suggestion to a.s.semble at the pool had been Sekot's, relayed through Magister Jabitha, who had visited Luke in his and Mara's cliffside dwelling. Luke felt as if he had done little more than sleep since arriving on Zonama Sekot a week earlier in the Millennium Falcon.

While Jacen had been successful at neutralizing most of the venom delivered by Shimrra's amphistaff, Luke knew that he was not yet completely healed, and might never be. His body was gaining strength daily, and he was able to keep up with his nephew and Harrar on the undulating path, but his physiology had been altered by the venom, and he was compelled to draw subtly on the Force to sustain himself.

Perhaps it would just be a matter of time until his body dealt with the vestiges of the venom, but he suspected that the damage had been done in the first instance of his being pierced by the serpentlike weapon. As had been the case with Mara, healing tears could only do so much. He realized that the battle in Shimrra's bunker had brought him very close to the dark side, whose venom was every bit as potent as that of the royal amphistaff.

But he had no regrets about having skirted that razor's edge, and knew in his heart that he would have walked even closer to the edge to safeguard Jacen or Jaina. What troubled him was that they, too, appeared to have suffered as a result of their confrontation with Onimi-Supreme Overlord Onimi.

Several of the Jedi and the Ferroans had already remarked to Luke in private that Jacen looked older, and just that morning Luke had heard whispered exchanges regarding Jaina's sudden and uncharacteristic gravity.

Neither Leia nor Han had said anything to Luke, though their concern was evident. But then, who hadn't been affected in some fashion by the events that had unfolded on Coruscant and Zonama Sekot? The planet itself had been damaged, chiefly in the Middle Distance, where the Ferroans were doing what they could to rebuild their homes and nurse the boras back to health, the frosty conditions notwithstanding.

Most of the several dozen Yuuzhan Vong warriors who had been hauled to the surface were traumatized. After some effort, Harrar had talked them into leaving the place where their coralskippers had been set down, but they remained confused as to whether they were prisoners or guests.

The presence of the Jedi had confirmed their worst fear-the one the heretics had embraced-that the G.o.ds had allied with the Jedi to obliterate the Yuuzhan Vong.

And yet a few of the warriors had undergone what amounted to conversion experiences, espousing to their humbled comrades that they could feel the G.o.ds in the sweet taste of Zonama's water, in the soil under their feet, on the wind, and inhabiting the giant boras.

To them, the living world was a paradise regained, and they had urged Luke to recount that to the Yuuzhan Vong elite, should he decide to agree to mediating the surrender, as the leaders of the Alliance wished.

"We're here," Jacen announced suddenly.

He led Luke and Harrar onto an intersecting trail that descended a short but steep slope, ending at a tranquil pool fringed with ice and surrounded by towering boras. Luke had expected to meet only with a thought projection of Sekot-perhaps Anakin or Vergere-but instead Jabitha was there, having somehow arrived first by some other path from the canyon.

"Some of what I wish to say you must have guessed by now," Sekot said through Jabitha, as Luke, Jacen, and Harrar were approaching the edge of the pool. "Especially regarding the Yuuzhan Vong."

"You told Danni that you wanted to welcome them home," Luke said.

"Were you suggesting that Zonama is actually their primordial homeworld?"

"Much as I evolved from the consciousness that presided there-the consciousness of my parent-Zonama is a seed of Yuuzhan'tar, the world that birthed the Yuuzhan Vong and became the template for their G.o.ds."

"I wanted to believe," Harrar said in astonishment, "but I didn't dare..."

"Where is Yuuzhan'tar now?" Jacen asked. "I hope in time to be able to answer that question. I suspect, though, that it was destroyed by its symbionts-by the species that became the Yuuzhan Vong, in retribution for what my parent did to them: casting them out, severing its connection to them-stripping them of the Force. All as a consequence of their hunger for violence and conquest, which had been awakened by a single confrontation with a warfaring race. I further suspect that without my parent they were unable to move beyond the biotechnology they were given-or stole. In need of a guiding consciousness, they created a pantheon or G.o.ds, to whom they ascribed the powers that were once the province of the living world of Yuuzhan'tar."

"The empty eighth cortex," Harrar mumbled. "The shapers accepted that they shouldn't create new biots, when in fact they couldn't."

Jabitha-Sekot continued.

"Evidently, before my parent died, it dispatched the seed of the world that would come to be called Zonama Sekot, and the seed drifted to this galaxy, took root, and grew... For untold generations I lay dormant in Zonama while the Yuuzhan Vong plundered the home galaxy, and were forced at last to embark on the search for a new home, carried on the same currents that brought Zonama Sekot here.

"Then those I originally knew as the Far Outsiders appeared-not by coincidence, but drawn genetically to Zonama Sekot, much as a creature finds its way home, as occurred a second time in the Unknown Regions."

Jabitha looked at Harrar. "It's possible, too, that I called out to you."

"Welcoming us home," Harrar said, "only to be attacked again."

Jabitha nodded.

"The unprovoked attack by the Far Outsiders stirred something in me. Counter to the teachings of the leaders of the Potentium, I became aware of the existence of evil. In a sense, evil helped give birth to my awareness. Now I understand that the acts of the Far Outsiders may have been nothing more than a reawakening of the evil my parent experienced when its symbionts used its creations not merely to defend Yuuzhan'tar, but to launch an era of bloodshed that resulted in the death of countless worlds-along with many latent planetary consciousnesses.

"But I did not pursue those stirrings, those suspicions, until Zonama became lost in the Unknown Regions, and, through Nen Yim and Harrar, I comprehended that the Yuuzhan Vong had been stripped of the Force. My most grave misgivings were confirmed when I learned of the bioweapon that was being hurled at Zonama.

"I understood that a cycle of violence was being perpetuated, and that I had to make a critical decision. There was no right or wrong way to decide. There was only my choice, and its consequences. I could have accepted the Alpha Red, ending my partic.i.p.ation in the cycle, or I could have sent it back at the Yuuzhan Vong, ending their partic.i.p.ation. In the end I elected to sue for peace."

"On Coruscant," Jacen said, "when I reached out for you with my Vongsense, I sensed your conflict."

"What are the consequences of your choice?" Luke asked.

Jabitha's gaze fell on him.

"I will tell you..."

Nas Choka sat stoically on the acceleration couch of the Alliance shuttle that was conveying him and five of his Supreme Commanders toward the gaping docking bay of Ralroost. He wore an unadorned tunic, trousers, headcloth, and pectoral. Only the command cloak that hung from his shoulder horns distinguished him from his subordinates; and, like them, his frame was thinner after long days of fasting, and his cheeks, lips, and arms bore fresh bloodletting cuts.

The world again known as Coruscant dominated the view through the shuttle's starboard transparency, and between the planet and Ralroost floated hundreds of warships, dispersed to protect Coruscant against a surprise attack by the warriors who had once taken and occupied it.

Nas Choka considered how easy it might have been to launch a final onslaught and perish in the blaze of glory the Alliance certainly expected. But what glory could be derived from a battle the G.o.ds had no interest in supporting? No, while the reason for the G.o.ds' abrupt abandonment of the Yuuzhan Vong was unknown, it was clear that they desired something other than sacrificial blood.

Unless it was the blood of the Yuuzhan Vong they craved. Did the fault lie with Shimrra for having usurped the throne from Quoreal, or perhaps for having failed to heed the prophecies regarding the living world of Zonama Sekot?

And yet, if all Yuuzhan Vong were to be punished for Shimrra's pride, why hadn't the G.o.ds allowed them to be wiped out by the Alliance or killed by the very bioweapon Shimrra had sent against Zonama Sekot?

It was because these questions remained unanswered that Nas Choka and his commanders had submitted without protest or anger to personal searches by teams of distrustful Alliance warriors, and why they sat impa.s.sively now. The only item Nas Choka had been allowed to retain was his tsaisi-his baton of rank-which he would present to the Alliance's chief commanders before requesting that he be allowed to end his own life.

Ralroost's tractor beam conducted the shuttle through an invisible field and allowed it to berth. Released from their harnesses, the captives were escorted down the ship's ramp and toward an area of the vast hold where no less than five hundred Alliance officers and officials stood at attention behind a semicircular arrangement of tables and chairs.

The sterility of the huge s.p.a.ce chilled Nas Choka to the bone. The scrubbed air had an unpleasant tang; the intense yellow-white light gave every object a sharp aspect; the smooth deck was uncompromising; the ceiling was a chaos of girders and ducts.

Hundreds of starfighters rested on their hardstands, and droids shuffled about like slaves. A mixed-species orchestra a.s.saulted the captives with martial music, and an artificial breeze tugged at flags representative of some of the galaxy's species-several of which had been vanquished by Nas Choka himself. Humans and others doc.u.mented the occasion with holocams and other recording devices.

Though much of the meaning was lost on him, Nas Choka recognized the display as pageant and ritual, pomp and circ.u.mstance.

Sovv and Kre'fey were determined to put on a grand show. The open end of the half circle of tables faced a row of six chairs, atop which Nas Choka and his commanders were obviously meant to sit. Interpreters-Alliance species and Yuuzhan Vong heretics, by the look of them-were standing by to make certain that everyone understood one another. When the fanfare ended, the officers and officials seated themselves.

At the semicircle's apex sat white-furred Kre'fey and big-eared Sovv, along with several human commanders Nas Choka recognized from intelligence reports-Pellaeon, Brand, Bel Iblis, Farlander, Antilles, Rieekan, Celchu, Davip, and the Hapan queen, Tenel Ka, who was a Jedi, as well. Alliance intendants were scattered, but close to the military commanders sat Cal Omas and his princ.i.p.al advisers: the Wookiee named Triebakk, the Gotal named Ta'laam Ranth, the lank human director of Intelligence, Dif Scaur, and the golden-furred Caamasi named Releqy, whose intendant father had been ritually killed at Dubrillion by Commander Shedao Shai.

The Jedi-in cloaks so homespun they might have been made by Shamed Ones-had an arc of the half circle to themselves. Conspicuous among the three human males was Luke Skywalker, the killer of Shimrra. The two seated next to him had the look of warriors.

The only other human was a dark-haired female, who struck Nas Choka as more intendant than warrior. The remaining pair of Jedi were nonhumanoid females: a Barabel who might have been at home among the Chazrach, and a Mon Calamari, whose long head brought to mind that of a Yuuzhan Vong beast of burden. Occupying the distal end of the arc's left curve sat Jakan, Harrar, Qelah Kwaad, and several lesser priests, shapers, and intendants.

When the captives had been positioned in front of their rigid chairs, Nas Choka waved for his commanders to be seated and stepped forward. The dread moment had arrived. Proffering his baton of rank he dropped to one knee.

"In surrendering this," he said in Basic, "we surrender ourselves."

It was a historic utterance, and every Yuuzhan Vong in the docking bay-loyal and heretic alike-inhaled sharply and with purpose.

"I ask only that I be allowed to be the first to die-by my own coufee. "

"Rise, Warmaster," Sovv said. "We understand that honor attends such actions, but that cannot be permitted here."

Still kneeling, Nas Choka regarded him in confusion.

"Then appoint any warrior you see fit to kill me."

Sovv shook his tiny head.

"There will be no executions, Warmaster."

Nas Choka gritted his teeth and came to his feet.

"So you mean to enslave us, as we did the Chazrach. In place of coral seeds, you will implant us with devices that will control-"

"Warmaster," Jakan cut him off. "Hold your reply until all has been laid before you."

"Great things are still expected of you," Harrar added.

Nas Choka glared at the priest. "This from a defector."

Harrar made no effort to parry the accusation.

"What I did, Warmaster, I did for all of us."

Nas Choka made a chopping motion with his right hand.

"I no longer wear that t.i.tle, priest. If we are neither to be executed nor enslaved, what would the Alliance do with us? This bold new order holds no place for the warrior caste." He turned to Skywalker. "The Jeedai are warriors. What will you do without war?"

Skywalker rose from his chair.

"From the start you've mistaken us for warriors, when we are nothing more than the guardians of peace and justice. You could be that, as well, Nas Choka. Though it would require that you adapt your battle traditions to a new form." He held up his lightsaber and ignited the blade. "This was once a weapon."