Imposing in size, coloration, and carriage, Commander Tla paced back and forth at the foot of the rough-hewn command platform at the heart of Harrar’s ship. Dangling from the points of his broad shoulders, the commander’s long campaign cloak swished as he swung to face the priest and Nom Anor.
“Destroying the spawn ship was a profligate act,” Tla bellowed. “You should have found some other way to place Elan in their hands.”
“Other stratagems might have proved even more costly in the long run,” Harrar countered. “As it was, the crew of the spawn ship went willingly to their deaths, content to be ennobled by the importance of the sacrifice.”
Tla cast an angry glance at his tactician. Promoted in the wake of Shedao Shai’s death on Ithor, Tla wore his rank like a scowl.
“All respects, Eminence Harrar,” Raff said, “but this isn’t some game that can be decided by cleverness. We’re waging a holy war.”
“Ah, but any war is always a game of sorts. We needed to make certain that Elan’s flight from us appeared credible.”
Tla scoffed. “You’re newly arrived in this arena, priest. You don’t give the infidels enough credit. They will lay your artifice bare before long.”
“Indeed? Would it surprise you to learn that Elan has already been taken into protective custody?”
Tactician Raff showed Harrar a dubious look. “I would advise you not read too much into that, Eminence. Elan is the first of us they have managed to capture alive.”
“Of course. But the point is that I know where she is, and I know where she is to be taken next.”
Tla turned skeptically to Nom Anor. “Is this the doing of your dupes and agents, Executor?”
Nom Anor smiled faintly, but shook his head. “Unfortunately, no, Commander.”
“Then how do you know?” Tla demanded.
Harrar motioned to one of his acolytes, who carried forward, as one might a newborn, a light-brown and slightly oblate villip. Carefully, Harrar took the villip into his hands, then cradled it in his left arm.
“Elan’s captors were beguiled enough to bring this little one’s twin along with Elan. It has been most dutiful in reporting back to us.” Harrar stroked the villip’s ridge with his three-fingered right hand. “Come, little one, repeat what you told me earlier.”
Commander Tla and the tactician moved closer in interest.
The puckered tissue at the center of the nubby ridge expanded, and the villip began to turn inside out. Fully everted, the creature did its best to mimic Elan’s comely features.
“Way-land,” the creature said. “Way-llland.”
Slowed by braking thrusters, the civilian shuttle Segue coursed above the craggy northeastern uplands of Wayland’s principal continent. Dense, canopied forest cloaked the southern slopes of now truncated Mount Tantiss, but to the east lay vast areas denuded by the seismic explosion that had destroyed Emperor Palpatine’s storehouse more than fifteen years earlier.
One of three passengers in the shuttle, Belindi Kalenda, NRI’s deputy director of operations, pressed her face to the window to soak in as much of the view as possible. As the shuttle continued to descend, a small city came into view at the base of the mountain.
“I’m shocked,” Kalenda remarked to her seatmate. “I was picturing New Nystao as little more than a hamlet.” Slim and dark-complected, with widely spaced eyes and a husky voice, she had been with NRI for only twelve years, but her success in foiling a dangerous conspiracy in the Corellian system had resulted in rapid advancement.
Xenobiologist Joi Eicroth leaned toward the window to have a look. “It started out that way. Now there are close to ten thousand living in the immediate area. Myneyrshi, Psadans, and humans, in addition to the five hundred or so Noghri that founded the place.”
“And everyone gets along?”
“So far.”
Kalenda laughed, mostly to herself. “The Noghri despise anything related to Palpatine, but they’re fine living on a world he named.”
“It has never been documented that Wayland was Palpatine’s code name for the planet,” Dr. Yintal said from the seat behind the two women. “I submit that human colonists conceived the appellation long before the Emperor decided to use Mount Tantiss as a treasure vault.”
An analyst for Fleet Intelligence, Yintal was a small pensive man, and the suddenness of his outburst prompted Kalenda and Eicroth to exchange secret smiles of amusement.
“And where else would the Noghri get to pile dirt on anything that belonged to Palpatine, right, Doc?” Eicroth asked over her shoulder.
“That’s certainly a contributing factor to their contentment with the arrangements,” he observed coolly.
The shuttle circled, then settled down on a landing pad in the center of New Nystao. The three passengers gathered their belongings and waited at the hatchway. Wayland greeted them with resplendent light and crisp, sweet-smelling air.
A hodgepodge of wattle huts, wooden buildings, and stone mansions, the burgeoning city reflected its mix of cultures. Perplexing, however, was the profusion of hotels and ethnic restaurants that surrounded the landing pad. Kalenda was about to quiz Eicroth when Major Showolter arrived on the scene perched atop an old SoroSuub Corvair landspeeder. Out of passenger compartments missing their folding access panels climbed two Noghri.
Showolter was sporting tinted driver’s goggles and a locally purchased poncho. He saluted Kalenda and shook hands with Eicroth and Yintal. Then he introduced everyone to Mobvekhar and Khakraim of clan Hakh’khar, who were attached to NRI’s safe house. The pleasant sunshine did little to soften the savage brawn and vampiric hideousness of the gnomish gray beings.
Kalenda peered dubiously into the passenger compartment of the battered landspeeder. “Is there room for all of us in this thing?”
“I thought we’d walk,” Showolter said, making it sound like a question. “It’s not far.”
Kalenda made an ushering motion with her hand. “Lead on, Major.”
The Noghri insisted on carrying the bags. The narrow pressbonded lanes were crowded with spindly Myneyrshi, armored Psadans, humans, and Noghri, but interspersed among them were small groups of Bimms, Falleen, Bothans, and other species, lingering in front of hotels or sipping drinks at streetside café tables.
Baffled, Kalenda finally asked about it.
“A serendipitous result of the Debble Agreement,” Showolter said while they walked. “The agreement stipulates that any works of art—formerly the property of Palpatine—found in or around Mount Tantiss can be reclaimed by the cultures that produced them. Ever since it was put into effect, curators and acquisition types from hundreds of worlds have been coming here to retrieve artifacts that survived the explosion and have since been discovered in the course of New Nystao’s expansion. Off-worlders need to be housed and fed, of course, so hotels and restaurants started springing up, which in turn has led to the growth of the town.”
“And to the discovery of yet more cultural artifacts,” Yintal added.
Showolter nodded. “Treasure hunters have become as common as vine snakes.”
As the NRI team neared the Noghri section of the settlement, the primitive dwellings of the Myneyrshi and the rock fortresses of the Psadans gave way to basic but well-constructed huts of lumber and stone. The village had been transplanted from Honoghr after the official razing of Mount Tantiss had commenced.
A short but steep uphill walk brought them to an inconspicuous Noghri-style dwelling nestled against the mountainside and shaded by flowering trees. Mobvekhar and Khakraim stationed themselves outside, while Showolter escorted everyone else into a sparsely furnished, windowless front room.
“The back door opens onto one of the tunnels that honeycomb Tantiss,” the major explained. “About as hardened a site as you’ll find between Wayland and Borleias.” He gestured to a side room. “Our would-be defector’s in here. We’ve got the other one—the pet—stashed downstairs.”
“Is that her term or yours?” Eicroth asked.
Showolter turned to her. “What she actually said was ‘familiar.’ ”
The four operatives entered the side room, where the Yuuzhan Vong female was sitting in a meditative posture on a pillow she’d borrowed from the cot. In place of the exotic garb she was wearing in the 2-D opticals Kalenda had seen, Elan was now attired in drawstring trousers and a hooded overshirt. Though outlandishly tattooed, she was even more striking and statuesque in person than she looked in the photos.
Her oblique eyes—a vivid blue—snapped open and darted from face to face.
“Elan, these are some of my associates,” Showolter said smoothly.
She glared at him. “Where is Vergere?”
“Downstairs—eating, when I last saw her.”
“You’ve deliberately separated us.”
“Just for the time being.”
“What is Vergere to you, Elan?” Eicroth said, moving to the cot and sitting down.
“She is my familiar.”
Kalenda and Eicroth traded brief glances. “We understand the term, but perhaps in a different context. Do you mean that Vergere is something more than a companion?” Kalenda asked.
“She is that, as well.”
“So, an aide and a comrade.”
“She is not a comrade. She is a familiar.” Elan rearranged herself on the pillow. “You’ve come to test me further?”
Kalenda sat down alongside Eicroth. “Just a few questions.”
“Questions your despicable scanners and analyzers failed to answer?” Elan smiled maliciously. “How can machines be expected to communicate with a living being?”
Kalenda forced a smile. “Suppose we consider this a means of getting acquainted.”
“We Yuuzhan Vong have no such protocols. We know who others are. We wear who we are.” She ran her fingertips across her patterned cheeks. “What you see reflects what is inside. You are fools to suspect that I am other than what my face and body declare me to be. Why do you refuse to grant me political asylum?”
“The Yuuzhan Vong would accept one of us without question?” Yintal countered.
Elan looked hard at him. “Where doubt or suspicion exist, we have the breaking.”
“What is the breaking?” Yintal asked, clearly intrigued.
“An expedient way of arriving at the truth.”
Eicroth waited for Elan to go on, but instead Elan fell silent. “You say that you wear who you are. Are you referring to your body markings?”
“Markings?” Elan repeated with unconcealed revulsion. “I am a priestess of Yun-Harla.” She touched her broad forehead, then her cleft chin. “This is Yun-Harla’s forehead; this is her chin. These are not markings. I am elite.”
“Why would an elite desert her people?” Yintal asked bluntly.
Elan narrowed her eyes in apparent deliberation. “There is dissension. Not all Yuuzhan Vong believe that we should have journeyed across the void to come here. As many believe that this war is not one the gods wish. Because I am a priestess of the high arts, I would have you see the light in other ways.”
“You don’t condone the mass murder and sacrifices that have characterized your campaign so far?” Kalenda said.
Elan turned to her. “Sacrifice is essential to existence. We Yuuzhan Vong sacrifice ourselves as often as we do infidels. Whether or not your galaxy is the chosen land, it must be purified to be made habitable.” She paused briefly. “Death is not what we wish for you, however. Only that you accept the truth.”
“The truth as revealed by your gods,” Eicroth said leadingly.
“The gods,” Elan corrected her.
Yintal made a sound of disdain. “You’re not a priestess. You’re an espionage agent—a pretender. The ship you jettisoned from was destroyed much too easily.”
Elan’s eyes flashed. “Vergere and I had already concealed ourselves in the escape pod when the battle began. We didn’t know the ship would be destroyed. Our launch was … fortuitous.”
“Even if that’s true, why would your military leaders deploy such a small warship against our own, when a much larger ship was in the vicinity?”
Elan sneered at him. “Should I judge you by size, little man? The smaller ship was the more well armed of the two. Why else would the larger have fled with the destruction of its spawn?”
Yintal looked at Kalenda and Eicroth. “She’s lying.”
Elan sighed wearily. “You are a suspicious species. I’ve come to do good.”
“In what way, Elan?” Kalenda asked.
“You must take me to the Jedi. I can supply information about the malady.”
Yintal stepped closer to Elan and appraised her openly. “What does a priestess know about disease?”
She shook her head. “It is not a disease. It is a reaction to the coomb spores. The Jedi will know.”
“Why can’t you simply tell us?” Kalenda said. “Why is it so important that you meet with the Jedi?”
Elan sharpened her gaze. “Tell them what I have told you and they will understand.”
Yintal paced away from her, then whirled. “We need proof that you’ve come as a benefactor and not as a spy.”
Elan spread her arms wide. “You see me. What more proof can I offer?”
Yintal tightened his lips and squatted before her. “Military data.”
Elan’s face clouded over with perplexity. “Is that what you wish?”
“Give us something we can take to our superiors,” Kalenda urged. “If what you give us can be corroborated, we might be able to do as you request and arrange a meeting with the Jedi.”
Elan considered it for a moment. “My order works closely with the warriors to assure that the auguries are advantageous. We forecast which tactics to employ …”
“Then tell us where your fleet will strike next,” Yintal demanded. “Name the world.”
Elan had her mouth open to respond when a crashing sound issued from the front room, followed by muffled shouting, in Basic and Honoghran.
While Kalenda and Eicroth were rising from the cot, a tall, powerfully built man slammed into the doorjamb and fell to the floor, but quickly regained his footing. Dressed in spacer’s garb, he stood swaying in the doorway for a moment, taking in the room. Blood seeped through rips in his jumpsuit and ran from slashes that crisscrossed his face. Eyes fixed on Elan, he wedged the forefinger of his right hand into the crease aside his right nostril and launched a blood-curdling, Yuuzhan Vong scream to the ceiling.
“Do-ro’ik vong pratte!”
Then several things happened at once.
As if possessed of a will of its own, the man’s skin peeled back from his face, revealing a macabre, misshapen mask of whorls and undulating lines. Undercurrent to his scream, ripping and popping sounds emanated from beneath his clothing; then two torrents of gelatinous muck poured from his pants legs, consolidated into one mass, and streaked away like an animated oil slick.
Elan leapt to her feet and reared back against the wall, hissing and snarling at the intruder and curving her long fingers into claws.
“Assassin!” she shrieked through bared teeth. “They’ve found me!”
Yintal swung around and stepped in front of the assassin, only to take a backhand to the face that snapped his neck like a twig. The small man flew clear across the room, colliding with Showolter and dropping him to the floor.
The assassin was preparing to throw himself at Elan when he was suddenly attacked from behind by Mobvekhar and Khakraim, their sinewy limbs and lumpy craniums displaying scarlet bruises and wounds. The two Noghri drove the Yuuzhan Vong forward into the side wall of the hut, narrowly missing Elan, who ducked at the last moment and rolled herself under the cot.
The Yuuzhan Vong met the wall facefirst with bone-shattering force, and for a moment it seemed that he would succumb to the Noghri’s slashing assault. All at once, however, he straightened, propelling the two commandos off him with such power that they sailed to the far sides of the room, crashing into opposite walls and collapsing to the floor.
The Yuuzhan Vong whipped around, flinging blood in all directions, his closely set eyes searching the room. Barreling between Kalenda and Eicroth, whom he toppled like rag dolls, he overturned the cot with one hand and grabbed hold of Elan with the other. His fingers vised around the priestess’s long neck, and he lifted her off her feet and pressed her to the wall.
At the same instant, Mobvekhar regained consciousness. Powerful legs launching him off the floor, he caught the assassin around the waist and sank his teeth into the enemy’s back.
The Yuuzhan Vong howled. Swinging a flailing Elan to one side, he used his free fist to rain hammer blows on the Noghri fastened to him. Mobvekhar grunted and moaned as the air was driven from his lungs, but he clung tenaciously to his prey.
Dazed, Kalenda struggled to her feet, gave her head a clearing shake, then leapt onto the assassin’s pumping arm, which she rode up and down for a moment, until the Yuuzhan Vong hurled her aside like some minor inconvenience. Her head struck something solid, and she blacked out. Bright shapes punctuated the momentary darkness; then, contorted in a corner of the room, she had an upside-down view of Showolter, his poncho twisted around his neck, crawling out from under Yintal and drawing a small blaster from a shoulder holster.
From a prone position—and careful to miss Mobvekhar, who had been driven to the floor—the major fired, catching the Yuuzhan Vong between the shoulder blades. Smells of ozone and burned flesh mingled in the air, but the assassin barely reacted. Showolter fired again, catching the Yuuzhan Vong in the back of the neck and setting his hair on fire.
The assassin stiffened and crumpled to the floor in a scorched heap, his left hand still clasped to Elan’s throat. Bleeding from her nose and eyes, the priestess pried open his thick fingers and slid down the wall, gasping for air.
Gracelessly, Kalenda somersaulted, and was bellying forward to help Elan when the hut was rocked by a powerful explosion. Showolter’s comlink chimed, and he fumbled it out of his pocket.
“Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers,” someone reported over the link. “Maybe half a dozen, executing strafing runs over New Nystao. Soothfast has been alerted. Starfighters are on their way.”
Showolter clamped his hand around Kalenda’s forearm. “Move her into the hardened area,” he rasped, coughing up blood. “Now!”
At the cold edge of the star system in which Wayland orbited, a solitary Yuuzhan Vong gunboat lurked. On the bridge, Nom Anor stood before a visual field fashioned by distant signal villips, observing coralskippers and New Republic starfighters exchanging fire in the skies over New Nystao.
“Don’t try too hard,” he said aloud to the pilots who manned the coralskippers. “Just enough to convince them.”