Star Wars_ The Unifying Force Part 1

Star Wars.

The New Jedi Order.

The Unifying Force.

by James Luceno.

In memory of my compadre, Tom Peirce, who understood that being accepting of death is not the same as being resigned to dying. A true warrior to the last.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The Unifying Force owes something to everyone who has helped give shape and continuity to the Expanded Universe-from Alan Dean Foster to Tim Zahn to Matt Stover; and from Bill Smith to Stephen Sansweet to the hundreds of fans who have devoted countless hours to detailing the esoteric. I would, though, like to single out a few people whose help and encouragement were invaluable: Sh.e.l.ly Shapiro and Sue Rostoni, for their editorial magic; Greg Bear, Greg Keyes, Sean Williams, and Shane Dix, for their commitment to keeping things consistent; Troy Denning, for his many suggestions; Dan Wallace, Rick Gonzolez, Mike Kogge, Helen Keier, Eelia Goldsmith Henderscheid, and Enrique Guerrero, for their tireless work on the entire New Jedi Order series. Most of all, thank you, George Lucas, for creating a universe that continues to expand...

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

Nom Anor; executor (male Yuuzhan Vong) Wedge Antilles; general (male human) Nas Choka; warmaster (male Yuuzhan Vong) Kyp Durron; Jedi Master (male human) Jagged Fel; pilot (male human) Harrar; priest (male Yuuzhan Vong) Traest Kre'fey; admiral (male Bothan) Cal Omas; Chief of State (male human) Onimi; Shamed One (male Yuuzhan Vong) Danni Quee; scientist (female human) Supreme Overlord s.h.i.+mrra (male Yuuzhan Vong) Luke Skywalker; Jedi Master (male human) Mara Jade Skywalker; Jedi Master (female human) Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (male human) Jacen Solo; Jedi Knight (male human) Jaina Solo; Jedi Knight (female human) Princess Leia Organa Solo; diplomat (female human)

PART ONE

ACROSS THE STARS.

ONE.

Selvaris, faintly green against a sweep of white-hot stars, and with only a tiny moon for companions.h.i.+p, looked like the loneliest of planets. Almost five years into a war that had seen the annihilation of peaceful worlds, the disruption of major hyperlanes, the fall and occupation of Coruscant itself, the fact that such a backwater place could rise to sudden significance was perhaps the clearest measure of the frightful shadow the Yuuzhan Vong had cast across the galaxy. Immediate evidence of that significance was a prisoner-of-war compound that had been hollowed from the dense coastal jungle of Selvaris's modest southern continent. The compound of wooden detention buildings and organic, hivelike structures known as grashals was enclosed by yorik coral walls and watchtowers that might have been thrust from the planet's aquamarine sea, or left exposed by a freakishly low tide. Beyond the tall scabrous perimeter, where the vegetation had been leveled or reduced to ash by plasma weapons, rigid blades of knee-high gra.s.s poked from the sandy soil, extending all the way to the vibrant green palisade that was the tree line. Whipped by a persistent salty wind, the fanlike leaves of the tallest trees flapped and snapped like war banners. Standing between the prison camp and a brackish estuary that meandered finally to the sea, the jungle combined indigenous growth with exotic species bioengineered by the Yuuzhan Vong and soon to become dominant on Selvaris, as had already happened on countless other worlds. Two charred yorik-trema landing craft, not yet fully healed from recent deep-s.p.a.ce engagements with the enemy, sat in the s.p.a.cious prison yard. Shuffling past them came a group of humans, bald-domed Bith, and thick-horned Gotals, carrying three corpses wrapped in cloth. His back pressed to one of the coralcraft, a Yuuzhan Vong guard watched the prisoners struggle with the dead.

"Be quick about it," he ordered.

"The maw luur doesn't like to be kept waiting."

The camp's prisoners had argued vehemently to be allowed to dispose of bodies according to the customs of the deceased, but graves or funeral pyres had been expressly forbidden by order of the Yuuzhan Vong priests who officiated at the nearby temple. Their ruling was that all organics had to be recycled. The dead could either be left to Selvaris's ample and voracious flocks of carrion eaters, or be fed to the Yuuzhan Vong biot known as a maw luur, which some of the more well-traveled prisoners characterized as a mating of trash compactor and Sarlacc. The guard was tall and long-limbed, with an elongated sloping forehead and bluish sacs underscoring his eyes. The light of Selvaris's two suns had reddened his skin slightly, and the planet's hothouse heat had turned him lean. Facial tattoos and scarifications marked him as an officer, but he lacked the deformations and implants peculiar to commanders. Bound by a ring of black coral, his dark hair fell in a sideknot to below his shoulders, and his uniform tunic was cinched by a narrow hide belt. A melee weapon coiled around his muscular right forearm, like a deadly vine. What made Subaltern S'yito unusual was that he spoke Basic, though not nearly as fluently as his commander. The prisoners paused briefly in response to S'yito's order that they hurry.

"We'd sooner see their bones picked clean by scavengers than let them be a meal for your garbage eater," the shortest of the humans said.

"Make the maw luur happy by throwing yourself in," a second human added.

"You tell him, Commenor," the Gotal beside him encouraged.

s.h.i.+rtless, the prisoners were slick with sweat, and kilos lighter than when they had arrived on Selvaris two standard months earlier, after being captured during an abortive attempt to retake the planet Gyndine.

Those who wore trousers had cut them off at the knee, and likewise trimmed their footwear to provide no more than was needed to keep their feet from being bloodied by the coa.r.s.e ground or the waves of thorned senalaks that thrived outside the walls. S'yito only sneered at their insolence, and waved his left hand to disperse the cloud of insects that encircled him. The short human cracked a smile and laughed.

"That's what you get for using blood as body paint, S'yito." S'yito puzzled out the meaning of the remark.

"Insects are not the problem. Only that they are not Yuuzhan Vong insects." With uncommon speed, he s.n.a.t.c.hed one out of the air and curled his hand around it.

"Not yet, that is."

Worldshaping had commenced in Selvaris's eastern hemisphere, and was said to be creeping around the planet at the rate of two hundred kilometers per local day. Bioengineered vegetation had already engulfed several population centers, but it would be months before the botanical imperative was concluded. Until then, all of Selvaris was a prison. No residents had been allowed offworld since the internment camp had been grown, and all enemy communications facilities had been dismantled.

Technology had been outlawed. Droids especially had been destroyed with much accompanying celebration, and in the name of benevolence. Liberated from their reliance on machines, sentient species might at long last glimpse the true nature of the universe, which had been brought into being by Yun-Yuuzhan in an act of selfless sacrifice, and was maintained by the lesser G.o.ds in whom the Creator had placed his trust.

"Maybe you should just try converting our insects," one of the humanoids suggested.

"Start with threatening to pull their wings off," the short human said. S'yito opened his hand to display the winged bug, pinched between forefinger and thumb but unharmed.

"This is why you lose the war, and why coexistence with you is impossible. You believe we inflict pain for sport, when we do so only to demonstrate reverence for the G.o.ds."

He held the pitiful creature at arm's length.

"Think of this as yourselves. Obedience leads to freedom; disobedience, to disgrace." Abruptly, he smashed the insect against his taut chest.

"No middle path. You are Yuuzhan Vong, or you are dead."

Before any of the prisoners could reply, a human officer stepped from the doorway of the nearest hut into the harsh sunlight. Thickset and bearded, he wore his filthy uniform proudly.

"Commenor, Antar, Clak'dor, that's enough chatter," the officer said, referring to them by their native worlds rather than by name.

"Carry on with your duties and report back to me."

"On our way, Captain," the short human said, saluting.

"That's Page, right?" the Gotal asked.

"I hear nothing but good things."

"All of them true," one of the Bith said.

"But we need ten thousand more like him if we're ever going to turn this war around."

As the prisoners moved off, S'yito turned to regard Captain Judder Page, who held the subaltern's appraising gaze for a long moment before stepping back into the wooden building. The body bearer had spoken the truth, S'yito thought. Warriors like Page could s.n.a.t.c.h victory from the jaws of defeat. The Yuuzhan Vong held the high ground in the long war, but only barely. The fact that a prison camp had had to be grown on the surface of Selvaris was proof of that. Normally a battle vessel would have served as a place of detention. But with the final stages of the conflict being waged on numerous fronts, every able vessel was deployed to engage hostile forces on contested worlds, patrol conquered systems, defend the hazy margins of the invasion corridor, or protect Yuuzhan'tar, the Hallowed Center, over which Supreme Overlord s.h.i.+mrra had now presided for a standard year. In any other circ.u.mstance there would have been little need for high walls or watchtowers, let alone a full complement of warriors, to guard even such high-status prisoners as the mixed-species lot gathered on Selvaris. At the start of the war, captives had been fitted with manacles, immobilized in blorash jelly, or simply implanted with surge-coral and enslaved to a dhuryam-a governing brain. But living shackles, quick jelly, and surge-coral were in short supply, and dhuryams were so scarce as to be rare. Were S'yito in command, Page and others like him would already have been executed. As it was, too many compromises had been made. The wooden shelters, the disposal of bodies, the food... No matter the species, the prisoners had no stomach for the Yuuzhan Vong diet. With so many of them succ.u.mbing to their battle wounds or malnutrition, the prison commander had been forced to allow food to be delivered from a nearby settlement, where the residents plucked fish and other marine life from Selvaris's bountiful seas, and harvested fruits from the planet's equally generous forests. Against the possibility that resistance cells might be operating in the settlement, the place was even more closely guarded than the prison. It was said among the warriors that Selvaris had no indigenous sentients, and in fact the settlers who called the planet home had the look of beings who had either been marooned or were in hiding. The sentient who delivered the weekly rations of food was no exception. Covered with a nap of smoke-colored fur, the being walked upright on two muscular legs, and yet was graced with a useful-looking tail. Paired eyes sparkled in a slender mustachioed face, the prominent feature of which was a beak of some cartilaginous substance, perforated at intervals like a flute and downcurving over a drooping polar mustache.

He was harnessed to a wagon that rode on two yorik coral wheels and was laden with baskets, pots, and an a.s.sortment of bulging, homespun sacks.

"Nutrition for the prisoners," the sentient announced as he neared the prison's bonework front gate.

S'yito ambled over while a quartet of sentries busied themselves removing the lids of the baskets and undoing the drawstrings that secured the sacks. He sniffed at the contents of one of the open bags.

"All this has been prepared according to the commander's instructions? " he asked the food bearer in Basic.

The being nodded. The fur on his head was pure white, and stood straight up, as if raised by fright.

"Washed, decontaminated, separated into flesh, grains, and fruits, Fearsome One."

The honorific was usually reserved for commanders, but S'yito didn't bother to correct the food bearer.

"Blessed, as well?"

"I arrive directly from the temple."

S'yito glanced down the unsurfaced track that vanished into the high jungle. To provide the garrison with a place of wors.h.i.+p, the priests had placed a statue of Yun-Yammka, the Slayer, in a grashal grown specifically for use as a temple. Close to the temple stood the commander's grashal, and barracks grashals for the lesser officers.

S'yito lowered his flat-nosed face to an open basket.

"Fish?"

"Of a kind, Fearsome One."

The subaltern gestured to a cl.u.s.ter of hairy and hard-sh.e.l.led spheres.

"And these?"

"A fruit that grows in the crowns of the largest trees. Rich flesh, with a kind of milk inside."

"Open one."

The food bearer inserted a hooked finger deep into the seam of the fruit and pried it open. S'yito gouged out a fingerful of the pinkish flesh and brought it to his broad mouth.

"Too good for them," he announced, as the flesh dissolved on his thorn-pierced tongue.

"But necessary, I suppose."

Few of the guards accepted that the prisoners couldn't tolerate Yuuzhan Vong food. They suspected that the alleged intolerance was a ploy-part of an ongoing contest of wills between the captives and their captors. The food bearer placed his hands, palms raised, just below his heart, in a position of prayer.

"Yun-Yuuzhan is merciful, Fearsome One. He provides even for the enemies of the true faith."

S'yito glowered at him.

"What do you know of Yun-Yuuzhan?"

"I have embraced the truth. It took the coming of the Yuuzhan Vong to open my eyes to the existence of the G.o.ds. Through their mercy, even your captives will see the truth."

S'yito shook his head firmly.

"The prisoners cannot be converted. For them the war is over. But eventually all will kneel before Yun-Yuuzhan." He waved a signal to the sentries.

"Admit the food bearer."

In the largest of the wooden huts, all of which had been built by the prisoners themselves, there was little to do but tend to the sick and dying, pa.s.s the daylight hours in conversation or games of chance, or wait ravenously for the next meal to arrive. Harsh coughing or the occasional laugh punctuated a grim, broiling silence. The Yuuzhan Vong hadn't required any of the captives to work in the villip paddies or anywhere else in - or outside the yorik coral walls, and thus far only the top-ranking officers had been interrogated. A diverse lot, most of the prisoners had been taken at Bilbringi, but others had arrived from worlds as distant as Yag'Dhul, Antar 4, and Ord Mantell. They wore the tattered remains of starfighter flight suits and combat uniforms. Their battered and undernourished bodies-whether hairless, coated, sleek, or fleshy-were laminated in sweat and grime. They had Basic in common, and, more important, a deep, abiding hatred for the Yuuzhan Vong. That they hadn't been killed outright meant that they were being saved for sacrifice-probably on completion of the worldforming of Selvaris, or in antic.i.p.ation of an imminent battle with Galactic Alliance forces.

"Chow's here!" a human standing at the entrance said.

A rare cheer went up, and everyone capable got to their feet, forming up in an orderly line that spoke to the discipline demonstrated ceaselessly by the captives. Eyes wide, mouths salivating at the mere thought of nourishment, several of the prisoners hurried outdoors to help unload the food wagon and carry everything inside. A Twi'lek with an amputated lekku studied the short being who had delivered the food, while the two of them were hauling sacks and pots into the hut.

"You're Ryn," the Twi'lek said.

"Hope that doesn't mean you won't touch the food," the Ryn said.

The Twi'lek's orange eyes shone.

"Some of the best food I've ever tasted was prepared by Ryn. Years ago I ran with a couple of your people in the Outer Rim-"

"Ten-shun!" a human voice rang out.

Everyone in earshot snapped to, as a pair of human officers in uniform approached the hut. The prisoners had abandoned all notions of rank, but if it could be said that anyone was in command, it was these two-Captain Judder Page and Major Pash Cracken. Hailing from important worlds-Page from Corulag, Cracken from Contruum-they had much in common.

Both were scions of influential families, and both had trained at the Imperial Academy before defecting to the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. Page, the more unremarkable looking of the pair, had established the Katarn Commandos; and Cracken-still ruggedly handsome and muscular in midlife-Cracken's Flight Group. Both had managed to become as fluent in Yuuzhan Vong as Subaltern S'yito was in Basic.

"Make room for the major and the captain at the front of the line,"

the same human who had announced them ordered. The officers deferred.

"We'll eat after the rest of you have had your share," Page said for the two of them.

"Please, sirs," several of those on line insisted.

Page and Cracken exchanged resigned looks and nodded. Cracken accepted a wooden bowl that had been fas.h.i.+oned by one of the prisoners, and moved to the head of the food line, where the Ryn was stirring the gruelish contents of a large yorik coral container.

"We appreciate your bringing this," Cracken said.

His eyes were pale green, and his flame-red hair was shot through with gray, adding a measure of distinction to his aristocratic features.

The Ryn smiled slyly. Plunging a ladle deep into the gruel, he bent over the pot, encouraging Cracken to do the same in order to get his bowl filled. When Cracken's left ear was within whisper distance of the Ryn's mouth, the being said, "Ryn one-one-five, out of Vortex." Cracken hid his surprise. He had learned about the Ryn syndicate only two months earlier, during a briefing on Mon Calamari, which had become Galactic Alliance headquarters following the fall of Coruscant. An extensive spy network, comprised of not only Ryn but also members of other, equally displaced species, the syndicate made use of secret s.p.a.ce routes and hyperlanes blazed by the Jedi, to provide safe pa.s.sage for individuals and covert intelligence.

"You have something for us?" Cracken asked quietly while the Ryn was ladling gruel into the wooden bowl. The Ryn's forward-facing eyes darted between the container and Cracken's lined face.

"Chew carefully, Major," he said, just loud enough to be heard.