Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 19] - The Unifying Force (by James Luceno)

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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: Shelly 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)

WedgeAntilles ; 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 Shimrra (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 companionship, 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 grass 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-space engagements with the enemy, sat in the spacious 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.

Shirtless, 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 coarse 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 snatched 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 gods 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 gods."

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 snatch 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 Shimrra had now presided for a standard

year. In any other circumstance 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

succumbing 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 assortment 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 worship, 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 cluster of hairy and hard-shelled 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

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StarWars TheNewJediOrder TheUnifyingForce byJamesLuceno Inmemoryofmy compadre, Tom Peirce, who understood that beingacceptingofdeathisnotthesameas being resig...

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Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 19] - The Unifying Force (by James Luceno)

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