Star Wars - New Jedi Order 18 - The Final Prophecy

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As the bestselling New Jedi Order series

approaches its epic climax, the secrets of

the Yuuzhan Vong—who they are, where

they came from, what terrible forces

drive them—are at last exposed.

But

will

this

knowledge

aid the

Jedi.

. .

or doom them?

PROLOGUE

Three kilometers beneath the surface of Yuuzhan'tar—the

world once known as Coruscant—the sound of chanting

drifted up a shaft nearly as wide as it was deep, the melan-

choly strains yearning toward the few distant stars that

could be seen from the bottom. In the pale blue light of

lumen reeds, the faces of the chanters appeared ravaged,

their bodies misshapen.

These were the Shamed Ones of the Yuuzhan Vong, and

they chanted to their Prophet.

Nom Anor felt his bile rise at the sight. Even after all this

time as the "Prophet," it was difficult to shake the long years

of contempt he had held for them.

But they were his hope, now. They were his army. Once,

not long ago, he had dared to dream that with them behind

him he could pull Shimrra—Supreme Overlord of the Yuu-

zhan Vong—from his polyp throne, cast him into the pits,

and assume his place.

But there had been setbacks. His eyes and ears within

Shimrra's palace had been uncovered and killed. More of his

followers were discovered every day, and fewer answered

the call.

Their faith was wavering, and it was time to give it back

to them.

"Hear me!" he called, his voice soaring above the Prayer

of Redemption. "Hear the voice of prophecy!"

The chanting subsided, and an eager silence descended.

"I have fasted," he said. "I have meditated. Last night I

sat here, beneath the stars, waiting for I knew not what.

And in the darkest hours, a great light fell about me, a

cleansing light, the light of redemption. I looked up and

there, where the stars gaze down upon us, was an orb—a

world, a planet in the skies above us. Its beauty made me

tremble, and its power pressed down on me. I felt love and

terror at once. And then those emotions subsided, and I

felt—belonging. I knew that the planet itself was alive, wel-

coming me. It is the planet of the source, the planet of the

Jeedai, their secret temple and fount of their knowledge and

wisdom—and I saw us, the Shamed, walking with the Jeedai

upon its surface, one with them, one with the planet."

He dropped his tone from singsong to a near growl.

"And in the distance, I heard Shimrra's wail of despair, for

he knows this planet—this living planet—is our salvation

and his doom. And he knows it will come for him, one day,

because it will come for us."

He lowered his hands, and for a moment the silence pre-

vailed. Then a great roar went up, keen and joyful, and Nom

Anor heard what he most wanted to hear—the sound of hope,

the cry of the zealot—his name on the lips of a multitude.

What matter that he had put the story together from a few

conversations and rumors he had collected from Shimrra's

palace before his informant died? There was a planet, ru-

mored to be alive in some unusual way. Shimrra was terri-

fied of it, and had had the commander who brought the

news of it slaughtered out of hand, along with all his crew.

His story would give his people hope. It would encourage

them to fight. And when they were captured, and told the

prophecy to their punishers, it would get back to Shimrra,

and bring his fear back home.

Better, Nom Anor had heard from old sources in the

Galactic Alliance that the Jedi had mounted a search for

just such a planet. What they wanted with it he did not

know, but it seemed the planet had repelled at least one Yuu-

zhan Vong battle group, so perhaps its people had potent

weapons.

In any event, rumor would build on rumor, reinforcing

the veracity of his vision, strengthening the resolve of his

followers, knitting their single strands into ropes and the

ropes into cables until they were strong enough to knot

around Shimrra's neck and strangle him.

Strength swept through him as the sound of his adopted

name built toward the heavens. He looked out over them,

and this time was much less offended by their faces.

PART ONE

VISION

ONE

She was being followed.

She paused and wiped a damp wisp of yellow hair from

her forehead, touching in passing the scars that marked her

as a member of Domain Kwaad. Her green eyes scanned

through the many-legged gnarltrees, but her stalkers weren't

yet showing themselves to the usual senses. They were waiting

for something—reinforcements, probably.

She hissed a mild shaper's curse under her breath and

started off again, picking her way over moldering logs,

through sluggish mists and dense brakes of hissing cane.

The air was a wet fever, and the chirps and trills and bub-

bling gulps from canopy and marsh were oddly comforting.

She kept her pace the same—there was no reason to let

them know she was on to them, not yet. She did alter her

path subtly—no point in going to the cave until this was

dealt with.

Or I could lead them there, she mused, attack them while

they deal with their inner demons . . .

No. That seemed somehow like sacrilege. Yoda had come

here. Luke Skywalker had, too, and so had Anakin. Now it

was her turn. Tahiri's turn.

Anakin's parents hadn't very much liked the idea of her

coming to Dagobah alone, but she'd managed to convince

them of the necessity. She believed that the human and Yuu-

zhan Vong personalities that had once shared her body had

THE NEW JEDI ORDER

become one seamless entity. It felt that way, felt right. But

Anakin had seen a vision of her, a melding of Jedi and Yuu-

zhan Vong, and it hadn't been a pretty vision. She'd thought

at first, after the joining that had nearly driven her mad,

that she had avoided that outcome. But before she moved

on, before she put those she loved at risk, she had to con-

sider the possibility that the fusion of Tahiri Veila with

Riina of Domain Kwaad was a step in the fulfillment of that

vision.

Anakin, after all, had known her better than anyone. And

Anakin had been very strong.

If the creature he had seen was lurking in her, the time to

face it was now, not later.

So she'd come here, to Dagobah, where the Force was so

strong it almost seemed to sing aloud. The cycle of life and

death and new birth was all around here, none of it twisted

by Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, none of it poisoned by the

machines, greed, and exploitation all too native to this

galaxy. She'd come to visit the cave to explore her inner self

and see what she was really made of.

But she had also come to Dagobah to meditate on the

alternatives. What Anakin had seen was all of the worst

of Yuuzhan Vong and Jedi traits bundled into one being.

Avoiding becoming that was paramount, but she had a goal

beyond—to find the balance, to embody the best of her

mixed heritage. Not just for herself, but because the rec-

onciliation of her dual identity had left her with one firm

belief—that the Yuuzhan Vong and the peoples of the galaxy

they had invaded could learn a lot from each other, and they

could live in peace. She was sure of it. The only question

was how to make it happen.

The Yuuzhan Vong would never create industrial waste-

lands like Duro, Bonadan, or Eriadu. On the other hand,

what they did to life—breaking it and twisting it until it

suited their needs, wiping it out entirely when it didn't

THE FINAL PROPHECY 9

please—was really no better. It wasn't that they loved life,

but that they hated machines.

There had to be some sort of common ground, some

pivot point that could open the eyes of both sides and end

the ongoing terror and destruction of the war.

The Force was key to that understanding. The Yuuzhan

Vong were somehow blind to it. If they could actually feel

the Force around them, if they could feel the wrongness of

their creations, they might find a better path, one less bent

on destruction. If the Jedi could feel the Yuuzhan Vong in

the Force, they might find—not better ways to fight them—

but paths to conciliation.

She needed more than that, though. It wasn't enough to

know what was wrong—she also had to know how to make

things right.

Tahiri had no delusions of grandeur. She was no savior,

no prophet, no super-Jedi. She was the result of a Yuuzhan

Vong experiment gone wrong. But she did understand both

sides of the problem, and if there was any chance she could

help Master Skywalker find the solution her galaxy so des-

perately needed—well, she had to take it. It was a role she

accepted with humility and great caution. Those trying to

do good often committed the most atrocious crimes.

They were gaining on her, getting clumsier. Soon she

would have to do something.

They must have followed her to Dagobah. How?

Or maybe they had known where she was going before

she left. Maybe she had been betrayed. But that meant Han

and Leia—

No. There was another answer. Paranoid reflexes were a

survival trait growing up in a creche, but even deeper in-

stincts told her that her friends—adopted parents, almost—

could never do such a thing. Someone had been watching her,

someone she hadn't noticed. Peace Brigade maybe. Probably.

THE NEW JEDI ORDER

They would imagine they could curry a lot of favor by turn-

ing her over to Shimrra.

She twisted her way through a maze of gnarltrees and

then clambered quickly and silently up their cablelike roots.

They had once been legs, those roots, as she'd learned when

she came here less than a decade and more than a lifetime

ago. The immature form of the tree was a sort of spider that

lost its mobility in adulthood.

She'd been with Anakin, here to face his trial, to discover

if having the name of his grandfather would bring him the

same fate.

/ miss you Anakin, she thought. More now than ever.

About four meters off the ground, she secreted herself in

a hollow and waited. If she could simply avoid them, she

would. At one level her instincts cried out for battle, but at a

deeper level she knew that her Yuuzhan Vong fighting re-

flexes had inevitable connections with fury, and she was

here to avoid becoming Anakin's vision, not embrace it.

There was a part of her plan that she hadn't told Han and

Leia about—the part where, if the cave confirmed her worst

fears, she would cripple her X-wing beyond repair and

spend the rest of her life on the jungle planet.

Perhaps, like the spiders, she would sink her limbs into

the swamp and become a tree.

She reached out with the Force, to better assess her pursuit.

They weren't there. And she suddenly realized that she

hadn't felt them in the Force, but with her Vongsense. It had

come so naturally she hadn't even questioned it.

That could only mean her pursuers were Yuuzhan Vong,

maybe six of them, give or take one or two. Vongsense

wasn't as precise as the Force.

She reached for her lightsaber, but didn't unhook it, and

continued to wait.

Soon she actually heard them. Whoever they were, they

weren't hunters—they moved through the jungle clumsily,

THE FINAL PROPHECY

and though they pitched their voices low enough that she

couldn't actually understand what they were saying, they

seemed to be gabbling almost constantly. They must be very

confident of their success.

A dark shadow glided soundlessly through the under-

growth, and she snapped her gaze up in time to see some-

thing very large blot the fragments of sky not occluded by

the distant canopy.

Native life, or a Yuuzhan Vong flier?

Pursing her lips, she waited. Soon the distant muttering

became coherent. As she'd thought, the language was that

of her creche.

"Are you certain she came this way?" a raspy voice asked.

"She did. See? The impression in the moss?"

"She isjeedai. Perhaps she left these signs to confuse us."

"Perhaps."

"But you think she is near?"

"Yes."

"And knows we are following her?"

"Yes."

"Then why not simply call out to her?"

And hope I answer the battle challenge? Tahiri thought,

grimly. So they did have a tracker with them. Could she slip

around them, back to her X-wing? Or must she fight them?

Moving very slowly, Tahiri shifted in the direction of the

voices. She could make out several figures through the under-

story, but not distinctly.

"At some point we must, I suppose," the tracker said.

"Else she will think we wish her harm."

What? Tahiri frowned, trying to fit that into her presup-

positions. She couldn't.

"Jeedai!" the tracker called. "I think you can hear us. We

humbly request an audience."

No warrior would do that, Tahiri thought. No warrior

would use such honorless trickery. But a shaper...

THE NEW JEDI ORDER

THE FINAL PROPHECY

Yes, a shaper or a priest might, a member of the decep-

tion sect. Still—

She leaned out for a better view, and found herself staring

straight into the yellow eyes of a Yuuzhan Vong.

He was perhaps six meters away. She gasped at the sight

of him, and revulsion jolted through her. His face was like

an open wound.

A Shamed One, despised by the gods. He dared—her hand

went to her lightsaber.

Then the shadow was back, and suddenly something

sleeted through the branches, shredding the leaves and vines

around her. She snarled a war cry and ignited her weapon,

swirling it up to send two thud bugs burning off through the

jungle.

Above her, through the now open canopy, she saw a Yuu-

zhan Vong tsik vai, an atmospheric flier, huge and ray-

shaped, and from it snaked long cables. To each cable clung

a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. One passed less than two meters

from her, and she braced for the fight, but he went on past,

oblivious to her presence, striking the jungle floor and un-

coiling his amphistaff in the same motion.

A terrible wail went up from her pursuers. She could see

them now, all horribly disfigured, all Shamed Ones. They

raised their short clubs and faced the warriors.

They didn't have a chance—she saw that immediately.

For an instant, the tracker held her eye, and she thought he

would give her away, but instead his expression went grim.

"Run!" he shouted. "We cannot win here!"

Tahiri hesitated only an instant longer, then made a series

of steplike leaps to the ground. The first of the Shamed Ones

had already fallen when her feet touched the spongy soil.

A warrior caught her motion from the corner of his eye

and turned to meet her, snarling a war cry. His face transfig-

ured in surprise when she answered it in his own language.

He whirled his amphistaff toward her, a lateral strike aimed

at her scapula. She caught the blade and cut toward his

knuckles, but he parried with distance, pulled his weapon

free of the bind, and lunged deep with the venomous tip. She

caught it in a high sweep and stepped in, cut to his shoulder

where the vonduun crab armor shed its fury in a shower of

sparks, then dodged past, reversing the weapon and plung-

ing its fiery point into the vulnerable spot in the armpit. The

warrior gasped and sank to his knees, and she whipped the

weapon around to decapitate him even as she launched her-

self at the next foe.

Combat was a blur, after that. Eight warriors had

dropped from the flier. Seven were left, and fully half the

Shamed Ones were bleeding on the ground. She had an

image of the tracker, his arms knotted in a neck-breaking

hold. She saw another Shamed One strike a warrior on the

temple with his club only to be run through from behind.

Mostly she saw the lightning-quick amphistaff strikes of the

two warriors trying to flank her. She cut at a knee, smelled

the scorch of flesh as the blade severed through armor. An

amphistaff whipped toward her back and she had to roll be-

neath the blow. Parry, thrust, and cut became her entire

existence.

Spattered with Yuuzhan Vong blood and bleeding from

several cuts of her own, she suddenly found herself back to

back with the tracker. He was all that remained of the six

who had initially been following her, but there remained

only three warriors.

For a moment, they stood like that. The warriors backed

away a bit. The leader was massive. His ears were cut into

fractal patterns; great trenchlike scars stood on his cheeks.

"I've heard of you, abomination," he snarled. "The one-

who-was-shaped. Is it true what they say? These pathetic

maw luur excretions worship you?"

"I don't know anything about that," Tahiri said. "But I

know when I see a dishonorable fight. They were not only

THE NEW JEDI ORDER

outnumbered, but poorly armed. How can you call your-

selves warriors, to attack in such a way?"

"They are Shamed Ones," the warrior sneered back.

"They are outside honor. They are worse than infidels; they

are heretic traitors, not to be fought but to be extermi-

nated."

"You fear us," the tracker rasped. "You fear us because

we know the truth. You lap at Shimrra's feet, yet Shimrra is

the true heretic. See how this Jeedai has laid you low. The

gods favor her, not you."

"If the gods favor her, they do not favor you," the war-

rior snapped.

"They are delaying us," the tracker told Tahiri. She no-

ticed he had blood on his lips. "They delay us while another

tsikvai arrives."

"Quiet, heretic," the war leader bellowed, "and you may

yet live to snivel a little longer. There are questions we

would ask of you." His expression softened. "Renounce

your heresy. This Jeedai is a great prize. Help us win her,

and perhaps the gods will forgive you and grant you an

honorable death."

"No death is more honorable than dying by the side of

a Jeedai" the tracker answered. "Vua Rapuung proved

that."

"Vua Rapuung," the warrior all but spat. "That story is a

heretic's lie. Vua Rapuung died in disgrace."

For answer the Shamed One suddenly bolted forward, so

quickly he took the leader by surprise, bowling into him be-

fore he could raise his weapon. The other two turned to

help, but Tahiri danced forward, feinting at the knee and

then cutting high through the warrior's throat when he

dropped his guard to parry. She exchanged a flurry of blows

with the second, though it ended the same, with the warrior

flopping lifeless to the ground.

She turned to find the tracker impaling the leader with his

THE FINAL PROPHECY

own amphistaff. For a moment they stared at each other,

the Shamed One and she. Then the Yuuzhan Vong suddenly

dropped to his knees.

"I prayed it was you!" he said.

Tahiri opened her mouth, but heard the stir of treetops

that could only be another flier arriving.

"Come on," she said. "We can't stay here."

The warrior nodded and bounded to his feet. Together

they ran from the clearing.

An hour or so later, Tahiri finally halted. The fliers seemed

to have lost them for the time being, and the tracker had

been gradually dropping behind. Now he staggered against

a tree and slid to the ground.

"A little farther," she said. "Just over here."

"My legs will no longer bear me," the tracker said. "You

must leave me for the time being."

"Just under this shelf of stone," she said. "Please. It may

hide us from the fliers if they sweep here."

He nodded wearily. She saw he was clutching his side,

and that blood covered his flank.

They scooted up beneath the overhang.

"Let me see that," she said.

He shook his head. "I must speak to you first," he said.

"What are you doing here? Did you follow me?"

His eyes widened. "No!" he said, so vehemently that

blood sputtered from between his lips. Then, more quietly,

"No. We thieved a ship from an intendant and came here to

find the world of prophecy. We saw you land—is this the

place, one-who-was-shaped? Is this the world the Prophet

saw?"

"I'm sorry," Tahiri said. "I don't know what you mean.

This is Dagobah. I came here for . . . personal reasons."

"But it cannot be coincidence," the tracker said. "It

cannot."

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