Remnant: Force Heretic I (45 page)

And Jacen was fine. A moment’s examination of the part of her that resonated with her twin would have told her that there was nothing wrong with him. No matter how far apart they were—and at that moment there was more than half a galaxy between them—she would always know if he was in trouble.

She nudged Jag off the bunk, and he turned his back to her as she slid out from under the covers. Jaina quickly slipped her flight uniform on over her underclothes, silently promising herself a serious shower at the earliest opportunity. “You can turn around now.”

“Where are you planning to go?” he asked. “You’re still off duty, remember? Your parents are asleep. Your fighter is being repaired.”

She faced him, hands on hips. “Then why wake me in the first place? Couldn’t that news have waited until I had woken up by myself?”

“Well, I just thought—” He fell silent, clearly embarrassed.

“Maybe you really did want that rematch,” she said lightly. Then she took his arm and led him out of the crew quarters. “For now, though, let’s just walk, okay? Even if it’s only as far as the mess. I’ve a feeling I’m going to be ravenous once all of me wakes up.”

She was right; barely had they entered the cramped main access corridor running along the spine of the frigate when her stomach began to rumble and she had a terrible craving for one of the altha protein drinks Lando Calrissian had taught her to enjoy when she was younger.
Pride of Selonia
’s cook droid had a limited repertoire, however and she had to settle for a bowl of bland, glutinous nutrient soup and a glass of flavored water.

Jag, sipping from a steaming mug, filled in some of the blanks while she ate. She learned about the proposed next stop to Bakura, and the mysterious source of that information. The source was a completely unknown quantity, and it concerned her that her parents were taking such a decision on faith. Their experiences with the Ryn called Droma and his family weren’t enough to ease her mind regarding the trustworthiness of the entire
species. Given that the mysterious stranger wasn’t Droma—and Tahiri assured them that he wasn’t—there was still a big question mark over his motivation. If it was a genuine lead, then acting on it quickly could save a great many lives. And if it was a trap, at least they wouldn’t be going in blind. She couldn’t really imagine the Bakurans allying themselves with the Yuuzhan Vong or the Peace Brigade, though; not given all they owed to the New Republic and the Jedi.

“What about Syrtik?” she asked when Jag had finished updating her. “What’s happened to him?”

Jag’s pale green eyes seemed to glint with amusement. “Would you believe he’s been nominated for a military honor? Jobath has been really on the spot. Syrtik’s a national hero, the people love him, but at the end of the day he did disobey orders not to get involved. Jobath has to go along with it to save face, but he certainly doesn’t like it.” He shrugged. “So everything turned out for the best in the end, eh?”

“Not for the Yevetha, it didn’t,” she said, distractedly scooping some of the soup onto her spoon.

His expression sobered. “I know; I’m sorry. I read your report. It’s brief but to the point.”

Jaina vividly remembered the last words of the Yevethan pilot before he blew up his ship, preferring death—not only for himself, but for his species—rather than be rescued by aliens and become contaminated.

Run from them if you like
, he had said about the Yuuzhan Vong, the destroyers of his civilization,
but it will do you no good. There is no safety anywhere.

Even though the tide had turned for the Galactic Alliance, the war had been so long and they had lost so much that she sometimes found it easy to believe that the galaxy would never know peace again. And even if it did, it was
unlikely that life in it would ever be the same, no matter what the outcome.

“I’m sorry about Miza,” she said, regretting her snap assessment of the Chiss pilot’s shortcomings. What had she known about him, really? Nothing, except that he’d flown well and occasionally irritated her. She didn’t know how old he was, if he had family back home, or whether he had someone special who would mourn him. She didn’t even know if he and Jag had been friends, but she felt the urge to tell him she was sorry anyway, because she
was
sorry.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jaina,” Jag said. His hand came over the top of hers in a gesture of reassurance.

“Falling afoul of an ambush while simply trying to help someone,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “It seems like such an inglorious way to die.”

“I don’t think there are necessarily any
good
ways to die, Jaina.”

“He’ll be missed, won’t he?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “For his good points as well as his bad.”

Jaina nodded. “And now the squad is one short.”

“After only our first mission, too,” he said somberly. “Not a good start, is it?”

She turned her hand beneath his, locking their fingers together and squeezing. He squeezed back, but with obvious reservations. She sighed, feeling guilty for having ruined the good mood he’d been in.

“I’m sure everything will be okay, Jag,” she said. “I know this is a strange way to run a squadron, but once we’ve ironed out the bugs—”

“That’s not what concerns me, Jaina,” he said. “I actually think we work well together. But if what your mother says is true, if the Vong have been reopening old
wounds in order to exploit the aftereffects …” He trailed off uncomfortably.

“What, Jag?”

“Well …” He shrugged and pulled his hand away from hers. There was something on his mind; she didn’t need the Force to see that. “It may be nothing, but the New Republic and the Chiss haven’t always been on the best of terms. After Thrawn—”

“Thrawn was an Imperial. We know the difference.”

“But to
us
he was a Chiss, Jaina. The Expansionary Defense Fleet has been struggling for decades to protect our borders. Using the Empire as a tool, Thrawn made more progress in a few years than all the others combined. Yes, he may have overreached at the end, but still, when the New Republic finally defeated him, there were many among us who mourned. That’s partly why we tend to side with the Empire. It’s not just because we’re closer to them than we are to you along most of our borders. There’s still resentment.”

“You’re telling me the Chiss might work with the Yuuzhan Vong against us?”

Jag shrugged. “No, I’m not saying that. There will always be some who would rather hear a convincing lie than an uncomfortable truth. The right words in the wrong ears might have repercussions for the Galactic Alliance.”

“Great.” She pushed her bowl of soup aside, her appetite suddenly spoiled. “And that’s Uncle Luke’s next stop, after the Empire.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down awkwardly at his hands. “It’s probably nothing. I didn’t really want to worry you about it.”

There was something in the way he said this that made her study him more closely. “But there’s something I
should
be worried about, isn’t there?”

He glanced up, and she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. Without saying a word, he removed something from his pocket and placed it on the table between them.

Jaina felt her stomach frost the moment she looked down and saw it. The last time she had seen anything like this had been on the worldship around Myrkr, before Anakin had died. There had been Yuuzhan Vong temples there, some larger than most cities; each had featured gruesome effigies to their cruel and insatiable gods. One in particular stood out. In her worst nightmares, like the one she’d recently awakened from, she saw a particular face looming at her out of the dark, graven from coral slabs that rose scores of meters high into the air.

The fact that this particular image was made from a silvery bonelike substance and was barely larger than her thumb didn’t matter. The face was the same: it was Yun-Yammka, the Slayer.

Jaina looked up at Jag; he was watching her closely.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, unable to keep the anger and disgust from her voice. It took all of her effort to resist snatching the thing from the table and throwing it down a garbage chute. It was an abomination, an incitement to horror. As far as she was concerned, no sane individual would ever want to own such a thing. “Where did it come from?”

There was no escaping the accusation in her tone.

“It came from Tahiri,” he said with some apology. “She dropped it when she collapsed on Galantos.”

The frost quickly spread to Jaina’s heart, and for the longest time she didn’t know what to say.

The coufee came up so quickly that Shoon-mi didn’t even have a chance to see it. With the blade across his throat, he was dragged back into the crack leading from
the anonymous sub-basement to the access tunnel that led deeper into the underground.

“Who has betrayed us?” hissed a voice in his ear. “Who sent the warriors to kill I’pan and Niiriit?”

Shoon-mi flailed wildly but was unable to break free. The blade of the coufee was so sharp he didn’t even realize it had cut him until he felt the blood trickling down his chest. He stopped wriggling, then, panting heavily and fearfully.

“Kunra!” he called out, but the word came out as barely more than a gasp.

The shamed warrior stood nearby in the center of the basement, unmoved by Shoon-mi’s plea for assistance. Instead of coming to his help, Kunra merely folded his arms across his chest to watch coldly.

“Who has betrayed us?” Shoon-mi’s attacker repeated, allowing the coufee to bite a little deeper into the flesh.

“It wasn’t me!” Shoon-mi cried desperately, realizing that no one would be coming to his aid. “I swear it wasn’t!”

In an instant the coufee was gone, and a knee in his back pushed him sprawling to the ground. He pressed at the cut on his throat with his hand, fearful that his lifeblood was flowing away.

“You’ll live,” growled the one who had cut him. The figure stepped from the shadows to loom over him. The coufee was held menacingly by his side, its blade darkened with Shoon-mi’s blood. “And you will tell me what you know.”

Shoon-mi stared up into the horrible, one-eyed visage. “Amorrn?” His voice trembled.

Nom Anor nodded slowly, pinching the coufee blade between two fingers and wiping the blood from it. “But this is no time for reacquainting ourselves,” he said. “You
have ten seconds to tell me what I want to hear, or this blade will open your veins and drink from your filthy—”

“It wasn’t me, I swear!” the Shamed One repeated frantically. “It wasn’t any of us! The warriors weren’t looking for Niiriit or the others. They were looking for thieves! Supplies had gone missing and they guessed that one of the underground groups was responsible. Yours was the third they hit that night. They wiped all of them out. Not just you; not just Niiriit. We didn’t know in advance so we couldn’t warn you. It happened too quickly.” Shoon-mi scrabbled desperately backward in the dirt as Nom Anor loomed over him. “I’m telling you the truth! Please …”

“We’re making too much noise,” said Kunra, who still hadn’t moved.

Nom Anor ignored him. “Just thieves?” he hissed. “Nothing to do with the heresy? Nothing to do with
me?
”

“No, just thieves.” Shoon-mi continued to back away from Nom Anor. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Amorrn. I’m telling the truth!”

The coufee disappeared as Nom Anor fixed the whimpering Shamed One with a look of distaste. “Do not ever call me that again,” he said. “It is a name that belongs to someone else.”

Weak with relief, Shoon-mi slumped against a wall while his attacker moved away to think.

Not the heresy. Not me
 … Nom Anor’s mind spun. All through their long ascent to the basement levels, he had felt safe assuming that the attack had been politically motivated—if not against him then certainly against the ideas I’pan was propagating. Kunra had set up the meeting with Shoon-mi as a first attempt to find out who had betrayed them. And when they knew who it was, Nom Anor would have killed without hesitation.

But if he hadn’t been betrayed, if the attack had simply
been a case of bad luck, then that changed everything. Neither the heresy nor he was being actively hunted. He could breathe easier for a while, could stop imagining regiments of warriors at every turn, waiting to ambush him. He could pause long enough to think and decide what needed to be done next.

He almost chuckled aloud at the irony. The warriors might not have been hunting him specifically, but it was still he who had brought death to Niiriit and the others. He and I’pan had been stealing with some regularity from the upper levels, using access codes he remembered from his years as an executor. The thefts, clearly, had not gone unnoticed, and the killing party had been sent in to the underground to mop up anyone likely to be responsible. He had brought death down upon those who had saved his life just as surely as the warriors who had actually wielded the amphistaffs.

He looked at Kunra. Through the gloom he could see the ex-warrior’s stoic expression, and wondered if behind that impassive stare he wasn’t coming to the same conclusions.

Nom Anor stepped forward and extended a hand to Shoon-mi, who eyed it uncertainly for a moment before nervously taking it and allowing himself to be helped to his feet. Resisting the powerful urge to stab Shoon-mi through the heart, then dispatch Kunra just as quickly, Nom Anor manufactured an expression of relief and let it wash over him.

“We are safe, then,” he said, speaking as much to Kunra as to Shoon-mi. “If what you say is true, then the warriors won’t be hunting us. As long as the thefts cease, we should be able to live unharmed. Yes?”

“There have been no more thefts,” said Shoon-mi, nodding. “The way of the
Jeedai
is safe. No one has betrayed us—and no one will! You have seen yourself the
way we spread the message. You know that we are careful who we choose to hear it. The word is safe.”

The Message.
Nom Anor paced across the room, conscious of Kunra’s eyes tracking him every step of the way. He had heard the Jedi heresy referred to as
the message
on occasions before and thought it a suitable euphemism. Whichever word was being obscured—
Jedi, insurrection, hope
—the nature of it was the same. The message was anathema to Shimrra, and that was all that mattered to Nom Anor.