Conquest: Edge of Victory I (3 page)

The lapse got her a cuff in the face hard enough to knock her off her feet.

When she rose,
he
was standing over her.

The Yuuzhan Vong liked to scar themselves. They liked cut-up faces and tattoos, severed fingers and toes. The higher up the food chain they were, it seemed the less
there was of them. Or at least, what had
started
as them, because they liked implants, too.

The Yuuzhan Vong standing above her must have been
way
up the food chain, because he looked like he had fallen into a bin of vibroblades. Scales the color of dried blood covered most of his body, and some sort of cloak hung from his shoulders. The latter twitched, slowly.

And like the other Yuuzhan Vong, he wasn’t
there
. If he had been Twi’lek or human or Rodian, she might have stopped his heart with the Force or snapped his neck against the ceiling. Dark side or not, she would have done it and rid the galaxy of him forever.

She tried to do the next best thing—hurl herself at him and claw his eyes out. He was only a meter away; surely she could take just one of these gravel-maggots with her.

Unfortunately, the next best thing was exponentially less effective than the best. The same guard who had struck her a moment before lashed out faster than lightning, grabbing her by the lekku and yanking her back. He held her up to the monster confronting her.

“I know you,” Swilja said, spitting out teeth and blood. “You’re the one who called for our heads. Tsavong Lah.”

“I am Warmaster Tsavong Lah,” the monster confirmed.

She spat at him. The spittle struck his hand, but he ignored it, denying her even the minor victory of irritating him.

“I congratulate you on proving yourself worthy of honored sacrifice,” Tsavong Lah said. “You are far more admirable than the cowering scum who delivered you to us. They will merely perish, when their time comes. We will not mock the gods by offering
them
in sacrifice.” He suddenly showed more of the inside of his mouth than Swilja ever wanted to see. It might have been a grin or a sneer.

“If you know who I am,” Tsavong Lah said, “you know what I want. You know
who
I want.”

“I have no idea what you want. Given what I know of you it would probably make even a Hutt sick.”

Tsavong Lah licked his lip and twisted his neck slightly. His eyes drilled at her.

“Help me find Jacen Solo,” he said. “With your help, I will find him.”

“Eat poodoo.”

Tsavong Lah shredded a laugh through his teeth.

“It is not my job to convince you,” he said. “I have specialists for that. And if you still cannot be convinced, there are others, many others. One day you will all embrace the truth—or death.” With that he seemed to forget she existed. His eyes emptied of any sign that he saw her or had ever seen her, and he walked slowly away.

“You’re wrong!” she screamed, as they dragged her from the chamber. “The Force is stronger than you. The Jedi will be your end, Tsavong Lah!”

But the warmaster didn’t turn. His stride never broke.

An hour later, even Swilja didn’t believe her brave words. She didn’t even remember them. Nothing existed for her but pain, and eventually, not even that.

PRAXEUM

Luke Skywalker stood steady and straight before the gathered Jedi, his face composed and stronger than durasteel. The set of his shoulders, his precise gestures, the weight and timbre of each word he spoke all confirmed his confidence and control.

But Anakin Solo knew it was a lie. Anger and fear filled the chamber like a hundred atmospheres of pressure, and beneath that weight something in Master Skywalker crumpled. It felt like hope breaking. Anakin thought it was the worst thing he had ever felt, and he had felt some very bad things in his sixteen years.

The perception didn’t last long. Nothing was broken, only bent, and whatever it was straightened, and Master Skywalker was again as strong and confident in the Force as to the eye. Anakin didn’t think anyone else had noticed it.

But
he
had. The unshakable had shaken. It was something Anakin would never forget, another of the many things that had seemed eternal to him suddenly gone, another speeder zooming out from underneath his feet, leaving him flat on his back wondering what had happened. Hadn’t he learned yet?

He forced himself to focus his ice-blue eyes on Master Skywalker, on that familiar age- and scar-roughened face. Beyond him, through a huge transparisteel window, flowed the never-ending light and life of Coruscant.
Against those cyclopean buildings and streaming trails of light, the Master seemed somehow frail or distracted.

Anakin distanced himself from his heartsickness by concentrating on his uncle’s words.

“Kyp,” Master Skywalker was saying, “I understand how you feel.”

Kyp Durron was more honest than Master Skywalker, in some ways. The anger in his heart was no stranger to the expression on his face. If the Jedi were a planet, Master Skywalker stood at one pole, radiating calm. Kyp Durron stood at the other, fists clenched in fury.

Somewhere near the equator the planet was starting to pull apart.

Kyp took a step forward, running his hand through dark hair shot with silver. “Master Skywalker,” he said, “I submit that you do
not
know how I feel. If you did, I would sense it in the Force. We all could. Instead, you hide your feelings from us.”

“I never said I
felt
as you do,” Luke said gently, “only that I understand.”

“Ah.” Kyp nodded, raising one finger and shaking it at Skywalker as if suddenly comprehending his point. “You mean you understand
intellectually
, but not with your heart! The Jedi you trained and inspired are hunted and killed throughout the galaxy, and you ‘understand’ it the way you might an equation? Your blood doesn’t burn to
do
something about it?”

“Of course I want to do something about it,” Luke said. “That’s why I’ve called this meeting. But anger is not the answer. Attack is not the answer, and retribution most certainly is not. We are Jedi. We defend, we support.”

“Defend who? Support what? Defend those beings you rescued from the atrocities of Palpatine? Support the New Republic and its good people? Shield the ones we have all shed blood for, time and again in the cause of peace and the greater good? These same cowardly beings
who now defame us, deride us, and sacrifice us to their new Yuuzhan Vong masters? No one
wants
our help. They want us dead and forgotten. I say it’s time we defend ourselves. Jedi for the Jedi!”

Applause smacked around the chamber—not deafening, but not trivial either. Anakin had to admit, Kyp made a certain amount of sense. Who could the Jedi trust now? Only other Jedi, it seemed.

“What would you have us do, then, Kyp?” Luke asked mildly.

“I told you. Defend ourselves. Fight evil, in whatever guise it takes. And we don’t let the fight come to us, to catch us in our homes, asleep, with our children. We go out and find the enemy. Offense against evil
is
defense.”

“In other words, you would have us all emulate what you and your dozen have been doing.”

“I would have us emulate
you
, Master Skywalker—when you were battling the Empire.”

Luke sighed. “I was young, then,” he pointed out. “There was much I did not understand. Aggression is the way of the dark side.”

Kyp rubbed his jaw, then smiled briefly. “And who should know better, Master Skywalker, than one who
did
turn to the dark side.”

“Exactly,” Luke replied. “I fell, though I knew better. Like you, Kyp. We both, in our own way, thought we were wise enough and nimble enough to walk on the laser beam and not get burned. We were both wrong.”

“And yet we returned.”

“Barely. With much help and love.”

“Granted. But there were others. Kam Solusar, for instance, not to forget your own father—”

“What are you saying, Kyp? That it is easy to return from the dark side, and that justifies the risk?”

Kyp shrugged. “I’m saying the line between dark and light isn’t as sharp as you’re trying to make it, or exactly
where you want to put it.” He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, then shook them with an air of contemplation. “Master Skywalker, if a man attacks me with a lightsaber, may I defend with my own blade, that he not take my head off? Is that too aggressive?”

“Of course you may.”

“And after I defend, may I press my attack? May I return the blow? If not, why are we Jedi
taught
lightsaber battle techniques? Why don’t we learn only how to defend, and back off until the enemy has us in a corner and our arms grow tired, until an attack finally slips through our guard? Master Skywalker, sometimes the only defense
is
an attack. You know this as well as anyone.”

“That’s true, Kyp. I do.”

“But you back down from the fight, Master Skywalker. You block and defend and never return the blow. Meanwhile the blades directed against you multiply. And you have begun to lose, Master Skywalker. One opportunity lost! And there lies Daeshara’cor, dead. Another slip in your defense, and Corran Horn is slandered as the destroyer of Ithor and driven to seclusion. Again an attack is neglected, and Wurth Skidder joins Daeshara’cor in death. And now a flurry of failures as a million blades swing at you, and there go Dorsk 82, and Seyyerin Itoklo, and Swilja Fenn, and who can count those we do not know of yet, or who will die tomorrow?
When
will you attack, Master Skywalker?”

“This is ridiculous!” a female voice exploded half a meter from Anakin’s ear. It was his sister, Jaina, her face gone red with internal heat. “Maybe you don’t hear all the news, running around playing hero with your squadron, Kyp. Maybe you’ve started feeling so self-important that you think your way is the only way. While you’ve been out there blazing your guns, Master Skywalker has been working quietly and hard to make sure things don’t fall apart.”

“Yes, and see how well that’s gone,” Kyp said. “Duro,
for instance. How many Jedi were involved there? Five? Six? And yet not one of you—Master Skywalker included—smelled the rank treachery of the situation until it was too late. Why didn’t the Force guide you?” He paused and then smacked a fist into his palm for emphasis. “Because you were acting like
nursemaids
, not Jedi warriors! I’ve heard one of you even refused to use the Force.” He looked significantly at Jaina’s twin, who sat stone-faced halfway around the hall.

“You leave Jacen out of this,” Jaina snarled.

“At least your brother was honest in his refusal to use his power,” Kyp said. “Wrong, but honest, and in the end when he had to use it, he did. The rest of this group has no excuse for its ambivalence. If saving our galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong is not a good enough cause to flex our true might, let self-preservation be!”

“Jedi for Jedi!” Octa Ramis shouted, still in the clutches of renewed grief over losing Daeshara’cor.

“It’s both ourselves and the galaxy I’m trying to preserve,” Luke said. “If we win the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong at the price of using dark-side powers, it will be no victory.”

Kyp rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “I knew it was a mistake to come here,” he said. “Every second I waste talking with you is a torpedo I might be firing at the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“If you knew that, why did you come?”

“Because I thought even you must see the pattern on the Huj mat by now, Master Skywalker. After months of doing nothing, of watching our numbers dwindle, of listening to the lies circulating about the Jedi from the Rim to the Core, I thought now, at last, you had decided it was time to act. I came, Master Skywalker, to hear you say enough is enough, to lead the Jedi, united, in a just cause. Instead I hear only the same vacillating I’ve grown tired of.”

“On the contrary, Kyp. I called this meeting to make
some real decisions about how we should face this crisis.”

“This isn’t a crisis,” Kyp sputtered. “It’s a massacre. And I already know what to do. I’ve been doing it.”

“The people are frightened, Kyp. They’re living in a nightmare, just as we are. They only want to wake up.”

“Yes. And in hopes of waking up, they feed the dream monsters whatever they ask for. Droids. Cities. Planets. Refugees. Now Jedi. By refusing to act against this treachery, Master Skywalker, you come dangerously near condoning it.”

“Bantha fodder!” Jacen snapped, finally breaking his silence. “Master Skywalker hasn’t been complacent. None of us has. But the sort of naked aggression you condone is—”

“Effective?” Kyp sneered.

“Is it?” Jacen challenged. “What have you and your squadron really accomplished? Harried a few Yuuzhan Vong supply ships? Meanwhile we’ve saved tens of thousands—”

“Saved them for what? So they can flee from planet to planet until there’s nowhere else to go? Jacen Solo, who denied the Force, are you lecturing
me
on what is and isn’t effective?”

“What isn’t effective is this argument,” Luke interjected. “We need calm. We need to think rationally.”

“I’m not sure that’s what we need at all,” Kyp shot back. “Look where your
rational
policies have gotten us. We’re alone, now, don’t you all see that? Everyone has turned against us.”

“You’re overstating.”

Anakin switched his gaze to the new speaker, Cilghal. The Mon Calamari’s fishlike head bobbed as her bulbous eyes searched around the chamber.

“We still have many allies,” Cilghal said, “in the senate and among the peoples of the New Republic.”

“If by allies you mean people without the guts to actually
turn us in, yes,” Kyp said. “But wait a bit. More Jedi will be killed or captured. Stay here, meditate, and wait for them. I won’t. I know what the fight is and where it is.” With that he turned on his heel and started from the chamber.

“No!” Jaina whispered to Anakin. “If Kyp leaves, he’ll take too many with him.”

“So?” Anakin said. “Are you so sure he’s wrong?”

“Of course I—” She stopped, paused, started again. “It won’t help any of us if the Jedi split. We have to try to help Uncle Luke. Come on.”