Refugee: Force Heretic II (46 page)

“It will not be easy,” Ngaaluh announced evenly, disguising the voice of her heart behind an intelligence report. Claiming information gleaned through the work of her sect, she had persuaded the priest Harrar to allow her into the throne room with him. “Yu’shaa’s followers grow steadily with each day. His message spreads farther. His voice, through them, is slowly building from a whisper into a shout that will soon be too loud to silence.”

Shimrra turned on her, a mask of cold anger. From the steadiness of the image he was watching, Nom Anor
knew that Ngaaluh neither flinched nor trembled as the Supreme Overlord approached her.

“And what is it they will be shouting, priestess?” he said. He was so close to her now that the seared and tattooed face of Nom Anor’s former master seemed to fill the villip. “What is it they want?”

Ngaaluh didn’t hesitate. “They want status, Highest One. To be un-Shamed. They want acceptance.”

Shimrra’s hideous visage creased in puzzlement.
Acceptance? Un-Shamed?
Nom Anor could barely repress a cackle. He could almost read the Supreme Overlord’s mind.
What sort of infidel nonsense was this?

The puzzlement faded. Shimrra pulled away. He was no fool. He would not mistake the ultimate goal of the heresy. The concept of redemption of the Shamed Ones struck at the very heart of Yuuzhan Vong hierarchy. It undermined the authority of those who stood at the top of that hierarchy. It gave a voice to those who were crushed at the bottom.

On the glorious day when Nom Anor walked into the Supreme Overlord’s throne room as the un-Shamed leader of a rising tide of resentment, he would look in Shimrra’s eyes and stand before him as an equal. Only then would Shimrra know just how thoroughly he had lost and how triumphant Nom Anor had been.

That a “certain former executor” could tunnel into the heart of the Supreme Overlord’s ziggurat from its deepest basement would show everyone that he was someone to be reckoned with. His name would be accursed no longer.

In a high-pitched singsong voice, Onimi, the hideous familiar of the Supreme Overlord, spoke:

Shimrra turned his attention to his familiar. “I agree that it sounds preposterous, inconceivable—but if every Shamed One were to revolt, to take up arms …”

“Indeed,” Shimrra said, scowling around the room at those attending. His thoughts, again, were obvious: on top of the shapers, intendants, and priests who were having increasing difficulties maintaining his realm, Hreven Karsh had failed him, a perfectly good plan set in place by a fugitive was beginning to fall apart, and a priestess had just delivered his death sentence. And these were the people who were supposed to protect him?

No, things most certainly were not going well for the Supreme Overlord.

Indeed
, Nom Anor echoed with growing elation.
And if I have my way, Shimrra, things are going to get a whole lot worse for you yet!

When she walked into the Bakuran infirmary ward, Leia couldn’t help feel as if she’d done it all before. She’d been in enough med units in her time to know that they all pretty much looked the same, and this one was no exception. However, this wasn’t the source of her déjà vu. What gave this moment such a strong sense of familiarity was the patient.

Tahiri lay unconscious on the room’s sole bed, just as she had on Mon Calamari. The only difference was her eyes. This time they were wide open and saw nothing. She could have been resting peacefully, but for the fierce burning of her scars. The marks left on her forehead by the Yuuzhan Vong master shaper on Yavin 4 seemed to
flare up in response to her psychological distress. Salis D’aar’s meditechs had found no means of easing her internal suffering. The girl made no impression in the Force, giving Leia nothing to work with. All she could do was imagine what was going on inside the young woman’s mind and body.

Jaina and Jag looked up from their position beside the bed. Jaina was still supposed to be confined to the hover-chair the medical droid had assigned to her, but in a typical show of independence, she had discarded it within minutes of getting out of bed. Jag hadn’t left her side since she’d awoken, despite the fact that he must have been as exhausted as she was. Their hands stayed firmly clasped whenever they were in range, as though they were terrified to let go for fear of losing each other again.

Leia warmed at that thought. She had felt that way many times, and understood it all too well. What pleased her more than anything else was the fact that Jag was slowly abandoning his reservations about open displays of affection in public. It seemed that his close encounter with entechment had made him realize that time was simply too short to waste on worrying about what people thought.

“How’s she doing?” Leia asked.

“The same.” Jaina turned her attention back to Tahiri. “She’s not responding to anything they try, and I can’t get through to her. Perhaps Master Cilghal could do something, but …” She shrugged helplessly. “It’s like she’s not even there.”

They stared at the injured girl for a long moment, the gloominess of their thoughts filling the room. Then Jaina made a visible effort to change the mood, straightening and stretching her arms.

“So, has the new treaty been ratified yet?”

“Signed and sealed.” Leia was grateful for the change in topic. “The P’w’eck Emancipation Movement has formally
allied with Bakura. Lwothin and Panib put their names to the papers half an hour ago. They’ve agreed to hold elections within the month, to share all Ssi-ruuvi assets seized in battle, and to initiate a liberation program for the P’w’eck who stayed behind. My guess is, once word spreads, they’ll start seeing refugees from the Imperium within months, and some sort of retaliation within a year. I hope that by then Bakura will be strong enough to stand on its own. At least they know it’s coming, so they can prepare.”

“What about the Keeramak?” Jag asked.

“The body is already on its way back to Lwhekk. They figure returning the body of their Grand Shreeftut will temporarily appease the Ssi-ruuvi Conclave, even if it arouses the Elders’ Council. The resulting conflict should keep them occupied for a while, at least.”

Leia was still amazed at both the complexity and the audacity of the Keeramak’s plan. Having risen to power ten years after the decimation of the Imperium at the hands of the New Republic, it had used its unique status to formulate a reprisal that very nearly worked. Faking a P’w’eck uprising wasn’t hard; New Republic worlds responded to the idea of rebellion all too easily, so to the locals the story wasn’t implausible. The nagging fear that the P’w’eck might be as bad as their former masters could only be assuaged by reassurances from the very pinnacle of Bakuran government, and the Keeramak had found an elegant way to solve that problem.

“The droid technicians have finished analyzing Cundertol’s arm,” she said.

Jaina’s face hardened. “And?”

“It’s as you thought. He was a human replica droid.”

Jag hugged Jaina lightly around the shoulders when she shuddered. “He looked so
real.”

Leia nodded, understanding her daughter’s revulsion. “The specs of his wrist and hand matched those of the
droids made by Simonelle the Ingoian, over thirty years ago. The bones are poly-alloy; the muscles and other organs are made from biofiber; his skin was grown in a clone vat; and everything else is just synthflesh. Despite it being an abomination, it’s actually an incredible piece of work.”

“No wonder he didn’t want to be examined on
Selonia,”
Jaina said.

“I didn’t think such things were possible,” Jag said to Leia. “Imperial intelligence reported that Project Decoy failed.”

“It did. We never managed to get the droid brains up to scratch—although Simonelle did by modifying an AA-1 verbobrain. They can be useful in certain circumstances, but by and large they tend to be clumsy and unconvincing.”

“None of which applied to Cundertol,” Jaina said, rubbing at her breastbone, which obviously still smarted from when the Prime Minister had attacked her.

“Someone on the black market must have made progress in the last twenty-five years. Someone prepared to charge for their efforts, too. Long before you were born, Jaina, HRDs used to cost over ten million credits. I can only imagine how much one would cost today.”

“I’m sure we’ll find that out once Vyram and Malinza have finished tracing the missing credits.” As part of a “rehabilitation” scheme, the two ex-activists had been co-opted by the government to demonstrate that the information they’d found earlier was genuine. Although the kidnapping charges had been overturned, Freedom had still technically been an underground operation, and some sections of the interim government wanted an assurance that they would no longer pursue illegal activities.

Salkeli, on the other hand, had been sentenced on all manner of charges. The Rodian wasn’t going to see daylight for a very long time indeed.

“So, let me get this straight,” Jag said, frowning. “Cundertol covertly pays someone untold millions of credits to build a replica droid of himself. Right?”

Jaina nodded. “Then he books the
Jaunty Cavalier
to pick up the droid from the manufacturer and deliver it somewhere near here. We don’t know where yet; maybe an abandoned base or a temporary station. It doesn’t really matter, just as long as it’s somewhere private.”

“Then he fakes his own kidnapping,” Leia went on. “This is the tricky part. He has to get offworld and back without raising suspicion. He can’t take his bodyguards or his advisers. He has to be completely alone while the process is under way.”

“And that process was entechment.” Jag’s face was pale at the thought. “I can’t believe he voluntarily turned himself in to the Ssi-ruuk so they could suck out his soul.”

“Well, he must’ve had a good idea that they wouldn’t just stick him in a droid ship and bleed him dry. He was their key to Bakura, after all. As long as they gave him what he wanted, he would reciprocate.”

“You’ve got to admire them, really,” Jaina said. “The plan was actually quite brilliant. They were going to get an entire world in exchange for making Cundertol immortal. And it almost worked.”

“But
would
it have worked?” Jag asked. “I thought entechment wasn’t permanent—that the life energy of the subject gradually decayed.”

Jaina nodded. “Lwothin explained when we met him that they’d made significant advances in the science of entechment. That much was true, at least.”

“There was a Jedi student named Nichos Marr,” Leia explained, “who had a similar process performed on him for medical reasons. He died with the
Eye of Palpatine
, so we don’t know how long he would have lasted.”

“Cundertol wasn’t a clunky droid like Nichos was,
though,” Jaina protested. “He looked as real as you or I—and he smelled real, too, otherwise he wouldn’t have fooled Meewalh and Cakhmain. Once the Ssi-ruuk had stuck him into the HRD and sent him back, all he had to do was avoid the invasion and get away. He could have dealt with any problems later, and no one would have been the wiser.”

Jag shook his head. “You have to feel sorry for the crew of the
Jaunty Cavalier
. Cundertol sacrificed them all so that no one would contradict his story.”

“That’s the sign of an evil mastermind,” Leia said, remembering her previous trip to Bakura and her first encounter with the spirit of her father. “No price is too great to pay to ensure his own survival.”

Jaina looked down to Tahiri. The girl hadn’t moved throughout the conversation. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, their only movement the occasional blink—the regularity of which they could have set a chronometer to. That and the slow rise and fall of her chest were the only signs that she was alive at all.

“You haven’t found his body,” Jaina said. It wasn’t a question.

Leia replied anyway. “No.”

There was movement in the doorway. Thinking it might be a meditech come to examine Tahiri, Leia stepped aside to let them through. But it was Goure, the Ryn whom Tahiri had befriended, and a Bakuran native, a Kurtzen dressed in a sand-colored, sleeveless gray robe with a wide leather belt around his waist. Numerous pouches adorned the belt, rattling as he walked.

“I apologize,” the Ryn said, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No, please. Come in.” Jaina had told Leia the little she’d learned about the Ryn from Tahiri. “Han will be along later. I know he’ll want to talk to you.”

Goure looked uncertain about this. “Oh?”

“He has a friend he hasn’t heard from for a while that he thought you might know of. A Ryn by the name of Droma.”

“Droma?” He considered the name for a moment. “It doesn’t sound familiar, I’m afraid. I could probably find him for you, if you like. The chances are good that one of my colleagues knows him.”

“That’s okay,” Leia said. “It’s no problem. I’m sure he’s doing all right, wherever he is. Han was just curious, that’s all.” Goure’s manner was pleasant and relaxed, perfectly likable. “He is blessed with the same talent as my husband.”

Goure’s smoky-colored forehead wrinkled at this. “Which is?”

“A knack for survival, of course.” She matched his toothy smile, then looked away. The Kurtzen was standing patiently to one side, his ridged head gleaming in the harsh hospital light.

“This is Arrizza,” Goure said, following her gaze. “I asked him to come.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Leia said as she stepped up to the Kurtzen. She inclined her head in a slight bow of greeting. “This is my daughter, Lieutenant Colonel Jaina Solo, and Colonel Jagged Fel.” Both nodded, and Arrizza bowed in return. “But you came to see Tahiri, I presume, not us,” Leia added, once the introductions were over.

“We came to help her, yes,” the Kurtzen said, exchanging a look with Goure.

“Help her in what way?” Jaina asked. “The meditechs and healers haven’t been able to do anything for her. What makes you think you can?”