The Final Prophecy (36 page)

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 fruit and pried it open. S’yito gouged out a fingerful of the pinkish flesh and brought it to his broad mouth.

“Too good for them,” he announced, as the flesh dissolved on his thorn-pierced tongue. “But necessary, I suppose.”

Few of the guards accepted that the prisoners couldn’t tolerate Yuuzhan Vong food. They suspected that the alleged intolerance was a ploy—part of an ongoing contest of wills between the captives and their captors.

The food bearer placed his hands, palms raised, just below his heart, in a position of prayer. “Yun-Yuuzhan is merciful, Fearsome One. He provides even for the enemies of the true faith.”

S’yito glowered at him. “What do you know of Yun-Yuuzhan?”

“I have embraced the truth. It took the coming of the Yuuzhan Vong to open my eyes to the existence of the gods. Through their mercy, even your captives will see the truth.”

S’yito shook his head firmly. “The prisoners cannot be converted. For them the war is over. But eventually all will kneel before Yun-Yuuzhan.” He waved a signal to the sentries. “Admit the food bearer.”

In the largest of the wooden huts, all of which had been built by the prisoners themselves, there was little to do but tend to the sick and dying, pass the daylight hours in conversation or games of chance, or wait ravenously for the next meal to arrive. Harsh coughing or the occasional laugh punctuated a grim, broiling silence. The Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t required any of the captives to work in the villip paddies or anywhere else in or outside the yorik coral walls, and thus far only the top-ranking officers had been interrogated.

A diverse lot, most of the prisoners had been taken at Bilbringi, but others had arrived from worlds as distant as Yag’Dhul, Antar 4, and Ord Mantell. They wore the tattered remains of starfighter flight suits and combat uniforms. Their battered and undernourished bodies—whether hairless, coated, sleek, or fleshy—were laminated in sweat and grime. They had Basic in common, and, more important, a deep, abiding hatred for the Yuuzhan Vong.

That they hadn’t been killed outright meant that they were being saved for sacrifice—probably on completion of the worldforming of Selvaris, or in anticipation of an imminent battle with Galactic Alliance forces.

“Chow’s here!” a human standing at the entrance said.

A rare cheer went up, and everyone capable got to their feet, forming up in an orderly line that spoke to the discipline demonstrated ceaselessly by the captives. Eyes wide, mouths salivating at the mere thought of nourishment, several of the prisoners hurried outdoors to help unload the food wagon and carry everything inside.

A Twi’lek with an amputated lekku studied the short being who had delivered the food, while the two of them were hauling sacks and pots into the hut.

“You’re Ryn,” the Twi’lek said.

“Hope that doesn’t mean you won’t touch the food,” the Ryn said.

The Twi’lek’s orange eyes shone. “Some of the best food I’ve ever tasted was prepared by Ryn. Years ago I ran with a couple of your people in the Outer Rim—”

“Ten-
shun!
” a human voice rang out.

Everyone in earshot snapped to, as a pair of human officers in uniform approached the hut. The prisoners had abandoned all notions of rank, but if it could be said that anyone was in command, it was these two—Captain Judder Page and Major Pash Cracken.

Hailing from important worlds—Page from Corulag, Cracken from Contruum—they had much in common. Both were scions of influential families, and both had trained at the Imperial Academy before defecting to the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. Page, the more unremarkable looking of the pair, had established the Katarn Commandos; and Cracken—still ruggedly handsome and muscular in midlife—Cracken’s Flight Group. Both had managed to become as fluent in Yuuzhan Vong as Subaltern S’yito was in Basic.

“Make room for the major and the captain at the front of the line,” the same human who had announced them ordered.

The officers deferred. “We’ll eat after the rest of you have had your share,” Page said for the two of them.

“Please, sirs,” several of those on line insisted.

Page and Cracken exchanged resigned looks and nodded. Cracken accepted a wooden bowl that had been fashioned by one of the prisoners, and moved to the head of the food line, where the Ryn was stirring the gruelish contents of a large yorik coral container.

“We appreciate your bringing this,” Cracken said. His eyes were pale green, and his flame-red hair was shot through with gray, adding a measure of distinction to his aristocratic features.

The Ryn smiled slyly. Plunging a ladle deep into the gruel, he bent over the pot, encouraging Cracken to do the same in order to get his bowl filled. When Cracken’s left ear was within whisper distance of the Ryn’s mouth, the being said, “Ryn one-one-five, out of Vortex.”

Cracken hid his surprise. He had learned about the Ryn syndicate only two months earlier, during a briefing on Mon Calamari, which had become Galactic Alliance headquarters following the fall of Coruscant. An extensive spy network, comprised of not only Ryn but also members of other, equally displaced species, the syndicate made use of secret space routes and hyperlanes blazed by the Jedi, to provide safe passage for individuals and covert intelligence.

“You have something for us?” Cracken asked quietly while the Ryn was ladling gruel into the wooden bowl.

The Ryn’s forward-facing eyes darted between the container and Cracken’s lined face. “Chew carefully, Major,” he said, just loud enough to be heard. “Expect the unexpected.”

Cracken straightened, whispering the message to Page, who in turn whispered it to the Bith behind him in line. Surreptitiously, the message was relayed again and again, until it had reached the last of the one hundred or so prisoners.

By then Cracken, Page, and some of the others had carried their bowls to a crude table, around which they squatted and began to finger the gruel carefully into their mouths, glancing at one another in understated anticipation.

At the same time, three prisoners moved to the doorway to keep an eye out for guards. The Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t installed villips or other listening devices in the huts, but warriors like S’yito, who displayed obvious curiosity about the enemy, had made it a habit to barge in without warning, and conduct sweeps and searches.

A Devaronian hunkered down across the table from Page made a gagging sound. Faking a cough, he gingerly removed an object from his slash of dangerous mouth, and glanced at it in secret.

Everyone stared at him in expectation.

“Gristle,” he said, lifting beady, disappointed eyes. “At least I think that’s what it is.”

The prisoners went back to eating, the tension mounting as their fingers began to scrape the bottoms of their bowls.

Then Cracken bit down on something that made his molars ache. He brought his left hand to his mouth, and used his tongue to push the object into his cupped hand. The center of attention, he opened his hand briefly, recognizing the object at once. Keeping the thing palmed, he set it on the table and slid it to his left, where, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared under the right hand of Page.

“Holowafer,” the captain said softly, without taking a second look. “It’ll display only once. We’re going to have to be quick about it.”

Cracken nodded his chin to the horned Devaronian. “Find Clak’dor, Garban, and the rest of that crew, and bring them here quickest.”

The Devaronian stood up and hurried out the doorway.

Page ran his hand over his bearded face. “We’re going to need a place to display the data. We can’t risk doing it in the open.”

Cracken thought for a moment, then turned to the long-bearded Bothan to his right. “Who’s the one with the sabacc deck?”

The alien’s fur rippled slightly. “That’d be Coruscant.”

“Tell him we need him.”

The Bothan nodded and made for the doorway. As word spread through the hut, the prisoners began to converse loudly, as cover for what was being said by those who remained at the table. The Ryn banged his ladle against the side of the pot, and several of the prisoners distributed fruits to the others by tossing them through the air, as if in a game of catch.

“How are things in the yard?” Page asked the lookouts at the doorway.

“Coruscant’s coming, sir. Also Clak’dor’s bunch.”

“The guards?”

“No one’s paying any mind.”

Coruscant, a tall, blond-haired human, entered grinning and fanning a deck of sabacc cards he’d fashioned from squares of leather. “Did I hear right that someone’s interested in a game?”

Page motioned for everyone to form a circle in the center of the hut, and to raise the noise level. The guards had grown accustomed to the boisterous activity that would sometimes erupt during card games, and Page was determined to provide a dose of the real thing. A dozen prisoners broke out in song. The rest conversed jocularly, giving odds and making bets.

The human gambler, three Bith, and a Jenet were passed through the falsely jubilant crowd to the center of the circle, where Page and Cracken were waiting with the holowafer.

Coruscant began to dole out cards.

Highly evolved humanoids, Bith were deep thinkers and skillful artists, with an ability to store and sift through immense amounts of data. The Jenet, in contrast, was short and rodentlike, but possessed of an eidetic memory.

When Page was satisfied that the inner circle was effectively sealed off, he crouched down, as if to join in the game. “We’ll get only one chance at this. You sure you can do it?”

The Jenet’s muzzle twitched in amusement, and he fixed his red eyes on Page. “That’s why you chose us, isn’t it?”

Page nodded. “Then let’s get to it.”

Deftly, Page set the small wafer on the plank floor and activated it with the pressure of his right forefinger. An inverted cone of blue light projected upward, within which flared a complex mathematical equation Page couldn’t begin to comprehend, much less solve or memorize. As quickly as the numbers and symbols appeared, they disappeared.

Then the wafer itself issued a sibilant sound, and liquefied.

He had his mouth open to ask the Bith and the Jenet if they had been successful in committing the equation to memory, when S’yito and three Yuuzhan Vong guards stormed into the hut and shouldered their way to the center of the circle, their coufee daggers unsheathed and their serpentine amphistaffs on high alert, ready to strike or spit venom as needed.

“Cease your activities at once,” the subaltern bellowed.

The crowd fanned out slowly and began to quiet down. Coruscant and the ostensible card players moved warily out of striking range of the amphistaffs.

“What’s the problem, Subaltern?” Page asked in Yuuzhan Vong.

“Since when do you engage in games of chance at nourishment hour?”

“We’re wagering for second helpings.”

S’yito glared at him. “You trifle with me, human.”

Page shrugged elaborately. “It’s my job, S’yito.”

The subaltern took a menacing step forward. “Put an end to your game—and your singing … or we’ll remove the parts of you that are responsible for it.”

The four Yuuzhan Vong turned and marched from the hut.

“That guy has absolutely no sense of humor,” Coruscant said when he felt he could.

Everyone in the vicinity of Page and Cracken looked to the two officers.

“The data has to reach Alliance command,” Cracken said.

Page nodded in agreement. “When do we send them out?”

Cracken compressed his lips. “Prayer hour.”

Long—
long
—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in
Star Wars: A New Hope
 … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.

But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.

The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.