Her Force-sense told her that it was aimed at her, not at Cal Omas-she could sense the ma.s.s of the torpedo as it neared, and hear the increasingly fast, Doppler-shifted chirps of its active sonar as it sped closer.
Mara yanked the craft to port, hoping that the drag of the distorted port dive plane would a.s.sist her in making a tight turn. At the same time she pushed out with the Force, trying to shove a stream of water at the torpedo to push it off to the right.
The torpedo sizzled past Mara less than two meters beyond the sub"s starboard dive plane, and Mara felt herself brace against the power of the explosion that would come with the detonation of a proximity fuse.
But the torpedo must have had a contact fuse that ignited only on impact, because the underwater missile sped on, its frantic sonar pings Dopplering lower in pitch as it raced away.
Mara gazed at her displays and discovered the Vong craft lumbering in a turn, trying to bring its second and last weapon to bear on Cal Omas. Mara fought the damaged dive plane, lifted the sub"s nose, and straightened once she"d gained five meters of alt.i.tude above the enemy boat. She could see no way to disable the autopilot that would try to interfere with her ramming maneuver-either it wasn"t possible, or it required codes she didn"t have. She would have to antic.i.p.ate the autopilot"s taking over this time, and take its interference into account as she held her course against the enemy.
As she pushed the throttles forward she realized that the fast pinging behind her had shifted, then began to pitch higher in volume. The torpedo had turned around and was coming at her again.
The Vong craft loomed ahead, still turning to bring its torpedo to bear on the floating city. The pings behind Mara grew more frequent and higher in pitch. She pushed her throttle to maximum speed and dived down onto the enemy boat, water hissing through her jets.
"Dive! Collision alert! Dive! Collision alert!" This time the autopilot was trying to pitch her downward to let her craft slip below the enemy. She fought the controls, trying to keep her machine on target.
"Dive! Dive!"
The pinging from astern beat faster than Mara"s heart. Mara felt her sub shudder at the contradictory commands given the control surfaces, sensed the ma.s.s and speed of the torpedo approaching. And then she took her hands off the controls and let the autopilot take over.
The damaged dive plane screwed the sub around to port as it dived beneath the swollen shadow of the enemy craft. Mara saw the looming shadow of the Yuuzhan Vong sub"s rudder dead ahead, cutting toward her c.o.c.kpit like a huge knife, but the drag from the damaged dive plane pulled her out of the way with millimeters to spare. The torpedo was so close that Mara could hear its hiss as it shot through the water.
And then the torpedo hit the Yuuzhan Vong craft dead astern as Mara"s boat slid beneath, and a great watery hand took Mara"s sub and flung it spinning through the sea. Her hands and feet worked the controls as she tried to stabilize her craft, as she tried to gain her bearings in the giant white boil of the explosion.
Mara managed finally to bring her craft to a hover. She was hanging upside down in the c.o.c.kpit, one of her legs clamped hard on her seat and the other braced under the instrument panel. With careful squirts of her maneuvering jets, she managed to roll her sub upright.
To one side, she could see the wreckage of the shattered Yuuzhan Vong craft spin downward into the blue depths below. The great ma.s.s of the floating city, on her other side, seemed intact. Triebakk and Cal were gone from the viewport, and through the roiling sea she could barely make out the apartment"s front door, ajar-the two had fled.
Finally figured out what those fast pings meant., eh? she thought.
Well. Better late than never.
Luke, alerted once Mara got to the surface, stashed Cal Omas in their own apartment, which, with Jacen still there, was getting a little crowded, but was at least above water and in a part of the city with better security. Lando shipped down a pair of YVH droids for safety"s sake-and, out of the presumed goodness of his heart, offered security droids to the other candidates as well.
Ayddar Nylykerka managed to get Mara out of the trouble she was in for stealing a submersible and getting it damaged during the course of an underwater dogfight.
Mara arrived at her apartment late in the evening to discover why Cal Omas and Triebakk had been celebrating. On a vote held earlier that day, Cal had jumped into the lead with 46 percent, followed by Fyor Rodan with 24 and Ta"laam Ranth with 20. Pwoe had actually gained a vote, for a total of four.
"Suddenly Ta"laam"s twenty percent isn"t worth as much to him," Cal told Mara. "I don"t have to promise him much, because his supporters are going to defect in droves in the hope that I"ll be grateful later." He looked puzzled. "What I can"t work out is how Fyor"s supporters turned out so wobbly." He glanced at Luke. "You didn"t somehow arrange this, did you?"
"No," Luke said.
Cal grinned. "I didn"t think Jedi mind control worked as well as that. I guess Fyor"s supporters found out something about him that might be embarra.s.sing if it got out, and decided to jump ship while they could."
"I didn"t arrange it," Luke said, "but I think I know who did."
Mara gave him a sharp look. I"m not the only one who"s been having adventures, she thought.
Cal"s grin faded. "Should I know about this?" he asked.
"Absolutely not," Luke said. "But I wouldn"t count on Fyor"s defectors for anything more than getting you into office. My guess is they"re good for one vote only. If I were you, I"d court Ta"laam Ranth and as many of his people as you can, because you"re going to need them later."
Cal rubbed his chin. "I"m not going to ask any more questions."
"You"re an intelligent man," Luke said. "You"ll work it out without my help."
By that point Mara had worked it out herself.
The next day Ta"laam Ranth released his followers to vote for Cal Omas, and Cal was elected with almost 85 percent of the vote. Fyor Rodan and a few diehards refused to make the vote unanimous, and three loyalists still voted for Pwoe. Cal moved off Mara"s sofa and to the suite reserved for the new Chief of State at Heurkea"s poshest hotel, where he was ably guarded by a platoon of YVH droids.
He began working on the acceptance speech he would have to give the Senate the next day. But before he began, he signed the order creating the new Jedi Council, with Luke at its head.
Chapter 18.
Your candidate has been elected," Vergere said over breakfast.
"Yes," Luke answered.
"Congratulations."
Luke looked toward Mara, who was busy with the apartment"s comm unit. "It was more Mara"s doing than mine. She kept Cal alive long enough to give his acceptance speech."
"Still," Vergere said, "you played a public role in his campaign "
"True."
"You realize that you and the Jedi will have to pay later for this political involvement."
Luke nodded. "I know."
"Just so you are prepared."
Luke tasted his gla.s.s of blue milk with a wistful yearning for the fresh, more richly flavored variety he"d enjoyed on his uncle Owen Lars"s moisture farm. Mara rose from the comm unit, came to the table, and laid out several holos that had been transmitted from the hidden Jedi installation in the Maw.
"New images of Ben!"
Luke gazed at the holos with his usual mixture of delight and longing. Infants developed so rapidly at Ben"s age that Luke could plainly see how the boy had grown and changed in the short time since he"d been sent to safety in the Maw. He was walking now, with greater and greater confidence. He was speaking, too, though at the moment his vocabulary seemed to consist mainly of the word knee.
At such moments Luke"s misery at Ben"s absence outweighed his thankfulness that Ben was in a place of safety.
Luke and Mara showed the holos to Vergere, who looked at them with quizzical eyes. "A handsome human child," she said. "As best as I understand these things."
"And strong in the Force," Mara said. "That"s been clear from the beginning."
Vergere"s crest sleeked back. "Perhaps that is misfortune," she said.
Luke stared at her in surprise. "Vergere?" he said.
"You permit Jedi to many," Vergere said. "And permit not only marriage, but children. By your example, Luke Skywalker."
Luke tried to contain his surprise. "In your day," he said, "Jedi were chosen as infants. They were raised knowing they wouldn"t marry. But I had to recruit Jedi who were already grown-who had already established relationships."
"It is very dangerous," Vergere said. "What if Jedi were forced to choose between their duty and their family?"
Luke had made that choice more than once and was comfortable with the necessity. "Family makes a Jedi more of a whole person," he said.
"It makes them less than Jedi!" Vergere said. Her head swung toward Mara on the end of its long neck. "And your child is strong in the Force-that is worse!"
Mara"s green eyes glittered dangerously. "And how is that, Vergere?" she asked.
"Your Ben is heir to more than your husband"s name-he is Darth Vader"s grandchild," Vergere said. "Three generations now of Skywalkers, all strong in the Force! This is a Jedi dynasty!"
Vergere"s head swung back toward Luke. "Can"t you see how governments will view this as a threat? Once it is possible for Jedi to leave their power to their children, the balance that exists between government and Jedi falls."
Luke held up one of the holos of Ben. "This is a threat? In a universe with the Yuuzhan Vong in it?"
Vergere"s crest sleeked back again, and she made a hissing noise that raised the hairs on the back of Luke"s neck. He almost wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h the holo of Ben from the danger.
The door chime sounded. Through a gentle Force projection coming from the other side Luke knew that the visitor was Cilghal, come to collect Vergere for another healing tutorial. When Vergere wasn"t being debriefed by Fleet Intelligence-a process still ongoing-she had been perfectly amenable to spending time with Cilghal, teaching the Mon Calamari healer the art of making herself small. Perhaps Cilghal, too, would learn to heal with her tears, and then the two could pa.s.s the knowledge on to others.
At the sound of the chime, Vergere gazed stonily at Luke for a moment, then hopped off her chair. "I must go," she said. "But I beg you, young Master, to think of this."
She padded to the door and let herself out.
Luke looked at Mara. "What do we think?" he asked.
Mara reached for a knife. She began cutting up dried bofa fruit and adding it to a dried, crunchy form of Mon Calamari seaweed eaten by the locals.
"Maybe she"s embittered over fifty years of loneliness," Mara said, "but I call that an overreaction."
"Yes."
"Vergere is too smart. Too perceptive. Too enigmatic." Her green eyes flashed. "Too willing to torture young humans to get what she wants.
I don"t want her ever to get near Ben."
"Agreed," Luke said. "I"ve checked the Jedi Holocron. There was a Jedi named Vergere fifty years ago, a former apprentice of a Master Thracia Cho Leem."
Mara"s knife made neat little paring motions. "There would be, wouldn"t there? If she was an infiltrator."
"It"s awfully roundabout to infiltrate the Jedi by way of the Yuuzhan Vong."
Mara put down her knife. "Maybe she was a Jedi. The question is, after fifty years with the Vong, what is she won??"
Luke had no answer. "She doesn"t feel dark," he said.
"She doesn"t feel anything. She"s practically invisible. We only sense what she wants us to sense."
"Are you going to play spy today?"
"Nylykerka can handle the enemy networks on his own today if you have another idea. Do you?"
"I have a Jedi Council to put together," Luke said. "I thought you might help me."
Mara smiled. "We get to spend the day gossiping about our colleagues and calling it work? I"m willing."
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I knew I could count on you,"
he said.
Ruined. Ruined.
Warmaster Tsavong Lah gazed in revulsion over the Square of Sacrifice, where the great formations of Yuuzhan Vong, each in formal robes, had been a.s.sembled to witness the painful, extended death of more than a hundred captives, all for the glory of Yun-Yuuzhan, whose great temple was being dedicated on this day.
Many of the captives were of high rank, military officers or Senators captured in the battle for Yuuzhan"tar. Their lives had been carefully preserved just for this moment. They had been strapped to their execution beds, and the priests stood by with their flesh-eating beetles, and their flaying knives. The symphony of the captives" screams would have risen for many hours to the delighted ears of the G.o.d.
But instead it was ruined. While Supreme Overlord Shimrra stood on the steps of the temple, the high priest of Yun-Yuuzhan had gone into his extended blessing, hands raised over the thousands a.s.sembled to watch the work. And then a pestilential odor swept over the a.s.sembly, and the squares of formed Yuuzhan Vong began to eddy as something crept among them.
The square was being flooded by a noxious liquid, something spewed up from beneath ground level. The muck spread through the crowd, but the Yuuzhan Vong were disciplined, and remained in their ranks, plucking up the hems of their cloaks to keep them out of the ooze.
The rank fluid was composed of every kind of waste. Below ground level lived the maw luur who digested the sewage produced by the growing city, but apparently something had upset their omnivorous stomachs, and they were regurgitating onto the square.
The high priest"s voice hesitated, resumed, hesitated again. He wheezed as a gust of wind brought a wave of stench to his nostrils. The high priest managed to renew his prayers, but Shimrra"s booming voice cut him short.
"The sacrifice is spoiled! Dismiss the onlookers, and kill the captives!"
The high priest turned to face the Supreme Overlord. "Are you certain, Dread One?"
Shimrra gave a savage laugh. "Unless you think that sewage is deep enough to drown our victims in."
The high priest looked out over the flooded square. "I don"t believe so, Supreme One."
"Then order your people to kill the captives." Shimrra turned on his heel to enter the temple. "The rest of you, follow me."
Tsavong Lah followed his Overlord into the shadowed green-and-purple depths of the temple, where the air smelled properly of heavy organics. Shimrra seemed more thoughtful than angry, which Tsavong Lah thought was not a good sign-it might mean the rage would burst out later, and in an unpredictable direction. At least the Dread One wasn"t accompanied today by his shadow Onimi, as the presence of a Shamed One at a sacrifice this grand would have been an insult to the G.o.ds.
"Another failure," Shimrra growled. "Another public failure, witnessed again by thousands of our people-and by our chief G.o.d."
"Treachery, Supreme One!" someone called. "Sabotage by this so-called underground!"
"Or by heretics!" said a priest, loyal to his leader Jakan, "I have six remaining voxyn, Dread Lord," Tsavong Lah said. "Let me take one or two out, and if there are Jeedai involved in this business, the voxyn will find them and tear them!"
Shimrra looked left and right. His burning eyes turned yellow, then red as they settled on Nom Anor. "You have received no reports of underground activity?" he demanded.