Chapter 2
The Jade Shadow, having left Marfa a few hours earlier, was now travelling back to Coruscant via hyperspace. With Nom Anor tied up in the Shadow's guestroom, Luke had already contacted the authorities on Coruscant to let them know who they were taking back with them. After all the crimes he committed during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion more than ten years earlier, Nom Anor was going to stand trial as soon as he touched down on what his people once ruled over as Yuuzhan'tar.
In the meantime, Mara decided that she was going to confront the man who nearly ruined her life all those years ago. She opened the door to the guest cabin and walked in, stern-faced. Nom Anor looked up from his feet in despair, his poison-spitting plaeryin bol extracted from his empty eye socket so that it could do no harm, and his expression was no different as soon as he saw Mara.
After the door sealed shut behind her, she walked over to his tied form and looked down at him in what amounted to controlled anger on Mara's part. The first thing she said to him was, "Did you really think you could spend the rest of your days on Marfa in peace? After all you've done?"
"Yes," Nom Anor replied in an apathetic tone. His continued dour expression betrayed his voice.
Mara slapped Nom Anor across the face as a result of his insolence. "Men like you don't get to have such a luxurious retirement," she spat. "At least not until they've paid through the teeth first. And that's assuming that they'll be able to survive such punishment."
Nom Anor reeled back from the slap and stared back at Mara hard with his one eye. "You don't think I have paid through the teeth already, Mara Jade?" he asked in contempt. "My entire life has been nothing more than acquiescing to the likes of Warmaster Tsavong Lah, High Prefect Drathul, Supreme Overlord Shimrra..." He trailed off as his eye looked to the floor in sadness again. "And Onimi." Onimi was the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong, as Nom Anor discovered at the conclusion of the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, the final battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War, ten years before. It still pained him to this day to know that his entire species' civilization has been following the whims of a deranged Shamed One ever since Quoreal–Shimrra's predecessor on the throne–had been put to death. "I helped you and your people reclaim Coruscant, as a result of what happened at Ebaq 9 more than ten years ago! Couldn't you just leave me alone for once?"
By the look on her face, Mara obviously didn't sympathize with Nom Anor one bit, nor did she believe that he ever go through any suitable punishment to balance out the horrors of his crimes. Such as infecting her with coomb spores, which nearly ended her life, as well as almost robbing her of any chance of ever having a child–almost robbing her of the chance to conceive Ben with Luke.
She leaned down to get closer to him. "Do you have any idea what you've put me through?" she nearly yelled. "Or for that matter, the Jedi Order? The New Republic? You've condoned the actions that have killed many friends and allies of my family and I, including my nephew, Anakin Solo. You don't even have the conscience to comprehend the enormity of what your actions have done; how many worlds, how many lives, were lost because you helped your kind to a cause you didn't even believe in! The grief you've put us all through..." Mara's teeth were clenched and her closed fists were shaking. She was just barely controlling herself from strangling Nom Anor to death. After a moment, she calmed down, breathed in and out a few times, and relaxed herself before saying, "You have no idea how merciful I'm being right now. If I had it my way, I'd simply use this lightsaber–" she indicated the Jedi weapon hanging on her belt "–to send your head rolling to the opposite corner of this cabin right now and then vac both pieces of your body into the nearest star. As it is, I'm to properly fulfill my duties as a Jedi Master in bringing you to justice for your crimes and letting those with better judgment be the ones who determine your fate." It irked Mara that she remembered saying something fairly similar to Nom Anor ten years earlier after she spared his life in the decrepit ruins of a building during the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar.
Through the strength and conviction of Mara's words, Nom Anor still had the audacity to smirk, even after all these years. "And what if my sentence is to go back to Marfa in peace?" he asked, his smirk sustained. "Hmm? What if I'm simply to be exiled right back there? You know, I wonder, wouldn't you and your husband be the ones who would suffer the consequences of kidnapping me? Hmm?"
Mara's nostrils flared. But this time, she restrained herself from any further assault on Nom Anor. Instead, she asked, "How did you survive the explosion aboard Onimi's ship?"
Nom Anor's smirk grew wider as he tilted his head to the side. "Only a god worth my species' worship could survive an explosion like that, Skywalker," he said as if scolding a child for doing something mildly harmful to another. Mara had to breath deeply again to calm just the minor irritation that the Yuuzhan Vong's tone had inflamed within her. His tone did grow more business-like–at least as close to it as he could, considering his circumstances–as he explained, "Before I attempted to lead the Solo family to their doom in a garbage chute aboard that vessel, as they must have no doubt told you, I had noticed a second yorik-trema–the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of one of your escape pods–nearby the one that the Solos eventually took, after Jacen deduced through his 'Vongsense' my attempted treachery.
"To this day, I still have no idea why there were two yorik-tremas aboard that vessel, rather than the usual one for the Supreme Overlord," Nom Anor went on, "but an estimation of mine was that Onimi must've manipulated Shimrra to have another yorik-trema installed for himself. Anyway, after I told the Solos that I'd rather die with Onimi than ever live to see the dawn of the postwar galaxy, I launched them out into space and rushed to the second yorik-trema to escape. I made it just in time, but the blast radius sent the yorik-trema spiralling down towards Coruscant where it crashed in one of the planet's outskirts.
"For several weeks," Nom Anor continued, "as Warmaster Nas Choka and the remnants of his mighty fleet collected what remained of the Yuuzhan Vong, both on and off Coruscant, to be shipped away to the Unknown Regions via Zonama Sekot, I struggled to survive through the isolated surface conflicts, perpetrated by renegade Yuuzhan Vong commanders, that littered the planet. My persistence was rewarded, however, when I managed to find an ooglith masquer amongst the debris of the ravaged Coruscant, and I disguised myself as a human soldier within the Galactic Alliance. Despite the efforts of both your people and Nas Choka's loyal forces in collecting nearly every living Yuuzhan Vong throughout the galaxy, I successfully smuggled myself off of Coruscant, slipped away from the military, and I eventually ended up on Marfa as a businessman."
"And now here you are," Mara said when Nom Anor concluded his explanation.
"Yes, here I am now, thanks to you," Nom Anor replied in seething contempt.
Again, Mara leaned down to Nom Anor to look him straight in the eye so that he knew she was serious. "You're not going to get out of here this time, Nom Anor," Mara said. "This time, you will get your just desserts."
Nom Anor sneered. "We'll see. As I said, I did help the Galactic Alliance overthrow Shimrra–and Onimi, for that matter–through the Jeedai heresy I inflamed as Yu'shaa the Prophet. A pardon for my actions throughout the earlier stages of my species' invasion of your galaxy doesn't seem too unlikely for me."
Mara leaned in closer yet. "I wouldn't be so confident of that little fact if I were you," she replied, her voice barely a whisper. "So I'd suggest that you'd prepare for the worst if it comes to that."
Without another word, she turned around and headed for the door. It opened before her, and after she stepped through the threshold, she turned around and just stared back at Nom Anor; she, staring with controlled anger;, he, staring at her with his continued smirk, despite what Mara just said to him. The only similarities between them, it dawned on Mara as the door closed before her, was that they were both staring at each other in contempt.