A cool breeze washed over the clearing. Grasses rippled under invisible force and the bora trees in the distance wavered, rustled. It caught Ben in the face but he couldn't look away, couldn't even blink.
It was Jacen, but it wasn't. Itcouldn't be. The Jacen walking toward them through the field of tall rippling grass (his hair, Ben noticed, unmoving despite the wind) was not any Jacen he remembered. Certainly not the Jacen he had spoken to in the Lake of Apparitions, restless and bitter, no longer Sith but not repentant of what he'd done. Not Darth Caedus either, whose gold-rimmed eyes blazed with fury. And not the Jacen before Caedus either, at least not the one Ben remembered meeting after he returned from his five-year odyssey across the galaxy in search of new Force users. Looking back, he realized there had been something grim about that Jacen, something tired, something resigned, even before he sold his soul to Lumiya in an attempt to bring peace to the galaxy.
This Jacen was like no Jacen Ben could remember. His steps were confident but light. His eyes were alert and eager. His face was not young. It had been through too much for that, but it was not tired the way Ben remembered. It looked like it belonged to a man ready to go exploring.
"Sekot," Tahiri said confidently, not shocked at all.
The living planet. Of course, Ben thought. He'd been told about this. The living world could manifest itself with thought-projections, taking the shape of other beings it had met. Now it chose to greet them with the form of Jacen Solo, Jacen as he was before he began his long awful fall to be Darth Caedus.
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Why?" he heard Jaina rasp. She wasn't laughing or crying. She was angry. "Why him?"
Sekot stopped a few meters away from them. Jacen's eyes blinked once, twice. His voice said, "I'm sorry. I thought you would appreciate a familiar face."
"Please," said Tahiri more steadily, "We would appreciate someone else."
"Very well," Sekot said. And then Jacen was gone and a Yuuzhan Vong woman stood before them. She was tall and thin, her face lined by tattoos but no scars. She wore the tall, tentacle-topped headdress of a member of their shaper case. She appeared without Ben's even blinking. Jacen was there one moment, this Yuuzhan Vong scientist (also dead?) the next.
"Is this better?" the planet asked.
"That one's all right," Tahiri said. She looked at Ben, then at Jaina, whose hands were still clenched in white fists at her side. "Neither of you met her, but this... face Sekot is wearing belonged to Nen Yim. She was the Yuuzhan Vong scientist whose memories were implanted in me."
The Yuuzhan Vong nodded. The tentacles in her headress bobbed slightly in imitation of natural motion but did not stir in the wind. "It is fine to see you again. Are you calling yourself Tahiri now, or Riina?"
"You can call me Tahiri," the blond Jedi said.
She did not show the visible discomfort Jaina did, even though Sekot had brought back the traumatic moments of her past, when the implanted Yuuzhan Vong memories had warred with her natural ones, and the only solution had been to force a compromise where both 'selves' existed within the body of a slim, short woman with gold hair, green eyes, and three scars over her forehead as a constant reminder of what she was deep down.
Tahiri seemed calm, almost confident, even as she looked into the eyes of the person she'd almost been.
Ben wished he could say the same. Still, his sense of confusion and discomfort was nothing compared to the indignation rolling off Jaina in the Force.
"Why did you bring us here?" she demanded. "Did you have us land out here to talk to us? Because I'd have much rather set down in a nice settlement. We have a lot of questions that need answering."
"I am sure you do." The image of Nen Yim folded its hands patiently over its waist. Ben was struck by the long fingers, each digit deformed by biological instruments grafted onto flesh and bone. "However, those instructions did not come from me. I understand that the Magister wishes to treat new arrivals with caution. A party is coming to meet you as we speak."
"I can feel them," Tahiri said, voice soft but firm.
"I don't," Jaina said.
Ben tried to put the strange thing in front of him out of his mind and reached out with the Force. He felt nothing beyond the general sensation of plant and animal life in the forest around them. Not even Sekot's thought projection registered.
"It's Yuuzhan Vong," Tahiri said.
"Oh," Ben muttered. He'd almost forgotten, but Tahiri's experience with the Yuuzhan Vong, her captivity and alteration surgeries, had left her with the ability to sense other Yuuzhan Vong and Vong-formed life via a faint sense of telepathy, less like the Force and more like the thought signals used by their yammosk war machines to communi-cate. He remembered that Jacen had possessed those abilities too.
"Can we trust them?" Jaina asked.
Nen Yim's head nodded. "Of course."
"We met some of Yuuzhan Vong already who weren't too friendly," Ben said. "Are these different?"
"Certainly." Sekot seemed faintly offended. "The ones you encountered are a splinter faction. Wayward children."
"They're very deadly children," Jaina said.
Sekot nodded gravely. "I understand. And that is why I hope you will help bring them home to me."
"You'd welcome them?" Tahiri asked, before Jaina could interject.
"I already did once." Nen Yim's head tilted back, like she was listening to something beneath the whistle of wind and the rustling of trees and grass.
"They're almost here," Tahiri said.
"And so I'll leave you now," the living world said. "However, I would like to ask one brief question."
"Go ahead," Tahiri said. She had apparently become the leader of the expedition.
"My projection of the late Nen Yim didn't distress you, did it?"
Tahiri shook her head. "No. It was actually... a little nice."
"And yet my projection of Jacen Solo did?"
And awkward silence fell over the group. Ben said, "Jacen's dead."
"I know." Nen Yim's face looked at him. There was some-thing doubly alien in those eyes. "I felt his passing in the Force, and that of your mother."
Ben stiffened. He remembered that Zonama Sekot had gone missing before Jacen began his downfall, before he had killed Mara Jade Skywalker.
"Do you know how they died?" Ben asked.
"No. I was hoping you could tell me, at a later time."
Jaina blew out a long, long sigh. "At a later time."
The living world seemed to sense the darkness lingering over them. It nodded and said, "I look forward to it."
And then it was gone.
Ben, Jaina, and Tahiri stood in the middle of the field, cold wind whipping tall grass around their waists, and none of them could think of anything to say.
A short time or a while later, Ben saw figures coming from the far side of the clearing. They were approaching rapidly, and he realized that they were not just humanoid Yuuzhan Vong, as he'd been expecting, but Yuuzhan Vong mounted atop something else.
He sensed Jaina and even Tahiri tense. He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt but did not ignite, not yet. As they got closer he realized they were riding three bipedal animals. They powered forward on two thick, birdlike legs that supported a fat, scaled body with a long tail and flat reptilian head that ran parallel to the grass. Two Yuuzhan Vong rode atop each creature.
They moved fast, and had the Jedi surrounded before they could do anything to defend themselves.
For a long, long moment the three creatures eyed the Jedi hungrily, while the Yuuzhan Vong looked down impassively. Their faces bore the elaborate tattoos Ben had come to expect from the Yuuzhan Vong, but none of their faces bore the elaborate deformations and implants he'd seen in holos. Some had scarring, yes, but it seemed faint, and artfully covered by the tattoos. Each of them seemed to have an amphistaff curled around his waist, and Ben certainly recognized those snake-like, armored, living weapons from the holos.
Tahiri broke the tense silence. "Verao Shai? Is that you?"
A Yuuzhan Vong sitting on the creature directly in front of them leaned in close. He wore white facepaint to go with his black tattoos, and Ben thought he saw signs of some elaborate scarring beneath the chalky color. He had no idea how to guess Yuuzhan Vong ages, but this one looked a little older than the rest.
"Torunk'rash? Velar pe'tal voran Riina Kwaad?" the Yuuzhan Vong asked. Ben picked out the name at least.
"Ket'al mar vorush ni'yat!" Tahiri said. The words sounded strange and harsh on her tongue, but she did not look angry; happy, almost.
The Yuuzhan Vong, Verao Shai apparently, made a weird sound that was someplace between a snort and a rattle. Ben realized that he must have been laughing.
"Kel'ash morut ni'yat, Riina Kwaad," Shai gave a 'come forward' gesture. His mouth had no lips, but he opened his teeth a little, apparently in some grotesque imitation of a human smile.
"Let's go," Tahiri said.
"You want us to get on those things?" Ben gaped. The one Shai was riding was staring at him hard with a pair of black reptilian eyes, like it had found its next meal.
"The ni'yat is harmless," Tahiri insisted. "They can carry up to three, so one on each."
"Where are they taking us?" Jaina asked. She was eying the ni'yat with the same suspicion Ben was.
Tahiri looked at Verao Shai and asked, "Tz'pol kreesh ver'al mokh Voorth? Weelak?"
"Kol fleeth morak huth majiztar pel'unt."
"Did he just say 'Magister'?" Jaina asked.
"What's a magister?" Ben asked. "Some kind of... ruler?" He didn't know why a planet with its own consciousness would need a ruler, but frankly he understood next to nothing about Zonama Sekot, and some the explanations he'd already gotten about it from Tahiri, Jacen, and his parents, nobody else really did either.
"The Magister is the living authority on this planet," Tahiri explained. "When I was here last it was a Ferroan woman named Jabitha."
"Ferroans are the natives, right?"
"They colonized the planet less than two centuries ago. If anyone is really from Sekot, well, the Yuuzhan Vong come closest."
"Oh. So they're sharing the world now? How's that work-ing out?"
Tahiri glanced at Verao Shai, then back at Ben. "I guess we'll find out."
It didn't Ben long to decide that travel by ni'yat was not his preferred method. The beasts threw you about when they ran, they smelled like sour milk for some reason, and he still wasn't convinced his mount didn't want to eat him.
One thing he was impressed by was the fact that the animals were able to nimbly navigate around the dense forest of bora trees, and Ben did not get a single branch of low-hanging, multi-colored leaves in his face. It was as if the creatures, the forest itself, or both were somehow acting to keep him from accidental harm. Even though he could feel the bora trees in the Force and the ni'yat not at all, they seemed to operate in perfect communion with one another.
That should have made Ben feel better, but it didn't. There were still far too many unknowns, and beyond them was one the one thing he did know that was worst of all. Vestara Khai was out there somewhere, fighting with these wayward Vong, and while the idea a Yuuzhan Vong-Sith alliance was terrifying, it wasn't half as terrifying as the idea of facing Vestara again.
He tried to push the Sith girl out of his thoughts, but he'd never been very good at that, even before she betrayed him and almost gotten his cousin Allana killed.
This time, at least he got the distraction of a terrifying ni'yat ride across forest and plain, and their eventual arrival in a town nested in a small valley.
He'd seen pictures of cities on Zonama Sekot before, but now that he was actually in one he was impressed by the graceful domes of the buildings, the way the organic huts and towers rose seamlessly out of the earth. He was impressed, too, with the mix of beings milling about the buildings. There seemed to be equal numbers Yuuzhan Vong and blue-skinned beings he took to be Ferroans. Everyone paused to watch as the new arrivals as their ni'yat mounts strode down the town's center lane. Young Yuuzhan Vong with painted, unscarred faces stopped and stared slaw-jawed. Ferroans peeked out of huts, almost timidly. A blue-skinned woman held a child in her arms, and as Ben passed the child held out one fat hand to wave.
It was all Ben could do to wave back.
Their mounts finally came to a half in front of one broad domed building at the end of the lane. A mixed party of Ferroans and Yuuzhan Vong were waiting for them, and Ben scanned for Jabitha.
He didn't know what Jabitha looked like, but he was expecting some hunched, matronly old Ferroan. He didn't see any of those, but he was surprised to see a human woman, on the young side of middle age, with curly blond hair half-tied at the back of her neck. She had her hands folded in front of her and a warm smile on her face.
He dropped directly from the back of the ni'yat, using the Force to cushion his fall. Tahiri and Jaina did the same, and his cousin went directly toward the blond woman at the head of the group awaiting them.
"Danni!" Jaina exclaimed. "Are you..."
A warm smile formed on the woman's face. "I am the Magister here. It's been a very long time. It's good to see you, Jaina. And you, Tahiri."
"It's good to be back," the other blond woman said. The Ferroans and Yuuzhan Vong clustered around this Danni woman looked surprised as she and Jaina walked right up to their Magister and exchanged warm hugs.
As Jaina stepped out of the embrace she gestured back at Ben. "I think you two met a long time ago. Danni, this is my cousin Ben. Ben, this is Danni Quee. She was a scientist who helped us during the war."
Jaina didn't say which war, and that put Ben off for a moment. For him, the war was the one that began with a mission to an illegal Adumari missile factory and ended with his mother dead and his cousin a fallen Sith Lord. But to Danni, and probably everyone else on Zonama Sekot from here on out, the war was the one he'd been born during.
The shock of time visibly shook Danni. The Magister put a hand over her opened mouth and her eyes went wide. When she finally composed herself she said, "Hello, Ben. I doubt you remember me."
"Yeah," Ben scratched his head awkwardly. "It's been a while."
"Yes, it has," Danni took her hand away from her mouth. She looked the group over and said, "You have no idea what it's like to see someone from my corner of the galaxy. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on Sekot's behalf."
"Actually," Jaina said, "We already got one when we landed."
Danni's eyes went wide again. A few of the Ferroans and Yuuzhan Vong started whispering among themselves.
"I see," Danni said eventually. She clearly wanted to say more, but this was not the place. She gestured to the building behind her. "Please. Let's have a seat and talk privately. I'm sure we all have stories to tell."
After a moment of visible reluctance, the crowd parted to allow them access to the structure's round black porthole. Danni went in first, followed by Jaina and Tahiri, with Ben bringing up the rear. The crowd lingered outside the door, whispering again, but none tried to enter.
The inside of the building was like nothing Ben had ever seen before. The ceiling was low and curved, befitting the shape of the exterior. Rounds pillars rose to support the roof at seemingly random locations, and seemed attached the floor and ceiling both by tree-like roots. Shelves protruded from the walls and were bound by objects wrapped in woven cloth or leather. Danni led them to a spot on the floor, where they sat down on a carpet with intricately-woven designs in red and orange that contrasted with the cool green-blue tone of the ceiling, walls, and floor.
"This is grown," Ben stated the obvious, because for him at least, it was like nothing in the known galaxy. Certainly not the endless artificiality of Coruscant, or the old stone ruins of Ossus. He wondered if the entire planet was like this.
Danni nodded as she sat with her legs crossed, white hands folded in her lap. "This entire village was created less than ten standard years ago."
Ben looked around and gave an impressed whistle. The curiously organic nature of the village made it seem as old and ageless as the valley and forests in which it was placed.
"I remember," Tahiri said. "Before I left, we were planning to grow more cities and towns."
"This is one of them," Danni said. "As you can see, we've settled it with a mixed Ferroan and Yuuzhan Vong population."
"How is that working?" Tahiri asked. To Ben and Jaina, she explained, "When I left, the populations were still largely in separate cities. Mostly on separate continents. Neither group was keen and mixing and-" She stopped herself, shook her head. "We can get to all that later. There's more important things, aren't there?"
"There are," Jaina nodded, then said pointedly to Danni, "You were surprised when we said we'd spoken to Sekot."
"Yes," Danni sighed. The woman, who until now had projected a certain ageless elegance, looked suddenly old. She said, "Sekot has not spoken to me, or to my knowledge anyone on this planet, since True Honor left."
"True Honor," Jaina repeated. "That's what the renegade Yuuzhan Vong fleet calls itself?"
Danni nodded. "Have you had contact with them?"
"A bit, yeah. But most of that 'contact' has actually been with another renegade fleet. We've been fighting them too. There's a mixed Imperial-Alliance fleet out there, trying to find Zonama Sekot."
"Like yours," Danni said.
"Like ours," Jaina allowed, "But they want to exterminate every last Yuuzhan Vong in the galaxy and I don't think they'll shed tears if Sekot goes out with them. If anything, this world is probably their primary target."
"The True Honor faction always said it would happen," Danni said gravely.
"And the True Victory people- our renegades- said the Vong were going back on the warpath. Looks like they proved each other right."
"This True Victory fleet, is it led by the Bothans?"
"The commander is a Bothan, but it has all types. There's a lot of people who still hold a grudge because of what happened in the war."
"I know," Danni said. "I was one of them, at least in the beginning. But we're making great progress. We've made great strides in reforming the priest caste, and elevating the Extolled."
"You clearly didn't pacify the warriors," Ben said.
Danni could have taken it as a harsh rebuke, but the woman nodded in acceptance. "They've always been the most difficult to work with. It was mostly them who started the True Honor movement."
"Where did they get a fleet?" Tahiri asked. "After the treaty, their warships were flown into Coruscant's sun. They take a lot of time and energy to grow too. I know it's been ten years since I was here, but I don't remember any warships being grown then."
"The ships True Honor uses are not newly-grown," Danni said. "The... circumstances are still unclear to us, but it seems they were ships abandoned by Yuuzhan Vong coming to Zonama Sekot and left in other systems throughout the galaxy. Someone gathered them, repaired them, and readied them for combat.
"Why weren't they destroyed?" Ben asked.
"It's a big galaxy," Tahiri said. "And it was a huge war. There's still abandoned ships from the Empire or the Clone Wars that are being found. It's no surprise there are lost Yuuzhan Vong ships too."
"It must have taken a lot of effort to find and repair all those ships," Ben spoke up. "I thought all the Yuuzhan Vong were supposed to be on Zonama Sekot."
"Yes," Danni said. "They should have been. As I said, it's still something we don't fully understand."
"So let's wind things back," Jaina said. "This True Honor movement, when did it leave Zonama Sekot?"
Danni thought a moment. "About three months ago. As I said, I haven't heard from Sekot since then. I have been... worried."
To Ben she looked more than worried. She looked like a woman trying very hard to cover deep, almost spiritual doubts about everything she'd been doing with her life, and he felt sorry for her.
Instead of prying in this direction with a woman be barely knew, Ben asked, "Why did Zonama Sekot leave its old location five years ago? What happened?"
Danni swallowed. "There was an incident. Zonama was attacked by… some beings. Nothing we were familiar with."
"Can you describe them?" Jaina asked.
"I can try. They used strange, crystal-like ships, each no bigger than a shuttle, but they attacked like swarms. They dove into our atmosphere and attacked our towns and villages. Many died."
"They don't sound familiar," Tahiri said.
"How did you defeat them?" Ben asked. He'd heard that Sekot had terrible defensive power, enough to wipe out an entire fleet if it so chose.
"We didn't," Danni said. "Rather than fight and destroy them, Sekot elected to jump to hyperspace. However, the jump and the attack left us gravely damaged. All our long-range communication systems were down. Navigation was also wrecked. The previous Magister, Jabitha, was killed, as was the warriors' leader Nos Choka."
"It must have been horrible," Tahiri said. Imagined scenes of devastation were probably playing with particular vivid-ness in her mind.
"It was," Danni nodded gravely. "Worse than the physical damage was the spiritual damage. Many Yuuzhan Vong felt betrayed by Sekot and the new teachings we've tried to introduce."
"So they formed True Honor," Jaina said.
"The movement existed before, but it grew greatly after the disaster," Danni nodded. "Nos Choka was a moderating influence on the warriors, and losing him hurt a lot. It created an opening for more extreme voices, especially from members of Domain Lah. Even those who weren't tempted to return to the old ways were very worried. We waited for some Alliance team to come and find us. And we kept waiting... year after year. Nobody came. Some of us felt betrayed."
She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice, but it was radiating off of her through the Force. Ben could only imagine what it had been like for a human to be cut off from her own kind, left to guide an alien civilization without anyone to depend on. He barely knew Danni Quee, but his heart went out to her.
As if to shirk off Ben's pity, Danni said, "I'm sure we weren't easy to find. And I'm sure things have happened that kept you from finding us until now."
You could say that again, Ben thought, but he didn't say anything. He didn't know where to begin.
"Have you heard anything about the Alliance?" Jaina asked cautiously. "Anything at all?"
Danni shook her head and looked down. "I only know that your brother Jacen is dead. And your Aunt too." She looked up at Ben. "Sekot felt them pass in the Force. I'm so sorry."
Ben's throat tightened. He couldn't think of anything to say.
"We are too," Tahiri said. "Believe me."
Cautiously, Danni asked, "Can you explain what happened?"
Jaina shook her head. "We can talk about it later. What matters now is that Master Skywalker sent us to save you and the Yuuzhan Vong. There's more to this than just renegades. The Sith are involved too."
"The Sith?" Danni's jaw dropped. "The Sith have returned? How?"
"That's another long story," Jaina sighed. "What we're dealing with now... Well, we don't actually know much about these Sith. Master Skywalker encountered one a few years ago and we've been trying to track them ever since. If True Honor had help putting together a fleet, I bet it came from them."
"That's horrible," Danni said. "I had no idea things were that bad."
"Things could get a whole lot worse if we don't work together," Jaina said. "We'd like to help you rebuild your engines, your navigation and transmitters, all of that. Can we bring more people down?" When Danni looked hesitant, she pressed, "I remember the old rules. No warships. But we can bring down people, right?"
Danni nodded. "I think that should be okay."
"Good." Jaina looked relieved, and Ben remembered that one of her Mando friends, if that was the word, was lying up in Celestial's hangar in a coma. She'd wanted to bring him down to see if Sekot could heal him.
"What about defense?" Tahiri asked. "If it were under attack by the Sith, would Sekot defend itself with force?
Danni thought for a long time, but in the end all she could say was, "I don't know. I'm sorry, I just I don't know."
"It's okay," Jaina said. "We brought a lot of ships with us. They can help us defend."
She didn't say that their flagship was badly damaged, and that they'd already lost two gunships and a star destroyer fighting the renegade True Victory fleet. A fight against either True Honor or a rematch with True Victory could prove very costly, and Ben was quietly hoping the two renegade fleets finished each other off.
It would save him another encounter with Vestara too. That would be a relief, but he knew the universe wasn't that nice.
"If it's all right with you," Jaina told Danni, "I'd like to talk to the fleet. Do you have any transmitters in this village?"
"There is something." Danni said, and started to rise.
"Good." Jaina got to her feet, as did Ben and Tahiri. "I'll call Jag and tell him to start sending down people."
"Jag?" Danni's eyes lit with recognition. "Do you mean Jagged Fel?"
"Yep," Jaina nodded. "Commander of Task Force Trinity, as we call it. Also, my husband."
"Husband," Danni's mouth broke into a white smile, but tears welled in her eyes. She stepped forward and clasped Jaina's arm. "Oh, I'm so glad. How long?"
"Just a couple years," Jaina said, a little awkwardly. "It took a while to sort things out."
"Oh, I'm so glad," Danni squeezed Jaina's arm hard. "I'm glad there's something left worth celebrating."
With visible reluctance, Jaina's hard face cracked its own smile. It looked tired but true. "Yeah. I guess there is."
