Chapter 26
Life Is A Battlefield

30 ABY
Occupied Coruscant/Yuuzhan'tar
2.5 years after the 'Fall of Coruscant'

Thrust, parry, twist, pull. Thrust, parry, step back, slash, kick.

Breathe.

Thrust, slash, kick, twist, side step. Run, jump, flip, crouch, spring, snapkick.

Breathe.

One hundred and four.

Tahiri could see the Senate building. No, she could see the Well of the World Brain. She could also see the hundreds of warriors standing between her and it. She could also feel the exhaustion threatening to take her down, but she couldn't let it, she had to keep going.

Run, jump, spin, land, kick, thrust, stab.

Breathe.

One hundred and five.

She could also feel death, all the deaths she had caused. She couldn't feel the losses in the Force, like she would feel them if she had gutted and speared and decapitated humans or Twi'leks or Rodians or Wookies, but she could feel the deaths in her soul and they were weighing her down as much as the fatigue was weighing down her muscles.

Kick, parry, thrust, uppercut, swing, hack, duck, swing back around.

Breathe.

One hundred and six.

Kick, spin, snap-kick…

Then the ground began to quake.

Mara was finding it surprisingly easy to split her attention.

Nom Anor was a coward.

For all his proselytizing, for all his talk and encouragement to the Shamed Ones to rise up against their oppressors as they marched toward the Sacred Precinct, he was doing a very good job at hiding behind them, whenever they encountered the warriors he was encouraging those Shamed Ones to attack. That left Mara plenty of room to fight those same warriors and not having to worry about where Nom Anor was.

He was always hiding behind those Shamed Ones.

Each skirmish that Team Three had gotten into so far had proven fairly easy to deal with. Either Shimmra was sending out the second string, or the Shamed Ones were better prepared and more fed up with their lot than Mara had imagined.

Though they hadn't had many weapons to start out with, the survivors from the first few skirmishes had picked up the amphistaffs and thud bugs and razor bugs left by the dead warriors and carried them into the next skirmishes and hadn't been shy about using them.

The Shamed Ones had done better as they'd kept going, not only picking up weapons, but picking up friends. By Mara's guess they were only a kilometer from the Sacred Precinct now and had far more Shamed Ones with them than when they'd started out.

Jaina was leading the throng now, Mara only a meter behind her and to the left. Nom Anor was between them, off Jaina's left shoulder - in clear striking distance of Mara's lightsaber, if he so much as sneezed, as Anakin had said. Mara had barely taken her eyes off of him in the last twenty minutes, just begging the Force for him to sneeze.

Then he did sneeze, but Mara suspected it was because of the smoke from the fires that were beginning to break out in the shrubs all around them.

Anakin crouched down at the base of the wall surrounding the Sacred Precinct and braced himself with his hands on the ground as it shook again, watching in horror as the Shamed Ones threw themselves at the warriors in front of them.

It was like watching a mass suicide.

These were not the warriors that Mara's Shamed One's were fighting; these were Shimrra's elite guard, these were the guardians of the actual Citadel. The only beings stronger, tougher, or more brutal would be the warriors in the throne room itself, the warriors standing in front of Shimmra.

These Shamed Ones were lucky if they lasted five seconds before becoming decorations on the tips of these warriors' amphistaffs; they'd last even less time in the throne room and the wave of nausea Anakin was feeling was competing with the wave of guilt for the dominant emotion as he watched the melee in front of him.

He'd known, from Older Tahiri's descriptions of last time, that Shamed Ones would die, but still, knowing it was a possibility, even a probability, and watching it happen were two entirely different things.

Anakin looked away from the scene to see Luke hunched and making his way over.

"Time yet?"

Anakin shook his head. "Tahiri and Jacen are about forty meters from the opening to the Brain. They've got about one-hundred-fifty Shamed Ones with them still, and more are pouring into their section of the Precinct, but there are about five hundred warriors over there. And they lost Huane."

Luke reeled back in surprise. "Did they lose the poison?"

"No, Jacen caught her as she was going down, stayed with her until she went. He gave the canister to another one of the Shamed Ones to take care of until they get in."

"How much longer do you want to wait?"

Anakin scrunched his nose and sighed. "I just spoke to Mara. Fires are breaking out near them. Between that and the quakes, and all the fighting, I'm not sure if we need any more diversions. Wedge and Kre'fey are going to be here soon and troops are going to start landing. We need that ship disabled. Before too much longer our safety is going to become a secondary concern."

"Good thing our wives didn't just hear you say that."

"I'd be sleeping on the couch for days."

"Face and Kell are good to go, so whenever you're ready."

Anakin looked back out at the fighting, saw that the Shamed Ones weren't doing any better and sighed, "I guess there's no time like the present."

"You sure?"

"Why not. Let's go wreak a little havoc. Why should our wives get to inflict all the mayhem?"

Jacen stood watching Tahiri and had to smile.

His not so large sister-in-law seemed even smaller than normal when surrounded by Vong, her head tilted back to look up into their faces. They didn't seem to view her as small though, or take her size as an indication of weakness. On the contrary; the Shamed Ones were listening intently, and Jacen knew they had every intention of carrying out Tahiri's orders, which, Jacen also knew, were to guard the entrance Tahiri was now standing in front of, the entrance to the Well of the World Brain, with their lives.

When she was done handing out orders Tahiri joined Jacen, and the two started forward. Huane had described what they would find, a maze of ceremonial trees and shrubs, and if the looks of the greenery in front of them was anything to go by, then they were indeed in the right place.

"Wow, it's even creepier than I thought it would be," Tahiri whispered as they began walking.

"Yeah, sort of like the descriptions you read about of the garden in the Fourth Corellian Hell."

"Then you should feel right at home," Tahiri giggled.

Jacen grinned and shook his head as he followed behind her, hoping there was only one way to go. "I thought we agreed to put all the name-calling and insulting behind us."

"I didn't agree to anything." She laughed, then after a moment she asked, "Are you feeling sort of giddy and giggly because we actually made it here and we didn't die?"

Jacen laughed with her. "Yeah. And the war may be over in a couple of hours."

Tahiri grabbed Jacen's hand and squeezed. "I can hardly believe it. I barely remember what it was like to not be at war."

Jacen took a deep breath. "I know, but the war isn't over yet, and we have a job to do, so let's get serious."

The path ended quicker than Jacen would have imagined, considering what it was leading to, but once out of it, a sense of foreboding threatened to overwhelm him.

They were in the cavernous room that had held the galaxy's Senate pods for thousands of years, the room where democracy, and briefly, the Empire, had reigned. Now, the room was nothing more than a yorik coral shell, the décor that had once hung from, or been engraved in the walls, witness to hundreds of generations of legislative history, had been wiped away by the living rock that had consumed the duracrete and plasteel that had made up the theatre. There was nothing left to remind future generations that the New Republic, or the Old Republic, or even the Empire, had ever ruled from this building. There was nothing left to testify to the fact that billions of beings' lives had mattered to those who traveled these halls, sentients for whom governing was not only a life's work, but a passion.

Instead of that passion, or even the anger Jacen often felt infused in the very air whenever he entered this building, he felt a damp, sticky, ominous hunger, as though the Brain wanted something, or wanted them.

At the bottom of the massive chamber, below where he and Tahiri now stood, in the pit from where the tower of the Chief of State's podium had once risen, was a deep, wide pool of bubbling slime, and as Jacen watched, something that was very definitely alive broke the surface, curved and gleaming like the back of some huge sea-monster.

It disappeared quickly, back under the wet frothing surface in a moment, and didn't seem to react to them, but the sight still made Jacen anxious.

He looked at Tahiri. "Is it just me, or are you feeling like the Brain can sense us?" Jacen asked.

"I'm not sure," Tahiri said as she pushed buttons on her wrist comm, "but I'm going to let Anakin know we got in. Let's do this and get the hell out of here. This place is seriously freaking me out."

"For once, I agree with you," he murmured. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Tahiri looked up and scowled. "Great, Jace. Isn't that Solo code for 'let's kriff this up'?"

Jacen opened the canister Huane had carried on the march and sighed, wishing she could have been here to deliver this herself, knowing that she would have taken great pride in the knowledge that her work had helped her race, then tipped the container, spilling the contents onto the Brain. The liquid had barely hit the surface of the pool when the gelatinous creature began to undulate wildly, splashing liquid high up into the air, covering Jacen and Tahiri in sticky goo as the ground instantly began to shake. Then, to Jacen's horror, something broke through the surface of the gelatinous pool – a massive tentacle the size of a baby space slug, and then two more of them, splashing liquid high up into the air as they thrashed around. The shaking grew harder, causing Jacen to lose his balance. He used the Force to keep himself from tumbling into the Well, glad that the tentacles didn't seem to be aiming for them specifically, and pulled Tahiri back with him as he fell away from the beast and onto the floor, just as he heard his brother's voice coming from Tahiri's wrist.

"What's going on? You've got a bad feeling about what? Jacen? Tahiri?"

Jacen grabbed Tahiri's arm and brought the comm to his mouth. "We're in, Anakin."

Tahiri knocked Jacen aside, pulling her arm away from him, and was about to speak when a tentacle lashed past her face, its heavy tip connecting loudly with the wall behind them, and smashing fist-sized chunks of yorik coral off it.

Jacen tried to not give her a smug look, though he knew he was failing. The ground shaking grew faster and harder, causing both of them to roll, thankfully away from the pool, as the tentacles thrashed around the air above their heads.

Jacen grabbed Tahiri's hand again and brought it back to his mouth, "We delivered the poison."

"Is that what's causing the new shaking? It's worse than before."

"I think so. The Brain started reacting as soon as I poured the toxin." More tentacles shot up and out of the pool, sweeping around wildly, clearly looking for whatever was trying to hurt the Brain. "And it doesn't seem to like it. Or us"

The light mist of yorik dust raining down and the sound of coral grinding against itself caused Jacen to throw himself over Tahiri, though he shouldn't have bothered; all he got for his effort was an indignant glare, and an elbow in the ribs before Tahiri knocked him aside.

"Jacen, get Tahiri out of there."

"I will, Anakin," Jacen yelled.

"If you had kept your mouth shut…" Tahiri grumbled as she got onto her hands and knees, and then pushed herself to standing.

"What? The roof wouldn't be caving in? Yeah, right."

The smoke from the fires was so thick that it was becoming increasingly harder to see the wall that surrounded the Sacred Precinct. This was both good and bad. It afforded the Shamed Ones cover from the warriors, but it also made it difficult for Mara to tell how many warriors were up ahead. It also made it difficult to tell how many Shamed Ones were behind her, and she hated not knowing how many allies she had at her back.

In reality, all she really needed to know right now was who was right in front of her - and who was in front of her right now was a warrior with an amphistaff, poised to swing it down towards her head.

Mara brought her lightsaber up in a high horizontal block, then whipped it down, flicked her wrist, thrust the tip of her blade up through the throat of her attacker, then cut the blade and watched the warrior fall.

As the giant hit the ground, Nom Anor came into clear view behind him, standing behind Jaina, with an amphistaff in his hand, and that was all Mara needed to see.

Using the Force to propel herself up and over the body of the warrior she had just taken down, Mara ignited her blade as she landed behind Nom Anor, and thrust the tip through his back, straight up his spine. She placed her left hand on his shoulder and with a final thrust, ground her blade as far as it would go into his body, making sure to sear his heart and lungs, making sure there was nothing but charred flesh left of whatever vital organs might have resided in his upper chest cavity. Then she flicked off the ignition switch on her lightsaber and pushed Nom Anor forward, and watched him fall face first into the dirt.

Jaina turned around and looked first at the body at her aunt's feet, then up at her aunt.

"I guess he sneezed?"

"And didn't say 'excuse me'."

"I haven't met many Vong with manners."

"And he was worse than most."

Before Jaina could comment again, the ground shook, a sharp, jarring shake, causing both her and Mara to fall to their knees.

"You think Jacen and Tahiri made it to the Brain?" Jaina asked when she was finally able to stand.

"Let's hope," Mara said, as she stood as well. "Though I don't know if that's going to make the fires better or worse."

Anakin ground his toe into the yorik coral of the ship, digging the hook attached to his boot in to anchor himself, then did the same with the other foot. When he'd steadied himself he fixed the winch on his rope to keep himself level, took the lightsaber from his belt, pressed the pommel against the side of the ship and hit the ignition switch, creating a round hole just the right size to insert the stick of dyna-plas. When he'd inserted the stick he pressed Kell's wire into it, then passed the wire to Luke.

Then they scooted over a few meters and started the process again.

They'd been doing this for forty-five minutes. Face and Kell were on the other side of the ship doing the same thing, and the plan was that the four would meet up in the middle and bring all the wires together. Kell would then braid the wires, run the braid down to the ground and into a box that connected to a switch, then once they'd all backed really far away, Kell would do something magical to the switch that would make all the sticks of dyna-plas blow up at the same time.

If all went well, the sticks would create an explosion that would cause the top of the Citadel to fall in on itself, trapping Shimmra and Omini inside the throne room.

If all went really well Shimmra and Omini would be crushed by the tons of yorik coral caving in on them, but Anakin was trying not to get his hopes up.

Another quake shook the Citadel and Luke lost his footing, causing him to reel back away from the building. On pure instinct Anakin reached out with the Force and grabbed his uncle, pulling him back to safety.

"Anakin…"

"Please don't start with the 'you shouldn't use the Force'…"

"Actually, I was going to thank you."

"Oh."

Luke grinned at his nephew, but before he could say anything else another voice caught his attention.

"Fancy meeting you here," Face said jovially. "Enjoying the shaking?"

"Yeah, it's fabulous,"Anakin answered. "How'd you guys manage to stay up here? We're Jedi and even with the Force we nearly got thrown off this thing several times."

"It's all our fancy Wraith equipment. We can scale anything and stick."

"I'm beginning to wish we had taken you up on your offer of fancy Wraith equipment," Luke sighed.

"I'm assuming your wife and brother are to thank for the last half hour of fun?" Face asked Anakin.

"Yeah, they got through. Hopefully the death doesn't take much longer. I'm ready for the roller-coaster ride to end."

"Me too. Let's rappel off this thing so Kell can get his kicks and we can see if our handiwork had the desired effect. Wedge and Tycho should be dropping in soon and I'd like to be home in time for dinner. Tycho promised to make me something Alderaanian if we did a good job down here."

Luke chuckled as he began to let the tension out of his rope. "Do you guys really only think about food?"

Kell grinned as he began lowering himself beside Luke. "Of course not. I think about blowing things up too."

Tahiri stood with Mara and Jaina and Jacen and looked out at the scene before her and could hardly believe what she was witnessing.

The ground had been still for over five hours.

The World Brain was dead.

Rain was dampening the fires that had been burning all morning.

Fences were being put up by the Alliance Engineering corp. Warriors and Priests and Shapers were being rounded up, stripped of their weapons and tools and interred in the makeshift holding areas.

Shamed Ones were being checked out by med teams and given water and food. Survivors from the First Battle of Coruscant were slowly making their way to the surface and relief workers, already being brought in by the government, were seeing to their needs.

Fighting was still going on in the air, but the GA starfighters were herding the rogue coralskippers and cruiser analogs away from the Sacred Precinct and there hadn't been a suicide bomber anywhere near this area in over two hours.

Anakin had commed four hours ago to say that Shimmra's body had been found in the Citadel, then Kenth Hamner had notified Cal Omas.

The Supreme Overlord was dead.

Everything was happening so fast.

If they could just find Omini's body, the war would really be over.

Anakin had been searching for hours.

It hadn't been difficult to get into the throne room once Kell had blown the ship. It hadn't been difficult to get past the few warriors that hadn't been killed by the blast. It hadn't been difficult to determine that Shimmra was dead. But then he'd torn what was left of the throne room apart looking for Omini and finally determined that the jester wasn't there, and he'd been more scared than he'd ever been in his life.

He and Luke had gone through what was left of the palace and come up empty.

Omini was nowhere to be found.

There was no body, no trace of a body, no indication of where Omini might have gone. Nothing to tell them where to begin looking. So Anakin had gone wandering around the palace, going from room to room, lightsabers blazing as he'd searched and searched and searched.

He'd been filled with an inexplicable sense of dread for over an hour now, filled with worry that he was missing something, something that he should know, some sign that the Force was trying to show him and that he was missing. He'd become steadily more frantic as he searched the palace, and finally left the Citadel, trying to find the little Vong that he knew was the key to really ending the war.

He was outside now, in the plaza, in front of him was the Senate building, and his attention was drawn to a rain soaked blonde head, fifty meters away, on the other side of a barricade that had already been erected by the Alliance.

Tahiri.

He watched her raise her arm up and smile widely at him, her joy unmistakable, both on her face and in the Force, but alarm bells began to clang in Anakin's head just as she'd turned and caught sight of him.

He felt it at almost the same time he noticed the Shamed One in front of him, between him and Tahiri.

He was horribly misshapen, this little Shamed One, horribly disfigured; his gait hindered by a limp, one leg markedly shorter than the other, one shoulder raised higher than the other.

For a moment a sense of familiarity filled Anakin, a sense that he knew this being—no, that he knew something about this being, that he was familiar, and then it dawned on him – this being was filled with the Force – he was drawing on it, the Force was powering this being's thoughts, and his actions, and his strength, and the amphistaff that was leaving this being's hand was being guided by the Force.

The Force was also informing Anakin's actions. It guided Anakin's motions as he leapt, landed, then lifted his arms and crossed his two lightsaber blades. The Force powered his strength as he scissored his blades across the base of Omini's neck, but the amphistaff had left Omini's hand before his head had left his body, and the amphistaff had found its mark before Omini's head had hit the ground, and Anakin was screaming Tahiri's name and running to her before Omini's body had fallen.

Jacen felt the Force screaming at him to act.

He thumbed on his lightsaber and threw it up in front of Tahiri before he was even sure why he was doing it. He had flicked his wrist and pushed up against the shaft of the amphistaff before it even registered that he had just prevented the weapon from shattering his sister-in-law's chest. All he knew was that he hadn't done enough and that he had to do more.

He needed to do more.

Somewhere in the distance, Jacen was aware that Anakin was screaming Tahiri's name and that he was trying to get to her, he also knew that Anakin was too far away to help.

Blood was gushing from the wound over Tahiri's right lung and coming out of her mouth and nose. Jacen knew from her gasping and the way she was desperately clawing at him and Mara that she would drown in her own blood soon if they didn't do something.

"Tahiri, calm down."

But she couldn't. Her eyes were wild and she was kicking her feet and gasping and Jacen realized that the only thing he could possibly do to help her was get her into a healing trance while Mara called for help.

Jacen grabbed Tahiri's chin to force her to look at him.

"Tahiri, please, I'm trying to help you, you need to go into a healing trance, let me help you."

Tahiri shook her head, and Jacen could see the terror in her eyes.

"Tahiri, please, for Anakin, so you can see Anakin again, you need to let me help you. So we can get you to a medic. Let me help you. So you can be with Anakin."

He used the Force to push her, to guide her, to lean into her and felt Tahiri begin to give; felt her resistance begin to waver.

"That's it. Don't fight me, I'll help you get to Anakin, just relax, let me help you."

As he looked into her eyes and he continued to reach for her in the Force, he felt her resistance continue to ebb, then he watched her eyes begin to roll and prayed he'd succeeded in getting her into a healing trance… that she wasn't simply dying.

Tahiri saw Anakin at almost the same time she saw the strange little Shamed One limping in front of him. He caught her attention because there was something about him that felt familiar, but before she could put her finger on what that was, her chest was burning, and then she was lying on the ground, and Jacen was leaning over her and she was scared.

She needed Anakin, she needed to see Anakin, because she couldn't breathe, she was drowning, but then she realized that she wasn't drowning in water like when they were kids and she'd fallen over the side of the silver raft, she was drowning in blood, in her own blood.

Anakin, help me!

But Jacen was leaning over her, and pushing on her mind, and she couldn't let him in, because he couldn't see.

Anakin, please… help me!

She needed Anakin.

Anakin had always saved her, had always come for her, had always made things right, because he just knew… and Jacen wasn't supposed to know, Jacen couldn't know.

But there was so much blood, and she couldn't breathe, and her chest hurt so badly, and Jacen was pressing on her mind.

Blood… Anakin… see Anakin… no Jacen, stop…

She couldn't let Jacen in, Jacen couldn't see, Jacen wasn't supposed to know, Jacen couldn't find out, but it hurt so much, and she couldn't see Anakin anymore, and she wanted to see Anakin, and Jacen was telling her it was for Anakin…

See Anakin… Anakin… Jacen… blood… Jacen…

She needed Anakin, but he wasn't there anymore. She'd seen him, and then he was gone, Anakin was gone and she was in so much pain, and Jacen had said that he would take her to see Anakin.

See Anakin…Jacen, stop… blood…

Jacen would take her to see Anakin, he would take her to see Anakin and if she could see Anakin she wouldn't hurt anymore… would she? Jacen was doing this for her and Anakin… all she had to do was listen to Jacen… listen to Jacen… do what Jacen was asking her to do and she would get to see Anakin.

Listen to Jacen… blood… Jacen…

And then she wouldn't hurt anymore… just listen to Jacen and do what Jacen said and then she wouldn't hurt anymore… it was for Anakin, he was doing it for her and Anakin, and he was pressing on her mind… would he take the pain away? And take her to Anakin?

Make the pain go away… take her to Anakin… to Anakin… Jacen… blood…

Jacen was going to make the pain stop. Jacen was going to take her to see Anakin. Jacen was doing this for her and Anakin. She just had to listen to Jacen and do what he was asking her to do.

Jacen… Anakin…blood… flow… Anakin… see… walk… Anakin… blood… fin… blood… fin… flow… Jacen… bloodfin… Jacen… Sith… Jacen… bloodfin… Sith… Jacen… walk… flow…