Epilogue

Zeld Kwaad examined the beast that crouched in the
cramped cell. Truthfully, everything was cramped and crowded in
the Yuuzhan Vongs' last remaining battleship, speeding through
hyperspace across the infidel Empire, not daring to use any major
routes for fear of discovery.

The animal was in stasis, having responded well to the
chemicals Zeld Kwaad had introduced into its bloodstream,
hopefully it would sleep through most of their long journey.

The bulk of survivors from the doomed (Long Reach of
Death) were gathered aboard this last ship, most of them also in
suspended animation to save the craft's limited resources. A few
would be taken out and periodically sacrificed, though, to help
ensure a safe journey for the rest.

When the (Long Reach) was lost to the infidels some weeks
ago, one of the intendants had thought to stop at Sang Anor's
quarters and bring his villip connecting them to the supreme
overlord. After hearing of this debacle the supreme one had issued
them their marching orders: the majority of the surviving Yuuzhan
Vong were to board their last functioning battleship and make for
the Outer Rim, there to exit this infidel galaxy and eventually meet
the oncoming Yuuzhan Vong fleet.

A handful of warriors, executors and shapers would remain
behind, with ooglith masquers, villips and a few other organic
tools, including villips cloned from the supreme overlord's
communications creature so they might maintain lines of
communication.

The few who remained would gather information about the
Infidels' activities and, when the time of invasion drew near, do
what they could to divide, sabotage and generally destabalize
them.

Zeld Kwaad sighed, the jihad had seemed so close to
beginning in earnest, but now he would have to wait more than
twenty long years to ever see this galaxy and all its beautiful,
unshaped life again. The gods, apparently, hadn't been with them
this time.

(But next time), he thought to himself, (next time)...

He came to another cell, this one held an avian creature
with a broken leg. The shapers had saved all the specimens they
could from the dying worldship: analyzing the native life of this
galaxy would provide invaluable information about which shaping
protocols would be best applied to their soon-to-be new worlds.

This bird-animal had been found in an escape pod,
probably wandered in there and triggered the launch by accident.
Its broken leg was encased in a coral cast, and healing microbes
were repairing the damage. Personally, Zeld Kwaad would have
preferred to have the defective thing killed out of hand, but with so
few specimens left to choose from the shapers could not afford to
waste even one.

He prepared the creature's injections: it too would need to
make the trip in hibernation, awake and aware it would consume
too many resources. The shaper adept frowned, for a moment the
creature seemed to be smiling at him. He shrugged, obviously he
was working too hard.

And so the living craft left this galaxy, to eventually
rendezvous with the approaching worldship-fleet where one small,
odd-looking and comical bird would catch the eye of High Priest
Jakan, who would at that moment be thinking about obtaining a
gift for his young daughter Elan.

*****************************************************
Drash steered his coralskipper into the specialized 'berth'
He'd designed for it inside the small freighter's cargo hold. It was
cramped, but unlike Drash the fighter had no sense of
claustrophobia.

He climbed out of the craft and gave it a quick look-over.
Later he would go over it in detail, looking for injuries or
infestations. Luckily the fighter could heal itself of injuries, so it
needed little maintenance. Good news all around, as Drash didn't
know of a shipyard equipped to care for a coralskipper.

Drash stroked the cockpit, a marvelous ship. He had just
taken it out for its ?meal? of space rocks, which it would also use to
manufacture plasma and projectiles, and now the ship had
informed him that it was tired and wished to 'sleep.' If it was
temperamental, well, fighters were expected to be a little wild.

What worried him were the ship's innards, he had no idea
of how long the dovin basals would live, or when the cognition
hood and other internal organs would wear out. Perhaps he could
have the creatures cloned somehow when it became necessary.

He left the cargo hold and strolled to the small cockpit,
Vergere's lightsaber at his side. He had won the ship gambling at a
spaceport tapcaf, though 'gambling' wasn't exactly the correct term
when he could read the other players' minds. Maybe it wasn't a
Jedi thing to do, but he had no funds and nothing to sell. He had
landed the coralskipper in a rural field away from the city and port,
disguising the landing so that the skip would appear to the
watching satellites as nothing but a falling meteor.

And of course, he hadn't worn the lightsaber in town. He
still didn't know how to use the thing, but he would learn. He
would have to. Drash had experienced his moment of
transcendence and what lay beyond was better than anything Frae
could have imagined.

Oin was waiting for him in the cockpit, in the copilot's
seat: Drash was teaching him to fly.

"Did your skip settle in all right?" He asked in the Nesz
language, which he was teaching Drash to speak.

"Smooth as duroplast," he settled in the pilot's chair.
"Ready to jump?" Oin nodded, one hand went to his ever-present
bandolier. "Next stop, the Core."

An all-but-impenetrable tangle of high-gravity anomalies,
the Core was the perfect place for a colony that didn't want to be
found. All they needed to do was find a world in that hell of solar
radiation with an atmosphere life could thrive in.

Drash would set Oin up and visit him as often as he could
in his little colony. And after the seeds took root, where would
Drash go then? Perhaps back to the Unknown Regions, to wander
the stars and do...well...Jedi things. Even if the Jedi (were) making
a comeback, chances were they'd have their hands full in the
known galaxy. The Unknown Regions would need a Jedi, and
Drash might be new at this, but he felt the Force was calling him in
that direction.

He hoped he would make Vergere proud, and Vlu. He
hoped to see her again someday and give her back her lightsaber.
Only the future can tell.

The stars elongated into white lines and they shot forward,
into the light.

***************************************************
Hidden in the stolen infidel shuttle, parked in an ice-lined
cave at the north pole of Sevac III, Ceis Grasm stared out at the
red-grey sky and crossed her arms.

"We should have died in battle," she said, "it would have
been glorious, or at least pleasing to the gods." She looked at Nom
Anor, sitting motionless in the pilot?s seat, hunched over the
control panel with his hands clasped and his chin perched on his
knuckles.

"You can walk out anytime you want," he said, "and let the
cold take you." It had been his idea, and she had to admit it was a
clever one: to fly their shuttle to the pole where the shapers had
hollowed out caverns for their pathogen research. They could
survive for months here if need be, and so here they had hidden
themselves away, to wait out the battle.

The result was soon obvious, as massive chunks of the
(Long Reach) had soon broken through the atmosphere to crash on
the planet, throwing up clouds of dust that darkened the sky.

Nom Anor spent most of his time in the shuttle, staring out
the cavern mouth at the dust-filled sky. Not speaking, not doing
anything. Ceis Grasm didn't like this mood of his, and nothing she
said could shake him out of it. He just sat there watching the sky
with unblinking eyes, it was chilling. Almost machinelike.

"I think I'll wait before trying that option," she said. "How
much longer must we remain here?"

*************************************************
"Until I'm sure the infidels have left orbit," Nom Anor said.
"Then we leave as well, and try to find any other Yuuzhan Vong
who might have survived." They had taken ooglith masquers when
they had fled to the shuttle, as well as cloakers and gnulliths. Self-
sacrifice remained an option, but Nom Anor seemed intent on
surviving until the main host of Yuuzhan Vong arrived. If
necessary he could use his limited shaper training to grow stasis
microbes for them both, so they wouldn't have to 'live' through the
entire waiting period; twenty years was a long time to just sit back
and do nothing. They could put themselves in stasis three years
out of every five until the jihad began, so at least they wouldn't
have to waste half their lives.

It always paid to be prepared, that had been Sang Anor's
last lesson. Nom Anor felt rage seethe within him, but he
controlled it. If he couldn?t rule the galaxy he would at least rule
himself. He squeezed his clasped hands until his talons dug into
the backs of his hands. He barely noticed Ceis Grasm behind him,
or the blood that ran down his wrists. Nothing mattered but that
Sang and Lyrra Anor, the two greatest, most brilliant people the
universe had ever known, were dead and gone. They would be
held in contempt by the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong, seen as nothing
more than overly-ambitious failures.

Nom Anor narrowed his eyes. What kind of gods would
allow that?

(Damn you all), he ground his teeth, (I will never pray to
you again. I deny you, now and forever. You do not exist. You're
just stories and pointless rituals). The thought was cold, as cold as
Nom Anor's bleak and empty soul. At least he had the comfort of
knowing the Jedi had not survived his father: she was now just
bones and ash, with the rest of her slave friends on this poisoned
planet.

Staring out at the sky, Nom Anor made a vow. Not to the
gods he no longer believed in, but to the only power he now
recognized: himself. He would avenge his parents, and he would
fulfill his father's dreams of power, whatever the cost. And he
would make all the wretched infidels who had bested Sang Anor
pay: the Empire, any Jedi that arose in the future, Thrawn and his
whole benighted race, they would all suffer. Nom Anor would see
to it.

***********************************************
Inside the Hand of Thrawn, Parck was amazed that such a
high-tech marvel as this command center could be concealed
within an apparently ruined and abandoned primitive fortress.
This place could not only withstand a siege and a full-scale
planetary bombardment, but the entire Imperial territory and fleet
in the Unknown Regions could be run from this point.

Raine didn't show it, but Parck suspected the phalanx
commander was as impressed as he.

"Not a bad setup, eh?" Moff Niriz smiled as he hovered
past holographic diagrams of the galaxy, including the explored
areas of the Unknown Regions.

"Not bad at all," Parck said as he reclined in a comfortable
chair. Thrawn's fortress seemed modeled after his own mind:
impressive, mysterious, resourceful and full of secrets. If not for
the occasional winged pests that annoyed Imperials in the sky and
the tunnels below, Parck would have called the Hand perfect.

"It's what I expected of the Syndic," Raine nodded to the
Moff. The phalanx commander hadn't precisely warmed up to the
Imperials she would be working with, but at least she was growing
to respect them. Parck was glad to have her: especially seeing as
the entire Chiss contingent of Unity Fleet had requested a transfer
to Thrawn's phalanx. They would still work closely with the
humans, but now human officials like Parck and Niriz would only
have to settle the human side of cross-cultural disputes, while
Raine would handle the Chiss grievances, then they could work out
something of a compromise in each case.

The Chiss citizens of the Empire were happy as well,
having one of their own to turn to in times of trouble rather than
the mainly-human Moffs. Even if Raine was female, she was still,
they reasoned, a Chiss.

Currently, Grand Admiral Thrawn was trying to reach
Imperial Center and communicate these events to the Emperor.
Parck hoped for the arrival of Imperial reinforcements, even for
Palpatine's new Death Star: Unity Fleet had taken losses in the
battle over Sevac III, and Intelligence reported the warlords were
eyeing Thrawn's territory and licking their chops hungrily. Parck
grimaced, such was the gratitude the Unknown Regions had for
their saviors. He felt sure they could beat back any assault, but
more Star Destroyers would be a relief.

He and Raine stood at attention when Thrawn himself
entered the room. Moff Niriz pivoted his hoverchair to face him.

"Sir, have you gotten through to Imperial Center?" Niriz
asked. "When can we expect reinforcements?"

"There will be none," Thrawn shook his head. "The
Rebellion has won a great victory at Endor, site of the new Death
Star's construction. The battlestation was destroyed, and the
Emperor is dead."

Parck turned pale and his legs felt weak. The
Emperor...dead? Impossible! "Sir are..." he swallowed, "are you
sure?" He had never doubted the Grand Admiral before, but he
hoped Thrawn was wrong.

"I spoke with Sate Pestage, who is far more concerned with
remaining on Palpatine's throne than sparing ships to help us, and I
contacted some of my own sources in the Empire, who confirmed
the news. Losses include the (Executor), with all hands aboard,
and Darth Vader perished as well. The Imperial Fleet is scattered,
thousands of planets are in rebellion, there is even rumor that the
Jedi have returned."

Parck felt ill, to have won such a great victory against the
Yuuzhan Vong, only to find that the war was lost in the meantime?
"What will we do?" He asked hopelessly.

"Launch an attack on the warlords before they can strike at
us," Raine replied, red eyes flashing. "And continue to encourage
rebellion and desertions in their ranks. News of the Syndic's
power and the justice of his rule will tempt many of their planets
to join us. Undercover Intelligence agents can train natives to fight
the warlords, we might even be able to assassinate a few."

Business as usual, in other words: crushing warlords and
uniting the Unknown Regions under the Empire. But what about
the Empire proper? It was falling apart!

Thrawn raised a brow at Raine. "You've certainly changed.
Why so intent on seeing the Empire become dominant out here?"
The commander met his gaze, a feat few could boast, and it
seemed to Parck they were sparring. Not as deadly adversaries,
though, but as colleagues.

"I haven't changed, Syndic: my goal is the same, to protect
the Chiss. By all accounts their war against the Ssi-Ruuk is going
well, they were able to overwhelm many of Ssi-Ruuk worlds while
their fleet was away, preparing to invade the Empire. Now,
however, they are taking heavy losses. By the time they win the
war most of the Expansionary Defense Fleet will have been
destroyed. The Chiss may never recover their former strength, and
the warlords will find them a weaker target than we could ever be."

"Unless Unity Fleet conquers the surrounding warlords
first," Thrawn finished, "then we could ensure the Chiss will be
protected."

Raine nodded, but something in her eyes and posture
suggested defeat. "The Chiss will be under the Empire's
protection, though the Syndics will never acknowledge it. Many
Chiss will continue to desert for Unity Fleet, seeing yours as the
stronger and better way. The Chiss will never again be a great
power," she bowed her head, whether in mourning, submission or
both, Parck couldn't say.

Thrawn's expression softened, he placed a hand on her
shoulder and said something in his own language. The
commander raised her head, her eyes burning. For a moment
Parck though she would pull away or strike him, but then she
nodded and said replied in kind.

Parck had to speak up. "But what about the rest of the
Empire?" He said. "Shouldn't Unity Fleet return and help quell
the Rebellion?"

"Unity Fleet will have its hands full out here," Thrawn
turned to the Captain. "But you're right: the Empire must be
preserved. Remember, the Yuuzhan Vong are still coming, and to
them Sang Anor will seem a lone pirranna beetle beside a swarm.
The galaxy must be made ready for them, and for that the Empire
must endure. To that end I will go myself to the Empire proper
and see to the Rebellion."

"Alone?" Niriz asked. "But there might be Yuuzhan Vong
survivors in this galaxy. If there are, you would be high on their
list of targets: they would have to know you intend to fight their
people."

"And don't forget other Imperials," Parck warned, "many,
Director Ysanne Isard in particular, would see you as a threat to
their power. They would try to eliminate you as well."

"True, that is why my first stop will be the planet Honoghr,
homeworld of the Noghri. With Noghri bodyguards I need fear no
assassins," he looked to each of them. "While I am gone, I leave
you three in command," he drew himself up slightly, "Captain
Voss Parck, by my authority as a Grand Admiral of the Empire I
now grant you the rank of Admiral. You have command of Unity
Fleet in my absence." He turned to Niriz, "Moff Dagon Niriz, you
are hereby promoted to Grand Moff, to have overall administration
of the Imperial territories in the Unknown Regions."

Finally, he turned his gaze to Raine. "Haar'ain'ellena, you
will take up your duties as my regent, my phalanx and all Chiss
citizens under my protection are yours. Rule them well."

He looked at each of them. "Working together, you three
should be able to carry on in my stead. I will return to the Hand of
Thrawn as often as I am able, so a division of my phalanx will be
its permanent garrison. I depart immediately, make ready a
shuttle."

"You'll go alone?" Admiral Parck asked.

"As I said, I have my contacts in the Empire, and I will
have the Noghri. He frowned thoughtfully, "but I will take copies
of my holographic gallery," he said, "and one piece more." He
looked to a corner of the command center, Parck followed his eyes
to the alien artifact taken from Sevac III. The twisting, bulging,
shifting mass held his eyes, teasing him with hints and mysteries
he couldn't quite grasp.

"Why that?" Niriz asked.

"I need to study it further," Thrawn said. "The report of
these strange creatures, these 'Nesz' and 'Eternals' intrigues me.
Their art is truly amazing: it seems to combine youth and age,
innocence and experience. This was made by a mind that sees the
universe as new and fresh, yet holds the knowledge of millennia.
A paradox, Admiral. I could never have predicted the natives
would act as they did, overthrowing the Yuuzhan Vong and then
calmly wait for their own extinction to follow. Why do that? Did
they see their society as permanently corrupted by the violence
they had partaken in? Did they simply not care if they lived or
died? I cannot grasp them, and I truly regret their destruction."


***


"Understood, sir," Pellaeon said. "With your permission,
I'll get the (Chimaera) underway." He turned to go-

And paused. Halfway across the room, one of the
sculptures had not disappeared with the others. Sitting all alone in
its globe of light, it slowly writhed on its pedestal like a wave in
some bizarre alien ocean. "Yes," Thrawn said from behind him.
"That one is indeed real."

"It's...very interesting," Pellaeon managed. The sculpture
was strangely hypnotic.

"Isn't it?" Thrawn agreed, his voice sounding almost
wistful. "It was my one failure, out on the Fringes. The one time
when understanding a race's art gave me no insight at all into its
psyche. At least not at the time. Now, I believe I'm finally
beginning to understand them."

"I'm sure that will prove useful in the future," Pellaeon
offered diplomatically.

"I doubt it," Thrawn said, in that same wistful voice. "I
wound up destroying their world."

Pellaeon swallowed. "Yes, sir," he said, starting again for
the door. He winced only a little as he passed the sculpture.




-from 'Heir to the Empire' by Timothy Zahn