Dear readers, I had introduced a small prologue at the start of chapter one. I just can't speak of Centerpoint Station all the time without any reference to this battle station's initial activity in the NJO series, wich is so important for the story. Sorry for that delay.
Viqi's eyes narrowed, when she looked up to the jester – her tormentor. "I won't be so trusting." She turned her just kissed mouth away from Onimi. "You're going to destroy Kuat after all."
"But you'll never know if you defy me," Onimi purred, exaggeratedly sad. "What will your legacy be among all the Kuati in exile who never tire of emphasizing that you were the one who doomed their planet to obliteration - your own home planet."
Viqi looked to the villip, which she knew would capture her image. "All I know is that I love Nom Anor - and that he loves me."
"He left you."
"And how do you know that?"
"Nom Anor gave you away. Fool!
A high post – that has always been his goal!"
"Is then rightly called a fool,
someone by one who is known as a fool?",
countered Viqi.
Onimi got up. "Then let's find out together."
He held out his hand, but Viqi stood up on her own. They went back to the control room, where the Rodian Peace Brigadier named Salkeli sat at the controls, while the technician Antone stood by. The gritty generated image of the planet Kuat swayed back and forth beneath the crosshairs, sometimes slipping out of sight and then bouncing across the frame to its other edge—and Salkeli's green head followed, his suction-cupped fingers tightening on the controls clung.
Onimi went to the Rodian and made a shooing gesture. Salkeli immediately left the command chair and the court jester took a seat in front of the complicated device. He waved his hands, moving his fingers in an intricate pattern – and suddenly Kuat, his ring of shipyards and workshops, hung firm and frozen in the center of the target lock.
A collective murmur went through the control room, then it suddenly went silent.
"Well, you see, it's okay!" the court jester crowed instructively, then he pressed the button.
Viqi held her breath, but nothing happened. Was there a time delay before the shot went off? With the force that Centerpoint had unleashed just three years ago, it seemed entirely possible to her.
The door opened and a tall human with blue eyes, slicked back gray hair and a dignified bearing was ushered in by two guards.
"Ambassador Dean Jinzler*," said the Yuuzhan Vong to his right.
Onimi ignored the newcomer. "What's that about?" he snapped at the technician Antone. "They said it would start immediately! Aiming is perfect – and so is everything else, isn't it?"
Antone shrugged. "Well, I can't explain that either."
A Yuuzhan Vong subaltern rushed into the room. "Court Jester, a sentinel drone recorded how the envoy of the Galactic Alliance handed a bag to the Mrlssi after he landed on Centerpoint - supposedly a guest gift. And when the Mrlssi opened it, Grutchins suddenly spread all over Centerpoint and started munching on the metal. Our warriors are in the process of recapturing the bugs and rendering them harmless."
The two guards who escorted Dean Jinzler in grabbed Jinzler's upper arms from either side, causing him to be dragged back half a step and having to move his feet quickly to regain his upright position on his own. Only now did Onimi turn to the ambassador. "How comes that you know so much about Grutchins?"
"It might not look like it, but I'm good at this kind of thing," the human replied, smiling calmly.
"And you just say that to my face?" Onimi hissed. "Does the Galactic Alliance call that a bargaining chip?"
"My superiors thought it would be a good idea for me to familiarize myself with Grutchins," continued Dean Jinzler. "And I've heard that your..." he looked at Viqi, "companion has also become familiar with Grutchins. In doing so, she has brought new hope to the galaxy."
Onimi looked stunned for a moment, then he saw Viqi staring at Dean Jinzler and he thought he saw something sparkle in her green eyes that vacillated between disbelief and hope.
"I think you're confusing something," Onimi snapped, "because you just destroyed any further negotiation with your Grutchins."
Dean Jinzler spread his rather skinny arms, which seemed to encompass the entire space in and beyond the control room - eyes fixed on nowhere. "Too bad, And here I was, all set to launch into a discussion regarding the eventual disposition of ... all this."
Viqi followed his gaze, and Onimi recognized the positive expectation in it - and much more than that. "Have I already told you how well your suit suits you, ambassador?" he heard his new adept whistle.
Jinzler nodded, and his blue eyes shone. "I know someone who is just waiting to send you one in a women's version."
Viqi started giggling.
"Poppycock!" Onimi interjected.
"This ambassador is getting sassy,
but what you're wearing now is just so pretty!"
"Those clothes a woman likes best,
which she has chosen for herself at last",
Viqi admonished Onimi.
They left the control room together and went back to the room where Viqi had been dancing.
"You will now keep dancing until the Grutchins are recaptured!" Onimi ordered Viqi.
The princess did as she was told, and it seemed to Onimi that she danced even more gracefully than before.
"This is Dean Jinzler, the so-called Ambassador of the Galactic Alliance," Onimi introduced the human to the people of the party. "He tried to sabotage Centerpoint and will now tide with us until the Grutchins he released here on the battle station are recaptured and the damage those bugs caused is repaired."
"Dean Jinzler isn't even an ambassador, he's an imposter!" said the small, brown man with two mouths and purple eyes.
Onimi looked at him. "Miskara Rumpsh, you know this one?"
"I personally don't, but my cousin Bearsh told me about him before he died," said the incensed Vagaari. "At the time, Dean Jinzler had absolutely no diplomatic accreditation by the former New Republic to deal with anyone. But now we will finally show the Galactic Alliance and all our other enemies where their place is!"
"Is that true?" Onimi turned to Dean Jinzler.
The addressed one smiled. "Truth is quite relative, and sometimes even less than that. But yes, the Vagaari is right - at least as far as the matter was concerned at that time."
Onimi grabbed the bump that was deforming his skull. "Wait, your voice…" he murmured. "I know you."
The court jester leaned forward and touched a spot near Jinzler's nose. The mask peeled off his head, revealing the scarred, dark-eyed face of a Yuuzhan Vong, then the rest of the body.
Looking around at his guests, Onimi saw that the Vagaari Miskara was as amazed as himself. Most notable, however, was the change of heart he saw in his adept. Viqi Shesh had stopped dancing and her arms were clung around her upper body. Her eyes were filled with sheer horror at what the supposed human had turned into - no, not into what, but into whom, or rather, into whom not, as Onimi read in her disappointed feelings.
Deciding not to give Viqi any more attention than she deserved, he addressed the Vagaari instead: "Well, you didn't expect that, Eminence Rumpsh, did you?"
The Vagaari shook his head, covered with curly black hair, at a loss. "We found out back then that Dean Jinzler had lied to us, but that he also deceived us like that..." he shrugged, "I can't think of anything more about that."
Onimi looked at the revealed one. "Priest Harrar... Why?"
"I was on Zonama Sekot and that's where I saw the truth. Zonama Sekot is a part of the world that was once our home. And she can be again. Me and Nen Yim know that. And all the Jedi that were there ... are there."
Onimi cackled. "Interesting that you did't mention Nom Anor in that wake."
Harrar didn't twitch an eyelid.
"Nom Anor contacted us from there too and later told us exactly where the planet is," Onimi proceeded poisonously. "And with that, this pathetic outgrowth of insubordination to the Overlord and the established order is also doomed to fail."
༺═────────────═༻
Ten minutes earlier on Coruscant
Luke Skywalker, Nom Anor, Qelah Kwaad, the Jedi, Kunra, and the Shamed Ones entered the audience chamber flanked on either side by Shimrra's bodyguards. High Prefect Drathul was standing beside the hau polyp throne, his sallow face a sickly tint as the motley crowd entered. Shimrra's eyes were fiery red, but as the overlord realized his bodyguard was protecting the newcomers and not himself, their color turned violet blue.
"You too, Nom Anor," Shimrra said flatly. "Actually, I could have imagined that."
"The Shamed Ones are exceedingly grateful to you for your wise decision to grant them equality with the rest of our brothers and sisters, Terrible Lord," Nom Anor began in an upbeat, grateful tone. "Now the Galactic Alliance forces have already gained the upper hand on this planet, so it's only a matter of time before Corellia..."
"You expect me to surrender?" Shimrra asked in a strangely hollow voice.
"It would be a way to lead our people into a new future without further decimating them. You could …"
"You mean you could continue to hold a high position?!" Shimrra hissed. "Under the umbrella of the infidels!"
Nom Anor opened his mouth to reply, but Shimrra had already addressed the leader of his bodyguard. "Why?"
"We also want to become Jedi," the man said. "Luke Skywalker says we've got what it takes."
"Never!"
"Do you really accuse Luke Skywalker of lying, or do you not believe in our abilities, which were only given to us at your command at the moment you commissioned our breeding?"
"Luke Skywalker is lying!" Shimrra roared, but it sounded far less awe-inspiring than the Overlord was known, more desperate.
"That you call me a liar is one thing," Luke said laconically. "But as far as the future of your former bodyguards is concerned, you no longer have any influence on them." He nodded obligingly to the overlord. "We still have the chance to end this with honor for all sides."
"Well then," Shimrra's amphistaff pointed to Luke Skywalker, "let me fight it out hand-to-hand with the greatest Jedi of all."
Luke was silent for a while, then he said: "That's not what I meant by that, but if that's really your wish and will, Overlord, then I will do it. I may only be 1.70 meters tall, but I'm still full of surprises."
Shimrra descended from his red throne and unfurled a red amphistaff, which immediately stiffened into its rigid, straight weapon form. He immediately charged Luke Skywalker, but his thrusts were so slow and clumsy that Luke dodged him nimbly over and over again, managing to slash him here and there with his glowing green Jedi weapon, so that in the end it was Shimrra who had to dodge his much smaller opponent to avoid actually losing body parts.
Shimrra spotted a gap in Luke's defenses and lunged forward to catch his far smaller opponent in the stomach. At that moment, Luke leaped over Shimrra onto the hau polyp throne in one mighty leap. Then he threw his lightsaber at the Overlord's six-toed feet from above. Shimrra looked confused at the dying Jedi weapon, reached out his hand for it, and then left it where it lay.
"You are not an opponent for me, I clearly have the high ground," Luke declaimed from high above. "But in that moment, when you left my weapon, you also showed the dignity for which you are known and which identifies you as an honorable ruler. So surrender to end it honorably and in negotiation. I know from Nom Anor that your jester wants to reactivate Centerpoint and he'll want to make an example on a planet. I have no idea how he can do that without Jedi powers, but I'm humbled enough to know that I can't know everything either. So let's prevent it together, then we will all win."
Luke descended from the hau polyp throne again and shook hands with Shimrra—and the overlord slapped down his six-fingered paw.
Nom Anor stepped forward and stroked a villip to wake it from its sleep. "Priest Harrar has already done a good job on Centerpoint," the agent said. "Therefore, I believe he should have the honor of being the bearer of our Overlord's new message to Onimi."
༺═────────────═༻
And back at Centerpoint Station
Something twitched in Harrar's pocket and the priest pulled out a villip. Immediately Onimi snatched the villip from Harrar's hand and looked into Nom Anor's face.
"So you're in league with this one?" Onimi asked the intendant and spy menacingly. "Did you already fraternize with him on Zonama Sekot?"
"What a stupid question," Nom Anor's villipface replied condescendingly. "You'd better ask what Zonama Sekot is going to do now instead."
"Soon the planet will cease to exist after our Vagaari allies in the Unknown Regions destroy the rest of the Chiss armada," Onimi declared, addressing the Miskara in that wake. "Your troops have already tended on Zonama Sekot since defeating the Chiss, haven't they, Eminence Rumpsh."
The Vagaari cleared his throat and smoothed the green and yellow striped robe that covered him down to his feet. "Well, actually, our advance was so frightening that the planet you call Zonama Sekot must have fled, because only the Chiss fleet was left there."
"And you're only telling me that now?" Onimi asked, his yellow, red-rimmed irises sparkling menacingly.
The Miskara's left mouth smiled. "Well, one has to prioritize, Jester. And now that the Chiss are weakened, we'll have an easy time with that Zonama Sekot later on as well."
Onimi narrowed his eyelids. "And where is Zonama Sekot right now?"
༺═────────────═༻
Shimrra and everyone in the throne room heard the question.
At that moment, Nom Anor's comlink buzzed. "Excuse me, I have to answer that."
"Why?" Shimrra asked indignantly.
Nom Anor with the villip in his right hand, pointed at the image hovering over the tech communicator in his left hand. "I have no idea who gave my comlink number to Leia Organa Solo, but yes, it will be important." With that, he accepted the connection.
"Leia Organa Solo?"
"I got your comlink number from C-3PO, whose astromech friend R2D2 was kind enough to comb Coruscant's communications network for it. But I too am only the transmitter, since the spirit of Zonama Sekot, as a champion of naturalness, has no technical communicator. But she said she really wants to talk to you right now."
"Good," Nom Anor said, and suddenly Leia's face gave way to the likeness Nom Anor now knew as the younger version of Vergere.
"Nom Anor, you know both worlds," the spirit of Zonama Sekot began. "Can you tell me, or even guarantee me, that your people on Zonama Sekot, if they migrate there, will behave properly and, above all, will make up for all the devastation they caused there fifty years ago?"
The agent thought for a moment. "My people will be delighted and grateful to find such a natural environment," he said confidently. "And as far as the damage from back then is concerned, we managed to make the planet Duro we conquered bloom again within two years that we have been there since - and that was the entire planet," he said proudly and smiled sovereignly, "so the one polar cap on Zonama Sekot won't be a big deal."
"Thank you, Nom Anor," Vergere's image said, "but you do realize that if the Yuuzhan Vong move to Zonama Sekot, they will have to evacuate Duro again?"
Nom Anor nodded. "It was our pleasure to show this galaxy how to regreen a planet."
"It's mine too," Vergere's image replied, and for a moment Nom Anor held the communicator in his hand, wondering what he or she might have meant by that.
"Are you done now?" Drathul prompted. "I think it's impolite to delay answering Onimi's question."
Nom Anor turned to him. "I don't speak just with an ordinary planet but to your future home world, High Prefect! So please show a bit more respect!"
"I'm sorry for the interrupting. Thank you very much for your generous offer", a smiling Nom Anor tended cordially to Vergere's image. "See you." After these words, he pressed the button from earlier and Vergere's image fizzled out.
"Who shall answer Onimi?" Nom Anor asked humbly, holding the villip with Onimi's angry face towards Shimrra.
The Overlord immediately seized the medium of communication, mounting it on his hau polyp throne while Nom Anor stepped down to join Luke and the leader of Shimrra's former bodyguard.
༺═────────────═༻
And back on Center Point
The Miskara of the Vagaari people pointed his hand out the window. "Our spies are already on the trail of the elusive planet. I expect word of the whereabouts of ... any minute.
"It's here..." a new voice boomed across the room, "right above Yuuzhan'tar."
"Overlord?" Onimi said, the court jester's voice suddenly taking on a servile tone as he saw Nom Anor's yellow face give way to the overlord's.
"I assume you overheard Nom Anor's conversation with Zonama Sekot's spirit," Shimrra said to his court jester. "I think it's time to surrender, Onimi. Shut down this nefarious station and leave Corellia. We will live in peace in this galaxy from now on, where Zonama Sekot has agreed..."
"No," the court jester cut him off. "No! … We started it together, but that's not how we end it!"
"Onimi, the journey of our people had been long enough without having to endure your capers! I command you …"
"No ... No!" The jester's voice screeched to previously unimagined heights. "You will be destroyed!"
Onimi laid the villip on the ground in front of him, then stretched his hands towards the organic communicator and placed both index fingers directly together. A tremendous flash of blue bolted energy shot straight from those joined pale blue forefingers and burned across the everted notch in Shimrra's villip face. The whole thing lasted a second at the most, but when Onimi withdrew his hands, all that was left of the villip was a pile of charred ash.
Viqi, Harrar and everyone present had watched and now they stood or sat - frozen and shocked by Onimi's power arts.
"It was just a villip," Harrar said soothingly in Viqi's direction, but the former senator ignored him.
A subaltern entered the room along with the technician Antone. "Sir, all Grutchins have been destroyed and the station is now operational again," Antone reported, and the Yuuzhan Vong subaltern nodded.
"How lucky you are, Viqi," Onimi said to the woman in Leia's former bikini, "because the goal of this battle station just changed."
Onimi, Priest Harrar, and Viqi with Antone and the subaltern went back to the engineering room.
Onimi sat down at the controls and made a slight pan with the aiming system. The crosshairs swung back and forth a bit, then the new target came into view and Viqi blanched.
"But …"
Onimi smiled at her, his voice silky soft. "Nom Anor is there, isn't he?"
Coruscant hung rigid and immobile in Centerpoint's crosshairs, and everyone in the room went dead still.
The door membrane opened. "Court Jester, the ambassador of the Galactic Alliance is here - the real one."
"What?" Onimi spun around. "Have you checked his accreditation?"
The subaltern nodded. "It's real - signed and sealed by Mon Cala."
"Bring him in here at once!"
Accompanied by two Yuuzhan Vong guards, a tall human with gray hair and blue eyes gracefully entered Centerpoint's control chamber - an optical twin of the ooglith-masked Priest Harrar from earlier. "Allow me, Sir, I'm Ambassador Dean Jinzler, Chief of State Cal Omas has sent me to negotiate a peace treaty with the Yuuzhan Vong people."
Onimi got up from the controls and touched Jinzler's face, but nothing happened; no ooglith husk came off.
"It's a good thing you came from Mon Cala, because Coruscant will soon be gone," Onimi grumbled, sitting back at the controls.
"I am told that you have been calling this world Yuuzhan'tar since you conquered it," the ambassador replied with exaggerated amiability.
"What?! Coruscant is way too big – it harbors too much scum and villainy that meanders and ripples above and below the planet's surface," Onimi waved that aside with a firm hand. "It's time to choose a new capital world, one that is truly organic - one that doesn't need to be forcibly bent to our will."
Onimi's crooked mouth smiled thievishly. "Let's see if Zonama Sekot can survive this devastation in her neighborhood."
A human body threw itself at Onimi from the side, knocking the light blue Yuuzhan Vong out of the command chair.
"Only one fires the station here," Thrackan Sal-Solo roared at Onimi. "But I'm not in the mood for that today, you know? Even if you have certainly already done excellent preparatory work. You know, my nephew Anakin was great at that too, but Anakin had true Corellian blood running through his veins, which can't be said of you!"
"You!" Onimi straightened up again. "How dare you!? And who let her in here anyway?!"
Thrackan grinned. "I'm still the President of Corellia. I can go anywhere in here. And if Viqi Shesh really loves Nom Anor that much, then let Coruscant live."
Onimi motioned to two Yuuzhan Vong guards. "Get him out of here!"
The burly Corellian fought back as best he could, but the invaders' two warriors were stronger.
"So," Onimi said, sat back down in the command chair and looked around. "Where were we?"
༺═────────────═༻
Meanwhile on Coruscant, which was still called Yuuzhan'tar
Luke, Nom Anor, Qelah Kwaad, and the Overlord's former bodyguards stared in dismay at the Overlord's body that lay lifeless on the red how polyp throne - a deep wound in the mighty chest - where his heart, which had stopped beating, sat. Black, cauterized blood initially closed the wound, but the clot didn't last long. For minutes Shimrra's lifeblood had been trickling off the throne and onto the villip, which had fallen from the killed man's six-fingered hand and now lay dead on the floor, just a narrow hoop, the inner rim black and charred and smelling accordingly.
"I didn't think I'd ever say something like that," Luke Skywalker began, concerned, "but it was at least as horrible as what I had experienced on the second Death Star. Master Yoda had never told me on Dagobah that you can use the Force to kill someone even over long distances. If I had known that, I would have..."
"It's not your fault, Master Luke," Tahiri said comfortingly. "Nobody could have guessed that it would happen so quickly, and anyway..."
Jacen Solo unsnapped his comlink and weighed it uncertainly in his hand. "Is it possible by that too?" he murmured worriedly.
"Certainly not, young Jedi," Master Shaper Qelah Kwaad reassured him. "Something like this can only work with natural, living transmission media."
"At least he didn't suffer long," the leader of the dead man's former bodyguards said.
High Prefect Drathul toyed with the brown stone on his recovered High Prefect chain. "And all because Nom Anor gave Shimrra his villip."
The one addressed so indirectly shrugged his shoulders. "If not even Master Luke Skywalker could have guessed that the jester could wield such power, how can you now blame me?" He looked Drathul straight in the eye. "And that's after I was the one who organized a new, comfortable home for our people. Or would you have been able to, High Prefect? No! The spirit of Zonama Sekot asked me – me, Nom Anor!"
This chapter contains events from the book series "New Jedi Order", Vol. 5 "Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse" by James Luceno (2000) and Vol. 19 "The Unifying Force" by James Luceno (2003)
*Dean Jinzler is a character from the novels "Outbound Flight" (2006) and "Survivor's Quest" (2004), both by Timothy Zahn.
