Viqi Shesh fell and had the feeling that her heart would stop beating from sheer excitement at any moment, so fast it was pounding in her chest. That would definitely be better than feeling the hard impact. She already had the feeling to touch ground soon, when two strong arms were catching her and dragged her onto a broad leather bolster. The humming of an engine nearby gave her a feeling of coming home, but it felt too unreal to believe it finally. She looked up, who would belong to those arms and saw bright blue eyes in a face with a skin color resembling hers, framed by dark blonde hair. And she new it – him.

"Pedric!", she blurted. "How does it come, that you can cruise here with such a technical abomination and the Yuuzhan Vong give a damn on it?"

Pedric Cuf smiled at her. "I have my ways and agreements with them, and I also can provide safety for you, if you like. I really would like to invite you into the restaurant as I wanted two years ago, but I'm afraid this place is crowded with moss and mushrooms now."

„Just like my heart", Viqi confessed to him.

Pedric Cuf's eyes went wide. "How do you mean that?"

"I fell in love with a Yuuzhan Vong."

He laughed. "I know – with the Warmaster. Your relationship has become fuel for legends already."

"Tsavong Lah was a mean scoundrel. You wouldn't believe, what …" She allowed herself a second thought. „It is so, that I'm the mate of Yu'shaa, the Prophet of the Shamed Ones now. Perhaps you did hear about him. I'm in deep sorrow because he left and nobody knows where he is now. You have so many connections. Can you perhaps find out what happened to him?"

His gaze became melancholic. „You just want to use me to dump me afterwards, just that time, after I gave you Tsavong Lah's villip."

„No, I want to apologize, that I called you Thrushbeard that time", she said ashamed. "I had been haughty and silly. But now I will help the Shamed Ones, just as did Yu'shaa, when he was with me. So will you help me?"

„I will."

Pedric Cuf led his glider to a place terribly familiar to Viqi. When they stepped down the spirally wound way, the princess got a bad feeling. Just some hours ago on this position, she could have heard some sounds of live, soft chatter or steady noises of work, but now there was silence. The deeper they went, the more she recognized a certain smell. Then they saw the fresh carcasses, Shimrra's stooges had left after their purge. Seeing those corpses, Viqi's heart became uneasy and she thought of her beloved one. The agent opened the chamber, where Yu'shaa had shared his life with her.

"How do you …?"

The words were stuck in her throat, as Pedric Cuf closed the door behind her. He pressed a point at his cheek and the Ooglith masque peeled off his face and gave way to the familiar one, Viqi got to know during time and learnt to love.

"Yu'shaa! You are that!", the princess shouted happily. "And I was afraid already to disappoint Pedric Cuf a second time."

"Your love and faithfulness did save me, Viqi", the prophet said. "And now we will save and vindicate the Shamed Ones."

"But why didn't you tell me the truth from the start, when you took me away from Tsavong Lah?"

"The truth?" Yu'shaa chuckled. „The truth is relative, my dear – and sometimes even less."

„What do you mean?", Viqi asked and a strange feeling crept up her spine.

His again inflamed eyes looked melancholically. "The truth, my dear Viqi, is, that since decades I live in a web made of carefully hatched out lies and plans, which give me the means to design the truth instead of submitting to it. Do you really want to know the whole truth?"

Viqi nodded.

Yu'shaa alias Amorrn alias Pedric Cuf anew pressed the point at his cheek and the maimed and ravished skin of the Shamed One drew back to reveal the yellowish face of Nom Anor.

Viqi gasped for air, then she approached. "May I?"

He gave her a scarce nod.

She pressed that point at his cheek, but nothing happened. She pulled on the skin of his cheek, on one of his tattooed fingers, then another one.

"Not that one", Nom Anor warned and withdrew the little finger of that hand. "Otherwise you will cause a catastrophe."

"You!", Viqi gasped. „That has been you all along."

„If you would had followed me on the surface on the back of that Quednak, I would have thrown you into the next Yargh'un pit instantly to forget you afterwards for once and for all – just like the Shamed Ones. But you remained faithful to me, and that in the ugliest and lowliest identity of mine at all. And hence you have earned my final trust, Viqi Shesh."

"What now, Nom Anor?", Viqi asked. "What will you do now? Who did commit treason on the Shamed Ones? And what about that living planet, which shall save us?"

„Shoon-mi did betray the Shamed Ones, because he didn't see a future in the heretic movement of them anymore." He smiled impishly. "He pondered about saving for himself a warm, cozy place at Shimrra's court – with you by his side."

"While you still have your cozy place at Shimrra's court", Viqi replied. "And no one to doubt your story anymore, while Shoon-mi is dead already."

„It were always your sharp wits, I liked so much", Nom Anor confessed to her.

"But you still didn't answer my other questions yet", Viqi pressed on.

Nom Anor took her hand. "You did ask me for the living planet I did prophecy."

Viqi tilted her head, every fiber of her body full of anticipation.

"It is a nice dainty to bargain with", he proclaimed, then he turned instantly and pulled Viqi behind - out of the chamber.

"Where are we going?", Viqi asked.

"To the place I offered you, before you did ride away with my Quednak."

They get into the glider again and flew towards a big, organic building, which had sections spreading away from a center like the rays of a star.

"This is the central Damutek of the Intendant Caste", Nom Anor explained, his yellow finger pointing at one certain section. "And this is my area in this house, because I'm the prefect for the whole of Yuuzhan'tar now."

Uncertainty flared up in Viqi's eyes. "And what about Kunra and the other Shamed Ones?"

"So you didn't spot his corpse in the cave either." Nom Anor gave her mischievous smile. "I presume strongly he could get away at the right time too. I will speak to him and the others in due time. But first I have to make certain preparations, you understand?"

"I see, my dear", she said thoughtfully.

He parked the glider in a kind of garage, which has been such before, as Viqi knew from the past. That time the gliders had been crowding in this parking area, but now there were only two of them on the vast square hall at all. Moss had claimed the walls and instead of the electrical light sticks, some lichen, as Viqi knew it from Tsavong Lah's flagship, spread from the ceiling its warm, orange light.

They went on foot to the Damutek over a distance from fifty meters. When they arrived, two bored guards let them in. Nom Anor led Viqi into his private rooms and showed her a room with a mirror and a board, where some cosmetics were stored – from high-quality brands, as Viqi noticed.

"You already have prepared this for me?", she asked.

"Preparation is everything", he said nonchalantly, then he took her shoulders and drew her closer. "We have some time, until I will introduce you to the court as my intima."

"Intima?", Viqi reiterated the for her yet unknown word, while looking into his good eye. "Did you ever had an intima before?"

He shook his head.

"What would have happened if Shimrra's minions had killed me in the cave before you deigned to drop by there on your Quednak?"

"You knew the secret passage - that's exactly why I showed it to you." His blue eye beamed at her. "And I knew you would make it. You'll admit, it would have looked a bit strange if I'd stopped by Kunra first, telling him, that I'm going to take you with me ... just you."

After these words, then he closed the distance to her fully and they fell into a kiss.

This chapter contains events from the New Jedi Order book series, vol. 18 "The Final Prophesy" by Greg Keyes and 19. "The Unifying Force" by James Luceno (both 2003)