Free Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II by Aaron Allston Page B

imitation of Tam’s. “I look just like Anakin Solo. You know, Han Solo’s son. The dead one. On Coruscant, this lady spy for the Yuuzhan Vong made me go with her to the Solos so they’d be weird and distracted, so she could kidnap Ben Skywalker. Then I guess I was supposed to die, but the Solos brought me here, even though it hurts their feelings to look at me.” He looked away and his face became very still. “I don’t know where my real family is. Maybe still on Coruscant.” He didn’t have to add,
Maybe dead
.
    “There aren’t a lot of kids here. Not a lot of civilians of any sort. What do you do when you’re not recovering from burn wounds?”
    Tarc grinned. “I stay with Han and Leia Solo. ’Cept they’re gone a lot, like now. So I explore.” He lost his smile; his expression became melancholy. “And I have to study.”
    “Not even having a world knocked out from under your feet can change some things, Tarc. How would you like to learn to be a holocam operator?”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, anytime you see a holocast, the image is beingrecorded by a holocam. The holocam is worked by a holocam operator. That’s what I do.”
    “That’s … interesting.” Tarc sounded dubious.
    “Give it a try. I need to find Wolam Tser and see if he needs my services. Want to come along?”
    Tarc’s eyes got bigger. “You know Wolam Tser? My parents used to watch him.”
    Tam mocked his tone. “You know Han and Leia Solo? Sure, kid. I’m Wolam’s holocam operator.”
    “I’ll come along.”
    “Good.” Tam leaned back and shrugged to himself. Well, at least it would give him something to do.
Yuuzhan Vong Worldship, Coruscant Orbit
    The shaper, Ghithra Dal, looked upon Tsavong Lah’s arm and hesitated.
    The warmaster knew the news would be unfavorable. He could feel the increased activity of the carrion-eaters in his arm, could see and feel the emergence of new spines in the Yuuzhan Vong flesh above the join. “Speak,” he said. “Your words cannot anger me. Nor your conclusions. If they are presented in a quick and correct fashion, you have nothing to fear from me.”
    The shaper bowed in gratitude. “It is growing worse, Warmaster. I fear for your arm. All my shaper’s arts are not saving it.”
    “So I am doomed to become one of the Shamed Ones.” Tsavong Lah leaned forward on his chair, staring off into the distance, into the future, paying the shaper no more mind. “No, that will never happen. When myarm is at its worst, but before I am truly among the Shamed, I will offer myself in sacrifice, or throw myself against the enemy and die appropriately. My only concern now is to support a new warmaster who can lead the Yuuzhan Vong ably and well.” He cupped his chin in his good hand and considered. “I think Gukandar Huath will serve best, don’t you?”
    It was a ploy, one that Tsavong Lah would have considered appropriately cruel had he merely been offering it for his own amusement, but it had a purpose. Gukandar Huath was a fine warrior and war leader, but was well known for the support he offered the priests of Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla, and for his barely disguised indifference to the Creator god, Yun-Yuuzhan. If, in fact, Ghithra Dal was part of some conspiracy with Yun-Yuuzhan’s priests, he would be forced now to offer—
    “If I may, Warmaster, I said that the shaper’s craft was inadequate to the task … not that you were doomed,” Ghithra Dal said. “You may have one other avenue left to you—and it is an avenue of attack, not an avenue of retreat.”
    Tsavong Lah considered the shaper as if he’d just been reminded that he was still there. He did not allow any hope to creep into his expression or tone. “Speak, my servant.”
    Ghithra Dal lowered his tone as if to thwart eavesdroppers. “The shaper’s arts cannot help you, I am certain, because the one force in the universe more powerful than those arts afflicts you. The will, the anger of the gods is what you