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  When the uproar had died, Nom Anor turned from Borsk and looked directly into the galleries. “What a pity the courage of your Jedi does not match that of your bureaucrats.”

  The chorus of jeers was not nearly so loud as Borsk would have liked, and for a moment he worried he was making a mistake. While many of the systems supporting the Jedi were almost fanatical in their loyalties, they tended to be already conquered or separated from the rest of the New Republic by the invasion route. On the other hand, the worlds that favored appeasing the Yuuzhan Vong were mostly rich Core systems, with resources vital to the war effort and political power bases critical to Borsk’s continued tenure as chief of state. The Yuuzhan Vong knew all that, which was why they had sent a notorious spy to represent them in the first place. They were trying to divide the senate between those they could intimidate and those they could not—and Borsk had been in politics long enough to know what happened to those who were easily intimidated.

  He waited while Nom Anor’s gaze circled the gallery, passing over those who taunted him with a confident sneer, lingering on the ones who remained quiet until they grew uncomfortable and looked away. Borsk had to admire the envoy’s technique. It was classic intimidation politics, rendered all the more effective by the fact that the Yuuzhan Vong had proven time and again they would not hesitate to carry through even the most unthinkable threat. Fortunately for the New Republic—in the humble opinion of its chief of state, at least—they were playing this game against a master.

  When Nom Anor’s gaze finally returned to the speaker’s rostrum, Borsk stepped to within a hand’s breadth of the Yuuzhan Vong’s chest. Purposely contrasting his stubby figure against his counterpart’s more massive build, he craned his neck back and stared at the underside of the other’s crooked chin.

  “The Yuuzhan Vong must be worried about our Jedi indeed, to think a handful worth so many lives.”

  Borsk spoke so softly that the sound droid had to float nearly between them to pick up his words, and, as he had planned, Nom Anor was forced to step back to glare down at him.

  “Your lives mean nothing to us.”

  “Indeed?” Borsk glanced into the high galleries, searching out the peace-loving senator from Thyferra. “I thought as much.”

  A silence fell over the chamber, and the Bothan knew he was succeeding when he heard the rustle of a thousand senatorial backsides shifting in their seats. He was holding his audience rapt; this was not what they had expected, and they barely dared breathe for fear of missing what would happen next.

  Then Viqi Shesh stepped over beside them, and Borsk could almost hear the excitement drain from the room.

  “What the chief of state means to say, Ambassador, is that the Yuuzhan Vong may not understand the New Republic’s relationship with the Jedi. We lack control—”

  “No.” Borsk shot Shesh a look that would have melted durasteel. “That is not what the chief of state means to say.”

  Shesh paled, but refused to retreat. “I beg your pardon.”

  “The senator from Kuat is welcome to express her opinion in the proper forums, but she may not presume to speak for the chief of state.” Borsk glared at her until she retreated, then he turned back to Nom Anor. “What the chief of state means to say is that the Yuuzhan Vong are cowards and murderers. If they had the courage of the least of their slaves, they would stop hiding behind helpless refugees and go do battle with the Jedi!”

  “We are not hiding!” Nom Anor shot back. “It is the Jedi.”

  “Really?” Borsk answered in a sarcastic tone. “Then I suggest you look in the Corellian sector. There were recently quite a few at Froz, from what I understand.”

  Much of the chamber erupted into laughter, for the “irresponsible Jedi ambush” at Froz had dominated the HoloNet over the last few days. It was too early to tell whether Borsk’s comment would change the slant of the coverage, but it was sure to keep the incident—and the chief of state—in the newsvids for days to come.

  Nom Anor’s meandering eye swiveled down toward Borsk, and the Bothan’s stomach went sour. He had read the reports on the false eye confiscated at Bilbringi and knew the unpleasant death that awaited anyone unfortunate enough to have its poison emptied in his face. But he refused to back down. He could feel the support of the Jedi-lovers swelling behind him, and he knew that to show fear now was to throw away all he had just won.

  Then, in a flash of inspiration, Borsk knew what to say, exactly how to crystallize his support. “And you might try looking in Bothan space. I have it on good authority that the Jedi are well loved there.”

  This drew an even bigger laugh than the Froz suggestion, for Borsk and the Jedi had not been on good terms since—well, ever. It was a weak point in his rapidly developing plan, and one he hoped to fix by openly pledging his home system’s support to the Jedi. He glanced up at the Bothan gallery and saw Mak Sezala, the Bothan senator, staring daggers at him. Borsk flattened his ears in warning, and Sezala obediently rose and began to suggest planets where the Yuuzhan Vong might start searching. None of the worlds were inhabited, but it was enough to bring the senators of a hundred other systems to their feet with similar suggestions.

  Nom Anor’s eyes narrowed. Borsk thought he had finally pushed too far, but the Yuuzhan Vong stepped back.

  “I will relay your suggestions.” He turned toward the stairs and glanced into the galleries. “All of them.”

  “Fine, but you will do so by villip,” Borsk said.

  Nom Anor looked over his shoulder. “What?”

  “You may relay your suggestions by villip.” Borsk did not want to miss this chance to mock the infamous spy. “I summoned you here to explain the taking of a million hostages. You aren’t leaving until you do.”

  Nom Anor’s reply was lost to a tumult of Wookiee roaring. The cheers felt good to Borsk. He would never again be able to set foot inside Bothan space, but the cheers felt good.

  ELEVEN

  The villip everted at last, assuming the likeness of the warmaster’s disfigured visage. Rugged and bold-featured, with pensive eyes and a fringed mouth, it had once been a face Viqi Shesh might have found alluring. Now, laced with devotional scars and rearranged by ritual breakings, the best she could call it was interesting. So how come her stomach fluttered whenever she saw it? Why should she be annoyed that he had taken so long to respond to her villip? It had to be his power. She was drawn to powerful men—well, males. She was not proud of this weakness—it was considered something of a perversion back on Kuat, where women of her station normally purchased telbun servants to serve as their mates—but there it was, her secret shame. For a while—a very brief while—she had even been rather taken with furry little Borsk.

  “Viqi, you have something to report?” Tsavong Lah asked.

  “Yes.” She liked how he always called her by her first name. It bespoke a certain intimacy he did not share with most others. “It was a surprising session.”

  “Nom Anor says successful.”

  “Then he saw something I did not,” she replied. “Nom Anor misread the situation from the start. His arrogance forced Borsk to throw his support to the Jedi.”

  “Truly?” The warmaster did not seem all that surprised. “And he assured me he would do so well.”

  “I have been all day salvaging the situation.”

  “You have?” Tsavong Lah sounded surprised, no doubt because he was not accustomed to underlings showing such initiative. “What have you done?”

  “The senate split roughly along Core boundaries,” she explained.

  “Those inside the Core—and coincidentally in your invasion path—favored turning against the Jedi. The others support them.”

  “That was expected,” Tsavong Lah said impatiently.

  Seeing that the significance was lost on the warmaster, Viqi tried a confident tone. “The Core Worlds have most of the resources still available to the New Republic, and those who control the purse strings control the government.”

&nb
sp; “Yes?”

  “I’ve spent all morning talking to Core senators. We don’t have the votes to win a no-confidence call, but I’m convinced that were Borsk to meet an untimely end, the next chief of state would be less favorably disposed toward the Jedi.”

  Tsavong Lah’s brow rose. “You are thinking of murder?”

  Viqi was surprised to feel a shudder run down her spine. Murder was such an ugly way to put it, but how like the Yuuzhan Vong to say it in the ghastliest way possible. “Nom Anor was close enough today. He could do it.”

  “Nom Anor?” Tsavong Lah echoed. “Are you not the one who will be elected chief of state when Borsk dies?”

  Not if, Viqi noted, when. She smiled confidently. “That’s my plan, yes.”

  The warmaster scowled. “Then you do it, Viqi.”

  Her smile vanished. “Me?” Thoughts swirled through her mind, trying to sort through the possible purposes behind his words. Was he testing her courage? Joking? Perhaps he simply did not understand the ramifications of his suggestion. Yes, that had to be it. “I don’t think politics work the same way in the New Republic as among the Yuuzhan Vong. Were I to murder Borsk, I’d be disgraced and sent to a rehabilitation facility—not elected chief of state.”

  “Only if you were caught.”

  Viqi paused. Tsavong Lah could certainly smuggle her some means of killing Borsk secretly, but knowing the Yuuzhan Vong—and the warmaster in particular—she felt sure the method would involve some horrible mutilation to her own body, and still require her to look in the Bothan’s eye as she murdered him. Though she had never killed anyone face to face before, she believed she could do it, considering the prize. But what of the investigation that followed? As fierce as the Yuuzhan Vong were as warriors, they knew nothing of the New Republic’s investigative technology—technology that would be brought fully to bear to identify Borsk’s assassin.

  Viqi shook her head. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “You’re refusing me?”

  “I am.” Her insides went cold. She already regretted proposing the assassination in the first place, but she knew better than to show fear now. The warmaster would see hesitation as a sign of weakness and pounce on it like the predator he was, and she had worked too hard—done too many things that repulsed even her—to throw it all away recklessly. “I won’t do either of us any good on a prison planet.”

  Tsavong Lah’s tone grew dangerously even. “I have ways to force your cooperation. I’m sure Belindi Kalenda would be very interested to learn of our association.”

  “I’m sure she would. But then you would lose that steady little flow of memories from the NRMOC situation room.” To illustrate her point, she tipped her head to one side and ground her teeth together, then winced as the chilab detached itself and slithered down her nasal passage. “And I’m sure New Republic Intelligence would also be very interested in these.”

  The neural grub dropped out of her nostril exactly on cue, and a small smile of respect crept across Tsavong Lah’s face.

  “As you wish, Viqi Shesh,” he said. “But Nom Anor cannot be trusted with a task this important. A vermin hunter named Bjork Umi will contact you soon.”

  “Yes?”

  “Give him a time and a place,” Tsavong Lah said. “And you will become chief of state—our chief of state.”

  TWELVE

  “The YVH-One is a top-notch war droid with flawless search-and-identify engineering, the heavy-weapons punch of a fourseater blastcar, and, with the optional laminanium layered armor, the durability to survive even the most hazardous postings. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ultimate answer to the invasion of the New Republic, Tendrando Arms’ Yuuzhan Vong Hunter One!”

  The hulking war droid sprang into view, a skull-headed blur of black-and-gray camouflage bouncing across the floor in a dizzying array of evasive flips and midair twists. It crashed through a ferrocrete wall that had apparently been erected for just that purpose, dived over a hovering landspeeder, and finished by positioning itself precisely at the entrance of the proving facility. It pivoted exactly ninety degrees left and clanged to attention in front of the spectator hoversled, then snapped its blaster-cannon arm against its chest in salute.

  With a death’s-head face and red photoreceptors gleaming in socket mountings as deep as a blaster burn, the droid bore a faint but nightmarish resemblance to the enemy it had been built to destroy. Its wedge-shaped torso, the massive proportions of its system-packed limbs, even the way its armor overlapped at the joints reminded Leia of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior trapped in a droid’s shell. She wondered if Lando’s designers had intended the similarity—perhaps to cause judgment lapses by goading their foes into a rage—or if the insult had just been lucky coincidence.

  In an ultradeep, ultramale version of Lando Calrissian’s voice, the droid said, “YVH One-One-A reporting all systems functional. Ready to proceed in demonstration mode.”

  Leia rolled her eyes at Lando’s characteristic vanity, then looked at Han, who had returned to Coruscant immediately after dropping the voxyn at Eclipse. “I don’t see why I have to be here.”

  “Think of it as a favor.” Han nodded toward the front of the hoversled, where Borsk Fey’lya stood flanked by two generals, Garm Bel Iblis and Wedge Antilles. “Borsk wouldn’t meet with Lando unless you came.”

  “And why is the chief of state meeting with an arms supplier in the first place?” Leia demanded. “You know what this is.”

  Han shrugged. “They’re good droids.”

  “As if anyone here were qualified to judge that.” Leia was silent for a moment, then said, “He’s trying to draw me back in.”

  “Look, all Lando’s trying to do is sell a few droids and help win the war,” Han said.

  “I was talking about Borsk.”

  “I know,” Han answered. “But what’s wrong with using him for a change?”

  “It’s politics. I’m done with that.”

  She fell silent as Lando explained he would be demonstrating the YVH’s capabilities in the most challenging combat environment of all, the urban battleground. YVH 1-1A turned and began to stalk down the simulation maze of a fairly modern glasteel city. The hoversled followed a dozen meters above, where the occupants would have a clear view of the action. Adarakh and Meewalh were still in bacta tanks recovering from their acid burns, or Leia knew they would have insisted on being even farther from the action. Demonstrations of war droids were notorious for going tragically astray.

  The first test came when a pair of what looked like Yuuzhan Vong quietly stepped into an alley around the corner from 1-1A. They were armed with amphistaffs and bandoliers of thud bugs.

  “There’s nothing to be concerned about,” Lando said. “They’re actually training droids, built off the same frame as the YVH, but programmed with Yuuzhan Vong battle tactics and equipped with emitter packages that mimic enemy heart rates, heat signatures, and odor characteristics.”

  “Yuuzhandroids—the ultimate abomination,” Bel Iblis said, grinning. “I admire a man who has confidence in his own product.”

  “I have confidence in everything I manufacture,” Lando said, returning the general’s smile. “But why do you find that so admirable … in this case?”

  “No particular reason.” Bel Iblis shrugged. “I was just thinking of what the enemy will do when they hear you’ve begun manufacturing them.”

  Lando’s smile grew queasy.

  The Yuuzhandroids made it only three steps down the alley before 1-1A sprang around the corner to meet them, the servo motors of his repulsor-enhanced legs hissing slightly as they propelled his enormous mass. One Yuuzhandroid made the mistake of raising his amphistaff and was immediately struck down by a green blaster bolt. The other was smarter, making a headlong dive and reaching for his bandolier of thud bugs. He actually had a hand on it before 1-1A’s blaster bolt knocked him senseless.

  “For the purposes of this demonstration, One-One-A’s blaster cannon is powered down to a nonlethal settin
g modulated specifically to paralyze the Yuuzhandroid circuitry,” Lando explained. “In true combat, One-One-A would automatically select the energy level needed to annihilate any target up to the size of a coralskipper. We’ll see his destructive capabilities in the second part of the demonstration.”

  YVH 1-1A paused while a remote sensor scan confirmed that he “downed” his targets, then he continued along the main avenue. For the next hour, Leia and the others watched the war droid work his way through a broad assortment of combat problems, locating concealed Yuuzhandroids through solid durasteel, tracking multiple escapees, and, most impressive to Leia, capturing a trio of ooglith-masqued infiltrators without harming anyone in a crowd of bystanders. The finale came when 1-1A was ordered into a simulated ambush—simulated because 1-1A’s sensors alerted him to it well in advance and Lando ordered him in anyway. Of the half a dozen Yuuzhandroids trapped in the cul-de-sac with him, four hit him with thud bugs. Only one managed a second strike before being blasted unconscious. By the time 1-1A’s sensors confirmed that he had downed all six targets, the bug pits in his laminanium armor were already filling themselves.

  “Self-healing metals,” General Bel Iblis observed. “Nice.”

  “Just one of the YVH’s many design innovations.” Lando’s smile was one of genuine pride, more sincere than Leia had seen in decades. “Of course, it’s impossible to simulate a full-scale battle here. The Yuuzhan Vong would have heavier weapons that we just can’t use in a demonstration, but this should provide some idea of the YVH’s capabilities. It’s totally immune to biological agents, hermetically seals itself in the presence of corrosive chemicals, and the laminanium armor can take a coralskipper plasma ball in the chest without breaching.”