Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [103]
Can I even ask her for mercy? Viqi asked herself. Can I stoop that low?
The answer was simple.
Of course I can. And once I am free again, once I escape, I will make her suffer for that indignity. Viqi composed herself and began rehearsing the words she would say. Pleas for her life.
“Viqi. I knew you were lying. I knew you would return here.”
Unbelieving, Viqi turned.
Denua Ku, his front a solid smear of blue-black blood, stood leaning against the doorway into the apartment. He coughed, a racking, painful sound, and blood dribbled from his mouth. His head hung low.
But it did not matter. He was still more than a match for her, and he held his amphistaff in his hands.
“I will now kill you, Viqi.” He took a faltering step toward her. He was already almost within reach with his amphistaff.
Viqi could hear the sound of the Ugly Truth’s side hatch powering up to open. She knew it could not open in time. Cold resolve flooded her, knowledge that she could inflict hurt in her own inimitable style one last time.
“No, you won’t,” she said. “Yuuzhan Vong can’t kill me. Noghri can’t. Jedi can’t. You’re all beneath me. There’s only one thing in the universe that can kill Viqi Shesh.”
She turned and stepped out through the shattered viewport.
Luke and Mara watched her fall. Luke even felt it when she died, a faint diminishment in the Force.
“How about that,” Mara said. “I get my wish.”
The Yuuzhan Vong warrior who had confronted Viqi raised a handful of razorbugs to hurl at the Ugly Truth, then fell over on his back. His chest heaved once. Then he was still.
Shaken, Luke settled back in his seat and strapped in. “Now we can go.”
Tahiri gave him a look that suggested he had taken leave of his senses. “Before, you said ‘go home.’ I thought this was your home. Coruscant.”
“No.” Luke put an arm around her shoulders, his other arm around Mara’s. “I thought it was, but I was wrong. No matter what color the sun is, no matter what the furniture is like, home is where my family is.”
Tahiri nodded, considering that. She settled against him, face against his shoulder, and closed her eyes as if to sleep.
And for the first time since they’d made landfall on Coruscant, she smiled.
Face said, “Ready for a run to space, Explosion Boy?”
“Always ready, Poster Boy. Hold on to your awards.” Kell lifted off, turned away from the ziggurat, and accelerated to full atmospheric speed.
SIXTEEN
Borleias
Luke’s expedition returned to a Borleias that was changed—at least in the vicinity of the biotics building and the other areas held by New Republic forces.
On the surface, everything looked worse. Luke and Kell had to pilot the Ugly Truth through layered defenses—dovin basal minefields and coralskipper patrols—that surely would have led to the destruction of a vehicle controlled by lesser pilots. Outlying buildings around the biotics building had been smashed by frequent capital ship bombardments. Round-the-chrono coralskipper squadron sorties against the ships in orbit had reduced the Lusankya to a flying wreck, had battered the other cruisers and Star Destroyers. Blackmoon Squadron, one of the elite units quartered out of the biotics building complex, had lost three pilots only today, including its commander and second-in-command. The pilots, soldiers, and crews ran on caf and stubbornness, some barely able to stay on their feet as they came on duty.
But in his first hours home, Luke was able to peer beneath the surface.
Kyp Durron welcomed Luke back with an unambiguous smile and handshake; when he’d heard the tale of Lord Nyax, he offered no criticism of Luke’s handling of the matter.
Han and Leia seemed at ease with one another, no lingering tension flavoring words they exchanged. They told Luke that, with the likelihood very high of an all-out push by the Yuuzhan Vong in the Pyria system, they