Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [82]
“And such a waste. Your cleverness, used in our service, more than makes up for the loss of Ghithra Dal and his conspirators. Will you use it in our service?”
“I will.” She did not hesitate. Tsavong Lah said our service. To her, that meant the Yuuzhan Vong, not him personally, and she could swear to that with a whole heart.
“Some day soon, the seedship will return to this world and complete its transformation. I wish you to return to Lord Shimmra and study the World-Brain. I wish you to do nothing to displease the gods … but to find that knowledge which the gods do not mind us knowing.”
“I will, Warmaster.”
“Then speak no more of your death. It will come when the time is appropriate. It is not appropriate now.”
Coruscant
Baljos Arnjak was beginning to look like he, too, was being Vongformed. His beard and mustache were growing in; shaggy and in colors that ranged from light brown to black, his beard seemed like a riotous life-form not native to this world. The orange jumpsuit he wore when not traveling in Yuuzhan Vong armor seemed to have many more stains on it now, and some of them might have been living patches of mold or lichen. But these changes and the group’s circumstances seemed to be sitting well with him; his eyes were bright, his manner animated. “Come in, come in,” he said, waving the Jedi and Danni into the Lord Nyax suspended animation chamber. Bhindi was already there, perched on a stool.
“Tell me you have some information,” Luke said.
Baljos beamed. “I have some information. There, that was painless, wasn’t it? You can all go now.”
“Don’t taunt the Jedi,” Bhindi said. “And don’t take credit you don’t deserve. I’m the one who dug most of the information out of the wrecked guts of those maintenance machines.”
“True enough, Circuitry Girl. Not that you could have interpreted—” Baljos doubtless saw the impatience in someone’s face, probably Tahiri’s, for he broke off that line of talk. “We’re prepared to tell you whatever you need to know about Lord Nyax. Anything Bhindi didn’t find in the machine memory, we’ll just make up.”
Luke leaned against a wrecked computer console and crossed his arms as though to put up a defense against whatever information was to come. “So, who is he? What was he modified for?”
Baljos nodded as though that was the first pair of questions he’d expected. “He is—or used to be—a Dark Jedi. His name was Irek Ismaren.”
Luke frowned, then shook his head. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Who’s Irek Ismaren?” Tahiri asked.
Luke dug his datapad out of a belt pouch. “Like Baljos said. He was a Dark Jedi in training. A son either of the Emperor or of one Sarcev Quest by a woman named Roganda Ismaren. She was a crazy woman who modified her son with computer implants. My sister Leia ran into him on Belsavis, oh, about fifteen years ago.”
He opened the datapad and began scrolling through entries. Though nowhere near as comprehensive as the database he kept in whatever hidden site might serve as the Jedi headquarters, this datapad included an abbreviated listing on every Jedi, Sith, Force-sensitive, or Force-related person or site he had ever encountered in his long searches for knowledge of the Jedi Order.
Within moments, he found the file he wanted. A face resolved into clarity on the datapad screen: aristocratic, handsome, somehow unfinished in a teenaged way, framed by curly dark hair.
It was the face of a younger Lord Nyax.
Suddenly Luke felt as pale as Lord Nyax. He showed the image to Mara.
She nodded. She noted some of the details that appeared on the screen under Irek’s name. “So he should be about thirty now.”
“Yes. And of normal height.”
“Except,” Baljos interrupted, “he spent most of the intervening years in that suspended animation chamber, so he’s physically younger than his chronological age. His vital processes