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It was time to go. No matter who the victor was, Viqi would either end up dead or pressed once more into the service of the Yuuzhan Vong. She spun to sprint to the stairwell.

She tripped over an outstretched leg. It was clad in vonduun crab armor.

She looked up, confused. All the Yuuzhan Vong warriors had been ahead of her. Where had this one come from? He was the tallest she’d seen, and wore unusual black-and-silver armor. So did the shorter warrior next to him, the one with the distinctive branding marks on his face.

That one said, “What do we have here, Explosion Boy?” His voice was cultured, his Basic perfect.

The tall one said, “Dunno.” He, too, spoke Basic. He reached down, seized one of Viqi’s ankles, and straightened. He held her upside-down at arm’s length. “Runt of the litter, I’d say.”

Disoriented, Viqi could only watch as a lithe female Jedi, lightsaber blazing, ran past the three of them, paying these Yuuzhan Vong warriors no attention.

A clang over her head startled her. She looked up—down, at the floor—and saw her locator lying there.

She reached for it, but the tall warrior swung her to one side. “Grab that, would you, Poster Boy?”

“Got it.” The one addressed as Poster Boy seized the device and straightened. “Ah, a military-spec vehicle locator. Uulshos makes these. Hey, it’s live.”

Viqi finally found her voice. “That’s mine.”

“Not anymore, Senator.”

Luke and Mara approached Lord Nyax and his Yuuzhan Vong attackers. They kept their guards up, their senses—both physical and Force—alert.

Luke searched the face in front of him. He looked for some trace of humanity. He saw only smiling mockery, and he could feel the thing through the Force, its appreciation at having slaughtered warriors, its appreciation at the thought of slaughtering Luke and Mara.

There was no recognition in its emotion, no acknowledgement of kinship of any sort.

“I don’t know if you can understand me,” Luke said. “But whatever you’re doing, whatever your plans are, I have to stop you.”

Lord Nyax’s smile grew broader. It seemed to recognize Luke’s intent, even if it could not grasp his words.

Then it answered—not in words, but in images. Luke saw the power of its will, expressed through the Force, rolling over the remaining people of Coruscant like water roaring down a canyon through a burst dam. He saw them sweeping across Coruscant, killing and eating everything in their way—the Yuuzhan Vong, the disobedient, the Force-blind. He saw the workers here boarding the machine beneath their feet, crashing it through kilometers of buildings until they came to some place, a source for more power to fuel this glorious, deliriously happy destructive impulse.

In that instant, Luke joined in the plan. He longed to slaughter the outsiders, those who did not understand or join. He longed to taste their flesh.

He turned to Mara, beckoning her to join. She was facing the Yuuzhan Vong warriors, preventing them from surprising Luke with an attack, but her gaze was yanked to Luke. Her eyes widened, and he could feel her leaning toward him, leaning toward acceptance of this crucial duty.

But the sight of her brought memories. Luke saw worlds of beauty. He saw his son, composed of Luke and Mara and years to come. Around the edges of Lord Nyax’s command he felt the Force, its other natures, the life from which it flowed.

He turned back toward Lord Nyax and struggled to find the words to express his thought. “I … stand … in … your … way.”

It was the Jedi way. Jedi did not attack. But to position oneself in the path of a violent aggressor who would not yield achieved the same result.

All he could ever do as leader of the wartime Jedi was lead them into the path of the enemy. That was, Luke realized, perhaps his greatest limitation, and in struggling against it without understanding it, he may have hampered the Jedi effectiveness against the enemy.

But once recognized and accepted, it was also perhaps his greatest strength. Whether