Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [37]
“I’ll be back,” Shada promised.
“Of course you will. And I’ll be here to meet you. Now get going.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Anakin watched the distant dots buzzing around the crash site. They’d been there for hours, but in the last few minutes they’d been leaving, one by one. He felt a constriction in his belly. If he had one of those fliers, he could get back to the temple and find Tahiri.
And do what? Leave Valin and Sannah with Vehn and a sky full of flitters? Try to drag them all along on another aerial battle and then a rescue?
No. He couldn’t pin all of their hopes on that.
He felt a tremor in the tree, and his hand went to his lightsaber. But then he felt Valin, below him, climbing up.
The younger boy reached him and settled in the crotch between two branches. As he watched, the last of the flitters seemed to be moving off.
“You should have stayed in the cave,” Anakin told Valin.
“Maybe,” Valin replied. “But I didn’t.” He nodded at the departing craft. “I thought they would search longer,” he said.
Anakin shook his head. “Two days is longer than I thought they would give it. They’re after the bigger prize—the rest of the students. They’ve got a time limit, remember? When the Yuuzhan Vong show up, they’ve got to be successful or gone. The last thing the Peace Brigade would want the Vong to know is that they were the ones who spoiled their mother lode.” He motioned down. “Get back in the cave, though. They might make a last-minute sweep.”
“Anakin, why do the Yuuzhan Vong want us so bad?”
Anakin blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. Mostly because they hate us. The fact that they don’t seem to exist in the Force cuts both ways. We can’t sense them or affect them directly, but we can do things they can’t understand. And we’re the ones who have hurt them most. I guess the last stroke was when Jacen humiliated their warmaster.”
“But those guys with Vehn weren’t Yuuzhan Vong.”
“No, they’re worse. They think by turning us in they’ll get the Yuuzhan Vong to stop their conquest at the planets they have.”
“Will they?”
Anakin snorted. “Senator Elegos A’Kla turned himself over to them. He hoped he could come to understand them, forge a common bond of trust, something to begin the process of finding a peaceful solution.”
“They killed him,” Valin said quietly. “I heard about that.”
“And sent his polished bones back to us.”
“But then my dad killed the Yuuzhan Vong who killed Elegos.”
Anakin hesitated. He hadn’t thought through where his example might lead.
“Yeah,” he said briefly.
“But now everyone hates my dad, and not the Yuuzhan Vong.”
Anakin shook his head. “No. It’s not like that. It’s just—it’s politics, Valin.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I hate politics. Ask my brother, next time you see him, or my mom.”
“But—”
“What it means,” Anakin interrupted, “is that your father, Corran Horn, is a good man, and everyone with even a little sense knows that. The problem with people is that a lot of them don’t have any sense, and a lot of others are liars.”
“You mean they would say my dad was bad even if they didn’t think so?”
“You got it, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
Anakin looked into the determined young face, and suddenly saw what Kam, Tionne, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara—all the adults in his life—must be used to seeing by now on his face.
“Maybe not,” Anakin replied. “But here’s what I was trying to get around to saying a minute ago. The Yuuzhan Vong have never shown the slightest tendency to keep their word. I don’t think they even believe lying is wrong. And Elegos—well, it was a worthy try, and I honor him. But what the Yuuzhan Vong want from us is our worlds and our people as slaves. They believe our machines are abominations, and they won’t rest until they’ve all been destroyed. The only way to avoid fighting them is to surrender and let them do whatever they want with us. That’s the only terms