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Vua Rapuung slapped him, hard, and bounded to his feet, chest heaving.

“Do not mock me!” he shrieked. “You have eyes! You see! Do not mock me! The gods did not do this to me, they did not!”

As the Yuuzhan Vong started toward him again, Anakin hefted a rock with the Force and sent it straight for the warrior’s sternum. It caught Rapuung completely by surprise, smacking him against the side of the cave. He sank down, looking a bit dazed.

Anakin hefted the rock again and poised it over Rapuung’s head.

The Yuuzhan Vong looked up at the stone and suddenly started hacking as if he had the Dagobian swamp cough.

It took half a minute of this before Anakin recognized it as laughter.

When he calmed down, Vua Rapuung fixed the young Jedi with a curious gaze. “I saw what you did to the hunters, but still, to have it turned on me—” His face hardened again. “Tell me the truth, one warrior to another, if you can. In the warrior caste there are rumors. It is said your Jeedai powers come from machine implants. Is this true? Are your people that sick?”

Anakin returned the challenging stare. “Our powers do not come from machines. Furthermore, some of your people must know that, because they’ve had ample opportunity to dissect some of us. Your rumor is a lie.”

“Yes? Then the Jeedai Master does not have a machine hand?”

“Master Skywalker? He does, but—” He broke off. “How do you know this?”

“We hear many stories from converts and spies. So it is true, then. The leader of the Jeedai is part machine.” Rapuung’s face probably couldn’t have shown more disgust without being surgically altered.

“One has nothing to do with the other. Master Luke lost a hand in a great battle. He had it replaced. But his power, like mine, flows from the Force.”

“Do you have implants like your master?”

“No.”

“Will you receive them as you attain rank?”

Anakin laughed briefly. “No.”

Vua Rapuung nodded. “Then it is as I said. We will fight together.”

“Not if you keep flying off course like you did a minute ago,” Anakin replied. “I may be injured, but as you’ve seen, I’m not without resources.”

“I see,” Rapuung growled, “but do not challenge me. I dislike it.”

“You keep the same thing in mind, pal. Now. You say we’re going to fight together but you won’t tell me why. Can you at least tell me how?”

“The shapers have planted five damuteks on this moon. That is where your Jeedai companion is held.”

Anakin let pass the precise definition of damutek for the moment. “Why? What will they do to her?”

Murder flashed in Rapuung’s eyes again, but this time he mastered it without an outburst. “Who can know the mind of a shaper?” he said, softly. “But you can be sure they will shape.”

“I don’t understand. What is a shaper?”

“Your ignorance is—” Rapuung stopped, blinked his eyes slowly closed, open, closed, and started again. “The shapers are a caste, the caste nearest the great god, Yun-Yuuzhan, who shaped the universe from his body. It is they who know the ways of life, who bend it to our needs.”

“Bioengineers? Scientists?”

Rapuung stared at him for a second. “The tizowyrm that translates for me makes no sense from those words. I suspect they are obscene.”

“Never mind. There was a Jedi named Miko Reglia. Your people tried to break his will with a yammosk. They tried to do the same to another Jedi named Wurth Skidder. Is that what you think they’ll do to Tahiri?”

“I do not care what they do to your Jeedai. But what you describe is—” He grimaced. “I once knew a shaper who spoke of such things, of warriors who thought they could do the task of shapers, as you describe. But breaking is not shaping. It is a child’s parody of it. Understand, the shapers make our worldships. They make the yammosk. They will not try to break your Jeedai—they will remake her.”

A chill seeped into Anakin’s veins, and he remembered his vision of an older Tahiri.

He knew what they would make of her. And they would succeed, if Anakin failed.

What Rapuung offered might be a cruel trick, a part of some devious plan; Anakin would have to take that risk. Without the Force to guide him,