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There is nothing beyond the seventh cortex, she thought. I have moved to a place the gods have not yet filled.

If there were gods. Mezhan Kwaad had denied them. Perhaps …

But even as she renewed her doubt, something changed in the void. Like a light in the distance, or a tunnel opening.

And then she beheld something that could not be there.

An eighth cortex.

With renewed hope she moved toward it.

The membrane resisted her, filling her with pain that etched along her every nerve ending.

This place is forbidden, even to masters, the qahsa told her. It was the first time it had spoken to her in something resembling language, the first time she felt its ancient sentience notice her. She recoiled. Who may come here if not master shapers?

Return, the voice said.

I cannot, she answered. Breathing hard, Nen Yim ignored the voice of the qahsa and pushed forward with her mind, accepting the pain, making it a part of herself. The agony grew, burning away her thought, but she held to her purpose, made it an animal thing that pain only fed and could never quiet.

Her heart beat unevenly, and her breath chopped. She tasted blood. Beyond the cognition hood, she was distantly aware that her body was arching in tendon-ripping spasms.

Open! she shrieked. Open to me, Nen Yim! Open or kill me!

And suddenly, like waters parting before swimming hands, the eighth cortex opened.

She looked within, and all hope vanished. She collapsed into her grief and was lost.

Light filtering through her open eyes woke her. A sour smell cloyed in her nostrils, and she realized that it was her own congealed blood. She tried to move and found her body almost paralyzed with pain.

Standing over her, grinning, was Kae Kwaad.

“What did you see, little Nen Tsup?” he asked gently. “Did you see it all? Are you satisfied, now?”

“You knew,” she said.

“Of course I knew.”

She looked groggily around. They were in the shaper laboratory.

“Mezhan,” she said.

Nothing happened, except that Kae Kwaad grinned more broadly. “I suspect that word was supposed to trigger something. The grutchin you altered, perhaps? I took the precaution of destroying it.”

Something about Master Kwaad’s speech seemed very different. Wrong.

“Clean yourself up, Adept,” the master said softly. “We have a journey before us, you and I.”

“Where?” she managed to ask, through lips her own teeth must have gnashed and torn.

“Why to see him, of course. Supreme Overlord Shimrra. He is waiting for you.”

THIRTY-NINE

“Eleven, you’ve got two on your tail.”

“Thanks, Ten,” Jaina answered, “but tell me something I don’t already know.” She jiggled the etheric rudder, watching the trails of superhot gases whip soundlessly past. Off to starboard, she caught a glimpse of the battle at Wampa, but the flashing lasers and long plumes of incandescence didn’t tell her anything except that someone was still trying to cook the rock.

She took a hit. The starfield tumbled crazily, and her cockpit was suddenly hotter than the midday double suns on Tatooine. Sparks crackled across her console, and every hair on her body stood at attention.

My engines are gone, she thought. I’m dead.

Interestingly, the thought did nothing to frighten her. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t get to see the big show at the end.

“Captain Solo, the Yuuzhan Vong ship is hailing us,” C-3PO shouted excitedly. “They must have a modified villip on board.”

“You tell them I’m a little too busy shooting down their ships to answer them,” Han replied, flipping the Millennium Falcon ninety degrees to squeeze thinwise through a tightly formed wedge of skips.

“They seem quite eager to communicate,” C-3PO persisted.

“Well, tell them we’ll call back.” He’d been forced away from the interdictor by seemingly endless swarms of coralskippers. Now the monstrous ship was following them, trying to establish the dovin basal equivalent of a tractor lock. In desperation, Han drove for the freighters, figuring he could at least use them as shields.