Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [100]
Closer to orbitally altered Yuuzhan’tar, closer to the massive dovin basals that were the planet’s first line of defense, closer to the rainbow bridge—symbolic of Yun-Yuuzhan’s traffic with the species he had created—floated the oblate yacht that had carried Shimrra and the nonwarrior elite from the surface. Smeared with blood, the throne chamber of the yacht was also festooned with wreaths of thorn-vine and adorned with hundreds of delicately wrought fans, sacred to Yun-Yammka. In honor of the launching, all present in the chamber wore glistaweb armor, including Shimrra’s prefects and seers, Qelah Kwaad and her chief shapers, High Priest Jakan, even preposterous Onimi.
The Supreme Overlord stood tall and self-possessed before a unique villip that forwarded his visage and words to every villip contained in every vessel, dedicated or choir member, warship or coralskipper.
“Yun-Yuuzhan, Great Maker,” Shimrra murmured, “we beseech your blessing for these vessels we dispatch into the void, for their mission is yours also by injunction. With this final battle we fulfill our obligation to cleanse the realm you saw fit to provide us, to make it worthy, and in turn to be made worthy by victory of claiming it as our home. From this moment forward, we will set ourselves to the task of taking these humbled species under our wing, and of instructing them in the truth you bade our ancestors hear at the dawn of time.
“We pledge that from these beginnings we will carry our task through to completion, purging this realm of machines, and replacing them with our biological partners. When Yuuzhan’tar has been fully reshaped according to the ancestral architecture, and when temples to you and your sacrosanct domain crown the tops of the highest mountains and dominate the principal population centers of every occupied world, we will petition that you judge our work one final time.
“The grand moment has arrived—the culmination of generations of voyage and discovery. Even now, in these unfamiliar skies, the ancestral galaxy moves into beneficent aspect with this newfound home. What was distant is near at hand; what was completed is begun anew.”
In a blinding display of honor and power, the largest of the war vessels launched five thousand plasma missiles toward Yuuzhan’tar’s primary. Then in groups, and led by Yammka’s Mount, the armada began to move out, building momentum for the transition to darkspace.
Nom Anor watched from his assigned place in the holy yacht, wondering what Nas Choka might be thinking. The outcome of the war and the future of the Yuuzhan Vong hinged on what would occur over the next quarter klekket. The warriors and priests, lifted to ecstasy by days of fasting and dancing, were sanguine that the armada would prevail.
But not everyone was so assured.
The consuls under Nom Anor’s command, and the executors under their commands, had brought to his attention rumors of grave apprehension and doubt among the high caste. And beneath those vague rumblings, Nom Anor could feel the more sinister roiling of hatred among the dispossessed.
From beneath the bridge, from the dark underworld of Yuuzhan’tar, he could hear the clamor of angry voices, the words of the heretics growing louder and more forceful, venomous in the aftermath of the executions, the dissent spreading through the ranks, among not only the Shamed Ones but also others who had lost or were beginning to lose the faith in Supreme Overlord Shimrra. A vast wave, building and building, threatening to break against the Yuuzhan Vong’s every shore, to wipe the armada from the sky, and to pull into the depths the holy yacht and everyone aboard.
Shimrra had told Nom Anor that his war was with the gods. But Shimrra had overlooked the real enemy—the enemy that surrounded him and on whose shoulders he stood. Even Quoreal in his final days had not been the object of such suspicion and loathing. If it were left to