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“There have been rumors,” the tactician said carefully, “of a world capable of moving through darkspace.”

“The world encountered by Commander Krazhmir’s reconnaissance force, during the reign of Quoreal,” Nas Choka said.

“Yes, Warmaster. I feared broaching the subject with you, because—”

Nas Choka silenced him with a motion of his hand.

He had been a mere commander at the time, but loyal to Domain Jamaane—Shimrra’s domain—and one of a group of high-ranking warriors who had helped Shimrra wrest power from his predecessor, putting to death many of Quoreal’s warriors and intendant supporters. Regardless, rumors of a living planet had persisted. It was rumored further that the planet, known as Zonama Sekot, not only had warded off Zho Krazhmir’s forces, but also had been pronounced an omen of ill tidings by Quoreal’s coven of high priests.

Knowing, however, that Quoreal feared the warrior caste, the commanders loyal to Shimrra saw the priests’ pronouncement as a ruse—a subterfuge aimed at steering the worldship convoy away from the galaxy to which it had drifted, and thus avoid an invasion that would escalate the warrior caste. Quoreal had paid only lip service to the importance of sacrifice and war, without ever recognizing that the deterioration of Yuuzhan Vong society owed in large part to their absence. But Shimrra knew better. He understood that the warriors needed a war, lest they go on killing themselves, and, more important, that the Yuuzhan Vong needed a home.

All well and good. But now a living world had suddenly reappeared. Nas Choka was too much of a realist to give credence to the idea of the planet being an omen of defeat, but as a strategist he had to wonder: if it was the same world that had defended itself successfully against Zho Krazhmir, then Zonama Sekot had had an additional fifty standard years during which to become a weapon unlike any the Yuuzhan Vong had ever faced.

“Warmaster,” the tactician said, “could this alleged living planet be nothing more than a fabrication of the Alliance—or, more accurately, the Jeedai?”

Nas Choka considered it. “I would hear more of this.”

“Fearsome One, perhaps this world, this fabrication, is the secret strategy the Alliance was engineering while we readied the armada for the battle at Mon Calamari. All the rushing about, all the diversion observed at Contruum and Caluula and other worlds … Perhaps all that was executed in an attempt to divert our eye from what was being fabricated and prepared for launch?”

“Only a fool would reject the possibility out of hand, tactician,” Nas Choka said. “But suppose for a moment that it is not a fabrication but an actual living world—the source of the rumors that have endured since before the invasion began.”

The tactician frowned. “If that proves to be true, and if indeed the infidels have coaxed it to enter the war on their side, then they have perpetrated their greatest transgression yet.”

Nas Choka nodded sullenly, then took a deep breath. “Whichever the case, the Alliance waited too long to spring this surprise. With our war vessels only two jumps from Yuuzhan’tar, and additional battle groups being recalled from Hutt space and other sectors, no intruder—living or fabricated—can prevail!”

PART THREE

A TIME TO EVERY PURPOSE

TWENTY-NINE

The Millennium Falcon meandered with design through a press of large and slowly tumbling asteroids. Just short of the outer edge of the field, the freighter slipped into the shadow of an enormous hunk of cratered rock, matching velocities with it so as to remain concealed.

No sooner had the Falcon returned to Mon Calamari from Caluula than Han and Leia had heard from Luke and Mara. With the HoloNet crippled, and Luke and Mara transmitting from Jade Shadow, the conversation had been garbled and brief. Han had summarized the events that had led to the ultimately bewildering battle at Mon Calamari, and Luke had as much as said that the Jedi search party had ridden Zonama Sekot back to known space. Despite the fact that the Yuuzhan Vong armada had returned to Coruscant, Luke