Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [147]
Wedge’s gaze was still glued to the displays when Captain Deevis drew his attention to a tight formation of fighter craft emerging from Corulag’s crescent of transitor.
“TIEs,” Wedge said in genuine surprise. “Ours or theirs?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“Then find out!”
“Transmission from Curamelle,” Lieutenant Cel interrupted while Deevis was hurrying off. “Governor Forridel, sir.”
Wedge recognized the name of Corulag’s capital city, but not the name of the governor. Nodding curtly to the comm officer, he swung to the holoprojector, where a quarter-scale human figure stood in the noisy field.
“We’ve been waiting almost two years for this,” Forridel said jubilantly. Sporting an eye patch and a floppy cap, he could have stepped from a suspense holodrama. “Corulag will forever be indebted to the Alliance.”
“The battle’s not won yet,” Wedge said. “And just who are you, anyway?”
Forridel saluted—awkwardly. “The resistance has appointed me provisional governor.”
“Where’s the former governor?”
Forridel smiled. “I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been eager to show you.”
Images from what were obviously Curamelle media feeds began to resolve in the holofield. One showed the former governor hanging by the neck in a city square while a lynch mob of humans and humanoids pelted him with stones. Other scenes showed bound and bloodied Yuuzhan Vong and other members of the occupation government being dragged or shoved through the streets by crowds of vigilantes.
Wedge was thankful that he hadn’t been asked to oversee ground-based operations, as he had done at Borleias. Soon enough, similar scenes of vengeance would be repeated on countless worlds. The rage was understandable, and reminiscent of the retributions that had been doled out to Imperial forces in the wake of the Emperor’s death. And Wedge held little sympathy for the captured Yuuzhan Vong warriors. All his life he had fought for what he believed in, and for the protection of those he loved—Iella, his daughters, his sister, and friends—and the Yuuzhan Vong had nearly torn his world and family apart. A point could be made that the Yuuzhan Vong fought for similar reasons, but the invaders had yet to demonstrate even an instance of charity or tolerance. Worship and blind obedience substituted for love and honor.
And yet, for all his soldier’s resolve, Wedge recognized that he could still be rattled by a canny glance from Luke Skywalker. Listening to him and Mara address the command staff on Ralroost, Wedge had been struck once more by the fact that the Alliance and the Jedi were waging very different wars against the Yuuzhan Vong. Where Alliance command measured victory in terms of control, the Jedi were focused on a means of ending the war that would also conclude a cycle of violence. Luke feared that the extermination of the Yuuzhan Vong would deal a death blow to the newly hatched Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. With a single step toward the dark side, the fate of future generations would be sealed.
As was true with the Yuuzhan Vong, the Jedi were prepared to martyr themselves to an ideal. Both were fighting to sustain a worldview. At the center of one stood the gods; at the center of the other, the Force.
Wedge wondered what might become of those Yuuzhan Vong who weren’t burned or beaten to death in the streets of Curamelle or some other once-occupied capital city. What was the next step after disarmament? Imprisonment? Exile? Could an entire species be put on trial for its beliefs? And even if found guilty of war crimes, would the Yuuzhan Vong permit themselves to be isolated under guard in some remote star system, or would their defeat—the fact that they had failed their gods—drive them to self-destruction? Should self-extinction be accepted as an alternative because death figured so strongly in their society, or would the death of the extragalactic