Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [206]
The scene inside the shaking Citadel was even worse.
When he had been stirring the Shamed Ones to rebel, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them in the streets, he had felt exhilarated by the prospect of bringing down the existing order, of spearheading something grand for his people, something revolutionary—and, better still, with Nom Anor at the top of the heap. Now, separated from his impassioned followers and in the full knowledge that the war was lost, the sight of so many dead warriors in the Hall of Confluence filled him with despair and self-loathing. Just there was where he had sat beside High Prefect Drathul and other high-caste intendants; and over there had kneeled Nas Choka’s warriors. The pews dedicated to the priests and to the shapers stood empty, as did the special platform that had been grown for the seers. At the center, Shimrra’s spike-backed throne was tipped to the cold floor, and the dovin basal responsible for bringing subjects to their bellies was dead. Every surface was slicked black with spilled blood and piled high with the bodies of those who had fought to the end. And across the great hall, a hundred or more defeated warriors, deprived of their weapons and held fast by nets or encased by adhesive foam, were being denied the dignity of honorable death.
Otherwise the hall was filled with armed soldiers and Yuuzhan Vong hunter-killer droids.
Droids inside the Citadel!
What had he done?
The feeling had been building in him since the surrender of the World Brain. An unthinkable development in and of itself, though he suspected that Jacen Solo had had something to do with persuading the dhuryam to rebel. Still on the side of Coruscant, perhaps, but no longer on the side of Shimrra and the Yuuzhan Vong. Nom Anor could only wonder at the irony of being able to sympathize with the creature—though his own disloyalty owed more to self-preservation than any real desire to protect what he had sired. And yet he still faced an uncertain future, including the possibility of execution. Which was why he was calculating his every word and move, in the hope that he could save his neck.
Han and Leia Solo, Mara Skywalker, Kenth Hamner, and Tahiri—his captors as well as his protectors for the time being—were speaking with two of the commanders of the troops that had stormed the Hall of Confluence. Judder Page, the shorter of the pair, held the rank of captain; the other, a major, was Pash Cracken, who apparently had been one of the officers rescued during the heretics’ raid at the Place of Sacrifice.
“Have you seen Luke or either of our children?” Leia was asking Page.
“They said they were going after Shimrra. Last we saw them was on what was left of the western concourse. After some huge creature knocked a hole in the Citadel wall, in they went.”
“So where is Shimrra?” Han asked.
“We think he’s somewhere up top. Some Shamed Ones Luke talked to said something about a ‘coffer.’ ”
Han swung to Nom Anor. “You know anything about this?”
“The Shamed One must have been referring to Shimrra’s private chambers—his … bunker in the summit.” Thinking fast, he added: “I’ve been there. I can lead you to it.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Han, Leia, Mara, Tahiri, and Hamner followed Nom Anor as he hurried through the dimly lit, labyrinthine corridors of the worldship Citadel, up winding staircases and dovin-basal-governed chutes. Portions of the fortress had been extensively damaged by powerful groundquakes, which Nom Anor assumed had been engineered by the faithless dhuryam. Less easily explained was the lack of bodies along the route. But he decided that the three Jedi might have taken a different route to the summit—perhaps