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Jacen! Uncle Luke! she called through the Force.

When she reached out for them, her mind was assaulted with scenes of violence. Jacen and Luke had overcome great odds, but both of them were injured. Except through their minds, she couldn’t perceive the warriors, but she grasped that most of them were dead.

Abruptly, the twisted figure turned from the console to face her, almost as if he had read her mind.

“I know you can hear me,” he said in a guttural Basic, “because I gave you only a taste of the poison encapsulated in my fang. Just enough to render you inert.”

With a glance at the console he enlivened additional living instruments and systems. It was obvious that he was preparing the vessel for launch. When the bridge began to vibrate with anticipation, the Shamed One nodded in satisfaction and turned to her once more.

“I’m grateful you elected to pursue me, Yun-Harla,” he said. “At last we have an opportunity to meet on a level battlefield. Both of us in captivity. You, hostage to my paralytic toxin; me, to the half-a-lifetime of injustices you saw fit to heap on me.”

Jaina forced herself to speak. “I’m not—”

“Who was more faithful to the gods than Onimi?” the Shamed One ranted at her. “Who was more faithful to Shimrra’s domain than the shaper who discovered the truth that the eighth cortex was empty, and that the species Yun-Yuuzhan and the rest of you created was doomed to extinction? Yes, our ancestors utilized the gifts you supplied to make war on those who would have vanquished us, but instead of rewarding our attempts to rid the galaxy of such infidels and machines, you drove us from the ancestral homeworld, bled us of further kinship with you, forced us to wander for generations in search of a new home.”

Hatred gathered in his uneven eyes and shook his curled hands.

“In your omniscience, you know that’s why I risked grafting yammosk cells to my own neural tissue: in the hope of being able to discover some way to escape the rack on which you had mounted us! But instead of rewarding my having the courage to emulate your bold works of creation, you condemned me. You granted me the powers to speak through the mouths of others, to manipulate them at will, to control remotely, as your yammosks do, and yet you punished me with physical deformities that shouted to one and all that my attempt at self-escalation had failed. You shamed me so that I could no longer consort with nor move among the elite. Not only did you deny me the rank of master shaper, you prevented me from being able to contribute to the salvation of my species.

“That was when I chose to turn against you, Yun-Harla. I was not alone in this rebellion, and yet, as if to increase my torment, you rewarded the others, while you left me to suffer in silence through the years of drifting. The long years of watching our society crumble; our crèche-born starve; our warriors turn on one another … and then you dangled before our eyes a galaxy, filled with habitable worlds. At first it seemed a blessing—proof that you had not abandoned us in our time of need. But I soon realized that you were merely setting the stage for a new form of torture.”

Again Jaina tried to respond, only to be shouted down.

“Only by means of the powers you conferred on me was I able to reach out for Shimrra and make him my puppet! My most audacious act yet. But when I saw that you were either powerless to prevent it or welcoming the opportunity to do open battle with me, I knew that I was right to attempt to overthrow you in the same way.

“I compelled Shimrra to announce that a galaxy had been found for the taking. I bade him to install me as his familiar. And as my telepathic abilities increased, he disappeared—except of late, when my preoccupation with defeating you allowed what remained of Shimrra to re-emerge.

“When Zonama Sekot was found once more, and this time made to appear to have been bestowed on the Jedi, as a weapon, I believed for a moment that you were actually testing me. But I soon grasped the greater truth