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Kenth glanced at Harrar. “What’s going to happen when Nas Choka learns of Shimrra’s death?”

The priest shook his head in uncertainty. “The sudden death of a Supreme Overlord is … unprecedented.”

Mara and Kenth raised Luke and began to move him into the ship. They had just stepped onto the ramp when someone among the heretic contingent called out to them. Harrar’s gaze found the male Shamed One who had spoken.

“He says that, if you would allow it, he can prolong Master Skywalker’s life. There exists no antidote to effect a complete cure.”

“Is it true?” Mara asked, disconsolately.

Harrar squinted at the heretic. “That one is a former shaper. He’ll be of more benefit to Master Skywalker than I can be—perhaps of more benefit than bacta.”

Jakan began to denounce the shaper who had volunteered. Harrar translated for Mara and Kenth. “The high priest says, ‘You’re ready to discard your beliefs like a worn-out robeskin, over a mere military victory.’ ” Harrar listened to the heretic’s reply. “The Shamed One answers, ‘Only those beliefs that supported this war.’ ”

Jakan wasn’t through. Harrar heard him out, then said: “The high priest says that he hopes to hear the Shamed One repeat his words when the Alliance finds him guilty of war crimes, and a machine intelligence is charged with executing him.”

The former shaper heaved his shoulders in a sad shrug. Harrar’s voice broke as he translated. “The Shamed One says that death will be a far better place than any he has known on Yuuzhan’tar.”

Without warning, the ground started to shake. For a moment Mara thought that the Falcon’s repulsorlifts were the cause; then she realized that the Citadel was the source. Frightened faces raised to the worldship fortress, the heretics began to retreat to the far side of the square, where the great beasts were on their feet and lowing in fear. As the shaking grew more violent, cracks formed in the facade of the Citadel and huge hunks of yorik coral began to avalanche down its sheer sides. Paving stones under the Falcon heaved, then sank, dropping the starboard landing gear disk a meter into the fractured ground. Anakin’s lightsaber slipped from Tahiri’s grasp and rolled into a crevasse. She tried to call the light-saber to her, but it had fallen too far.

“Leave it!” Mara said sharply, when Tahiri almost scrambled after it.

A rending sound thundered through the air. Then the bullet-shaped crown of the holy mountain slowly separated from the base and lifted into the sky.

Steadying herself and Luke on the Falcon’s trembling ramp, Mara whirled to Tahiri. “Jaina and Jacen are in terrible danger.” Her features warped by sudden anguish, she glanced at Luke, then at Kenth. “We’re not letting that ship get away.”

Jacen was halfway up the ladder-stairway that led finally to the command chamber when he realized that the escape vessel had parted with the worldship Citadel. While the liftoff came as no surprise, it couldn’t account for the mix of emotions that began to whirl through him. Shimrra’s familiar wasn’t only lifting them out of the battle—away from roiling Coruscant, out of reach of his parents and many of his fellow Jedi. It was as if he were also launching them outside space and time, into a separate engagement.

Jacen kept climbing. On reaching the last few high-risered stairs, he leapt through the well and landed in a defensive crouch on the deck of the vessel’s immense bridge. Shimrra’s familiar stood opposite him, his disfigured body listed to one side, his twisted hands waving commands at the throbbing control console. Jaina hung between them, suspended a meter above the deck by horns of yorik coral that protruded from the inner bulkhead, surrounded by intricately rendered religious statues. Jacen perceived that she was paralyzed but conscious; warmly alive amid the cold yorik coral and bone of the bridge.

She touched him through the Force, her voice little more than a whisper, but clear enough for him to grasp that the Shamed One’s name was Onimi. Khalee and Tsavong Lah had been