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A few kilometers east of where the Jedi were grouped, Lady Luck, Wild Karrde, and two X-wings were descending to treetop level.

“We don’t know what they are, Lando,” Corran was saying into his comlink. “We’ve never seen them before.”

“Another of Sekot’s surprises,” Talon added to the conversation.

“Here’s a piece of good news,” Kyp interrupted. He pointed to the southern sky. “Sekot’s chasing the skips, too.”

The southern sky was a frenzy of insectile craft. But unlike the Alliance ships, the coralskippers were not going quietly to ground, and many of the swift darters were being annihilated by plasma missiles. A sudden growl from Lowbacca brought everyone about-face to see Danni Quee and Magister Jabitha approaching the landing platform, trailed by a crowd of perhaps one hundred wary Ferroans, who had emerged from the shelters.

Kyp met the two women halfway. “You spoke with Sekot?” he asked Danni.

Her “yes” was breathy with awe, but she offered nothing more.

Corran looked hard at Jabitha. “Who’s piloting the insect craft?”

“Sekot,” the magister said.

Corran gave his head a confused shake. “I thought the idea was to keep the fight from the surface?”

“Only until Sekot was ready to launch the grappler ships,” Danni explained at last. “Sekot’s promise to Jacen was that the planet would only fight without fighting.” She saw from the expressions that greeted her that she’d opened the floodgates. “Sekot is only interested in welcoming the Yuuzhan Vong home.”

“Home?” Corran and Kyp said at the same time.

There wasn’t time for further explanation. Dozens of coralskippers were being hauled down into the boras by grappler ships—all except for the poisoned vessel, which six unpiloted insectile craft were tugging back up the gravity well.

The Jedi, Danni, Jabitha, and some of the Ferroans hurried into the forest to be on hand when the coralskippers landed. Two kilometers along, the ragtag group was joined by Lando, Tendra, Talon, Shada, Wedge, and several other Red Squadron and Smugglers’ Alliance pilots.

Running at the head of the pack, Kyp and Corran ignited their lightsabers as soon as they saw the coralskippers and grapplers drifting down between the massive trunks of the balloon-leafed boras. The first of the coralskippers settled into the loamy shade like sculptures in a garden. Dovin basals housed in the blunt noses of the vessels sent slender blue-veined feeders into the soft ground. In response, creepers and vines writhed to touch the coarse hulls of the skips. Some writhed into the seams that defined the edges of the mica canopies and popped them open.

Shucking out of their cognition hoods, four Yuuzhan Vong leapt from the cockpit cavities, brandishing short amphistaffs. The Jedi stepped in to engage them, but stopped short when they saw the amphistaffs slip from the hands of the enemy pilots and slither off into the lush woodland. Breather masks and shoulder-borne tactical villips dropped from the pilots like ripe seedpods. Two dozen thud bugs burst from one pilot’s bandolier and took to the treetops.

The Yuuzhan Vong gazed at the Jedi like bewildered children. Caught between worlds, unacquainted with surrender, they did as they had seen their captives do and fell to their knees, their heads bowed in disgrace and their wrists pressed to their opposite shoulders.

Kyp was the first to deactivate his lightsaber; the rest followed.

Cilghal loosed a joyful exhale and put her arm around Danni’s waist. “These warriors will be the first converts,” she said. “This ground will become a hallowed place.”

Transfixed by the scene, Kyp clapped his hand on Corran’s shoulder and muttered, “A world has been saved from destruction.”

Dying rapidly, the yorik-trema was no longer accelerating but tumbling through space. Whatever flora was responsible for providing breathable atmosphere was failing, as the interior walls’ bioluminescent lichen already had.

“It doesn’t want to respond to me,” Jaina said from the controls. The hull’s transparency was filmed by a thickening cataract,