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FORTY-THREE

Two meters above the ground, the military speeder twisted through the ruins of the sacred precinct, closing on operational headquarters at the northern edge of what had been—only two years earlier—the Legislative District. Admiral Kre’fey perched on the back of the rear seat, his snow-white fur rippling in the wind and his short command cloak snapping behind him like a flag. To either side of him sat his Bothan aides. A human lieutenant had the repulsorcraft’s controls, and beside him was a Twi’lek gunner, her hands on the trigger mechanism of a front-mounted repeating blaster. A torrential rain had just ended, and the winding paths the Yuuzhan Vong called streets were running with water. The speeder shot past columns of drenched infantry soldiers with mud caked like clay to their boots or bare legs. If nothing else, the rain had washed some of the cinder and yorik coral grit from the air.

Kre’fey had never evinced a great fondness for Coruscant, but it was only fitting that he tour the prize that had cost the Alliance so many lives. Estimates of battle casualties put the number of dead at close to five million, with twice that number of wounded. More than three hundred capital ships had been destroyed, along with some eleven thousand starfighters.

The death toll for the entire war was almost incalculable, though the figure most often quoted was 365 trillion.

Now that Sien Sovv had designated Generals Farlander and Bel Iblis as occupation commanders, Kre’fey anticipated that he would be shuttling back to Ralroost before nightfall.

With the shattered Yuuzhan Vong armada still arrayed two million kilometers away, Alliance battle groups remained anchored above Coruscant. When it had finally come, the ceasefire had had less to do with loss of discipline or coordination among the enemy than something closer to loss of hope—to a palpable sense of desperation and gloom. In the aftermath of Shimrra’s death, hundreds of vessels had self-destructed or hurled themselves against Alliance ships as living missiles. Other vessels had deserted, jumping to hyperspace for star systems yet unknown. With hundreds of functional dovin basals continuing to deploy shielding singularities, Alliance landing craft and shuttles were being forced to adhere to strict descent corridors. Even so, the sky above the sacred precinct was filled with relief and patrol ships, and more were coming down the well every hour.

Orphan Coruscanti of diverse species lined the boggy byways and stood dozens-deep at makeshift medical stations, supply depots, and identity verification centers. As Kre’fey’s convoy of speeders made their way south from Westport, humanoids and aliens would turn to welcome “the liberator of Coruscant” with waves, cheers, and sloppy salutes.

Squads of commandos were on foot patrol in all quarters, performing structure-to-structure searches and controlling looting by Coruscanti and Yuuzhan Vong alike. Heretics who had joined the resistance were acting as interpreters and wranglers of creatures capable of ferreting out spies and imposters wearing ooglith masquers. Enemy weapons were heaped at each corner, awaiting cremation by aged AT-AT walkers and flamethrowers. YVH droids rolled and crawled like tunnel rats through warrens exposed by massive demolition and excavation machines. Elsewhere, teams of specialists were busy erecting temporary communications facilities to uplink with satellites already in orbit.

Galactic Alliance flags had been raised at what was left of the truncated Citadel, on the yorik coral dome that capped the Well of the World Brain, and atop other captured landmarks, but fierce fighting persisted in some districts that were without villip communication and had yet to learn of Shimrra’s death. To complicate matters, the sacred precinct had been partitioned into more than a dozen occupation zones, each overseen by a different species. Everyone was working toward the common goal of pacification, but because of the vast amounts of technology that lay buried under the thick vegetation, some claim-staking