Traitor by Matthew Stover (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

Ganner heard the echo inside his head: Trust is always an act of faith. That swelling ball of nausea in his stomach was getting heavier with every step. The world swam around him like a slow whirlpool of gelatin.

The thorn maze abruptly ended, opening onto an immense wedge-shaped causeway of curving pale ribs that seemed to be the smoothly interlaced horizontal trunks of living trees; leaf-bearing branches tangled toward the sun to either side. The foot of the causeway spanned at least a hundred meters between the branch-walls. It tapered like an arrowhead as it rose, forming a ramp whose point touched the Great Door of the Galactic Senate: a double leaf of durasteel layered like the hull armor of a Star Destroyer, intaglioed with the Galactic Great Seal surrounded by the seals of the Thousand Worlds.

Here the yorik coral had been shaped to preserve access; there grew around the perimeter of the door an immature hatch sphincter of incredible size—though still only half grown—that left the central third of the Great Door exposed.

As the vanguard began to mount the causeway, their music of screams slowed, deepened, broadened in a decorous segue from the briskly martial to the solemnly devotional. The change in the music seemed to suck the last of the strength from Ganner’s legs; his knees buckled, and he pitched forward onto the causeway’s foot, curled into a fetal ball around the spiny fist of nausea clenched in his guts. Saliva flooded his mouth, and his sides heaved. He squeezed shut his eyes to restrain a retch.

“Ganner? Ganner, what’s wrong?” Jacen’s voice came from close by, just above, low and worried. “C’mon, Ganner, you have to get up!”

Ganner couldn’t get up. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even open his eyes. The smooth, hard trunks that made up the ribs of the causeway were cool beneath him, much cooler than the sun that scorched his other side, and all he wanted was to die. Right here. Right now. If only he could die …

The grunting hack of the Yuuzhan Vong tongue sounded in the middle distance, two voices, one imperiously disdainful, the other unctuous, conciliating.

A moment later, he heard Nom Anor’s rasp in Basic, closer by: “The Shaper Lord inquires why the Jedi cowers like a brenzlit. I lied to him, Jacen Solo. I told him this is how humans show reverence for the True Gods. Make him get up. Make this weak, pathetic excuse for a Jedi get on with this sacrifice—before the Shaper Lord knows I lied.”

“He’s only a man,” Ganner heard Jacen reply. “You can’t keep a human sedated for weeks and then expect him to march like this. He’s weak because he’s ill.”

Ganner burned with shame: even Jacen was lying for him now. The weakness that pinned him helplessly to the causeway wasn’t physical. And having Jacen make excuses for him only made it worse.

Everyone has to lie for me, he thought. Everyone has to pretend I’m not as pathetic and useless and weak as I really am. But I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t.

Self-loathing rose up the back of Ganner’s throat like vomit, burning, driving stinging tears through his eyes. Within his robe’s sleeve, his thumb found the activation plate on Anakin’s lightsaber; without really understanding what he was doing, he pressed the lightsaber’s crystal against his own ribs. One quick squeeze, and the purple shaft of pure energy would shear through flesh and bone and weak watery guts to spear oblivion into his coward’s heart—

“C’mon, Ganner, we’re almost there,” Jacen whispered. “Don’t screw it up now.”

“…  sorry … can’t do this …” was all Ganner could say, a low miserable moan. He hugged himself, clutching at his ribs, arms crossed over his rebelliously spasming stomach. “…  can’t do this, Jacen … sorry … let you down …”

His finger tightened on the lightsaber’s activation plate—

And invisible hands caught him under the shoulders and lifted him to his feet. Though he hung limp, the processional once more began to move forward, mounting the causeway toward the Great Door. His legs swung without his will to drive them, moving as though he walked under his own power. His body tingled with the touch of the Force.

Jacen was carrying him.

“There, you see?” Jacen said to Nom Anor. “He’s fine. Return to your place, and reassure the Shaper Lord.”

Ganner hung in Jacen’s invisible Force grip, drowning in humiliation as Nom Anor moved quickly away. If only he could die—if only the trunk-causeway beneath his feet would gape like a mouth and swallow him right now …

His whole life, he’d chased a single dream. He had only wanted to be a hero. That’s all. Not even that—not even a hero—not really. All he’d ever wanted was to walk through a room full of strangers and overhear somebody say “There goes Ganner Rhysode. He’s a man who gets things done.”

Yeah, I get things done. I get things done to me. Some hero. More like a damsel in distress.

And that was it: that’s what was making him sick.

Himself.

He was sick of being Ganner Rhysode. Sick of trying to be a hero. Sick of trying not to be a hero. Sick of being a crappy Jedi, a mediocre pilot, and a bloody lousy leader of men. Sick of being a joke.

Just sick.

The vanguard parted as it approached the Great Door, dividing down the middle to line either side of the causeway, as their music of screams swelled toward a triumphal climax. The warriors who accompanied Nom Anor and the Shaper Lord formed another line within. The priests who had surrounded Jacen and Ganner knelt, lowering their foreheads to the causeway.

Jacen paced forward steadily, smoothly, giving no sign of strain, no hint that might betray effort, no clue to the assembled thousands of Yuuzhan Vong that he was carrying Ganner like a child in the invisible arms of the Force.

He came to a stop before the Great Door and moved Ganner to his side. From here, the living city of Yuuzhan’tar spread below them, a vast tangled jungle of every