A/N: I recently learned that Verpine shatterguns are nearly silent. Thus the shatterguns depicted here are less advanced, cheaper variants.
Nrogu
A number of armed Temnonmet led Yantahar and Kolir to the demons' nursery. Several of the vile Protomotorp stood guard at the entrance. The devils were thrown against the wall as a pair of lightsabers burned to life. The Temnonmet opened fire, while the two Bothan Jedi moved in. Yantahar and Kolir hacked and slashed at the Protomotorp, and in moments the demons were either dead or dying. A trio of the Temnonmet remained outside the entrance, while the rest of the group stepped over and around the fallen Protomotorp and into the nursery.
Kolir's lightsaber moved, seemingly of its own accord, sparking and buzzing as it crashed into another lightsaber blade. Seff's weapon swung wildly as the human attempted to get past her defenses. Kolir's approach was more controlled, relying on minimal movements to keep his lightsaber at bay. While this strategy increased her risk of being backed into a corner it also meant she would tire more slowly.
Yantahar pushed aside his initial instinct to come to his fellow Bothan's aid. He knew Tahiri had to be somewhere nearby. Through their hive mind Temnonmet was already aware of his concern so he did not need to broadcast any sense of warning. Yantahar felt one of the Killiks beside him suddenly become lifeless. He spun around, and then leapt into the air to avoid a beheading slash. They circled each other like predators, waiting for their prey to slip up. Neither wanting to strike prematurely, but not wanting to strike too late, either. And then, at the same instant, both charged. Lightsabers clashed in a buzzing shower of sparks.
The new Joiners were going to kill each other. Their arrival had emboldened the two halves of the Nest to act, and now it was on the verge of self destruction. Lady Katana extended her mind outward. Unity had to be restored. The Nest had to be preserved. Her Master, the Dark Man was counting on her. Even if he did not punish her, the Sith apprentice could not bear the thought of letting down the one who had given her a purpose.
Katana fought to hold the two halves of the Nest together, feeling as though she was trying to hold together two magnets of the same charge. The Nest was, in a sense, a microcosm of the entire galaxy. Almost wanting to destroy itself. And the Sith were trying to save it. Even if it did not desire to be saved. Would their efforts be enough? Will my efforts be enough?
Katana uttered a Falleen curse, and stood up from her cross legged position on the ground. There was something else the Sith apprentice could try. Unfortunately, it meant she would have to reveal herself. As the Dark Man had said the Sith might have to do one day. She sighed; this necessity would certainly complicate the situation.
Lady Katana was a blur as she hurried out of her small, concealed meditation chamber, and through a series of earthen tunnels. She slowed to a walk as she came upon the edge of a thundering storm of shattergun pellets. Killiks, both dark and light, were falling at an alarming rate. A Temnonmet and Protomotorp lay in a mutually deadly embrace. The former driving its long stinger into an opponent that was cutting it in two with its massive jaws. Katana felt slightly sick. Though she had tried not to, she found that she'd come to care for these creatures.
Katana created her own storm of dark side energy, and bolstered it with her powerful Falleen pheromones. She directed this unseen cloud toward the Killiks. And then she felt it, as shatterguns began to grow silent. A powerful presence from outside the Nest. Circumstances had just forced her to make a potentially grave mistake. Is it a mistake?
A sense of purpose radiated from this outsider. Someone was coming to invade. To destroy the Nest. An even greater enemy to unite the feuding Protomotorp and Temnonmet. This enemy would, in fact, save the Nest.
The humming of four lightabers could scarcely be heard over the roaring shatterguns. What should have been a safe haven for Protomotorp's larvae had degenerated into a den of slaughter. The innocent fell to stray and intentional shattergun pellets, and the occasional slash from a lightsaber. Tahiri, Seff, and the rest of Protomotorp seemed helpless to save them.
Tahiri loved Yantahar and Kolir; they were family. But they were also murderers. And, as much as she hated herself for it, they had to... die. Because she knew they would never...
This was all wrong. Murdering each other like utter savages. This division would destroy everything. Both Protomotorp and Temnonmet were victims of an unfortunate situation. But both were also perpetrators. The Jedi, on the other hand, were only perpetrators. The Jedi were to blame for all this death. We were the catalyst for all this violence. Tahiri found that she was crying, and started wiping at her eyes.
"I feared this might happen," said a gentle female voice.
As Yantahar turned toward the source of the voice, he realized that he could no longer hear the shatterguns or the lightsabers. Walking into the Protomotorp nursery was a beautiful Falleen woman, dressed a bit like a bounty hunter. Her scaled skin was orangish with agitation. "You're the head of Black Sun." Yantahar said, not quite sure whether or not it was a question.
"I was," she admitted. "My flagship was attacked by the Chiss. I barely managed to escape in my TIE Defender, but not before it was damaged. I was forced to crash land, here, on Nrogu. I abandoned the fighter and sought shelter in an underground tunnel. It led me to this Nest.
"I learned that it was, in fact, two nests forced to live together by circumstances beyond their control. They were locked in this horrible cycle detrimental to all involved. Both nests made me one of their own. Both nests became my family. So I used my connection to both nests and my Falleen pheromones to unite them into one nest. But, as we have all just witnessed, this unity is very difficult to maintain.
"But, we need it desperately for what's coming. The Chiss have sent people here to kill all of us. They'll do whatever they feel is necessary to avoid another Swarm War. Their tradition of non aggression does not apply to Killiks."
Though Han really did not like Killiks, he was deeply disturbed by the scene before him. Most of the Killiks were injured in some way. A vast number of them lay on the ground, most dead or soon to be, and in pieces. Some were still twitching. He shook his head. They didn't deserve to die this way.
But to Han's slight surprise there were no Chiss, or evidence thereof, to be seen. Had the Chiss actually been here, he doubted the nest would still even be standing. The Verpine shatterguns and small alloy pellets littering the ground suggested that these Killiks had been fighting amongst themselves. "There seems to be two different species here," Han commented, as he noticed that there were both dark and light colored Killiks.
Ben thought about the Force, with its dark and light sides. Forever locked in an endless...
His blood seemed to turn to ice as a Falleen woman appeared from a side passage. She had to be the missing head of Black Sun. Daughter of Prince Xizor. She'd been using the Nest to help Black Sun. Ben brushed her in the Force. The dark side flowed from her with the subtlety of a gentle stream. She must have been the source of that brief flicker of darkness his father had felt.
Tahiri felt an odd pressure on her mind as she and the other Jedi followed, some distance, behind Katana. She nearly vomited upon seeing all the dead and injured Killiks. The feeling only worsened when she spotted Luke, along with his son, Ben, Han and Leia. They were family. Would they really come to kill her? She'd been a Joiner once before. She'd been Riina Kwaad, an alternate personality created by the Yuuzhan Vong. She'd been an apprentice to Darth Caedus. Did they think she was beyond saving?
Katana gently placed a hand on Tahiri's shoulder. "I am so sorry. They have abandoned all of you. I could never do that." Katana sighed sadly. "The Jedi Order has been seeking better relations with the Chiss. They will not let four Jedi, who aren't even Masters, stand in the way of that. Did you not risk your own lives by going to meet with the Chiss on the Masters' behalf? The four of you nearly died. You are all expendable to them. You know what has to be done. I wish it did not have to come to this, but we must defend the Nest."
Luke was relieved to have found the missing Jedi, but also mortified to find them with this Falleen Sith. The mental walls around them were too strong for him to break through. "I can't reach any of them."
"That's not the only problem we've got," Ben said, as more, uninjured, Killiks began to show themselves. "My ex-girlfriend and Gev decided to bring some company," he explained.
"Thorden," Han muttered, as though it was a curse. "Do his 'friends' know they're walking into a bu... Killik nest?"
"Maybe not," Leia said.
Han sighed, not liking the plan forming in his head. "Vestara and those Mandos wanna kill us. What if they accidentally hit some of the Killiks?"
"I hate this plan already," Leia complained.
"But... it is a plan," Han replied.
Tahiri's brow furrowed in confusion as Luke and the others approached. What were they planning? The four of them couldn't possibly... She reached beyond them, and became even more puzzled by what she sensed. A dozen or so hostile presences, one of which was uncomfortably familiar. Seconds later the she-grutchin, Vestara Khai, and a number of Mandalorians came from a nearby side passageway and opened fire.
Luke and the others weren't heading toward the Killiks so much as they were heading away from the new arrivals. Vestara and the Mandos are the ones here to kill us. Then what Katana had said must have been...
Tahiri frowned as stray fire began hitting and seriously injuring the Killiks, as though Luke, Ben, and Leia were trying to hurt them. It didn't make any sense. It had to be a ruse. They were all working together to destroy the Nest. If the Jedi were working with the Sith and the Mandalorians, it was even worse than Katana had said.
Despite Luke, Ben, and Leia's best efforts, the Killiks were suffering significant injury from the deflected blaster fire. It was as if someone was guiding the energy bolts. Luke heard four lightsabers snap-hissing to life more or less behind him and understood. The Falleen Sith. She wants Tahiri and her team to see us as enemies. And she was putting these innocent Killiks in harm's way to do it.
But before the rogue Jedi could attack, and the surviving Killiks could open fire with their shatterguns, a small missile sailed through the air. The entire universe seemed to scream and shake as what must have been a concussion missile hammered into the ground. And then that ground seemed to rise up and slam itself into Luke.
Han Solo groaned as he slowly started to rise to his feet. He glanced behind him at an impact crater, and noticed quite a few more injured or dead Killiks. And then Ben Skywalker was hauling Han to his feet, and more or less dragging him in the direction of Vestara and her 'friends'. "Uh, thanks," Ben told the Sith Saber.
"Didn't do it for you," Vestara said, sourly. "Now help us kill some bugs."
A subtle tingling sensation at the base of Ben's skull prompted the young man to spin around. He instinctively raised his hand against an incoming hail of shattergun pellets. They stopped as though hitting an invisible barrier and fell, harmlessly, to the ground. Shatterguns' nature as projectile weapons generally made them more deadly than many types of energy weapons of comparable size.
Being solid objects, rather than ionized gas, gave the alloy projectiles far greater momentum. That, combined with their small size, made them nearly impossible to block with the energy blade of a lightsaber. But being solid objects, rather than energy beams, also made it possible to more or less 'push' against the pellets with the Force.
The Killiks, both light and dark, appeared to be assuming a three pronged attack formation. Tahiri and Yantahar formed up with the larger, middle section. The air in front of the two Jedi shimmered a split second before the Mandalorians could open fire. High powered energy bolts crashed into the nearly invisible barrier, deforming it only slightly. Greenish veins of lightning to crackle upon its surface as the bolts fizzled out. Ben had never seen or felt Tahiri create such a powerful energy shield. Being part of the nest must have bolstered this defensive ability.
Kolir and Seff led the left and right formations in a pair of roughly mirrored flanking maneuvers. Without the ability to create a defensive shield like Tahiri had, these two Jedi were losing the majority of the Killiks. But the fallen insectoids were quickly replaced by their fellows from the base of the formation. Ben could sense the nest's Queen safely cocooned within her hordes. He thought about what he'd seen earlier. If we can take out the Queen, maybe the nest will turn on itself. But that wouldn't help Tahiri and the others. Unless. If enough Killiks died...
"They're trying to force us back the way we came!" Leia was shouting.
"How much you wanna bet they won't just let us leave?" Han yelled back. And as if on cue, a gentle rumbling came to life. At first he thought it was lizard girl deciding to bring the Void danged tunnel down. But unfortunately, Vestara shouting 'bugs!' confirmed that it was not.
"Got any more of those missiles?" Ben asked Vestara. She was standing very close to him. It was both comforting and unnerving.
"Ben," Vestara said sharply, with a deep frown, "the concussive force alone-"
"Queen," Ben interrupted.
Vestara turned her head and yelled something that sounded Mandalorian. Seconds later, a pair of concussion missiles was soaring toward the base of Killik attack formation. The missiles reached the top of their arcs, and then one of them suddenly changed course slightly. A miniature sun was born as one concussion missile slammed into the other. The fire lingered in Vestara's eyes for a few seconds after its source had died. If the lizard could do that...
Han heard Vestara utter a very colorful string of Mandalorian curses that echoed his own feelings perfectly. "There's another way to take out that Queen," Luke said grimly. "Got any more missiles left?" he asked Vestara.
The Sith Saber sighed. "One. If this doesn't work..."
"We'll make it work." Luke said. He frowned as weapons began screaming behind him. Those 'bugs' Vestara had shouted about had just arrived. This plan had to work. Now!