Chapter Five

The TIE Advanced fighters entered realspace first and
fanned out to meet any trouble. The rest of the strike force
followed a few moments later: the Imperial Star Destroyer
Shocklash and three carrack class cruisers. The recon flight a
day earlier had showed little activity around the target. Sevac III
appeared completely undefended.

The ships spread out and the Shocklash released its
wings of fighters, TIE Interceptors and Daggers joined the less-
numerous Advanced fighters as they closed in on the target.

"Azure Squadron, move to flank the Sidewalker," Azure
leader named one of the cruisers.

"Azure Nine, copy." A Chiss voice from one Interceptor.

"Azure Six, same here." Drash Tevock said from his
Dagger's cockpit as he angled to get a better view of the planet: a
blue-green sphere with dark blotches on the surface. The mission
was straightforward enough, when in range the Shocklash
would release its bombers and the turboblasters of the big ships
would level anything that so much as resembled a structure,
then quickly depart.

What intrigued Drash was the new flight sim programs he
and the other pilots had been running through. He had been
engaging the things dubbed 'coralskippers' with success, and he
wanted to fly against these new enemies, if they even existed that
was.

His transfer out of Grey Squadron, and off the flagship, meant
little to him. The names of his wingmates and the ships he served
on were passing things, the only constant was the void, the fighter
around him, enemies to engage and the search for the perfect kill.
The past was swallowed up by the blackness beyond the transparisteel
and the future meant nothing.

A strong memory from his childhood flashed across his
conciousness like a shooting star: that old fool Frae talking to
Drash and the other assembled children of the commune about the
joys of transendence-where one becomes more than oneself.


That was the only thing that crack-brained lunatic ever said
that caught Drash's attention, the only thing that got through to him
when the regular beatings and days locked in a tiny, lightless room failed
to do so. That idea was all he had left with when Imperial recruiters
had gotten him out of that madhouse. He was on a quest for
transendence and he would find his answer in a fighter's cockpit.

With that in mind, the petty concerns the other Imperials
were so caught up in didn't exist for him. The Imperials out in the
Unknown Regions were all worried about the plagues that were
being reported both in Imperial-held worlds and in those belonging
to other powers in over a dozen different sectors now.

Humans fretted about their wives and families on Imperial bases in
quarenteened worlds. Chiss grumbled as well, saying they
never would have come in contact with this strange spectrum of
diseases if they hadn't listenned to Thrawn and believed him.
Drash was indifferent on the most part. If anything, he was a little
excited: there were certain to be more battles now, more chances
to find what he was searching for.

"Stay sharp, Azure Squad, we're coming in!" As the
briefing had said, they detected no signs of technology with their
sensors, but there was massive organic readings. The dark areas
were certainly not natural, though: hills of yorrik coral that the
officer claimed were half-completed ships and a cluster of what
looked like buildings near a wide flat area similar to a landing pad.

When Shocklash and cruisers were in orbit the capital ship
released bombers and turned its turboblaster batteries on the
surface. Sun-bright bolts of energy lanced down at the surface-and
were swallowed by massive gravitational anomolies.

"What in the name of creation?" A human pilot exclaimed
over the comm. Drash shared the man's shock as the Destroyer
fired again, and again the blasts bent slightly to meet at a point
well above the structures and simply dissapear. The bombers were
in the atmosphere now and ready to begin a strafing run on one of
the incomplete coral ships when swarms of missiles were launched
from the surface.

The dozens of projectiles resembled missiles, that is to say.
Missiles made of coral, each one slightly smaller than a
fighter's orb-cockpit. Interceptors and Advanced craft escorting
the bombers tried to intercept and destroy the projectiles but each
missile's dovin basal was locked onto a different bomber, and the
semi-sentient brains in the projectiles knew enough to swerved and
avoid all obstacles to their targets. The escort fighters took out
a few of the missiles, blaster bolts breaking through the coral surface
and igniting the explosive material within, but most of them hit the
bombers they were targeting and the unshielded craft were blown apart
in brief but intense fireballs over the coral fields.

The Shocklash prepared another volley, but before the
Star Destroyer could bombard the world below something else
unexpected happened.

Before the eyes of the Imperials the vast battleship
imploded. That was the only word to describe what happened.
Durasteel bulkheads bent inward, the point of the dagger-shaped
ship inverted, and the entire ship was sucked into itself. In less
than three seconds the Star Destroyer had vanished into a speck of
metal no bigger than a marble.

And before anyone could react the same thing was
happening to one of the cruisers.

"This is Captain Gren of the Sidewalker," a barely
controlled Chiss voice boomed over all channels, "I am taking
command, all craft pull back and retreat! Pull back and retreat!"

"What about us fighters?" Howled a human voice over the
comm. "We don't have hyperdrives! Don't leave us, damn you!"
Seeing the powerful Shocklash destroyed had put fear in the
man's voice than a thousand conventional enemies couldn't have
instilled.

"Interceptors and Daggers, do your best to reach the edge of
the system." Captain Gren ordered. "We'll jump in later and
pick you up." The cruiser began to move out of orbit when it
too turned into a deflating balloon before their eyes.

"This isn't happening." One of the fighters said in a
perfectly level voice. It isn't happening. I have to get out of here!"
The Interceptor pilot screamed and broke away from his squadron. It
began flying away. Not in any particular direction, just away
from the insane planet below.

"Stay in formation!" Azure leader ordered. "All squadrons
stay in formation! We've got enemy signatures coming in fast!"
And sure enough, as the last cruiser crumpled into nothing,
hundreds of coralskippers appeared from around the edge of the
planet and streaked towards the TIE fighters.

Drash hardly heard his commander: the fire had come on
him again. It was curious that he hadn't sensed the enemy fighters
coming, but they were here now and he knew what to do. He met
the foremost coralskipper with guns blazing. Dovin basals
swallowed the blasterfire but Drash instantly fell back on the
strategy proposed by the sim instructors: using low-power shots to
tire the dovin basals then switching to full power when the coral
fighter became sluggish and unshielded. He took out the
coralskipper on his first pass, a blaster bolt melting the cockpit and
pilot inside.

The coralskippers targeted the TIE Advanced fighters first:
apparently the Yuuzhan Vong (as the late captain of the
Shocklash had named the enemy) knew the heavily armed and
armored fighters posed the greatest threat. Drash had never cared
for the things himself. The simulations he'd flown using an
Advanced made him feel slow and thick-skinned, lacking the
sensitivity, blade-fine danger and speed of an Interceptor or
Dagger.

The Advanced fighters engaged the coralskippers. They
had seen the four great warships vanish out of existence before
their eyes, but sheer Imperial arrogance wouldn't allow them to
believe fighers made of rocks could match the technological
marvels they flew.

They soon learned otherwise as their shields were pulled
off and the durasteel hulls were bombarded by plasma.

"Green Eight, Green ten, flank those things and take some
pressure off the Advanceds!" Green Three ordered, Greens One
and Two having been vaped minutes earlier.

"I can't jump to hyperspace!" One of the Advanced pilots
shouted. "There's some kind of Interdiction field around the
planet!"

"Then don't try and run!" Azure One ordered. "You've got
missiles, use 'em! We'll tire the things out for you!" A few of the
TIE fighters had panicked, broke formation and tried to flee, and
had been vaped by the coralskippers for their trouble, but most had
adhered to the Imperial discipline Thrawn had enforced. They
fought well, but were outnumbered and being quickly reduced.

Drash swerved just in time to avoid a rocklike projectile
that could have crippled his ship, then executed a maneuver that
put the coralskipper in his sights. The enemy reacted instantly,
diving as soon as it felt the sting of blasterfire on it's 'body.' It was
very interesting the way these coralskippers fought, the reaction
time was instantanious, as though the pilot's mind drove the vessel,
not hands on the controls.

Fighting these Yuuzhan Vong things was a hundred, a
thousand times better than the sims portrayed. Drash felt truly
challenged, pushed to his limits and beyond. Chaos swirling
around him, life, death, another wingman down, another enemy
sent burning into the atmosphere. Glorious! At last he was
approaching transcendence, he could feel it!

When the coralskippers drove the Imperial fighters down
into the atmosphere and began to converge to block any route back
to orbit, it was clear to Azure One what was happening.

"They're trying to get us the way they got the bombers!" He
yelled over the comm. "Get out of the atmosphere before we're in
range of those missiles!" He spoke too late: a dozen surface-to-air
projectiles of yorrik coral launched from the closest coral field
while the fighters chased each other across the blue sky.

"Red Squad, break off and knock those things out before
they reach us!" An Advanced pilot ordered as he shattered a
coralskipper with a missile of his own. "Everyone else head for
the marshlands and away from those coral fields!" Hopefully
they'd be out of range over areas of the planet unaltered by the
Yuuzhan Vong.

But they couldn't keep this up.

"All Squadrons, this is Azure Leader, take your fighters
down! We've got to land, go planetside."

"What are you talking about? We'll be stranded!"

"Do it! We'll be slaughtered if we stay up here and there's
no point heading up, we don't have hyperdrives so we can't get
outsystem." Besides, they were running out of fuel anyway. "At
least we'll have a chance on the ground! Azure Squad'll stay and
keep them busy, everyone else scatter and go to ground in the
marshes, try to meet up later. Advanced pilots, try and get beyond
the interdiction field. Report what happened here!"

*******************************************
A single Yuuzhan Vong sat cross-legged in the center of a
circular, underground room. A cognition hood covered his head,
its long umbilical cord connected him to the wall. Ten large and
powerful dovin basals, pulsing in unison, sat in regularly spaced
niches in the single, curving wall that made up the chamber. A long
nerve-cord sprouted from the top of each dovin basal, ran up the
wall and along the ceiling to converge at a small oriface at the
roof's center.

From there the ten cords entwined inside the tall spire of
yorrik coral above ground, making a focusing tower. Working
together with their power so concentrated, the ten dovin basals not
only created strong gravitational fields but could harness the gravity of
the planet itself. Under the direction of the Vong wearing the
cognition hood the focusing tower could create strong gravitational
anomolies anywhere around the planet's orbit, including placing a
small black hole within each of the Imperial battleships. It
could also set up a large interdiction field to keep the enemy from
escaping into hyperspace.

Prefect Ke'Nass stood outside the circular room and
glanced at the Vong controler before returning his angry gaze to
the villip-generated visual field that displayed what was left of the
battle. He took an ornately carved crystal goblet from an attending
Nesz slave and sipped at the lightly spiced moak wine. The enemy
fighters were falling into panic and being slaughtered by the
squadrons of coralskippers that had been waiting in ambush ever
since the Vong had detected the reconnisanse flight yesterday.
Likewise the bombers had been annihilated by the guided surface-
to-air missiles before more than a few bombs had been dropped.

"The battle goes well, Prefect." One of his subordinates, a
female in vonduun shell-armor, said.

"Indeed," he said bitterly, "a fine victory."

The trouble was the victory hadn't been his! It had been
Sang Anor who had anticipated an attack on the seed world and
began the focusing tower's construction almost the minute the
Yuuzhan Vong had taken control of Sevac III. Sang Anor had
ordered the placement of the missiles and outlined what to do in
case of attack. He, Ke'Nass, had simply put those orders into
effect, he might as well not have even been here. This was Sang
Anor's victory by proxy: all the Prefect had done was follow
another man's battle plan!

He turned away from the images and paced a bit. It was
humiliating that a Vong of his ability had been left behind to
pacify slaves and look over a seed world while the Executor waged
a war against the infidel. There was no glory in this, no chance for
escalation, intolerable!

Sang Anor. He though he was so much better than
Ke'Nass. It had been the same even when they were both Prefects:
even then he was constantly showing the other up, always two
steps ahead of everyone. The man had Yun Harla's own cunning.
And now he steals all the honors and glory that should have gone
to me! He drained the goblet in one swig and held it out, rightly
assuming the slave would be there to grab it when he openned his
hand. He started for the door that led outside.

"Prefect?" The other Yuuzhan Vong pointed to the images.
"The battle is still underway, several of the enemy are heading for
the surface. They are out of missile range."

Ke'Nass stopped and rolled his eyes. "Most of the garrison
is flying corralskippers. They will have to hunt the infidels on foot
in the marshes once they have cleared them from the sky." The
Prefect had no doubt the Yuuzhan Vong warriors would make
short work of the aggressors. They were only infidels after all. To
think that talents like his were put to such a waste.

"Is that wise? It might be better to have the coralskippers
concentrate on the landing fighters and leave the rest for later.
They are not capable of going beyond realspace-"

The Prefect spun around, his face an angry sneer. "Perhaps
you should talk to the Executor. I'm certain he has a better plan
in mind!" He snarled at the female, then left the focus tower.
Moak wine, a variety of distilled blood fermented with gnrith
mold, was lightly spiced and likewise only lightly intoxicating.
Ke'Nass would get hold of some stronger stuff and summon one of
his wives to comfort him in his time of woe.

*******************************************
The Hit'n Fade exited hyperspace too close to the planet,
just as Vergere had planned. The headlong rush would make it
impossible for the Vong to scramble fighters to meet them. She
hadn't expected to encounter an interdiction field around the
planet, she hadn't known dovin basals could combine and
concentrate their power to this extent. Neither had she expected to
see blasterfire flashing across the skies below. The last of the TIE
Advanced flew across the cruiser's bow, nearing the edge of the
Interdiction field, only to be overtaken and destroyed before it
could jump.

It looks like Thrawn has launched his attack. She
thought with a sinking heart. But wait, where are the battleships?
He wouldn't have sent just fighters.

"We're here." Oin said, his voice held the quiet wonder of
one who has found something he had forgotten was lost. "Home."

"Yes, well the next few minutes will decide if we ever set
foot on your world. Hurry!" They were in a corridor at the outer
edge of the cruiser watching a monitor with images patched in
from the bridge. Quickly they ducked into an escape pod and
began strapping themselves in. She could only hope they could get
close enough before the Yuuzhan Vong had time to move against
them.

Following the preset program, the pirate cruiser launched
all escape pods as it neared the atmosphere. Then, before the
Vong controlling the focusing tower could implode the new
battleship, the Hit'n Fade's self-destruct initiated.

The blast rocked the escape pod and shook the teeth in
Vergere's head. Oin pressed back against the wall and clutched his
safety straps. With luck, the other escape pods and falling debris
would distract the Yuuzhan Vong and keep them from blowing
their own occupied pod out of the sky. A switch controlling the
pod's thrusters was near Vergere's hand, but she didn't touch it.
Instead she used the Force to gently guide the falling pod, nudging
it away from the blank, empty spaces that was lands converted by
the Yuuzhan Vong and toward the Force-rich area of the marsh
lands.

She was lucky the worldship was no longer in-system: the
yammosk would have surely detected her mind by now and
directed the coralskippers to destroy the occupied pod. The first
time she had come here, following the Yuuzhan Vong in her
newly-aquired frieghter, the war coodinator had been too occupied
in converting the seed-world to notice her, and she had put herself
in a Force-trance when she had left, slowing down her life-process
until she became invisible to the scanning mind of the yammosk.
She wondered, suddenly, how it was that Oin had gone unnoticed
as he had stown away on her frieghter.

Something, most likely a piece of debris, impacted the side
of their shuttle, jerking the Jedi's mind back to present concerns.

*****************************************
Azure One hadn't expected to survive this battle. He was a
young Chiss of low birth and station who had left his Homeworld
to follow Mith'raw'nuruodo, and never regretted his decision, not
even now. Under Thrawn he had attained the rank and
responsibility he never could have achieved at home, and he was
doing something useful. Protecting his people and giving order
and stability to these chaotic sectors of space. The day he had
joined the Empire he had known he might have to lay down his life
in it's defense.

Another thing he hadn't expected was to see the small but
growing shape of a strike cruiser appear above. His first thought
was that Thrawn had send reinforcements, but his trained eye
instantly recognized the ship's profile. The vessel was not built to
function in atmosphere, so either the Yuuzhan Vong were pulling
the ship down to the surface, which made no sense, or the captian
was going to crash his battleship.

A rocklike projectile struck the edge of his wing and stuck
on. It began to eat through the solar panel. Another coralskipper
shattered under the bombardment of a TIE Dagger. Good shot,
Azure Six. He thought. The new pilto, Tevock, was more than
holding his own. He had taken out more coralskippers already
than the rest of the squadron put together.

He hadn't thought Azure Squadron would last very long: if
they at least managed to buy some time for the other TIEs to get to
safety that would be more than enough. Another TIE fighter was
hit and spun down to the ground, leaving a trail of smoke. There
were only a handful of Imperials left in the air including Tevock
and himself. Azure One found himself wishing his father and
younger brothers could see him now.

He was still preparing to go out in a blaze of glory when he
noticed a sudden lack of enemies. His screens confirmed that the
enemy fighters had broken off to engage the battleship, leaving the
remains of Azure Squadron. He glanced up just in time to see the
cruiser explode in a flowering fireball just as it reached the upper
atmosphere. Then debris was falling like meteors around the
fighters. A twisted hunk of metal crashed into a coralskipper
while another narrowly missed his own Interceptor.

"Azure Squadron break off!" He ordered over the comm.
"This is our chance! Go to ground!" The fighters began to decend.
Except for one.

Drash did not fly away like the others. His latest target was
still in his sights, slow and awkward as it's dovin basals
weakenned. It dodged a flaming ball of metal and flew right into
Drash's blaster bolts. The coralskipper's cockpit and the pilot
inside liquified and the once-living fighter fell. The coralskippers
were scattering to avoid the falling debris and a hot flash of pure
fury caught at Drash. His commander's orders he disregarded. His
targets were running!

No! He almost had it! This could have been it: the perfect
kill, the moment of pure trancendence worth dying for! How
dare they take it from him! He was almost tempted to follow
those fleeing coralskippers, to take them out one-by-one until they
turned and acknowledged him.

But no, it wouldn't be right. He banked and swerved
downward to join his squadron. He would ground himself for
now, crawl through the swamps with the rest of the Imperials. His
moment would come eventually, and he would meet his fate on his
own terms: in the sky.

*******************************************
Sang Anor called his son into his private chambers the
moment Nom Anor docked his coralskipper in the worldship. The
young Yuuzhan Vong snapped his fists to opposite shoulders on
entering the room but Sang Anor waved for him to be silent when
he began his report on the progress of the spore-infestations and
the chaos he had witnessed firsthand in Imperial territory.

The Executor was seated before a small table, elbows
resting on the surface and taloned fingers steepled. He did not take
his eyes from an inert villip perched on the tabletop. He gestured
briefly for Nom Anor to approach him and stood up slowly and
deliberatly.

"As you might have guessed, Nom Anor, I have been
keeping watch for the Jedi ever since you reported seeing her on
the Miashku world. Two days ago I recieved a report from an
agent I had placed in a pirate gang calling themselves the Xanian
Liberators. The pirates had just lost one of their strike cruisers
while trying to board and capture a small frieghter." He turned his
face to Nom Anor, and the young Yuuzhan Vong flinched at the
cold light in his father?s eyes.

"The interesting thing is that it took only two beings to
subdue the battleship's crew and depart with it. The two creatures
aboard the frieghter. One of which was a small being in a hooded
cloak, the other bearing a strong resemblance to the natives of our
seed world, one of which you saw with the Jedi." Sang Anor
walked past his son to stand before a large wall niche covered with
transparent material. The yorik coral that normally hid it had slid
back to reveal the bones of a Yuuzhan Vong assembled in a sitting
posture with legs crossed and fingertips touching knees. Black
eyesockets returned his gaze. Carbon-scoring, such as that which
is caused by a slashing lightsaber, marred the ribs just over where
the heart had beat.

"I have just recieved a report from our seed world," Sang
Anor continued, speaking as though to the skull-face level with his
own and using that terribly calm voice that meant he was at his
most dangerous, "the Imperials launched an attack there. It was
repulsed, of course, but then a strike cruiser conforming to the one
stolen by the Jedi appeared over the battle and self-destructed as it
reached to atmosphere." He clasped his hands behind his back.
"The Jedi has returned to the seed world. She is there even now,
somewhere."

"But why?" Nom Anor said. "It makes no sense. She
cannot possibly escape, what is she trying to accomplish?"

"I don't know. Perhaps this is part of some agreement she
made with Thrawn. She could intend to lead the natives in an
uprising." He shrugged. "All that matters is that the Jedi must be
dealt with once and for all. For what she did and for what she
might yet do against us." He turned. "But I cannot go myself, and
there is only one other I would trust with such a task." Nom Anor's
eyes widened and his face flushed, then paled, as he understood.
"Kneel."

In a single, fluid movement Nom Anor dropped to his
knees as the Executor stood before him. Sang Anor reached down
and clasped the other's right shoulder in his clawed hand. "Do you
accept this charge, Nom Anor? Will you do your duty to the
Yuuzhan Vong and Domain Anor?"

Nom Anor lifted his chin and met his father?s eyes. "I do,
Master." With those words he felt Sang Anor's grip tighten with
crushing pressure on his shoulder. He did not allow himself to
flinch or drop his eyes as the Executor's claws dug deep into his
shoulder and he felt the hot blood running down his chest and side.

"So be it, son of Domain Anor." With his free hand, Sang
Anor lightly brushed the left side of Nom Anor's face, as if in a
caress, before sinking his talons into the flesh and drawing them
down his son's face, leaving deep gores in their wake, furrows that
would leave long scars on the once-smooth face. "Accept my
blessing as you accept my charge." He drew his arm back and
clenched his hand into a fist, then struck Nom Anor across the
right side of his face.

Sang Anor put all his strength behind the blow and it
knocked the younger Vong to the floor, but he was on his feet an
instant later. His left cheekbone was broken, and though he could
feeling it mending and knitting even now he knew it would set
badly and leave his face void of symmetry.

He stood proudly, displaying his scars, and met Sang
Anor's eyes as an equal. "Now go, Nom Anor, and lay the Jedi's
broken body at my feet that I might feed it to the yammosk."

Nom Anor bowed low. "Your will be done, Father."