Chapter Nine

The screams resounded in the vast coral cavern.

Like many communal areas in the worldship's belly, the
hold was at least five stories tall and so wide that the grand
archways on one end could barely be seen from the other. Thick
pillars grew from the floor, etched with intricate carvings. A few
unruly Vong children were using the etchings as handholds to
climb the pillars. Some adults paused to watch, amused at the
antics.

It was a game, to see who could climb to the top, snatch
one of the lumin bugs from the roof and bring it to the floor first.
One of the children had slipped, fallen to the floor and broken her
neck. The other children had paused only long enough to glance
down and see that their companion wasn't going to get up before
resuming their play. A squat, crablike creature had removed the
body. None of the other Vong bothered giving it a second glance.

The communal areas of the worldship were always a buzz
of activity, where off-duty Yuuzhan Vong could relax, dine or
otherwise seek recreation. Several tall fountains reared up in the
center of the cavern, where colorful avians perched to drink. The
birds nested in the fragrant plant life that grew in the hold, fed by
attendant creatures and watered by the fountains.

Paths wound their way through the gardens, dotted by
benches and gazebos for Yuuzhan Vong to relax and meditate on
their surroundings. There were flat areas for Vong children to
form teams and play various sports, and young lovers courting took
long walks down the paths.

The screams were loud indeed to resound in that place.
They were good screams, hallowed screams, loud enough to reach
the ears of the gods.

The ears of one particular goddess especially.


So Sang Anor thought as he gazed down from the third
story walkway along the curving wall, claws lightly brushing the
railing. He picked out the sacrifices, lined up against the far wall
so as not to disturb the flow of traffic. They numbered fifty in all,
of various species. He counted six humans, more than twenty
Xanians, a Transhodan and two odd, bristly little aliens who called
themselves Ryn. There were others, all of various ages. It didn't
really matter who or what they were: even among the infidels they
had been slaves.

For years, Coerl had been in the business of sweeping the
poorer districts of his conquered worlds and selling undesirables
into the slave trade, and Sang Anor had seen no reason not to
continue the practice after gaining control of the Warlord: it was
an easy way of obtaining sacrifices.


It was simplicity itself to have a slave transport (crewed by
Yuuzhan Vong in masquers) divert course off the normal
hyperspace lanes where the Long Reach could take possession,
and hopefully giving these fifty infidel lives to Yun Harla would
entreat her to grant him success in his deception. If all went well,
the Imperial presence would soon be destroyed by revolt from
within and warlords without.

In addition, Sang Anor had ordered several top-of-the-line
droids included in this particular shipment, but saw no reason to
bring those abominations aboard the worldship. The worldship
had simply crushed them, ship and all, with its dovin basals.

While it was technically true that all the 'plague' victims
and the casualties from the skirmishes between Thrawn's forces
and the warlords' were sacrifices to the Cloaked Goddess, Sang
Anor thought these extra fifty, sacrificed with the full rites and
ceremony, would provide that extra, personal touch that could
make all the difference.

Behind containment fields maintained by dovin basals,
black-robed priestesses of Yun Harla oversaw the sacrifices, with
each one being performed in a different, more inventive way than
the one before. The Cloaked Goddess was not Yun Yammka,
wanting nothing more than bloody-minded brutality in her
devotees. No, she demanded more subtle and imaginative methods
in her sacrifices.

In one area, a Ryn was being slowly torn apart by opposing
gravitational fields from dovin basals. In another, blorash jelly had
forced itself down a humans throat and was playfully exploring his
innards. Forty-eight other torments went on enthusiastically, with
sluglike njdin happily licking up the blood on the floor.

Sang Anor nodded. Courting Yun Harla's favor was no
different than courting any other female, except in scale. He
quirked a thin smile, he would serenade the goddess with infidel
screams.

Giving a final glance backward, he turned and walked
down a coral hallway leading away from the common-area, he had
an appointment to keep.

The hall was a wide tunnel with many branches, heavily
traveled by Yuuzhan Vong, but even the busiest took time to at
least incline his or her head in passing when they saw him.

Sang Anor made his stride especially brisk, his face a mask
of sternness, to make up for an earlier weakness he had indulged
in. While he had overseen the sacrifices from the balcony he had,
for a moment, allowed himself to be lulled by the peaceful
atmosphere of the communal area; watching a pair of courting
Vong, younglings with apparently nothing on their minds but each
other, he had found himself staring off into space, tracing the
tattoo that adorned his left cheek with a sharp talon, unaware of
the trickle of blood streaming down his hand and face.

He treasured that tattoo above all his others: Lyrra Anor
had given it to him, had drawn it on his face the day they bonded.
It was her personal sigul, a brand that proclaimed to the world that
she was his Primary wife. Among other things that meant she
ruled his household, and any other female who wished to bond him
had to approach her first.


Sang Anor smiled, his Primary had sent any female foolish
enough to try crawling away with broken limbs and a few extra
scars, if the unfortunate was lucky. Nor were they the only ones to
feel her anger: he had the hardest time convincing her that he did
nothing to encourage those proposals. He remembered the fights
they?d had after each incident, he could still feel the sting of her
claws sometimes. Truly exquisite fights, almost as exquisite as the
making-up that always followed.

Memories and sensations had caught him like an arachnid's
web, he remembered Lyrra Anor so clearly, every mood, every
expression. She had been the one Vong he could never quite get
the best of : she knew every trick he had, every strategy he could
devise. She knew his mind better than he himself did, and had
been able to slip past all his defenses with ease and drive him to
distraction, she made him feel pleasure and pain like no other
being could.

Three years had past and yet it seemed impossible: he
Couldn't conceive of a universe without Lyrra Anor in it. There
were times he had entered his quarters fully expecting her to greet
him, or to see her working with the other Shapers, eyes shining
with excitement as she made yet another discovery. Last night he
had almost felt her beside him when he awoke, only
remembering the truth when he had reached out and
touched...nothing.

Sang Anor made himself dredge up all his grief, made
himself embrace the pain. All pain was to be embraced, even this.

Near the end of the tunnel he spied a hunched, shuffling
shape out of the corner of his eye. Nearly doubled over both by its
deformed back and legs and by the shame that weighed down on it.
A Shamed One: a Yuuzhan Vong who had been found wanting at
the Time of Changing, and rather than escalation, they had been
consigned to the lowliest status a Vong could sink to. The Shamed
Ones were lower than slaves, lower even than infidels, who at least
had ignorance as an excuse for their unworthiness. The other gods
had turned their faces from them, only Yun Shuno, that most
contemptible of deities, would hear their prayers.

The Shamed Ones were enveloped head to toe in their thick
robes, and they would never venture near the communal areas or
any other heavily trafficked space on the worldship. There was no
honor in their deformities, they were signs of weakness and the
gods? disfavor.

Trying to stay out of the light, the Shamed One hurried
down the hallway, the ragged hem of its robes dragging on the
floor. It. That was how Sang Anor automatically thought of the
creatures, because it was impossible to tell their genders under the
robes and because they were no longer even people as the Yuuzhan
Vong reckoned things. None of the Vong in the hallway looked
quite in the Shamed One's direction, they neither glanced at it in
sympathy nor kicked and jeered at it. They went about their
business as if unaware the squat, lumpish being even existed.


A Vong turned the corner and ran down the corridor, there
was a look of deep concentration on her face and she held a head-
sized villip carefully in both hands. The cut and color of her tunic
identified her as an apprentice Shaper, the villip was the type used
for information storage, most likely plans needed for one of the
Shapers' projects. The Shaper was so intent on the villip that she
failed to notice the Shamed One until she actually treading on its
robe, at which point the color fled her face and she jumped back
with an audible squeak before scurrying down the corridor as if
afraid Yun Shuno himself would appear to claim her. They might
refuse to acknowledge the pariah, but they saw the Shamed One.
Oh yes, they all saw, and they all knew the penalty for failing the
gods.

As he reached the end of the corridor, Sang Anor saw a
Vong child with a sweet in one hand glance at the Shamed One
and swallow visibly. Evidently losing his appetite, the child tossed
the sweet in the Shamed One's path before hurrying away. The
robed creature didn't reach out to take the scrap, even though its
malformed hand was undoubtably gloved, instead it shuffled
forward until its robes covered the bit of food, then bent down to
take it. A Shamed One would not reveal any part of its body if it
could help it.

"Anyone can misstep, but the higher you stand, the steeper
you fall." Sang Anor jumped slightly as he spun around, evidently
he was a little more shaken than even he realized, but composed
himself as he faced the black-robed priestess.

"A fact I always keep in mind." He replied to the priestess,
a handsome Vong in her middle-years, with traces of grey in her
black hair. He smiled slightly and raised a brow. "I trust I have
not kept you waiting?"

"No," she shook her head, "I am just returning from some
business of my own," she turned and motioned for him to walk
beside her, "overseeing the sacrifices you so generously provided
for us."

"Have you seen any omens in the sacrifices?" Sang Anor
asked. "Any signs that Yun Harla smiles on my plans to frustrate
her enemies?"

The priestess shrugged. "The goddess is never direct, even
with her followers. Many a time a portent has been speculated to
mean one thing only to have it discovered that the exact opposite is
the intent."

"Spoken like a true devotee, a great many words to say very
little." He chuckled.

"So speaks a man who thinks he can buy a goddess' favor
like a merchant." She returned. "I do not presume to tell you how
to wage a war, you would be wise not to criticize my calling."

"Point taken." Sang Anor conceded as they came to Yun
Harla's temple. He knew better than to insult a follower of the
Cloaked Goddess. Yun Yammka himself had been brought low
more than one by incurring her wrath. Overlords had been
humbled for offending Yun Harla. They moved to one of the side
entrances and went inside.


The temple was dimly lit and the slightly sharp tang of
incense spiced the air. Priestesses were performing rites and
nearly three dozen females of varying ages and occupations were
present, most of which were Shapers: Yun Harla was the goddess
of skill and craft, the Shapers were among her chieftest devotees.

The priestess guided Sang Anor along a wall carved with
scenes representing the Cloaked Goddess' many triumphs: the
breeding of the first dovin basals that allowed the Yuuzhan Vong
to leave their own planet, in the wars against the machinists of
their own galaxy where stealth and misdirection were as important
as brute force, and finally the grand exodus from their galaxy in
search of a new home.

"Things have been set up for you in here." Sang Anor's
robed guide said softly. She led him into a small side chamber
with a single occupant: a younger priestess sitting cross-legged
before a statue of Yun Harla. She rose gracefully and bowed to the
other priestess.

"Who gives tribute?"

"I do." Sang Anor said.

"From your own flesh?" He nodded. "For what reason?"

"That is a private matter," he replied firmly, "between
myself and Yun Harla." The questioner raised a brow and glanced
and the senior priestess, who nodded. She was probably just as
curious as to just why Sang Anor had asked for a scourging.

"So be it then." She bowed again to the other priestess, she
inclined her head in response and withdrew, sealing the door.

The priestess held out her hands. Sang Anor removed his
clothing: a loincloth and sleeveless tunic, and laid them across her
arms. "Your place is there." She indicated the space in front of
the shrine.

Sang Anor stood at the center of the chamber, facing the
statue. He held his arms outstretched and two thin tendrils
slithered out from ridge compartments in the coral ceiling. They
explored the air as they lowered themselves, and on encountering
Sang Anor's hands they coiled around his wrists and tightened,
cutting deep into his flesh.

He hissed through his teeth as he felt his feet leave the
floor, but did not take his eyes off the statue. He didn't resist when
two other tendrils emerged from the floor and caught his ankles.
All four of them pulled with equal force, until they were a hair
away from pulling his joints out of their sockets.

Then that section of the chamber revolved slowly until he
was upside-down and suspended: now the bloodflow to his head
would keep him conscious throughout.


The priestess had crossed the room to a small side-niche in
the chamber, it held a basin fed by a stream of pure water and
several handles were mounted on the wall. She folded Sang
Anor's clothing over one handle, then removed her robe and placed
it on another. A sheet of coral closed over the niche, so no blood
would spatter on the clothing.

"Goddess," she intoned softly, "hear your disciple. One has
come to offer up tribute: his blood to feed you, his pain to make
you strong, in the hope that you will see fit to grant..." she paused,
here she was to name the supplicant's desire, "his request." She
knelt at the image's feet and picked up the short whip that lay
across the alter, then stood and turned toward Sang Anor in one
fluid motion. Without further preamble, she drew her arm back
and lashed him.

It took a few seconds for Sang Anor to feel the pain of the
lash, and by then she had struck him a second time, and then a
third. In proficient hands, the whip was an instrument of pain that
could cut to the bone with a single lash. The priestess was clearly
skilled in its use.

Sang Anor embraced the waves of pain and focused on the
image of the Cloaked Goddess. Yun Harla was represented as a
tall, feminine shape, but beyond that he could make out no specific
feature: the lighting was dim and the statue was grown from oltdan
corral, a substance that breathed out misty vapor from its pores.
The mist quickly dispersed into the air, but left the effigy
enveloped in a continual shroud. He peered at the image, trying to
see the features past the mist and knowing it was useless.

The other sacrifices, on the worldship and the plague-
ridden worlds, were purely political: to entice Yun Harla's support
in destroying the Imperials and securing Sang Anor's hold on the
Unknown Regions. This offering, on the other hand, was personal.

I have sent my only son into my enemy's stronghold, in
pursuit of another enemy at least ten times as deadly as the
Prefect. He prayed to the Cloaked Goddess as the whip cut into
his shoulders. He knew the Jedi's prowess, and he could easily
predict Ke'Nass' stupid and spiteful reaction to Nom Anor, and yet
he had sent the boy, newly raised to adulthood, into that viper's
nest.

It was not so much a test as certain death, but that was the
way of the Yuuzhan Vong: while other races coddled and
weakened their young, the Vong made every effort to strengthen
their children, so that every generation would be stronger than the
one preceding it. He'd had no choice: the gods demanded nothing
less of a man who would be Overlord.

But he had already been made to sacrifice more than he had
ever dreamed for that goal.

He noticed the blood running in hot, crimson rivers from
the new cuts on his body. Take my pain, he thought as another
strike of the whip racked him, and grant him success and an
honorable return, this I beg of you. The blood flowed down into
the grooves in the carved floor and was drawn down the channels
to the statue's feet. Take from me if you wish, and let him live.


Of course, she could easily reject Sang Anor's solicitations:
many who tried to play Yun Harla's game found themselves the
netted insect rather than the one spinning the web. She was fickle,
and keeping her favor could sometimes be worse than losing it: the
Cloaked Goddess was a jealous mistress, one who would tolerate
no rivals in her servants' hearts. Sang Anor had learned of that
firsthand three years ago, when he had allowed the Jedi to escape.

It had all been part of his plan: the Jedi would escape and
Sang Anor would lay the blame on the then commander of the
worldship. Using that as an excuse, he could challenge that
Executor. Gaining control of this mission had been the first step
toward ruling the entire galaxy.

He had planned and executed the scheme flawlessly, so
much so that no one, not even the Jedi herself, had a clue that the
escape was anything other than a matter of pure chance. Sang
Anor alone knew the truth, he had made certain of that. He flexed
his bound hands. With those hands he had silenced everyone
involved who might bear witness against him.

Permanently.

He had released her, but what had happened next wasn't a
part of the plan. She was supposed to escape, nothing more.
Certainly she was not to...he shuddered in a way that had nothing
to do with his flogging.

If Nom Anor knew the full story, he would want to take his
Father's head off with his own hands, and Sang Anor doubted he
could bring himself to fight back if that day ever came. He
squeezed his eyes shut, he had been half-crazed with grief when he
had challenged the Executor, grief and...guilt. But it had all been a
matter of chance and the whims of the gods. Simple as that. It
was not his fault. It couldn't be his fault.

How would he live with himself if it was?

The pain was like electric volts surging through him now.
No, it was the Jedi's fault. She was to blame, and she had to die.
The knowledge that she lived gnawed at him, was like a spur on
his back. He would never again know peace while she lived.

Never again.

The crack of the whip.

Never again.

It tore into him.

Never!

An eternity later Sang Anor seemed to swim out of a black
sea, called by a voice from the surface.


"What?" He asked, noting that he was upright again.

"Your offer has been accepted." The priestess replied. She
pointed at the statue with the bloodied whip. Sure enough, the
oltdan corral had reacted favorably with Sang Anor's blood, the
mist had turned a deep scarlet. The goddess had received his
blood, a good omen.

The tendrils unwound from his ankles and he let his
rubbery legs dangle awhile. The priestess opened the niche and
took a folded cloth from a shelf there. She soaked it in the water
and wiped the lash clean before returning it to its place. She then
began washing the blood from Sang Anor's body while he hung in
the chamber. The wounds made by the lash were already healing,
but loss of blood had weakened him.

"Has my-" she had gotten the last of the blood and the
tendrils lowered him to the floor, and his knees threatened to
buckle under his weight. He clenched his teeth against the
whimper that had threatened to escape his chest. Remember who
you are. He embraced the pain and made his legs stiffen by force
of will. "Will my request been granted?" He asked calmly, by his
tone it was only a minor concern.

"Yun Harla has acknowledged your tribute." She replied.
"What she decides at this point is not revealed to me." The tendrils
released his wrists.

"So be it then." The priestess donned her robe, then took
his clothing from the niche and dressed him. The door irised open
and the elder priestess entered, bowing first to Yun Harla's image
and then to Sang Anor.

"It went well?"

"Quite well." Sang Anor nodded. He thanked the younger
priestess for her time and effort on his behalf, then walked out
with his guide.

As they exited the temple, she handed him a goblet of
pinter juice to help him regain his strength, the fruits having been
enhanced by Shapers to increase the vitamin and nutrient value.

"Thank you." Sang Anor sipped the drink, refusing to
wince at his sore muscles. "She very devoted to her work." He
jerked his head in the direction of the temple.

"My third daughter." The priestess smiled and a trace of
pride entered her voice. "I instructed her myself."

"She is well trained." He nodded and they exchanged
pleasantries awhile longer before he departed. He had other
appointments to keep.


******************************

Coerl sat back in his ruined chambers and wished for a
window. For his own safety, he had made certain his private
chambers were well away from the outermost wall of the bunker:
an assassin could shoot through a window, after all, and he spent
most of his time outside or on one of his warships anyway, so there
was never any real reason for one. Besides, who would want a
view of the polluted sky of Orune Prime? Almost reflexively he
barked a short laugh, a bitter and hollow sound in the empty room.
He was the most powerful man in the sector, a word from him was
law, and he would trade his life for one last look at the sun.
Gladly.

How his mother, a strict ascetic who had taken a cane to his
backside more than once, must be chuckling in her grave. She
would undoubtably have some cutting and righteous remarks to
make about her wayward son and the rewards of a virtuous life, as
opposed to the one he had led. Coerl ground his teeth. He had
strangled his mother in her bed over thirty years ago, the first time
he had killed and himself still a boy, and she still tormented his
dreams occasionally.

The Warlord was sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled
out in front of him and his back braced against a corner. He could
get up and walk around if he wanted to, he hadn't been forbidden
to move around these rooms, but there was no reason to. The door
to his chambers was unlocked, but there might as well have been
an energy field set to kill barring his way. He couldn't leave:
she had told him to go to his chambers and remain there, and
that was what he did, the lumpish growths under his scales made
anything else impossible.

Obeyers, that was what she called them. Whatever the
creatures were, exactly, they were certainly effective. The slavers
with whom Coerl often dealt would have paid fortunes for the
secret of breeding them: Obeyers would have made the long
process of breaking and training a sentient unnecessary and saved
the slavers untold amounts of time and money. Coerl himself
could vouch for that.

Three years ago he would have been pacing around the
room like a caged wildcat, he had always been a man of boundless
energy, his cunning mind searching for ways to free himself and
defeat his tormentors. Those three years had felt like three
centuries, and even the most stubborn of beings eventfully grew
weary of resisting the kind of punishments the Yuuzhan Vong
dealt. Last night he had simply leaned against the wall and sunk to
the floor. He hadn't moved since and didn't have any reason to do
so.

Coerl had never been a deep and philosophical thinker, the
kind who pondered the intricate ironies of life and the universe.
He had always devoted his mind to practical concerns: how to
mount a successful attack on an enemy world, where and when to
engage a fleet, how to make the most profit out of his conquests.
Unable to exercise his intellect in that direction, he had found his
thoughts turning inward instead, remembering his life and past
victories.


He had enlisted in the Monarch's Fleet the day after
reaching adulthood, when he'd had his final molting and his crests
had all grown in. He had risen through the ranks quickly: there
were many opportunities for advancement considering the raids by
pirates and warlords and the constant insurrections and seditions
that had blossomed like nightweeds on Orune Prime. Coerl had
made a name for himself by getting results, with a reputation for
complete and utter ruthlessness in achieving his objectives, though
he avoided putting himself in personal combat whenever possible.
Eventually the King had been so impressed he had declared Coerl
chief defender of the realm.

Coerl had accepted gracefully, swearing by the gods of the
Jrukto to serve the dynasty and defend his people against all
enemies, within or without. In reality he served only himself, and
when he saw his chance he hadn't hesitated a moment in
overthrowing the weak and tottering monarchy ten years ago and
taking control of the planet. He had hunted the royal family to
extinction and crushed the royalists who supported them
underfoot. Under his leadership, Orune Prime had gone from a
backwater agrarian world to a major war machine. Of course,
much of what many considered a naturally beautiful world was
ruined by pollution when Coerl had industrialized the planet, but
that and the fact that many needed special masks to breathe the air
was never any real concern to him.

Then he had looked to expand his territory. Several
neighboring worlds had long-standing treaties with Orune Prime
under the Monarchy, non-aggression pacts and trade agreements.
Coerl had convinced those worlds that he would abide by the
agreements, then took them by surprise when he launched his
attacks.

It was almost too easy. Planet after planet fell to his
growing fleet. He stripped his conquered worlds of their wealth
and resources and sold undesirables into the slave trade to finance
his wars. Anyone who raised voice against him was arrested,
given a quick show trial and either executed or used as slave labor.
He once had hopes of ruling the entire sector, eventually.

How could this have happened to me?

The thought came without any real conviction. The fire
that had once driven him to dominate everything around him had
been suffocated over the years of captivity in his own home.
Only ashes remained. Coerl closed his eyes. Perhaps he would
sleep, perhaps not. He had once wished the lumin bugs on the
ceiling would obey him as they did the Vong, that way he could at
least make them dim down while he slept. Now, as with
everything else, he no longer cared. All that really mattered was
avoiding punishments.

The mere thought of incurring his keepers' anger brought
on a fit of dread that threatened to freeze his hearts; he hadn't
known what pain was before Kei Rascer had begun his
'training.' He was disciplined for causing his masters the slightest
displeasure, for even attempting to misbehave.

Not that he ever misbehaved these days: the price of
defiance was too high.


Idly, his gaze traveled around the room, to the objects of
her rage: the broken glowpanels, the shattered viewscreens of his
quarters. The Vong had dismembered every droid and device he'd
owned on taking control of the bunker, in disgust of machines and
frustration at being unable to do the same to all Orune Prime.
They had punished him as well, for allowing technology to spread
like a plague across his world and perpetuating it on his conquered
territories.

He would never forget his two worst punishments at Kei
Rascer's hands: one after the first and only time he'd tried to kill
her, the second after the first and only time he'd tried to kill
himself. In both instances the attempt was a joke: the Obeyers had
prevented him from acting on his plans. As bad as the pain that
had followed was, much worse was the feeling of helplessness and
shame.

There had been no punishments for a good many months
now, but that brought no comfort, not when he realized he had not
only stopped fighting them, but was actively trying to please his
new masters. That mindset had crept on him gradually, like a
debilitating cancer, and the first time he felt that warm rush of
security blossom in his chest and spread throughout his limbs after
he pleased them, much as a pet must feel when the master
scratches its ears, shame had gripped his innards and twisted with
clawed hands. He had never been so disgusted with himself. The
realization of what he'd become had prompted his first only
suicide attempt.

Since then he had stopped thinking, stopped planning,
stopped telling himself he was only biding his time, waiting for a
chance to fight back. This was his life now. Some might say he
was paying the price for all he'd done, but Coerl was neither a
religious man nor a theologian. He didn't believe in universal
balance and he certainly didn't feel any repentance for the things
he'd done. No, in Coerl's experience the universe operated by
simple rules: the strong ruled the weak.

He had discovered one thing about those who lived by that
rule: eventually, inevitably, they encountered someone stronger
than themselves, and while that argument was useful in justifying a
ruler's actions, it was poor comfort to the ones ruled over.

He heard footsteps in the corridor leading to his chambers
and was on his feet in an instant, hands clasped and head lowed.
He knew how to behave around his masters.

The temperature seemed to drop to below zero when Kei
Rascer ordered the living door to open, the automatic door
and the mechanism that made it work had been removed three
years ago. His chief minder didn't intend on taking him on another
tour of the city, she wasn't wearing an ooglith masquer and she
was always at his side when he appeared in public, though she
wore various guises.

Coerl had been a man of great appetites, he was never with
the same concubine for more than a month, and he sampled a wide
variety. He'd once owned a graceful Twi'lek dancer and an exotic
Falleen female, both dearly bought from slave traders because of
their rarity in this part of the galaxy. Kei Rascer had avoided
suspicion as much as possible by changing her appearance
frequently, though Coerl wasn't certain if she used different
masquers or altered the same one. He only saw the results: she
would be a pale-skinned redhead one day, a tanned brunette the
next and so forth.

He never dared to question her: she was always in a foul
mood before and after accompanying him on a tour of the city and
being surrounded by such rampant technology. She was in a foul
mood right now, her body radiated fury, but he didn't think he'd be
going outside: not only was the Vong undisguised, she was
wearing living armor. The silver-trimmed black shell pieces
covered her except for head and hands and her long, black hair was
tied back away from her face. She was ready for battle.

"Come." She said shortly, and Coerl followed without
thinking: the Obeyers took over his legs and propelled him after
her.

They hurried down the reformed halls to the broadcast
room. The only machinery the Vong allowed was the com system
- the holopad, projector and a generator to power them. They used
this arrangement for Coerl to make private communications with
his commanders or public broadcasts to his people.

Despite the crippling despair at his predicament and the
resulting lack of motivation, the cunning mind and powers of
observation and deduction that had made Coerl a power in this
sector remained functional and he passively noted all the signs of
his keeper's distress. She was tense, visibly bursting with nervous
energy and the kind of alertness that comes from adrenaline.
Something was definitely wrong here.

Wrong from the Yuuzhan Vong point of view, anyway.

As they hurried down the corridor, the walls of the bunker
shuddered in a way that Coerl recognized: fighters were strafing
the building. Unexpected, almost in spite of himself, Coerl felt
something like hope stir in his chest.

A brief but very satisfying image of his loyal troops,
somehow wise to his predicament, taking up arms to storm the
bunker and free their leader was dispelled by a harsh voice
speaking the Vong language. Kei Rascer paused and looked over
her shoulder, annoyed, at the warrior standing in the open
doorway. He wore full armor, with an amphistaff in hand and a
bandolier of deadly creatures across his chest. Obviously ready for
battle. Kei Rascer sighed and turned toward the doorway,
gesturing for Coerl to follow.

The holoprojector Coerl used to communicate with his
commands had been set up in the room. A Vong in an ooglith
masquer and the uniform of his chief bodyguard stood on the
holopad facing the shimmering blue image of a tall, trim Jrukto,
the garrison commander for the capital city. Kei Rascer circled the
room to stand behind the hologram, where the disguised Vong
could see her without taking his eyes away from the commander.
The Vong weren't worried about the commander seeing them: he
could only perceive what stood in the auditory and visual field
created by the holopad.

"-so raise the planetary shield!" The disguised Vong was
saying as Coerl entered the room.

"Can't be done." The Jrukto shook his head. "As soon as
the shield went down the Imperials targeted the planetary array
and the backup. Damage is too extensive, it could take days to
fix."

One of the Vong muttered something in a tone of disgust.
Coerl didn't speak their language, but he got the gist of it:
machines took a little damage and quit while living things would
have fought on no matter how badly wounded.

"They've started landing ground troops," the commander
continued, "they'll be marching on the capital in less than ten
minutes, six fighter wings are already here."

"We've noticed." The Vong barely kept from snarling.

"So far, the orbital defense platforms and armed satellites
have kept the Star Destroyers from getting into position to
bombard our cities, but they can't last much longer."

"Send out a distress call to the fleet."

"We've tried, they've set up a jamming field around the
planet." The commander's crest rose and spread.

"Deploy the garrison forces to defend the city and bunker,
the-"

"I want to speak to the Warlord." The Jrukto interrupted.
"Do these orders come from him?" The Vong looked past the
hologram to Kei Rascer. She glanced at Coerl, then back at the
Vong and shook her head slightly.

"The Warlord cannot be disturbed," the Vong drew himself
up arrogantly, "I'm authorized to speak for him at present, no obey
my orders!" Kei Rascer signaled and the armored Vong flipped off
the holoprojector, hesitating only a second before touching the
machine.

Kei Rascer and the other two exchanged a few brief words,
ending with her two subordinates bowing their heads and running
out the door, probably to set up the living defenses the Yuuzhan
Vong had installed in the bunker. Only now did Coerl realize how
quickly all this had taken place, with none of them wasting any
time with greetings and farewells. Such haste in the normally
protocol-conscious beings was very unusual.

Kei Rascer, Warlord in tow, departed the room as well.
They turned another corner and stopped at a section of wall
seemingly no different from the rest, whether seen from the light
of the lumin bugs or of the glowpanels before they'd all been
shattered two and a half years earlier.

The bunker shivered again. An Imperial attack? It must be
serious for them to spirit him to safety inside his fortified bunker.
They were taking no chances with his life: they needed Coerl as
their figurehead to maintain control of his territory and fleet.

The hidden door would normally have responded to a small
button in the corner, also disguised, but like everything else here
the machinery that operated the door was offensive to the Yuuzhan
Vong and rendered inoperable.

They had installed their own system in its place. Kei
Rascer rapped the wall her knuckles and the doorway slid open
and smoothly as when servos and hydraulics had moved it. The
elevator beyond had likewise been removed: Kei Rascer and Coerl
stepped onto the flattened shell of the huge, crablike arachnid that
gripped the durasteel walls with pincer-tipped and suction cup-
coated legs.

The creature slid the door shut with one leg and began the
five-story decent to the bottom. Even Coerl had to admit the ride
was smoother than any turbolift he'd experienced, and lumin bugs
detached from the ceiling and hovered around them, following
their progress down the shaft, providing more than adequate light.

At the bottom, the creature opened the door and the two
passengers stepped off into the subterranean hideaway. Kei Rascer
gave a sharp command in her own language and the lumin bugs
flew out of the shaft to join the swarm on the ceiling. A few more
words had the crab-creature shutting the door and climbing up to
the top with instructions to guard against anyone who tried to open
the door without using the proper commands.

Now that he was able, Coerl backed away from the Vong
female and looked around his personal bolt-hole, which this place
had been before the Yuuzhan Vong had taken over. Since then Kei
Rascer had converted it into her personal dwelling. From what
he'd learned of his masters he could understand why. At three
levels underground it was the safest place in the bunker, having
been built to withstand a heavy bombardment from orbit. It was
also made entirely of stone-walls floor and ceiling-with the only
machines being conveniences to store food and provide heat, air
and light, all powered by a portable generator. What better place
for someone who wants to be away from technology.

Coerl hadn't seen the place in three years, but he wasn't
surprised to see that all the machines had been removed. He
was surprised to see what looked like an indoor meadow down
here. The plush carpets had been taken out and the stone floor
somehow converted to fertile soil covered in thick grass under the
lumin bugs on the ceiling, which glowed with what looked and felt
like natural sunlight.

To complete the illusion, all the bugs were clustered in one
spot on the ceiling. Their combined luminance was unbearably
bright. The cluster of bugs were even positioned at exactly the
angle the midmorning sun would be. They probably even moved
across the cavern ceiling from east to west to mimic the sun.


The once-bare stone walls were now covered by flowering
vines attached to the rock by sticky sap. The large, varicolored
flowers spiced the air with a soothing fragrance and the furniture
was so unobtrusive it seemed to blend into the background. Taken
all in, it was a lovely, pastoral scene, hardly what one would
expect in the home of a tattooed demon like Kei Rascer. The
flowers especially surprised Coerl: judging by how disgusted she
was at playing the role of a concubine, he?d never have thought the
being who had made his life hell for the past three years would
have anything so...feminine in her quarters.

One of the lumin bugs, slow, sluggish and obviously at the
end of its short life-cycle, drifted near one of the blossoms, which
promptly closed on the dying insect. Coerl swallowed at that, and
at seeing the thorns that coated the long vines. They were barbed;
once stuck in, they couldn't be pulled out. No, on second thought
this place suited Kei Rascer perfectly.

The bomb shelter didn't shudder, but Coerl was certain the
Imperials hadn't been beat back. He knew about Thrawn and his
well-earned reputation for brilliant campaigns, had studied the
man's battles and victories, if anyone had a chance of
overwhelming the planet's defenses and prying him out of this
fortress, it was Thrawn. Going by all the energy his masters had
spent on tying up his fleet and weakening him from within, the
Grand Admiral had even the Yuuzhan Vong worried!

There were less than twenty Yuuzhan Vong on Orune
Prime and only six of them, counting Kei Rascer, were actually
inside the bunker. If the Imperials could only get past the living
defenses the Vong had set up inside the bunker...

Coerl almost laughed out loud at the irony of it. Not too
long ago he had viewed the Empire's growing power in the
Unknown Regions as the greatest threat to his power, would have
gone to any lengths to be rid of them. Now he saw them as
saviors, and they were: he didn't care whether they were here to
kill or capture him, only that they get him away from the Yuuzhan
Vong.

The excitement turned sour when he saw Kei Rascer,
watching him with cold, narrow eyes. Instantly he adopted a
subservient expression and posture.

"Are you worried, my pet?" Coerl shivered, that tone often
preceded a particularly painful punishment. He dared to raise his
eyes. Kei Rascer stood beside a small table, on top of which sat a
clam-like sclipune.

She bared her upper teeth and ran a fingertip across her
fangs so that blood welled from the cut. Using the bloodied finger,
she traced a pattern on the top ridges of the sclipune. The hinged
shell parted and the top swung open, revealing two items within: a
head-sized, leathery villip and a spine-covered dovin basal, one of
the four the Vong here possessed, the other three being situated to
defend the bunker.

"You needn't fear, we will keep you safe." Coerl cringed.
"I guarantee it."

****************************************************

The Imperitor rained basterfire on the defense platform
in orbit above Orune Prime. As Thrawn anticipated, the defenders
diverted all power to the upper shields and weapons, and while the
station returned fire a wing of TIE Advanced fighters and
Interceptors attacked the underside. Blaster bolts and missiles
punctured the weakened shields and destroyed the propulsion
systems.

The defense platform tipped to one side, drifting, and
began the slow, burning fall into the atmosphere. Parck had to
give the platform crew credit, they kept firing until the shields
gave out and life support system failed, then escape pods jettisoned
from the hulk of wrecked durasteel.

"Defense platform is out of commission, sir." Commander
Veenir turned to his superiors. "The gunners have a clear shot at
the surface."

"You have your orders." Thrawn replied. "Continue
landing ground troops and engage any enemy unity attempting to
prevent their landing. Also continue targeting all antiaircraft
installations."

"Yes sir."

Meanwhile, other orbital platforms were slowly moving in
to cover the threatened area over the capital, firing their weapons
and launching wings of fighters. Armed satellites, small but well-
shielded and equipped with powerful repulsers, moved swiftly
across the atmosphere. Using a design similar to Thrawn's own
missile boats, they were capable of catching a fighter with their
tractor beams, then launching a missile at them. Fortunately there,
were only a few of the things, most of which were quickly taken
out by the Star Destroyers.

Aside from the Imperitor, six other Star Destroyers were
a part of the assault, along with eight smaller strike cruisers. An
Interdiction cruiser maintained a hyperspace anomaly that kept
enemy ships from escaping and prevented hostile vessels from
jumping into the battle. It was all that could be scraped together
on such short notice, nowhere near enough to conquer a well-
defended world like Orune Prime, yet they were doing just that.

Despite the Grand Admiral's long-standing record of
success, Parck had harbored a few doubts about this campaign,
which had evaporated the instant the small fleet had jumped out of
hyperspace and the planetary shield had gone down, just as
Thrawn predicted it would.

"I've had agents on Orune Prime for almost two years,"
Thrawn had said when Parck pointed out the formidable defenses
they would be facing, "remnants of the old royalists, and others
Coerl has oppressed during his rule. Even before we knew about
the Yuuzhan Vong I had been planning Warlord Coerl's defeat; it
was the only way to extend the Emperor's control throughout this
sector. Imperial Intelligence operatives have been contacting
various groups, training, arming and organizing them, all in
preparation for our assault." He had grimaced. "Though truthfully
I had believed the attack on Orune Prime itself would not occur for
several months. Before we jump into hyperspace I will signal
them to sabotage the planetary shield and begin an open revolt."


And just like Thrawn had planned it, the fleet fell out of
hyperspace to find Orune Prime naked as a mollusk without a
shell. More, there were only a handful of capital ships defending
the planet, vastly outgunned by the Star Destroyers.

"Studying those dead Vong has certainly shown results."
Parck murmured. "You predicted the defenses we'd run into
exactly."

The Grand Admiral nodded. "As I said before, I have
gained some understanding of how Sang Anor thinks. I suspected
that, seeing Unity Fleet's collapse as imminent, he would expend
all of Coerl's resources on harrying us to the point of stripping
defensive ships from around Orune Prime itself. He depended on
the plagues to keep us on the defensive and Orune Prime's
planetary shield to protect his figurehead." Thrawn smiled. "He
was so intent on us, he ignored the cracks in his own fortress'
walls."

On the viewscreens, damaged TIE and enemy fighters
spiraled down through the grey, polluted clouds while those pilots
that could jettisoned from their doomed ships. Orbital platforms
and satellites were taking heavy damage from the Imperial
battleships, and the ground forces were making their way to the
capital. Or rather, the fortified bunker near the capital.

"That's the last of them." Parck said as the final defense
platform exploded in a brief flash; the void of space drank up the
artificial atmosphere in the breached station, leaving the fires
nothing to burn with. The few remaining fighters had been
mopped up as well, and the satellites were now just so much
charred scrap. The surprise of the attack the overwhelming
firepower of the Imperial ships and the disabling of the planetary
shield had coincided with devastating results to Coerl's forces.
"The skies are ours."

"Organize the ships in a defensive formation." Thrawn
ordered. "It's only a matter of time before one of the other worlds
under Coerl's control discovers the jamming field and alerts their
fleet." He looked across the bridge to the Imperial ships beyond
the transparisteel viewports, all the ships that could be gathered on
such short notice, before Sang Anor could hear of his plagues'
failure and have Coerl pull back his ships. They would have to be
enough.

"Hopefully we will be able to hold off any counterattack
long enough for Beyin to do his part. Coerl is our primary target
here, his fleet and resources are a tool Sang Anor has used with
considerable effectiveness. We must take that tool away from
him."

"Sir," Parck said quietly, "if that's the case, why not just fire
on the bunker from orbit?"

"It wouldn't work," Thrawn shook his head, "by now, the
Vong have Coerl tucked safely away underground. They may have
gotten him out of the bunker altogether, though I doubt that very
much. Most likely they'll dig themselves in and wait for
reinforcements." He watched the land battle via transmitions from
the ground units and the sensor readings from the Imperitor.
"We would not be certain, and I will not retreat from this world
until I know that Coerl is either captured or dead." Parck's eyes
widened.


"But your allies revealed themselves when they brought
down the shield. You told them you were coming to topple Coerl
and liberate them, if we retreat when Coerl's forces arrive-"

"It can't be helped," came the implacable Chiss voice, "I
will hold this planet if at all possible, if not, then we leave Orune
Prime to whichever of Coerl's commanders secedes him. At least
Sang Anor will no longer control this territory and his position in
this galaxy will be weakened."

*********************************************
Imperial AT-AT walkers advanced across the blighted
plain, their sensors peering through the smog-filled air, searching
for opposition. Hovering tanks and troop transports moved among
the walkers' lumbering feet, like squat Jawa children playing
around a herd of banthas. A vanguard of faster AT-STs scouted
the way and wings of TIE fighters flew overhead.

From one of the lead walkers, General Beyin scanned the
terrain and unit reports with the air of calm authority that had
carried him through a hundred other campaigns. While the
majority of Chiss troopers in the Empire were fairly young, Beyin's
black hair and square-cut beard sported several streaks of white,
and there were fine lines around his glowing red eyes; he had been
a famous general even before joining the Empire.

FFed up with the politics and scheming of the Chiss rulers, Beyin
resigned his commission and contacted the Grand Admiral six years ago. His
defection was a serious blow to the First Families: it was easy for
them to ignore the outflow of young, low-born males, no matter
their numbers, but the disappearance of such a celebrated general
was bound to draw attention to Thrawn's activities.
"Scout K-14 reporting, sir, no sign of enemy units."
Pollution in the air tinged the AT-ST pilot's voice with static.

"They're probably massing a few clicks closer to the
capital." Beyin said. "First wave, increase speed, all others hold
your pace. J-4, take point." Beyin's mouth twisted slightly, it still
felt awkward delivering commands in the human tongue.
Intellectually, he could accept that 'Basic' was the common
tongue in most of the galaxy, but it still irked that Imperial Chiss
were expected to conform to at barbarian language.

He had once considered advising Mith'raw'nuruodo to at
least teach the Chiss language to the humans in his fleet, but the
thought of his native tongue being mangled in barbarian mouths
stopped him. Beyin sometimes doubted the Syndic's sanity in
allying himself with this human Empire: the General had been
involved in military campaigns against every significant power in
five sectors, upstart aliens who thought they could carve out a
piece of Chiss territory, but in those battles he had always led or
fought beside his fellow Chiss, men he trusted and whose minds
and motives he understood. To him, the humans were still too
much of an unknown.

By the Families, I hope these savages don't get in the
way.


As he expected, the capital garrison had turned out to meet
them about three klicks from the target. A line of tanks stood
between the Imperials and a well-shielded mobile fortress that had
hovered out from the capital and settled down in their path.
Turboblasters and ion cannon bristled on the walls, Beyin didn't
see any fighters rising to engage the wings of TIEs overhead, but
several antiaircraft turrets jutted from the walls.

The Walkers were strung out in a long line. The Imperial
Walkers were impressive and useful pieces of machinery, but
Beyin knew from experience that it was a bad move to cluster
them together: if one of them went down, the others could easily
be blocked or tripped up by them. As per his orders, five walkers
and their accompanying support tanks increased their speed. They
would bear the initial brunt of the garrison assault.

Like a pyrotechnics display choreographed by a madman,
the defenders opened fire. Blaster bolts seared through the smoggy
air to impact the Imperials. The Walkers staggered at the force of
the blows, then shrugged them off and pressed on with the charge.

The defenders faced a dilemma: the head and body of a
Walker are the easiest to hit, but also the most heavily armored.
By contrast the legs and knee joints are the most vulnerable part of
the war machines, but very difficult to hit from a distance. If an
AT-AT was close enough that you could aim accurately at the legs,
then the Walker was close enough to return fire, and you were
already dead. The simple panic brought on by seeing an AT-AT
bearing down like an avalanche of durasteel is enough to rout most
defenders.

Imperial speeder bikes zipped ahead of the vanguard. Like
AT-STs, the small, fast units would harass and distract defenders,
but they also served a more important purpose: to detect land
mines that might endanger the Walkers. The mines were primitive
things, but effective, pressure sensitive and only activated by a
great weight, say a Walker's foot or the repulsors of a hovering
tank. More advanced machinery was too expensive, especially
when investing in something designed to blow up, and there were
too many things that could go wrong with complicated equipment.

Not knowing that the Imperials were coming or from what
direction, it was doubtful Coerl's forces had time to bury more
than a few of the explosives barring the Imperials' way, and the
freshly dug earth would be visible to the speeder pilots even when
moving at such great velocities.

Of course, no system was perfect, so Beyin reflected as one
of the Walkers set off a mine. The explosion under the front-left
foot made the AT-AT stagger, but it seemed the pilot might regain
his Walker's balance and keep it on all four feet, until the
garrison's turboblasters targeted the unbalanced machine and
knocked it on its side. Beyin made a note to himself to reprimand
the crew of the Walker and the speeder pilot who both missed that
mine. It would surprise him if all were human.

A blast from one of the garrison's ion cannons splashed
across a Walker in a wave of energy that scrambled the computer
systems. The war machine's right-front leg was partly raised in the
act of taking a step when the hydraulics automatically locked the
joints and made all the legs rigid. It slumped forward but
remained upright, at least, even though it couldn't move or shoot.
As useful as a thousand-ton paperweight.


The Imperials were doing some damage as well as being on
the receiving end. Blaster bolts battered the defenders' energy
shields and two tanks exploded in a ball of fire and shower of
charred durasteel.

Beyin bent all his concentration on the battle. He could
only hope Green Squadron was doing well against the true target
of this invasion.

****************************************
As Thrawn had hoped, the capital garrison was devoted to
stopping the Imperials, leaving Coerl's bunker almost completely
undefended. At least by conventional weaponry. Green Squadron
located and destroyed every automated defense blocking the
and a few troop transports Before resuming their primary
mission: strafing the bunker.

Their twin ion engines screaming, the TIEs circled back.
The bunker was a squat, ugly shape perched on a rocky hill some
distance from the city. Outwardly austere and utilitarian, it gave
no evidence of the luxurious interior Coerl was known to prefer.
There were scores along the walls and top of the structure: the
energy shield that should have protected it had been disabled by
the Yuuzhan Vong along with everything else technological in
their reach. Another volley of blaster bolts streaked down, bent
and vanished before touching the durasteel walls.

"What the fragg-!" One pilot exclaimed. "The bolts just
winked out!"

"Initiate secondary attack plan." The squadron leader
snapped. Everything was going according to the Grand Admiral's
plan: he'd hoped to force the Vong to utilize their dovin basals
before the ground forces moved in. "Low-power blasts, tire them
out." The TIEs made three more passes over the bunker, attacking
with weak but plentiful blaster bolts. On the second pass a few got
through, on the third pass most of the bolts splashed against the
hull.

"They're weak, weapons to full power."

"Green Squadron, this is Captain Parck," transmitted by
radio waves because of the jamming field around the planet, the
captain's voice was scratchy but recognizable, "the Admiral's
analyzed their defense pattern, target these areas.? Three points on
the bunker diagram in the targeting computer turned red. "The
dovin basals are stationed there."

"Aye, sir. Green Two, Green Five, take the first target.
Four and Six, the far side. Three, we'll get the center."

"Understood." The perfectly pronounced Basic of the Chiss
pilot responded as Green Three's Interceptor angled to keep pace
with the squadron leader's Advanced. Green One had kept two of
his missile back for just this occasion, now he launched them both.
The missiles flew, trailing white smoke that looked oddly clean
compared to the filthy smog, they impacted and gouts of fire and
force tore into the wall, killing the dovin basal sheltered behind.

Two similar explosions followed. "The way?s clear."
Green One sent to the carrier.

******************************************
Stormtroopers exited the carrier in the quick-but-orderly
way characteristic of the Empire's top infantry. Facing the rent
fortress, they waited for whatever the Vong would try.

The bunker was silent.

"They're not coming out to meet us." The officer said, the
black glass of his helmet hid the glow from his red eyes. "Turn on
your helmet cams, the Admiral wants records of this. We're going
in. Check your weapons and remember the orders: get in, get
Coerl, get out." They were to take Coerl alive if possible, dead if
necessary, but not to leave without the Warlord in tow. Ignoring
the noise and flashes of light from the battle, they filed up the hill
and into the bunker.

"We're in," he said to the transport pilot via his comm link,
"no hostiles in sight." But gods of space, look at what is! what
they saw of the interior was wrecked, but in far more detail than
the strafing runs might have accounted for. Everything remotely
technological, down to the smallest device, had been smashed to
its component bits and the wreckage left to gather dust. Computer
screens had been smashed, holopads taken apart, every
conceivable modern convenience and device was utterly wrecked.
Even the wall jacks and plug-in sockets had been torn out and the
wiring pulled from the walls.

More amazing than the destruction, though, was what had
replaced the technology. The stormtroopers saw large tubes of
black coral that had apparently jutted up through the floors in spots
where garbage pales or waste incinerators would be placed. The
central heating and cooling systems were doubtless scrapped too,
but fungus-like growths on the walls seemed to expel warmth into
the chilly air. It took the Imperials a moment to realize the plants
were also cleaning and processing the polluted air let in through
the holes they had made in the exterior. What looked like veins of
some armored substance traced the walls, taking nutrients to the
organic devices? Carrying away waste?

The glowpanels set into the ceiling were broken, but there
was light: thousands of winged insects flew near and landed on the
ceiling. Their rounded bodies glowed bright. Lumin bugs, they
had short lifespans and reproduced rapidly. There was no problem
with feeding them or sweeping up the corpses of dead bugs: with
the typical, frightening efficiency of Yuuzhan Vong creatures the
old and slow were devoured by the newborn.

Aside from cannibalizing each other, the insects got their
sustenance from a carpet of thin, fuzzy moss that covered the
ceiling. The Imperials could glimpse the cracked glowpanels
through the moss and the glowing bugs. Barely.

The greatest astonishment was that the sliding doors had
been replaced by odd orifices which looked as though they could
open and close like irises, all of which were closed and sealed.

"Looks tough." A stormtrooper rapped the 'door' with an
armored hand.

"Let's see how it likes blasterfire." A trooper aimed.

"No!" The officer said, but the Imperial had already fired.
The energy bolt struck the seal and ricocheted. The troopers half-
ducked as the bolt struck the ceiling in a startled cloud of lumin
bugs.

"Nice shooting, soldier." The officer put an edge in his
voice. "I hope the Grand Admiral appreciates the marksmanship."
A not-so-subtle reminder that Thrawn would be viewing their
every action when they turned in the datacards in their helmet
cams. The stormtrooper looked ready to sink into the floor.
"Sniffer, get a reading on this thing."

The Imperials parted as a scanner droid that hovered past
and stopped at the barrier. It extended an arm and probed with its
sensors. The 'door' was a hard, chitinous substance secured to the
frame by some sort of hardened gel. The droid studied the door
first, then the frame, and reported its findings to the officer.

"Dense, but not too thick. Two packs should do it." He
gestured to a trooper, who secured two thermal grenades to the
door with a quick-acting adhesive. The Imperials took cover and
activated the explosives.

The blast shattered the door and took some of the frame
with it, and the way was cleared.

The compound was big, so they split into two groups and
set off in different directions. According to the plans for this type
of structure the royalists had provided, they should be able to
sweep this level and meet at the opposite side quickly using this
strategy. Thrawn doubted that Coerl would be on the first level,
but if he was then they would find him.

Moving with surprising lightness, the armored men
methodically moved down the hallways. Occasionally they came
across a door either blocking their way or leading to a side room,
all of which were blocked with the same kind of living seal. They
had to plant their explosives and backtrack to wait for the blast
before proceeding. The Imperials had penetrated some ways into
the bunker and were alert for any sign of ambush, but so far all was
quiet, no sign of enemy activity.

Group One had reached the end of a hallway and was
preparing to blast through the doorway blocking them when three
high, piercing whistles sounded. The sounds came from no
discernable direction, and the Imperials had no time to wonder
what it meant: on the third whistle all the lumin bugs winked out
and the bunker was black as the void.

"Night vision, now!" The humans began activating the
special sensors build into their helmets and the darkness resolved
into black shapes lit by a green background. The Chiss didn't
bother: their eyes provided sight in total darkness that was about
equal to that of the night vision sensors.


The officer was about to contact the second group via his
comm-link when he heard a low buzz behind him. He turned
his head just in time to hear the stormtrooper's brief, gurgling
shriek, quickly uttered and quickly cut off.

It was one of the soldiers in the rear: he jerked, stumbled
forward and dropped to his knees.

"There! I saw something!" A trooper fired down the
corridor they had come from, where a dark figure could be
glimpsed ducking back around the corner. Other stormtroopers
were turning and shoot. The injured trooper, still on his knees, had
dropped his blaster rifle as he frantically tried to reach behind his
back, then fell forward, dead. A discus-shaped insect with razor-
sharp sides was wiggling out of the incision it had made in the
man's armored back.

Lips twisted in disgust, the officer shot the razorbug.

"Get him!" The stormtroopers began running back down
the corridor, and alarm bells went off in the officer's head.
Something was wrong here, either the thrower was trying to lure
them into a trap, or...

He spun back around, eyes widening, to the door. So fast
he could have missed it by blinking, the barrier irised open and a
dark figure bounded into the hallway.

"Troopers, turn and fire!" He barked. The officer glimpsed
black armor with silver trim, a staff spinning in its hands, he raised
his blaster rifle but the amphistaff's tail struck the barrel, knocking
it to the right so the blaster bolt struck the corridor wall. The
Yuuzhan Vong followed that move with a side-kick to the officer's
stomach that knocked him onto his back. It felt like a battering
ram even through the armor.

The stormtroopers were turning back around, trying to get
their bearing in the darkness. The Vong warrior charged them,
amphistaff whirling. Meanwhile the narrow door to an unnoticed
supply closet in the left wall of the corridor swung open and
another Yuuzhan Vong seemed to unfold out into the hall from the
tiny space: even cleared of the cleaning droid and its supplies it
couldn't have been more than a half-step deep. The amphistaff
around his arm uncoiled and stiffened as he plunged into the
Imperials from the side and the sniper Vong at the end of the
hallway jumped back around the corner and hurled another
razorbug at the stormtroopers.

******************************************
Group Two had already set their charges on a door
blocking their way and found cover when the lights winked out.
The officer commanding the second team ordered his men to
activate their night vision sensors. He automatically reached for
his comm-link and tried to talk to the first team. He got shouts,
grunts and the sound of blasterfire as a response, then the
explosives cleared the way.


The officer faced a decision he had only seconds to make:
there could be Vong in the room they had just opened, if the
stormtroopers hurried to reinforce their comrades without clearing
that room first they risked attacks and ambush from behind. For
all he knew, the attack on Group One could be a diversion with
just this purpose in mind.

"Blast," he murmured and signaled the stromtroopers to
rush into the newly-opened room.

It was awkward, charging with only night vision to go on,
some of the troopers almost tripped on the dead alien matter that
had been scattered in the blast, but they all made it.

They piled into the room and spread out, blasters trained in
every direction. There was, apparently, no one there, but the room
itself was more than enough to keep their attention.

The space was large, circular, big enough to be a
conference room of some kind, judging by the excellent acoustics.
Whatever the original purpose was, the Vong had converted it into
some kind of temple. The Imperials had no need of their night
vision sensors here: the place had its own light source, globular
membranes filled with some sort of lighter-than-air gas glowed
with a ghostly light drifted around the perimeter of the room,
casting strange patterns of light and shadow.

The walls, floor and ceiling had been completely coated
with corral. The substance was covered with carvings: alien
symbols, designs and pictures which might be writing, and the
etchings themselves glowed softly. There were also four statues in
the room, at opposing sides. They were built to human scale, but
of larger dimensions. A massive, hideous thing, all spikes, fangs
and claws. A tall, vaguely feminine shape, but with no clear
features. A hunched, grotesque thing that actually seemed to be
shying away from the light had its visage turned to the floor.

The biggest statue, a solemn expression on what remained
of its face, actually looked dismembered and partially eviscerated.

The strangest thing was the alter in the room's center,
where what looked like a rack was set up.

The officer was the first to break the spell this alien place
had cast on them. "Spread out and check this place, and make sure
your helmet cams get a good look at those carvings, the Admiral
will want to study them."

One of the stormtroopers approached the picked-apart
statue and prodded it with his blaster. "Ugly scragger, isn't it." He
said.

"I don't know," another chuckled, "hook some prosthetics
limbs on him, maybe cover him with synthaflesh, he might be
presentable."

"Can say that ag-Ahh!" He shrieked as a glob of blorash
jelly released its hold on the ceiling and dropped on his head. The
trooper stumbled back, dropped his blaster and grabbed at the
jelly, which quickly coated his entire upper body.

"What's that stuff on him?"

"Sithspawn!" A stormtrooper gasped. The goo was cutting
off his comrade's airflow, he heard the muffled screams under the
jelly. The jellied trooper was running, struck by blind panic. He
ran into a wall and staggered, almost fell. Another stormtrooper
approached him, reached out his hand in a desire to help.

"Stop! Get away from him!" The officer shouted, but it
was too late. Tendrils of jelly shot out, stuck to the trooper's arms
and head and pulled him and the other Imperial together. Now,
both their heads and torsos coated with living jelly, they struggled
with the blorash jelly and each other and tried to run in two
directions at once.

"Get back! Get back!" Another stormtrooper shouted in
terror as the two jelly-covered Imperials stumbled towards him,
the Vong creature extending more tendrils toward him. He
stepped back, raised his blaster.

"No! Stun them!" The officer snapped. The stormtrooper
was well-trained enough to pause the half-second necessary to
switch settings before shooting. Blue arcs of energy covered the
troopers and their assailant. They both dropped to the floor, but
the jelly stretched out toward him with terrifying, fluid speed. It
struck, splattered and stuck to his chestplate, the hauled the rest of
itself up onto him, putting the stormtrooper in the same position
his stunned fellows had been in.

"Weapons to stun! Get-" The officer was interrupted when
the Yuuzhan Vong warrior lying full-length on the ceiling
unhooked his feet from the corral and swung down, kicking the
officer hard in the chest. As he fell back the Vong twisted his
lower body, legs shooting out in opposite directions, and knocking
two other Imperials to the floor before releasing his handholds and
dropping down into a defensive crouch.

"Do-ro'ik vong pratte!" He howled and seized the
amphistaff around his waist, whipped it out and knocked the legs
out from under another stormtrooper. He leaped over the Imperial,
staff whirling. "Defilers!" He roared in Basic.

Blasterfire was everywhere, some bolts struck the walls and
statues, a few struck the alien and were deflected by his armor. A
stormtrooper rushed the warrior, but the Vong ducked and hit the
Imperial's back with his amphistaff. He stumbled into the alter,
where two long arms unfolded from the rack, reached for him,
grabbed his wrists, pulled.

The officer was getting to his feet when the scream made
him turn toward the Embrace of Pain. He took one look and
quickly turned his head away. In Imperial space, he had often
heard Wookies threaten to tear someone arms out of their sockets,
but until now he had never seen it done..

********************************************
"We've got control of the first level." The voice crackled
over the comm board in the AT-AT. "But we've lost eight men
and three others are wounded."

Beyin bit off a curse as blasterfire rocked the AT-AT.
"How many hostiles?"

"We engaged four, took out three. One got away, we think
to the next level down." A pause. "If there'd been any more, they
would've wiped us out."

Beyin scanned the battle. Another enemy tank had just
been blown up and the Imperials were flanking their adversaries,
but the remainder of the defenders were clustered together, blaster
cannons bristling in all directions.

"I'm sending another troop transport, hold the first floor
and wait."

********************************************
"Is it ready?"

"Yes, the air is saturated." The warrior glanced down at the
bulbous creature, glued to the floor by its own mucus, then up at
the ceiling. His eyes narrowed behind the mask. "The infidels are
defiling the temple." The undercurrent of rage was clear in his
voice.

"We will cleanse them soon enough. With fire. Go down
to the lower levels. I will wait for them and spring the trap." He
turned to the doorway. Like all the passages on this floor, it was
wide open to better circulate the treated air. The other Vong
stopped him with a clawed gauntlet.

"You go to the lower levels, let me stay." He was the only
one of the warriors who had not yet engaged the infidels. The trap
they had set here might delay the Imperials until the Warlord's
fleet arrived and drove the Star Destroyers out, in which case he
would get no chance to fight at all. Remaining to trigger this trap,
though, that would be a great escalation.

"You?re sure of this?" The other asked with some
reluctance.

"If one of us fails, the other will be all that stands between
the infidels and Kei Rascer." The Vong pressed. "We both know
you are the better warrior."

"So be it then." The two warriors clasped forearms. "Give
the gods my greetings when you see them, little brother, and bring
them many infidel lives." He struck his shoulders with opposite
fists and left for the stairwell.

**********************************************
The freshly-reinforced party of Imperials stormed through
the stairwell door and into the sublevel. Any mechanized alarms
or check points that might have barred their way had been long
since trashed and the biological devices of the Yuuzhan Vong
made no effort to stop them.

"No opposition so far," the officer used his comm link to
speak to the stormtroopers who remained on the ground floor, "in
fact it looks too easy, over." By the light from the lumin bugs, he
could see all the living doorways around them were open.

"Proceed, do a quick search and head down to the next
level." They left five troopers to guard the stairwell while the rest
began their search.

The Imperials suspected that Coerl was on the lowest level,
but no single stairwell extended more than one level down, after
which one had to cross the entire level to reach the next stairwell.
The turbolifts, even if they still existed, wouldn't be much better:
the lifts were all code-activated and a single missed keystroke
could result in lethal traps. Coerl had always been a maniac about
his personal security, as well as other things.

They couldn't even scale down the empty shafts: the Vong
had used them as garbage chutes for the technical devices they
removed and scrapped. Genetically engineer alien bacteria was
breaking the down the plastic and durasteel into a kind of feed that
fueled their organic devices.

"Careful," the officer led them, single-file, through a
doorway, "the right command and this door could snap shut." And
cut someone in half at the threshold, armor or no. They hurried
through.

"Something stinks," a Chiss trooper said.

"Yeah," another answered, "this is suspicious-"

"No, I mean something stinks!" The Imperial heard
sniffing beneath the other?s helmet. "Can't you smell it?"

"What?s wrong?" A human trooper smirked. "This place
offend your delicate olfactories? Maybe you should've brought
perfume-"

"Shut up," the human flared his nostrils and tried to smell
beyond the sweat-and-plastic interior of his helmet. Now that the
Chiss had mentioned it, he did detect something odd in the air.
Sharp, sulphurous... "Sir-"

"Way ahead of you." The officer signaled for them to stop.
"Helmets off." He pulled his own headgear free.

With their faces directly exposed to the air, the
contaminant stung their nostrils like ammonia. "Sniffer, what do
you make of this?"

The droid extended a sensor. "There is a vaporous agent in
the airflow, Master." It responded. "Unfamiliar reading, but initial
analysis suggests it is highly combustible." The officer felt a chill
creeping along his back.

"Did you get that? Over." He spoke into his helmet.

"Affirmative." The comm link replied. "Withdraw, no
shooting, ov-"

"Do-ro'ik vong pratte!" A Yuuzhan Vong appeared at the
end of the hallway. Small, spherical thud bugs shot down the hall
and knocked three troopers to the floor. The speed and density of
the small creatures was enough to puncture the troopers? armor.
One of the Imperials raised his blaster rifle, took aim...

"No!" The officer exclaimed, too late. The energy bolt
streaked towards the Vong, igniting the air as it flew, and the air
became fire.

It took less than a second for the airborne agent mixed with
the oxygen to completely burn itself out, but during that time the
atmosphere of the sublevel was like the outer layer of a sun.
Durasteel walls, Vong creatures, people, melted and ran together.
On the upper level the floor buckled under the Imperials? feet and
huge gulps of air were sucked down the stairwell, to fill the void
made by the oxygen burnout that fueled that burst of heat. A
stormtrooper was stationed near the upper stairs and the gust
knocked him off his feet, dragged him to the doorway and nearly
broke his neck.

"Sithspawn." The officer managed to say. His voice was
very small and he gazed at the disfigured floor with wide eyes.

*********************************************
"The capital garrison has surrendered and the royalists have
control of the city." The life-sized image of General Beyin
appeared in the bridge and reported to the Grand Admiral. "The
diversion tactic was a success." The holographic view expanded to
show a three- dimensional field depicting the battlefield. Jrukto
troops, wearing breathing masks in the smoggy air, were climbing
out of their wrecked war machines, throwing down their weapons
and raising their hands. Stormtroopers, their armor blue in the
hologram's light, herded the prisoners into a large group near one
of the downed AT-ATs.

Thrawn nodded, exactly as he had planned it: while the city
garrison was busy engaging the Imperials, the native royalists and
the Imperial Intelligence team supporting them had seized the city
commanders and forced them to issue surrender orders.

A good plan, but not one the Grand Admiral could honestly
take credit for: during his time with the Empire proper, he had
made a detailed study of military history. He had borrowed this
particular battle plan from Naboo's defeat of the Trade Federation
more than forty years ago. He had modified it slightly from what
he'd read in Palpatine's records, of course: Queen Amidala's plan
to retake her homeworld had been so desperate it was beyond
believable, which was the essence of its success.

I would have enjoyed meeting such a remarkable female.
A pity. The Admiral felt little satisfaction from this victory: it
was still incomplete.

"And the bunker?" Thrawn asked, though he could already
guess the answer before Beyin reappeared and continued.

"We've taken the first floor, but the Vong have kept us out
of the sublevels. I've already lost over a company in that
deathtrap. I'm taking another company up there right now, sir."
The elder Chiss was as crisp and proper as Thrawn remembered
from his training on Homeworld. The general was the most
demanding taskmaster he had ever known, a nightmare for any of
the young Syndics-to-be lucky enough to be put under his
command. It was impossible for any of them to please General
Beyin, but Thrawn had come the closest.

It had been a most unexpected surprise when the general
had decided to resign his rank on Homeworld and join Unity Fleet,
and it still felt awkward giving his former teacher orders. It was
even more of a shock to realize he now understood Beyin better
than the general understood himself. His belief in the innate
superiority of the Chiss over all other beings, for instance, was the
key to his personality. It was also a weakness Thrawn would not
tolerate in any of his underlings, even Beyin.

"Very well, general, but one thing," Thrawn held up his
hand, "the company will consist of humans and Chiss mixed in
equal numbers." Beyin's face did not change, but his eyes
brightened several shades, confirming Thrawn's suspicion that he
would have taken only Chiss stormtroopers if he could.

"Yes, Admiral. Beyin out." The hologram vanished.

Captain Parck took the opportunity to approach his
superior. "The TIE fighters report no enemy activity in the system,
and the escape pods, friendly and hostile, have all been gathered
in."

"Have the fleet take up defensive positions around the
planet. I anticipate a counterattack by Coerl's fleet very soon, we
need to buy Beyin time to capture the Warlord."

"Yes sir." He turned away, paused, then turned back. "Sir,
may I speak freely?"

"Always, Captain."

"Sir, why the preoccupation with Coerl? As I see it, we
should be more concerned with taking out opposition and holding
his capital world."

Thrawn scanned the skies above the planet while he spoke.
"Even if we hold Orune Prime, Captain, it means nothing without
Coerl in custody or a confirmation of his death. That bunker
probably has several hidden escape routes, but right now the
remaining Vong handlers are holding him in the there, I'm certain
of it, because they're hoping his fleet with drive us out. If the
outcome is not in their favor, then they will retreat.


"If they escape with Coerl they will try and get him
offplanet and use him to rally his remaining forces, and Sang Anor
will retain his influence. The purpose of this attack was to
deprive the Executor of Coerl's territory and resources, but I
cannot as long as he is alive and in Vong control.

"Even if the Warlord doesn't make it off Orune Prime, the
Yuuzhan Vong could still manage to retain control with a
facsimile: perhaps they have a form of cloning, or they could use
an impersonator with a new kind of masquer. We need Coerl
captive or proof of his death to present his commanders with: it
will prevent them from uniting behind a Vong imposter."

Below, the smog swirled in a windblown dance. For a brief
second, Thrawn could make out the bright lights of a smog-
shrouded city. Then the tide of tainted air covered the patch of
bright with shadow.

************************************************
Beyin was a traditionalist in every sense of the word. As
such, he gave the appearance of complete confidence in both the
decisions of his superiors and the ability of his subordinates,
though he was having his doubts about both. Mith'raw'nuruodo
had always been clever: he had seen through Beyin instantly and
prevented the general from using an exclusively Chiss team to raid
the bunker. Now he had to worry about these undisciplined
savages bumbling through this important mission.

But the Syndic had given his orders, and Beyin obeyed
without question, as he hadn't questioned the attack on this planet:
a dishonorable pre-emptive strike that stung his Chiss pride.

Honor, pride, obedience, these were lessons drilled into
Beyin's very soul during officer's training. He was of noble blood,
of course, if only that of a poor and very minor House, else the
upper echelons of command would have been as far beyond him as
the other side of the galaxy. His time in the battlefields had taught
him that a soldier's merit had nothing to do with who his ancestors
were, though. Seeing disciplined and dedicated Chiss soldiers
placed under the command of officers chosen more for their
breeding than their brains, nobles who would waste many good
lives to make a victory more costly and thus more impressive, had
driven him to the Empire, but he never considered abandoning his
training. If your commander gave an order, you followed it, and
that was all.

In spite of himself, he felt a flash of pride at serving the
Grand Admiral. Thrawn had become the best of the Syndics in
every way, and Beyin had a hand in that. Oh, he had kept Beyin on
his toes as a trainee: he was always so willful, so confident in his
ideas, unnerving because he was so often right. But in this
instance he was wrong.

He was wrong to have anything to do with these humans
and their Emperor in the first place! He could have fought the
High Families, could have refused their sentence of exile. He had
a strong phalanx and the support of several other Houses. Thrawn
could have stayed and tried to reform the system, could have...


He could have plunged the Chiss into civil war, and we
would have destroyed ourselves as no outside aggressor could
have. Beyin ground his teeth. Thrawn had taken the long view,
seen what would result from defying the High Families and so had
accepted the exile. The Families had gloated, smug in their
victory, and forgot all about the Syndic. Until he returned
commanding an alien fleet. Now the word was spreading:
Mith'raw'nuruodo was making headway against the enemies of the
Chiss, he didn't waste his soldiers and bloodlines wasn't a
consideration among the prospective officers.

But it still isn't right! Beyin thought fiercely. The
Chiss are the greatest race in the galaxy, we shouldn't serve an
alien Emperor!

He let those threads of old anger trail away as he studied
the bunker interior. This was Beyin's first direct encounter with
the biotechnology of these strange, new enemies Thrawn had
called 'Yuuzhan Vong,' and what he saw he found repulsive. This,
combined with the wanton vandalism they'd committed on the
mechanized devices gave Beyin a low and distasteful opinion of
the so-called extragalactics.

Clearly he was dealing with barbarians, but the general
wasn't fool enough to underestimate his opponents. He knew what
had happened to his advance parties, about the conflagration on
the first sublevel. And he knew from experience how dangerous
the savages of any race can be: not only were they violent and
brutish, they were highly deceitful as well, not being bound by the
honor and standards of behavior the Chiss were.

On entering the secured first floor of the dark bunker,
Beyin and his team tried to use their glowrods to splash the walls
with directed beams of light. That was something else the general
held against his human troops: he and the other Chiss had no
trouble at all with the lack of light.

As soon as the glowrods were activated the dormant lumin
bugs clinging to the ceiling came to life and swarmed the light
source, each one of the thousands seeming to vie with all others for
brightness until it seemed there was a small sun in the room.

"Blasted things!" A trooper squeezed his eyes shut. "I've
got the eyepiece tint on maximum and I still can't see!" He
windmilled his arms in an attempt to swat the glowing insects.

Beyin had to agree, not even Chiss could tolerate the
blinding light. "Shut off the glowrods." He ordered. He kept his
voice calm, didn't bark or snap the command: no Chiss noble, and
certainly not an officer of the higher echelons, would ever under
any circumstance allow emotion to color his tone. That was one of
the first lessons he'd learned in his military training.

Once the glowrods were doused, the lumin bugs winked
out and drifted back to the ceiling. "Why'd they do that?" A
trooper asked himself. "And why'd they stop."


"The mating drive." Beyin chose to answer. "It proved
stronger than Vongs' command to stay dormant. With most
luminescent insects, the purpose of the glow is to attract and signal
mates. They recognized the light from the glowrods as a mating
invitation. Humans, switch to night vision." He hit the switch on
his helmet's interior with his chin. Beyin wore the armor of an
anonymous stormtrooper, with no outward sign of his true rank.
Warfare had taught him many things, including one truism:
enemies will always target the officers first. But unlike the Chiss,
other races often had no reluctance to use pre-emptive strikes or
snipers.

Beyin heard his troopers' reports as he toured the first floor.
The troopers spoke via helmet com links, so that any organic
surveillance creatures would be unable to tell who was giving the
orders. After checking the blocked elevator shafts and the
stairwell, shattered by the sublevel explosion, he returned to a
secured room where a portable holopad and projector had been set
up. Almost on cue, a life-sized hologram of the Grand Admiral
materialized before him.

"Your analysis, general?" Thrawn asked without preamble.

"Intelligence claims there are five sublevels. My guess:
Coerl is on the lowest level. We'll have to proceed with caution, I
believe all the Vong in the bunker are dead by now aside from the
whoever's with the Warlord, but the rest of the bunker is sure to be
booby-trapped."

"There is no time." Thrawn countered. "Enemy vessels
have been detected at the edge of the interdiction field, a
counterattack is imminent."

"There is no direct way to the lowest sublevel."

Thrawn made to speak, then stopped, frowning. "I think
we've overlooked something."

"Sir?"

"Coerl designed this bunker himself. He would want to be
able to get to the lowest level quickly in case of a surprise assault
like this one. He would have a private elevator installed, running
directly to the bottom."

"But the Vong would have destroyed it along with all the
other technology they found here."

"No, they would keep it operational for the same purpose:
to quickly get Coerl to safety."

"I'll order a search, but it's a long shot."

"Look in or around Coerl's personal quarters." Thrawn
glanced at something outside the hologram?s visual field. "More
enemy vessels have entered realspace. Time is of the essence."
The hologram vanished.


The sensor droids scoured the rooms and halls near the
Warlord's quarters and quickly located the hidden door. Beyin and
a squad of stormtroopers were there in moments.

"I've found the controls." A stormtrooper pointed to a
toggle that had been concealed by a compartment in the wall.
"They aren't responding."

Beyin nodded. "Force open the door, but be cautious: the
Vong may have set traps." He turned away just as the section of
wall was slid aside from behind, he saw a blurred shape out of the
corner of his eye and a second later he felt the shock of impact on
his back and the floor was rushing up at him.

The general rolled onto his back as he hit the floor, hand
reaching for his blaster pistol. Surprise and anger flared to life as
he brought the blaster up, only to drown in a flood of raw terror as
a massive claw reached out of the wall and seized the stormtrooper
who had shoved him out of the way.

The claw closed on the man's shoulder and cracked the
stormtrooper armor like eggshell. Blood spurted from the wound
as the monstrosity pulled its catch into a tooth-filled maw.

Beyin's eyes were bulging and bright behind helmet. The
Vong creature filled the portal, probably filled the entire elevator
shaft beyond. Mandibles long as a human's arm shoved the
struggling stormtrooper into the maw while two claws and
numerous armored legs gripped the edge of the door and began
pulling the bulky shape into the hall. Beyin's blaster was trained
on the thing, but he couldn't squeeze the trigger, couldn't move,
couldn't think. For the first time, since his first experience in real
combat a lifetime ago, he froze. The general was accustomed to
fighting, but this thing of scuttling legs and grasping claws with its
clusters of tiny, senseless eyes was something out a sentient's
nightmares.

The sound of a blaster firing and the flash of a bolt
impacting the thing's shell snapped him back to reality.
Instinctively he adjusted his aim so not to hit the struggling,
screaming stormtrooper and fired as he tried to get his feet under
him, scrambling backward to avoid the long, snapping claws.

The other stromtroopers were moving back, but some
didn't move fast enough, so Beyin observed as a claw shot out and
gripped a stromtrooper's middle, snapped the Imperial's spine and
hurled him into the wall. For the first time in his life Beyin envied
the humans, who lacked the visual ability of the Chiss and so could
only see dark shapes against a green background with their night
vision sensors instead of being subjected every gorey detail.

Blasterfire pelted the crustation from either side but did no
more than scorch its shell. So far the main body of troops were out
of reach; the Vong creature was only halfway out of the shaft and
seemed to be stuck, its makers had probably put it there when it
was younger and smaller and let it grow. Beyin's tactical mind
quickly noted that the beast was slowly inching through, the
blasterfire was doing little damage, and if it got loose in the
corridor he and his men would be so much hash on the walls.


Beyin noticed something more as well: while one of the
claws had dug into the durasteel floor for purchase and was
straining to pull the creature's bulk free, the other was raised,
shield like, across its 'face' where the stormtrooper, screaming and
struggling in blind panic, was still held.

"The eyes!" The discipline of the Chiss officers kept panic
from Beyin's voice and turned it into the whip-crack of authority.
"Shoot the eyes!"

Blasterfire was shifted to rain on the eye clusters. Most of
the bolts splashed the claw but a few found their mark. Beyin's
superior vision treated him to the disgusting sight of several tiny
black eyes popping like pus-filled pimples.

The creature emitted a high scream and swung its claws
wildly at the Imperials, but they were out of reach and it could
hardly see them because of the stormtrooper still gripped by its
mandibles, obscuring its vision. The beast had limited
intelligence, and was starting to realize taking hold of the
stormtrooper might not have been a good move on its part. It had
the idea of taking a few bites as it emerged from the burrow-space
its masters had given him, but its mandibles and maw weren't
strong enough to break through the enemy's white shell. The
trooper certainly wouldn't fit in its maw whole.

Its claws were powerful enough to crack that shell, it knew
that already, but it didn't have the dexterity or range of movement
to touch its own face. Too bad: when it got free, it would have to
crack them like shellfish instead of eating them live, like it
preferred.

It swung a claw at the enemies while hooking some legs on
the doorframe and continued working its way out, careful to it
would work its way free. It was more cautious now: these
creatures were small and weak, but they had stingers as well as
shells, flashes of light has already destroyed some of its eyes.
True, they would grow back in a few days, but the pain of the
wounds were unbearable. The struggling one in its maw wasn't
helping matters either, especially when one of its flailing limbs
struck the creature's wound, signaling a fresh wave of agony. That
was enough, it released the stormtrooper and flung it away with its
mandibles.

That was a mistake. Beyin saw the creature 'spit' the
trooper out, revealing the open maw, a clear path the to the
vulnerable parts inside the armor. He unhooked a small thermal
detonator from his belt, armed it and signaled a sensor droid.
After some quick instructions the droid hovered forward, past the
shooters and into the creature's reach. When it snapped the droid
up in its free claw and began to crush it, Beyin cocked back his
arm, took aim and threw.

The explosive shot into the maw and the beast reflexively
swallowed. Beyin ducked to the floor. A second later there was a
muffled boom and the entire 'face' exploded outward in a flood
of gore. The reflex-clench of the thing's claw cut the droid in half.

Beyin rolled over, wincing, he would feel this in the
morning: he kept himself in excellent shape, but he just wasn't as
spry as the younger men. He looked at the monster plugging up
the doorway first, to make certain it was dead. A glance told him
that was beyond question. His next thought was for the trooper it
had spit out.

"Check that man." He ordered, then took in the rest of his
troops. "Any injuries?" The stormtroopers were clearly shaken,
but the general's command of the situation helped bolster their
spirits. Good, he needed to maintain an image of control, to keep
their confidence up. They quickly took stock of themselves and
reported a negative.

Beyin nodded, turned back to the fallen trooper, and his
glowing eyes went wide with shock. He was glad the helmet hid
his face, this surprise had shaken his calm visage for an instant.
They had gotten the man's helmet off and Beyin could plainly see
that the trooper who had, without hesitation, pushed him out of the
beast's reach at the risk of his own life, was human.

"How is he?" He asked when he found his voice. He was
relieved to hear how level it was.

"Lost a lot of blood, sir." The trooper kneeling over him
said. "Gone into shock too. Good news is the armor protected him
from the worst of it. Got a broken arm, collarbone and maybe a
couple ribs."

Beyin nodded, observing the trooper's white, senseless
face. "Get him out of hear as soon as possible. The rest of you,"
he glanced at the dead monster, "clear the doorway."

It was difficult, pulling the creature out of the passage: the
stormtroopers hooked their arms around claws and legs, a few
braced themselves against the wall and pushed with their legs.
There was muffled cursing and some slipped in the newly-messed
floor, but the dead weight was dislodged.

Now that it was outside the corridor, Beyin could see the
creature was even bigger than it had first appeared. Light spilled
from the doorway, showing every detail: the lumin bugs in the
elevator shaft were still active and kept their place. A
stormtrooper leaned over and looked down the shaft. "Where's the
turbolift?"

Beyin looked at the flat-backed crab. "I believe we've just
killed it."

The general picked out five stormtroopers. "Uncoil the
lines and magnet-seal them to the shaft?s interior. We'll repel
down."

"You're going yourself, sir?" An officer started. "The risk-"

"If we don't dig Coerl out soon we will lose a valuable
opportunity." He tested the line. "We'll keep our com links open.
Double-check your helmet-cams," he said to the troopers going
with him, "the Admiral will want a record of this."


The six Imperials braced themselves and jumped out,
unreeled some line and stopped the reel after three seconds. Their
weight swung them back to the wall and Beyin felt the impact of
his feet travel all the way to the top of his head. Mejas is right,
he thought grimly, I am getting too old for this. For months his
wife had been pressing him to stay off the battlefield, or at least to
command from a safe distance. His response had always been the
same: "I wouldn't trust these humans to lace their own boots
without me standing over them." That was his attitude on this
mission as well, but almost getting scooped out of one's armor and
eaten by a giant crab can encourage one to stop and take stock.

Perhaps I'll try and avoid direct combat after this, he
thought, a little sadly, Mejas should be relieved, if I'm too old for
battle, then she's too old to moon over her man's latest scars. He
chuckled quietly, she probably wouldn't be so happy to hear it
that way, he decided. So he would phrase it in just those words.

They had gone down nearly two levels when Beyin noticed
their companions: the lumin bugs that hovered just a foot over
their heads, gently glowing. The humans would no longer need
their night vision.

The Imperials landed, unhooked their harnesses and let
them hang, then readies their blasters. The door to the last
sublevel was a normal-looking one that slid into the wall,
apparently the Vong saw nothing wrong with that simple
mechanics. It was closed, but there were handles and the door
itself looked light.

"You take point," Beyin indicated one trooper, "the rest of
us will spread out behind him. We don't know what we're dealing
with, so set blasters on high and shoot anything that moves." The
troopers gave quick, affirmative nods. Beyin took the handle and
pulled the door into the wall.

In the backs of their minds, the Imperials had expected to
see something resembling the inside of an insect hive in this place,
far from prying eyes, where the trappings of the surface
civilization could be set aside: a stone cavern, stripped bare of
technology but covered by strange and grotesque organic devices.
They expected slime, buzzing, transparent wings and things that
scuttled on fast little legs. What they saw was a sunny day in paradise.

The grass, the lake, the colorful avians and the bright
sunshine were so overwhelming a contrast to horrors above that it
took a moment to register the single Yuuzhan Vong standing
before them, about five paces from the entry.

The Vong female was armored, but her head and hands
were bare. A tall, portly Jrukto in military-style clothing stood
beside her, looking both hopeful and terrified. The alien held
something in both hands, heart-shaped and spined.

Beyin blinked. "Fire!"

Blaster bolts streaked past the doorway, converged and
vanished at a point a good foot from the Vong. The alien wore a
smug half-smile and held out the dovin basal as if she were a
primitive native offering what beads and rocks her tribe took for
wealth to the strange sky-gods, a scene Beyin had witnessed
several times on backward planets brought into the Empire.

The point man charged through the door, blaster raised to
shoot again, and in less than a second he was yanked off his feet
pulled forward, compressed into a speck of dust and sucked into
another universe, caught by the miniature gravity well of the dovin
basal.

A fresh volley of blasterfire was sent through the door, only
to meet the same fate as the first. The Vong took a step forward
and tilted her head to one side.

"The gods taste your fear." She spoke in Basic. The
remaining five stormtroopers had pressed their backs against the
far end of the shaft. By now they knew their weapons were
useless, but the sheer, blind panic that seized all of them, even
Beyin, kept them firing anyway. The Vong took another step and
Beyin fancied he could feel the undeniable tug of gravity.

For a moment she stood and contemplated the Imperials,
then began walking steadily toward them. "Enough of this." Her
eyes glittered and her smile was a savage baring of teeth. "Feed
the gods."

****************************************
Kei Rascer and the other minders had made a mistake in
dealing with Coerl: they failed to understand him. They believed
he was just another soft, weak-willed infidel, he certainly broke
quickly enough, and so never expected trouble from his quarter.
As a result, Kei Rascer paid no attention to him at all as she moved
to deal with the Imperials, as if the Warlord was just another of the
ever-obedient Vong creatures.

It was a mistake Thrawn would never have made.

Coerl was a great many things: an opportunist, a liar, a
thief, a slave master and a murderer thousands of times over, but
he had never been a coward. True, he wouldn't fight for a hopeless
cause, and true to his opportunistic nature he would always try to
make the best of his situation, but if he believed there was a
chance of victory, even the ghost of a chance, then he would fight
like only a cornered ranat could.

The Warlord glanced at Kei Rascer as the troopers opened
fire and one poor fool was sucked into the dovin basal, he saw she
was concentrating exclusively on the Imperials. Quickly but
quietly, he moved to a small desk he had noted earlier, noticing the
long coufee that lay atop it. He closed his fingers on the weapon
and lifted it. Strong, well-balanced, freshly-sharpened, it would
do.

The Obeyers would have stopped him immediately if he
tried to attack Kei Rascer: she had told him long ago never to raise
hand or weapon to a Yuuzhan Vong, but she had said nothing
about Vong creatures.


Moving with speed and agility that hinted a good portion of
his bulk was still muscle, Coerl crossed the room, drawing back
his arm.

"Feed the gods." Kei Rascer was saying. The Imperials
were probably about to dirty their fine, white armor. Coerl
rammed the blade into the dovin basal up to its hilt, wrenched it
away from Kei Rascer and hurled it away, coufee and all. It
impacted a wall, hung for a moment, caught on the vines by its
spike, then dropped to the grass dragging the flowering plants with
it. Kei Rascer spun, eyes wide, and Coerl saw something on her
face he would have died a hundred times over the past three years
to see: total shock, complete disbelief.

"Feed them yourself." Coerl grinned at her with an
expression of pure triumph. The stormtroopers were rushing out
of the shaft, raising their weapons. Shock turned to rage as Kei
Rascer swung her arm at Coerl in a move too fast for him to avoid
even if the Obeyers allowed him to dodge. The first of the blaster
bolts struck her torso as her claws caught his neck, tearing his
throat out as she was flung backwards by the force. The feeling of
joy wasn't lessened in the least by the pain and the feel of warmth
running down his neck and chest. This was, undoubtably, the
greatest victory of his life.

***********************************************
Thrawn was watching the final scene play itself out on his
monitors as the sliding doors heralded Captain Parck's arrival with
a low swish. The recording, taken from a stormtrooper's
helmet-cam, showed the conflict under the bunker from a firsthand
prospective.

"A moment, Captain." Thrawn stroked his chin as he
studied the images. "This is almost over." Freed from the dovin
basal, stormtroopers charged out of the turbolift and opened fire on
the Vong female while Coerl bled the last of his life out on the
grass.

"Ironic that the Warlord should play such an important part
in this, isn't it Captain?" Thrawn murmured. "Ironic, unexpected,
but with a touch of dramatic symmetry that is almost artistic."

If you say so. Parck thought. Personally, he was too
happy all had worked out so well to notice patterns.

The recording was naturally a bit grainy and the picture
tended to wobble, but Parck could make out the action. The
blasterfire converged, knocking the armored Vong to the ground.
She was up in a heartbeat though, wielding one of those double-
edged daggers Vergere had called coufees. She was moving with
unbelievable speed, not retreating but rather attacking Beyin and
the stormtroopers. She actually managed to kill one and injure
another before her armor finally gave way to the blaster bolts.


Right now, the corpse of Coerl's chief minder was being
thoroughly autopsied by a team of Imperial surgeons and droids.
In whatever plane of existence he now occupied, the Warlord
would undoubtably be thrilled to know his tormentor was being
scanned, analyses and taken apart by hated machines.

Thrawn switched off the recording and turned to the
captain. "Very enlightening. Now, what is our status?" Parck
handed him a datapad.

"Battle damage and casualty reports," the captain said, "as
well as recommendations for promotions in the ground forces from
General Beyin. He recommends one injured stormtrooper for the
commendation medal." Park stood at ease. "I've also been in
contact with Moff Niriz; the warlords have pulled back their fleets
and appear to be on the defensive."

Thrawn nodded. "Without the plagues they no longer have
common cause, nor do they have Coerl to goad them, and none
wish to be caught off-guard as he was." He scanned the casualty
lists first and shook his head. "The families of those killed in
action have been notified and compensated?"

"Moff Niriz has arranged it."

Thrawn nodded and returned the datapad to Parck, who
glanced down and saw the admiral had marked out the names of
those who had served with special distinction. "I will express my
condolences to these families personally." He stood and walked to
one of the pieces of holographic art. "A pity, we have lost some
exceptional men."

"Men die in any battle." Parck nodded. "That's a reality we
all face, and it's never easy to replace good soldiers. Unless you
know where to find some Spaarti cloning cylinders I don't see how
it can be avoided." The last sentence was spoken with deliberate
levity and punctuated with a chuckle, but instead of smiling
Thrawn turned and regarded him with his eyebrows slightly
arched.

"An interesting observation, Captain. I will think on it
later." He paced to a small table at the far end of the room and set
his glowing eyes on another prize of particular interest; a head-
sized, leathery sphere, inert to all appearances. The villip that had
been inside the clam-creature under the bunker, miraculously
undamaged by flying blaster bolts.

"I wonder, Captain, if the Vong sent word of our attack to
Sang Anor." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. If he doesn't know
by now he's lost Coerl, he soon will. We can expect him to make a
move against us soon, but now he will be forced to act in a much
more direct manner." He smiled. "I am close, Captain, very close
to drawing our true enemy out into the open." He turned to Parck.
"Finish your briefing."


Things had gone perfectly, better than any could have
hoped. The counterattack by Coerl's fleet had been disorderly,
unplanned, reactionary and lacking in strength. Thrawn's forces
had taken damage, given a lot more, and the enemy forces had
pulled back. More Imperial ships were arriving and royalist forces
had taken control of Orune Prime. Coerl had eradicated the old
royal family in his first years in power, but the formerly outlawed
noble classes had compared bloodlines and determined who had
the strongest claim to the throne. A coronation ceremony had just
occurred in the capital. A new Monarch ruled the Jrukto, with an
Imperial advisor at her side of course, and plans for Orune Prime's
induction into the Empire were being finalized.

Enemy hold-outs on Orune Prime were being contained,
and without Coerl the fleet and planets had no central leadership.
The late Warlord's commanders were too busy carving up Coerl's
territory to mount an attack, and none of them had the will or the
strength to do so anyway. By now the plagues the Vong had
unleashed were burned out. The sick were being treated by the
best Imperial doctors, and instead of shaking Unity Fleet and its
protectorates apart, the disaster had the Imperial territories more
close knit than ever once Thrawn had given them Coerl as a
common enemy to focus on.

Aside from the creatures in the bunker, there appeared to
be no Yuuzhan Vong presence on Orune Prime. Imperial and
royalist troops hadn't encountered anything except conventional
weaponry in the fighting. The surviving Vong must have gone to
ground somewhere on the planet. Thrawn had ordered that any
unknown human or Chiss be detained and checked, and Imperial
troops were warned to stay on their guard and not get separated, in
case the Vong tried to isolate some troopers and assume their
identities for the purpose of sabotage and assassination, as they
had on the Admonitor.

"On a closing note, sir, we have just received word from
the Miashku system. On hearing of our victory at Orune Prime,
the High Councilers have arrested several of the late Warlord's
operatives who were encouraging them to withdraw from the
Empire. The High Council offers a total and public vote of
support to you in whatever your endeavors. Also, Moff Niriz
reports the Admonitor is spaceworthy again. He has selected a
captain for her and a new crew is being trained."

"Excellent, excellent." The Grand Admiral nodded. "Once
the repair crews have finished work on the Imperitor we will set
course for Orrsa. Captain Zreem will remain as head of the
planetary garrison. Once we arrive at Orrsa I intend to contact
Imperial Center and try to speak with the Emperor. Hopefully he
and Lord Vader have crushed the rebellion with their Death Star by
now and will be free to-"

"Kei Rascer."

Both Imperials spun to face the strange voice behind them.
Parck reached for his blaster, Thrawn's was already drawn and
aimed at the source of the voice.

A severed head.


That was Parck's initial reaction to the active villip.
Thrawn had told him about the Vong communication devices and,
intellectually, he knew what they did, but he felt his stomach twist
at how realistic the face was. It must have inverted and
morphed the visage of a Yuuzhan Vong, one with more scars and
tattoos than Parck had seen on any of the Vong corpses they had
obtained so far. The Captain shivered, and not just because of the
grotesque alien-ness of the creature. There was something about
that face, a quality of the eyes, that made Parck feel like a blade of
ice was twisting in his stomach even though he knew it was only a
representation.

"Kei Rascer." It said again, slightly louder, in a voice more
realistic than any com-link could provide. Then the villip...waited,
its 'face' composed and ?eyes? lowered, probably reflecting how the
real Vong was directing his eyes to his own villip.

Thrawn had holstered his blaster and Parck belatedly did
likewise while the Chiss slowly circled the table. The talking head
simply waited, evidently expecting a response. "Well," the
Admiral said quietly, "the Vong must contact Coerl's minders at
about this time."

"Sir," Parck swallowed, unable to look away from the
villip, "do you think that?s-"

"Sang Anor. Yes, I believe so." Thrawn pulled out a chair
and sat, facing the villip. Parck took a step forward. So this was
the enemy himself, the being who?d caused them so much misery
lately. Thrawn studied the face while the Vong waited patiently
for his chief overseer to report.

"Should I get..." Parck trailed off, technitions and splicer
droids wouldn?t do any good, perhaps a biologist could scan the
thing for whatever it used to communicate, "someone?"

"No need, Captain, just switch on my chambers' internal
sensors and holocams, the controls are on the arm of my command
chair." Parck did as he was told, and when he turned back he saw
the admiral reaching both hands to the villip.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

"I think it's time the Executor and I spoke, face to face, or
at least in a close approximation."

"Is this safe?" Parck asked as Thrawn's fingertips touched
either side of the ridge encircling the villip's 'neck.'

"From what Vergere told me, yes I believe so." The villip's
face turned upward and its eyes met Thrawn's gaze as the
connection was made.

Sang Anor seemed to nod slightly, and then he saw the
features his villip assumed. The eyes widened fractionally for a
second, then narrowed slowly. Parck, a veteran of more than a few
battles, found he was very relieved that Sang Anor's villip could
only show him Thrawn's face and let him hear Thrawn's voice. He
had a feeling that being noticed by that Yuuzhan Vong wasn't
exactly conductive to a long and healthy life.


They were silent for a long moment, the Chiss Admiral
staring intently at what appeared to be a severed head, which in
turn was staring back at him just as intently. The image might
have been ridiculous if Parck hadn't known how deadly serious
this was. Both were probing, studying, taking each other's
measure, waiting to see who would make the first move. It was
Sang Anor who finally spoke.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn, I presume?" A cool, smooth
voice, the tone was one of a greeting between prominent
individuals who have heard of, but never met, one another. Parck
wasn't sure what, exactly, he expected: snarling rage, threats,
demands to know what was going on, something like that.
Certainly not this sedate voice.

"And you would be Sang Anor." Not a question, a
statement of fact. The Vong lifted his brows, then narrowed his
eyes in understanding.

"The Jedi told you my name." He said pleasantly, two
acquaintances discussing a mutual friend.

"She told me a great many things about you." Thrawn
answered in the same tone.

"Is that so?" Sang Anor replied. "I take it your possession
of this villip means I have lost my...local support?"

"You are correct."

"I see." Parck felt his heart pounding in his chest. They
both sounded so pleasant, so civilized, but if they were truly
face-to-face they would be trying to kill each other with their bare
hands by now. He fought the urge to step back further. This
conversation made him feel like a Jawa huddling in the sand while
two krayt dragons circled one another, probing for weaknesses
before they began a fight only one would walk away from. The
likes of Parck could be crushed in a battle between those two, and
neither would even notice.

"If the Jedi told anything about me, you would know how
unwise it is to continue getting in my way."

"Really? I think the reverse would be more accurate."
Thrawn leaned forward. "Opposing me is a mistake, Executor: you
tried twice, you failed twice. Now you have lost Coerl and all the
power and territories he controlled. Your influence in the
Unknown Regions has evaporated while I have never been more
secure." A smile as false as a Sith lord's promises crept across his
face. "I would think you?d be tired of dancing around by now and
realize these schemes of yours are getting you nowhere. I was
given to understand Yuuzhan Vong were warriors." He finished in
a tone of disappointment.

"My methods have yielded some results, you must admit."
Sang Anor smiled back. "Ask all the Imperials my plagues have
struck down, and all your protectorates who will yet fall ill."


"There will not be any future victims." Thrawn said coldly,
the pleasant tone vanished replaced by a slight edge in his voice.
He gave the Vong a look Parck hoped would never be directed at
him. "Your spore plants have been destroyed." The glow from his
eyes brightened several degrees, the only sign of emotion he
allowed. "I mean to see you dead for that."

The calmly-delivered threat would have left any half-
intelligent sentient shaking. Sang Anor didn't show any apparent
reaction at all. Then he smiled.

"No." He laughed softly.

"No what?" Thrawn?s mouth twitched slightly.

"You're not ready for that, Chiss. You're still
too...civilized...to understand how Yuuzhan Vong fight."

"I understand enough."

"Again, no. This fight is still too much of an intellectual
exercise for you, Thrawn. You need to be...bloodied. You need
some stains on that pristine uniform of yours." He showed his
teeth. "I'll help you with that."

"What are you going to do? Have me shot in the back?
Unleash another plague?"

"I'm going to wound you, Admiral. I'm going to put a scar
on you that will last the rest of your life. My face will be the first
thing you think of when you wake up, the last before you sleep,
and my name will echo in your dreams, then you will know how
to fight as Yuuzhan Vong do."

"Resorting to vague threats, I'm very intimidated."

"You'll get no hints from me, it would spoil the surprise."
Parck ground his teeth. "My next move will be personal, Thrawn.
Very personal."

The face seemed to lose definition and began to sink in on
itself as Sang Anor released his own villip. Thrawn withdrew his
hands as the villip inverted and became inert.

Thrawn folded his hands, saying nothing, still watching the
villip.

"Sir," Parck ventured, "should I turn off the sensors?"

"Yes, I believe so." Parck turned to the chair. "Captain,"
Parck turned to Thrawn and saw something in the glowing eyes he
had never observed there before: a lack of confidence that he
would be tempted to call fear in any other being, "I think I may
have miscalculated."