Dagobah Slip Stream
Part Eighteen
The clouds above them gathered and darkened. The Yuuzahn Vong silenced.
She smiled. She had their attention.
Thunder sounded and rain began to fall. First light and then harder, only when it was at the verge of hail she let it back off.
She summoned lightening.
She held the gauntlet up and imagined it like the hand of a baby rancor.
She called Lightening down to her hand, knowing the gauntlet would absorb the energy and use it to make the images appear to her audience like she wanted.
The Lightening struck her 'claw' and, at the same time, she dropped the invisible shroud hiding her from their eyes.
Her audience gasped in uncontrolled surprise. 'Did that woman really just appear in that bolt of lightening?' Or was it anger of some sort? She'd probably never know, but now was not the time to think on it.
She let her hood fall back.
She appeared to the as Yun-Shuno. Her hair was a nest of blood red tentacles. Her skin the blue-gray of the Yuuzhan Vong. Her face was missing its nose and she had tattoos like animal teeth along her jaw. Her eyebrow ridge protruded like a wide band and had no hair. Her eyes were orbs of static electricity. She wore a tight white dress and a living, hissing snake-belt.
Another bolt of lightening struck her hand and she became her self. Long dark brown hair, with Her face. Except her eyes were still orbs of white static electricity. Her light brown tunic and darker brown pants, belt, and boots. Her 'claw' turned into the metal gauntlet and it held her Lightsaber.
She played with the light around her so it illuminated her, giving her an unearthly glow. Letting them see every detail of her appearance so those she let survive could give their superiors exact information.
She slowly let her eyes revert into their normal state.
"Yuuzahn Vong! Hear me!" She cried as she mentally signaled for her four to come, stand behind her. She also used it to project her voice over the growing wind. "It is I, Yun-Shuno! I have come to show myself and tell you, I am not pleased." She began lowering the glow around her.
"Your priests are not fulfilling their oaths to your gods. They favor few and ignore myself and others." She started lowering her hand. "Until they are faithful in their duty, we shall punish you all."
She saw a Shaper in the front smirk. Well that was bitchy. But she almost smirked herself as Vo gave her an idea. "But," she said. "They are not the only ones over stepping their bounds. Shaper's, why are you making yourselves to be 'gods'?"
She focused on the group of Shapers in the front, to her right. "You will go back to your Fleet commander. Tell him all of your crimes against the Yuuzahn Vong and their 'gods' and he will punish you." She made her voice a snarl. "Fear Not. If your punishment is not enough, an afterlife you could not imagine awaits you."
"My Shamed Ones," she said. "Take rest in the knowledge, you are pardoned. You have but one step to take to make ensure your 'goddess's' favor. Take what you see here to your masters, then sacrifice your selves, knowing you are worthy."
She pointed to a spot in the center of the crowd and they all parted. "Warriors of the Yun-Yammka, take your 'god's' judgement."
She did a flip off the stage and activated her Lightsaber. She decapitated the first one while she was inverted. As she landed she cleaved two more in half, along the waist joints in their armor.
The crowd was dispersing and she had a moment to wonder if it was from fear or to let the Warriors move. She heard the zoom of thud bugs whizzing past her head. She heard screams as the bugs found homes in the bodies of two ex-Shamed Ones.
She stopped and looked at the warriors, everything seemed to freeze on them, everyone stared. They had just killed Shamed Ones after they were pardoned. "You, I will not defend." She said to the two frozen, staring warriors.
Two others however were not thrown off by her action and flung thud bugs at her. She held up her hand and angled them away from herself and the crowd behind her. Then manipulated the air around them and sent the thud bugs 'return to sender'.
First, they flew to the shock-frozen warriors, decapitating them. Then back to the two behind them that had thrown the bugs.
Two others threw more thud bugs at her.
They just weren't quick learners. She sighed. Hard to give up a good tactic, even when it doesn't work. She forced the bugs back to their throwers.
She saw two more fiddling with their bug belts and sighed. She let them struggle while she fenced a third and ran through a fourth. Fed up with their attempts she reached out and woke the bugs.
The bugs ate through their holsters and the warriors that were wearing them. And they died, overstuffed, but happy bugs.
The last four were falling back, probably defending some one that though himself too important to be killed. Two of them were hiding behind the wall of a hut, throwing thud bugs at her.
Was it just her or were these not very bright?
She'd let Vua handle hem, surely two comparatively stupid, and probably green warriors would be of no challenge to him.
She started walking. No, more like stalking toward them. There were six thud bugs in winging around, in the air. She froze the air around them so they couldn't move.
She heard a voice in her head. She had heard it before, during the show she had put on but not like this. Then it had been whispering to her, but now it was stronger. 'Give me what I want. Give me what I need.' It was the gauntlet. How did the Gauntlet gain a voice? A Dark Voice?
It was a stupid question, for she knew the answer. Some one Dark had worn the Jedi artifact before her. And it had been tainted by that person's power.
But objects of power tuned to your every thought are tricky. It switched tactics. 'Free me,' it said, 'I am a thing of Light. Give me what I need and while you do clean me with your Light.' It Said. 'Or I will not let you go.' And she felt the thing pierce her, holding tighter.
She struggled not to scream, but no one would have known any way. They were all suspended, like the oxygen around them. They would never know what was going on around them.
She kept moving forward. Dark lightening cackled around the fingers of the glove like it was a power coupling. She held the arm before her. The lightening jumped from her hand to the last two warriors, frying and killing them. Then to the Master Shaper, stunning him.
She released her hold on the air around her as soon as the glove let her. She was faced with the Commander and the stunned, falling Master Shaper. She felt her four behind her. She didn't even look at them. They knew what she wanted of them.
Vua Shai walked forward. He was holding the amphistaff of a fallen warrior. He cut off the Shapers eight-fingered hand as Vo pulled of his shaper's headdress.
"Take their armor." She said. "I have the commander's here. Uun and Vua Shai will take the other two over there. Slee will take what she can find. Shaper, take the Shapers."
"But Shapers do not need armor, we do not fight."
"This Shaper has armor, does he not?"
"He does."
She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "You are under my command until Yun-Ne'Shel orders otherwise. And I say you will need the armor whether you follow me on to the battlefield or I allow you to stay at headquarters."
"Why would we follow you onto the battlefield?" Vua said.
She felt a little irritation creeping into the back of her mind. She knew they had scripted out the conversation, but that didn't mean she liked being questioned, especially in front of enemies.
"Because Yun-Yammka's host is gifted for StarFighters and mine for Ground Fighting. Because he agreed if I carried out this simple task my host would be considered capable and allowed command ground troops."
Vua held his head up stubbornly. "What if I want to join him in these …StarFighters?"
"I'd wish you good luck and farewell." She let her annoyance creep into her voice. "I already have Jagged Fel flying in that position, you are not needed there. He would laugh in your face, ask you who told you his secret, then kill you. And I forbid you to waste your gifts." She spoke. Her venomense growing in the last sentence. She glared him down. "This will not happen again. You will never question me."
Vua nodded, bowed apologizingly, then removed the Commander's cloak of command and placed it on his own command hooks. He also rubbed the Commander's armor so that it woke up and slid off the man. The commander didn't even bother fighting Vua.
She looked over her shoulder and Slee and Vo moved to do the next task she had given them. Bring her the villip that connected to their fleet commander.
She threw back the flaps of her cloak and stepped over to the armor. It began attaching itself to her. Pore by painful pore. Instead of showing pain she opened herself to the Force. She could hear the thoughts of those around her.
She almost snorted. She was a powerful female and even the great, disciplined Yuuzahn Vong were so very male, even in the face of death. But she ignored their thoughts and reached out to Kir. He was a few Kilometers away, following her Force scent back to her speeder.
He felt her around him. She whispered to him, telling him what she wanted him to do. He nodded and pulled out his comm link.
"Main Control, this is Knight Kir Die'ril. Connect me to General Antilles, he won't believe what Knight Cas wants now."