Dagobah Slip Stream
Part Nineteen
Vo and Slee passed side by side, back to their 'goddess', carrying Czulkang Lah's villip. They wore the armor of their individual castes. And held their heads high.
Mistress Cas had ordered the Shamed Ones to capture and bind the last three living warriors, The Shapers and Priests. Then sit in a circle around them, in the square in the center of the encampment.
Then Vua and Uun stripped the Shapers and Priests of any markings indicating their rank, and all the warriors of any weapons or armor.
The survivors would act as spies, unwittingly spies. They would report what they'd seen and heard to ex-Warmaster Lah. And Czalkang Lah would act on it as he saw fit.
But first they had to get the spies back to the worldship.
The question was, though, how do you get the Vong to come in and take something you want to be taking without tipping your hand as to why.
Obviously, give them false reasons they would believe more than the one you really have and let them take measures. Luckily, they had something that would demand the commander's action.
A 'goddess' demanding punishment.
They laid the pad with the villip on it in front of their 'goddess'.
She was sitting in the grass. Her body was sheathed in unidentifiably black crab armor. He oddly colored eyes closed. Her legs crossed. Her arms resting on her knees. Her Lightsaber sitting in front of her, deactivated. She was meditating. Just like when they'd met her a little over a day ago.
She took one knee. "Madame." The priestess said, they stood at the edge of the square, near were she had made her entrance.
"Activate the little bugger." She said it without opening her eyes. Her tone wasn't exactly snappy but it definitely had the edge of a command.
Slee began stroking the poor enslaved creature. And she wondered what it would be like when they go back to Cas's camp. With that thought her mind was flooded with images. Facts, faces, places and Machines filled her mind. What surprised her most was that she wasn't revolted or afraid like the rest of her people, but exhilarated.
That was a puzzle.
A face showed on the villip and she leaned back so that the creature wouldn't pick up her image.
"Mistress, it is ready." She saw puzzlement cross the man's face. She thought to her Lady. 'It's not the Warmaster.'
Cas glared. She moved in front of the creature so that it could convey her features across space.
"What is this?" The man demanded. "Where is Commander Fin Kwaad?"
"Hello, Dirt bitter." She smiled at him, a smile of pure malice.
They could all see the man become uncomfortable.
"Poor slug," She gave a strangely sympathetic frown. "Why don't you put you're commander on? So that you can go back to your nursery?"
Slee got it. It wasn't sympathy, it was mockery.
"What? Who are you to criticize me? I am the ex-Warmaster!"
"No, you are some body's poor clueless toady." Her voice lost its mockery and gained the edge of a teacher correcting an ignorant pupil. "You see, you have just done two things a seasoned warrior never does."
"First, you gave away information. You told me who you should be talking to, and thus who I should be pretending to be. And you told me who you are trying to be. Second, you also let me mock you, without any consequence, and what's worse, agitate you."
"Once you figured I'm not whom I'm supposed to be you are forced to negotiate to find out why a supposed enemy would contact you so directly. And Anger is of no use in negotiation."
"So, I suggest you stop wasting my time and let someone competent speak, like the Warmaster. Who I would guess is standing over your shoulder, which is probably the only thing that had let you speak with reasonable intelligence for this long."
The blob cleared for a moment and then a more distinguished face formed. She got assurances from her four that this was the man.
"Czulkang Lah." He said as greeting.
"Cas Shik'rican." She said, matching his tone.
"Why have you decided to communicate to me? Surely you have more reason than to disparage one of my men."
"As much fun as it was, I have plenty reason." She cleared her throat. "I want you to send a corvette-analog to this location."
"You are aware of the abominations soaring above you. They may prove to be an obstacle."
She almost frowned, he was treating her as an infant. That would not do, she would have to teach him the legendary fear of the Shik'rican. "Yes, yes. I know they are there. They will let you through. You have my word on that."
"Why do you want us to come to that camp?"
"I figured you would want to take your dead and my hostages."
He nodded sagely but didn't comment.
"Have you been aware of manipulation and ambition amongst certain castes?"
He glared at her slightly, wondering at her other meaning. "Perhaps, why?"
"They have been shunning beloved Warriors, Shapers and Priests into Shamed Ones."
He nodded. "Why do you care, infidel?"
"I see," She said. "You used that term in an attempt to remind me of my place. To remind me that I am below a Great, Yuuzahn Vong Warrior. But you see, you are not one to tell me my place." She smiled like there was some inter-galactic joke on him.
She quickly turned that into a disproving mask. Just like flipping a switch, there long enough for it to almost register then gone, poof. "If I wish to punish or have punished people who are making themselves 'gods' this is my business and you will see to it, if I say you will see to it."
She dropped her eyes then brought them up slowly. "Or you will come down here and the two of us will duel." She smirked, a bare twist of lips. "I assure you, you will die." See, she was learning. She blanked her face then gave a tight-lipped smile. "That will leave the capture of Borleais to someone much less capable."
"Your very shrewd, you know that would mean failure. And you wouldn't except that now would you?"
"But either way, a corvette analog will come down to this planet and it might as well take these when it goes back to space."
He glared at her. "Why should you care about our gods?"
"Why shouldn't I?" She raised her chin in a gesture of defiance in the face of whatever authority he was trying to put upon her. "They are cursing good warriors, faithful servants. Making my work more. I will not let Vong -yes Vong- dictate to me what I will do. No matter how indirectly. Do you understand?"
She stopped him with a terse shake of her head. "No, don't say anything, you don't understand. What you will do, though, is send the ship I have specified to this spot. It will fly past the Errant Venture, the red triangle ship. StarFighters that it will not fire upon will escort it in. For if your ship fires at all, it will be fired upon and destroyed. That will get you killed, because you will be on the ship. So you will not fire because we don't want you dead yet." She smiled, just a toothy grin.
"You will pick up this camp, the bodies and the survivors. Those who have been ordered to confess crimes will, fully, and be punished accordingly. Oh, I suggest you record some of this stuff, you'll need to hear it once or twice to believe it."
"You have one hour." She moved back and Slee rubbed the creature to invert and cut the connection.