Chapter 4- Warmaster
Deep within the bowels of the Hall of Confluence, Thass sat nervously on a polyp chair, glancing agitatedly from time to time at the broadcast oggzil that was displaying the images from over two hundred meters above them. The Hall had changed, now. In the three klekkets since the commencement of the war against the machine users, the Hall had become a dark place, full of shadows and the faint acrid tinge of bloodsmell to the air. Yuuzhan's dais had fallen into disrepair, spared only because of a lingering respect for the once-leader of the Yuuzhan Vong. Altars surrounded it, decorated with idols of the vicious gods whom the transformed Yuuzhan Vong now served.
Thass was disgusted.
He had learned much at Yuuzhan's hands over the past half klekket. He could now feel the pulse of the Force, a soothing stream of energy which flowed through him. He could detect the presence of two others in the chamber, feel the foul hatreds and black hearts of the other Yuuzhan Vong above them, feel even the small flickers of life that emanated from the biological portions of the machine users far overhead.
The battles had not halted in all the time since the beginning of the war. Many new coralskippers and thamaloks had fallen to the brute force of the mechanical invaders, yet the machine users were not gaining ground. None of their troops had reached the ground of Yuuzhan'tar as yet, and over two hundred thousand bodies had been recovered from the many transports that dotted the surface of the world.
A flicker of motion in the image the oggzil was projecting caught Thass' eye, and he straightened nervously. Yuuzhan had appeared on his dais, and the excited crowds jostled nearer to him, murmurs spreading like lightning among them.
"My children," Yuuzhan said sadly, slowly. "What have you now to show me?" Thass felt rage well up within himself at the violent dereliction of the formerly peaceful Yuuzhan Vong and Yuuzhan's grave error in direction, but he drew it out with a long breath. Uncontrolled rage would do him no good.
"Yuuzhan!" shouted a deep voice, and a space parted in the crowd. "Our victory is at hand!"
Thass forgot his calm and the Force as he recognized the Yuuzhan Vong who stood in the center of that gap. It was Khette! His old friend! What could he possibly be doing with warriors? He was not a fighting man.
"We have long sought for a route to end this war!" he said, stalking in a slow circle. "Would it not be wonderful to do that as quickly as possible?"
Yuuzhan shook his head sadly. "We do not know our enemy's full strength," he said. "This may not be all that they can bring to fight against us."
"Then why have we not seen those reinforcements thus far?" Khette challenged him.
Yuuzhan's eyes blazed, the first real display of anger Thass had seen in him. "Who are you to address me thus, warrior? I have cared for this world for millennia, and it would be as nothing for me to destroy you! You are only Khette of the intendants, and no warrior as I know you!"
"That is where you are wrong!" Khette proclaimed. "I have cast off that name in favor of one that describes me better!"
"And what might that be, warrior?" Yuuzhan said coldly, turning the honorific into a vile epithet.
"I am Yo'gand!" Khette said in deadly monotone. "Yo'gand: Staff of Victory! The one who will hand the Yuuzhan Vong their victory over this vile coalition of machine users!"
Surprise registered on Yuuzhan's face as well. "Victory?" he said. "Though I am grieved at the turn of events and would not shed a tear for the loss of some of you, I hardly think victory is near. Yo'gand," he added slowly.
"You are wrong!" Khette shouted, and some of the crowd flinched, causing Thass to smirk. So, some of them still feared the world consciousness. "We have made our victory!"
"Made?" Yuuzhan said, not bothering to conceal his confusion and irritation now. "What is this nonsense?"
"Yes, made!" Khette- Yo'gand- shouted again. The man seemed to have only one volume for his voice. "I have brought this about. I have become a warrior and gained respect of all the castes! This victory will be my doing!"
"Silence!" Yuuzhan boomed, and a deathly calm fell over the Hall of Confluence. "Will you no longer listen to reason, my children? Can you not see that the Yuuzhan Vong are embarked on a fruitless, self-defeating course? You cannot hope to enjoy victory any longer! You are consumed with bloodlust, and will never be sated!"
A short laugh from Yo'gand was the only sound the filled the air after Yuuzhan's outburst. "You are again mistaken!" he said. "The Yuuzhan Vong have our gods and we will be gloried in the afterlife!"
"Show me your 'victory', then, Yo'gand," Yuuzhan said. "How have you 'made' this salvation of the Yuuzhan Vong!"
Yo'gand laughed again. "With pleasure," he said, and then turned towards the entrance of the hall. "Do'ro ik vong pratte!" he bellowed.
A throbbing, humming roar filled the room, deep and powerful, and everyone started violently. Thass could feel the vibration through the roof of their underground sanctuary, and flinched in fear. The oggzil moved to show the entrance to the Hall of Confluence. The doors were flung open, and a massive dark shape was backlit against the stars outside.
Thass reached out with his growing Force senses, and touched the creature hesitantly. A cold hand seized his mind and pried at his thoughts. A rage filled Thass, and he could feel the creature's manic bloodlust and vicious calculation as he struggled to free himself. Finally, he was let go with a sudden snap of mental energy that sent him reeling to the floor. Gasping, he wrenched his head around to look at the oggzil's image.
Slowly, the figure stalked forward. It was even larger than at first glance, rising more than a meter over the heads of the tallest Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Spikes radiated from its humped back, and massive tusks protruded from its heavy, low-slung jow. Four red eyes glared out, and arms composed of three tentacle-like appendages similar to amphistaffs in appearance waved in triple warnings of death. Four shuffling legs bore the immense weight forward.
The creature walked the whole length of the Hall to Yuuzhan's dais in silence broken only by its breathing and footfalls. It stopped there, looking up at the world consciousness for several seconds, almost as if assessing him, and then spun to regard the massed warriors.
Then it spoke. "Yuuzhan Vong!" it gurgled. "I am your Warmaster! Behold the Vua'sa!"
"It was angry," Thass said quietly as he sat in a small circle with Yuuzhan and the six others of their small group. "Angry, and cold. It had no emotions."
"Yes," Yuuzhan said sadly. "It is a creature born of an insatiable desire to kill, and thus cannot be called anything but a monster."
"Warmaster," one of the others murmured. His name was Krenek, a former sparkbee farmer like Thass. "What is a Warmaster?"
"Yo'gand," Yuuzhan began, and then stopped, a disgusted look on his face. "How can that gentle man have fallen so far and so fast? In any case, Yo'gand intends this beast to lead the Yuuzhan Vong in battle. It is formulated to strategize and kill, and those two things only."
"How do we get rid of it?" asked another of Yuuzhan's students.
"We will be unable to," Yuuzhan answered heavily. "It is not right to kill in cold blood, and that thing is both sentient and able to touch the Force. It would kill many or all of us before we were able to rid this planet of it."
"What is our course of action, then?" asked Krenek.
"We must train you to fight," Yuuzhan sighed. "There is no way around it. I had hoped to only instruct you in peaceful resolutions, but it seems increasingly likely that in order for my plan to succeed, you will need to fight."
Thass felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, but took a deep breath, and said, "We will do whatever is necessary to protect you and the future of the Yuuzhan Vong."
"If we have a future," Yuuzhan said sorrowfully, and silence reigned.
Deep within the bowels of the Hall of Confluence, Thass sat nervously on a polyp chair, glancing agitatedly from time to time at the broadcast oggzil that was displaying the images from over two hundred meters above them. The Hall had changed, now. In the three klekkets since the commencement of the war against the machine users, the Hall had become a dark place, full of shadows and the faint acrid tinge of bloodsmell to the air. Yuuzhan's dais had fallen into disrepair, spared only because of a lingering respect for the once-leader of the Yuuzhan Vong. Altars surrounded it, decorated with idols of the vicious gods whom the transformed Yuuzhan Vong now served.
Thass was disgusted.
He had learned much at Yuuzhan's hands over the past half klekket. He could now feel the pulse of the Force, a soothing stream of energy which flowed through him. He could detect the presence of two others in the chamber, feel the foul hatreds and black hearts of the other Yuuzhan Vong above them, feel even the small flickers of life that emanated from the biological portions of the machine users far overhead.
The battles had not halted in all the time since the beginning of the war. Many new coralskippers and thamaloks had fallen to the brute force of the mechanical invaders, yet the machine users were not gaining ground. None of their troops had reached the ground of Yuuzhan'tar as yet, and over two hundred thousand bodies had been recovered from the many transports that dotted the surface of the world.
A flicker of motion in the image the oggzil was projecting caught Thass' eye, and he straightened nervously. Yuuzhan had appeared on his dais, and the excited crowds jostled nearer to him, murmurs spreading like lightning among them.
"My children," Yuuzhan said sadly, slowly. "What have you now to show me?" Thass felt rage well up within himself at the violent dereliction of the formerly peaceful Yuuzhan Vong and Yuuzhan's grave error in direction, but he drew it out with a long breath. Uncontrolled rage would do him no good.
"Yuuzhan!" shouted a deep voice, and a space parted in the crowd. "Our victory is at hand!"
Thass forgot his calm and the Force as he recognized the Yuuzhan Vong who stood in the center of that gap. It was Khette! His old friend! What could he possibly be doing with warriors? He was not a fighting man.
"We have long sought for a route to end this war!" he said, stalking in a slow circle. "Would it not be wonderful to do that as quickly as possible?"
Yuuzhan shook his head sadly. "We do not know our enemy's full strength," he said. "This may not be all that they can bring to fight against us."
"Then why have we not seen those reinforcements thus far?" Khette challenged him.
Yuuzhan's eyes blazed, the first real display of anger Thass had seen in him. "Who are you to address me thus, warrior? I have cared for this world for millennia, and it would be as nothing for me to destroy you! You are only Khette of the intendants, and no warrior as I know you!"
"That is where you are wrong!" Khette proclaimed. "I have cast off that name in favor of one that describes me better!"
"And what might that be, warrior?" Yuuzhan said coldly, turning the honorific into a vile epithet.
"I am Yo'gand!" Khette said in deadly monotone. "Yo'gand: Staff of Victory! The one who will hand the Yuuzhan Vong their victory over this vile coalition of machine users!"
Surprise registered on Yuuzhan's face as well. "Victory?" he said. "Though I am grieved at the turn of events and would not shed a tear for the loss of some of you, I hardly think victory is near. Yo'gand," he added slowly.
"You are wrong!" Khette shouted, and some of the crowd flinched, causing Thass to smirk. So, some of them still feared the world consciousness. "We have made our victory!"
"Made?" Yuuzhan said, not bothering to conceal his confusion and irritation now. "What is this nonsense?"
"Yes, made!" Khette- Yo'gand- shouted again. The man seemed to have only one volume for his voice. "I have brought this about. I have become a warrior and gained respect of all the castes! This victory will be my doing!"
"Silence!" Yuuzhan boomed, and a deathly calm fell over the Hall of Confluence. "Will you no longer listen to reason, my children? Can you not see that the Yuuzhan Vong are embarked on a fruitless, self-defeating course? You cannot hope to enjoy victory any longer! You are consumed with bloodlust, and will never be sated!"
A short laugh from Yo'gand was the only sound the filled the air after Yuuzhan's outburst. "You are again mistaken!" he said. "The Yuuzhan Vong have our gods and we will be gloried in the afterlife!"
"Show me your 'victory', then, Yo'gand," Yuuzhan said. "How have you 'made' this salvation of the Yuuzhan Vong!"
Yo'gand laughed again. "With pleasure," he said, and then turned towards the entrance of the hall. "Do'ro ik vong pratte!" he bellowed.
A throbbing, humming roar filled the room, deep and powerful, and everyone started violently. Thass could feel the vibration through the roof of their underground sanctuary, and flinched in fear. The oggzil moved to show the entrance to the Hall of Confluence. The doors were flung open, and a massive dark shape was backlit against the stars outside.
Thass reached out with his growing Force senses, and touched the creature hesitantly. A cold hand seized his mind and pried at his thoughts. A rage filled Thass, and he could feel the creature's manic bloodlust and vicious calculation as he struggled to free himself. Finally, he was let go with a sudden snap of mental energy that sent him reeling to the floor. Gasping, he wrenched his head around to look at the oggzil's image.
Slowly, the figure stalked forward. It was even larger than at first glance, rising more than a meter over the heads of the tallest Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Spikes radiated from its humped back, and massive tusks protruded from its heavy, low-slung jow. Four red eyes glared out, and arms composed of three tentacle-like appendages similar to amphistaffs in appearance waved in triple warnings of death. Four shuffling legs bore the immense weight forward.
The creature walked the whole length of the Hall to Yuuzhan's dais in silence broken only by its breathing and footfalls. It stopped there, looking up at the world consciousness for several seconds, almost as if assessing him, and then spun to regard the massed warriors.
Then it spoke. "Yuuzhan Vong!" it gurgled. "I am your Warmaster! Behold the Vua'sa!"
"It was angry," Thass said quietly as he sat in a small circle with Yuuzhan and the six others of their small group. "Angry, and cold. It had no emotions."
"Yes," Yuuzhan said sadly. "It is a creature born of an insatiable desire to kill, and thus cannot be called anything but a monster."
"Warmaster," one of the others murmured. His name was Krenek, a former sparkbee farmer like Thass. "What is a Warmaster?"
"Yo'gand," Yuuzhan began, and then stopped, a disgusted look on his face. "How can that gentle man have fallen so far and so fast? In any case, Yo'gand intends this beast to lead the Yuuzhan Vong in battle. It is formulated to strategize and kill, and those two things only."
"How do we get rid of it?" asked another of Yuuzhan's students.
"We will be unable to," Yuuzhan answered heavily. "It is not right to kill in cold blood, and that thing is both sentient and able to touch the Force. It would kill many or all of us before we were able to rid this planet of it."
"What is our course of action, then?" asked Krenek.
"We must train you to fight," Yuuzhan sighed. "There is no way around it. I had hoped to only instruct you in peaceful resolutions, but it seems increasingly likely that in order for my plan to succeed, you will need to fight."
Thass felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, but took a deep breath, and said, "We will do whatever is necessary to protect you and the future of the Yuuzhan Vong."
"If we have a future," Yuuzhan said sorrowfully, and silence reigned.