Chapter XXIII – Dragon: The Awakening
Vaal was a harsh world of dry savannah and sheer cliffs, of blistering heat punctuated by violent monsoons and deadly grass fires. The only civilization was a lone Imperial relay station, commonly manned by two or three engineers and few, if any, troops. The rest of the planet belonged to some of the most savage creatures in the galaxy, fighting tooth and claw to maintain their toehold in the planet's unforgiving ecosystem, killing or being killed in turn, the weak falling to the strong, the theory of the food chain in brutal practice.
It was here that our ship lay, in ruins, approximately a kilometer from the now-abandoned relay station. Had the Imperials fled, abandoning their posts upon hearing of the Empire's demise? Or had they fallen prey to Vaal's savage wildlife?
At the moment, however, the fate of the relay station, not to mention any thought of defending ourselves from predators, were far from our minds. Something else had attracted our attentions.
"What the hell is it?" grumbled Fett, handing the scope back to Luke.
"I haven't the foggiest," he replied, peering at the horizon. "I've never seen it before."
Upon exiting the crashed gunship to take inventory of our situation, Nightwind had caught sight of a peculiar shape on the horizon. Luke dug a macroscope out of our supplies and studied it for some time before giving up on identifying it and relinquishing to the hunter. The only thing we learned was that it was humanoid, though not any humanoid alien anyone was familiar with.
"Let me have a look," Tuck requested.
Luke handed the scope over.
"Hmm. Odd. Ugly too. Nothing I've ever seen."
Ash fixed her gaze upon the ever-growing fleck on the horizon, her sharp golden eyes sparkling with consideration. "I see it… no, make that several. More are approaching." She narrowed her eyes, tried to frown, found her beak would not allow such an expression, and settled for a puzzled shake of her head. "I don't know what they are… and I should. Something is wrong."
Very wrong indeed, if the immortal among us could not identify this strange creature.
"Maybe we should turn it over to Vader," Tuck suggested. "It's his turn, after all. Maybe he'll know what it is."
My turn. My quest. It would be up to me to face whatever challenge we came across. The thought was daunting, to say the very least. To know the lives of our company could very well depend on my decisions was an intimidating prospect. Nonetheless, I would do what I had to do. I had no other recourse. With that resolve, I took the scope and placed it to the lenses of my mask.
Tuck was right – it was hideous, resembling a human body that had been decaying in some forgotten corner of a damp crypt. It had a slender, dark, hard body and a horribly disfigured tattooed face. It was encased in some sort of organic shell armor, and a serpent-shaped ornament wrapped around one arm. And it was not alone – I could make out at least a dozen more of the creatures trekking over the horizon, and more appeared the longer I looked.
"Any luck?" asked Luke.
"No," I replied, lowering the scope. "It is totally unfamiliar to me."
Luke frowned. "That's odd. I'd thought for sure you'd know…"
"What's a lady have to do to get a look at this thing?" complained Jessa.
"Sorry." I let her have the scope.
"Sure, just ignore the droid…" she grumbled, putting her eyes to the scope.
I extended the Force in the direction of the unknown creatures, trying to touch their awareness and ascertain their intentions. I was startled to find I could not sense them at all, could not touch them. Like the taozin, it was as if they did not exist.
As if to make up for this deficiency of the Force, the ring stabbed with such intense pain I felt every muscle in my body jerk in response. There was no doubting that these creatures were the object of our quest… but were we to fight them, aid them, or something else entirely? Their numbers were steadily increasing the longer we watched, so it seemed ludicrous to think we could fight them all off…
The ring knifed into my hand again. What was I doing wrong? What was I supposed to be doing? I did not understand what it wanted, why it was hurting me…
A strange sound – half gasp, half cry – caught my attention, and I turned to see Jessa drop the scope in the grass and back away in a half-crouch, clawing at her faceplate.
"Jessa?" I asked, concerned.
Her reply was little more than a terrified rasp. "We're dead."
The cyborg girl's terror was quick to infect all of us. We had never seen Jessa frightened before. Nervous, yes; upset, yes. But to see her shrink back in fear was an unfamiliar sight, one that did more to unsettle me than the unfamiliar threat or the ring's warning.
"Why?" asked Fett. "What are they?"
"Yuuzhan Vong," she moaned, crouching lower. "We're dead."
"Yuuzhan Vong?" repeated Nightwind. "What are those?"
"Biotech-using aliens from beyond the Outer Rim," she whispered. "We're dead."
"What do you mean?" demanded Ash. "Why are you so sure that we're dead? What threat do these creatures pose to us?"
"They're psycho masochists," Jessa replied in a tight whisper. "They hate technology. They think anyone who resorts to machinery practices blasphemy." She was now barely visible over the tips of the knee-deep grass. "We're dead."
"Stop saying that!" ordered Luke. "What kind of talk is that? We're not dead yet!"
Her head rose slightly above the grass to glare at Luke. "You don't get it, do you? These aren't your run-of-the-mill aliens. They're immune to the Force, that armor's resistant to lightsabers, blasters don't hurt them, at least that I know of…" She shuddered and sank beneath the grass again. "We're all dead. They'll see us as infidels for using technology… and they'll probably go after the cyborgs among us first."
At last I understood her fear. As a cyborg, she would be viewed as an abomination by these technology-hating beings. And they would probably strike at her first… though I would definitely be the next target…
Something shifted inside me, something hot and bright and at once alien and strangely familiar. The power of the dragon stirred restlessly, anxiously awaiting its chance…
No! Unconsciously I slammed up a block in my mind, imprisoning the dragon before it could emerge. I would not allow the power to be unleashed again, for it brought only destruction, bloodshed, the dark side…
The blot on the horizon separated into individual shapes. Fifty… no a hundred… almost a thousand of the Vong were approaching us, silent, sinister. An army of Force-impervious aliens against the seven of us was not good odds at all. And if Jessa was to be believed, there would be no negotiating with these creatures – they would want only to kill us.
The ring stabbed so hard I would have gasped had I possessed control of my lungs. In response the dragon thrust at the barrier I had erected, seeking to break through. I struggled to hold it back, cursing my ill luck all the while. I needed all my resources to face the Vong, not contain an unmanageable power. Why this, why now…
The creatures were now close enough that their guttural shout was clearly audible. The ring translated their obscene language perfectly, chillingly. They demanded our surrender… or our death.
"Well?" asked Ash.
"Our choices are immediate death… or delayed death," I replied.
"I don't know about the rest of you," snarled Fett, drawing a blaster, "but I'm not going down without a fight."
"You're nuts, Fett," Jessa hissed, crouching even lower.
They were hardly twenty meters away now. Despite Jessa's declaration that lightsabers were ineffective against their armor, I drew my weapon. If nothing else, it would serve as a valuable defense. And if blasters and lightsabers could not pierce their armor… there were alternatives. Fett had an arsenal at his disposal, Ash had the power of fire, Nightwind could possibly overcome a sizeable number of them…
My entire arm spasmed as the ring blasted power up my arm, nearly making me drop my weapon.
I'm trying! I screamed in my mind. What more do you want?
A Vong threw his arm forward, and a disc-shaped projectile embedded itself into the metal of the downed gunship, missing Tuck by mere centimeters. Before our eyes it unfolded jointed legs, jerked itself out of the plating, and flew back to its owner.
"Okay, that's just sick," remarked Luke.
"Razorbugs," Jessa noted, still in hiding.
"Crush the razorbug next time," Fett advised. "Then he won't be able to repeat the trick."
"Will they give us a next time?" asked Tuck, drawing his blaster.
Ash flickered red-gold, and the Vong who had thrown the razorbug erupted into red-gold flames. If the warrior gave a death cry, the roar of the flames drowned it out. Its comrades backed away, muttering amongst themselves, then gazed at the phoenix with apprehension.
"Ash, how many of them can you destroy at a time?" I asked. If she could burn enough of them, perhaps they would decide we weren't worth the trouble…
"One, perhaps two," she replied in an exhausted tone. "That armor's flame-resistant, so it takes a great deal of power to ignite it…"
A low, snarling bellow from what I assumed was the commanding officer, and the Vong force drew weapons – razorbugs, wicked staffs, and long whiplike weapons that resembled snakes… no, they were snakes. The front ranks charged us, their corpselike faces all the more hideous from their rage.
Jessa screamed, an unholy sound that seemed to shatter what hope we had against these creatures.
The ring stabbed violently, urging me to some action. Blindly I swung at an approaching Vong, feeling the blade connect with organic material but not penetrating, foul smoke rising from the shell-armor…
The Vong gave a mocking, growling laugh, and plunged a carved blade into the deltoid muscle of my chest.
I staggered and fell to my knees, clutching the hilt of the knife and attempting to pull it out, blood spilling down my armor and spattering the grass. Fire invaded my senses, the burning agony of the wound… and a deeper, darker, more destructive fire in my soul…
The ring screamed. It had never done that before. It was a heartrending, unearthly sound, like the death of a star. It hung in the air, at once terrible and beautiful, waking something within me…
No! Not the dragon! It could not emerge, it could not… I would not resort to the dark side again…
The dragon in my heart battered against its bonds. I tasted fire in my mouth, ashy and metallic and sweet… I felt the stretch of muscle between my shoulders as if I had sprouted wings… my fingers flexed involuntarily like talons… the fire built in power, raging, straining to break free…
Ash was the first to fall, struck down by a terrible blow from a whip. Fett and Tuck were cornered against the side of the downed gunship, continuing to fire uselessly at the oncoming Vong. Luke dueled viciously with two of the warriors, while Nightwind snapped and lunged at the aliens, who wisely kept just beyond striking distance even as they encircled him. Jessa's screams continued to rip the air as blows rained down on her. They were dying, they were as good as dead, they could not hope to survive…
Again the ring screamed, answered by a hiss from the dragon. And still I struggled, not wanting to add the dragon's destructive power to the fray, not wanting to risk injury to my friends from that unpredictable force…
This time it was Luke who screamed. He collapsed, his left leg gashed open to the bone, more slashes streaking his face, a Vong standing over him and raising his staff to finish him off…
And at the sight of my son's blood, my son's peril, my control snapped.
The power of the dragon awakened with a roar in my veins, a flash of fire across my eyes, a blinding light in every fiber of my being. It split the heavens, raw, elemental, animal. It seared through my blood and filled me until the vessel of my body could contain it no longer and it spilled from my mouth, from the tear ducts of my eyes, the pores of my skin. My very bones vibrated with the energy I now commanded, a power now mine to direct.
The Vong preparing to deal the deathblow to my son burst into flame. Not the red-gold flame of the phoenix, but white-hot metallic flames that nothing could quench. The warrior died instantly. The rest of the Vong backed away, staring and muttering, as I climbed back to me feet, as if I were rising from the dead.
Later the others would tell me exactly how I appeared in their eyes, and a frightening picture it was. The air around me shimmered with some unspeakable force, as if I were a god. Blood glistened on my armor. My breath was no longer the hissing sigh of my respirator, but a feral snarl. And my eyes… they glowed, even through the mask, with a weird blue light. It was as if I were human no longer, but something far more.
At last a foolhardy Vong struck, flinging a razorbug my way. One flick of the power crushed the projectile in midair. I swiveled my head to glare at the warrior, almost as if to say "Is that all you've got?"
The commander bellowed again, and the dozen or so soldiers of the front ranks converged on me. I raised my weapon, letting the power suffuse it until it seemed to crackle with energy, and rammed it through the chest of the commander. The Vong leader convulsed once, then collapsed. His death did nothing to deter his subordinates.
The rest is a blur of gold and red and blue, of screams and roars and snaps and blows, of fire and blood and energy. I moved as effortlessly as a dancer among them. Their weapons could not touch me but seemed to bounce and slide off a diamond-hard barrier that encased me as surely as their suddenly superfluous shell-armor. The power burned them, cut them, crushed them in their own armor, turned their living weapons against them, entangled them in each other's blows. And still they came, still they fought, as if preferring suicide to surrender.
The last soldier of the first charge fell dead, still smoking. The remainder of the army hesitated, shocked that so many of their warriors could be bested by one man. I had time…
My attention returned to my wound. The hilt of the knife still jutted from my flesh, but the pain was now almost unnoticeable, the injury a minor inconvenience. I pulled the blade free, almost threw it aside, then for reasons unknown decided against it and slid it into my belt. It was a simple matter to meld the power of the dragon with that of the ring and close the wound. I had lost a lot of blood, but the strength of the dragon would overcome that weakness for now.
Fett, Tuck, and Nightwind, who had all somehow managed to escape injury in the fray, shrank back from me as I approached them. I did not understand why at the time, though I do now. They had seen me become something alien and terrifying, and they did not know whether I retained my sanity or not, if I would turn on them or help them.
Luke was my first objective, and I pressed my palm over the gash on his thigh, fusing the torn tissues together. I touched his slashed face, and it healed without a scar. He could only stare, as if he were seeing the ring's power for the first time.
Ash lay thrashing in the grass, gravely wounded. I laid my hand over her breast, and at once her broken bones knit and the shredded skin and muscles closed. Her tremors of pain ceased, and she struggled to her feet. I then turned to Jessa, who lay moaning in the grass, her plating and wiring in shreds. Again I laid my hands on her, and again the ring and the dragon merged to make her whole. Her terrified cries abated, and she gazed at me with awe.
"Rise," I ordered them, but not with my own voice, but a commanding and thunderous tone.
They obeyed.
The remainder of the Vong lost their fear at that moment, and they charged in a seething wave.
"Follow me," I commanded, and I thrust my newfound power forward. A wave of energy slammed into the front ranks and smashed a path through the Vong forces. I charged forward, through the ranks, the others close at my heels. Again and again the Vong attacked, attempting to close us in and finish us, and again and again their efforts were met with fire and death. I had become a force of nature, a demigod.
If you were ever to unleash the full potential of the power of the dragon, the mightiest army would tremble in fear.
The Shadow's prophetic words had been fulfilled. I had unleashed my powers to their fullest capacity… and the terrible threat of the Vong was no match for them.
A blot of rainbow burst from the grass, and the Vong forces fell back, wary of this newest threat. They made no move to pursue us as we followed the Ky-Lin on his erratic path.
"Good show, Anakin!" he called over his shoulder. "They won't follow you, I think you frightened them off…"
As if his words were an incantation to break a spell, the power of the dragon receded and died the moment he finished speaking. Overwhelming weakness flooded me, and I collapsed.
The Shadow's voice penetrated the blackness before consciousness fully fled me: "So he finally got it through his thick helmet, didn't he? I was worried there… Get him inside quickly, or we won't be able to save him."
