Chapter 8: War has Begun
Settled deeply in Warmaster Shraq's living throne, Lord Nefarion stroked a gloved hand across the gelatinous blob of the villip that would make contact with Tranx aboard the Sith Lord's flagship. It was little effort at all to repress the revulsion for the biotechnology of the Yuuzhan Vong; Nefarion smothered it under the glory such equipment and their wielders could bring him. Power was the ultimate high for this Sith Lord, the taint of the dark side like mother's milk to him, and he reveled in his newfound control of the extragalactic travelers.
Even the Supreme Overlord, Yular, had become convinced of Nefarion's status with the Gods, that the Yuuzhan Vong dogma was now a part of him. The biotechnology that previously had reacted aggressively to Lord Nefarion adhered to his commands, until Nefarion believed in his own lie. That he was a God, to bring the galaxy under his foot, and grind it into submission.
No one would get in his way, not even the Jedi. They would be under his power; he would not make the same mistake his predecessor made in destroying so much potential, he would turn them all to his side, starting with Ben Skywalker. The many successes and minor failures of his plot fueled Nefarion to a point where he did not think in rational terms, he felt his place at the head assured.
Of course, this did not mean that the Sith Lord did not see obstacles in his path. Turning Skywalker from the path of the light would prove to be difficult, their short encounter on Bellalt had proven as much to Nefarion. The boy had just seen his father gutted by a lightsaber, and after the initial anger had only sought to spend the remaining time Master Skywalker had. The boy had been nicely indoctrinated with the fallacies of the light side, the prohibitions that the Jedi placed on themselves, unnecessarily weakening them and strengthening the Sith. But the fact that the anger had existed in that brief moment allowed Nefarion to believe it possible.
There was also another hook to reel Skywalker in with, one that no one but he knew existed; even his apprentice, the Lady Sarlana, remained in the dark about this. The time was drawing close to revelation, but not yet, not until he had the Temple in his grasp.
The villip squirmed, rebounded, shimmered, and coalesced into the outlined features of his servant, Tranx. The profile of the man was long, as if the transmitting villip was picking him up from a great distance, and Nefarion noted the stump of the arm that had been the result of Tranx's punishment for his failures on Bellalt. The grizzled and hunched aged man stepped forward towards the villip and exacted an awkward bow.
"M'Lord," came the equally grizzled voice, making the honorific seem harsh and false.
He is nervous, Nefarion picked up by the way the rangy muscles in the depreciated man tensed at the villip-embossed sight of him. My punishment has shown him that I do not take kindly to failure. Nefarion smiled behind the dark shroud of his cowl. Only Sarlana knew of the features that lay behind that cowl, only she had seen the twist of the cruel smile, but in the tensing of Tranx's skin-loose jaw line Nefarion knew that the smile did not need to be seen to be felt.
"Are the strike teams assembled?" Nefarion asked. Ice frosted his tone to the temperature of Hoth.
Again, Tranx bowed, managing not to topple over with his hunched back. "Yes, M'lord, and awaiting your orders."
"Make sure that they aim only for the Yuuzhan Vong, regardless if they are Devotee or Separatists," Nefarion said, the timbre in his voice alluding to what would happen if there was yet another failure.
Tranx's throat bobbed against his thin-skinned neck as he swallowed at the implication. "Of course, M'lord. The fleet has been apprised of the situation."
The fleet that Tranx spoke of would be powered by the black clad warriors that Nefarion had sent out for the assault on Bellalt, his own special forces team that would replace the Yuuzhan Vong once they were no longer needed against the Jedi. It had turned out to be advantageous that the only two Jedi who could sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force were no longer on Coruscant.
Already, phase three of the plan to take over the Jedi was in preparation, just as were the strike teams that would help cement the reunion of Yuuzhan Vong forces.
Nefarion studied the strategist whom had been amongst the old Empire and would rise with Nefarion's new one. The Sith Lord would reign, as had his mentor before him, and he would have Ben Skywalker at his side, with no threat from Anakin Solo. This hunched old man would bring him his victory, or the Sith would bring him his death.
Tranx knew this; it was evident in the tremor that ran through the thinned, fragile body, the way the stump of an arm twitched from the phantom pains of Nefarion's lightsaber blow. The aged former Imperial would not fail him again.
"Release the strike teams," Nefarion ordered. "I want the Yuuzhan Vong to regret the day they ever surrendered to the New Republic."
[hr][/hr]
The first wave was in transit. Tranx took his place as the commander of his Lord, the Sith Master Nefarion's, flaship. It was a stolen Mon Cal cruiser, the ship's registration having been altered to broadcast that it was a part of the New Republic Defense Fleet. Gaining the registration signatures had taken a painstaking process of training Sarlana to find the signature registrations and then to copy them. Once that was done, Nefarion had sent his young protege out to seduce one of the military hierarchy, giving her the access they needed to pull off this major military maneuver.
He rubbed the stump of his right arm, where he still felt the ghost of the rest of his limb, the one that Nefarion had denied him the ability of replacing after the Sith Lord had taken it. If Tranx succeeded in this campaign he would get a prosthetic replacement for the absence of his living appendage, and if he were to fail....
Tranx broke off from this train of thought, knowing full well what the two Sith were capable of, himself having created some of the techniques they used against their enemies. He would not fail, for there was no room for failure in the former Imperial's mind. Nefarion would rise as Emperor of this galaxy, and Tranx would lead as regional governor, the reward for all that he had given to the Sith Master's cause.
"Initiate first wave."
[hr][/hr]
Newly Knighted, Valin Horn stretched as well as he could in the cockpit of his X-wing, severely missing the presence of an R2 unit in his new model starfighter, and wondering why the shipyards still played with taking out the astromech units. To distract the Jedi team that was meant to find Ben Skywalker and bring him back to the Temple, Valin had been jumping from one system to the next, dropping the younger Jedi's name whenever possible in the local cities, implying the fact that he was indeed Ben Skywalker. That should lead the Council's team on a grand nerf chase.
The ruse was only supposed to last until Jedi Leia Organa Solo made the announcement that her brother, the greatest Jedi Master in the known universe, had indeed died on the planet Bellalt. Once it was known to the galaxy, the tri-D's would be showing pictures of Ben Skywalker once again, and it would never be believed that Valin Horn was indeed the Master's son.
Still, Valin had enjoyed his stint away from the Temple, having grown frustrated inside the stone walls that breathed melancholy over the Master's death. Bellalt had helped him to understand Ben as his father had secretly wished, and every time he had seen the deep-etched sorrow in the younger boy's features, guilt struck him that he had ever thought the boy unworthy of his heritage. It was partly why he had been so ready to leave the Temple when his father explained the coup to him.
On the X-wing's console, the hyperclock wound down, ticking as the time to exit hyperspace approached. He was heading for the Separatist-held planetary system of Aulkner, a heavily bogged area that held rich moisture and swamp-like climate, somewhere unlikely, that was in the exact opposite direction of Naboo, where it was believed that Ben had actually gone. He knew that the Council's team was hot on his trail, and he had just managed to get out of the Anoat system before they had entered, his father having warned him after receiving a report from the team to the High Council.
In the custom of the Jedi, Valin ignored the hyperclock as it came closer to the time to exit hyperspace, instead he brought his focus onto the Force, letting the living energy field guide his actions. Now, it seemed to whisper, and Valin pulled the X-wing out of hyperspace.
The mottled olive-greens and browns of the planet Aulkner filled his foreward viewport, deceptively calm for what appeared in the next few moments.
A fleet of New Republic ships entered the outer atmosphere of Aulkner just as Valin was entering it. Finding this extremely odd, Valin flicked several switches on his console to hail the approaching fleet.
"This is Jedi Valin Horn of the Jedi Order, do you copy?" he called over the inset speaker of his flight helmet.
Static was his only reply. He looked at his proximity screen, and the registrations that were coming through for each ship - they all were registered to the New Republic's Defense Fleet. "This is Jedi Valin Horn, do you copy?" he tried again. Surely, if this was the NRDF they would respond to his calls. The Jedi were no longer shunned amongst the government's hierarchy as they had been in the first Yuuzhan Vong war. They were now a power in the galaxy.
Frustrated, Valin thumbed off the link, his ears stinging at the onrush of space static that poured through his ear speaker. There was an air of malevolence in the Force, making the small hairs rise on his body. What was going on? How could the NRDF be held as a threat to him or the swamp planet rotating slowly below him?
Trusting the urgings in the Force, Valin angled his deflector shields, feeding more power to the aft of his ship.
[hr][/hr]
Leia Organa Solo had called the press conference with a heavy heart. She had hoped that Anakin would have found Ben by now, and that she could get the all clear from her nephew before making the sorrowful announcement that her brother had passed away into the Force, but the Council could no longer hold off the amount of queries coming from the different quadrants of the galaxy, asking for Jedi help and wondering why the Order's most prominent figure was not in attendance where the rest of the Council was. Luke had given the greater part of his life to the workings of the Force, had pushed aside everything else, sometimes even including his family, to ensure the growth and stability of the galaxy, through the service of the Jedi Order.
His sacrifices had been unparalleled, the many trials he had endured to ensure the peace of the galaxy, and the loss of his wife. How did one fit all of that into a simple conference, a lifetime of service into a few short hours? The pain rose anew in Leia as she was once again struck with the thought that the galaxy would never again know the benevolence that had embodied her brother.
Coming to the podium, the lights of a thousand tri-D recorders blinding her to the variety of faces as each representative from thousands upon thousands of worlds sat propped ready to hear and record every one of her words.
There was a tremor in the Force as Leia looked down at her speech.
[hr][/hr]
The Ithorian monk Sonaw Tar and his Yuuzhan Vong counterpart were out amongst the integrated flora and fauna of two galaxies, each coaxing new and wondrous life from the rich earth of Ithor. It had become a project of peace, a combination of violent and the benign as the once destroyed Ithor was cultivated to its former glory. The Ithorian monks had invited the former Yuuzhan Vong shapers to the planet themselves, seeing the opportunity to bring even greater accord in the reproduction of the plant life of such a once-beautiful planet.
Custri Pos, Sonaw's Yuuzhan Vong companion, was bent over a peculiar mix of the two galaxies, a flower that bloomed an aggravated red color and whose stem thrummed with the red ichor-like fluid that pumped life-giving through the planet. It was said that the two species had been able to produce a sentient plant life form, one that could think and respond as the coralskippers or the grown ships of the rogue planet, Zonama Sekot, did.
From across the galaxy, all came to see the tranquil beauty that the two species had come to develop on the once-ruined world, but the ships that leapt out of hyperspace and arrowed down to the unsuspecting planet were not those of tourists come to soak in the enriched beauty of Ithor. Their purpose was much more malignant, a cancer that would come to spread through the galaxy, attacking the defenseless and instigating war in a galaxy that had come to peace.
[hr][/hr]
Leia swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat, her promise to not break down running through her head. Off to the side she felt Han's presence radiating, if not calm, understanding and support. I love you, nerf herder, she thought out to him, knowing that he would, and would not, feel the call she sent.
"I regret to inform you that during the attack of the planetary system Bellalt, my brother, the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, was killed."
[hr][/hr]
Zasong For'lin had just come home from his work as a hyperdrive assembler on the shipyard world of Bilbringi. A number of his fellow Shamed Ones, those once believed to be forsaken by the gods, had quickly taken to the intricacies of metal and wiring. It was good work, if hard, and Zasong had been able to develop the hyperdrive so that it worked faster and with less fuel, developments he attributed to the years spent in slavery in the coral patches. He knew how a living repulsor field could work, and took from that knowledge to improve the metallic one.
He had just come into his apartments where his mate and their offspring greeted him, when an alarm rang through the Bilbringi shipyards.
[hr][/hr]
A collective gasp filled the arena of reporters at Leia's statement, followed by an all-oppressive silence, that Leia had been trained to withstand but hated nonetheless. Taking a breath, she continued, before any of the reporters gained enough control of their senses to ask questions she was not quite yet ready to answer.
"He died as he lived, in the service of the galaxy as a guardian of peace and justice," her voice echoed through the underwater Colosseum Chief Tiv had talked her into using for the announcement. She would have rather made it in the Temple that Luke had worked so hard to build.
[hr][/hr]
I think I'm in trouble, Valin thought to himself, displaying some of the Corellian detachment that had funneled down to him through his father. His proximity indicators were flashing an angry red at him as he continued to dive and barrel roll through the onslaught of blaster fire the NRDF fleet was pummeling his lone starfighter with. He pulled every trick his father had ever taught him, weaving through the lances of fatal energy with the guidance of the Force. A guidance that could stretch eternal, but was limited to his flawed form.
Desperately, he fought to make contact with the representatives of the planet below, but the communications towers had already been rendered inoperable by the lances of destructive energy. Whoever was guiding the ship below, they could not have been sent by the New Republic, who no longer feared the Jedi or their presence in the galaxy, nor did they wish harm to the Yuuzhan Vong, their most dangerous enemy of late. Aulkner was sure to be the target, and Valin pounded at the console as his frustration mounted in his inability to warn them of the size of the fleet that was approaching them.
Switching mental gears. Valin took a deep breath, his fingers flying deftly over the console. If he could not contact Aulkner then he would transmit to Coruscant, warn the Council of his discovery. The ripples in the Force were filled of the portent of Ben's analysis of their new cloaked enemy. Aulkner would be a target to once again join the split Yuuzhan Vong brethren, to realign the beliefs that this galaxy had been endowed to them by the gods.
Time was running short for the young Jedi Knight, he could feel that he would not make it out of this encounter alive. Along with the report he sent a farewell to his father.
[hr][/hr]
It sounded like the ancient ritual drums of a long forgotten society, a rabid thud with music, a tonality of violence and destruction. It ripped through the gentle living sounds of Ithor, a planet that had seen far too much hardship in the last few decades, and had just begun to revive the effulgence that the planet had once embodied.
The attack was well coordinated and crafted by the genius of those who knew where the weakest of life's links existed. Each ion blast struck Yuuzhan Vong and the extragalactic biotechnology, leaving everything that was native to the galaxy standing. Ithorian monks and their Yuuzhan Vong counterparts scurried, trying to set up the shielding the New Republic had provided for the planet's defense, to protect the growth of life they had so painstakingly cultivated from the ruin the planet had once been.
Sonaw spotted Custri not too far from him, and ran as fast as his stalk- like legs could take him, but even as he went, blinding light collided with the dirt of Ithor, spraying it like a morbid fountain into the air, throwing Sonaw into a nearby Fasha tree trunk. It was a long moment before his eye-blindness set off by the explosion diminished and he could see through the nebulous haze and crawled to his companion and friend. He turned the body of Custri over, the hammerhead eyes of the Ithorian closing in silent prayer for his friend, as he took in the mess of flesh, torn and bloodied by the explosion that had once contain sentience.
He hunched his body over his deceased friend for a moment before standing and once again running to help the other marked Yuuzhan Vong.
[hr][/hr]
"We are all aware of the many accomplishments of Luke Skywalker," Leia continued through the dazed silence of her listeners. "Some would say that his involvement in the Rebellion had been just a stroke of chance, that the important information stored inside a renegade astromech droid had fallen into his hands by accident. I say it was the will of the Force. If not for Luke Skywalker, the might of the Empire would have squashed the Rebellion under its foot."
Leia paused, searching through the blinding lights, attempting to gauge the reactions of her audience. Her ache and grief for her brother had been pressed to the side of her, the wound still open but for now being numbed by the anesthetic of the mind.
[hr][/hr]
"Neysar," Ersa For'lin called to her father as she stumbled amongst the throng of running beings, hurrying to get to blast-shielded areas as the attack on Bilbringi continued.
Zasong stopped and shouldered his way to his fallen daughter, gathering him up into his steel-like muscled arms and hurried to catch up with the rest of his family. It struck him as odd that the attack was centered on living quarters, and not the desirable ships that were manufactured in the shipyards.
This was like a massacre, and it didn't take long for Zasong to notice that the massacre was directed at the Yuuzhan Vong. And when he caught a glimpse of the fleet through a transparasteel viewport in the crowded corridors, Zasong recognized who it was that attacked him and his people.
"We have been betrayed."
[hr][/hr]
"Princess Leia, where is Master Skywalker's son Ben?" came the first question as she opened the conference to questions.
Wouldn't we all like to know, she thought with a touch of exasperation directed at her nephew. She knew the boy had done what he felt was best, but didn't he realize the trouble he was stirring for everyone else? "I'm sorry, I cannot give you Ben's location. He is in a time of mourning and grief."
"How does Master Skywalker's death bode for the Jedi?" came another question, the tone of the conference turning from somber surprise to the eventuality of politics.
"My brother built the Jedi Order, he was a firm basis, but not the only one. The Jedi Order will continue on," Leia answered grandiosely.
[hr][/hr]
Valin's X-wing banked and wove through the energy lances, his X-wing had already acquired a great amount of damage and it wouldn't be long before his drives cut out completely, leaving him at the voided mercy of the attacking fleet. He had managed to transmit the message, but he did not know how long it would take for it to reach the Council and his father.
Grinding sounds emitted from his starboard and port fuselage, quickly shifting to a slow wind-down that left him with no doubt that he had no escape. Moments later, his X-wing drifting with its initial inertia, the intense energy blasts ripped through Valin's X-wing, and he knew no more.
[hr][/hr]
Anakin had arrived on Naboo. Ben felt his presence before the [i]Millennium Falcon[/i] had exited hyperspace, and had taken great pains to avoid his older cousin while searching for Artoo. The thought had crossed his mind to leave the rebellious droid behind and let Anakin find him, the Queen's promise to reveal his departure foremost in his mind, but he just couldn't leave behind one of the few links he had to his parents.
To tell by Anakin's proximity, he had arrived this morning, and Ben figured he had a few hours before Anakin would learn that Ben was at the palace in Theed. Due to his shortened time table, Ben had enlisted the help of some of the Queen's men and her handmaidens to help find Artoo.
It was in this inspection that Ben was thrown into the power of the Force, his ability as a seer flashing pictures in his mind's eyes. He saw the elusive darkness that he had told Anakin about, but now it did not hide, blending from shadow to shadow, but showed itself freely, gobbling up globes of luminescent light as it went. It didn't stop there, for the capacious black void split into tiny, easier-to-conceal voids.
The tremors in the Force told him that the voids were in the present, that they were now wreaking their destruction on the unsuspecting life that the globes of Force-light represented. And Ben tried to funnel the Force out of him, to once again gain control of his abilities.
His body was racked with spasms as he felt each and every one of the Yuuzhan Vong deaths, his subconscious picking up on an echo of Anakin's own torture as he too felt the deaths of the people that he had become so much a part of. The tremors continued until Ben felt so drained that he feared he was going to relieve his stomach contents within the palace corridors.
[i]The dark side is rising, will my path lie next to my father's killer?[/i]
[hr][/hr]
Nefarion did not smile under the shadow of his cowl, but there was a feral look to his clouded eyes, reminiscent of a scavenger who has just found a large carcass abandoned. He fed off the dark energy that stirred through the Force, imbuing it into himself, tasting it like mother's milk.
His ascension had begun.
Settled deeply in Warmaster Shraq's living throne, Lord Nefarion stroked a gloved hand across the gelatinous blob of the villip that would make contact with Tranx aboard the Sith Lord's flagship. It was little effort at all to repress the revulsion for the biotechnology of the Yuuzhan Vong; Nefarion smothered it under the glory such equipment and their wielders could bring him. Power was the ultimate high for this Sith Lord, the taint of the dark side like mother's milk to him, and he reveled in his newfound control of the extragalactic travelers.
Even the Supreme Overlord, Yular, had become convinced of Nefarion's status with the Gods, that the Yuuzhan Vong dogma was now a part of him. The biotechnology that previously had reacted aggressively to Lord Nefarion adhered to his commands, until Nefarion believed in his own lie. That he was a God, to bring the galaxy under his foot, and grind it into submission.
No one would get in his way, not even the Jedi. They would be under his power; he would not make the same mistake his predecessor made in destroying so much potential, he would turn them all to his side, starting with Ben Skywalker. The many successes and minor failures of his plot fueled Nefarion to a point where he did not think in rational terms, he felt his place at the head assured.
Of course, this did not mean that the Sith Lord did not see obstacles in his path. Turning Skywalker from the path of the light would prove to be difficult, their short encounter on Bellalt had proven as much to Nefarion. The boy had just seen his father gutted by a lightsaber, and after the initial anger had only sought to spend the remaining time Master Skywalker had. The boy had been nicely indoctrinated with the fallacies of the light side, the prohibitions that the Jedi placed on themselves, unnecessarily weakening them and strengthening the Sith. But the fact that the anger had existed in that brief moment allowed Nefarion to believe it possible.
There was also another hook to reel Skywalker in with, one that no one but he knew existed; even his apprentice, the Lady Sarlana, remained in the dark about this. The time was drawing close to revelation, but not yet, not until he had the Temple in his grasp.
The villip squirmed, rebounded, shimmered, and coalesced into the outlined features of his servant, Tranx. The profile of the man was long, as if the transmitting villip was picking him up from a great distance, and Nefarion noted the stump of the arm that had been the result of Tranx's punishment for his failures on Bellalt. The grizzled and hunched aged man stepped forward towards the villip and exacted an awkward bow.
"M'Lord," came the equally grizzled voice, making the honorific seem harsh and false.
He is nervous, Nefarion picked up by the way the rangy muscles in the depreciated man tensed at the villip-embossed sight of him. My punishment has shown him that I do not take kindly to failure. Nefarion smiled behind the dark shroud of his cowl. Only Sarlana knew of the features that lay behind that cowl, only she had seen the twist of the cruel smile, but in the tensing of Tranx's skin-loose jaw line Nefarion knew that the smile did not need to be seen to be felt.
"Are the strike teams assembled?" Nefarion asked. Ice frosted his tone to the temperature of Hoth.
Again, Tranx bowed, managing not to topple over with his hunched back. "Yes, M'lord, and awaiting your orders."
"Make sure that they aim only for the Yuuzhan Vong, regardless if they are Devotee or Separatists," Nefarion said, the timbre in his voice alluding to what would happen if there was yet another failure.
Tranx's throat bobbed against his thin-skinned neck as he swallowed at the implication. "Of course, M'lord. The fleet has been apprised of the situation."
The fleet that Tranx spoke of would be powered by the black clad warriors that Nefarion had sent out for the assault on Bellalt, his own special forces team that would replace the Yuuzhan Vong once they were no longer needed against the Jedi. It had turned out to be advantageous that the only two Jedi who could sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force were no longer on Coruscant.
Already, phase three of the plan to take over the Jedi was in preparation, just as were the strike teams that would help cement the reunion of Yuuzhan Vong forces.
Nefarion studied the strategist whom had been amongst the old Empire and would rise with Nefarion's new one. The Sith Lord would reign, as had his mentor before him, and he would have Ben Skywalker at his side, with no threat from Anakin Solo. This hunched old man would bring him his victory, or the Sith would bring him his death.
Tranx knew this; it was evident in the tremor that ran through the thinned, fragile body, the way the stump of an arm twitched from the phantom pains of Nefarion's lightsaber blow. The aged former Imperial would not fail him again.
"Release the strike teams," Nefarion ordered. "I want the Yuuzhan Vong to regret the day they ever surrendered to the New Republic."
[hr][/hr]
The first wave was in transit. Tranx took his place as the commander of his Lord, the Sith Master Nefarion's, flaship. It was a stolen Mon Cal cruiser, the ship's registration having been altered to broadcast that it was a part of the New Republic Defense Fleet. Gaining the registration signatures had taken a painstaking process of training Sarlana to find the signature registrations and then to copy them. Once that was done, Nefarion had sent his young protege out to seduce one of the military hierarchy, giving her the access they needed to pull off this major military maneuver.
He rubbed the stump of his right arm, where he still felt the ghost of the rest of his limb, the one that Nefarion had denied him the ability of replacing after the Sith Lord had taken it. If Tranx succeeded in this campaign he would get a prosthetic replacement for the absence of his living appendage, and if he were to fail....
Tranx broke off from this train of thought, knowing full well what the two Sith were capable of, himself having created some of the techniques they used against their enemies. He would not fail, for there was no room for failure in the former Imperial's mind. Nefarion would rise as Emperor of this galaxy, and Tranx would lead as regional governor, the reward for all that he had given to the Sith Master's cause.
"Initiate first wave."
[hr][/hr]
Newly Knighted, Valin Horn stretched as well as he could in the cockpit of his X-wing, severely missing the presence of an R2 unit in his new model starfighter, and wondering why the shipyards still played with taking out the astromech units. To distract the Jedi team that was meant to find Ben Skywalker and bring him back to the Temple, Valin had been jumping from one system to the next, dropping the younger Jedi's name whenever possible in the local cities, implying the fact that he was indeed Ben Skywalker. That should lead the Council's team on a grand nerf chase.
The ruse was only supposed to last until Jedi Leia Organa Solo made the announcement that her brother, the greatest Jedi Master in the known universe, had indeed died on the planet Bellalt. Once it was known to the galaxy, the tri-D's would be showing pictures of Ben Skywalker once again, and it would never be believed that Valin Horn was indeed the Master's son.
Still, Valin had enjoyed his stint away from the Temple, having grown frustrated inside the stone walls that breathed melancholy over the Master's death. Bellalt had helped him to understand Ben as his father had secretly wished, and every time he had seen the deep-etched sorrow in the younger boy's features, guilt struck him that he had ever thought the boy unworthy of his heritage. It was partly why he had been so ready to leave the Temple when his father explained the coup to him.
On the X-wing's console, the hyperclock wound down, ticking as the time to exit hyperspace approached. He was heading for the Separatist-held planetary system of Aulkner, a heavily bogged area that held rich moisture and swamp-like climate, somewhere unlikely, that was in the exact opposite direction of Naboo, where it was believed that Ben had actually gone. He knew that the Council's team was hot on his trail, and he had just managed to get out of the Anoat system before they had entered, his father having warned him after receiving a report from the team to the High Council.
In the custom of the Jedi, Valin ignored the hyperclock as it came closer to the time to exit hyperspace, instead he brought his focus onto the Force, letting the living energy field guide his actions. Now, it seemed to whisper, and Valin pulled the X-wing out of hyperspace.
The mottled olive-greens and browns of the planet Aulkner filled his foreward viewport, deceptively calm for what appeared in the next few moments.
A fleet of New Republic ships entered the outer atmosphere of Aulkner just as Valin was entering it. Finding this extremely odd, Valin flicked several switches on his console to hail the approaching fleet.
"This is Jedi Valin Horn of the Jedi Order, do you copy?" he called over the inset speaker of his flight helmet.
Static was his only reply. He looked at his proximity screen, and the registrations that were coming through for each ship - they all were registered to the New Republic's Defense Fleet. "This is Jedi Valin Horn, do you copy?" he tried again. Surely, if this was the NRDF they would respond to his calls. The Jedi were no longer shunned amongst the government's hierarchy as they had been in the first Yuuzhan Vong war. They were now a power in the galaxy.
Frustrated, Valin thumbed off the link, his ears stinging at the onrush of space static that poured through his ear speaker. There was an air of malevolence in the Force, making the small hairs rise on his body. What was going on? How could the NRDF be held as a threat to him or the swamp planet rotating slowly below him?
Trusting the urgings in the Force, Valin angled his deflector shields, feeding more power to the aft of his ship.
[hr][/hr]
Leia Organa Solo had called the press conference with a heavy heart. She had hoped that Anakin would have found Ben by now, and that she could get the all clear from her nephew before making the sorrowful announcement that her brother had passed away into the Force, but the Council could no longer hold off the amount of queries coming from the different quadrants of the galaxy, asking for Jedi help and wondering why the Order's most prominent figure was not in attendance where the rest of the Council was. Luke had given the greater part of his life to the workings of the Force, had pushed aside everything else, sometimes even including his family, to ensure the growth and stability of the galaxy, through the service of the Jedi Order.
His sacrifices had been unparalleled, the many trials he had endured to ensure the peace of the galaxy, and the loss of his wife. How did one fit all of that into a simple conference, a lifetime of service into a few short hours? The pain rose anew in Leia as she was once again struck with the thought that the galaxy would never again know the benevolence that had embodied her brother.
Coming to the podium, the lights of a thousand tri-D recorders blinding her to the variety of faces as each representative from thousands upon thousands of worlds sat propped ready to hear and record every one of her words.
There was a tremor in the Force as Leia looked down at her speech.
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The Ithorian monk Sonaw Tar and his Yuuzhan Vong counterpart were out amongst the integrated flora and fauna of two galaxies, each coaxing new and wondrous life from the rich earth of Ithor. It had become a project of peace, a combination of violent and the benign as the once destroyed Ithor was cultivated to its former glory. The Ithorian monks had invited the former Yuuzhan Vong shapers to the planet themselves, seeing the opportunity to bring even greater accord in the reproduction of the plant life of such a once-beautiful planet.
Custri Pos, Sonaw's Yuuzhan Vong companion, was bent over a peculiar mix of the two galaxies, a flower that bloomed an aggravated red color and whose stem thrummed with the red ichor-like fluid that pumped life-giving through the planet. It was said that the two species had been able to produce a sentient plant life form, one that could think and respond as the coralskippers or the grown ships of the rogue planet, Zonama Sekot, did.
From across the galaxy, all came to see the tranquil beauty that the two species had come to develop on the once-ruined world, but the ships that leapt out of hyperspace and arrowed down to the unsuspecting planet were not those of tourists come to soak in the enriched beauty of Ithor. Their purpose was much more malignant, a cancer that would come to spread through the galaxy, attacking the defenseless and instigating war in a galaxy that had come to peace.
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Leia swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat, her promise to not break down running through her head. Off to the side she felt Han's presence radiating, if not calm, understanding and support. I love you, nerf herder, she thought out to him, knowing that he would, and would not, feel the call she sent.
"I regret to inform you that during the attack of the planetary system Bellalt, my brother, the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, was killed."
[hr][/hr]
Zasong For'lin had just come home from his work as a hyperdrive assembler on the shipyard world of Bilbringi. A number of his fellow Shamed Ones, those once believed to be forsaken by the gods, had quickly taken to the intricacies of metal and wiring. It was good work, if hard, and Zasong had been able to develop the hyperdrive so that it worked faster and with less fuel, developments he attributed to the years spent in slavery in the coral patches. He knew how a living repulsor field could work, and took from that knowledge to improve the metallic one.
He had just come into his apartments where his mate and their offspring greeted him, when an alarm rang through the Bilbringi shipyards.
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A collective gasp filled the arena of reporters at Leia's statement, followed by an all-oppressive silence, that Leia had been trained to withstand but hated nonetheless. Taking a breath, she continued, before any of the reporters gained enough control of their senses to ask questions she was not quite yet ready to answer.
"He died as he lived, in the service of the galaxy as a guardian of peace and justice," her voice echoed through the underwater Colosseum Chief Tiv had talked her into using for the announcement. She would have rather made it in the Temple that Luke had worked so hard to build.
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I think I'm in trouble, Valin thought to himself, displaying some of the Corellian detachment that had funneled down to him through his father. His proximity indicators were flashing an angry red at him as he continued to dive and barrel roll through the onslaught of blaster fire the NRDF fleet was pummeling his lone starfighter with. He pulled every trick his father had ever taught him, weaving through the lances of fatal energy with the guidance of the Force. A guidance that could stretch eternal, but was limited to his flawed form.
Desperately, he fought to make contact with the representatives of the planet below, but the communications towers had already been rendered inoperable by the lances of destructive energy. Whoever was guiding the ship below, they could not have been sent by the New Republic, who no longer feared the Jedi or their presence in the galaxy, nor did they wish harm to the Yuuzhan Vong, their most dangerous enemy of late. Aulkner was sure to be the target, and Valin pounded at the console as his frustration mounted in his inability to warn them of the size of the fleet that was approaching them.
Switching mental gears. Valin took a deep breath, his fingers flying deftly over the console. If he could not contact Aulkner then he would transmit to Coruscant, warn the Council of his discovery. The ripples in the Force were filled of the portent of Ben's analysis of their new cloaked enemy. Aulkner would be a target to once again join the split Yuuzhan Vong brethren, to realign the beliefs that this galaxy had been endowed to them by the gods.
Time was running short for the young Jedi Knight, he could feel that he would not make it out of this encounter alive. Along with the report he sent a farewell to his father.
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It sounded like the ancient ritual drums of a long forgotten society, a rabid thud with music, a tonality of violence and destruction. It ripped through the gentle living sounds of Ithor, a planet that had seen far too much hardship in the last few decades, and had just begun to revive the effulgence that the planet had once embodied.
The attack was well coordinated and crafted by the genius of those who knew where the weakest of life's links existed. Each ion blast struck Yuuzhan Vong and the extragalactic biotechnology, leaving everything that was native to the galaxy standing. Ithorian monks and their Yuuzhan Vong counterparts scurried, trying to set up the shielding the New Republic had provided for the planet's defense, to protect the growth of life they had so painstakingly cultivated from the ruin the planet had once been.
Sonaw spotted Custri not too far from him, and ran as fast as his stalk- like legs could take him, but even as he went, blinding light collided with the dirt of Ithor, spraying it like a morbid fountain into the air, throwing Sonaw into a nearby Fasha tree trunk. It was a long moment before his eye-blindness set off by the explosion diminished and he could see through the nebulous haze and crawled to his companion and friend. He turned the body of Custri over, the hammerhead eyes of the Ithorian closing in silent prayer for his friend, as he took in the mess of flesh, torn and bloodied by the explosion that had once contain sentience.
He hunched his body over his deceased friend for a moment before standing and once again running to help the other marked Yuuzhan Vong.
[hr][/hr]
"We are all aware of the many accomplishments of Luke Skywalker," Leia continued through the dazed silence of her listeners. "Some would say that his involvement in the Rebellion had been just a stroke of chance, that the important information stored inside a renegade astromech droid had fallen into his hands by accident. I say it was the will of the Force. If not for Luke Skywalker, the might of the Empire would have squashed the Rebellion under its foot."
Leia paused, searching through the blinding lights, attempting to gauge the reactions of her audience. Her ache and grief for her brother had been pressed to the side of her, the wound still open but for now being numbed by the anesthetic of the mind.
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"Neysar," Ersa For'lin called to her father as she stumbled amongst the throng of running beings, hurrying to get to blast-shielded areas as the attack on Bilbringi continued.
Zasong stopped and shouldered his way to his fallen daughter, gathering him up into his steel-like muscled arms and hurried to catch up with the rest of his family. It struck him as odd that the attack was centered on living quarters, and not the desirable ships that were manufactured in the shipyards.
This was like a massacre, and it didn't take long for Zasong to notice that the massacre was directed at the Yuuzhan Vong. And when he caught a glimpse of the fleet through a transparasteel viewport in the crowded corridors, Zasong recognized who it was that attacked him and his people.
"We have been betrayed."
[hr][/hr]
"Princess Leia, where is Master Skywalker's son Ben?" came the first question as she opened the conference to questions.
Wouldn't we all like to know, she thought with a touch of exasperation directed at her nephew. She knew the boy had done what he felt was best, but didn't he realize the trouble he was stirring for everyone else? "I'm sorry, I cannot give you Ben's location. He is in a time of mourning and grief."
"How does Master Skywalker's death bode for the Jedi?" came another question, the tone of the conference turning from somber surprise to the eventuality of politics.
"My brother built the Jedi Order, he was a firm basis, but not the only one. The Jedi Order will continue on," Leia answered grandiosely.
[hr][/hr]
Valin's X-wing banked and wove through the energy lances, his X-wing had already acquired a great amount of damage and it wouldn't be long before his drives cut out completely, leaving him at the voided mercy of the attacking fleet. He had managed to transmit the message, but he did not know how long it would take for it to reach the Council and his father.
Grinding sounds emitted from his starboard and port fuselage, quickly shifting to a slow wind-down that left him with no doubt that he had no escape. Moments later, his X-wing drifting with its initial inertia, the intense energy blasts ripped through Valin's X-wing, and he knew no more.
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Anakin had arrived on Naboo. Ben felt his presence before the [i]Millennium Falcon[/i] had exited hyperspace, and had taken great pains to avoid his older cousin while searching for Artoo. The thought had crossed his mind to leave the rebellious droid behind and let Anakin find him, the Queen's promise to reveal his departure foremost in his mind, but he just couldn't leave behind one of the few links he had to his parents.
To tell by Anakin's proximity, he had arrived this morning, and Ben figured he had a few hours before Anakin would learn that Ben was at the palace in Theed. Due to his shortened time table, Ben had enlisted the help of some of the Queen's men and her handmaidens to help find Artoo.
It was in this inspection that Ben was thrown into the power of the Force, his ability as a seer flashing pictures in his mind's eyes. He saw the elusive darkness that he had told Anakin about, but now it did not hide, blending from shadow to shadow, but showed itself freely, gobbling up globes of luminescent light as it went. It didn't stop there, for the capacious black void split into tiny, easier-to-conceal voids.
The tremors in the Force told him that the voids were in the present, that they were now wreaking their destruction on the unsuspecting life that the globes of Force-light represented. And Ben tried to funnel the Force out of him, to once again gain control of his abilities.
His body was racked with spasms as he felt each and every one of the Yuuzhan Vong deaths, his subconscious picking up on an echo of Anakin's own torture as he too felt the deaths of the people that he had become so much a part of. The tremors continued until Ben felt so drained that he feared he was going to relieve his stomach contents within the palace corridors.
[i]The dark side is rising, will my path lie next to my father's killer?[/i]
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Nefarion did not smile under the shadow of his cowl, but there was a feral look to his clouded eyes, reminiscent of a scavenger who has just found a large carcass abandoned. He fed off the dark energy that stirred through the Force, imbuing it into himself, tasting it like mother's milk.
His ascension had begun.