31. Test Protocols

It was the midpoint of the year 20 ABY, and Luke Skywalker had a front-row seat at the second-largest publicity stunt in galactic history after the destruction of Alderaan... and he was about as enthused about it as he would have been if he were attending that august event.

Given their string of defeats against the Yuuzhan Vong and the plummeting morale that was the natural result, it was obvious that the Republic needed a genuinely spectacular and decisive victory if it was going to have any hope of stemming the tide, and given that the first rule of warfare was 'don't fight fair if you can help it', it was equally obvious that this would require some sort of lure to get a sufficiently impressive portion of the Vong fleet in range for a just and righteous pounding.

The bad news, of course, was that such a trap would undoubtedly be seen through by the invaders' command echelons – subtlety was difficult to achieve in fast-paced, galactic-scale warfare – and so the bait in question would have to be something so inviting that they simply couldn't afford not to go for it, ambush or no ambush. There was only one system in the vicinity of the main front that matched that criterion... and that was because the Republic couldn't afford to lose Coruscant, either. Being an impossible-to-evacuate galactic capital tended to encourage that mindset in one's owners and residents.

Luke was quite aware that to achieve victory one had to take the odd risk or two, but this was just ridiculous.

Nevertheless, he had only voiced minor dissent at the plan. Part of this was because he knew President Fey'lya's likely response would probably be to simply shut him out from further war council meetings, and part was that there was indeed the chance, however slim, that the whole demented scheme might actually work.

The Republic did not stand alone against the invaders, for a start. Dotted amongst the ships orbiting the star system's outermost planet, Ulabos, were small, sleek vessels that shone like beacons in the Force. The TSAB auxiliaries the Chief of State had requested had already been deployed in limited engagements several times in order to evaluate their effectiveness against the Vong, and the results, by all accounts, had been somewhere between 'acceptable' and 'awe-inspiring'. Mostly, though, they leaned towards the latter. As an amateur spacecraft enthusiast, Luke rather liked the little warships. The combination of their compact dimensions and astonishing power reminded him comfortably of Master Yoda, for a start... though he rather doubted their commanders would take kindly to their vessels being compared to a wrinkly, malodorous green dwarf, no matter how wise and ancient he had been.

He was considerably less happy about his own civilisation's side of the bargain, though.

The Bureau had initially given them the Spiral Driver blueprints as a goodwill present, but the gift had soon turned sour. Certainly, the gadgets were quick and easy to build – remarkably so, given their size and complexity – and undeniably potent, but none of that had been worth the toll they took on their users. The scientists in charge of their development had attributed it to malign neural feedback, acquired psychosomatic disorders, subatomic radiation, and half a dozen other nonsensical but impressive-sounding explanations, but Luke knew the truth. Weapons powered by raw, furious passion might have been all well and good wherever the Bureau came from, but in this universe, they were nothing more nor less than gigantic dark side magnets.

A fortnight after the first prototype Spiral Driver was put together, the project was cancelled. Of the sixteen operators and test pilots of vehicles adapted to accommodate the devices, four suffered horrifically extensive premature aging, two committed suicide shortly afterwards, and three were rendered completely and irrevocably insane. Even those who had escaped relatively unscathed reported nightmares for some time afterwards, speaking of impossible, mind-shattering beings that bestrode galaxies and fought with the fires of creation themselves. The Bureau had apologised profusely, of course, and offered to provide for the treatment of those affected, but the damage had been done, and collaboration between the two universes had effectively ground to a halt... until, that was, Fey'lya had come up with his 'trade agreement' scheme.

The logic was simple. Spiral Drivers and the vessels that could accommodate them were little other than bad news for the Republic, but in high demand for the Bureau – apparently, the magic that infused their own ships didn't get along very well with Spiral Energy, either (though not quite to the same extent), forcing them to outsource construction of the alleged superweapons. Likewise, whilst the sheer size of the TSAB fleet meant that using any more than a fraction of their forces in a fleet engagement would result in severely diminishing returns, their craft were an inimitable and thus invaluable resource in this universe. Even Borsk's formidable negotiating skills managed to bear fruit for both sides – having their extradimensional allies give more than they were taking went a long way towards repairing their reputation with those who blamed them for (inadvertently or otherwise) leading Chaos to their home.

The problem was not that they were supplying equipment and manpower for enigmatic aliens – Luke considered himself a fairly good judge of character these days (he'd learned a lot from a certain unfortunate incident involving an angry young man, a grotesquely overpowered prototype starship, and a heavily-populated star system or three), and he was fairly sure that the Bureau was being entirely honest with them. Besides, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with putting the Drivers somewhere they might actually have an improved harm-to-good ratio. The problem was that the Republic's leadership wanted to ensure that this was their victory as well as the Bureau's, and had decided to keep a few of the devices for their own use, reasoning that the survival of the galaxy came before the wellbeing of a few crew-members.

Luke didn't like any of it. He didn't like the regime he had helped create using that kind of calculus, even if the Spiral Driver operators were volunteers who had been told of the risks. He didn't like it employing the exact same kind of deranged superweapons he'd spent a good part of his career reducing to gently wafting space debris. Above all, though, he didn't like the dark side being used for anything, no matter how innocent or inadvertent. The decision had already been made, though, and all he could do was observe, help out, and run damage control if and when everything started to go horribly wrong.

Administering a few breathing exercises to clear his mind, he sat down in midair and began to enter a meditative trance, drawing a few odd looks from those around him.

They stood on the main observation deck of the Julia, an old MC40A light cruiser chosen to host those VIPs sent to watch the battle by dint of its high speed and thick shields. They were a diverse bunch – officers of the TSAB and New Republic Army, Spiral scientists, a small horde of reporters, and even a few politicians from nobody-was-quite-sure-where. The venerable protocol droid C-3PO had been brought in to help smooth over the cultural barriers a little, but after it had been revealed that the mages' Devices served as perfectly adequate translators, he had retreated into the nearest corner to sulk, and had not come out even when it was pointed out that this still didn't change the fact that people from different dimensions didn't really have all that much in common.

Luke slipped deeper into the trance, his mindsight panning outwards. He felt the signatures of both the crewmembers of the Ulabos picket and his students dotted across the system, and was pleased to note that they were keeping their emotions well under control, even if the odd spot of nervousness did leak out from time to time. He pulsed out a reassuringly wordless psychic message to them, and zoomed out again.

To perceive an entire star system at once was to experience an information rush that the untrained human mind simply could not process. Even Luke, for all his years of practice, was sent reeling for a moment before his higher brain functions managed to reassert themselves.

It was impossible to defend every part of something the size of the Coruscant system at once, so the fleet and their commander, Ackbar, had decided not to bother. The Jedi Temple's visions had given them sufficient information about the Yuuzhan Vong force's position and speed of advance to allow a good guess at where and when they would arrive, and so it was that three defensive lines had been formed between Coruscant and the appropriate hyperspace lane entrance. The one at Ulabos was entirely unmanned, as befitted a layout only intended to slow down the enemy, and its minefields and automated defence platforms were all but invisible through the Force. The other two, supporting the main fleet near the gas giants of Stentat and Muscave, bore much clearer signs of life in keeping with their heavier, manned equipment... plus, in the Muscave line's case, a dark, ominous presence that Luke fervently hoped would not have to enter the battle.

Another change of perspective, shifting outwards into deep space... and he saw them.

In many ways, a Yuuzhan Vong fleet was like a negative of an ordinary one. The Vong themselves had no Force-signature; the only way you could detect them was via the dull glow of their living ships and the few, bright sparks of their Chazrach slaves. Whereas a Republic or Remnant fleet was like a dense constellation of clearly-defined points, a Vong one more resembled a hollow, smoky nebula.

In this case, though, it was a very large nebula, and it was coming right for them.

Luke focused on Ackbar's flagship, the Galactic Voyager, waiting within the Stentat line behind them.

Kyp, they're coming. Warn the Supreme Commander.

Of course, Master Skywalker, Kyp Durron replied.

Though Durron had proven himself again and again since the abject disgrace of the Sun Crusher incident, and was far too powerful a Jedi not to include in this operation, Luke had only brought him along with great reluctance. It wasn't that he hadn't forgiven him, because he had, years ago, but because he rather suspected that the amount of dark side energy that would probably be thrown about in the coming battle would prove trying for even the most well-adjusted Force-user, let alone one who had succumbed to it once already. There was a reason that he was the only Jedi Knight in the fleet to have two others on the ship backing him up, and it wasn't just that Cilghal would work well with her uncle, or that Tionne's sheer breadth of knowledge would prove most useful at the admiral's immediate disposal. The leader of the Jedi Order hoped he was wrong, but it only made sense to take a precaution or two anyway.

A surge of energy caused his attention to refocus on the Ulabos line as the first metaphorical shots of the engagement were fired.

The advance fleet, apart from the TSAB ships, was mostly comprised of Interdictors, vessels capable of pulling enemy craft from hyperspace via carefully-deployed gravity-wells. Normally, even the largest Interdictors, such as the customised Star Destroyers that dominated the line, could only ensnare a few enemies, but with the assistance of Spiral Drivers, things became much more interesting.

He opened his eyes, and saw ship after ship begin to manifest a pale green aura as the alien machines boosted their gravity-well projectors. The dark side was there, warm and rich and inviting, but not in the strength he had expected. It was almost as if it was... waiting for something. And of course, that's not worrying at all...

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he muttered to himself.

Thousands of kilometres away, the vanguard of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet began its unscheduled arrival in the Coruscant system exactly where the defenders wanted them... right on the outer edge of the Ulabos minefield. Explosions blossomed against the stars as hundreds of the automated weapons homed in on each vessel, crippling everything that was not instantly destroyed.

Then the Bureau contingent joined in.

There were one hundred and sixty extradimensional warships of various sizes in the advance fleet. Each was armed with an Arc-en-ciel, an obscenely powerful technosorcerous artillery piece capable of creating space-time distortions that would tear apart absolutely everything within a hundred-kilometre radius and most things within two hundred. They fired in shifts of forty at a time, staggered so that the first shift would be recharged by the time the last was done. Blue-white beams criss-crossed the space between the fleets, terminating in vast, polychromatic detonations that, even considering the distance, were spectacular enough that when they appeared on the Julia's monitors, almost everyone on the observation deck burst out in spontaneous cheers... except for Luke, who wasn't watching them. At least, not directly.

What preoccupied him more were their effects.

Since the Vong did not show up in the Force, it was impossible to see their emotions, their lives preserved in the everlasting power that suffused the galaxy. It was impossible to see them die.

The souls aboard the invasion fleet's vanguard, whose ships had just been so effortlessly demolished... were not Yuuzhan Vong.

A million thoughts assailed him at once. Time had no meaning to the dead. Logic had no meaning, just a manic, confused jumble screamed out with their final breaths. Peace... laughter... sudden darkness... specks in the sky, what are they? Fear... run... painpainPAIN... so many, so many... where did they come from? Crowded... sick... hurt... so cramped... metal walls everywhere... chase... fear... submission... PAIN... driven like animals, like cattle... loss... mummy, where did you go? Mummy? Hey, aren't those Republic ships? What are they...? Fear... heat... light... pain... death... peace.

Refugees. They tried to use refugees as living shields, as a ticket of safe passage, and we didn't even notice.

He watched the delighted faces around him, eyes alight with the thrill of victory, and felt sick to his stomach. They don't know. Unless the weapons of the Bureau were considerably less effective than he suspected, there wouldn't even be any evidence behind to tell of the thousands of innocent lives that had just been erased from the face of the galaxy.

Luke Skywalker, Master of the Jedi Order, closed his eyes and wept for them. He knew he was the only one who could.

Behind the dying refugees arrived the Yuuzhan Vong themselves, the armoured shells of their bio-ships gleaming in the light of the carnage ahead. Soon they too were in the kill-zone as the TSAB gunners shifted their aim, trying not to catch too much of the minefield in the blast radius of their attacks. With technosorcerous hellfire behind and silent, deadly homing mines everywhere else, the aliens had no choice but to advance and take the punishment they were being served.

One curiosity of a Vong bio-ship was that it didn't use shields, instead employing gravitic distortions created by creatures deep within its hull that absorbed and deflected incoming attacks... and caused the Arc-en-ciels to go absolutely haywire. The beams bent as they encountered the wells, veering off every which way. Two even struck Ulabos itself, chewing into the little planet's surface in a manner that made Luke very relieved the place was uninhabited. Some did get through the enemy's defences, though, and the effects were... memorable.

Three detonations combined into one, a strangely two-dimensional rift forming at their centre whose green-and-purple interior contrasted sharply with both the darkness of space and the multicoloured lightshow surrounding it. It expanded rapidly, dragging ships and mines alike into itself, before collapsing with a pulse of darkness that temporarily blotted out the light of the bombardment. A hundred vessels were gone in an instant, but there were more. There were always more.

The Vong began to make progress, crawling slowly through the minefield. The Republic forces opened fire, the green light of the Spiral Drivers encasing projectile and energy bolt alike. Interdictors were generally much less well-armed than other vessels of their size and class due to the power demands of their gravity well projectors, but the extradimensional tech boosted their firepower to the level of ships-of-the-line. Luke steadied his mind as Master Yoda had taught him and focused on a single proton torpedo, watching as it changed shape mid-flight to something resembling a long, slim drill before boring through the underside of a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser and exploding within with sufficient force to shear the kilometre-and-a-half-long leviathan in two. Well, that's some subtle symbolism right there, then.

The gravity fields the living ship projected hadn't seemed to affect its fate at all.

He touched the Force, and felt the dark side there as always, but it was still oddly subdued. I would have at least expected some sort of stir from the dead civilians, and it's not being suppressed by anything, either – quite the opposite, in fact. Just what is going on here?

As the alien fleet finally managed to get in range with its own weapons, another function of the Spiral Drivers became apparent. Pulsating green walls appeared before those vessels fitted with them, growing brighter as they absorbed fire from the Vong ships before collapsing into devastating shot-ranged blasts of their own, employing the enemy's own strength against them. Most of the crowd 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed at all the pretty lights whilst others made notes on anything that came to hand. Some, though, were less sanguine.

"Something's going to give," General Wedge Antilles opined from beside Luke, and the Jedi Master nodded in agreement.

There's no way we can win this easily. Though the battle thus far was almost painfully one-sided, he knew that it would take only one little thing to shift the balance... and in accordance with laws more ancient than the galaxy, that was precisely what happened.

Three Force-sparks emerged from the minefield, dancing through the apocalyptic fire-fight with animal grace. Luke focused on them, and saw sleek, insectoid creatures the size of starfighters, their primitive minds awash with frenzied hunger. They homed in on the centre of one of the TSAB bombardment squadrons, jinking from side to side to avoid the barrage of point-defence fire directed at them. One vanished in an enormous fireball, a Republic fighter wiggling its S-foils in victory as it flew past. One was caught in the sights of seven turrets at once, literally falling apart mid-flight as the magically-enhanced bullets tore through it.

The last landed on the underbelly of one of the Bureau cruisers before burrowing inside... just as the ship was preparing to fire its Arc-en-ciel.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then an explosion blossomed from the Ulabos line, temporarily shorting out the sensors of everything within a thousand kilometres. The entire eight-strong squadron was destroyed instantly, followed rapidly by over eighty other Bureau and Republic vessels and countless starfighters. Luke rocked backwards, the weight of their deaths sweeping over him like a tidal wave.

The Vong were quick to exploit their enemies' momentary confusion, pounding apart ships and defence platforms alike with their bizarre magma cannons. They had started to exit the minefield faster than they were being destroyed, and the consensus amongst the surviving defenders was clear. Time to go.

The Republic vessels departed first, with the Julia in the lead; its captain saw no sense in exposing his VIP contingent to immediate danger any longer than was necessary. The TSAB ships stayed behind alongside the automated defences to provide covering fire and further delay the enemy... for about ten minutes. After the second Vong-initiated Arc-en-ciel misfire wiped out a third of their remaining craft, they just fled for their lives.

Battered and bruised, the advance fleet limped back to the Stentat line, an armada of very angry aliens on their tail. Losing Ulabos might have always been part of the plan, but Luke still wished less people had died in the process. Ackbar, I hope you know what you're doing.


Author's Notes: Merry Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the weird, weird world of the Doorstop, now with extra space battles and mythology gags! (Warning: may cause brain damage).

Yes, I am aware that referring to the Star Wars Expanded Universe's friendly neighbourhood sadomasochists as just 'Vong' is a grievous insult. Given the drastically reduced getting-to-know-you time in this version of the invasion, though, it's unlikely that the Republic does... and even if they did, would they care in the slightest? Somehow, I doubt it.