32. Debut Outing
Master Skywalker. Master Skywalker, are you there?
Preoccupied as he was, the Jedi didn't notice the voice for two whole minutes despite its increasing insistence. He was deep within a Battle Meditation trance, his consciousness spread thinly across the fleet. It was a power Luke was particularly fond of these days – subtle and not overly aggressive, and yet incredibly useful when employed properly. It enervated and demoralised the enemy whilst emboldening and energising one's allies, allowing them to operate at peak performance. Unsurprisingly, Luke preferred the second half of that. It was surprising how physical space combat could get, especially when you were pulling ridiculously high Gs in a starfighter, and the boost in stamina and mental acuity was useful for everyone else as well. The bad news, though, was that when you were listening in on a thousand different orders and communications at once, most of them having nothing to do with you, it took a little while to register other matters even when one of your pupils was metaphorically screaming in your ear.
What is it, Kyp?
Message from the Supreme Commander. He wants you to concentrate your attention on the area around the defence platforms. We're beginning evacuation protocols in preparation for a retreat to Muscave.
Understood. I'll let the others know too.
The news did not surprise Luke. Even with the benefit of the alien technology they had been granted, they were slowly being pushed back. The number of Yuuzhan Vong ships destroyed had surely crept well into four figures by now, but still they kept coming. Worse, they had started to bring in their big guns.
Near the back of the advancing fleet was an enormous vessel shaped like an over-inflated spiral galaxy, easily ten kilometres across and escorted by four similarly huge dreadnoughts that resembled little more than jumbled, asymmetric stacks of hemispherical domes, each six kilometres in height. Together, the dreadnought squadron laid down a blanket of firepower that not even a Spiral Driver-equipped Star Destroyer could resist for more than a minute or so, whilst launching waves of fighters that blotted out the stars. Though the purpose of weakening the defences of the area around Coruscant had indeed been to lure in more of the enemy's forces than they could afford to lose, Luke couldn't help but feel that maybe they had succeeded a little too well.
He was far from the only one employing the Force to affect the tide of battle. Those who were not applying their precognition and enhanced senses to supply the commanders of their ships with up-to-the-minute (or, indeed, up-to-the-next-five-minutes) intelligence were utilising their unique talents in rather more creative ways.
Tionne had accelerated her thought processes to the point where she became a living war computer, capable of processing and formulating and processing hundreds of different tactics and strategies simultaneously, whilst Tresina Lobi, a promising young Chev illusionist, had somehow managed to sneak an entire squadron of MC90 cruisers into the middle of the fleet, where they were happily unloading their considerable firepower into all and sundry without anyone paying them the slightest bit of attention. At a gentle suggestion from Luke, they began to focus their efforts on the main defensive line... except for Lobi, who appeared to be trying to insert her ship up a blissfully oblivious Vong battlecruiser's exhaust port for reasons that entirely eluded him.
Apart from the automated stations, which were basically turbolaser batteries with generators and rudimentary targeting computers bolted on, the manned portion of the Stentat line consisted of sixteen ancient Golan defence platforms, varying between one and two kilometres in length and patched and customised to a point where they bore very little resemblance to their original design. They did have more sophisticated equipment in the system, especially the newer-model Golans orbiting Coruscant itself, but with the limited time they had been given to prepare, they had had to make do with whatever they could get.
Ships were crowded around the huge space stations, the situation on board exactly as chaotic as one would expect when attempting to evacuate several thousand crew members in a short space of time... until Luke's Battle Meditation kicked in there like sunlight shining through the clouds of panic, confusion, and desperation. Order began to reassert itself as beleaguered officers began to think clearly once more and exhausted rescue teams gained a second wind, carrying out their duties like fresh, enthusiastic recruits all over again. He felt movements in the Force around him as his students contributed their own efforts, further easing the process, and was relieved to note that the change in focus had not compromised the rest of their defence too greatly.
Others had made sure of that.
Given how spectacularly their previous methods had backfired, the remaining TSAB ships had switched tactics. They were engaged in a brutal close-range knife-fight with the forward edge of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet, employing their superior speed and firepower to launch devastating hit-and-run attacks deep into the enemy. Though their point-defence turrets were not intended for fleet engagements, and couldn't even match an ordinary Republic ship-of-the-line, let alone one upgraded with Spiral Driver technology, their commanders' magic made up for it in ways that put even the Jedi to shame.
Attack spells could disable living ships with just a couple of shots, leaving them helpless in the face of the defenders' guns, and that was even before you got into the various terrifying uses of binds, teleportation, and shield-rams. Stentat had attracted a great deal of space debris into its orbit in the Coruscant system's millennia of habitation, and while something as tiny as a detached screw from a starship or a stray micrometeoroid was thoroughly innocuous on its own, having several billion of them scooped up by a supernatural energy field and propelled at your ship at relativistic speeds was considerably more worrisome, especially when you remembered that an object approaching the speed of light starts converting further acceleration into mass instead. There were many things about the Battle of Coruscant that Luke imagined he would eventually forget, but seeing three tiny Bureau frigates working in concert to rip a Star Destroyer-sized battlecruiser in half with a cosmic dust-storm was not one of them.
The thing was, he rather suspected that he and several of his more advanced students could perform similarly lethal feats if they tried. The battleship-disabling energy blasts, not so much, but he could undoubtedly rig up something fairly spectacular with some telekinesis and a bit of preparation time, especially if he used precognition to guide his aim. He chose not to, though.
It wasn't a matter of morality. He was quite aware that for all their innocuousness, his powers were currently helping the Republic forces kill a great number of sentient creatures, and was too honest with himself to hide behind the excuse that he was merely ensuring his allies' safety. It was simply that using the Force to dominate and destroy was of the dark side, whilst using it to preserve and protect was of the light, and he didn't think that getting addicted to a power that would inexorably turn him into a gibbering, homicidal megalomaniac would be terribly useful to anyone, least of all himself.
Morality, as usual, was far more complicated than the simple black-and-white of the Force. On the one hand, the current operation was greatly beneficial to the safety and security of the galaxy and its residents – the Yuuzhan Vong had butchered their way from the Outer rim to the centre of the galaxy, and since politely asking them to stop doing it didn't seem to be working very well, more forcible methods of dissuasion were clearly required. On the other, butchering them right back left an unpleasant taste in his mouth... and this was definitely butchery, no doubt about it. Destroyed ships were littered all the way to the edge of the system, each having once contained hundreds of crew (presumably, at least – their Force-invisibility made it hard to tell), and that was discounting the thousands of starfighters that they had swatted aside like insects.
In the end, Luke had to fall back on the justification he had used for the destruction of the Death Stars, the Tarkin, the Eclipse, and all the other enormous death-machines the Empire had thrown at him over the years. Thousands might have died, even millions, but trillions were saved as a result. He felt an uncharacteristically sour smile creep across his face as he realised that this was precisely the sort of reasoning he had so opposed in the employment of the Spiral Drivers. Jedi hypocrisy? How novel.
That was the other disadvantage of Battle Meditation – it tended to get you philosophising.
At least they had given the aliens an out. A TSAB translation team were stationed aboard the Galactic Voyager, monitoring their transmissions for anything resembling a message of surrender. Unfortunately, they had had nothing so far except proclamations of Yuuzhan Vong superiority and eye-wateringly creative insults, judging from what Luke had heard while he inadvertently listened in, but the fact that there was discourse of any level going on was surely an encouraging sign.
He returned his attention to the battle; there was only so much Vong swearing the human mind could take. As usual, the TSAB were not having everything go their way. One place where their ships most definitely did not outstrip the Republic's was in shielding, and whilst they could partially make up for this with their magic, that meant they couldn't use it for anything else while they were protecting themselves – such as, for instance, getting rid of whatever was currently shooting at them. One by one, they were steadily being crippled or destroyed, either by torrential magma cannon fire, by the strange borer-beetle living weapons, or by rocky missiles guided by the enemy's gravitic fields.
The aliens were disturbingly coordinated, reacting to the mages' stratagems with a speed no ordinary sentient could muster. A foray into their midst would find itself the target of a perfectly-executed pincer manoeuvre, whilst an attempted retreat would soon be blocked by a wing of starfighters or worse. As others had reported in prior engagements, it was as if they were being guided by a single, transcendent intelligence... and knowing Vong biotech, they probably were.
As they were pushed back, the Bureau began to get desperate. There was a flash of light, and Luke watched incredulously as a single cruiser, trailing debris and barely holding together, teleported directly above the enemy's vast spiral-shaped flagship. Its intent was clear – either fire its Arc-en-ciel into the dreadnought squadron at point-blank range, or overload it with precisely the same effect. Charging rings began to emerge between the focusing fins on its prow, and excess energy crackled across its ruined hull as the mighty weapon began its slow activation process.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the Vong had figured that out as well.
A gigantic tentacle lashed out from the world-ship's upper hull, its lamprey-like mouth clamping onto the crippled intruder. It whipped back and forth with enough force to liquefy any crew still alive, before hurling its prey back towards the Republic forces. It didn't get all the way before the abused Arc-en-ciel detonated, and quite a few smaller Yuuzhan Vong vessels were caught in the blast, but the dreadnoughts remained unharmed.
Luke didn't have to check with Tionne to know what was coming next. They wouldn't be able to hold long enough to get the Golans' crew to safety, and that meant that Ackbar was going to have to deploy their trump card early. Which he duly did.
From behind distant Muscave, the dark presence began to move. Nineteen kilometres of sleek, dagger-like warship traversed the distance between the two planets with impossible speed, its hull burning with green fire as it casually molested the laws of physics. The Lusankya had arrived.
Since the bad old days of the Galactic Empire, the Republic's few captured Super Star Destroyers had increasingly taken a back seat in military operations. Inefficient, unwieldy, and nigh-impossible to maintain, they were nevertheless amongst the biggest, nastiest things ever to stalk the void, and sometimes, that was exactly what was needed.
Even by the standards of those mighty vessels, the Lusankya had had a busy history. It had gone from Palpatine's (appropriately over-the-top) escape craft hidden underground on Coruscant to the Remnant's most brutal and notorious prison before serving as one of the Republic's ultimate weapons for the next thirteen years, during which time it had racked up a suitably impressive combat record. In this battle, though, it was fulfilling a rather different role.
The crew had been reduced to a skeleton of three thousand, scarcely enough to man the dreadnought's weapons and other systems even given the upgrades the Republic scientists had installed since its capture. Its starfighter bays were gone, as were a good portion of the crew quarters and anything else deemed non-essential. In their place were Spiral Drivers. Lots of Spiral Drivers.
The average Imperial-II Star Destroyer fitted for Driver usage had approximately four hundred of the devices, all networked together and linked to its bridge. The Lusankya, on the other hand, had over twelve thousand. It made its presence known before it was within ten thousand kilometres of the battle, its Spiral-enhanced turbolaser batteries hammering into the enemy with devastating force. The Vong line simply disintegrated, an instant passageway forming towards their own dreadnoughts.
As it slowed down to an ordinary combat speed, the Super Star Destroyer's aura only intensified. The shots from its weapons increasingly resembled glowing, ethereal drills rather than the usual invisible beams, and the ship itself almost seemed to be changing shape as it advanced.
Then he looked closer, and realised that it wasn't an optical illusion at all.
The Lusankya slowly tilted forward, its bow dipping until it was perpendicular to its angle of advance. The light brightened yet further until Luke had to avert his gaze, and when he turned back, the dreadnought he recognised was entirely gone.
In its place was a gargantuan, spindly figure that managed to tower over the battlefield despite the three-dimensional nature of space combat. In some ways, it resembled an exploded diagram of the vessel, its internal structure forming the comparatively small, bulbous body whilst the angular outer hull had become the limbs and loose armour plating – especially the massive, oversized forearms and shoulders, the former of which were almost twice as long as the rudimentary legs in and of themselves. Beside Luke, General Antilles rounded on the nearest Spiral scientist, demanding an explanation, but the other man could only shake his head mutely.
The thing that had once been the Lusankya paused for a moment, seemingly drinking in the effect its presence was having on the battle's participants – but only for a moment. Its turbolasers fired again, the barrage of phantom drills clearing away the last obstructions between it and the dreadnought squadron in a wave of explosions, before the vessel itself charged through, the tiny head formed from its bridge panning back and forth in a way that would have been comical if it had been anything other than a kilometres-tall engine of destruction with one of the ugliest Force-presences Luke had ever encountered.
The dark side was back, and in full force.
One of the Vong flagship's dome-pile escorts was the first to die. The titanic mech stabbed out a blade-like forearm towards it, hundreds of jagged drills erupting from its tip and burying themselves within the living vessel. The doomed ship's hull contorted grotesquely for a moment, and then it burst like an overripe fruit as the drills expanded outwards. Luke felt the deaths of the Chazrach on board, chased down by masses of jet-black, razor-tipped tendrils through the corridors of their dying home, and could not suppress a shudder. Nothing deserved to have its life ended like that.
The drills retracted, and the Lusankya-thing was on the world-ship in an instant. The flagship's feeder tentacle lashed out as it had against the Bureau kamikaze, but it was caught in a single, enormous claw and ripped from its owner's body, along with a good portion of the hull. The mech opened its arms and screeched in triumph, the sheer psychic pressure of the cry driving people across the fleet to their knees despite the lack of air to carry it.
Then the dark side struck, and things suddenly got a great deal worse.
What had once been seductive and accommodating became stifling and sickly-sweet as the diabolic energy poured into the Lusankya, the residual echoes of the pain and death the vessel had born witness to over the years proving more than sufficient when combined with the amplifying effect of the Spiral Drivers. It changed once more, going from something mechanical to a far more organic appearance as the Spiral Energy around it switched colours from green to sickly violet. An enormous, fanged mouth emerged from its chest, and it bit into the world-ship, worrying at it like a dog. Drill-tendrils emerged from all over its body, stabbing into its prey and everything else it could reach.
That was on the visual, physical level. On the metaphysical level, things were both far less pleasant and far less explicitly describable. One could speak of three thousand souls screaming out in agony, of a scent of rotting meat and fresh blood, of geometries that hurt the eyes to look upon and suggested images so blasphemous, so depraved, and so terribly inviting that they didn't even need something to blaspheme against. None of these were truly adequate, though, to record for posterity the birth of a dark god.
Luke saw it all. He fell backwards, blood seeping from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and scarcely even noticed when he hit the ground. All around him was chaos. The Spiral Wedge had attempted to interrogate was shrieking at the top of his voice, his face blotchy and his eyes wild.
"ANTI-SPIRAL! KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!"
The Jedi kept slipping in and out of consciousness, his attention split between the mayhem of the observation deck and the carnage outside. Visuals had gone, followed shortly by comms, a sphere of night spreading out from the Lusankya's last known position and engulfing everything in its path. The Force was still there, but this was not exactly an advantage as the deaths continued to filter in. They were not just Chazrach or Vong any more, but Republic troops as well, killed as their ships either came under attack from the transmuted dreadnought or followed its example. Confusion and terror laced the battlefield, only serving to feed the monstrous entity at its heart.
An idle, detached part of his brain wondered what seeing the leader of the Jedi Order in a twitching, bloody heap on the floor was doing for morale. Probably not much more than everything else.
He chanted a calming mantra with feverish conviction, holding onto it like a lifeline in a storm and battling through the agony and madness that pressed down on his increasingly-fragile mind. He could not afford to wait this out in peaceful oblivion – the fleet would need coordination if it was to survive this, and without ordinary communications...
There were a cluster of bright lights in the darkness, remarkably unaffected by the apocalyptic goings-on around them. The Bureau. He focused on them, opening a telepathic link as he had when their scouts first entered his universe.
This is Master Luke Skywalker of the New Republic. Can you hear me?
Loud and clear, Skywalker. The mage sounded almost bored. Looks like that hypertech the brass were going on about hasn't worked out so well. I'm Commander Meriva, by the way. Commodore Lacetti's head exploded when big ugly there started piling on the crazy. Very messy.
I think we can save the introductions for another time, Meriva. Any suggestions on how to stop this thing?
Sure thing, boss-man. Synchronised Arc-en-ciel bombardment oughta do the trick. Need some cover while we're prepping it, though – leastways, unless the plan's for us to act as extra-temporary light sources and lift the gloom a little. Always happy to oblige.
Luke could only gape. This course of action has a good chance of explosively atomising you, and you're cracking jokes about it? Are all Bureau personnel like you, commander?
A raspy chuckle. Nah – s'pose not. Turns out my ex was an Ancient Belkan artefact weapon, see. Nice guy, but not so great at dealing with the whole 'rejection' business. Compared to that, some weird-looking spaceship's just a walk in the park. Least they don't vape your son's pet wyvern when you stop returning their calls. Probably, anyway. Does that'n look like the wyvern-vaping sort to you? Never mind. You give your boys a call, boss. They provide the starters, and we'll handle the main course.
Understood, commander. He cut the link, shaking his head in disbelief. Mad. They're all completely mad.
Next stop was the Galactic Voyager, and it was rather easier this time. The mind-violating interference had not lessened, but he was more used to it now. Whether this was a good or bad thing, he was not entirely sure. As expected, Kyp was quite thoroughly out of action, paralysed by flashbacks to Carida, whilst Cilghal had gone from doctor to patient thanks to her advanced empathic abilities backfiring horribly.
That left Tionne.
Archivist Solusar, are you all right?
M-master Luke?
Well, you're in better shape than anyone else, at least. Sorry for the bluntness – dark-side-infected giant on a rampage, you know. I've got an idea on how to destroy it, but it'll need the fleet's help. Warn Ackbar, and try to get in touch with the rest of the students. We need to lay down a lot of suppressive fire on the Lusankya. I'll leave the specifics to you and him.
D-destroy it? The crew...
Are already dead! It was not said in a hysterical manner – veteran Jedi Masters did not get hysterical. Just... agitated. Very, very agitated, in this case. He softened. I'm sorry, Tionne, but right now we need to focus on saving those we can. Can you do that?
I... think so.
Luke smiled, hoping the expression would convey itself down the link. Don't worry – it's only a superweapon. You know what happens to those around here.
He tried to extend his perception as he had before, but met with limited success. Doing that left your mind dangerously exposed, and there was only so far he was prepared to go in an environment like the one he found himself in. As such, all he could do was wait until a sizable number of Republic ships appeared to be shooting in the same direction before alerting Meriva.
Commander, you have your cover. Fire when ready.
Sure thing, boss, the Bureau man replied with his usual cheery flippancy. Regular or extra-fine?
Whatever gets the job done. We-
Boss-man? Skywalker? You there?
Luke could not reply. The pressure had doubled – tripled, even. It was all he could do to preserve his sanity, let alone continue a conversation. It found me. By the Force, it found me.
The Julia lurched, an impact shuddering through its hull and knocking the observation deck passengers to the ground. There was... something at the window, all eyes and teeth and inky, writhing blackness, tracing long, lazy scratches across the metre-thick transparisteel. It was painfully obvious that the precautions he had taken whilst employing his supernatural senses had been far from adequate.
The light cruiser continued to shake, the engines' howls of protest audible even over the screaming of the passengers. We're being drawn in. I shall not fear. I shall not fear. I shall not fear...
Voices began to whisper inside his head, alien and incomprehensible, yet not requiring anything so crude as mortal language to convey their message. He saw himself as leader of the galaxy. He saw himself as the saviour of billions. He saw himself with his father, his aunt and his uncle at his side. He saw...
"M... mother?"
Luke... we can help you. We can bring her back. We can bring them all back. We can let you see her. See her as you never did in life. You are strong. You are worthy. Join us. Become one with us. Become our Herald, and you will have everything. Everything you ever wanted...
The dream shattered, cleansing blue-white light shining through the cracks. The Lusankya-thing screeched once more, this time in terrible, outraged pain. The creature's appendage was gone, and so was the shroud it had cast. It bucked and flailed in space, the weapons of a thousand Republic warships striking it again and again. A glowing octagon hung in front of it, a Bureau cruiser at each corner. Luke's vision whited out once more as the technosorcerous vessels fired, the beams from their Arc-en-ciels converging into a single, devastating bolt that struck the Lusankya right in its open maw.
The resultant explosion was... well, 'awe-inspiring' didn't quite do it justice. Luke watched for a few moments, then flopped backwards, passing out before he hit the deck.
He'd had a long day.
"Is this... accurate?" Admiral Ackbar, Supreme Commander of the New Republic Military, asked slowly.
"Near as we can tell, sir," the Bureau officer by the vid-screen replied.
The Mon Calamari wheezed out a long, heavy breath as he tried to compose himself. This course of action was logical, really. The infected Lusankya had done the most damage to the Vong fleet – not out of discrimination, but because it had just happened to be in the middle of it when everything went wrong – and it was the Republic and their allies who had destroyed it and done most of the cleaning-up afterwards. Fortunately, the remaining tainted ships had posed rather less difficulty than their progenitor. Furthermore, the survival of most of the Interdictors ensured that the still-living aliens had nowhere to run.
It was just that he hadn't really expected much in the way of 'logical' from the Yuuzhan Vong.
"Very well. Patch him through, and keep translating."
The face that appeared on the screen was not exactly prepossessing. Heavy-browed, with a vestigial nose and almost lipless mouth whose large, sharp teeth were permanently bared in a snarling expression, it looked more like some seedy petty raider dressing to impress than the commander of a galaxy-crushing fleet, and the extensive scarring and tattoo-work did it no favours either. Until, that was, one looked into the eyes, which were possessed of an ancient cunning and weary grief.
"I am Acting Warmaster Czulkang Lah of the Yuuzhan Vong," it growled in a voice that even by Mon Calamari standards seemed in desperate need of a throat pastille or ten. "I wish to discuss our surrender."
"Then this is unexpected news, but not unwelcome," Ackbar replied. "I am Admiral Ackbar of the Republic. Why 'acting warmaster', may I ask?"
The Vong's reply was calm and measured, with an almost heartbreaking dignity to it. "My son was in the Koros-Strohna that your... creature devoured. As were several thousand others, warriors and civilians alike. I opposed this crusade from the beginning, Admiral. I knew the winged one was feeding us untruths. Even so, I did not know that we would be facing gods and demons in this galaxy. What have you unleashed here?"
I might well ask the same question, the admiral thought, looking out across the devastation the Lusankya had left behind. They had blunted the invaders' advance to the point where the leader of their entire armed forces (if he remembered his intelligence data correctly) was prepared to surrender to them, and yet it still didn't feel like a victory, and not just because the aliens would most likely recruit another Warmaster and attack with renewed vigour rather than giving up entirely. Two thirds of the fleet assigned to defend Coruscant were gone, most of them when the Spiral Drivers had gone haywire, and after Luke Skywalker's tacit warnings, he had a good idea of why it had happened.
The old Mon Calamari was a great believer in the power of the Force. Many of his closest friends wielded the mysterious energy, not to mention his own beloved niece Cilghal, and he had lost count of how many times the Jedi had used it to save them since the Battle of Yavin. To envisage a galaxy in which it did not exist, to actually hope for such a thing to come to pass, was... unthinkable.
Unless, of course, you had seen what other things the Force could do. Things like the aftermath of a Dark Jedi's handiwork, when you realised that some of the things you were looking at had once been alive. Things like good people becoming monsters, like the longest-lived and most stable regime in galactic history getting turned into a nightmare in scant years by a single mild-mannered politician. Things, in fact, like a miracle weapon going berserk and killing several thousand people under your command... and leaving you relieved that it was only that few.
Good grief, I'm starting to think like Fey'lya. I need a bath. Quickly.
He cleared his throat, and turned back to the screen. "Very well, Warmaster, I am prepared to accept your offer. We will, of course, have to discuss several formalities, but..."
For the next hour, the two old warriors engaged in negotiations that would shape history. Outside, the scant mortal remains of hundreds of thousands drifted through space, just another small addition to the geography of the ancient star system.
The Battle of Coruscant was over. The Yuuzhan Vong War was not.
Author's Notes: And this, kiddies, is why you should never, under any circumstances, let a Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fan watch Bokurano. Unpleasantness ensues.
Given how easy a time of it they were having thanks to the gods' assistance, I imagine quite a lot of the Yuuzhan Vong brass were in the invasion fleet's vanguard by the Battle of Coruscant – anything to grab a share of the glory before the Republic was completely flattened. Oh, and if you're wondering about the lack of detail and intimate involvement in this battle, that's because it's a sideshow, a preview of what's yet to come. In the words of Randy Bachman, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Speaking of, I'm afraid it'll be a little while until the next update. I'm buried in university-work at the moment, and besides, while I am indeed still writing, I need to put it all through the beta-ing process before posting it online to maintain the quality (limited though it is) that my readers have come to expect. In the meantime... well, you know my opinions on reviews, so I won't bore you with that again.
Hope you enjoyed what's here so far, and I'll get back as soon as I can!
