by James Luceno
E44
ePt
ion to abandon the trail and bushwhack through the thick forest, in the h
of avoiding detection. That they hadn't seen any reconnaissance bio or evidence of foot patrols had only added to the suspicion that th i were being led into a trap.
Then their purposefully meandering path had brought them to the coralskipper.
"You know what could have happened," Han was saying. "Tne yammosk could have steered it wrong."
"I can see that," Sasso said. "I can even see that a crash like this could take out the pilot and the dovin basal. But why would the cognition hood die? Do the hoods feed off the basals?" He stared at the coral-skipper. "I've spent more time trying to avoid them than study them."
"Our daughter could explain it," Han said. "She's actually piloted a vessel like this."
Jaina!
A sense of deep concern flooded through Leia. But before she could begin to make sense of it, Han was yelling something at Wraw. Leia saw that the Bothan had clambered back to the cockpit and was making sketches of the interior.
"Something to show the grandchildren," Wraw said when Han demanded to know what he was doing.
"Grandchildren? You'll be lucky to even have kids of your own."
Wraw closed the sketch pad. "If I do, I know I'll have sense enough to keep them out of the war."
Han advanced on the Bothan with menacing familiarity. "I'm going to have to teach you the ways of the world before this is over."
Leia could see that Kyp was ready to step between them, but the confrontation went no further. "He's Corellian," Kyp said quietly to Wraw while Han was walking away. "They don't make idle threats."
Wraw only sniggered.
Sasso left to find Meloque, Page, and Ferfer. Han, Leia, and Kyp were gathering the timbus when Han said, "You realize we're being reeled in."
Kyp nodded. "It's probably been that way from the beginning-
Worried that the team was under surveillance, no one had si
the previous night. In the morning they had made a decisi
that doesn't mean we still can't pull this mission off. We just have .0 watch our backs."
"Speaking of which, did Intelligence run backgrounds on Sasso
and Ferfer?"
"You'd have to check with Wraw. I do know that both of them ,'ned the resistance before the Yuuzhan Vong showed up in the ~aluula system. Sasso even served on Caluula Orbital for a while."
"So at least we're not being sold to the Vong."
"As far as I can tell."
Sasso's whistled signal wafted into the clearing, and several moments later he, Page, the Ryn, and Meloque stepped from the trees. In her sucker-tipped hands the Ho'Din cradled a dozen or so insects, delicately winged and equipped with large bioluminescent evespots. She set them on the ground, then sat down beside them.
"They're dead," she announced in an anguished tone. "The entire forest is littered with bodies. In most cases they died inside their shells. Others appear to have died in flight."
"All of them?" Leia asked, nonplussed.
Meloque shook her head. "But the survivors are moving very lethargically." She gazed at Leia and the others. "Something terrible has happened here."
Han and Kyp traded dark glances.
"Let's get moving," Page told everyone.
Several hours of mostly downhill trudging brought Team Meloque to a low ridge that overlooked the southern portion of Caluula City, and the prominent hivelike Yuuzhan Vong minshal that harbored the yammosk.
"There are three entrances," Sasso explained from the spot of cover the team found. "Two in the front, and one on the east side. All °f them are dilating membranes that can be pierced by blaster bolts. Guards are stationed at each, usually three or four at any given time. They stand long shifts, so it would be to our advantage to strike at sundown, just when the afternoon shift is ending. The garrison is made up Jf about seventy-five warriors. There's a also a commander, his subal-terr>, at least one priest, and one of those long-tressed technicians—
"A shaper," Leia said.
The Rodian nodded. "As for the yammosk, I don't know how r kill it. But I'm guessing you have some idea."
"Leave that to me," Kyp said.
"It's important that we take out their villip communications whil we're at it," Page added.
Leia gazed out over the flat rooftops of the simple city. Judging by the position of the sun, the team was in for a long wait. Ferfer volunteered to find a place to conceal the timbus. He rose, but had scarcely moved off when a gurgling exclamation of surprise rang from just inside the tree line. Everyone whirled at once to see the Ryn staggering toward them, his belly opened like a ripe fruit.
Behind him emerged four relatively short and dark-complected Yuuzhan Vong warriors.
Han shot Leia the briefest of astonished looks and drew his blaster.
Page did the same with his rifle, but he hadn't even lifted it to firing position when it was whipped from his grip by one of the longest amphistaffs Leia had seen, and hurled though the air like a twig. Sasso was already charging the enemy wielding the amphistaff, but he didn't get three meters when the warrior leapt over him and, on landing, whirled and thrust a coufee deep into the Rodian's back.
Kyp and Leia ignited their lightsabers at the same instant. Continuous fire from Han and Wraw had driven two of the warriors to the ground, but neither had been hit. Kyp raced for the nearest one, catching the warrior across the chest with a powerful upswing of his blade. The Yuuzhan Vong growled and rolled, but his dark, unar-mored flesh showed only a shallow bloodless furrow.
Kyp whirled and brought the blade down like an ax. Evading the strike, the warrior rose to one knee and unfurled his amphistaff. The serpentlike creature elongated and wrapped itself around the hilt of the lightsaber. But Kyp wasn't about to surrender his weapon. In a virtual tug-of-war with the creature, he spun and backflipped, but to little effect. At the same time, a second amphistaff lassoed him around the waist and arms and yanked him roughly to the ground.
Han put three bolts into the second warrior, driving him tw
backward with each, but without killing him or persuading the histaff to loosen its constricting hold on Kyp. Han yelled for V %v's help, but in a glance saw that the Bothan was trying desper-elv to keep the other pair of warriors from grabbing Page.
Without really thinking about it, Leia judged that Han and Kyp •ere in greater jeopardy. Holding her blade at her right hip and inted slightly downward, she moved against the warrior whose amphistaff was flinging Kyp from side to side. Han felt rather than saw Leia race past him. "Leia!" he screamed, firing constantly while he rushed to catch up
with her.
A quartet of bolts holed the warrior Leia had targeted. But at once, the other warrior commanded his amphistaff to withdraw from the pommel of Kyp's lightsaber and fly toward Leia.
Seeing what was coming, Han dived forward in a frantic attempt to place himself between Leia and the attenuating weapon. Leia watched in horror as the amphistaff struck Han solidly in the neck— and not merely with its rounded head.
The jaws of the living weapon gaped, and it sank two long fangs into Han's flesh.
Han landed hard on his side, but quickly got to his knees. He managed to squeeze off three more bolts before the blaster slipped from his trembling hand. He slumped backward on his heels in shock, then tipped to one side, his body curling inward, with his shaking hands close to his chest.
Kyp raced forward, only to be set upon by three of the warriors.
Leia's mouth fell open in a silent scream. She dropped the lightsaber and ran to Han. Gazing in horror at the twin punctures in his neck, she vised his spasming right hand between hers.
"Han," she cried. "Han!"
Meloque was suddenly by her side, lifting Han's head from the ?round. His face was a bloodless mask of pain and sorrow.
"I k-knew from the s-s-start this wasn't my war," he stammered. vin rivulets of blood coursed fro
m the wounds in his neck. 'Han!" Leia said, wide-eyed with terror.
She looked up at the advancing warriors, two of whom had a t' hold on Kyp, almost as if expecting them to come to Han's Instead one of them dragged her and Meloque to their feet.
"No, no," Leia said, shaking her head back and forth.
Han extended his hand to her, but the warrior kicked it asid Han's eyes rolled up, his eyelids fluttered, and his body went limp
"No!" she screamed as the warriors were hauling her away.
"Casualty assessment of the first engagement, Warmaster" Supreme Commander Loiric Kaan said, gesturing to a wall niche in the command chamber of Yammka's Mount.
Nas Choka turned from the observation transparency to study the commotion of blaze bugs. "Acceptable," he pronounced after a moment.
"A clever use of machines," Loiric Kaan remarked.
The warmaster's finely haired upper lip curled and he glowered at his Supreme Commander. "Another act of cowardice. Stop thinking in terms of the weapons our enemy employ, and concentrate on how they fight. Think of the machines as living beings if it will help you view the matter with more clarity."
Loiric Kaan bowed his head. "Warmaster."
Nas Choka moved to the blaze bug niche that displayed the disposition of the enemy battle groups.
"They seek to spare the new capital," Loiric Kaan said, "but they cannot save it now."
Nas Choka beckoned to one of his subalterns. "Escort Supreme Commander Loiric Kaan from the command chamber. If this war could be won by words of confidence, we would have already vanquished them."
The warmaster kept his back turned to Kaan while he was being led to the chamber's iris membrane.
"The number of ships is significantly lower than calculated," the chief tactician said when the membrane had resealed itself.
"Of course," Nas Choka said. "Trusting to the effectiveness of their deceptions, they decided to keep additional ships in reserve t execute their secondary objectives."
"Starfighter wings forming up for strikes," a subaltern reported.
XTIS Choka sniffed. "Like a swarm of insects that can't be out-ced or repelled. The pests can, however, be eradicated." He A to the female stationed at the villip-choir. "Order Domains
j ind Pekeen to spray the contaminated areas. Then command
vammosks to spruce up our formations with auxiliary coral-
skippers-"
The warmaster and the chief tactician swung to the transparency
see brilliant plumes of plasma discharge omnidirectionally from the re Dozens of the small fighters disappeared, and as many others were shocked into submission. "Again," Nas Choka ordered.
A second torrent of molten death poured from the war vessels, obliterating yet more starfighters.
"Now, assign yorik-akaga and yorik-vec to the rear. Let mataloks serve as our spearhead."
The subaltern snapped his fists to his shoulders in salute. "Warmaster," the villip-choir tactician interjected judiciously. "Communication from Supreme Overlord Shimrra."
Nas Choka turned to the array and genuflected in front of Shimrra's dedicated villip. Everyone else in the command chamber kneeled, with foreheads pressed to the deck.
"It bodes well, Dread Lord," Nas Choka began. "We will deliver victor)' to you this day, or die in the attempt."
"Better for you, Warmaster, that you die delivering victory." "Understood, Lord."
Shimrra's villip spoke again. "You have my blessing, and the bless-mgs of the gods. Yun-Yuuzhan and Yun-Yammka soar at your sides, as your right and left hands."
'I sense their presence, Great Lord." Does the enemy cower before us?" ''For the moment their fleet holds fast."
tfpi
Lnen they have mustered the courage to meet us toe to toe? It >e their downfall. You have my full confidence, Warmaster. I leave 'Ou to your business."
he dedicated villip inverted to its original leathery appearance.
Nas Choka rose and paced to the transparency to observe the match fury of coralskippers and starfighters, yorik-vec and Scimitar bornbe
"Sow and Kre'fey are righting with their minds, not their bodie » he said to the chief tactician. "They are the smaller individual wh engages a larger one. Even if he is swift enough to get inside his opp nent's defenses, his hands are too small to cause severe damage a his muscles lack the power to bring his opponent to his knees. So h plans more carefully. Perhaps he goads the bigger warrior to swine first and miss, hoping then to unbalance him with a precisely timed shove or kick to the knee. Or perhaps he brings his equally small friends to stand at his back, and he strikes first, confident that his cohorts will be ready to find openings. He offers them as a distraction so that when the larger warrior risks a glance to the right, a blow arrives from the left."
Nas Choka's expression hardened. "This battle is not the last stand. It has nothing to do with honor or a willingness to meet death. This is a feint. Fortunately, I have my suspicions about where the would-be surprise blow is coming from."
The tactician nodded knowingly.
Nas Choka turned to the villip-choir mistress. "Alert domain groups Shen'g, Paasar, Eklut, and Taav. On my command they will separate from the armada and prepare to go to darkspace."
She bowed. "To Toong'l and Caluula, and from there to Yuuzhan'tar."
Nas Choka sneered. "Play with your villips, Mistress. Leave strategy to those who live to fight." He summoned the chief tactician forward. "Command her, tactician."
"To the Perlemian Trade Route," the slight Yuuzhan Vong told the villip mistress, "and from there to Contruum!"
Leia was still in shock when the three surviving warriors led her, Kyp, Page, Wraw, and Meloque into the yammosk installation. Sasso and Ferfer had been left to die in the forest. Han they dragged behind by his wrists, like a slaughtered animal. He was alive but unconscious or comatose from the venom delivered by the warrior's amphistati.
Even in her dread, however, Leia was not too oblivious to notic
nlv one weary guard was posted at the minshal's eastern dilating
hrane, and that the membrane itself looked thin and weak, and
d a viscous liquid. The guard struggled to rise as the trio of war-approached. Barely strong enough to cross his arms in salute, he •d something to them in a feeble voice.
"He's telling them that the commander is waiting," Page translated quietly.
One of the warriors stumbled a bit as they crossed the threshold • m the Bloomy interior of the minshal. Oddly, he was the only one of the three who hadn't been wounded during the brief action.
Kvp noticed the stumble as well. "Something's not right."
He received a hard jab in the ribs for speaking.
Inside, the smell of rot was overpowering. Pools of sallow liquid had collected on the spongy floor, and the bioluminescent wall lichen was rashed with black spots. Thousands of dying arachnidlike insects—similar to the ones Leia had seen in the living cofferdam— crawled about in seeming confusion.
Dead flitnats littered the ground. A female shaper was borne into the antechamber on a litter, carried by two more of the squat, dark-complected warriors. Her skin was as pale green as Leia's falsely colored face, and the many-fingered hand that had been grafted to her wrist hung limply at her side. The warriors shoved Leia and the others forward, and rolled Han onto his back nearby.
Leia's heart leapt when she saw him stir.
The shaper was addressing the warriors from atop her litter.
"She's congratulating them on capturing us," Meloque whispered to everyone. "She says we will contribute greatly to the sacrifice."
The shaper called two of the troops forward and spent a long
foment looking them over, inspecting their faces, limbs, and torsos.
ne of the warriors indicated a tumorlike growth on his neck, and
r°pped to one knee at the foot of the litter, in what appeared to be
humiliation.
"What's going on?" Kyp asked Meloqu
e.
^he listened for a moment. "The warrior thinks he has become a
°ed One, because his body is rejecting some sort of... enhance-
t he received." Meloque listened for a moment more, then added:
"The shaper's telling him that he is not Shamed. That the growth the tumor has nothing to do with the gods, and everything to do wi I this world—everything to do with Caluula."
"Caluula?" Page repeated in bafflement.
The warrior looked relieved. Rising, he drew his coufee turned toward Leia, only to be restrained by the shaper's touch.
"He wants to kill us," Meloque explained.
"I got that much," Kyp said.
"She's reassuring them that we will die before sunset."
"That's a relief," Wraw said. "For a minute I thought they were going to let us go."
Kyp glanced at the Bothan. "Get out all your jokes while there's still time."
The shaper was speaking again. Leia recognized the word Yuuzhan'tar.
Meloque translated. "She's ordering the special warriors—the slayers, she calls them—to return her to Yuuz—to Coruscant immediately. She says it's imperative that she apprise her master of what has happened here to render everyone ill. She is promising the slayers that the commander is going to see to us personally."
"Yun-Harla succors me in my time of need," a male voice said in Basic.
The accent was familiar to Leia, and clearly to Page, who craned his neck to see who had spoken.
A tall, rail-thin Yuuzhan Vong elite entered the antechamber, his scarified arms draped in support around the shoulders of two large but plainly enervated warriors.
"Welcome, Jedi, Ho'Din, and Bothan. And to you, Captain Page. Did I not promise that I would see you on a funeral pyre?"
Leia suddenly recalled where she had seen him before—aboard the Yuuzhan Vong convoy vessel.
It was Commander Malik Carr.
WM/
•r ith th
