[ST/SW] A Prelude to War, Chapters 16-29

[Crazedwraith]

That was a quick update!

Man, Borsk and Viqi are still assholes in your version.

[Crayz9000]

That was a quick update!

I tend to work in spurts... if you haven't noticed. I had actually written several chapters and forgot to post them, so right now I'm catching up.

Man, Borsk and Viqi are still assholes in your version.

Gotta have enemies somewhere Besides, alternate universes will still tend to have many similarities. It's just that a lot of the little things tend to change, which can cause butterfly effects. But people's personalities will tend to be similar.

[Crayz9000]

Thanks to Rob Dalton for graciously allowing me to adapt one of his short Rogue Squadron stories for use in this chapter.


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT



When Jaina arrived back on Yavin IV, still steaming with indignation from what had happened on Coruscant, she entered the Temple to find a dozen chairs arranged in a circle in the center of the Grand Hall. While she recognized most of the faces, including Master Dellen, she didn't recognize the other five.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked, pausing.

Luke came to his feet and shook his head. "No, come in. We were just discussing current events."

She began walking up. "So, I guess you heard that Fey'lya and Shesh think that we're responsible for causing the destruction of Dubrillion?"

"They ... what?" Mara, who had been sitting immediately next to Luke asked, hearing perfectly what Jaina said and yet not quite believing. "Why would they think that?"

Jaina shrugged. "They think that since we held the information back from them, we were trying to cover this up, and now that it's convenient, we want to try and regain influence."

"Do they know nothing of the Jedi?" Corran asked.

Jaina sighed. "Probably whatever lies Shesh has been feeding them. I don't know what it is with her, but something's not right."

"Well," Luke finally said, "Master C'baoth and I were just discussing the best way to re-organize the Jedi. I agree that the situation has gone somewhat out of control. Jaina, during the days of the Old Republic, according to Master Dellen, the Jedi were governed by a High Council composed of twelve of the most respected Jedi in the order. The Council answered directly to the Chancellor, and ultimately all Jedi answered to the Council. We think that re-establishing the Council may go a long way toward restoring order."

Jaina looked around at the twelve chairs. While she still couldn't name off the Masters from the Outbound Flight, she noticed that Tionne, Ikrit, Corran Horn and Kyle Katarn were the other Masters seated in the circle... and suddenly it made sense. "So this is the Council then?"

"Not yet. Before we do anything like that, I'm going to call an assembly of the Jedi."

"That's good," Jaina remarked. "We need to talk about the Vong anyway. They've been very quiet since Dubrillion, and I'm worried about what they're planning next."

Luke sighed. "Jaina, I don't know what we can do. The Navy is—was the only group friendly enough to us with enough power to take them on. The Imperial Remnants would probably laugh in our faces if we asked them. We don't have the ships, or the manpower, to fight them."

"Really?" an unknown voice behind them said. Jaina reflexively jumped before turning around, coming face to face with Kyp Durron and...

"Admiral Kre'fey?" she asked, confused.

"Hello, Jaina," he said, smiling. "Greetings, Masters. I understand we have something of a problem here in the Tingel Arm."

"Understatement of the month," Kyp remarked under his breath.

Luke frowned for a moment in thought. "Admiral, is this an official visit or personal?"

"Personal," Kre'fey quickly said.

"I thought as much. Did Fey'lya give you the information we found?"

The Bothan's ears flattened. "We may be cousins, but we are by no means friends. I wanted to see for myself."

Luke played the recording back for Kre'fey, who was silent in thought after witnessing the horrific account.

"They did not want to take any action after seeing that?!" he finally exclaimed with fury, shaking his head. "I am not sure what it is, but something is very definitely wrong here."

Jaina nodded. "That's what I thought, too."

Kre'fey swept his gaze over the assembled Jedi Masters, before sighing heavily. "Much of the Navy is also fed up with the current bickering in the Senate. We currently have orders to patrol thousands of systems, both important Core worlds and unimportant backwaters—whatever systems had influence over the Senators drafting the legislation. We simply don't have enough ships or crew to do it all.

He paused before resuming with another sigh. "A fairly large portion of the Navy respects me enough that they would ignore the Senate's orders if the circumstances were severe enough. I think this qualifies."

"Wait, what are you saying?" Kyp asked, suddenly confused.

"I'm saying that based on what I'm seeing here, the heart of this mess is Helska. If we strike fast and hard, we might be able to stop this cancer before it consumes us." He turned toward Luke. "General Skywalker," he said, referring to him by his old Alliance title, "the fleet is at your disposal."

Luke stared at him for a moment, completely dumbfounded, before reminding himself that the Force tended to work in mysterious ways. He looked over at the rest of the Jedi Masters before focusing on C'baoth. "What is your opinion?" he finally asked them generally.

C'baoth was the first to reply. "It has always been my philosophy that a fast, accurate reaction saves lives in the long run."

"Jorus, don't forget history," Dellen remarked with concern. "The Great Sith War was filled with half-baked reactionary responses that ultimately caused more death than would have happened otherwise."

The older Master shrugged. "That might be true, if we were fighting Sith. But we are not. As much as I might admire the ideals that this New Republic was created with, the politicians have already succumbed to the influences that caused the fall of our Republic. We must act now to stem this before more life is lost."

Seated across the circle, Tionne leaned forward. "Are you then implying that it might be necessary to use force to make changes to the government?" Having had many in-depth discussions with Master Dellen over the last several days, she was very concerned about the effects of such manipulations.

"Yes," C'baoth answered bluntly. "As protectors of the Republic, we ultimately answer to the principles it was founded on, primarily the equality of all life. If the current government has subverted the ideals, then it is our responsibility to set them right by whatever means necessary."

Mara groaned. "Master C'baoth, I understand that you've spent the past sixty years in hibernation, but the Jedi Order today is not chartered as a part of the Republic. Any actions we take against the legitimately elected government will be seen as some sort of coup."

Luke nodded his agreement. "Mara's right. In fact, if the Senate finds out that we essentially commandeered the Navy, they are going to want our heads."

Kre'fey waved his hand dismissively. "I can take care of that. We have ways of getting around legislation, ways like creative accounting and ship work orders. Officially, close to half the fleet is at the drydocks for repairs. In reality, only about a quarter are actually deactivated, the rest would be ready to go with a a day or two's notice."

Luke furrowed his brow in thought. "How many ships could you pull together within a week, without raising suspicion?"

"Without any suspicion? Including Lusankya, probably about two hundred capital-grade ships plus support craft. That should be enough to blast through whatever defenses these Vong have at Helska."

Kyp, who had still been standing toward the back, coughed. After everyone turned to look at him, he spoke. "While I fully support the idea of going in guns blazing, Miko's still alive. I know he was captured. He's probably on Helska right now, and we should at least try to rescue him first."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Luke finally asked. "You no longer have your squadron to support you..."

Kyp just looked straight at him. "Well, I was kind of hoping..."

Luke returned his glance in disbelief. "You want to fly with Rogue Squadron?"

"I was kind of hoping you could put in a word for me..."

"Hey!" Jaina objected. "You're not the only one who wants to fly with the Rogues."

Luke put his head in his hands and shook it. "Great. So we have two volunteer pilots and a squadron that isn't here."

There was an awkward pause. "That's not quite true," Kre'fey quietly remarked. "Colonel Darklighter is waiting outside, along with Wedge, Tycho and the rest of the old guard. I just couldn't discourage them from coming."

None of them were prepared for what happened next. Kyp and Jaina suddenly began racing for the exit in a manner completely unbecoming of Jedi Knights. Luke and the rest just stared for some time after they had left.

"I suppose," Luke finally said, "if Rogue Squadron agrees to go along with Kyp, that we could give them some extra time to mount a rescue mission."



* * *



The next day, Jaina walked down from her quarters to the Strategy Room below the Temple to find it in a state of semi-organized chaos. Naturally, a very bored Rogue Squadron had agreed to go along with the crazy mission (then again, given their penchant for taking the craziest missions, she wasn't at all surprised.) However, Rogue Squadron itself already had a full staff of pilots, so there wasn't room for Kyp or herself to join. What had surprised her was that Wedge and the rest of Rogue Squadron's now-retired "old guard" had expressed their desire to get back into action; pushing paper for several years evidently hadn't turned out to be as interesting as they had originally thought.

Then, Admiral Kre'fey had walked in with news that he had managed to procure enough T-65H starfighters to form a second squadron. As he explained, the fighters had all accidentally been lost in a shipment, then, after they had been written off, were found again. Of course they were never put back into the inventory. While the H-models weren't quite up to the same level as the newer (eXperimental)J models, they were still far superior to the old A through C series models that all the former Rogues owned.

The only question now was what to name the officially unofficial squadron.

"Kyp, we are not naming this Avenger Squadron!" Wedge objected loudly. "You're not in charge, anyway. Remember, I'm the senior ranking officer here."

Next to him, Luke coughed.

"OK, you old farmboy. Since you're the only former Rogue to have a whole Death Star painted on your fighter, I'll concede that last point." Wedge, after all, only had half a Death Star painted on his – since Lando had flown the Falcon in with him and assisted with the kill.

"How about Shadow Squadron?" Tycho suggested.

"Already been used, plus it sounds too dark," Luke replied.

"Mynock squadron?" someone else piped up.

Wedge rolled his eyes. "Seriously, guys. Try a little harder."

Luke finally spoke up. "Look, how many of us can trace ourselves back to Tatooine?"

Several hands were raised, including Gavin. "Then how about Twin Suns Squadron?" he finished.

There was some murmuring and nodding. "Twin Suns it is, then," Wedge finally said. "That just leaves the problem of exactly what we're doing on this mission. Jaina, Kyp, since you two both have been to Helska, what are we looking at?"

Jaina walked forward to the holotable and popped in the disk recording of the Rock Dragon's sensor logs. A out-of-scale representation of the Helska system appeared over the table. She reached over the table and pointed to the fourth planet in the system, which zoomed in. "We believe that both the ExGal ship and Miko's fighter crashed on the fourth planet, a completely ice-covered world that it seems the Vong are using as their primary base. When we attempted to get close, we were attacked from range first by the massive warships that they have orbiting the world, and then by small fighter-scale craft which managed to strip our shields. These fighters then released silicon-based lifeforms which attached themselves to our ships, resulting in the loss of most of the squadron."

Tycho whistled. "That's not going to be easy. Do you have a plan to get past all those... ship-things, monsters, and who knows what else?"

"We're open to suggestions," Luke replied, looking around the room. Janson caught his eye, and he nodded. "You, Janson, you got an idea...?"

Wedge, Tycho and Hobbie, apparently in tandem, sighed and rested their foreheads on their hands in the universal sign for exasperation.

Janson stood up military straight, trying mightily to suppress what could only be called an evil grin. "General Skywalker, sir! I suggest we try a 'Yellow Snowball', sir!"

Luke stared strangely at Janson for a couple of seconds before finding his voice again. "So what's that, then? Something from your days in the 'Yellow Aces?'"

There some muffled snickering from the back of the room. Janson’s face was twisted in conflict. "Y-yes," he said, trying not to laugh. He failed.

"Janson! Seriously, if only for a couple of minutes?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Janson got up and pointed to a small dot on the holotable. "Comet," he said. "Essentially a dirty snowball. What we do is tether the squadron to it and use an ion engine to give it a little nudge, then just ride it in-system. If we heat it up just enough, the vapor shroud should hide us."

Tycho grimaced. "How sure are you that this will work? Do we know what kind of sensors they use?"

"No," Jaina finally replied. "The Rock Dragon has a military-grade sensor suite, and it didn't pick up any emissions at all. Whatever they use, it's a mystery."

"Well, they can’t track every damn particle in the galaxy," Kyp countered. "If we play our cards right, it just might work."

"He’s right," Wedge said. "It’s worth a shot. Janson, consider yourself an honorary Corellian for a day."

Janson’s lip twisted. "Aww, what did I ever do to deserve that?"

"None of that," Luke said. "So what do we need to make it work?"

Janson considered. "Well, we’ll need a few hundred gallons of yellow paint..."

"What for?" about half the squadron replied in unison.

"Well, you can’t have a yellow snowball without the yellow." He was trying hard not to break out laughing again.

Wedge glared at him. "Alright, consider yourself /not/ an honorary Corellian for a day."

Janson breathed a mock sigh of relief. "Oh good, I can show my face in public again," he said. "I can’t even /spell/ 'ryshcate.'"

"All right guys, knock it off," Luke said after the laughter had died down. "There's one big problem left, and that is the planet's a pretty big place to hide one or two people. Also, Kyp, how do you plan on getting down there and back again?"

Kyp stood up. "If Miko bailed, then chances are that he was captured. Jaina gathered enough information that we know where their main base is. The bad news is it's beneath almost a kilometer of ice. The good news is that I talked to Lando, and he's bringing two ice-boring ships he had stored at Destrillion over here for us to use."

"I think I've heard of those," Jaina remarked. "But aren't those sublight-only?"

"... Yeah," Kyp finally said. "Luke, do you mind if we borrow the Jade Sabre for this? I need something big enough to carry it..."

Luke turned around to look at Mara, who groaned. "If you insist," she said, "I'll fly. You just keep any of those bug-things away from my ship."

"Good, then it's settled," Gavin said. "Twin Suns will go in with the Jade Sabre for the insertion. Since any hope of stealth will be gone when Kyp blasts off the surface, I'll come in with the Rogues and provide cover for the retreat. We'll then rendezvous with the task force at a point 3 light-years outside Helska, re-arm and drive these bastards back to wherever they came from."

The shout of agreement was deafening.



Naturally, Jaina was very excited to be behind the controls of an X-wing in an actual combat situation, as opposed to mere simulator training or flying Luke's old X-wing for practice. What excited her less was the prospect of being stuck as a wingman instead of a leader, but she supposed that was pretty normal for a new pilot. She had been picked to be Hobbie's wingman, at least, since the former Rogues had agreed to take the greener pilots as their wingmen for training.

"Twin Suns Twelve, reporting in," she called in after the rest of the squadron had reported. They had formed up at a rendezvous point outside the system while Mara had corrected for the location of the comet from the Jade Sabre. She was calculating the small hyperjump now, and would soon be sending all of them the navicomputer data. The rest of the Rogues would be staying at this point, waiting for the signal to jump in and cover the escape.

At the same time, she knew that Admiral Kre'fey was organizing the unofficial task group in the outskirts of the Yavin system. He had given them a twelve-hour window to complete the mission. Of that time, most would be spent gliding into the system.

The only bad thing about a long-duration mission such as this in an X-wing was that they had limited facilities on board. All of the pilots were living off nutrient packs, rather than any sort of solid food, since their flight suits could only dispose of liquid waste. The concept still grossed her out, but she supposed that was one of the tradeoffs it took to be a pilot.

Then again, Kyp probably had it worse off. The iceborer that he was riding in, currently carried inside the rear bay of the Sabre, required him to lie prone in the forward compartment. There was just enough room behind that for two people to sit, provided that they tucked themselves into as tight of a ball as they could. The borer also carried no weapons to speak of besides the two shaped charges to jumpstart the ice melting process. It most definitely did not have combat grade shields, only basic micrometeor protection.

The small jump was fairly uneventful, as the ships formed up in the small tail of the comet. Dumping all the power to the forward shields to protect against the small bits of rock and ice that the comet was shedding, they all cycled their blasters to the lowest possible power setting and began warming the comet up. When that was done, each member of the squadron fired a "boost pack", a small, high-powered ion engine that would attach itself to the comet and burn for about an hour before it ran out of power. The boost in acceleration that the packs provided would bring the comet up to almost half the speed of light for the cruise in-system.

The next several hours were spent uneventfully waiting, as all the ships cruised in tethered to the comet with their systems powered down in standby. As they neared the fourth planet, Jaina watched the passive sensor display of the system. There was actually more activity than she remembered from the last time. The one gigantic ship was still in orbit of the planet, while what appeared to be a second ship was partially embedded into the surface. 'That's one way to make a base, I suppose,' she thought to herself.

By the time the comet made its closest approach to the planet, the ship's sensors were registering some sort of energy field, not unlike the magnetic field the Death Star would have generated. Jaina noticed small sparks of static electricity dancing over the instruments, and felt her hair begin to rise. That was strange, she thought.

Whatever it was, it was acting like a jamming field as well. She could see the Jade Sabre turn. Then the thin stylus shape of the ice borer slipped out from behind the ship, and firing its engines it curved away, down toward the planet below on a ballistic trajectory. Kyp knew that to avoid detection, he would have to try to look as much like a chunk of comet as possible, so from here on out he would have to rely on that initial targeting burn; any further burns could result in the alien fighters tracing his way back to the comet.



In the cramped cockpit of the ice borer, Kyp was sweating. Not so much due to the silvery environmental suit that he wore, which was constantly regulating his body temperature, but more from the anxiety of the mission. He silently prayed that the aliens hadn't noticed his departure from the comet. So far, so good... The planet's surface was now rushing up at him at breakneck speed. As soon as he hit the atmosphere, his view forward became obscured as the forward cone started to glow cherry red, and he could feel the heat waving off even through the layers of insulation inside the borer.

Almost as soon as it had appeared, the plasma disappeared and he was falling through the thin, icy clouds that ringed the planet. He turned his head to look at the horizon, and fear suddenly gripped his stomach as he saw black specs begin to rise in the distance, no doubt alerted to his presence. Hopefully they would just mistake him for a meteor, but in order for that to work he had to burrow into the ice before they reached him...

The surface was now rushing up to meet him. Lifting the safety cover, he mashed the large red button that would do two things. First, it fired a shaped charge penetrator missile directly ahead, which would punch a hole at least a quarter kilometer deep into the ice. Second, it fired braking repulsors to slow his suicidal velocity down to a more manageable speed. As the repulsors engaged, Kyp could almost swear that his stomach met his brain and said hello in spite of the inertial dampeners aboard the small craft.

The nose of the borer was still glowing red-hot from the re-entry when it impacted. Kyp's head suddenly got much heavier, and his vision darkened as all the blood in his body rushed to his head for the moment of impact, before slow draining back. He cursed whoever designed the borer; clearly that person had never experienced a head-first stop before. He made a mental note to track down the designer of the ship and introduce him to the fastest roller coaster on Coruscant.

Fortunately, melting through the ice went faster than he had expected. Evidently it had already been fractured from the impact of the alien ship, and when the shaped charge detonated, it had vaporized a tunnel along one of the existing fracture lines. When the borer had finally reached the lower surface of the ice, it came to a stop with the exit hatch pointing out at open water. Kyp's suit began to pressurize in preparation, and the cockpit started sealing up so that the hatch could be opened. Then the almost freezing water washed over him.

Kyp reached out for his apprentice, trying to locate him in the midst of the nothingness. What he felt instead was an overwhelmingly malevolent presence, and a weak, faint cry for help. His stomach sank as he considered the implications of that, but he switched on the small propulsion pack and guided himself toward the source of the cry.



As the comet continued its stately course past the fourth planet, Jaina and the rest of Twin Suns watched with apprehension as the ice borer streaked down and impacted. They saw some of the fighters fly past the impact spot, but so far they seemed to be passing it off as a meteorite.

All they could do until they heard back from Kyp was wait, and hope that their cover didn't take them too far away by the time he was done. Jaina watched the clock count down to the fleet's arrival; it was down to slightly less than two hours now.



Under the ice, Kyp slowed down as he approached the massive underwater structure, and began looking for a way in. Apparently they had carved tunnels into the ice, and at one point, some sort of massive, living tube went from the ice caverns down to a strange growth at the seafloor. He steered his propulsion pack up toward a thin spot he saw in the ice, then, thankful that he had the forethought so long ago to build a waterproofed lightsaber, ignited the blade and began carving a small hole in the ice.

He could sense the cry for help was much closer now, as he climbed up through the hole into the air of the cavern. The caverns were dimly lit with a soft greenish glow that he guessed must have been phosphorescence. He didn't dare unclasp his helmet since he wasn't sure when he would need it again, and reached out with the Force to try and see if anyone was nearby. The malevolent presence was even stronger here, and he had to concentrate to be able to sense anything past it.

Kyp rounded a corner in the twisting tunnels and ran straight into one of the strange warriors, who instead of wearing the armor that Corran, Jacen and the others had described, was covered in some sort of strange form-fitting semi-transparent creature. A star-like appendage obscured the lower portion of the alien's face, and after a moment Kyp realized that it was some sort of breathing device.

The alien, naturally, was just as surprised to see Kyp as Kyp was to see it. He also realized that in his silvered suit, he probably looked as alien to the creature as it did to him. After the brief moment of recognition, the creature let out a muffled cry and lunged, tackling Kyp and sending him to the ground.

Kyp punched and shifted his weight to throw the alien off, then as soon as his hand was free took out his lightsaber and stabbed upward, catching the alien in the center of its body. Fortunately the creature covering the alien offered no protection from lightsabers, as the blade went through without any resistance.

He stood up and checked his suit for punctures. Theoretically, Lando had told him, the suit was puncture resistant and self-sealing, but Kyp didn't fully trust that. After all, neither the ice borers nor the suit had been used in at least seven years.

The brief encounter reminded him that for whatever reason, he couldn't rely on the Force for warning of attack from these aliens. He continued cautiously down the tunnels, part of his brain telling him that the dim green lighting was sort of clichéd. I need to lay off the holovids, he told himself.

As he rounded another corner, the tunnel widened into a domed chamber and the scene inside was instantly etched into his memory. Miko was lying in the center, bruised and bloodied, surrounded by at least four warriors. Across the chamber, a blond-haired woman was curled up into a ball, trying to stay as far away from the violence as possible.

Kyp screamed, the sort of savage, primal scream that tended to send chills down people's spines, and charged at the nearest of the warriors, cutting him down before the rest had much time to react. Then he dove and spun as they begin to swing for him; several brought out primitive-looking clubs which offered no resistance to his lightsaber.

The entire battle was over in less than a minute, with pieces of the aliens scattered over the chamber. Kyp, who hadn't realized how hard he was breathing, ran himself through a calming technique so he would conserve his resources as he pulled Miko to his feet.

"More... coming," Miko said. "Not... worthy."

Kyp shook his head and pressed the spare suit and lightsaber into Miko's shaking hands. "Get these on! We have to go now!"

Miko just stood there, almost catatonic. "Move!" He rushed over to the woman, who was rocking back and forth. "I'm Kyp Durron," he said to introduce himself. "Come on, we need to get you out of here. I don't have another envirosuit, do these aliens have something here you can use?"

The woman, who Kyp suddenly realized would be very attractive if it were not for the bruises and scars on her face, looked up at him. "I'm Danni Quee," she finally said as she took his hand to stand up. "You're going to have to take one of the ooglith cloakers from the next warrior that comes, if you press at a point here," she reached up and pressed a spot next to Kyp's nose, "they'll release and you can then kill the warrior without damaging the suit. But I need to get the breathing thing too, they call it a gnullith."

Walking back to Miko, he asked her, "How long have you been here? You seem to know a lot of their terminology..."

"No idea," she replied. "I don't know why, but they never tortured me like they did with your friend there."

Kyp shrugged. "I don't know either. Miko, do you need help?" The other Jedi was struggling to get his suit on, taking several missteps whenever he tried to lift one leg. He was evidently in severe pain, and Kyp could now see that his left knee was broken. He grabbed Miko and held him stable long enough for him to get his legs into the suit.

"Over here!" Danni whispered loudly. "I hear one coming!"

Leaving Miko to finish putting the suit on, Kyp ran over and pressed himself against the wall next to the tunnel entrance. Sure enough, another warrior emerged. Kyp ran into him with full force, toppling the warrior over, and grabbed at the spot near its nose that Danni had indicated. Sure enough, the suit began to peel itself back, partially immobilizing the warrior in the process.

Even so, the warrior forced Kyp backwards. He narrowly missed a punch to the face, and in response grabbed at the starfish-like creature on the warrior's face. With a sick slurping noise, the creature slid out, causing the warrior to cough heavily. By now, the cloaker had finished coming off, sliding to the floor in a heap. Now freed, the warrior grabbed a wicked-looking knife and swung at Kyp.

The swing was stopped by a glowing blade, and Kyp looked up to see Miko standing over him for a moment before he collapsed.

"Hey, uh... what was your name again? I've got one, hurry up and get it on!" Kyp shouted over at the woman as he ran the stunned alien through with his saber to make sure it was dead.

"It's Danni," she shot back as she ran over and scooped up the heavy creature. She quickly ripped off what was left of her tattered clothing and started to pull the creature upwards on her legs. Apparently understanding the motion, it then continued slithering up her partially naked body. Kyp wasn't sure whether he should have been turned on or grossed out by the process.

Once the creature had finished wrapping itself around her, she grabbed the gnullith off the ice. By that point, Kyp had hauled himself up and was struggling to keep Miko on his feet. Danni quickly grabbed his other arm, and the three of them began walking back toward the hole Kyp had cut in the floor.



"It's been two hours already," Mara said over the comm with concern, "and still no sign of him."

"Maybe he forgot where he parked?" Janson said in a poor attempt at humor.

"That's not very funny," Wedge shot back. "You try being stuck under ice. It's not pleasant."

"Look, I'm just worried because we're running out of time for the rendezvous, and he's still down there."

"So are all of us," Luke finally said. "He'll make it, I know it."

"He's out!" Mara shouted over the comm, sending the signal to the Rogues waiting outside the system. Sure enough, a small plume marked where the ice borer was doing its best impression of a primitive chemical launch rocket as it arched skyward.

"Detach tethers and form up on my mark," Wedge called out. "Hostiles inbound... Mark!"

The dozen X-wings released themselves from the comet, which was now several light-minutes away from the planet. Jaina dialed her inertial compensator up to the maximum possible setting and punched the throttle to stay in formation off Hobbie's wing. The entire squadron was now accelerating as fast as possible toward the fourth planet. In the meantime, Rogue Squadron had completed their jump much closer to the fleeing ice borer, and was already in the middle of a furball with the alien fighters.

The only bad thing was that they still hadn't figured out a way to keep the shields from being stripped away, so the comm was full of frantic cries as the Rogues struggled to maintain order.

"Lock your S-foils now. Hobbie, Janson, and Tycho, you guys split left. The rest of you, follow me," Wedge ordered. "We're going to slice that Vong formation wide open."

Anticipating Hobbie's move, Jaina split left with him and the six X-wings swung wide, still dumping full power into the engines. While the X-wings couldn't accelerate quite as fast as A-wings, with several light-minutes of distance between them and the furball the fighters were already going at a significant fraction of lightspeed. As they closed in, she nudged the inertial compensator down a fraction to get a better feel for the fighter's handling.

In the position that the Yuuzhan Vong fighters were in now, most fighter pilots would have been so focused on the dogfight that they would not have noticed the c-fractional fighters barreling in on them, which is what made A-wing and TIE Interceptor slash attacks so effective. However, somehow the alien pilots knew what was happening, and turned to meet the new threat as well as they could. Still, that now left them open to attack by the Rogues, and several of the strange craft blossomed into fireballs in the seconds that followed.

"Where's Mara?" Luke suddenly asked. In the mad dash toward the planet, he had suddenly realized that while the Jade Sabre had powerful engines, it still wasn't quite capable of matching an X-wing in acceleration.

"Back here," she said. "I'll have Kyp in a minute. You guys just keep these freaks off me."

Luke peeled off, his wingman following as he looped back to escort the Jade Sabre.



"Hobbie!" Jaina shouted suddenly. "You've got one on your six, hang on!" He began jinking randomly to throw off the alien pilot's aim, but that didn't help much.

"Kriff, he got my shields!"

"I'm on him," Jaina said as she rolled the X-wing over and behind the fighter, then began pulsing her shots at it. The first shot grazed the surface doing no significant damage, then the rest of the shots were swallowed up.

"Shield's back," Hobbie said. "Did you get it?"

"No," Jaina said quickly, "but I'm keeping it occupied. Looks like they can't take shields down when they're protecting themselves."

Hobbie pulled a quick loop, swinging his fighter around so he could get a clear look. "Watch your back!" he suddenly shouted as he saw one of the fighters take a pass at Jaina.

Alarms flashed in her cockpit as her R5 unit tried to warn her that she had suddenly lost shields. Instinctively, she jerked at the controls, only to see several plasma orbs flash past the cockpit. But apparently it wasn't enough as the fighter then lurched abruptly. More alarms began ringing and for a moment she could have sworn that she smelled smoke. She quickly began looking at the readout from the R5 unit – and breathed a sigh of relief. At least the shields were back up.

"Nothing major, I just lost one of my cannons," she said in between maneuvers as she turned her head to look. Sure enough, the tip of the upper S-foil as well as the cannon was a melted mess of durasteel. "R5, make sure that's disabled, I don't want to pump power into it and blow something up." When the droid warbled an acknowledgment, she switched the trigger to sequential-fire mode, and seeing an opening, fired a burst at the fighter ahead of her. The first and second shots were absorbed by the small gravity wells before vanishing harmlessly in bursts of light and energy, but the third shot clipped the rear of the fighter, sending it into a spin. She took her time to line up the still-spinning target again, then mashed the triggers and held her fire on the fighter until it was a cloud of rapidly expanding plasma.

"Got one!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

"Great," Hobbie replied dryly. "There's only another 3,783 on the way."

"I hope you just pulled that number out of your ass," Jaina said, checking her sensor readouts just to be sure.

"Take it easy, of course I'm kidding," Hobbie replied, then suddenly became more serious. "Looks like trouble over by the Jade Sabre. Let's go give them a hand."

Jaina tugged hard on the stick to keep up with Hobbie's maneuver, slamming her throttle to full to match his sudden burst of acceleration. When they got to the Jade Sabre, they found it under attack by a swarm of the fighters. Kyp's iceborer was hanging back with several Rogues formed up around it for protection.

"Follow me, we're going to slice through their center," Hobbie barked, his X-wing's engines flaring brightly as it continued its rapid acceleration.

"Roger that," Jaina acknowledged as she gripped her stick tightly. She thought briefly about the kill she'd scored only minutes earlier, how the sequential fire seemed to work more effectively than the burst fire mode, and then triggered the internal comm. "R5, see if you can increase the sequential fire rate."

There was a negative blatt as the droid argued the idea.

"I don't care if we lose firepower, they don't have shields anyway. What good is maximum power if I can't hit them?"

The droid twittered for a moment before the result came through. "Thanks, R5," she remarked. "Let's see if this works."

Seconds later they had reached the formation, and both fighters began spitting out a hailstorm of red bolts. Several of the alien craft went up in puffs of plasma as the volatile chemicals on board vaporized. Jaina didn't have time to count how many she had killed as they had cut through the middle of the formation in about as much time as it had taken her to begin firing her cannons. Not surprisingly, several of the alien craft peeled off in pursuit of her and Hobbie.

She gritted her teeth and dialed the inertial dampeners up to the maximum level, then cut engine power and rammed the stick hard forward to make the X-wing's powerful maneuvering thrusters flip the craft around as it hurtled forward. A normal powered turn wouldn't have worked at the velocities she was traveling at, since it would have given her pursuers plenty of time to follow before she was able to loop back on them.

Jaina almost felt sick as the planet below suddenly rolled in her view, probably because her other senses were telling her that she was sitting still. She then realized that she had been holding the stick for too long, since the fighter did another 360-degree flip before pointing backward again. She quickly tried to correct for the spin, finally getting it stabilized in time to see the plasma blasts from the alien craft chasing her. It was a rather strange feeling, she reflected, to see the orbs sitting so lazily in space as they slowly gained on her.

"R5, give me full reverse on the engines," she barked as she aimed the targeting reticles at the nearest of the fighters. As soon as she had a lock, she mashed the trigger and a barrage of red bolts lanced out toward the fighter.

"Jaina, what are you doing?" Hobbie asked.

"Trying to cover our six," she shot back.

He sighed. "Don't act like such a hot-shot, you'll get yourself killed pulling stunts like that. I'm heading back to the Sabre, try to stick close this time."

One of the pursuing fighters vanished in a cloud of plasma. Jaina reversed the throttle, dumping full power and slowing herself down relative to the oncoming Vong fighters, which suddenly blazed past her, almost colliding in the process. She was still grating from the not so subtle putdown that he had given her.

She quickly checked her displays to find out exactly where Hobbie had gone, and then set her fighter on a course that would take her back alongside him quickly when the comm crackled with a broadcast.

"This is Wedge. Objective is secure. All craft, break off and return to the rendezvous point immediately."

[Crazedwraith]

To Nitpick: According to the Rogue Squadron novel at least. Wedge has two half-death stars to his credit.

Other than that, a pretty damn nifty chapter.

[Crayz9000]

I'm a bit stuck on chapter 30, which is the conclusion, so there may be a bit of a delay after this...

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


"What do you mean, the jeedai escaped?" The question sounded more like a roar than anything else, Prefect Ma'Shraid reflected. Fortunately, the rant was not directed at her; rather, it was directed at the commander responsible for guarding Helska.

"Belek tiu!" the commander began, snapping his fists against his opposite shoulders as a sign of apology. "By the time my warriors arrived, all they found was a hole in the ice and three dead warriors. We do not think it was possible for him to escape by himself, especially since he was almost broken by the yammosk."

"He was not alone!" Prefect Da'Gara roared. "What of the woman?"

"She escaped also," the commander replied. "But they only took one ooglith cloaker and one gnullith. It would be impossible for either one of them to survive without one. They must have been rescued."

"Then it was that infidel construct that escaped the surface of this planet? You told me that our defense is impenetrable! How could they reach us, let alone escape from us?"

"Enlightened one," the commander started to grovel again before Da'Gara, "I am ashamed to admit that we were unaware of the presence of infidels among us until their blasphemous craft left the surface of this planet. We believe they disguised themselves as a meteor, of which this planet has many strikes each day."

Da'Gara snorted. "Find the warrior responsible for this lapse – and bring him here. I wish to make him realize his error... personally." He spun about to face a subaltern. "Prepare the Embrace of Pain immediately."

Had the commander been human, his face would have gone white; fortunately, after years of self-mutilation, there was no skin left to suffer such an embarrassing change of color. "As you wish," he said as he quickly turned and marched out. Ma'Shraid found that she couldn't blame him for wanting to leave as quickly as possible.

"Prefect," she finally said, "it is obvious that the infidels now know our location, and our defenses. Do you not believe it would be wise to move to a new, unknown location?"

"Would you have us follow the ways of Yun-Harla?" Da'Gara responded. "This world is a fortress; the infidels' constructs do not stand a chance against it. It would be shameful to flee when we are strong."

Ma'Shraid shook her head. "It would be good to remember Nom Anor's reports. The constructs the infidels sent against us were light, one-man craft much like our coralskippers. According to Nom Anor, those craft are usually used for scouting and recon for their larger war-constructs."

"In that same report, Prefect Ma'Shraid," Da'Gara rebutted, "he mentions that these jeedai use such craft, but the jeedai do not have the larger warships you mention. We captured one of them; it is obvious that they came to rescue him. The jeedai are dangerous, Prefect, which is why we should strike to destroy them as soon as possible. Nom Anor has already told us they are in the system they call Yavin."

"What do you propose we do?" she finally asked.

"Dubrillion had the most defenses of any planet in this region, yet we were able to overwhelm it. A dozen of our best cruisers should suffice."

She nodded. "I will contact one of our commanders and instruct him." What she didn't want to say was that she still had misgivings about the idea.



* * *



Several hours after they had returned to the Lusankya, Jaina found herself, along with the other pilots, Kyp, and the ExGal scientist he had rescued in a debriefing room. Miko had been pulled out of Kyp's ice borer, barely alive and completely insane, and rushed to sickbay.

While normally an Admiral would never take part in a debriefing of fighter pilots, the magnitude of the situation combined with the absolute unfamiliarity of the enemy seemed to have convinced Kre'fey to participate. Danni Quee, as it turned out the ExGal scientist's name was, had also turned out to be an unlikely trove of information on the Yuuzhan Vong. For some reason that completely escaped Jaina, they had apparently tried to convert her to their cause, and in doing so, she had become very familiar with their setup.

"First off," Kre'fey began, "tell us what you know about them."

Danni looked across the table at him. "They're called the Praetorite Vong, and from what I could tell, they're looking for a new home because their original galaxy was devastated by war."

"I thought they were called the Yuuzhan Vong?" Luke asked.

"Well," Danni began, "they call themselves that name too. Frankly, I'm not sure which one is correct, but they use Praetorite Vong more often when they talk. Maybe the Yuuzhan Vong are a different faction?"

"It's possible," Luke said. "Go on."

Kre'fey held up his hand. "Wait. Where is this galaxy? Did they give you any idea?"

The blonde-haired scientist shook her head. "Not really. They only told me that it took them around ten generations to cross the void."

"Could be anywhere," Kre'fey eventually said, "since we don't even know how fast their hyperdrives are."

"/If/ they even use hyperdrives," Kyp added. "But at least we've ruled out the Rishi Maze as a possibility."

"Well, only an idiot would even consider that possibility, given that it's on the wrong side of the galaxy and it's mapped out better than Wild Space..." Wedge concluded.

Kre'fey stood up and began walking around the table. "So we have confirmed what we already mostly knew. What don't we know about them? Force composition, number of combatants, capabilities, and fixed defenses. Danni, what can you tell us about that?"

She shrugged. "They're pretty much turned the fourth planet into a fortress. They've got thousands of turrets all over the surface, and the base is carved deep into the ice. Their yammosk apparently controls the whole thing, and it's actually down in the subsurface ocean."

"What's a yammosk?" the Admiral asked.

"It's their war coordinator," she replied. "At least, that's the rough translation they gave me. I'm not particularly sure how, but they use it to link all their forces together."

"Kind of like a communications ship?" Wedge asked.

"Something like that," she replied. "I'm not sure, but I think it might use the Force, or something like it."

"Couldn't be the Force," Kyp replied. "I was down there, and the only thing I felt was Miko. Even their soldiers felt like blank spots!"

"I'm sure we can continue the theological discussion later," Kre'fey stepped in. "Would it be worth trying to capture this thing?"

"Absolutely not," Kyp said, with Danni nodding in agreement. "That thing broke Miko. There's no telling what it could do to regular troops."

Kre'fey turned to face Danni. "Then why didn't it do the same to you?"

"I always felt that Yomin Carr treated me differently from the other scientists at ExGal4."

"Wouldn't have anything to do with your hair color, would it?" a voice piped up from across the room.

"Stow it, Wes," Wedge snapped before turning around. "Sorry, Dr. Quee. General Janson's been known to speak before he thinks sometimes."

Danni smiled slightly. "Yeah, I get that a lot," she said. "As I was saying, Yomin Carr treated me differently... not like a lot of guys would, but I think he actually respected me. He didn't treat anyone else there the same way, not even the other women. I guess he told Prefect Da'Gara that I would be a worthy sacrifice to the yammosk because of that."

"Wait—a sacrifice? As in a living sacrifice?" Wedge exclaimed. "What kind of savages are we dealing with here?"

"The same kind of savages that blow up civilian transports and destroy a planet for no reason," Luke finished.

Kyp looked up from his seat. "I guess that's what they were going to do to Miko," he said with a sigh.

"Actually, no," Danni replied. "They kept saying he wasn't worthy of being a sacrifice... they just kept torturing him with that until he broke."

Kyp blinked in surprise. "What do you mean, broke? What did he tell them?"

"Well... nothing," she said. "He just sort of went catatonic and started mumbling nonsense to himself."

"To stay on point," Kre'fey said as he continued pacing, "we are about to launch a strategic assault on this system. Is there any other data that would be useful for us to know before going ahead?" Everyone shook their heads, and the Admiral continued. "Comm-Scan, do you have the analysis on the Rogue Squadron sensor logs?"

One of the techs held up his datapad. "Vong system assets are three planetoid-type craft, a total of roughly 200 ships composed of approximately sixty percent frigate analogues and smaller, thirty percent destroyer analogues and ten percent cruiser analogues. There are also several thousand fighter craft deployed from all of the above."

There were several nervous glances around the room. "We can handle that, right?" Jaina finally asked.

Kre'fey looked across the table at the tech. "Lieutenant Getes, what's the estimated firepower rating of the different analogues?"

"Well, that's actually good news," Getes replied. "Their ships are deceptively bulky. Based on the amount of data we presently have, we have estimated that the firepower for each analogue is approximately thirty to fifty percent lower than it would be for the comparable Republic warship."

Kre'fey nodded. "I agree, that is good news. Now... we know they have been conducting raids on many different star systems in this region. Do we have an analysis on what percentage of their force we believe is presently away from base, and could possibly be recalled as reinforcements?"

This time a 2nd Lieutenant, her rank identifying her as part of NRI, replied. "We have a preliminary report on their forces." She plugged a datachip into the table's reader and a simple chart appeared. "Based on the number of reported attacks, their relative strengths, the time between each attack and the similarities between vessels used," she manipulated several controls and the chart on the holo turned into a curve that bulged at the middle, "we believe that the highest probability is a force of 400 ships or less, mostly frigate and corvette analogues."

Kre'fey scratched his ear thoughtfully. "If we assume that their ships are scattered more or less randomly in a thousand-light year radius, then I suspect it would be safe to assume they could have somewhere around two hundred ships here within one to two hours. That's now a total of four hundred ships, and even if we assume the best case – that is, our ships are twice as powerful as theirs – we're still outnumbered in sheer firepower two to one. If they do not call reinforcements, then we're evenly matched, which is still worse odds than I prefer."

"So what do we do, then?" Jaina finally asked. "Won't we lose the element of surprise if we wait too long?"

The Bothan nodded in agreement. "That is also my concern. But this means that we need to strike hard and fast." Standing up, he reached over to the holotable's controls and called up a system map. "Fortunately, Lusankya does have a number of strategic missiles. We'll send in a ferret first to feed targeting data to the missiles, launch missiles, then jump in-system and engage any surviving heavy hitters. Once they are neutralized, the entire fleet will begin a Base Delta Zero operation against the fourth planet. This should decrease the time enough to finish the strike before too many reinforcements arrive. Agreed?"

Everyone at the table nodded; Jaina shuddered inside, but she knew that something like this was coming. Base Delta Zero, after all, was the term for a complete orbital bombardment of an inhabited world. It could be performed by as few ships as a single Imperator-class Star Destroyer, or any of the newer Star Destroyer models, but with only one ship of that class the operation would take all day and only manage to melt about a hundred meters or so of bedrock and boil away any oceans and atmosphere. With more ships, it was possible to melt the entire crust down to the mantle within the same time period. With the task force they had, she figured, they'd probably be able to complete the bombardment in an hour at most with the same effect.

"Good. We'll meet on the bridge in T plus 30. Operations will commence in T plus 1 hour."



On the bridge of the Lusankya, almost an hour later, Jaina watched the ever busy activity down in the pits as the hyperjumps were plotted for the entire fleet. They were counting down to the missile launch, after which the entire fleet would make its jump.

She noticed a black-haired woman in a strange uniform (that looked a little like a rather tight-fitting jumpsuit, or perhaps pajamas) and walked over the bridge to her. "Hi, I'm Jaina Solo, Jedi Knight," she introduced herself.

The woman looked at her for a moment. "Counselor Deanna Troi," she said in a slightly strange accent. "I'm here from the United Federation of Planets."

Jaina tilted her head. "I thought your government was just admitted to the Republic last week. Never heard of a crew exchange taking place this fast..."

"I actually came over with the diplomats," Troi explained. "Part of the preliminary steps for the crew exchange program. I'm here to observe your navy's protocols and deliver a report back to Starfleet. I understand you have some of your own people doing the same in Starfleet." She leaned closer to Jaina. "I have to ask, though... Why do you build such large ships? I think this one is about the size of our largest spacedocks..."

"Well..." Jaina paused. "We didn't actually build this ship, the Empire did. It was part political project and part intimidation. Whatever the reasons, it makes a pretty good command ship that also functions as a mobile drydock for the fleet."

"I suppose that makes sense," Troi agreed. "It's still very impressive."

Jaina nodded, looking around the bridge. "I guess so."



"Ferret is away," a woman called out at the tactical station. "Thirty seconds to missile launch." The ferret that she was referring to, of course, was not an animal but rather a small, stealthy droid recon ship.

Jaina and Troi walked forward to the triangular viewports and looked out at the task force. Right now, the capital ships were clustered together in close formation, but the Admiral had explained to her that the calculated hyperjumps would spread the fleet out over hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The reason for that was to make things harder for the Vong defenses; it would force them to split their fire over a wide area, and would allow each one of the Navy ships plenty of maneuvering room.

"Missiles are away," the same voice reported.

Admiral Kre'fey walked over to the intercom and keyed it. "All hands to battlestations. Prepare for lightspeed."

Troi turned to Jaina. "Is there anywhere to sit?"

"You won't need to," Jaina replied. "On the big ships like this, they have the inertial compensators turned up to the maximum. You'll barely feel a thing during the jump." Which was especially true for the Lusankya, Jaina reflected. The massive command ship had been designed to take heavy turbolaser hits without even flinching. She had also heard the stories about Executor's maiden voyage at the Fondor shipyards, where three Imperators came out of hyperspace and collided with it – its shields hadn't even failed.

Kre'fey walked toward the two women as they stood near the viewports, and turned to Troi. "So, what do you think so far?"

"Of the ship, or the general morale?"

The Bothan blinked. He had nearly forgotten that she was an empath. "Well, I already heard you say that you thought the ship was impressive... so let's hear what you think about our crew morale."

"Apprehensive yet excited, and somewhat angry," Troi finally stated.

He nodded. "That pretty well sums up what I've heard."

"By the way," Jaina interrupted, "what have you heard about Miko?"

"The last I heard," the admiral said, "he was still in intensive care. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him; aside from external bruises and cuts, he's in good health."

She felt a dull thrumming resonate through the deck plates and looked up, only to notice that the black vastness of space had been replaced with the strange, distorted sky of hyperspace. Almost as soon as it had begun, the inky blackness of realspace appeared again, this time with a bright star – Helska – visible in the distance.

"Comm-Scan, sitrep." Kre'fey barked.

There was a pause from Comm-Scan and then the intercom went wild with chatter. It was quickly muted as the techs tried to make sense of it. After a very tense few seconds, Lieutenant Getes finally stepped forward. "Sir, about half of the fleet reports that their hyperdrives shut down early due to gravity-well alarms. We appear to have lost three frigates, probably collisions with the enemy, and another dozen ships of various class report collision damage." He handed the admiral a datapad. "Here's the complete list."

Kre'fey took the datapad without looking. "How close are we to formation?"

There was another long pause as Lieutenant Getes checked the displays. "The fleet is currently spread out over... about half of the Helska system." He pointed to one of the displays. "This is the current system chart."

Jaina put her forehead into her palm as she listened to the conversation.

"Send a message to the fleet—continue with battle plans as before, fire from long range if necessary. Do not deploy any fighters."

"Why not?" Jaina asked.

Admiral Kre'fey turned to look at her. "I understand that you're a Jedi and a pilot, but I wasn't finished speaking. I don't want to ask you to leave, so I suggest you keep your questions to a minimum. If I need you for something, I will let you know. Now, to answer your question, I'm not deploying fighters because without any formation, we have lost our firing solutions and need all the firepower we have. I don't want any friendly fire casualties."

"Yes, Sir," Chastened, Jaina managed to get the acknowledgement out before turning and walking back to the viewports. Several of the closest ships were visible, but she could only guess at the position of the rest of the fleet by the flashes of turbolaser fire that could be seen in the far distance. They were at such a long range that she couldn't even pick out the massive worldships she had seen during the rescue mission.

She turned around and walked back over toward where Kre'fey was standing at the pit, talking to Lieutenant Getes, taking care to not get in anyone's way.

"How effective was the missile strike?" the Admiral asked.

"One of the worldships appears to be heavily damaged. I see no signs of damage on the other two." There was a brief pause. "I'm also seeing radiation traces from a small cloud of asteroids. It appears the ferret confused the asteroid with one of the worldships."

"Get a data uplink from the ferret, and have the logs checked. I want to find out exactly what happened."

"At once, Sir." As Kre'fey turned away, Getes spoke again. "Sir, the enemy has opened fire. Plasma shots only, no sign of missile weapons." He paused to read the displays as they kept scrolling. "Elements of the fleet that are closer report that the plasma is strong up close but effectiveness drops off very quickly."

"How far?" Kre'fey asked.

"5,000 kilometers, approximately."

"Inform all commands to increase stand-off distance to 6,000 kilometers."

"Yes, Sir."

When the report of enemy fighters in pursuit came in, Jaina wished that she could be back at the controls of her X-wing, at least doing something to help. However, moments later Kre'fey ordered all the ships to activate their close-in weapons systems, if they hadn't done so already. Usually that meant multi-barrel blaster turrets similar to the ones on the Falcon but with a much higher rate of fire. Some of the older ships also used continuous-beam turbolaser turrets, but the rapid-fire blasters could sustain a much longer firing period before they had to powercycle. Either way, such weapons were murderous for fighters that got too close to a capital ship. However, most CIWS were rarely allowed to go full auto as they often proved lethal to friendly fighters as well.



As Lusankya drew steadily closer to the planet, its heavy guns firing continuously at the damaged worldship, Troi grabbed her head and grimaced. "There's a lot of noise in this system," she finally said. "It's like a thousand conversations running at a mile a minute."

The comment got the Admiral's attention, and he turned to Jaina. "Can you sense anything?"

Jaina shook her head. "Whatever it is, I can't feel it in the Force."

Across the bridge, Danni spoke up. "It's probably the yammosk. The closer you get, the stronger its effect is on you. Sort of like an old radionics kit..."

Jaina's mind kicked into high gear. "But to effectively coordinate anything at these distances, the effect must be supralight. If it is, why can't we detect it?"

"Nobody's ever been able to figure out how the Force works, either," Kre'fey replied. "And not for a lack of trying, either. Just look at the experiments the Empire did, right on this very ship."

"Some of the less... moral governments in our galaxy have done quite brutal experiments on telepaths, as well. We suffered much at their hands before joining the Federation." Troi added.

Jaina shrugged. "You'd still think we would be able to detect something. Maybe we've been looking in the wrong places."

The bridge conversation turned back to the battle at hand, and after several more minutes Lieutenant Getes turned away from his station. "The fleet reports that they're no longer being targeted. We're not quite... oh. /We/ are now the target, Sir."

"Of what?" Captain Durmah asked over the comm from CIC.

"Every cannon on this side of the planet," Getes replied after several seconds of dead silence.

"Intensify forward deflectors!" his voice rang over the comm. Obviously, he didn't want to make the same mistake that Captain Piett made during the Battle of Endor.

"Forward deflectors already at full strength, Sir," the reply quickly came.

"First strike incoming in 3... 2... 1..." Getes read off.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jaina could see Troi tense up as if she was expecting the ship to heave violently. However, there wasn't even as much as a bang, although forward view from the bridge windows looked as if someone had set off a thousand fireworks and laser light shows all at once. There was the golden-colored glow of the incoming plasma, the brilliant emerald green of Lusankya's turbolaser fire, and various red-colored blasts from the smaller emplacements and defensive blasters.

"Deflector status?" Durmah asked.

"Still holding at full strength. Minor fluctuations in some areas. Maintenance is already checking the generators."

Kre'fey turned around to face the tactical station. "How long will the deflectors last?"

"At the current rate of depletion, Sir, they'll last all day." "Excellent. Captain, bring us into orbit of the fourth planet and execute Base Delta Zero. Comm, relay new orders to the fleet. Choose targets of opportunity. Weapons free, fire at will."

"Yes, Sir."



* * *



"The infidel commander is moving directly into our trap," Prefect Da'Gara announced with more than a slight degree of smugness. They had moved into the war room, where a large villip choir was currently showing the position of all the combatants in the system. "We will avenge the /Glory of Yo'gand/ and emerge victorious, with Yun-Yammka on our side!"

Glory of Yo'gand, of course, was the worldship that had been devastated by Lusankya's missiles. It had also been the first one to get hit, and after realizing what was happening the yammosk had used the dovin basals of the other two ships to attempt intercept of the faster-than-light missiles.

The prefect's enthusiasm was slightly dashed, however, when the entire cavern shuddered. Several icicles dropped from the ceiling, shattering harmlessly on the floor.

"That," Ma'Shraid answered the question that was beginning to form on Da'Gara's lips, "is the only flaw in your plan. Do not underestimate the strength of these infidels."

"It is no matter," Da'Gara replied. "At my command, our dovin basals will ensnare that blasphemous construct. Then we will destroy it piece by piece."

Prefect Ma'Shraid looked straight at him, half-wondering if his close connection to the yammosk had made him delusional. She soon decided that the answer was a yes; the prefect's eyes were glazed over and she could tell he was staring off into the distance behind her.

It would be a very bad idea, she finally decided, to stay in the war room planetside. The worldships were at least mobile and she reckoned that she would have a better chance of surviving and ensuring victory against the heretics that opposed them if she was aboard the /Mystery of Harla/.

"I will personally take command of the Mystery of Harla," she said after several seconds had passed. "With it and the Fist of Yammka, we can prevent their escape."

"You do not wish to share in the glory of victory with me?" Da'Gara asked.

She knew where he was going with that question, and didn't like the answer one bit. "I merely wish to ensure a quick and decisive victory."

"Hu sos tchurokk Yun'tchilat!" Da'Gara said, which roughly translated meant 'It is the will of the Gods!'

Ma'Shraid snapped her fists, turned, and began walking to her waiting ship.



* * *



"Message from the Rejuvenator, Sir," Getes called out. "Captain Rojo reports that several enemy warships closed to point-blank range and took down his shields with their gravity devices. He says that the hull is taking the beating for now but would like some help before he loses any more bridge windows or sensor domes."

Kre'fey mentally checked the name against the order of battle of the fleet. Rejuvenator was an Imperator-II class, one of the newer models in fact, and was supposed to have up to date shield generators. In a moment, he made his decision. "Broadcast to the fleet – the Vong can disable shields at point-blank range. Maintain safe distances if possible. All commands are to evacuate primary bridges and transfer controls to CIC."

"Yes, Sir," Getes replied, transmitting the message before transferring his controls down to the Combat Information Center, buried deep within the base of Lusankya's command tower. Soon after, the rest of the bridge crew followed suit and began filing toward the turbolifts.

As the turbolift doors opened on CIC several brief minutes later, it was a scene of barely organized chaos.

"What in the eleven Corellian hells are they trying to do?" Captain Durmah exclaimed in frustration. Kre'fey strode over to the holotable and looked down at it. It was presently showing a bewildering display of multicolored dots. Lusankya was shown iconically next to the fourth planet, with two miniature representations of the Yuuzhan Vong worldships right next to it.

"Sitrep?" he finally asked as the whole ship seemed to shudder.

"Comm-Scan reports that the gravitic readings are off the charts," Durmah summarized. "They yanked us a couple hundred klicks down toward the planet before the repulsors could compensate. It's like we're at the center of a three-way tug of war."

Something clicked inside the Bothan's memory. "Captain, have you ever heard of a particular Mandator-class by the name of Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy?"

Durmah looked slightly puzzled. "Wasn't that one of the ships that fought in the Clone Wars?"

"It was," Kre'fey replied. "In particular, it became known for its very... well, creative use of its hyperspace towing rig."

"And we have four of those," Durmah said, not quite sure where this was going.

"Exactly," Kre'fey said triumphantly. "A hyperspace towing rig is essentially a large tractor-repulsor array... a gravity manipulator, in other words. According to the legends surrounding Ijon Tichy, on several separate occasions, it managed to turn several Separatist warships into pretzels using that array."

Durmah scratched at his chin. "So the Vong are trying to do that to us right now... except they don't realize we can play the same game." He continued scratching at his chin as he thought about the different ways to proceed, before finally turning around and grabbing the comm. "Tractor control, this is the Captain. Lock on to both worldships using the towing arrays and go to full power on my mark."

"Captain, this is Tractor Control. Ready at your command." "Tractor control... mark!"

The entire ship shuddered as its arrays began to draw both Yuuzhan Vong worldships toward itself from opposite directions. To their credit, Kuat's designers had put a lot of effort into making the massive dreadnought incredibly strong, far stronger than traditionally mined and alloyed metals would allow. The tractor-repulsor arrays were likewise tightly braced into the frame of the ship because they had been designed to tow ships at least as large as Lusankya itself. Having said that, pulling two worldships together (each one at least ten times as massive as Lusankya) was still a herculean effort.

As the two worldships slowly drew closer together, Durmah watched the display closely. "Helm, standby to turn off main repulsors on my mark," he said.

"Won't we go crashing into the planet if we do that?" Jaina asked.

"You'll see," the Captain replied with a wan smile. Lusankya had, after all, been able to blast itself free from the surface of Coruscant. The fourth planet had barely a quarter the mass of Coruscant, although the pull from the gravity devices below did make it slightly more dangerous.

One of the Comm-Scan techs looked up from his console. "Captain, worldships are five hundred klicks and closing fast."

Durmah visibly tensed, his fingers drumming steadily against the holotable.

"Two hundred klicks and closing."

He looked across the table at the helm officers, who looked back with resolve in their eyes.

"One hundred klicks and closing."

"Helm, Mark!" Durmah ordered.

The repulsors cut off silently, and in that instant, the dovin basals on the fourth planet that had been trying to drag the majestic ship down suddenly found no resistance. Lusankya plummeted down in an instant, dropping at a rate of dozens of kilometers per second. The worldships by now had realized the threat and started to use their dovin basals in an attempt to repulse each other. The effort, to put it mildly, was a case of too little, too late; they slowed down slightly before colliding together in silence, their brittle calcified hulls unable to withstand the impact and shattering. At the impact point, the spiral arms that extended from the worldships, which served as docking points for the thousands of coralskippers each ship carried, snapped and crumbled.

Lusankya itself had started at a height normally used for a geosynchronous orbit, around 36,000 kilometers up. Unlike a stationary satellite such as the massive mirror arrays that orbited Coruscant, the ship had been traveling in the opposite direction to Helska IV's spin which gave it a view of the entire planet's surface, necessary for a Base Delta Zero bombardment. Under the pull of the dovin basals, and with no resistance from its own repulsorlifts, in the time since the worldships had collided it had accelerated to over one hundred kilometers per second.

"Distance to surface 30,000 kilometers and closing," the helm officer reported.

"Helm, re-activate repulsors," Durmah finally ordered.

"Yes, Captain," the helm officer acknowledged. A low hum resonated through the ship momentarily. "Rate of descent has slowed to 7 kilometers per second."

"Maintain course."



* * *



Deep below even the war room, in the yammosk's chamber, Prefect Da'Gara stepped up to a raised platform carved out of the ice and looked straight ahead. The fighting between his defenses and the infidels had been raging for over an hour at this point, with no end in sight so far.

Ordinarily, this would have been the moment of highest glory, honor and spirituality, the apex of his purpose as a Yuuzhan Vong leader. It would have been the reward for his efforts to lead the Praetorite Vong to victory over the infidels; today, however, it felt more like a necessity.

He looked forward at the bulbous mass of the yammosk and saw its massive eyes staring back at him, boring deep into his entire being. He began to chant the required prayers to Yun-Yammka, the god of slaying, for the strength he would need. He lifted his scarred hand up to touch the creature between its eyes near a large, blue pulsating vein. As he did, he felt his consciousness swept up into that of the yammosk. He felt its ovewhelming presence, its single-minded purpose, and as he was sucked deeper in, he felt the link to his entire force.

Da'Gara thought about his ships and commanders, and was rewarded as the yammosk responded instantly to his unspoken question. He was now able to see through his forces' eyes; what he saw was somewhat off-putting. The largest of the infidel metal-things was still circling the fortress world, still blasting away with waves of lethal energy. In the other parts of the system, his ships faced off against the infidel metal-things, usually two to three against one. The yammosk had realized that the enemy metal-things could be severely weakened if dovin basals were used, and so the three ships would converge, eliminate its defenses, and start pummeling it with everything they had.

However, despite their apparent success elsewhere in the system, Da'Gara could feel the yammosk's growing unease at the metal-thing orbiting overhead. It was dangerous, the yammosk was telling him, and it wanted to reach out and strike it down once and for all.

He nodded in agreement.



* * *



Jaina spun around as she heard a scream come from the other side of the strategy room. Kre'fey had asked all non-essential personnel to wait in the strategy room; CIC was cramped compared to the bridge, with no room for unexpected guests.

As she rushed over, Luke and Kyp had already knelt down next to Deanna Troi, who was lying on the floor clutching her temples as her body convulsed. "What's happening?" she asked.

She turned her head toward Jaina. "Pressure... too much pressure..." she mumbled as she closed her eyes; then they snapped open suddenly. "Do-ro’ik vong pratte!" she screamed in a totally different voice an instant later before closing her eyes again and falling completely silent.

When the convulsions didn't stop, Jaina rushed back and slammed down the comm call button. "We need a medic in the strategy room now! Counselor Troi is down!"

She reeled in shock almost before her hand had left the button. The pressure was so intense, it felt as if a Star Destroyer had landed on her chest. Trying to gather her wits, she glanced back across the room and saw the others gasping for breath.

"What... the hell... is... this?" Kyp asked in between breaths.

"Yammosk," Danni managed to choke out.

Luke pulled himself upright, the strain nonetheless evident on his face. He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Whatever it is, we can fight it," he said. "Focus inward, find something calm and anchor yourself to it."

Jaina closed her eyes and reached deep down, trying to find something she could use. As far back as she could remember, she and the rest of the family had barely had any peace and quiet. That was apparently the curse of both the Skywalkers and the Solos, she reflected; the universe just couldn't leave them alone. Yet, in between all the conflicts, there had been some periods that she remembered fondly. Her training at the Academy was one such time; she remembered how much fun it was to go around, exploring the ancient Massassi ruins with her brother and their friends. Then there was the huge pile of electronics she had salvaged from the defunct equipment in the basement of the Grand Temple, and used for various projects. When Anakin had started attending the Academy, he had shared the pile with her – she loved to experiment and build new things, while Anakin loved to fix anything, particularly droids. She began to smile, latching on and pushing back against the immense pressure.

"What about everyone else?" Kyp asked, apparently having found some anchor of his own.

She reached over and pressed the door button; it hissed open, and immediately the Jedi could see that the pressure wasn't limited to them. Admiral Kre'fey was leaning heavily against the holotable, Captain Durmah doing the same on the other side. The command crew likewise were all leaning against their stations, clutching their heads, and basically doing anything to ease the crushing pain they had been subjected to.

"Take my hands," Luke ordered, which Jaina and Kyp did. "Think of the pressure – it's like a river. We need to be like a rock in the river that it flows around. Take the calm that you feel now, and let everyone feel it."

Jaina took a deep breath and focused on the calm she felt, tried to push it out toward everyone. She took in a sharp breath as she did so; the pressure from the yammosk was immense. It was all she could do to push against it.

As the three struggled against it, she could see the crew straighten up, blinking as if they had just woken up from a midday nap.

"TacOps," Kre'fey said, somewhat shaken, "what's the status on the bombardment?"

The lieutenant-commander at the Tactical Operations station looked down at the displays. "Guns are firing sporadically... I'd say the gunners were hit just as hard as we were."

Kre'fey looked over at the three Jedi before turning back. "Override and transfer all guns to computer control. We need to finish this bombardment, fast. How are the shields holding up?"

"Still intact, Sir," he replied. "Forward arcs are depleting faster but we have enough reserve power for several more hours."

The Admiral nodded, and turned around toward the Jedi. "What happened? I heard you talking about the pressure... something to do with that war coordinator?" he guessed.

"Danni seems to think so," Luke replied, his hands still linked with the other two. Their faces were starting to show the strain that the task had placed on them, but their eyes showed the resolve to finish.



Far below them, the weather was beginning to change. Normally, for an icy world, that was almost unheard-of. The atmospheres of such frozen wastelands were typically so dry and devoid of any moisture of any sort that it would frankly be impossible for any weather to form, let alone change. However, after over an hour of bombardment by an Executor-class Star Destroyer, so much of the fourth planet's icy crust had been vaporized and ejected that the planet was now experiencing weather that hadn't been seen in several billion years, since the star Helska had been younger and hotter.

Every turbolaser hit added more turbulence to Helska's atmosphere, the unthinkable energy searing the vapors and turning oxygen into ozone. The volcano-like cannons that had sprung up all over the planet's surface, vomiting glowing golden orbs of plasma at the warship orbiting far above, weren't exactly helping matters much either. Gouts of steam kicked up by each hit rose into the atmosphere, turning into billowing, cotton-like cumulus clouds. Shockwaves from the ongoing battle buffeted the clouds, air fronts suddenly springing up out of nowhere to distort the puffy clouds and send them shooting up kilometers into the atmosphere. At those heights, the gigantic storm clouds acted like a metal wire dropped across two exposed power cables. Kilometer-long tendrils of raw electricity flashed in and out of existence, ionizing pathways through the planet's sky. After another hour of the intense bombardment, the vapor had expanded to the point where it began to resemble a comet's tail.



"Multiple hyperspace reversions," Lieutenant Getes announced. "Contacts are scattered, consistent with our fleet jump. IFF reads Navy."

"What's the flagship?" Kre'fey asked a moment later. His head still ached slightly from the attack; on the far side of CIC, the three Jedi still stood next to each other, eyes shut with concentration as they fought off the strange effect.

Getes paused as he scanned the displays. "NRNS Viscount, Sir."

Kre'fey inhaled sharply. "First Fleet... the Senate must have found out. What's our range?"

"To Viscount, twenty light-minutes. Other ships are spread across the system."

"Get me a breakdown of their forces, I want to know what they brought." A mere hundred ships, of course, wasn't the entirety of First Fleet, which was stationed at Coruscant. In fact, many of the ships that he had managed to 'procure' for the task force had officially been assigned to First Fleet.

"Audio broadcast from Viscount, Sir," Getes announced. "Shall I put it on speaker?"

Kre'fey nodded.

"Attention all commands," the voice came across, "this is Admiral Brand. You are acting without the authorization of the New Republic Senate. If you do not stand down and follow the hyperspace vectors that accompany this broadcast, you will be considered deserters and subject to all legal and disciplinary actions that entail. You have five minutes to make your decision. Message repeats. Brand out."

"Give me that handset," Kre'fey told the lieutenant in an annoyed tone. "System-wide broadcast, all primary frequencies. Let's make sure he gets my reply." He took the comm handset as Lieutenant Getes made the necessary adjustments, and keyed it on. "Admiral Brand... judging by your title, I would guess the Senate suddenly felt motivated enough to promote you. I would also guess that your Senate handler is there, standing right next to you. Admiral, and I use that term loosely, if you have a problem with my actions I suggest we discuss that on a closed channel. In the meantime, leave my men out of this. They have done nothing wrong."

He didn't have to wait long for a reply. "Encrypted holo channel from Viscount, Sir."

"Put it on."

The quarter-size holo appeared on the table in front of them, flickering slightly as the people on the other end were continuously scanned by the holocams. Admiral Kre'fey was immediately able to recognize Brand, and standing next to him...

"Senator Shesh," he addressed her. "I wish I could say I was surprised to see your face."

"I wish I could say the same for you, Admiral," the Kuati senator replied. "The Chief of State is very disappointed with your actions, as is the rest of the Senate. You have engaged in hostile actions against an unknown civilization, without provocation and with no attempts at diplomacy. Not only is this a serious breach of protocol, but a waste of resources and men that we desperately need for peacekeeping across the Republic!"

"Tell Fey'lya that I send my regards," Kre'fey replied sardonically. "As to my motives, I can only wonder what part of the truth you subscribe to. Obviously not the entire truth, or you would recognize that this unknown civilization has already destroyed Dubrillion, attacked over a dozen other worlds, and killed millions for no reason that we know of. And as far as your assertion that we attempted no diplomacy: the aliens have so far not responded to any attempts at contact. We sent a man down to the surface of the fourth planet. He discovered and rescued two prisoners and was attacked in the process. The prisoners had been brutally tortured to extract information. Ask yourself this, Senator, what would you do in my shoes?"

Shesh fidgeted visibly, even in the quarter-size holo. "The fact remains, Admiral, that you did not have the authorization of the Senate to wage war. This is a clear breach of naval protocols. You are in contempt of the Senate, Admiral, and if you do not order your force to return to Coruscant at once, your commission will be revoked by a tribunal."

"With all due respect, Senator, take a look around you." Kre'fey made a chopping motion with his hand, and Getes immediately cut the connection. "Consider Viscount and accompanying elements of First Fleet potentially hostile. Signal all commands to keep enemy forces between themselves and First Fleet elements if possible. TacOps, ETA on the BDZ?"

"Approximately one hour remaining, Sir."

"Sir! More contacts just appeared, looks like Vong. Mostly frigate sized."

Kre'fey looked down at the holotable. The new contacts appeared as purple dots on the display, adjacent to the yellow dots that represented the First Fleet elements. "Well. That should serve as a wakeup call to the Senator," he remarked as he turned back to Comm-Scan. "Signal any nearby ships to assist in bombardment. TacOps, intensify bombardment – overheat the guns if you need to. We have to end this."



* * *



In all of the time that Prefect Da'Gara had spent bonding to the yammosk, it had always been confident in its power, absolutely sure that it would succeed in the mission that the Praetorite Vong had given it. After all, the yammosk that had spawned it had been among the best in the Yuuzhan Vong armada, according to the Executor Nom Anor. Even now, this yammosk was preparing to spawn another, which Da'Gara had promised to Prefect Ma'Shraid for the new fleet they were growing in the ruins of some of the systems they had taken.

However, as Da'Gara observed through his link with the war coordinator, Helska was melting around them. Already very little ice remained of its surface, the massive oceans exposed for the first time in millennia. And, he could feel, that disturbed the yammosk deeply. The yammosk was afraid, he realized, afraid that its efforts would not be enough against the enemy and that it and its yet unborn spawn would not survive.

He immediately lashed out at the yammosk, calling it a cowardly, quivering mass for believing such things. It was, after all, supposed to hold them together! Besides, even if the ice was melting, his worldship was directly above them, its heavy bulk and many dovin basals able to protect them from whatever the infidels could muster.
The yammosk responded with an overwhelming flood of anger. It had realized its error, and it wanted blood. It would bring down the enemy construct that was pummeling their new home's surface, no matter the cost. It had to, if it was to regain Da'Gara's confidence.

Even with that reassurance, Da'Gara couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps the war coordinator was right, and they had been outmatched.



* * *




Jaina let out a gasp as another wave of pressure seemed to slam into the three Jedi. "I think we've really pissed it off," she gasped out as she tried to maintain her concentration.

"No shit," Kyp retorted curtly.

"Concentrate!" Luke snapped. Jaina didn't blame him; after all, she felt herself weakening from the strain and her concentration was starting to lose focus. She closed her eyes again and tried to feel the flow of the Force.

On the other side of CIC, Admiral Kre'fey watched the displays in silence. The first thing that had gone during the psychic attack—what else could it have been?—was the communication. The forward shield arcs were taking a beating from the two worldships, which had apparently recovered control, and damage was starting to bleed through to the hull. Yet none of the damage control teams were responding. Fortunately the ground fire had almost ceased, since most of the strange volcano cannons had apparently been silenced by the bombardment.

He kept his eyes on the countdown timer that signaled the duration of the bombardment. It was down to thirty minutes and counting. Fortunately, Lusankya was a strong ship; the engineers at the Fondor drive yards were second to none and the Empire had spared nothing in her construction. Of course, Lusankya had taken significant battle damage before she had been captured, but the New Republic had sent her back to Fondor and after years of repairs and upgrades, she was now better than ever.

Apparently Admiral Brand wasn't faring much better, he concluded as he looked over the situation table. The newly arrived enemy forces had immediately gone for the nearest Republic ships, which happened to be the Viscount and its retinue. The entire system was pretty much a clusterkriff.

At that point, Lieutenant Getes spoke up. "Report from Captain Rojo, Sir."

"Put it on."

The small holo of the captain appeared in front of Kre'fey. "Admiral, we think we've noticed a decrease in enemy coordination. Our defenses are taking more of their fighters out. Their capital ships are also missing more shots than before."

Interesting, Kre'fey thought. "What's your status?"

"We've been better," Rojo replied. "While our shields were down, their molten missiles sort of solidified on our hull. No real damage but they took out a good third of our guns. Fortunately for us, three other ships came and chased the bogey that was harassing us off. We're on the offensive now."

"Good work," he replied. "I will commend the other captains for their effort. Let us know if you see anything else unusual."

"Of course, Admiral."

Kre'fey turned back to the situation table. The display confirmed that most of the fleet had grouped up into small packs, similar to hunting animals, and was slowly tearing apart the defenders. At least they would be fine. He was, frankly, more concerned about Admiral Brand and what would happen when this was all over. Senator Shesh, who was only in her second term as senator of Kuat, clearly had an agenda or she wouldn't be on the flagship of First Fleet. He snorted softly as he thought about what must have happened. Most likely, as the chairwoman of the Defense Council she had discovered his actions, discussed the matter with Admiral Sovv and had Commodore Brand promoted, and then came out here to... what? Take credit? That didn't make any sense, given what they had said in their broadcast message.

His ears twitched as he continued to contemplate the situation. More than likely, she was acting to preserve her seat on the Defense Council. It wouldn't look very good for her if a ranking Admiral of the Navy defied Council orders to conduct operations while she watched. She had been given access to all the facts and yet...

It still did not explain the full picture, he finally concluded. Her own self-interest was certainly a motivator, but he knew that there had to be more to it. He just didn't know what it was.




* * *



They had been doomed from the start, Prefect Ma'Shraid belatedly realized. Deep in the heart of her worldship, the Mystery of Harla, she watched events unfold through a villip choir in front of her. The villips, which were a different breed than the paired creatures the Yuuzhan Vong used for communication, were capable of emitting light. When a large group of them were put together, they could assemble a picture of almost anything desired.

At the moment, she was watching the fourth planet boil.

Ma'Shraid clenched her hands together, her implanted claws puncturing her palms and drawing blood. She savored the pain, even while her mind raced. Da'Gara is such a fool, she thought. He had trusted in the immature yammosk and concocted what he thought was a foolproof plan to ensure their sect a glorious place in the future of this promised galaxy.

Executor Anor never fully explained how he had obtained the yammosk in the first place.

She knew that the yammosks were the prize of the shapers who attended them. The massive beings could hold entire Yuuzhan Vong fleets together by their sheer willpower. There had also been catastrophic defeats in the past when young, immature yammosks had been deployed in combat. Finally, she knew that the proud members of the warrior caste would never have permitted a yammosk to be controlled by the intendants. The only explanation, she reasoned, was that the yammosk the executor had obtained had some type of flaw, one that had prompted the shapers to dispose of it. Nom Anor had simply saved it from destruction... and in so doing, ensured the defeat of the Praetorite Vong.

Already, she knew, their coralskippers were being slaughtered by the enemy forces. The pilots, all too reliant on the guiding mind of the yammosk, had been thrown into confusion as its concentration had been focused on the enemy construct that she and the Glory of Yo'gand were presently attacking. That, in and of itself, was not necessarily a bad decision – such powerful focus from a yammosk could prove deadly to any Yuuzhan Vong warship.

She narrowed her eyes. Despite all the efforts of the yammosk, and the continued attacks of the worldships, the enemy construct kept up its bombardment. It was almost as if it was mocking their very efforts to silence it.

What had been most embarrassing for her was when her ship had collided with the Glory of Yo'gand. According to the Executor and all of their spies who had been in this galaxy, the infidels possessed a limited ability to manipulate gravity. They were able to create a mimicry of gravity aboard their metal-things, and were also able to use the same techniques to ascend and descend on planets. However, in none of their reports had they mentioned did they mention anything that even remotely approximated the power of a dovin basal.

The prefect found that particularly strange, given that the infidels had done nothing to prevent the destruction of the planet they called Dubrillion. Surely if this metal construct could pull two worldships together, they could counteract the pull of a dovin basal against a moon?

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the psychic equivalent of a blood-curdling scream. She involuntarily grabbed at her head in a futile attempt to stop the incredible agony, which seemed to last for a lifetime. Although she had never felt it before, a quick look at the villip choir confirmed what she had already suspected: Helska IV was dead. The planet dully glowed through the mist, its molten core apparently ruptured. There had been no reports from Prefect Da'Gara, and a glance at the paired villip she had showed no response.

Almost as immediately as the planet had died, the enemy metal construct had suddenly turned its incredible firepower to bear on the Glory of Yo'gand. The wounded worldship attempted to turn and face the spear-shaped vessel, but she could see that its remaining defenses were withering under the hail of firepower.

"Contact the commanders," she suddenly ordered a nearby subaltern. "They are to break off all attacks. We will regroup at the beginning of Vector Prime. Those that have fallen today will be avenged!"

She hoped that they could find a suitable target in time for the arrival of the Warmaster. If not, she fully expected to find herself among the ranks of the Shamed Ones—or worse.



* * *



Jaina whooped in triumph as the remaining ships turned to flee. Helska IV was now a ruined mess of a planet, with its oceans continuing to boil off to space in its greatly reduced gravity.

"Status?" Kre'fey asked.

"Out of the original task force," Lieutenant Getes replied, "we have six ships lost in all, three from the initial hyperjump, and a total of seventeen mission kills, against a combined total of thirty-one enemy warships plus the planet." He turned around as his console chimed. "Another channel from Viscount, Sir."

Kre'fey sighed. "Put it on."

"Well, Admiral," Senator Shesh began, "I hope you're pleased with yourself. Do you realize that you authorized the first Base Delta Zero operation in the history of the New Republic?"

"For the record, I would have preferred to do anything but. My actions were dictated by the circumstances."

"We'll leave the review of your actions to the tribunal," Shesh replied in a smug, condescending tone. "I just spoke to Admiral Sovv and the Defense Council. Admiral Traest Kre'fey, New Republic First Fleet, your commission is hereby revoked until further notice. Furthermore, I have orders for your arrest on the grounds of disobedience of direct orders and misuse of Republic property. Therefore, you are to immediately surrender yourself into our custody, where you will be taken back to Coruscant for investigation and trial. If you do so, we will not pursue disciplinary action against any of your commands. However, if you fail to comply with these instructions, all commands under you will be considered complicit and subject to the same revocation of rank and trial."

"Understood," Kre'fey said as he killed the connection. He looked across the table at the three Jedi and began to laugh sadly. "You see what we're up against? With this Senate, we don't even need enemies!" He continued to laugh, shaking his head the entire time, and then straightened up. "Well, I don't want to see any of you charged for following my orders. Lieutenant Getes, prepare my shuttle."

"Thank you, Admiral," Luke said, locking eyes with Kre'fey. "May the Force be with you."

[Crazedwraith]

"If Brute Force doesn;t work, then you aren't using enough"

Good work, Crazy, though I noticed that depsite using the star warsy term 'kriff' for fuck you still had Kyp say 'Oh shit!"

Does poor Tenel Ka get to actually wake up next chapter?

[Spice Runner]

Nothing like a nice BDZ to repel those smelly intergalactic invaders eh. Excellent chapter. I enjoyed the line dropped Wedge dispelling the nonsense about the unknown regions of the galaxy.

[HeavensThunderHammer]

This is an awesome fanfic! I joined just so I could say so!

[Crayz9000]

Speaking on behalf of all fan fiction authors, it's an inspiration to us all to hear that we've captured the attention of a complete stranger with our writing. Welcome to the board; I'm glad you like the story.

I'm still working slowly on the rest of it; I'm actually doing a bit of clean-up in the beginning chapters at the moment, after which I'll write up the conclusion. Then it's on to figuring out what to do next...