A Life Not His Own: Chapter 6

Anakin slides the craft into the hanger, and gently sets her down. He walks through the cabin, sparing a single glance for Nelani, one just long enough to ensure she is following him.

Then he walks down the ramp, and sees the porter droid, and two others standing there. It takes a second, but he then recognizes the short grey-skinned beings. Grinning behind the mask, he steps forward and holds his palm out. “I am Lord Vader, Daughter-Son of your Overlord, Darth Vader. Who stands before me?”

The first Noghri, steps forward, grasping his hand, and pressing it tightly against his nostrils. After smelling it for a minute, the Noghri drops the hand, and takes a step backwards. “I am Ghrikma Clan Harr.”

Anakin looks towards the second Noghri. “I am Thrikkes Clan Harr.”

“What brings you to Vjun?”

“Lord Vader, forgive us, but we were uncertain who was behind the mask, and were afraid that there was an imposter attempting to do damage to your family.”

Anakin nods his head. “And how did you come by the information that someone has taken up the mantle of Lord Vader?”

“It is on the holonet Milord, a video of your battle on the planet Lorrd.”

Anakin sighs. “I had hoped that information of my assumption would have been kept a secret for longer, now things are worse. Ghrikma, Thrikkes do you wish to join me in my fight against the Vong?”

Both of the Noghri bow at the waist. “Lord Vader, we are forever in debt to your family and willing to do anything asked of us.”

Anakin can feel another smile twist his lips behind the mask, and reaches behind him, dragging Nelani forward. “This is my apprentice Nelani Dinn. Learn her scent as she will be assisting us in destroying the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Anakin lets go of her arm, and when she does nothing, grabs it up again, holding it out towards the Noghri. He savors her fear as they approach her hand, and it takes all of his self-control to not laugh at the little shriek she lets out when the first of them, presses his nose against her palm.

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Jaina wakes up to an evacuation alarm, bolting upright, she shivers slightly looking around her room, which had been carved from ice. She straightens her flightsuit and leaves the room, walking calmly towards the hanger. Once she arrives she sees Kyp Durron doing something to her fighter, and feels anger wash through her.

“Durron! What are you doing to my ship?”

Kyp’s head pops up and smacks against the transparisteel canopy, and Jaina barks a harsh laugh. He turns around and jumps down. “I was doing your pre-flight inspection. A Vong patrol is in system, and we have to get out of here.”

Jaina eyes the rogue Jedi Master warily and then nods her head. Kyp turns from her and lets out a loud whistle.

Once he has everyone’s attention he begins to speak. “Okay everyone; we have Vong in-system. We’ve planted some beacons on an outlier planet so they’re currently occupying themselves with that. What we’re going to do is launch and run towards the sun. When we’re far enough from here we’ll break the ecliptic and go to hyperspace. We’ll meet up at the rendezvous point. Any questions?”

Kyp looks around, and Jaina feels a mixture of pride and arrogance coming from the older Jedi. After a moment he gives a quick nod of his head.

“Once we’re gone, we’ll set off some thermal charges, burying this place. If we need it again, we can always return and re-melt in. But for now, be safe and may the Force be with you.”

Then his speech done, all the pilots and other personnel go to their respective craft and Jaina turns towards Kyp. “Quite an army you have here Durron.”

“These people just want to fight the Vong.”

Jaina harrumphs and climbs up into her ship, and finishes the checklist that Kyp had started. She pulls the canopy down and looks over at Kyp who catches her glance and gives her a half-hearted salute. She frowns and turns back to her systems board, and flicks on the com.

There is a crackle and she hears Kyp’s voice again. “Okay Dozen, let’s punch out of here.”

A chorus of affirmatives comes back, and ship after ship begins to launch. When it is her turn, she easily maneuvers her X-wing and leaves the small planetoid behind. There is comm silence as they reach the first point, and everyone but herself and Kyp pull up and away flickering into hyperspace. She glances towards him, and breaks comm. Silence. “Why aren’t you going with them?”

“This is more important.”

Jaina merely nods her head, and orients her ship towards the core, propelling it into hyperspace.

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Nen Yim faces Ch’lor Akkor, her face once more held forcibly immobile. The prefect in charge of the Baanu Miir was in rare form; his face flushed with anger, making the inflamed edges of scar around the nose cavity stand out even more. Yet what annoys Nen Yim the most is the fact that she agrees with everything she knows the prefect is going to say, with everything he said to her yesterday and the day before. With sheer force of will, she wrenches her attention from her own musings to what the prefect is saying.

“Shaper, there has been another explosive decompression in the right arm, and the maw luur backed up, spilling waste material throughout the workers’ grashals.”

Nen sighs. “I fail to see why you bring these to my attention. That is the domain of the Master Shaper.”

Ch’lor growls in frustration. “That doddering old fool doesn’t even admit me, and refuses to speak with me. When you were in charge things got fixed, and we need things fixed!”

“I am sorry Prefect, but there is nothing I can do.” Part of her despairing at the fact that her hands are bound, and her people on this vessel are doomed, due to the whims of her deranged master.

Outrage and anger crosses the prefect’s face. “Nothing? There is nothing you can do?”

“I will speak to the Master; unfortunately I am subject to his whims.”

Ch’lor Akkor seems to deflate slightly. “I understand Adept. Thank you for your time.”

Nen Yim gives him the barest minimum of salutes required before she retreats once more into her private quarters.

As soon as the door closes, she turns to find Kae Kwaad looking through her private qahsa, outrage and fear fills her. If he has looked throughout that qahsa then he would know the full extent of her heresy.

He would know just how dangerous she is.

She allows coldness to seep into her voice. “Master Kwaad, what are you doing in my private quarters?”

Startled the old man spins around to the sound of the voice, his eyes flickering in their delirium. “Who, what? Who are you?”

“It is I, your Adept, Nen Yim.”

The old shaper drops the qahsa and steps closer to her, one dead hand tapping his chin in thought. “Yim, Yim.”

As he arrives at her, he backhands her, the dead weight of his hands splitting the skin of her cheek, and she can feel where one of the hand’s spines cut through her cheek, stabbing her tongue, and then ripping a line which follows the path which his hand took.

“Use the name I gave you.”

Nen Yim’s mouth twists into a sneer of disgust and hate as she decides to no longer hide the disgust she feels over the insane Master. “My name is Nen Tsup.” As she is speaking, she decides that she will have to kill him.

“Ah, my dirty little Tsup, come, come, it is time to shape!” Then he scampers off through a second door, heading towards the main portion of the Shaper’s grashal. Wearily, Nen Yim follows, wondering which mood she would find when she arrived within the grashal.

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The Baanu Rass slides into an orbit around the planet Myrkr. On board, a Master Shaper stares down at her browns and greens, and smiles as the Uumufalh class gunship, launches from the planet’s surface, bringing to him some specimens.

Yal Paath looks once more into his Qang Qahsa, and the genetic template of the fero xyn. He nods his head, as he considers that the Jeedai problem will be taken care of once and for all. He places the sensory bundle of the Qang Qahsa into an insect hive, and presses a nerve cluster on the biot. Within seconds, the DNA sequence of the fero xyn floats before him, a version of the same insects which the warriors use to display their battles, show the nucleotides in the traditional double helix. He smiles in the warm glow of the insects.

He inserts his personal qahsa into a secondary slice of the hive to save the modified sequence to, and begins to work. Yanking out unnecessary base pairs, literally removing the lit insects from the DNA sequence.

The admittance pheromone attracts his attention, and he walks to his door-tongue, and presses the nerve cluster beside it. One of his adepts holds out a qahsa to him. “This is the Life Sequence from the vonskyrs Master.”

The Master Shaper smiles as he takes the qahsa from the adept. “Thank you Adept. Now come and assist me.”

He pulls out the Qang Qahsa, and plugs the adept’s qahsa into the hive. A new set of insects come flitting out, and form another glowing double helix in the air before them.

The Adept leans closer. “I still marvel that when you get so low into the design of life, that our biots and the creatures of this galaxy have so much in common.”

Yal Paath nods his head. “That is because we are all formed from Yun Yuuzhan Adept. Everything from the highest of the Elite, to the lowest of the Infidel’s pets all share part of Yun Yuuzhan. That is why the life of this galaxy is meant to be shaped by us, meant to serve us and Yun Yuuzhan.”

“And this is why we must shape these vornskrs so that we can use them to destroy the Jeedai?”

Yal looks at his adept, an approving grin spreading the tatters of his lips.

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Ganner Rhysode hunches down in the swaying grass, his eyes scanning the horizon as the latest yorik-trema landing craft crunches down a dozen klicks to the south. He clicks his comlink once, and hears a double-click in response.

Moments later there is a roar flashing overhead, as a squadron of E-wings flash by overhead, almost low enough for Ganner to reach out and run his fingers along their hulls. He allows a smile to cross his features, and jumps out, clicking his comlink two more times. Around him a legion of New Republic Elite Forces take up positions, with their snipers beginning to send blasts of coherent light towards the Vong forces.

The E-wings arrive at the enemy formations and let loose a barrage of proton torpedoes. With a scream, one of the lumbering rakamats dies in the fiery explosion.

Ganner looks out at the advancing Vong forces, a mixture of chazrach and rodian slaves, and holds his ground. Beside him, one of the snipers lets a blast fly, and Ganner smiles as a chazrach flies backward.

A sergeant walks up beside Ganner. “You think they would have an easier way to get up to the battle than running.”

Ganner barks a laugh. “One would think that.”

With a shriek, a ball of plasma comes rolling in, and lands half a klick south of them, showering them with dirt. The sergeant turns from the advancing line of Vong, and faces Ganner. “You have a message from Master Skywalker, he’s asking you to return home.”

Ganner looks at the sergeant for a moment. “Did he say when?”

The sergeant shakes his head. “No, but I got the impression he wanted you as soon as possible.”

Ganner sighs, and looks towards the battle. “Figures. Just when it was starting to get interesting.”

The sergeant laughs. Ganner glances once more at the battle, and then grasps the sergeant’s hand. “Be safe Sergeant.”

The sergeant nods his head. “You too Jedi Rhysode.”

Ganner turns away and strolls away from the battle, heading towards his X-Wing. He slides into the crash seat, and straps his helmet on. As the indicators all turn green, he flips on the comm. “Taanab control, this is Jedi One, I’m launching, please paint me as friendly.”

“Copy Jedi One, on your way out, do you think you could do us a favor?”

“What do you need Taanab Control?”

“We have a cruiser analog, taking pot shots at one of our Golan platforms. Do you think you could distract it for us?”

Ganner can feel a smile once more twist his features. “I’ll see what I can do as I’m flying past. Jedi One out.”

Ganner directs his ship towards atmosphere, and sees the cruiser analog. He twists his X-Wing and lines up his sights on the coral craft. Grinning wider, he receives the tone from his astromech and pulls the trigger, sending two torpedoes towards the enemy vessel.

As soon as the torpedoes have launched, he flicks over to lasers and starts peppering the hull, attracting the dovin basil’s attention, drawing attention away from the incoming torpedoes.

Short of the port hull of the cruiser, the gravitic sensors on the torpedoes detect a void, and detonate prematurely. Ganner feels a twinge in the Force, and pushes his craft down as a broadside from the Golan platform comes slicing in, ripping into and through the yorik coral.

He looks down, checking the navicomputer, nodding as he sees it has returned a good course. Glancing one last time at Taanab, he pulls the lever, making the jump to hyperspace.