A Life Not His Own: Chapter 11

An Immobilizer class interdictor travels within hyperspace, traveling through that realm of non-reality towards its destination.

Unlike other Immobilizer-class interdictors, this particular ship only has two mass generators.

Unlike other interdictors, this particular ship has no sublight engines.

Unlike other interdictors, this particular ship does not have a single living soul on board.

Unlike other interdictors, this particular ship is merely bait.

She drops out of hyperspace, pulled from it, by Yuuzhan Vong interdictor dovin basils. As soon as she reverts to real space automatic programs go into effect. These programs send out a communication over the holonet, raises shields, and activates the mass generators. The Yuuzhan Vong in the system advance on the ship; their cannons firing the superheated balls of plasma which slam against the shields of the decrepit interdictor.

For two minutes and seventeen seconds, the interdictor’s shields last. Another twenty seconds after the shields drop, the gravity well generators go offline, the interdictor itself floating away an empty broken hull once again.

But that is enough time, for as soon as the interdictor sent the message out over the holonet, hundreds of starfighters, and seven capital ships drop from hyperspace, all oriented towards the worldship where it slowly orbits around Serpindal’s star.

Even as the attack fleet drops out of hyperspace, their sublight engines burst and they dive towards their prey. The coral skippers and cruiser analogs behind them start twisting around trying to catch up to the New Republic Forces.

Jaina glances down at her console, as two of the New Republic capital ships veer off to hold back the cruiser analogs. She flips a switch, and there is a low rumble through the ship as the s-foils swing open and lock into attack position. She drops into the Force, feeling her ship, how it moves, how it reacts. She can feel the generators and engines as the controlled explosions power her ship, can feel the thin whispery electricity of the shields as they kiss the hull.

She loves this.

Gavin’s voice comes over the com, barely recognizable, garbled with static. “Rogues, we’re heading in. We fire a torpedo salvo at a single point, provided by me, then come around and repeat. Two runs, two torpedoes each run. Make sure to do it on my command.”

Eleven clicks answer him, and Jaina can feel a grin start to tug at her features.

Cappie whistles at her, and a countdown and coordinates appear on one of her consoles, directions from Rogue Leader on when and where to send her torpedoes.

“Would you look at the size of that thing?”

Gavins voice appears again. “Cut the chatter Rogue Four.”

She almost laughs as a click answers Gavin. Then they are there, and it is time. The console flashes zero, Cappie lets out the high tone of a missile lock, and Jaina pulls the trigger.

She watches for a moment as her torpedoes fly from the launches on the nose of her craft to join the eleven other pairs, then she pulls back and down on her stick rolling away from the giant worldship.

A new set of coordinates appear, with another countdown, and Jaina twists and turns as the first balls of plasma flies past her cockpit. She glances out and sees the Ralroost as it comes within firing range of the worldship, and rains its coherent light down upon the giant coral vessel.

She glances at her monitor and sees that her wingman is still there, and then lines up on the course provided by Rogue Lead.

The counter hits zero, and she lets her torpedoes fly, and immediately flicks a switch, going over to her laser canons. Punching the etheric rudders, she slews her craft around, and finds herself facing two skips. She presses the stutter fire trigger, and the low powered darts pepper the lead skip.

When they start to get through, she sends a full powered blast and barks a laugh as the blasts rupture the yorik coral, and the vong warrior flies from the tumbling debris.

An explosion behinds her, sends her craft reeling. “Cappie what was that?”

A message appears on the screen telling her that her wingman is gone. She twists her craft into a spiral. “Find me the skip that killed her.”

A blip turns bright green, and Jaina angles that way. A snarl coming from her throat as she once more peppers the enemy with stutter fire. Her craft is swaying from side to side, up and down to bypass the balls of plasma that are directed at her.

She growls in triumph as she fires full powered blasts and hulls the canopy of the skip. A second later she flashes past the dead skip, and starts scanning the skies for her next prey.

“Sticks! Bank port now!”

Without hesitation, she pushes her ship hard port, as balls of plasma shoot through where she had just been. She banks right, hoping to get away from the skip on her tail. Then a pain rips through her, centered in her abdomen, she doubles over as best she can in the X-wing’s cockpit. She screams at the savagery of it, and the Force screams with her.

The pain fades as her ship shudders, and a dozen warning lights pop on. She growls, and flicks her com. “This is Sticks, I’ve lost my shields, and I’m losing power.”

Then the com is off, and she growls to Cappie. “C’mon Cappie, get my shields and engines back up.”

The droid tootles in reply, and Jaina twists her craft again, as something slams into it. The sound of screaming overstressed metal fills the cockpit, as all the console lights flickers off for a second, and then comes back on at half power.

Outside the stars swirl in a nauseating pattern, and Jaina sees two of her s-foils flying away on a different trajectory. She leans back in her seat as her momentum takes her from the field of battle. Jaina closes her eyes, and tries to not throw up.

Then the pain hits her again, greater this time, and Jaina curls over, crouching around herself, pulling her knees up to her chest, as the tears start streaming down her face.

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Anakin steps into the med-center. He looks at the far wall and sees a door. The door. A portal to another room, another realm.

A med-droid floats over to him. “How may I assist you milord?”

“Begone. I have no injuries.”

The droid moves away on its repulsers and Anakin pushes the distraction from his mind.

He walks over to the door, and stretches out his hand over the activation plate. He hesitates, torn between the desire to see her again, and the fear of doing so. Closing his eyes, his finger stabs forward and the door shoots open.

Anakin stares into the darkened room, and then strides in with a confidence he does not feel.

Lights come on in the room, and a large bacta tank in the middle of the room is highlighted by the soft diffused glow of them. Anakin steps up to it, and an internal light comes on revealing Tahiri’s body floating there.

He glances at the monitor built into the side of the tank, and sees the familiar readings there. No heartbeat. No respiration. No brain activity. To every medical sensor in the galaxy, she is dead.

And in the Force, she is dead.

His voice is a whisper, reverent. “I miss you Tahiri.”

He looks down at his hands. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited before now. But I’ve been training someone to help me destroy the Yuuzhan Vong. Training someone to help me avenge you.”

He glances behind him, ensuring the door is locked, and then strips off his helmet, allowing it to fall from his fingers. He drops to his knees in front of the tank, and presses his forehead against the cool glass.

“I’m so sorry Tahiri. I should have just answered his questions. Then maybe you would still be alive.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears as they threaten to fall once more.

“I should have been able to save you.”

A single tear escapes from his tightly clenched eyes.

“I should have been a better friend.”

His body hitches once again. His voice is once more low and reverent, a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

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Nen Yim has known fear many times throughout her life. Fear at not being accepted as a shaper, fear of something going wrong with her implants, causing her to be shamed. Even a fear of being found out as a heretic.

Yet those fears are as nothing as she enters the throne room of the Yuuzhan Vong. Her eyes travel down the dark room, until they come to rest on the hua polyp throne where the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong sits.

He is the single largest being that she has ever seen. A dark form, dressed in the skin of a previous Supreme Overlord, the mqaaq’it implants which are his eyes shine like rainbows, the skin is flayed away from his mouth and cheeks, the lack of skin shows pointed teeth and the moist slickness of cheek muscles which glisten in the dim light.

Nen Yim advances down the room, a sense of vertigo striking her, as even though the floor is slanted downwards, it feels as if she is walking up a hill. Drum beetles, and whistlers sound throughout the hall, giving an oddly organic swell of music to her step. The music is a despair producing dirge, seeming to indicate her upcoming fate.

Once she arrives at the halfway point, she collapses to her knees and places her face to the floor. She can feel when he turns his attention upon her, a sense of dread and doom slamming down on her neck, crushing her spirit. She moans in awe of a deity made flesh.

She wants to scream when she hears his voice.

“So you have gazed into the Eight Cortex.”

Pressure exerts itself against her, and all thoughts of lying flee from her. She trembles on the floor as she answers, “I have Dread One.”

“Even though the Eight Cortex is forbidden to you.”

“Yes, Dread One.”

“Why?”

Nen Yim hesitates, wondering how she can answer this question. She feels Shimmra’s attention pushing against her again, an overwhelming desire to tell the truth. “Because I had to know Dread One. I had to know if I could save the Baanu Miir.”

She can hear Kae Kwaad scamper past her, and she risks a glance up, and sees him sit himself at Shimra’s feet and gaze out at her.

Shimmra must have seen her look, because he glances down at the Master Shaper.

“Onimi, lose your disguise.”

At his command, Yeev’s hands falls off, revealing a shamed one. Horror and disgust slam into her at the abuse she took at his hands, and she has the desire to shove one of the dead shaper’s hands down the shamed one’s throat.

Shimmra laughs, another sound which gives Nen Yim the overwhelming desire to scream.

“Adept, this is my familiar, Onimi. As you may have guessed, I will occasionally use him for other purposes besides humor.”

Nen Yim keeps her head bowed, and does not offer a reply. After a moment, Shimmra once more begins speaking.

“So, you understand what the Eight Cortex being empty means.”

“I do Dread One. But I must ask, why could you not petition Yun Yuuzhan for more protocols?”

“Because He expects us to retrieve them from Him ourselves. Why would he give us the glory of suffering and pain, and then give us all the answers we need? No! He expects us to bleed and suffer for the knowledge which belongs in the Eighth Cortex.”

He stands, and takes a step towards her. “And you Nen Yim are the shaper who is responsible for producing those protocols. My divine task to you is to steal that knowledge from Yun Yuuzhan, to fill the Eighth Cortex with new protocols and creatures, weapons with which we can destroy the remaining infidels with.”

Nen Yim’s head shoots up, as she looks into the ma’atik implants. She struggles against questioning the Dread One, knowing that to do so would lead to her death. After a moment, he smiles down at her, a terrible thing of twisted muscles and exposed teeth. “You shall be escalated to the rank of Master Shaper, and become my personnel shaper.”

Nen Yim bows her head again. “Thank you Dread One.”

“Do you understand your assignment and all that it curtails?”

Nen Yim looks at the Supreme Overload, her thoughts racing. Yes, she did understand what was being asked of her, and what it meant. It meant that she was right in the thought that nothing new had been added to the Qang Qahsa since the Crossing began. It meant that she was being given blanket permission to perform her heresy, and attempt to advance the knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong.

It meant that Shimmra, the ultimate leader, the guiding voice of the Yuuzhan Vong, Shimmra the voice of Yun Yuuzhan, was a heretic.

It meant that once the Eight Cortex was filled, her life was forfeit, as the knowledge that Shimmra was a heretic could never be released to the main Yuuzhan Vong populace.

She bows low. “I understand perfectly Dread One.”

Forfeit or not, it matters little. She will be able to help her people the most by this. She straightens, but still does not dare look into his eyes. “May I ask of the fate of the Baanu Miir?”

Shimmra waves one of his massive arms. “Their fate matters not. They are lost to death in the cold between the galaxies. If the shipwomb had not been desecrated, then we could have saved them, and the others who are still lost in the void, unfortunately that is not to be.”

Nen Yim nods her head, a fire burning in her as she ponders how best to destroy the infidels who have killed so many of her people this day.

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Lu’Ath smiles at the Yoric-Vec as it sits nestled in the grass. He turns towards the Shamed Ones, the Heretics, who stand around him, and lifts his vibrosword high into the air.

The dozen heretics’ voices rise up a cry of victory.

After the echoes die away Lu’ath smiles at them once more. “We have struck our first blow against the oppressiveness of the High Castes. Now we shall go forth, and spread the truth of the Jeedai to all of our people.”

He gestures silently, and the Shamed Ones tromp up the tongue and board the Yoric-Vec. Lu’ath gestures towards one of the former warriors, motioning for him to come closer.

“Tokra, find me one who was once a shaper. I wish for us to wear new robes.”

The warrior nods his head, and then walks up the ramp. Lu’ath turns and watches the bodies of the dead Yuuzhan Vong in the distance as they burn. He grins in delight, certain that his own redemption is nigh.