A Life Not His Own: Chapter 15

Jacen frowns down at the three bodies arrayed between himself and Ganner, and then looks up at Ganner, a frown touching his face. “Why do they always fight?”

Ganner kicks the corpse of one of the Vong warriors. “Because that is all they know.”

“Surely fighting can’t be the only thing they know. They have to have some sort of redeeming quality.”

Ganner steps over the body walking towards the door. Jacen looks down at the warrior for a minute more, and then follows. After a moment, Ganner glances back to reply, “If they do, I have yet to see it.”

“So that means it doesn’t exist?”

Ganner shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned it does.”

“Sentient creatures can’t have a single, overarching dominate trait like that. There has to be something.”

Ganner sighs. “Listen Jacen, it doesn’t matter. We are duty bound to protect the people of this galaxy. They fight every time they see us. If that is all they know or not, doesn’t matter, because it is all they deign to show us. At that point we can both fulfill our duty and protect ourselves and the beings of this galaxy.” Ganner shrugs again, a subtle rolling of the shoulders. “Or we can let them kill us. That’s the reality of the situation and no amount of sitting on our thumbs trying to think up a redeeming quality for these monsters is going to change that.”

Jacen’s face twists up in thought as he considers Ganner’s point. He nods his head, as Ganner does have a valid thought, but something still does not feel right to Jacen about it. Jacen is certain that violence is never the answer. They arrive at the hanger where their two X-Wings are stored, and look at one another. Finally Ganner breaks the silence. “So, where do you think we should go next?”

Jacen leans up against his fighter, looking at the older Knight. “I’ve been thinking about that, and one of the places we know the Vong have been, but we’ve not visited yet is Yavin IV.”

Ganner looks thoughtful for a moment, his knuckle absent mindedly rubbing the scar on his face. Then quickly nods his head. “Let’s try it, the worst that happens is we waste two days getting there.”

Jacen barks a short laugh as they each climb into their fighters. Within moments, they have launched their craft, and entered hyperspace on their way to Yavin. Two days later they arrive without incident. They perform a quick probe of the system, and don’t see any Yuuzhan Vong activity in the immediate area. Maintaining com silence, they land in a field a short distance from the site of the old temple.

As they step out into the warm humid air, Jacen looks around at the odd plant life which is spreading throughout the area. Twin feelings of coming home and loss batter at him. So many things about the planet still seem the same to him. The smells, the sounds, the forest. It is as much his home as the steel canyons of Coruscant. Yet it has been changed irrevocably. Gone is the Jedi Temple, in its place a dying Vong building. Here where a forest at one time stood, is a cultivated field, filled with odd plants.

“Looks like the Vong, picked up camp and left after we got the trainees out of here.”

Jacen nods his head, feeling a niggle in the Force. He closes his eyes and stretches out, feeling the familiar presence of grief and rage. “Yes, the Vong left, and apparently so did Anakin.”

“How do you know?”

“I get an echo of him being here.”

“Are you sure that’s not from training or when he rescued the students?”

Jacne nods his head. “Yes, I’m sure. Most of the echoes have been washed away, bleached by the Vong’s presence. But there’s one echo that’s brighter, shinier…newer.”

“Do we know how long ago?”

Jacen shakes his head as he bends down, touching an odd looking plant that he has never seen before. “Not exactly. One, two, maybe even three months ago.” He plucks a leaf, and looks up at Ganner. “Do you recognize this plant?”

Ganner looks down at it for a second. “I don’t remember it during training, but botany was never my strong suit. It could be Vong.”

Jacen frowns as the niggle in the Force grows more pronounced, a sense of impending doom comes crashing down around him. He looks left and right and then glances at Ganner who is holding his saber in his hand now. “You feel it to?”

An ear-splitting howl-skreech erupts from the forest, and Ganner and Jacen both drops their weapons to cover their ears, unprepared for the sonic assault.

As the sound fades, the two Jedi call their weapons back to their hands, and turn towards the forest, just in time to see a nightmare walk out.

It has six legs, and a long whip-like tail, which is covered with long tapered spikes. The flank and neck are covered by green scales, and the head opens into a wide mouth, filled with sharp teeth. As the animal drools, the spittle lands on the ground, causing little puffs of smoke to drift up.

They take two steps back, and the animal continues to advance. A moment later, it is followed from the forest by two warriors and a shaper. Jacen glances at Ganner, a sickening knot settling in his stomach.

“Any ideas?”

Ganner ignites his saber and holds it up by his head. “Just one.”

Then he rushes forward, swinging low at the animal. Muttering a curse, Jacen advances as well, and then he jumps over the creature and Ganner and slams his saber against the amphistaff of one of the warriors.

He twists his saber around the amphistaff, and shoves it up into the armpit of the warrior, who twitches and falls to the ground. Gesturing with the Force, he sends a tree limb slamming against the other warrior and the shaper.

A scream for Ganner attracts his attention, and he sees the older Knight being impaled by one of the long spikes on the tail, which snaps off as the creature yanks its tail back.

Jacen reaches out with the Force trying to get the creature to calm down, to not attack them. Instead the creature turns its head towards him, and lets out another howl. Jacen falls to his knees dropping his saber again as his hands go to his ears.

The creature runs towards him, and jumps the last five meters, crashing into Jacen’s shoulders, its long claws slicing through his body armor and into his flesh. The scent of buring armor assaults his nose, and Jacen opens his eyes to see the saliva from the creature burning holes into his suit. He reaches out with one hand and grabs the creature’s neck, keeping the fangs away from his neck and face. With his other hand he grabs a detonator.

Then with a growl, he shoves the detonator down the animal’s throat, on what he hoped was a two-second delay.

After the two seconds, Jacen opens his eyes, and sees a long strand of saliva coming towards his face; he wrenches his head to the side, as the spit lands on his cheek, and screams at the pain of an acid burn.

Then the creature explodes. Burning chunks of the animal shower both him and Ganner, and a fume of noxious gases appears. Jacen stops breathing and rolls over, trying to get away from the cloud. He stands and rushes to Ganner’s side and can feel his vision going black. Grabbing Ganner he starts dragging him towards the X-Wings.

He puts Ganner into a healing trance, and works him into the cockpit of his X-Wing. As soon as the hatch is sealed, Jacen turns towards Ganner’s R7 unit.

“Take him back to the Errant Venture.”

The droid tootles in reply, and Jacen slides off the X-Wing which quickly launches. Jacen hobbles over towards his X-Wing, and opens the canopy. A wave of dizziness washes over him as he tries to get into the fighter, and he slips off, slamming into the ground, the air rushes from him in a great gasp.

Barely able to breathe, he lifts his hand and a wave of vertigo once more strikes him as he tries to stand. He collapses to his chest again, and the last thing he sees before the darkness closes in on him is the advancing shaper and warrior.

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Yal Paath holds the second creature to come out of the Baanu Raas’ shaper facilities. This secondary by-product of his heresy is not as striking physically as the voxyn, but it brings a smile to Yal’s face anyways.

He caresses a ridge of spines, and the animal sits up, and a small glow appears from his stomach region. He doesn’t feel, sense, or taste any change.

But then he didn’t expect to.

This animal is to keep captured Jeedai where they are placed.

He looks towards where he has four of the latest batch of cloned voxyn, and smiles as they appear to be going crazy over the field effect produced by this creature, which is a shaping of a sessile tree dweller from the planet below. Infidels captured on the planet, tell the story that that tree dweller, the ysalamari strips the Jeedai of their powers. Yal can only hope that he has replicated this effect in his new invention.

Wiping his hand down the spins again, the glowing disappears. He hands the creature to one of his adepts. “Deliver the solzan to those on Rodia, so it can aid in the trap to capture Jeedai there.”

“I obey Master Shaper.” With that the adept turns and leaves the chamber as Yal Paath’s face once more stretches into a sinister grin. He wonders to himself if heresy should be so much fun.

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Lu’ath bows himself before the group of Nausians, and the human wearing the tattered brown robes, which cover his entire face and arms, exposing not a single bit of flesh.

To Lu’ath this is perfectly reasonable. It makes sense. The Jeedai are warriors, and as such should be dressed in the armor of a warrior, without an inch of skin exposed. Also, his limited contact with the Jeedai was with Lord Vader, and his plassteele mask and armor.

He raises himself and smiles.

“Thank you for meeting with me honored Jeedai.”

The robed Jeedai takes a step back, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“What exactly do you want Vong?”

Lu’ath smiles at the Jeedai[i/]. “To join your battle. I am a preist of the newest Yuuzhan Vong sect. We are the ones who have gathered together because the [i]Jeedai shall set us free. We eschew the marks of escalation, and work to bring the truth of the Force to all of the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“So you worship the Jedi?”

“Yes, Honored One.”

The Jeedai places a hand over where his face should be, a shudder rocking through him. After a moment, he looks towards Yu’ath once again. “I must meditate on this. But regardless of what happens here remember that the Jedi are not gods to be worshiped.”

“I understand, Honored One. Belek Tiu.”

The Jeedai turns towards one of the Nossaurians who stand around Yu’ath. “Plett, take our friend here and show him to one of the unused barracks. He is to stay under guard until we have decided what to do with him.”

Plett growls and barks something in his native language which the Jeedai pays close attention to. After a moment, he shakes his head slightly. “No Plett, death is not always the best thing to give to a Vong. If what he says is true, his worth is much greater alive than dead.”

Plett growls in obedience, and gestures for Yu’ath to follow him. Yu’ath bows once again to the Jeedai and then turns and follows the Nosuarian from the room.

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It is midnight at Bast Castle.

Anakin walks into the med-center of Bast Castle, brushing past the medical droids as they float in silence. They are used to his visits, and have long stopped asking if he needs assistance.

He walks to a door on the back wall, and raises his hand to the admittance plate set in the wall beside it. He hesitates, as always wary of entering. Of seeing her.

He jabs the plate and the door shoots open with the usual suddenness of Imperial engineering. Anakin stares into the darkened room for a moment, and then steps in. As he enters soft lights come on along the edge of the room, revealing the bacta tank sitting in the center of the room.

Anakin steps forward and the tank’s interior lights activate as Tahiri floats within the tank.

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.

Anakin lifts his hand and places it against the side of the tank, wishing once again she would come alive. That she would open those beautiful green eyes and call him dummy one more time.

He drops his hand.

“I miss you, ‘Ri.”

He glances down at her toes as they float off of the bottom of the tank, suspended in the vicious bacta.

“We’re going to Rodia in the morning. The Vong are shaping something there, something from the Rodians. They must be stopped.”

He slowly walks around the tank, stopping once more as he stands before her.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save you.”

He looks up at her face, tracing the lines of it with his eyes. Then he lowers his head and walks out of the room.