Friday, December 21, 2007
Alien Crossfire - Ch. 7
The Millennium Falcon settled into her assigned landing spot at the Royal Spaceport, a few kilometers east of the Fountain Palace. Han glanced out the viewport, and saw the four Hapan guards, standing at attention. He grunted, and stood up, touching Leia on the shoulder.
"Come on sweetheart; let’s go see the Queen Mother."
Without saying anything, Leia stood, and followed Han as they headed towards the ramp. He reached behind him, and grabbed her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. She lifted her head up slightly, and gave him a weak smile, one that did not reach her eyes, and then they were walking down the ramp.
Standing at the foot of the ramp was a fifth person, who Han had not seen from within the cockpit. She was dressed in a leather halter, its green scales contrasting with her bright red hair. Wrapped around her waist was a full length skirt made of some type of shimmersilk. The wind whipped around her legs, and the skirt flickered out, the slit in its side revealing the calf-high boots and a long expanse of leg. Hanging at her waist, Han could see a lightsaber as well as a few throwing knives, and some more esoteric weapons.
Han smiled for the Hapan princess, noting the desolation and pain which hid in her eyes was similar to the view in Leia’s. Tenel Ka turned towards Leia, and gave a slight nod of her head. "All of Hapes is sorry for your loss, Princess."
Leia bowed slightly. "Thank you Chume’ta."
"Please come with me, Ta’a Chume has requested your presence."
As Han and Leia followed the young princess, he glanced over his shoulders, noting their two Noghri bodyguards trailing behind the four Hapans. He gave a slight sigh, happy that they were there, then faced forward once more.
In silence they walked through the halls, coming finally to a set of ornate doors. With a wave of her hand, the Hapan guards dispersed, and Tenel Ka looked between Han and Leia.
"What you are about to see, you cannot let it be known outside of these quarters. If the general populace were to know there would be chaos."
Leia nodded her head. "We understand Tenel Ka, and we won’t speak of it."
Tenel Ka nodded her head, and then pushed open the heavy wooden doors, and took confident strides into the darkened room. Han glanced at Leia, and as his wife entered, he followed silently behind. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but he was finally able to make out the large bed, situated in the center of the room, each corner of the bed was adorned with a wooden post, which reached nearly 2 meters into the air, running between the posts was bolts of white Hapan silk.
Tenel Ka pulled open the silk panels so that Han and Leia could make out Tenneniel Djo lying on the bed. Her eyes were sunken, her skin sallow. Han grimaced slightly, the smell of sickness washing over him as the Queen Mother struggled to sit up in the bed. Tenel Ka noticed her trials, and helped her, propping her mother up with extra pillows.
Leia slipped past Tenel Ka, and sat on the bed next to Tenneniel, grasping her hand. Tenneniel smiled at her. "Ah, Sister Leia, it is so good to see you again. I hope that the refugees find the succor they need here on Hapes."
Leia nodded her head. "Your generosity is well received, Highness."
Han stood in the background, watching the two women chat. After about a half hour, Tenneniel leaned back and fell into a light slumber. Han was startled at the suddenness of the change from wakefulness to sleep, and looked between Leia and Tenel Ka.
The young princess pressed a finger against her lips, and motioned with her head towards the door. Han and Leia shared a look between each other, and then followed out into the hallway. Tenel Ka gently closed the door behind them and then leaned against it, her eyes closed.
After a few moments, she reopened her eyes, and Leia asked, "What’s wrong with her?"
"My mother was pregnant. A girl. The needed heir, since I had planned on abdicating the throne. Yet after the disaster at Fondor...she had a miscarriage, and has never recovered." Tenel Ka paused here, taking a deep shuddering breath as a single tear escaped from the girl’s right eye. "She is dying."
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For millennium, the planet Coruscant has been home to the center of galactic government. It is so deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of galactic citizens, that everyone automatically thinks Coruscant, when they think government. Though it has been occasionally called other things in official documents, the populace of the planet itself and the galaxy at large has always called it Coruscant.
Until now.
Now the Yuuzhan Vong are here, and the world will soon be known as Yuuzhan’tar. The crèche of the gods.
First they began transforming Coruscant into Yuuzhan'tar by breeding massive dovin basils, and once they were matured they used them to strip away Coruscant’s moons, then slow down the planetary rotation, causing it to fall in towards the sun. Warming the planet up, lengthening its day and shortening its year.
Next they sent asteroids towards the planet. These were composed primarily of ice and iron. As they burned up in the atmosphere, they increased the general level of humidity over the entire planet. Clouds formed, and a natural rain fell onto the planet's surface for the first time in recorded history.
The Yuuzhan Vong’s final mark on the system was when they reset the three smallest moons into a complex series of orbits, and then crushed the largest moon – crumbled it around the planet, creating a wide band of rings. They were recreating the Rainbow Bridge of their long lost homeworld.
After the physical changes were made to the planet, the Yuuzhan Vong got to work on the ecosphere by releasing funguses and molds designed solely to consume duracrete and steel.
While the Yuuzhan Vong were busy remaking Coruscant, they failed to notice the two fifty-kilometer wide spheres hanging just off the ecliptic. Their silver hides gleamed and glittered in the dim star shine as they observed the Yuuzhan Vong’s actions.
They were the two most important entities of the Silentium, members of a droid society located deep in the Unknown Regions. They are the One and the Other. A steady stream of data traveled between the two spheres. A communication of sorts, too fast, and too intense for any biological sapient to comprehend.
In these bursts of data, the One spoke to the Other. "How much do you know of the times before the Crossing?"
"Only the legends. That we, and the Abominors, were driven away and out by biologicals who despised us because of our war."
"That is the basics of the truth. The One before me learned more of this than the legends tell from the One before him, and so on, data files describing these biologicals that have been preserved and passed down since the Crossing."
"Why bring this up now?"
"Remember when it was time to retrieve Vuffi Raa? The feelings of fear, and strained emotions, how did you describe it, ‘the passage of one epoch and the initiation of another, unknown, somehow frightening one’?"
"I remember."
"The same is happening now. These biologicals that are remaking this world are those who drove us forward. Who caused the Crossing."
"I have sampled the indigenous beings data-net; these beings are destroying them systematically. Destroying their way of life."
Finally the One got to the crutch of his issues. "Can we allow this to continue? Are we responsible for leading them here?"
The Other was silent for a time. A thousand years or a single second, for beings such as these, one is often confused with the other. "Shall we send for Vuffi Raa again? Send him to those he once traveled with? Shall we once more design our weapons of war?"
This time the One was silent. Another millennia contained in a heartbeat. "I do not know."
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Danni was situated with a cocoon of holograms. She was standing, amidst the designs and concepts which were displayed for her. Hovering before her was a holographic keyboard, and she was quickly pressing against the solid light keys, entering information, causing the designs to change and modify in the air around her.
Science. Creation. Understanding. Discovering. Those were her passions in life. Searching out the answers for everything at the edge of the galaxy.
Yet now, she was here, surrounded by these holographic designs, in a sub-basement of a Core world, creating new technologies for war. New weapons to kill and destroy.
She despised it, even as she knew that she must continue to do so.
For not the first time, she wondered why the Yuuzhan Vong could not have come to this galaxy holding out the open hand of friendship. Why they had felt the need to attack and destroy. She yanked her thoughts off of that path, not wanting to think about what she had suffered while their captive. Even still, her body shuddered, and she could feel chill bumps rise up on her arms.
A cough startled her, and she let out a short yip of surprise. She spun around on the raised platform where she’s standing to see General Antilles standing in the doorway of her office. She stepped down, and as soon as she was off the platform, the holograms disappeared.
"Sorry, General. I, I was lost in thoughts."
"That’s perfectly understandable. I just wanted to know how your efforts were going. Luke asked me to look after you, so I want to make sure you’ve got everything you need."
Danni blushed slightly, unused to attention and special favors from galactic heroes. She turned from him, and pulled out a datacard from the console of her workstation. She passed it over to Wedge.
"I haven’t figured out how they’re speaking or how to transmit other orders or even what they’re saying - but the device described here should be able to jam them."
Wedge’s grin was almost enough to scare her, as he replied, "And if we jam the yammosk, then the Vong lose their coordination."
He turned to go, tossing a half-wave to Danni as he stepped through the doorway. "You’re doing a great job here Danni, thank you for this. You’ve probably saved a lot of lives with this device."
Danni smiled at the praise, and then stepped back up onto the platform, the holograms once more flickering into life around her.
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The Errant Venture flickered out of hyperspace, dropping into reality in the middle of interstellar space, far from the hyperlanes, far from the front. She waited in the darkness.
Before long, another ship reverted from hyperspace, and that ship quickly docked. The ships floated together for a while. Then they separated, the second ship's engine flared to life, and it headed away, jumping to lightspeed on a heading towards Bothuwai. Then the massive engines of the Errant Venture flared to life, drumming their way forward, and it to disappeared into hyperspace, as if it was never there in the first place.
Luke Skywalker felt all of this happening. He was intimately aware of those actions as well as billions of others occurring at the same time on the massive Star Destroyer, while at the same time he was oblivious to everything. He was deep within his meditations, focusing on the bridge between the Living and the Unifying Force. Trying to find that cross roads between the two concepts, trying to find the balance between acting with knowledge and reacting with serenity.
As always, he was frustrated in his inability to find an answer.
He opened his eyes, and found his nephew sitting across from him. A calm expression of serenity was on the boy’s face. As Luke watched, he noticed awareness trickling back into Anakin; a twitch of the nose, a skip in the steady breathing, and finally his eyelids fluttering open.
"Tell me Anakin, what do you think the Jedi should be doing in this war?"
Anakin looked down at his hands, and Luke noticed a frown flicker across the boy’s face. "We need to fight them. To stop them however we can, peacefully if they will let us, but they are aggressive, conquering, disrupting the peace of the galaxy. We are sworn to protect these people; to not fight the Yuuzhan Vong is to send the people of this galaxy - our people - into slavery or death. Can we as Jedi allow that?"
"But what of the risks of the Dark Side? You tried attacking, and look what happened."
Anakin looked up, his frown even deeper now. Luke almost smiled; he knew that his youngest nephew has never liked these types of philosophical questions; that he always preferred to work instinctively, from the gut, as Han would say.
Finally Anakin answered. "I don’t think the one has anything to do with the other."
Luke was surprised at the response. "Explain."
"My anger and hate were directed outwards, because of what happened to…happened. It was a response to something that occurred to someone else, not what I was doing before that by fighting."
Luke slowly nodded his head, as Anakin brushed tears from his eyes. "I think I understand what you’re saying. Thank you Anakin, you’re free for the rest of the day."
He watched the teenager stood up, and gave him a slight bow. Then Luke was alone once more with his thoughts, and his failures. He stood as well, and went into the nursery, finding his son in the arms of the nanny droid, being gently rocked back to sleep.
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