If the system’s primary was distressed by the events that had transpired on and about the fourth closest of its brood, it betrayed nothing to the naked eye. Saturating local space with golden radiance, the star was as unperturbed now as it was before the battle had begun. Only the conquered world had suffered, its punished surface revealed in the steady crawl of sunlight. Regions that had once been green, blue, or white appeared ash-gray or reddish-brown. Below banks of panicked clouds, smoke chimneyed from immolated cities and billowed from tracts of firestormed evergreen forests. Steam roiled from the superheated beds of glacier-fed lakes and shallow seas.
Deep within the planet’s shroud of cinder and debris moved the warship most responsible for the devastation. The vessel was a massive ovoid of yorik coral, its scabrous black surface relieved in places by bands of smoother stuff, lustrous as volcanic glass. In the pits that dimpled the coarse stretches hid projectile launchers and plasma weapons. Other, more craterlike depressions housed the laser-gobbling dovin basals that both drove the vessel and shielded it from harm. From fore and aft extended bloodred and cobalt arms, to which asteroidlike fighters clung like barnacles. Smaller craft buzzed around it, some effecting repairs to battle-damaged areas, others keen on recharging depleted weapons systems, a few delivering plunder from the planet’s scorched crust.
Farther removed from the battle floated a smaller vessel, black, as well, but faceted and polished smooth as a gemstone. Light pulsed through the ship at intervals, exciting one facet, then another, as if data were being conveyed from sector to sector.
From a roost in the underside of its angular snout, a gaunt figure, cross-legged on cushions, scanned the flotsam and jetsam a quirk of a gravitational drift had borne close to his ship: pieces of New Republic capital ships and starfighters, space-suited bodies in eerie repose, undetonated projectiles, the holed fuselage of a noncombat craft whose legend identified it as the Penga Rift.
In the near distance hung the blackened skeleton of a defense platform. Off to one side a ruined cruiser rolled end over end in a decaying orbit, surrendering its contents to vacuum like a burst pod scattering fine seeds. Elsewhere a fleeing transport, snagged by the spike of a bloated capture vessel, was being tugged inexorably toward the bowels of the giant warship.
The seated figure beheld these sights without cheer or regret. Necessity had engineered the destruction. What had been done needed to be done.
An acolyte stood in the rear of the command roost, relaying updates as they were received by a slender, living device fastened to his right inner forearm by six insectile legs.
“Victory is ours, Eminence. Our air and ground forces have overwhelmed the principal population centers and a war coordinator has installed itself in the mantle.” The acolyte glanced at the receiving villip on his arm, whose soft bioluminescent glow added appreciably to the roost’s scant light. “Commander Tla’s battle tactician is of the opinion that the astrogation charts and historical data stored here will prove valuable to our campaign.”
The priest, Harrar, glanced at the warship. “Has the tactician made his feelings known to Commander Tla?”
The acolyte’s hesitancy was answer enough, but Harrar suffered the verbal reply anyway.
“Our arrival does not please the commander, Eminence. He does not dismiss out of hand the need for sacrifice, but he asserts that the campaign has been successful thus far without the need for religious overseers. He fears that our presence will only confound his task.”
“Commander Tla fails to grasp that we engage the enemy on different fronts,” Harrar said. “Any opponent can be beaten into submission, but compliance is no guarantee that you have won him over to your beliefs.”
“Shall I relay as much to the commander, Eminence?”
“It is not your place. Leave that to me.”
Harrar, a male of middle years, rose and moved to the lip of the roost’s polygonal transparency, where he stood with three-fingered hands clasped at the small of his back—the missing digits having been offered in dedication ceremonies and ritual sacrifices, as a means of escalating himself. His tall slender frame was draped in supple fabrics of muted tones. A head cloth, patterned and significantly knotted, bound his long black tresses. The back of his neck showed vibrant markings etched into skin stretched taut by prominent vertebrae.
The planet turned beneath him.
“Obroa-skai, Eminence.”
“Obroa-skai,” Harrar mused aloud. “What does the name signify?”
“The meaning is unknown at present. Though no doubt some explanation can be found among the captured data.”
Harrar’s right hand gestured in dismissal. “It’s a dead issue.”
A flash of weapons drew his eye to Obroa-skai’s terminator, where a yorik coral gunship was angling into the light, spewing rear fire at a quartet of snub-nosed starfighters that had evidently chased it from the planet’s dark side. The little X-wings were closing fast, thrusters ablaze and wingtips lancing energy beams at the larger ship. Harrar had heard that the New Republic pilots had become adept at foiling the dovin basals by altering the frequency and intensity of the laser bolts the fighters discharged. These four pursued the gunship with a single-mindedness born of thorough self-possession. Such fierce confidence spoke to qualities the Yuuzhan Vong would need to keep solidly in mind as the invasion advanced. Largely oblivious to nuance, the warrior caste would have to be taught to appreciate that survival figured as strongly in the enemy’s beliefs as death figured in the beliefs of the Yuuzhan Vong.
The gunship had changed vector and was climbing now, seemingly intent on availing itself of the protection offered by Commander Tla’s warship. But the four fighters were determined to have it. Breaking formation, they accelerated, ensnaring the gunship at the center of their wrath.
The X-wing pilots executed their attack with impressive precision. Laser bolts and brilliant pink torpedoes rained from them, taxing the abilities of the gunship’s dovin basals. For every bolt and torpedo engulfed by the gravitic collapses the dovin basals fashioned, another penetrated, searing fissures in the assault craft and sending hunks of reddish-black yorik coral exploding in all directions. Stunned by relentless strikes, the gunship huddled inside its shields, hoping for a moment’s respite, but the starfighters refused to grant it any quarter. Bursts of livid energy assailed the ship, shaking it off course. The dovin basals began to falter. With defenses hopelessly compromised, the larger ship diverted power to weapons and counterattacked.
In a desperate show of force, vengeful golden fire erupted from a dozen gun emplacements. But the starfighters were simply too quick and agile. They made pass after pass, raking fire across the gunship’s suddenly vulnerable hull. Gouts of slagged flesh fountained from deep wounds and lasered trenches. The destruction of a plasma launcher sent a chain of explosions marching down the starboard side. Molten yorik coral streamed from the ship like a vapor trail. Shafts of blinding light began to pour from the core. The ship rolled over on its belly, shedding velocity. Then, jolted by a final paroxysm, it disappeared in a short-lived globe of fire.
It looked as if the X-wings might attempt to take the fight to the warship itself, but at the last moment the pilots turned tail. Salvos from the warship’s weapons crisscrossed nearby space, but no missiles found their mark.
His scarified face a deeply shadowed mask, Harrar glanced over his shoulder at the acolyte. “Suggest to Commander Tla that his zealous gunners allow the little ones to escape,” he said with incongruous composure. “After all, someone needs to live to speak of what happened here.”
“The infidels fought well and died bravely,” the acolyte risked remarking.
Harrar pivoted to face him fully, a bemused glint in his deeply set eyes. “Is that respect I hear?”
The acolyte nodded his head in deference. “Nothing more than an observation, Eminence. To earn my respect, they would have to embrace willingly the truth we bring them.”
A herald of lesser station appeared in the roost, offering salute by snapping his fists to opposite shoulders. “Belek tiu, Eminence. I bring word that the captives have been gathered.”
“How many?”
“Several hundred—of diverse aspect. Do you wish to oversee the selection for the sacrifice?”
Harrar squared his shoulders and adjusted the fall of his elegant robes. “I am most eager to do so.”
The transport gullet’s diaphanous seal opened on an immense hold, packed to the bulkheads with captives taken on and in the skies above Obroa-skai. Harrar’s entourage of personal guards and attendants moved into the hold, followed by the priest himself, perched atop a levitated cushion, one leg folded beneath him, the other dangling over the edge. The throbbing heart-shaped dovin basal that kept the cushion aloft answered to Harrar’s quiet prompts, attracting itself to the hold’s vaulted ceiling when the priest called for greater elevation, drawing itself toward one or another distant bulkhead when Harrar wished to be borne forward, backward, or to either side.
Well illuminated by bioluminescent patches that rashed the walls and ceiling, the hold had been sectioned off into a score of separate inhibition fields, arranged in two parallel rows and maintained by larger dovin basals. Pressed shoulder to shoulder in each field stood scholars and researchers from a host of worlds, humans and others—Bothans, Bith, Quarren, and Caamasi—all jabbering at once in a welter of tongues, while black-clad wardens armed with amphistaffs supervised the winnowing process. Meant for coralskipper sustenance rather than living cargo, the immense space reeked of natural secretions, blood, and sweat.
Mostly, though, fear was in the air.
Harrar hovered on the cushion, surveying the scene with hooded eyes. His retainers fell back so that he could proceed directly down the center aisle and inspect prisoners to both sides. In order to reach the first pair of inhibition fields, however, the priest was obliged to circumvent a large access shaft that had been filled to overflowing with confiscated droids, hundreds of them, heaped together in a mound of entangled limbs, appendages, and other mechanical parts.
When Harrar ordered a halt alongside the small mountain of machines, those droids that constituted the summit began to tremble under his scrutiny. With a whirring of strained servomotors, domed, rectangular, and humaniform heads swiveled, audio sensors perked up, and countless photoreceptors came into sharp focus. A momentary avalanche sent several machines screeching and tumbling to the base of the pile, far belowdecks.
Harrar’s intrigued gaze fell on a contorted protocol droid whose upper right arm boasted a band of colored cloth. He commanded the cushion to bring him within reach of the immobilized machine. “Why are some of these abominations affecting garments?” he asked his chief attendant.
“They appear to have functioned as research assistants, Eminence,” the attendant explained. “Obroa-skai’s libraries could be accessed only by those who had contracted with trained researchers. The symbol depicted on the machine’s armband is that of the so-called Obroan Institute.”
Harrar was aghast. “Do you mean to say that serious researchers consorted with these things as equals?”
The attendant nodded once. “Apparently so, Eminence.”
Harrar’s expression changed to one of contempt. “Allow a machine to think of itself as an equal and it will soon come to consider itself superior.” He reached out, tore the armband from the droid’s arm, and threw it to the deck. “Include a representative sampling of these monstrosities in the sacrifice,” he ordered, “and incinerate the rest.”
“We’re done for,” a muffled synthetic voice whined from deep within the pile.
Living arms of sundry lengths, colors, and textures reached imploringly for Harrar as the cushion carried him toward the closest inhibition field. Some of the prisoners begged for mercy, but most fell silent in stark apprehension. Harrar regarded them indifferently, until his eyes happened on a furred humanoid, from whose bulging brow emerged a pair of ringed, cone-shaped horns. Bare hands and feet were hardened by physical labor, but the calluses belied a deep intelligence evidenced in the creature’s limpid eyes. The humanoid wore a sleeveless sacklike garment that fell raggedly to the knees and was cinched at the waist by a braided cord fashioned from natural fiber.
“What species are you?” Harrar asked in flawless Basic.
“I am Gotal.”
Harrar indicated the belted sackcloth. “Your attire befits a penitent more than a scholar. Which are you?”
“I am both, and I am neither,” the Gotal said with purposeful ambiguity. “I am an H’kig priest.”
Harrar twisted spiritedly on the cushion to address his retinue. “Good fortune. We have a holy one in our midst.” His gaze returned to the Gotal. “Tell me something of your religion, H’kig priest.”
“What interest could you have in my beliefs?”
“Ah, but I, too, am a performer of rituals. As one priest to another, then.”
“We H’kig believe in the value of simple living,” the Gotal said plainly.
“Yes, but to what end? To ensure bountiful harvests, to escalate yourself, to secure a place in the afterlife?”
“Virtue is its own reward.”
Harrar adopted a puzzled look. “Your gods have said as much?”
“It is simply our truth—one among many.”
“One among many. And what of the truth the Yuuzhan Vong bring you? Aver that you recognize our gods and I may be inclined to spare your life.”
The Gotal stared at him dispassionately. “Only a false god would thirst so for death and destruction.”
“Then it’s true: you fear death.”
“I have no fear of a death suffered in the cause of truth, the alleviation of suffering, or the abolishment of evil.”
“Suffering?” Harrar leaned menacingly toward him. “Let me tell you of suffering, priest. Misery is the mainstay of life. Those who accept this truth understand that death is the release from suffering. That’s why we go willingly to our deaths, for we are the resigned ones.” He scanned the captives and raised his voice. “We ask no more of you than we do ourselves: to repay the gods for the sacrifices they endured in creating the cosmos. We offer flesh and blood so that their work might endure.”
“Our god demands no tribute other than good acts,” the Gotal rejoined.
“Acts that raise calluses,” Harrar said in disdain. “If this is all that is expected of you, it’s no wonder your gods have abandoned you in your time of need.”
“We have not been abandoned. We still have the Jedi.”
Murmurs of fellowship moved through the throng of captives, reticently at first, then with mounting conviction.
Harrar regarded the disparate faces below him: the labrous and the thin-lipped, the rugose and the smooth, the hairless and the hirsute, the horned and the furrowed. In their home galaxy, the Yuuzhan Vong had attempted to eradicate such diversity, prompting wars that had raged for millennia and had claimed the lives of peoples and worlds too numerous to count. This time, though, the Yuuzhan Vong planned to be more circumspect, destroying only those peoples and worlds necessary to complete the cleansing.
“These Jedi are your gods?” Harrar asked at last.
The Gotal took a moment to answer. “The Jedi Knights are the trustees of peace and justice.”
“And this ‘Force’ I have heard about—how would you describe it?”
The Gotal grinned faintly. “It is something you will never touch. Although if I didn’t know better, I would swear you were sprung from its dark side.”
Harrar’s interest was piqued. “The Force contains both light and dark?”
“As do all things.”
“And which are you with regard to us? Are you so sure you embody the light?”
“I know only what my heart teaches.”
Harrar deliberated. “Then this struggle is more than some petty war. This is a contest of gods, in which you and I are but mere instruments.”
The Gotal held his head high. “That may be so. But the final judgment is already decided.”
Harrar sneered. “May that belief comfort you in your final hour, priest—which, I assure you, is close at hand.” Again he addressed the multitudes. “Up until now your species have faced only Yuuzhan Vong warriors and politicians. As of today know that the true architects of your destiny have arrived.”
He beckoned his entourage forward. “This Force is a strange, stubborn faith,” he said quietly as one of his attendants came alongside the dovin basal cushion. “If ever we’re to rule here, we need to understand just how it binds these myriad beings together. And we need to vanquish the Jedi Knights, once and for all.”