R5-L4 screeched and wailed pitifully, sparks flying from its head as the insect creature’s acid-secreting pincers slashed and tore, digging into metal as easily as if it was packed soil.

In front of the doomed droid, Kyp worked furiously to get his lifesuit secured before the final breach of his hull sucked all of his atmosphere away. He heard the cries of R5-L4, and they cut into his heart as deeply as if he was losing a dear friend, but he could do nothing until the suit was in place.

Sparks continued to fly, bouncing off the back of Kyp’s canopy. A small burst of flame erupted from the droid, only to wash out instantly for lack of oxygen. But that was it for R5-L4; the screeching stopped.

Kyp was on his own.

He unstrapped and turned himself about, to see the insectlike creature feasting on the wires and boards that were the droid’s guts, and to see another insect creature clinging to the lower wing on the right, gaining a foothold, it seemed, and intent on the ion drive.

Thinking quickly, Kyp shut down the drive and pulled the lever, closing the S-foils. The whole of the craft groaned as they came together, trapping the insect between them, but not crushing it. Kyp rocked the lever back and forth, opening and closing the foils, trying to dislodge the thing, or squish it flat. It held its ground stubbornly, so Kyp just kept the foils as tight as they would get.

The insectoid monstrosity on the back of his fuselage was finished with its meal, and now those acid pincers came at the back of Kyp’s canopy.

The Jedi waited, waited, hand on the button.

The pincers drove through; Kyp pressed and fell into his seat, grabbing a belt with all his strength. The canopy blew away with a tremendous shock that rocked the X-wing violently, knocking its nose down so that it was flying forward in a diagonal posture.

Kyp turned about, trying to figure out what to do with the one on the wings, but he stopped, stunned, for the creature on the back of his fuselage remained, back four legs clasping the X-wing, front two waving in the air. It was bent up at the back, head up, pincers stuck through the ejected canopy. Hardly thinking, reacting out of sheer horror, Kyp sprang to his knees, pulled the lightsaber off of his belt, and brought forth the glowing blade. A single clean swipe took the closest two grasping legs, and the backhand severed the last two, and the monstrous insect, and the canopy, flew away.

Anger welled in Kyp as he composed himself, as he thought about the losses this day, as he looked at the tattered remains of R5-L4. He knew the score, that none of his promising Dozen-and-Two Avengers had escaped beside him—and when a sudden explosion rocked the side of his X-wing, and that stubborn creature pinned between the wings somehow extended its pincers enough to breach the ion drive, he doubted that he would get away, either.

He crawled out of his cockpit, grasping tightly, understanding that he had no lifeline here, that one slip would send him floating helplessly in deep space. The X-wing was spinning now, over and over—Kyp couldn’t really feel the movement in the zero gravity, but he could see the changing placement of the stars. He held on tightly, recognizing that the spin would likely soon exert centrifugal force and toss him away.

He had never known such desperation, a castaway on a life raft in the middle of the most vast ocean of all. But he was a Jedi, trained and proven. He dismissed his anger now, refused to give in to it, and approached logically, carefully.

The insect looked at him; the pincers snapped hungrily.

Kyp thrust his lightsaber right between them, the energy blade cutting deep into the creature’s head. The insect went into a fury; the X-wing spun even faster, and looped head over tail, as well. For an instant, Kyp lost his grip, tumbling, tumbling, right off the back. His lightsaber fell from his grasp, but he reached out to it instinctively with the Force, needing the security of the crafted weapon though it would hardly help him in this situation.

Likewise, as soon as he had the lightsaber in hand, Kyp mentally grabbed at the spinning X-wing, putting a hold on it as secure as his strong arms ever could. Closer and closer he inched, until it was in his reach, spinning about, and he grabbed on to the tail and pulled himself to the fuselage.

Still trapped between the wings, the monstrous insect lay very still.

Kyp put his lightsaber away and used this vantage point to try and examine the damaged drive, to try to think of some way he might begin repairs. What could he do?

With a sigh, followed quickly by a determined grunt, he pulled himself over the edge of the fuselage back to his cockpit. He steadied the ship with attitude jets, then began a general inventory, trying to get a fix on where he was and on the extent of the damage. His hyperdrive seemed to be working, but with no canopy, he didn’t dare engage it. He reached instinctively for his emergency kit, but stopped abruptly, recognizing that, with his entire canopy gone, there was nothing to patch.

What to do? Even if there was a habitable planet around, Kyp couldn’t land without his canopy, and the lifesuit would serve him for only a few hours, or perhaps for a few days if he went into his Jedi trance.

But those thoughts were for later, he told himself determinedly. Next came the real test: he eased the ion drive back on-line. It fired, sputtered, and he found that only by rocking the throttle could he keep it going, and then only at low power.

He looked to the side, to the trapped and dead creature, and almost opened the wings. But then, keeping his cool, thinking ahead, Kyp understood that this alien life-form should be examined. Even if he didn’t make it, those who later found his dead craft would need to see this creature.

Even if he didn’t make it …

The disturbing notion echoed over and over in his thoughts. He sat back and forced himself to relax, relax, moving past a state of consciousness, into the flow of the Force. Envisioning his ship, he moved his thoughts beyond the mechanics of the vehicle, into the realm of the philosophical, the true purpose of the various components that comprised his X-wing. And then it hit him—not the perfect solution, but one that had a chance, at least.

Working on his own, with no astromech and only a basic engineering manual to guide him, Kyp altered the power grids of the ion drive, bringing them more completely to his shielding power. Then, holding his breath, he eased it back on-line. It offered no thrust this time, but, rather, created a bubblelike shield about him, one that he hoped might allow him to survive hyperspace. He laid in a course for Dubrillion. He kept searching the records as he went, though, and soon determined that there was another possibility, a remote planet named Sernpidal.

Torn, for he knew that he would find help at Lando’s, Kyp finally decided, after yet another warning sputter and flutter of power from the wounded drive, to try for the closer Sernpidal. He altered the course accordingly and engaged the hyperdrive, focusing his consciousness on that tentative ion powerplant, attentive to its every sound and pulse.

He came out of hyperspace almost immediately, just an instant before the ion drive fluctuated, dropping his shielding canopy. It came up again almost immediately, and Kyp shook his head as he considered the daunting task ahead of him. He’d have to hop and skip in short hyperspace bursts all the way to Sernpidal. And all the time, he’d have to simply hope that the ion drive didn’t die altogether.

He engaged the hyperdrive again, closing his eyes and feeling the vibrations behind him, easing as he needed to, not letting those sputtering jolts of the ion drive reach a critical level. His breathing slowed, his heart pumped even slower, preserving his oxygen, but he kept enough of his consciousness to feel those vibrations, to jump out of hyperspace and then, when the ion drive was ready, jump back in, playing the controls as one might rock a tired baby.

Danni Quee sat in an icy-walled dome-shaped chamber just above the frigid water and with hundreds of meters of solid ice above her. She wore only that loose-fitting poncho, for her other garments, the horrid, fleshy creature that had enwrapped her body, and the star-shaped creature that had violated her very insides, were gone now. Despite her lack of clothing, though, Danni was not cold. Strange lichen covered the floor of the place, emitting warmth and light, and probably oxygen, she figured, because she could breathe easily in here.

Her captors were horrible beyond anything she had ever seen, especially the huge tentacled brain that seemed to be guiding them, but in a strange sense they were also noble. Danni had not been tortured—yet—and had faced no intimate advances at all. She was a worthy enemy, the humanoid leader, Da’Gara, had proclaimed, on the word of Yomin Carr, and so she had been treated with a solid measure of respect.

Still, they meant to sacrifice her.

Now she was alone, hour after hour. Every once in a while, the water would bubble and a pair of the tattooed barbarians would splash up, one keeping a weapon pointed her way, the other bringing food—squirming, eel-like creatures—and potable water. She wondered what was going on down there, in the lower depths, where the war coordinator’s bulk rested, where the water was warmer because of volcanic activity. She wondered what was happening on the outside, beyond this frozen wasteland, in the galaxy that was her home. It would be conquered, Da’Gara had promised her, brought to its knees before the glory of the Yuuzhan Vong. And she would see it.

Danni got the distinct feeling that Da’Gara was hoping that she would stop being one of the infidels, as he called all the peoples of her galaxy, and see the light and truth of the Yuuzhan Vong way.

She didn’t think that likely.

The water bubbled, signaling another approach. Danni looked toward it quizzically. She was expecting them—Da’Gara had told her that another worldship would dock soon, and that she could witness the glory of the arrival. Everything seemed to center on that word—glory—with the Yuuzhan Vong. She mentally prepared herself for the expected violation by the fleshy creatures, the suit and the horrid mask.

But then she saw something she could not have anticipated, and she drew in her breath harshly as a pair of tattooed barbarians burst out of the water, dragging a battered human man between them.

Da’Gara came in next, moving to Danni as the other two threw the new prisoner roughly to the floor, his fleshy, organic enviro-suit peeling back from his body.

“Some warriors came against us,” the prefect explained through the watery gurgle caused by the star-shaped mask. “Some of your best, apparently.” He paused and nodded toward the limp form on the floor. “They were destroyed with ease.”

Danni looked at him curiously, more for the manner in which he was speaking than for the actual words. Before this, his inflection and pronunciation had been horrible, and he had scrambled the structure of nearly every sentence, but now that wording was noticeably smoother.

“You doubt our power?” Da’Gara asked, apparently cuing in on her expression.

“You’ve learned our language,” she replied.

The prefect turned his head sideways and tapped a finger against his ear, and Danni saw something inside it, wriggling quickly like the back end of a worm. “We have our ways, Danni Quee. You will learn.”

Danni didn’t doubt that, and it made the Yuuzhan Vong all the more terrible.

The prefect steeled his gaze at Danni. “He is not worthy,” he said, indicating her new companion, and then, with a sudden hand motion, he set the other two into action and they leapt into the water. Da’Gara continued to stare at Danni for a long while, then slipped into the dark water behind them.

Danni ran to the human. He wore no identification, wore nothing at all other than a tight pair of shorts. He carried many fresh scars, as though Da’Gara’s warriors had wounded, and then healed, him. Given the prefect’s last words to her, that this one was not worthy, Danni understood what that meant.

He would be sacrificed to the war coordinator.

Danni sucked in her breath and held herself steady. She, too, had faced the war coordinator, the horrid yammosk. Its two thin and sticky inner tendrils had entwined her, pulling her in, in, between the huge tentacles of the beast and toward those black eyes and that singular toothy maw.

But the war coordinator had not taken her, had deemed other purposes for her, which, Prefect Da’Gara had assured her, was an incredible honor—though Danni, her knees nearly buckling as she fought off a fit of fainting, had not appreciated it at all.

The war coordinator wouldn’t do the same with this one, Danni believed. He would be wrapped in tentacles and brought in slowly to be devoured.

The man stirred, then blinked his eyes open slowly, in obvious pain.

“Where?” he stuttered.

“On the fourth planet,” Danni replied.

“Starfighters … rocklike,” the man stammered.

“Coralskippers,” Danni clarified for him, for Da’Gara had told her the literal translation of the Yuuzhan Vong name. She eased the battered man’s head down gently. “Rest easy. You’re safe now.”

An hour or so later—Danni really couldn’t begin to keep track of the time—the man woke up, with a start and a cry. “Coming through the ship!” he yelled, but then he stopped himself as he became aware of his current surroundings. He looked at Danni curiously. “The fourth planet?” he asked.

Danni nodded.

“The Helska system?”

Danni nodded again and moved to help the man sit up. “I’m Danni Quee,” she began. “I came out of the ExGal station on Belkadan—” The man’s sudden look of recognition stopped her.

“Spacecaster-class shuttle,” he said.

Danni looked at him incredulously.

“We tracked you,” the man explained. “To Helska. We came to find you.”

“We?”

The man forced a smile and held out his hand. “Miko Reglia of the Dozen-and-Two Avengers,” he said.

Danni took his hand, but her expression revealed that she had no idea what he was talking about.

“A squadron of …” Miko had to pause—what, exactly, were they a squadron of? “A squadron of starfighter pilots,” he explained. “Led by Jedi Kyp Durron and myself.”

“You’re a Jedi Knight?” Danni asked, eyes widening, a flicker of hope flashing behind them.

Miko nodded and visibly settled down, as if the reminder that he was a Jedi Knight had put him in a completely different frame of mind. “Yes,” he said solemnly. “I was trained at the academy, under Luke Skywalker himself, and though my training is not yet complete—I’ve been doing an apprenticeship under the tutelage of Kyp Durron—I am indeed a Jedi Knight.”

Danni glanced back at the water. She believed Miko’s claim, and in light of that, she wondered if she had found a weakness in her enemies. Prefect Da’Gara had called this one unworthy, but how could a Jedi Knight be unworthy in the eyes of any fellow warrior? Perhaps Da’Gara and his fellows had underestimated this man, and perhaps Danni could find some way to exploit that error.

She looked back to Miko, to see him sitting calmly, eyes closed in a meditative pose.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Miko blinked his eyes open. “Calling out,” he explained. “Projecting my own thoughts and trying to sense those of any other Jedi Knight who might be in the area.”

“Will it work?” Danni asked eagerly, moving closer.

Miko shrugged. “Jedi have a connection, a common understanding of the Force that brings us together.”

“But will it work?” the pragmatic Danni pressed.

Again the shrug. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know if Kyp escaped, and I don’t know how far away he, or any other Jedi, might be.”

That was all the answer Danni needed. She came to the conclusion then that they couldn’t depend on this mystical thought-projection. They needed their own plan.

“Who are these people?” Miko asked after a pause. “Smugglers?”

Danni burst into laughter, despite herself. Smugglers? If only it was that simple, and explainable. “Maybe they, the Yuuzhan Vong, were smugglers,” she replied, “in their own galaxy.”

Miko started to respond, but stopped short and stared hard at her, the implications of her words obviously hitting him.

“They’re not from our galaxy,” Danni explained.

“Impossible,” Miko replied. “A lie they told you to keep you afraid.”

“We tracked them inbound,” Danni went on. “Right through the galactic rim. We thought it was an asteroid or a comet, and when we figured out where it was headed, three of us came out to investigate.”

“The other two?” Miko asked, but Danni was shaking her head before he ever finished.

She thought of Bensin Tomri and Cho Badeleg then, of Bensin’s horrible ending, and saw it in light of Da’Gara’s words concerning this man, Miko. She didn’t want to witness that scene repeated.

“What are they doing here?”

“The Yuuzhan Vong want it all,” Danni explained.

Miko looked at her skeptically. “Conquest?”

“The whole galaxy.”

Miko snorted. “They’re in for a surprise.”

“Or we are,” Danni said gravely.

“How many?” Miko asked. “How many planets? How many comets, or asteroids, or whatever they might be, came in?”

“Just one,” Danni answered, and she added, “so far,” before Miko could respond. “Others will follow, I’m sure.”

“They’ll need ten thousand times this number,” Miko declared.

“It’s not just about numbers,” Danni pointed out. “They’ve got ways, and weapons, we don’t understand. It all seems to be based on living organisms, creatures they’ve trained, or bred, to serve their needs.”

“Like the suits they put us in,” Miko observed, and both he and Danni shivered at the memory.

Danni nodded. “They’ve got their ways,” she said.

Miko waved his hand dismissively. “We were taking them out three to one,” he explained. “And we were just flying starfighters, and most of them outdated. The alien fighters wouldn’t stand up against a Star Destroyer or a battle cruiser.”

“You were winning, but you did not,” Danni reminded.

“Only because they found some way to get our shields down,” Miko started to say, but he stopped, his words hanging ominously in the air.

“Don’t underestimate them,” Danni scolded, and she wondered then if she might have found the reason that Da’Gara apparently held little respect for Miko. “They’ve got tools and weapons and technology foreign to our sensibilities. Weapons we might not easily be able to counter. They’re confident, and they seem to know us better than we know them.”

Miko started to climb to his feet, unsteadily, and Danni moved to support him. A moment later, he gently pushed her away, then went into a dancelike routine of slow and deliberate balancing motions. When he finished a few moments later, he seemed to have found his center. “We have to get off planet,” he said, glancing all around and, finally, up at the encasing ice.

“It’s hundreds of meters thick,” Danni remarked.

“We have to find a way,” Miko said, his tone full of determination. “I don’t know if any of the others got away, but someone has to get back to inform the New Republic. Let’s see what these aliens—what’d you call them, the Yuuzhan Vong?—can do against some real firepower.”

Danni nodded resolutely, bolstered by the offered strength of the Jedi Knight, and hoping, hoping, that Prefect Da’Gara had indeed underestimated him.

“We lost more than a dozen,” Da’Gara admitted, and the eyes on Nom Anor’s villip narrowed dangerously. “But when we discovered their weaknesses and used the dovin basals to counter their blocking energy shields, the battle turned our way,” he quickly added. “We can beat them now, one to one, one to ten.”

“How many?” the executor asked.

“Eleven enemies were destroyed,” Da’Gara reported. “A twelfth was forced down, and though two escaped, the grutchins were in swift pursuit. We believe those last two enemies were destroyed.”

“You believe?” Nom Anor echoed skeptically.

“They jumped past lightspeed, what they call hyperdrive,” Da’Gara explained. “Still, at last sighting, several grutchins were attached before the jump, and many more went in pursuit. They could not have survived.”

Nom Anor gave a long pause that Da’Gara didn’t dare interrupt. The prefect understood the problems here. Even releasing the grutchins had been taking a huge chance, for unlike many of the Yuuzhan Vong’s bred creatures, grutchins were not rational, thinking, or even trained beasts. They were instruments of destruction, living weapons, and once released, they could not be controlled or recalled. Those that had not made the jump piggybacked on the enemy starfighters or in immediate pursuit, but had stayed in the region with the coralskippers, had been destroyed—it was too risky to try and capture a mature grutchin. That loss was not significant, for the insectoids bred and matured quickly, and those lost would soon enough be replaced. Of more concern were the many that got away. Likely they had destroyed the starfighters and were now running free in the galaxy. They couldn’t reproduce, for they had no queens, but grutchins were aggressive creatures and would continue to seek out and attack other ships in the region. Soon enough they might draw the attention of the New Republic, turn the eyes of the enemy to this sector of the galaxy’s Outer Rim, and that could bode ill for the Praetorite Vong.

That’s what had Nom Anor concerned, and rightly so, Da’Gara knew, but still, what other choice had his warriors? They could not chase the enemy through a light-speed jump, after all, for the dovin basals fronting the coralskippers, sensitive as they were, could not hold any lock on enemy ships through such a ride.

“Your new prisoner,” Nom Anor prompted. “You believe him to be Jedi.”

Now Da’Gara fully relaxed, pleased to relay this grand information. “He is, Executor.”

“Take care with that one,” Nom Anor warned.

“He is with the woman,” Da’Gara replied. “There is no escape.”

“You have begun the breaking?”

“We use the woman against him,” Da’Gara confirmed. “We have told her that he is unworthy, as we have told him. We will execute him a thousand times in his mind, if that is what we must do. And when he is within the grasp of the war coordinator, pulled toward the great maw and expecting death, his willpower will ebb.”

Nom Anor’s villip echoed his chuckle. Da’Gara knew exactly how the executor felt. The breaking was a common procedure used against captured enemies of the Yuuzhan Vong, mental torture over physical torment, a shaving away of the sensibilities and determination until the unfortunate prisoner was left broken on the floor, sobbing like a baby, his mind snapped from a succession of expected horrors, of promised, terrible deaths.

“We will measure his willpower carefully, Executor,” Da’Gara assured him. “Then we will know the limits of the Jedi, and know how to exceed those limits.”

The villip’s look was purely contented now, and Da’Gara knew the expression to be an accurate reflection. What luck that they had, so early on, been able to capture a Jedi! Now, while Nom Anor continued his test of the Jedi’s physical abilities with the disease he had inflicted upon Mara, Da’Gara and the yammosk could learn so much more about the mental prowess of these supposed supercreatures.

“Above all else, denigrate him,” Nom Anor suggested. “He is not worthy—that is your litany, that is the message we will use to infiltrate his willpower and crack the barriers apart. And all the better that you still have the woman Yomin Carr told you about to use as a measuring rod against him. She is worthy, he is not. That should effect some weakening.”

“Then we are in agreement,” Da’Gara assured Nom Anor.

“Our secrecy nears its end,” Nom Anor replied. “With the escape of the two craft—”

“They did not escape,” Da’Gara dared to interrupt, something he would normally never do to a peer. In this case, though, the prefect understood the necessity of setting the premise. Still, he breathed a sigh of relief when Nom Anor granted him that conclusion.

“They may have loosed a warning beacon,” Nom Anor explained. “Even if not, the inevitable actions of the vicious grutchins may turn some attention in your general direction. Also, what brought the starfighter squadron out to you in the first place?”

Da’Gara had no practical answer. He had hoped it was just a twist of fate.

“You are a long way from the Core,” Nom Anor continued. “And the New Republic has much to contend with close to home: the Osarian-Rhommamool conflict is full-scale now, and several other minor wars have begun, both interplanetary and within planetary governments loyal to the New Republic. They would not have sent a squadron out there without cause, if that squadron went out under any specific orders. See what you might learn from the captured Jedi.”

“My intention exactly.”

“And beware, Prefect Da’Gara,” Nom Anor said ominously. “When is the rest of the Praetorite Vong to arrive?”

“The second worldship will dock this day,” Da’Gara answered. “The third within the week.”

“Prepare your defenses properly, and do not let down your guard,” Nom Anor warned. “If the New Republic knows of you, or if either of those fleeing starfighters did escape, you can expect much more formidable opponents within the week.”

“We will be ready.”

“See that you are.”

The villip abruptly inverted, the connection broken, and Prefect Da’Gara relaxed and rubbed the kink out of his neck, made sore by his standing at perfect attention throughout his discussion with the great executor. He had already communed with the war coordinator, and the yammosk had assured him that the humans and their pitiful energy weapons were not to be feared. The planet was a fortress now, with the yammosk emitting its own energy fields and using dovin basals to focus them instantly. Once the second and third worldships, each carrying full payloads of coralskippers, were in, let the humans come.

Da’Gara grinned wickedly as he considered his other order of business, the breaking of the Jedi. He had assisted with other breakings during his prefect training, of course, but this was his first time ever overseeing one.

To the warrior, always looking for weakness in his enemies, it was indeed a pleasurable experience.

Danni and Miko climbed to their feet when the water started to churn, and looked to each other, each trying to confirm that this was the time for action. A slight nod, one and then the other, and the pair moved to opposite sides of the small chamber and waited, with Miko going down into a squat and pressing his palms together before him.

Danni, too, went into a crouch, watching the churning water. But then she looked higher, to Miko, and marveled at his posture and preparedness. She could see the taut muscles of his arms straining under the isometric press, building pressure as if to literally explode into action.

A Yuuzhan Vong head, black hair chopped erratically, fleshy star-shape over the face, appeared, and then the arms, one hand holding a short staff, came over the rim, grabbing hold and propelling the powerful humanoid out of the water and onto the lichen-covered floor.

Danni circled, and turned and clawed at the wall, as if trying to run, demanding the creature’s attention.

Another Yuuzhan Vong warrior came up, and then a third.

Miko exploded into motion, launching himself sidelong against the three, knocking one back into the water, the other two to the floor.

Danni dived atop one, grabbing his weapon with both hands and pressing her forearm into the warrior’s throat as she did. She drove down with all of her considerable strength, but this was a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, hugely strong, and within a split second, he had Danni up high enough so that her press on his throat was not choking him.

Desperation drove her, though, and so she clung to the staff with one hand, keeping it at bay, and she freed up her other hand enough to get a grip on the warrior’s face, working frantically to avoid his snapping jaws as she wedged her fingers under his star-shaped mask.

Miko and the other alien scrambled to their feet and squared off, and then the third practically leapt out of the water, staff at the ready.

“Unworthy,” they kept saying, circling, circling, waving their weapons, but shortening the blows, more to measure the Jedi’s reaction than to initiate any real attack routines.

Miko kept his cool and his balance, taking care not to overreact. He saw Danni struggling with the remaining soldier, the warrior rolling over atop her and gaining the upper hand.

He dismissed the image, reminding himself that he couldn’t begin to help Danni until he had first helped himself. The Yuuzhan Vong behind him thrust his weapon like a spear, and Miko jumped ahead and to the side, and when the warrior before him took that as an opportunity to come in hard, the skilled Jedi dropped one foot back and turned sidelong to the blow, deflecting it harmlessly aside with his open palm. Like a snake, he struck, with that same blocking arm, elbow flying up high, arm snapping straight, the side of his hand knifing into the Yuuzhan Vong warrior’s throat.

Even as that opponent staggered backward, though, Miko felt the pressure from behind and could not finish the attack, forced instead to turn his attention to the newest foe, scrambling and slapping, barely deflecting the thrusting staff, and not enough to avoid a stinging clip on the side of his chest.

Danni heard the rush of Miko’s blowing breath and found herself in a tight corner, with the heavy Yuuzhan Vong warrior, staff horizontal above her, pressing down hard, overpowering her, bringing the weapon shaft across her throat. With strength born of desperation, Danni wriggled and drove her knee straight up between the alien’s legs, and when his breath came out in a rush and he froze—whether startled or in pain Danni couldn’t tell—she yanked the staff away from him. Hardly slowing, she punched out, left hand, right hand, left hand, swiveling the staff, smacking it against her opponent’s head on alternating sides.

The Yuuzhan Vong brought a hand up to block, and Danni slipped in one last hit and kept pushing, turning the warrior’s head aside and wriggling out from underneath. She planted the bottom of the staff on the ground as she turned sidelong and pushed up to her knees; then, not daring to break the movement, she scrambled up to her feet and turned in a spin, letting her hands slide down the smooth weapon to the end, then coming around with a mighty swing that caught the warrior on the shoulder, then bounced up to the side of his head, launching him into a sidelong flip that left him dazed on the floor.

Miko, meanwhile, worked frantically, one hand slapping after another, to parry the barrage of attacks from the staff-thrusting Yuuzhan Vong, using the same always-balanced twists and maneuvers he would with his lightsaber when battling a remote. He fell into his meditation, anticipating instead of reacting, trying to follow the telling movements, disturbances, of the Force as an aquatic creature might sense the shifting currents displaced by another.

He tried another tactic, as well: to use the Force to get a better feel of his opponent, an understanding of the alien’s tactics and intentions.

He might as well have been trying to read the intentions of empty deep space.

But still, even without that intuitive advantage, Miko found that he could anticipate the movements enough to keep up with the attacks, blocking, slapping, occasionally trying to grab or twist. He kept his foot movements minimal at first, trying to conserve energy, trying to lure his opponent into a state of advantaged complacency.

But the warrior he had chopped was regaining his footing, and Miko was out of time.

In came the staff, a straight thrust for his belly, an attack Miko had slapped out and dodged with a subtle hip twist three times already. This time, though, he knifed his hand down under the weapon and backhanded it up over his shoulder as he stepped forward and to the side of his enemy, leaving him an open punch for the Yuuzhan Vong’s masked face.

He chose instead to insinuate his free hand between the warrior’s arms, rolling over and grabbing onto the staff, while his other hand, up high from the parry, rolled over the staff the other way and grabbed on. Miko pulled down with that upper hand, yanked up with the lower, but at exactly the moment his opponent tried to apply counterpressure, the Jedi suddenly and viciously reversed his momentum, shoving down with his low hand and rolling his upper hand back under the staff and forcing it up and over, to slam hard against the alien’s forehead.

A sudden and vicious yank tore the staff free of the warrior’s grasp, and Miko quickly thrust its butt end into the Yuuzhan Vong’s face, closing one eye and sending him staggering backward.

Up came Danni, right behind the stubborn warrior, and even as Miko turned his attention to the remaining enemy, the one still clutching its chopped throat, Danni brought her staff down hard on the back of that one’s head. The warrior dropped like a stone.

The remaining Yuuzhan Vong broke for the hole in the floor, thinking to dive into the water, but Miko came alongside in a rush and kicked out the warrior’s trailing foot, tripping him headlong.

Danni caught him in midfall, looping her staff about his throat and turning brutally, bending his head to the side and putting him in a helpless choke. He grabbed at the staff and tried to punch at her, but his air supply was gone and he went limp in a matter of a few seconds.

“Get their cloaking creatures,” she instructed, but Miko was already trying to find some way to extract the creature from its host.

The first Yuuzhan Vong Danni had clobbered started to get back up. She walked over and slammed him in the back of the head, dropping him to the floor.

Finally finding the pressure point beside the nose, they managed to strip two of the aliens of their ooglith cloakers, but it took them a long while—and several more smacks to the heads of waking warriors—to figure out how to lure the creatures onto their own bodies. When they did, they shivered with the intense pain, the little flickers of exquisite agony, as the creatures enwrapped them.

Then they turned their attention to the star-shaped breathers, but it took time to muster the courage to actually put the things on. Danni gagged repeatedly, fighting revulsion, as the creature sent its joining tendril down her throat and to her lungs.

When she was done, she saw that Miko was already wearing his.

“Are you all right?” Miko asked, his voice watery.

Danni nodded. “They won’t recognize us easily with these on,” she replied. “We’ve got to find some pattern to this place.”

“Where they keep their ships,” Miko agreed. He didn’t finish the obvious thought—once they found the ships, how would they possibly fly them?—but he didn’t have to.

Danni knew the score, and she led the way, diving headlong into the frigid water. As soon as they got under, the two could see the distant lighting of the core area of the main Yuuzhan Vong base. Within that glow resided the main bulbous portion of the long-tentacled yammosk, they knew, and so, neither wanting to be anywhere near the horrid thing, they gave the lights a wide berth, picking their way to a point above it along the ice, walking their hands on the rough surface rather than swimming, until they came in sight of the tubular creature holding open the pathway to the surface ship.

Surprisingly, the bottom end of that tube did not appear guarded, and so they worked their way down its side. They paused at the lip and stared at each other, sharing their trepidation. Danni started to go under, but Miko grabbed her shoulder and held up his hand. He closed his eyes, finding his center, then rushed down and around the bottom, into the tube, leading with the staff he had taken from one of the soldiers.

Danni held her breath, and just as she started to follow, Miko poked his head around and motioned that the way was clear.

They inched their way up perhaps twenty meters before they cleared the water. Then they climbed, appreciating how well the tubular creature was designed, with riblike bones, easy stairs, encircling it. And the path was clear, all the way up; both thought this, too, remarkable, but neither voiced the fear openly.

Up they climbed; and then above, Miko, who was still leading, noted the wider opening and the multicolored hues of the alien worldship. Again the Jedi led the way, but this time without hesitation, for Danni was right behind, pressing on. They came into a large chamber and spent a long moment letting their vision adjust to the change in light. At first, they thought they were alone, but then Danni’s eyes widened and she pointed to a small alcove to the left, where a single, tattooed figure stood quietly.

“You need not your gnullith here,” Prefect Da’Gara told them, turning about. He was not wearing one of the star-shaped creatures—and his lips curled into a smile. “The worldship produces its own atmosphere.”

Danni glanced at Miko, and then all around, looking for other guards.

“It took you longer than I had anticipated,” Da’Gara calmly stated.

Miko broke into motion, leaping forward, staff twirling above his head.

But Da’Gara, too, moved quickly, extending both his arms, throwing with one hand a pie of goo that hit the floor before Miko, and merely opening his other hand, from which flew a small, ball-like creature, its wings humming fiercely.

Miko skipped aside, dived into a roll to recover his balance, and came up to his feet in a rush, thinking to close the last few steps to Da’Gara. But the goo had moved with him, had somehow expanded, widening like a stream-fed puddle, its surface rippling with waves. The Jedi moved again, a step back, then skittered back the other way, and then, the gooey substance pacing, even gaining on him, he took a step forward and leapt into a somersault, trying to clear it.

No such luck. The goo reared up and caught Miko’s feet as he came around, and though the Jedi moved with such agility that he was able to land standing, he was caught. He retracted his arm to throw the staff like a spear, but the goo reacted with frightening suddenness, a portion of it flowing right up Miko’s legs and torso, enveloping his arm, even reaching out to catch and hold the missile as it left his grasp.

Danni cried out for him, but her call was cut short, a gasp of air blasted from lungs, as for the third time she tried to dodge the ball-like creature that had flown from the prefect’s hand. The buzzing thing had come back at her each time. This time, the living missile seemed to anticipate her movement, altering its course accordingly and slamming her right in the chest with such force that she was knocked back onto the floor. For a long moment, she lay stunned and very still, staring at the multicolored chamber ceiling. Then she heard Da’Gara’s mocking laughter.

She knew she had to get up now, to help Miko, and she rolled to the side, pushing up on one elbow.

And then she was standing, suddenly, hoisted to her feet by two other Yuuzhan Vong barbarians. Before she could begin to try to fight back, she felt something wet and sticky on her wrist, and then that arm was wrenched back behind her and slammed into her back, sticking fast. A similar movement from the other warrior had her other arm pinned, as well, and they jerked her about to face Da’Gara, and to see Miko stuck firmly in place.

“Did you believe that you had a chance?” Da’Gara calmly asked Miko. He advanced to stand right before the trapped Jedi. “I told you honestly that you were not worthy. You cannot begin to resist us.”

A growl escaped Miko’s lips, and he struggled futilely against the goo’s hold. Da’Gara, his smile wider than ever, leaned closer, pulling free Miko’s gnullith with one hand and using the other to flick a finger up under the Jedi’s nose, hitting the exact spot to send a wave of pain through the man. “Too easy,” Da’Gara whispered into Miko’s ear.

He motioned to his warriors then, and they hauled Danni behind him as he moved back toward the alcove on the left. “It is good that you have come,” he explained to her as they turned the corner. Around that bend, the wall was translucent, offering a superb view of the frozen surface and the multitude of stars beyond.

And one of those “stars” was approaching, growing larger and larger.

Danni’s eyes widened as she realized what she was seeing: the huge coral ship extending its membranous parachute, the ice below it beginning to vaporize and fog and fly away.

“Oh, there will be more, Danni Quee,” Da’Gara whispered into her ear. “Do you see the truth now? Do you understand the futility?”

Danni didn’t respond, didn’t blink.

“There are ways for you to join with us,” Da’Gara remarked.

Again, she stubbornly held her ground.

“You will learn,” Da’Gara promised. “You will learn the glory of the Praetorite Vong. You will learn your place.” He turned to the two warrior escorts. “Bid Prefect Ma’Shraid to join us. She will enjoy watching the yammosk devour the unworthy one.”

Danni fought hard to hold steady her breathing, to not betray her horror. She said nothing and offered no resistance—how could she?—as she was dragged back through the main chamber, where other warriors had come in and were working on Miko and the gooey chains.

It all came as a rush to Danni, a blurring of reality and what she could only think of as a dreamscape. She was tossed back into the tube, went sliding and bouncing and falling back into the water, its iciness biting at her in those few places where the ooglith cloaker was not properly shielding her. Down they went, and her bonds were removed, and weights were applied. Down they went, deeper into the sea, toward the glow that marked the main base. Once again Danni came to appreciate the marvel of the ooglith cloaker, for she did not feel much of a pressure buildup as they descended, as if the living suit was somehow warding the weight of the depths.

The immense tentacles of the yammosk, the coordinator and central brain of the Praetorite Vong, hung in the water all about her, like banners strewn to mark the spot of celebration. Rocky reefs, covered with brightly glowing simple creatures, served as bleachers, and upon these, Da’Gara’s warriors stood in force, at quiet attention, the intensity of their steeled gazes diminished not at all by the gnullith, which almost hid the variety of scarring and tattoos on their faces. Danni was brought to a place at the rear of the line, far from the core of the yammosk.

But through the crystalline clear water, she could see that horrid face, the two bulbous black eyes, the puckered maw, and the great central tooth.

No one seemed concerned with her; the warriors all stood quietly, eyes locked ahead, though the two flanking Danni kept a firm grip on her arms.

The great yammosk belched forth a huge bubble then, which rolled out, expanding, expanding, to encompass Danni and all the gathered Yuuzhan Vong, and to her amazement, that air pocket stayed in place about the grounds, holding back the waters. She saw the gathered aliens remove their gnullith, and then one of the guards holding her pulled the breather from her face, as well.

Prefect Da’Gara appeared sometime later, in ceremonial red robes that Danni had not seen before. He ascended a platform before the yammosk and held his hands out to his people.

No sound came from him, and yet Danni knew that he was communicating with his minions, and as she let herself fall deeper into that thought, and as she closed her eyes and concentrated, she, too, could begin to comprehend the prefect’s thoughts. The call wasn’t coming directly from Da’Gara, she came to realize, but was being relayed from him and to his people through the mental power of the gigantic yammosk. The creature was a telepath, obviously, its power great enough to facilitate communication throughout the gathering.

The title Da’Gara had given to the yammosk, war coordinator, suddenly resonated more deeply to Danni.

With the telepathic call for order, the communal bonding facilitated by the yammosk, completed, Da’Gara walked to the front of the platform and began speaking aloud. Danni didn’t understand the language, of course, but by concentrating on the continuing waves of energy from the yammosk, she found that she could comprehend the basics of his speech. He was talking about glory, about the Praetorite Vong and this grand conquest they had been assigned. He spoke enthusiastically about Prefect Ma’Shraid and the second worldship, and about a third that would soon land. He talked about the skirmish with the starfighters, and the ultimate victory.

Then he went back to exalting Ma’Shraid, and Danni understood the purpose of that focus a moment later when a low humming reverberated through her body and all heads snapped to the side, looking back, away from Da’Gara and the yammosk. A great tube, like the one that led from the first worldship under the ice pack, slid down toward the yammosk’s air bubble and then breached the shield at the rear of the gathering.

In came the warriors of the second worldship, rank upon rank, hundreds upon hundreds, a force larger than that Da’Gara had assembled. In they marched, male and female, all tattooed and mutilated, with athletic builds and finely toned muscles, and all with that same intense, fanatical gaze. A woman wearing red robes akin to Da’Gara’s came last, borne on a litter by four strong warriors. While their comrades formed ranks intertwined with Da’Gara’s soldiers, a show of common purpose and obedience that was not lost on Danni, the litter moved to the front platform, and the woman, Ma’Shraid, took her place beside Da’Gara.

He offered her the floor, and she immediately offered prayers to many gods. Then she fell into a similar discourse of glory and duty, speaking of the honor to have been chosen to serve with the Praetorite Vong, and of the glory they would all soon know, particularly those who would die in the conquest.

It went on for hours and hours, and Danni saw not one head nod with boredom. The level of energy alone nearly overwhelmed her, a devotion so rare among her own people.

Finally the speeches ended, with Da’Gara’s call to the yammosk, and then Danni felt a vibration ripple through her body, a power so intense that she feared she would simply explode.

As if in response to that wave of energy, a second litter appeared, not from the tunnel, but from around the bleachers. This one was curtained above so that Danni could not see the one being borne.

She knew, though.

Four warriors marched to the point at the end of the twin ranks of warriors, the farthest point from the yammosk’s bulk, perhaps a hundred meters from Da’Gara and Ma’Shraid.

The curtains came down; there stood Miko Reglia, stuck fast to a post.

Again came the vibration, rippling through Danni. She could just sense the despair and helplessness that emanated from the yammosk; but those emotions were created for and aimed at Miko, she could tell, for his expression fell and his shoulders drooped. She could only watch in horror as two thin tendrils snaked out from either side of the yammosk’s puckered maw, soaring out before the lines of warriors and to the litter. They grasped Miko and, with frightening power, yanked him free of his bonds and began dragging him in.

At first the Jedi struggled, but he apparently recognized the futility of that attempt and so he closed his eyes—he was again finding his point of meditation, Danni knew.

But again came the waves of the yammosk’s thought-energy, rippling through them, pulling at Miko’s heart and chipping at his willpower.

Danni understood. The creature wanted him to show his fear, wanted him to break into a tirade of despair and hopelessness.

“Fight it, Miko,” she whispered, and she wished that she, too, was a Jedi, so that she could somehow communicate to the man, lend him her strength that he might die honorably.

Miko tried to look away, or down, tried to close his eyes and muster his internal strength. He was determined to meet his doom with courage and calm, but he could not keep his eyes closed. The yammosk would not let him. He knew then that this was the end, a horrible, painful death. He saw the maw, growing larger and larger, saw the rows and rows of smaller teeth behind that dominant fang, then saw, as he inched even closer, the fleshy interior of the creature’s mouth.

He had never been afraid of death—he was a Jedi Knight—but something was different here than he had ever foreseen, some darker sense of dread and emptiness that questioned his very faith. Logically he knew the source to be the yammosk, a trick of the telepathic creature, but logic could not hold against the waves of despair and horror, against the certain knowledge that this was the very end of existence!

Closer, closer. The mouth opened and closed, chewing before the meal had arrived.

Closer, closer.