XIV: Changing

----------------------------------------

Eboracum's moon was falling. Yadraig, as named by the locals and unchanged by the coming of the Imperium, wobbled in its track. Once, it had circled as the closest of the trio of moons, accompanying the parent world through hundreds of millions of years. Each year took it a micron further away, at such timescales that only in aeons to come would they be parted. Now a perverse homecoming, a recombination and recreation of the primordial collision in ancient times that spawned all the moonlets, Yadraig danced closer and closer to the planet.

Eight hundred and twelve kilometers in diameter. Large enough to compact under its own mass, too small to pull overmuch on its much larger companion. The other moons of Eboracum were even smaller: irregular and ovoid. Little more than glorified asteroids; remnant chunks of mantle and crust congealed in the chill of space and forever severed from the world that birthed them. Yadraig, already a swift riser in the sky, sped faster.

Spacetime flattened behind it and bunched before it. Like a carpet, caught underfoot. Gravimetric sensors across the 4711th chimed alarms. At apoapsis, the moon shuddered, slowing more. The nadir of its orbit crept lower, lower, edging closer to the final point of no return when the strain of conflicting gravity would overcome the adhesion of the moonlet and smear it across the sky.

Tech-adepts calculated no more than six days' time until Yadraig swung low enough to shatter and spread its ruinous rain across much of Eboracum's surface.

For twelve minutes since the first spike of gravitational energy from the moonlet, the Primarch stood motionless before the crystalflex windows of Macragge's Honour's grand strategium. He ignored the elevating noise and activity that rippled and burst through the hundreds of adepts, officers and magi. He ignored the flits and flashes of brief raiding combat around and across Eboracum's orbit as the Yuuzhan Vong continued their conservative feints. He stood, hands linked behind his broad back, shoulders taut, head elevated, unblinking and peering at the moon as it visibly slid across the sky, down toward the horizon.

Tylos Rubio, Codicier, burst into the strategium only minutes after the first warning signs, dark stains at his ear and nose, demanding to speak to the Primarch. Chapter Master Marius Gage intercepted, recognizing his father's focus and doing his duty as seneschal. The psyker was unsettled and spoke of excitations in the local warp, occurring only moments ago, that he had not seen nor sensed before. Aliens sensations, similar to but not the same as a hostile psyker of some proficiency enacting a great working.

'Moments ago? Codicier, be specific. Precisely how many moments ago?'

By the chronograph of his seclusion cell, Rubio confirmed the groaning presence in the warp began at the exact moment Gage feared. The same moment Yadraig wobbled in its orbit. Marius sent word to petition the astropathic choir and the Navigators to determine if they, too, had sensed this disturbance. Rubio suspected not; he had been actively employing his sense and peering into the empyrean with intention. Though, he allowed, the presence remained still could likely be divined by the mutants.

'And you feel no greater threat?'

Tylos Rubio pointed to the moon, slipping past the limb of Eboracum.

'I feel no malice at all, only intention.'

Auspex scans of the moon, which even now was chased by Thunderhawk with destroyers gaining rapidly provided no inkling as to where or what means the Yuuzhan Vong employed to alter its orbit. Gage expected - hoped, perhaps - for some ship nestled to the surface, or a biotic growth that might be targeted and destroyed. Something rational to counter.

All that had been revealed were swirling hydrocarbon clouds and gravimetric pulses throughout the core of the moon. Time was ticking and Eboracum's fate lay measured in tens of thousands of kilometers and days and remaining orbits.

----------------------------------------

Two of the Fondorians lived. Derec, a Human, and Vili, a Duro. Both were pale, or as pale as dark-skinned human and grey-skinned alien could be, breathing fast and short. Solidian stood over S'hmu's corpse, holding the Herglic's rotary blaster loose. Grutchin ichor slicked the casing of the weapon, but it remained whole and hale.

'Understand,' Zalthis began. 'I will see to it that every soldier who died this day is given the stipend afforded to those in the Ultramar Auxilia. I swear this on my honor as Astartes.'

Solidian cut his eyes toward Zalthis, but did not gainsay his brother.

'Now we continue, or their deaths meant nothing.' Solidian, helmetless, bore clotted blood like a helmet across half his scalp. His armor was pockmarked and pitted. Zalthis now carried his brother's bolter, traded for the fallen Herglic's cannon. The two Fondorians were bruised and scuffed, trembling fists clenched about lasrifles. They were a pitiful group. Another horde of grutchin and Zalthis held little doubt they would not all die.

Tshek Ulm still lived. Their mission was not complete.

'Sol? Are you with me, brother?'

Dark blood stained the other Ultramarine's brown-bronze skin. His scalp stuck up in odd, bunched angles of stiff flesh. The Fondorians would not look his way. Sol's eyes were dark, darker than usual, and they flicked down toward S'hmu, to the cannon in his hands, then finally to Zalthis' face.

'Always, brother,' Sol intoned, shifting the weight of the rotary cannon to his left hand and offering his right. They clasped, wrist to elbow. 'You know that. Tshek Ulm dies today.'

One last look at the fallen Fondorians, at S'hmu, and Zalthis turned his back. They were dead, under his command. If he had not sent the Neophytes back, how many might have fallen to the grutchin's acid here? Qario's youthful face replaced that of one of the dead Fondorians. Petran became the one who had been borne down under the biots and torn to shreds.

Lives depended on him. On his decisions. Zalthis was unsure he had made the correct ones. Yet doubt fit poorly on the shoulders of an Astartes. They were made to be more than that. They were here, their foes were before them, it was enough.

The corpses of the grutchin carpeted the tunnel before the blockage, steaming and hissing as their salivary glands emptied past slack mandibles. The four picked their way carefully around the biots, then up the slumped scree of the partial ceiling collapse. Solidian, shoulding S'hmu's rotary cannon, hefted the human, Derec, over a particularly unstable portion.

On the far side, evidence abounded of the grutchin 'nesting'. Piles of debris had been clustered into little piles, gnawed upon, scattered about.

His vox crackled. After silence since the gargantuan vong Titan showed itself, its sudden static pop brought four guns up to attention, nerves jangling. Wordless noise hummed and popped from his and Solidian's gorgets.

'Brother Zalthis: I am receiving. This is Zalthis, receiving.'

Syllabic sounds warbled, but he could make neither heads nor tails of them. The jamming was lessening, but it was present still. Perhaps the vong Titan, which seemed to emanate the interference, had passed far enough away.

'Lieutenant Optarch, Brother Solidian and I are pursuing Yuuzhan Vong through transportation rail-tunnels beneath the surface.'

More static and metallic whining.

'Contact Neophyte Qario, he has further information.'

Nothing.

'Solidian, monitor vox.' His brother dipped his head in agreement and Zalthis killed his own external output.

----------------------------------------

A quarter hour slid past in darkness and silence before the final, true sign of the invader presented itself. Vox improved over that time, until they could make out individual words, but while it appeared their ability to receive was returning, none of the broken transmissions seemed to be in response to Sol's occasional requests for contact.

Zalthis heard stamping footfalls first, raising his fist and slowing his pace. Derec and Vili sucked in deep breaths behind him and he heard safeties click off.

'Ahead,' Zal murmured. 'Past the curtain.' The transit line was sealed off: durasteel shutters extended from either side of the tunnel to meet in the middle. To either side were smaller, man-sized portals, clearly for access of workers or perhaps guild operators of trams. They yawned wide and open, doors pried open and torn away.

Solidian beckoned to Vili and made for the leftward portal, while Zalthis and Derec crept to the rightward. Flickering flashes of light leaked out of the opening, scattering strange patterns across ceiling and wall.

He peered through. The portals were large enough for several men to pass through alongside each other and tall enough an Ultramarine would not need to duck. Perhaps they were in fact designed for smaller hovercraft, if the main line was shut.

Derec, beside him, swore colorfully under his breath.

A few profanities Zalthis remembered from before induction and others he learned from his brothers came to mind.

The Yuuzhan Vong force was far ahead - several hundred meters at least - but at a glance he counted more than a hundred warriors and treble that number of their chazrach servants. They marched en masse, holding bright points of gold light aloft on staves to illuminate their way. Harsh language and commanding tones echoed strangely back to Zalthis and he found he understood much of it. Courtesy of his omophagea, no doubt.

'Our suspicions are proven,' Zalthis shared. 'They hope to emerge near the shield generators.'

'We can't do shit about it,' Derec hissed back. 'Sithspawn, look how many there are! We need, we need Jedi or walkers or, or-'

'We can draw their attention.' He clutched Solidian's bolter closer, tapping his thumb against its receiver. With his own remaining sickle-shaped magazines and those Solidian handed over, he had close to a hundred bolts. Obroa-skai proved bolts could overmatch the living armor of the Yuuzhan Vong, but not reliably. A sure shot at center mass penetrated, but the sloping and organic shapes of the armor sometimes deflected or predetonated shells. S'hmu's rotary cannon broke through the resilience of the living armor through weight of fire, not precisely quality. It would serve better thinning the ranks of the chazrach.

Derec and Vili's lasrifles still had hundreds of shots. Zalthis squinted and his helm helpfully relayed distance information. Three hundred meters and increasing. The tunnel was straight. Las had no drop over distance.

It was…doable. The Vong would need to turn and charge, and though faster than baseline humanity, it was a mighty distance to sprint under fire.

'Sol,' he called over squad-vox.

'Zal,' his brother called back, laced with static.

''Defense of a chokepoint against infantry',' he quoted.

'Elevation preferred, if terrain is unsuitable, minimize access to flanks and maximize time-to-contact. They are penned in a tunnel, brother. Sergeant Ascratus could scarcely devise a more beneficial position for us.'

'I will ignore the chazrach. They're for you and the Fondorians.' Derec, hearing the Ultramarine's planning, shut his eyes and slid down against the frame of the portal, mouthing words without noise.

'Understood. This cannon has terrible dispersion; I'll not be able to fire until under a hundred meters.'

Zal glanced down at the Human doing his level best to avoid panicking.

'On your feet, soldier. You'll make the vong remember this day bitterly.'

Derec hauled himself up, leaning shoulder against doorframe.

'You're not even a little afraid?'

'Astartes know no fear,' Zalthis said, automatically. 'We cannot.'

'Lucky you…'

Zalthis glanced across the tunnel to his brother and the Duro, twenty-meters opposite. His helm picked them out easily in thermal images. Solidian stood tall and braced wide, rotary cannon loose and ready. The Duro knelt, lasrifle braced by elbow on his knee.

'Prepare to fire in three,' Zalthis tucked his bolter's stock to his pauldron, reticle ghosting in his vision. He picked out the nearest Vong warriors, magnifying enough to make out the colors of their armor.

'Two.' Derec exhaled hard, rolling his shoulders.

'One.'

'Engage.'

----------------------------------------

Sannah spooned cereal into her mouth with the sort of moody intensity that only a teenager could. They were early down to the dining hall, before most of the kids woke up. The two girls chose a small table, off to the side of the hall. Anakin sunk down into a seat next to Tahiri, who leaned over to give him a one-armed hug.

"Morning, Anakin!"

"Sleep okay?"

"Just great," Tahiri drug out the syllable, cheerfully ladling syrup over dustcrepes. "Ready and raring to go kill a monster."

Surprisingly, he'd slept pretty well too. He expected to be up all night, replaying their clash with the monster and wondering what he could've done differently, if they could have stopped it then, but when his head hit his pillow, the next thing he knew sun was streaming through his room's windows. Only a fading impression of dreams that crumbled away as he changed into fresh clothes. The three of them did everything they could have. Uncle Luke was right, the creature had hundreds of thousands of kilometers to cover to reach the other moon.

"Pekhum should be here by lunch." He stretched, yawning. "I was thinking, I might take my X-Wing too. You two can ride with Peckhum in Lightning Rod but if the thing tries to fly away again, I can have Fiver shoot it down."

"You could just have Fiver fly your X-Wing over and ride with us?" Tahiri offered, hopeful.

Astromechs were able to fly a starfighter around, though they were nothing close to a living pilot. It wasn't like he was expecting to need to dogfight anything though, so she did have a point.

"Fiver it is then," Anakin decided.

Sannah stayed subdued, though his sense of her in the Force revealed more quiet thoughtfulness than the deep-buried guilt and sudden panic last night. Whatever she and Tahiri talked about last night, or maybe this morning too, seemed to have done the trick.

Anakin wasn't feeling terribly hungry, figuring to have a snack later or take something with them, so he just kept the two girls company, discussing with Tahiri about their plan of attack.

First, and most obvious, was to make contact with the Melodies. Suz Tanwa got a holocom call last night from Uncle Luke, warning her about the creature and asking her to keep an eye out. The Rodian xenoarcheologist set up shop years ago, the first to befriend the Melodies and the first to earn their trust, filling notebooks with cultural practices and tales about the moon's history and that of its inhabitants. After Anakin and Tahiri and Lyric's actions convinced the Melodies to open up to the Jedi too, the moon gained the benefits of modern technology.

The enormous snakes, Reels, were kept at bay by razorwire fences that loops around Melodie caverns. Lurking Raithes, giant rodents with a taste for Melodie eggs (and children) tripped motion-sensors that activated sting-turrets.

Just a few years, but the Melodies didn't need to face what Lyric did during their adventure.

It…had its detractors. According to Tanwa, some of the Elders derided relying on techonology, fearing it would make their children weak. Some of the children and those close to Changing felt like it insulted the sacrifices of their friends, in years and times before.

Lyric was the loudest proponent of the changes, and she pushed for even more. Melodies still lived in simple, pre-industrial ways, as both adolescent and Elder, but aquatic technologies were as old as the Republic itself. Mon Calamari could help teach them to build cities - only if the Melodies wanted it.

That was a question for another day and one Anakin was sure wouldn't be decided for generations.

Regardless, Tanwa was there, with her ship and the protections the Praxeum helped set up with Talon Karrde's funding. It wouldn't stop that monster, that was for sure, but Tanwa hadn't communicated during the night.

A moon was a big place, after all. The Melodies only lived in and around Sistra Mountain. That sithspawn had millions of square kilometers to choose from.

"You know, Sannah - you can stay on Lightning Rod while we talk to Tanwa. We'll probably have to scan the planet from orbit anyway to find the thing, if no one saw it."

"It's fine," the Melodie girl brushed off his concern, sounding more sure of herself. "Tahiri was right. I was being dumb."

"Tahiri!"

"What? She was!"

"You weren't being dumb, Sannah-"

"My Changing isn't for seven more years. That's basically forever! And…and I shouldn't be afraid of something like that, Anakin. Fear is, fear-"

"Leads to anger, which leads to hate."

All three jumped at the deep, rumbling voice. Aeonid Thiel, looming far above them, glanced once at nearby chairs, raised an eyebrow and elected to stand.

Anakin shifted, looking up at the Ultramarine. This was the first he'd encountered Thiel at the Praxeum. He wasn't avoiding Aeonid and he didn't figure Aeonid was avoiding him either, but the Ultramarine was known to keep to himself and Anakin spent most of his time outside the walls of the Temple.

He forgot just how huge Astartes were.

Thiel wore a homespun robe like any other Jedi, though one with enough material in it to make four normal-sized tunics. Zalthis was the only other Astartes Anakin had seen out of the armor that they seemed to live in. The youth, when they sparred and conversed, favored fatigue trousers and a lightweight singlet. It suited the soldier.

Jedi robes…didn't seem to fit Aeonid. Not in the physical sense, but in a way Anakin couldn't describe. Though loose and fitted to him, the Astartes still exuded a sense of physicality and threat. A jedi's robes were supposed to be an expression of a jedi's calm mindset and a statement about their act of service. When his Uncle wore his robes, Anakin felt serenity and calm authority and above all else: safety. The perfect holo of what a Jedi should be.

Aeonid's robes were like putting a blanket over a starfighter. You couldn't see it, but the shape of it was there, the outline of the laser cannons. Just a quick pulse of repulsorlifts would blow the blanket away and reveal the war machine underneath.

"Hi, Aeonid!" Tahiri actually flicked her hand in a wave.

"Trainee Veila," the Ultramarine nodded to her. "Trainee Sannah. Jedi Solo."

"Did you want breakfast? There's still dustcrepes."

"I have already eaten, but your offer is appreciated." Thiel apparently made a decision; rather than looming over the three of them, he carefully knelt down beside the table. "If you would like, I will provide my Thunderhawk as transport. The three of you require passage to another moon?"

"Yavin 8," Anakin replied, automatically. "We were waiting on Peckhum…"

"My Thunderhawk is swifter than a freighter."

Tahiri stuffed half a dustcrepe into her mouth, clearing her plate and trying to talk past her breakfast simultaneously.

"Ew, Tahiri," Sannah wrinkled her nose.

"Well - I guess we could? I'd have to tell my Uncle-"

"I offered my services to Master Skywalker already. He agreed, conditional on your own agreement."

Right, Astartes. Of course Aeonid would already have everything done properly and in order.

"Why?" Tahiri blurted out.

"Why? Jedi Solo and Master Skywalker, along with Jedi Taral chose to fight with my brothers on Obroa-skai, to their own great personal danger. You could consider this a repayment, if you wish."

Anakin fidgeted. Obroa-skai was a mission. He didn't want the Imperials feeling like they owed him or the Jedi a debt just for doing what they had to do. If anything, the Wraiths were the ones who lost someone down on the library world. Or Rhonabeq - she was the one who died for all of them to land safely.

"Alternatively," Thiel continued. "This is also the purpose of a Jedi. As I am here to learn what being a Jedi means, by theory I should go on - what have I heard it called? Some sort of adventure."

Sannah brightened, banishing the last of her leftover mood from the previous day.

"That's what I said! It's an Anakin and Tahiri adventure. They had so many of those-"

"So I have heard."

"Sannah, it's nothing like-"

"Well, it kind of is-"

"We actually had permission-"

"Kind of, but I sort of bent the rules when I went out flying-"

Thiel raised both hands, clearing his throat and cutting through the three teenager's bickering.

"Then it's accepted?"

Anakin nodded. A gunship over Peckhum's freighter plus a supersoldier? He'd have to be crazy to turn it down.

----------------------------------------

Bolts clipped Vong warriors and sent them sprawling. Las snapped clean, bright lines out, flashing brilliance through the darkened transit tunnel. Zalthis' teeth clenched so tight they hurt, because for once, the Yuuzhan Vong were not charging. They were fleeing. His first shots killed three warriors. He saw chazrach fall to Derec and Vili's las shots. The Vong would turn. They would hurl bugs. They would roar war cries. Then they would charge.

They did the opposite. Zalthis, though his muddled comprehension of their tongue, heard vong warriors shout orders to ignore the infidels, to press on, that their mission was given by the gods.

Other warriors cried out about dishonor, but they were barked down. And the massed force fled.

Zalthis plans turned to so much smoke. The Vong did not run. They didn't turn down a challenge. They did not pass the opportunity to fight. That was the theoretical. It was sound. It had been tested with each guerilla clash he and Sol had led thus far.

Upended.

Sol, less reserved, bellowed imprecations and epithets after the fleeing aliens.

'Do we pursue? Zal, do we pursue?'

If they did, they left their cover behind. It might all be a ploy to draw them out into the open where a massed volley of bugs would overwhelm them. Derec and Vili would be left behind, unable to match the stride of geneforged muscles. It was his decision. His command. Mistake, mistake, mistake. He couldn't make another.

'Derec, Vili, remain here. Continue to fire. Cover our approach. Sol-'

'We march for Macragge, Zal.'

'We do. Courage and honor!'

'Courage and honor!'

He expected the trap he predicted. Zalthis covered ten meters in the blink of an eye, firing as he moved. In his heightened state of both adrenaline and perfected reflexes, he saw a warrior take a bolt to the back of his helmet, skull popping wetly. Las snapped past Zalthis, close enough to singe his armor, cracking after chazrach and warriors alike, the mob too far for Derec to aim in the darkness.

It was foolish. It was suicidal. He had no plan when they reached the horde of invaders. Sergeant Ascratus was worth ten of Zalthis and he had fallen to the keen edges of amphistaves.

None knew about this secret assault. Right or wrong, correct or incorrect, Zalthis could only act.

'-this, resp- -repare- -tly.'

His vox woke again. This time, he caught edges, shapes of words. The interference was clearing. Desperate, he keyed connection, shouting back.

'This is Brother Zalthis! I am at grid coordinate 9F AV 93 11! Hostile presence, approximately four hundred, heading east! We are within the transport tunnels, repeat, the transport tunnels!'

Solidian joined in as well, aping Zalthis' call. Voices replied, broken, scattered, fragmented. Not enough to make out meaning, only that someone was out there. They were listening. They might yet be heard.

Now bugs began to arc toward them. Not many, only handfuls cast backwards without a second glance. Thud bugs platted against his chestplate. Solidian hissed in irritation as a razor bug managed to catch a gap in his armor, reopening a slash in his flank. Zalthis' bolter clicked dry and he ejected the magazine, letting it drop, slapping his last in place. Bang, bang, bang.

Another warrior fell and the mass reactive detonation knocked flat chazrach nearby.

The ground leapt, knocking Zalthis sprawling, skidding and sliding on his chest. Light flooded the tunnel, so bright and sudden it was shocking, making his occulobe ache as it instantly reacted.

A wall of dust rolled down the tunnel, engulfing the vong battalion, sweeping toward Zalthis and Solidian as they picked themselves up.

Strobing light in harsh vermillion and rich emerald pulsed in the cloud. Vong shouts turned into screams. He heard bodies strike duracrete.

'-peat, droid battalions are deployed! Brother Zalthis, if you receive this, your warning has been heard. Droid battalions are deployed, repeat, droid battalions are deployed!'

The voice was unfamiliar, not one of the handful of Astartes. Auxilia perhaps.

Relief flooded his body, as potent as adrenaline. They had been heard. Fondor responded. He had not failed.

Solidian groaned as he picked himself up. Wryly smiling, he offered his right hand to Zalthis. They clasped wrists, then embraced in a clatter of warplate.

'I never doubted you, brother!' Solidian declared, shouting over the din of blasterfire, stomping machine feet, howling Yuuzhan Vong and shrieking chazrach.

'It must have been Qario!' Zalthis returned. To send these droids here so quickly, Qario must have succeeded in returning, raising the alarm. He'd see the Neophytes all elevated for this campaign, even if he needed to petition the Primarch himself.

'I've still fight left in me,' Solidian hefted the rotary cannon. 'This aches for revenge.'

False-color and thermal imaging easily saw through the roiling clouds of dust. Hundreds of droids spilled down the slope of collapsed ceiling, pouring blasterfire into the outnumbered vong. Among them, to Zalthis' surprise, he noted skitarii with shouldered radium muskets. Mechanicum taghmata alongside droids - almost absurd, but with second thought he saw the reasoning. Who better to watch over and keep under tight leash thinking machines than the Mechanicum? He could imagine the Magos Dominus insisting on such precautions, in fact.

Solidian was right. He had bolts left and a fire in his belly.

'Of martyr, we! For Honored Ulm, die and distract! We weaken, the Trickster laughs!'

Zalthis stumbled.

His command of the vong language was weak and to his ear it came across dissonant and confusing in organization. Warriors took up the call. Martyrdom. Distraction. For Honored Ulm.

'Sol, hold!'

His brother skidded to a halt, whipping around.

'I don't think the commander is here. I can understand them - they call to distract us. Delay us.'

More vong fell, reaping a toll on the droids but the machines seemed unending.

Zalthis span on his heel, scrutinizing the sides of the transit tunnel. When they first entered, he'd noted alcoves spaced periodically along the transit line. Maintenance perhaps, or surface access. After a while they ceased to be important and he put them from his mind.

There. An alcove, much like the others, tucked aside. Heat splashes showed around a breached, armored hatch.

He did not need to consider if a vong commander would abandon his warriors to slip away. The vong today had performed entirely out of character. If anything, this slotted together every oddity.

Tshek Ulm expected pursuit. The grutchin were the first evidence of it. A clear ambush set up intended to delay or exterminate any pursuers. Then the vong strike force itself, refusing to turn and attack. They had to draw pursuers onward, away from where Ulm had split away.

On Ascratus' memory, Zalthis swore to never underestimate the vong again.

He pointed at the alcove, Solidian following his gesture. His brother's face tensed, darkened.

'Let the automata have this massacre. This is between us, and him.' Solidian spat.

He had nothing to add. Solidian said all that needed to be said.

----------------------------------------

From space, Yavin 8 couldn't be more different from the moon they just left behind. Yavin 4 just looked humid. Emerald green, constantly wrapped up in white bands of clouds, only the tiniest hint of snow and ice at the poles, Yavin 4 looking warm and welcoming and sunny. Yavin 8 chilled just at a glance. It wasn't a Hoth, where the air was so cold it froze, but something about Yavin 8 made it more forebodingly chilly than the famous ice world. It might have been because Anakin knew, intimately, the endless physical dangers down on that world. Dangerous life-forms filled the galaxy but the ones on Yavin 8 felt hostile in a way he didn't often encounter.

That Krayt dragon on Tatooine, it had been angry and territorial, but he didn't feel the same kind of perverse pleasure the predators on Yavin 8 seemed to exude. The purella that made off with them wasn't just happy to have found prey, it felt like it was hungry for their death too. Normal predators didn't think like that, they just thought about food and hunger and the next meal.

Tahiri, next to Anakin, shivered as if she'd heard his thoughts.

She might have, and Anakin wrenched them away from grim memories of spiderwebs and deep, dark tunnels.

Thiel's Thunderhawk was a big gunship, with tons of room inside and in the cockpit. The Ultramarine piloted it himself, saying that every Astartes had training to use each vehicle in a Legion's motorpool, which was actually pretty impressive. Jaina was like that, she could fly anything she touched. Anakin knew his X-Wing, the Falcon (mostly) and he could probably figure out other starfighters, but to just sit in the cockpit and make it dance? No, that was his sister through-and-through. He wondered how well she would get on with the Astartes.

She had to be going crazy on Coruscant with Jacen and Aunt Mara while her leg healed. He hadn't reached out to her much, sensing the twins' focus on whatever mission their Aunt had them on, but he hoped Jaina was doing ok. Getting spaced was supposed to be awful.

The moon before them swelled until it took up the entire canopy. Thiel gestured toward a very obvious addition to the cockpit instruments: a basic but sturdy holocom. A few moments later, Suz Tanwa appeared in miniature, just a few inches tall.

"Oh, hi Anakin! Is Tahiri with you?"

"Right here," his friend said and Sannah chimed in with her own greeting.

"You three are here early. A little impatient?"

"Aeonid Thiel offered to fly us over in his gunship," Anakin replied, as explanation. The Ultramarine kept his own peace, focused on bringing the gunship down into the upper atmosphere.

"Nice of him. So, you want to know if I saw your beastie?"

"That would be great, Ms. Tanwa."

"Oh, call me Suz. Come on down, the landing pad is clear. We can talk about your beastie when you land."

Just as he remembered. Suz was very nice and very intelligent and also very given to long-winded explanations of things and dissecting every little bit of information she had. It made her an amazing xenoarcheologist and it also made her a headache to hold a conversation with.

"Did you see it?"

"Yes and no. It's not threatening the Melodies, so you can let out that breath."

Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Where is it?"

"That's the fascinating part! Come down and I'll show you. Suz out!"

Her hologram vanished, leaving the holocom dark. No one spoke for several long seconds.

"The Force has degrees of telepathy." Aeonid said with some certainty.

"It does?"

"Mm," the Astartes hummed, wordlessly, as he angled the gunship down toward a particular mountain chain.

It took Anakin a minute to gather his meaning.

"We can't just mindread Suz!"

----------------------------------------

Anakin jogged down the ramp of the Thunderhawk, waving to the Rodian researcher bundled up a fluffy, fur-lined coat. Sannah elected to stay behind, perched on a massive bucket seat that swallowed up the little Melodie. Tahiri wandered off, saying she wanted to see if Lyric was around. That was fine for both of them, if Suz was telling the truth about the sithspawn not coming near Mount Sistra then there was no danger and on top of that, no real need to rush. It would kind of be nice to see Lyric again, now that Tahiri brought it up. Maybe after finding out what Suz knew.

"Right over here, Anakin!"

She guided him into a prefab hut whose roof was absolutely bedecked in all variety of antennae and spinning weather instruments. Out of the chilly wind and with a box heater filling the hut with pleasantly toasty air, Anakin rubbed his hands together as Suz busied herself with a holotable that took up much of the interior. Racks and shelves lined the walls of the hut, covered with everything imaginable. Datacubes, datapads, physical books, binders stacked ten high, rolls of leather and what looked like parchment scrolls. Odd carvings, charcoal rubbings, clay idols and pots.

"So I've been mapping Atargatis," Suz began. Atargatis - the Melodie name for their home. First Sannah, now Suz. Maybe he should start calling it that. It was only fair.

Did Yavin 4 have a name the Massassi called it?

"There's ruin sites all over the moon, did you know that? The Melodies know about sunken ruins under the mountain - flooded, I think, is a better word for it - and there's more in the seas. They're Melodie ruins, which indicates they had some greater civilization at some period. Isn't that strange? The Elders don't like to talk much about their past, but I know they keep an oral tradition. I've been working on Lyric. She's coming around, I'm sure of it. Anyway, there's the Melodie ruins in the lakes and seas and I'm speculating that there might be subterranean tunnels that link all the bodies of water together. Isn't that convenient?"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Suz," Anakin said.

"So you can see all the Melodie ruins plotted out here-" the Rodian clicked a remote she held and blue points lit up across the topographic hologram of Yavin 8. "-and there isn't a lot of a pattern to it. At least, not one that I can find. Most of them are centered in the equatorial mountain ranges of course, but I've managed to do some orbital mapping and found others in the seas toward the poles. It's that strange?"

"Suz-"

"That had me thinking. Why did the Melodie have ruins around the moon, if they always lived here in the mountains? It's all at the equator. I can't ask them, of course, because the Elders don't like to talk about the past, but that got me thinking. I invested in ground-penetrating scans - well, I didn't invest, I got a grant - and then I went up and took another look-"

"Suz," Anakin spoke more forcefully, cutting through the archaeologist's ramblings with an added spike of the Force, giving his voice just a little flavor. "The monster?"

"I was just getting there! Give me a little bit longer, Anakin, I promise this all makes sense."

He supposed he could understand how lonely it would get here, surrounded by Melodie who politely but pointedly did not want to talk about her single favorite thing in the universe. Anakin exhaled.

"Okay."

"So I took another look, and you're not going to believe what I found. I was going to tell Master Skywalker, of course, but only when I finished my analysis and summary. It's not long, it's just a few hundred pages and most of that is diagrams. Do you know what else I found?"

"What did you find?" he asked, dutifully.

"Sith ruins," the Rodian said. The amount of triumph bleeding off of her suited someone who had just won a Nar Shadaa lottery, not someone who found sith temples.

Sith ruins. Sith temples. Suz clicked her remote again and now red icons popped up on the hologram, forming clusters and blobs around the moon. Dozens of them at least.

Okay, Anakin. He held his calm. Sith Temples didn't necessarily mean anything immediately bad. These would be as old as the ones on Yavin 4. And those just had the Golden Globe and the soul of Exar Kun in them. That's all. The Melodies weren't corrupted and they hadn't said anything about…strange things.

"Sith ruins," he said, slowly, trying out the taste of the words. They could tell Uncle Luke and he would handle it. It was all probably fine anyway. Temples as old as these, at worst there would be holocrons, maybe some minor artifacts.

"And that's where your creature went!"

Oh, sithspawn.

----------------------------------------

They didn't get it. They didn't get it. Suz Tanwa and her camp was set up near the mouth of one of the many entrances into the honeycomb of Mount Sistra, near a river that flowed down into the oases and lakes beneath the mount. A couple Melodie, about as old as Sannah, were out doing their chores. Gathering up mosses and lichens, setting out clothing to dry. The kinds of things Sannah used to do. A few noticed her lurking in the gigantic gunship and shyly waved. Sannah didn't wave back.

They didn't get it.

The Elders were stupid. Maybe when they lost their legs and got their gills they forgot how terrifying it was to be cornered by a pack of Raithe. Maybe memories of being stalked through pitch-dark tunnels by a Purella and hearing the tap-tap-tap of its horrible, too many legs faded like a bad dream. Maybe they forgot what it felt like to have the life squeezed out of you by a Reel before your desperate friends hacked its coils to pieces.

The best thing to ever happen to her people was Suz Tanwa and Lyric and the Jedi Praxeum. Look at them. The Melodies out here, gossiping and picking moss like they don't have a care in the world. They don't! She can see the fences in the distance, silvery against the drab tundra. Suz had two big shock-turrets set up. They weren't strong, but the stinger bolts they shot made any Avril think twice before swooping down.

When Anakin and Tahiri came here with Lyric, they had to use trico filters to swim down to the Elders. They had to breathe through stuffy algae! Sannah had the holonet. She'd seen what was out in the galaxy. Rebreathers that fit in a person's pocket and would let them breathe easily underwater for days. She saw holos of the planet called Dac, when she spent time with Master Cilghal. The cities! The cities! They were so beautiful and delicate and elegant and they glowed underwater. Her people could live like kings - or like normal people did. Master Cilghal claimed that Mon Calamari build the best starships because they had honed their craft for a thousand years under the waves.

What could the Melodie do, if everyone stopped being stupid?

That's what Anakin and Tahiri just didn't get. They were going to get to grow up. They'd probably end up being gross and liking each other and then get married or something and be Jedi together. They could go on adventures forever just like Valin and Chitter and Izzuviz and Zuzu and everyone else.

Sannah was going to end up with a stupid tail and stupid gills and have to live in the stupid water forever. She was going to have to go live with the Elders and be boring forever.

So caught up, forgetting everything she and Tahiri talked about last night, Sannah didn't notice she had company until a truly gigantic hand rested on her shoulder.

On her shoulder, upper back, and other shoulder.

"Trainee Sannah," Aeonid Thiel said and her heart hammered in her chest. So hard she almost wobbled in place.

Blaster bolts! How could someone so big be so quiet!

"I frightened you. I apologize."

"It's okay!" she squeaked out, mortified by how high pitched her voice came out.

"This is your homeworld?"

His hand was very warm. Sannah nodded.

"It seems…pleasant?"

Oh no, he was trying to be polite. Sannah was still just a trainee, but three years of training was a lot in the Force. She could sense the huge man's awkwardness.

"It's not," she managed to say. To admit. "It's really not."

"I…"

She kept looking at the Melodie doing their chores. From behind her, his breathing was as loud as a whole pack of Raithe.

"...sensed your mood. This is new to me. This Force. You're upset."

"Do you know what I am?" Sannah asked. She didn't know why she was even talking to the Ultramarine. Weren't they supposed to really not like non-humans, or something? That's what she heard. Master Durron was really loud about it and a lot of other Jedi felt the same way.

"A Melodie, native to Yavin 8. Humanoid in many ways, undergoes maturation mutation into an adult morph."

The way he said it, like he was reading a holo article, sort of made Sannah want to throw up. Mutation.

"My home is awful." she mumbled. "Everything wants to kill us and eat us here."

"We call that a 'death world'."

Death world. In a mean, vicious kind of way, the two words actually made Sannah feel a little better. A Death World. Her Changing, each year, felt a little more like dying. She started counting her years until she turned twenty in the same way a terminal patient counted years to live.

"I don't think there's any animal that doesn't want to eat us."

"Yet, here you are."

"Because Anakin and Tahiri saved me."

"Not just 'you', but your people."

No. Nuh-uh. He wasn't going to make her think her people weren't all stupid. Lyric wanted to Change. She couldn't imagine it.

"Where I am from, humanity inhabits a million worlds. Many are 'Death Worlds' like this one. Do you know what I am?"

Sannah shrugged her narrow shoulders, as little as she could with his gigantic hand still gently bracing her. It was…sort of nice.

"It's no great secret. Astartes are made from boys. Young men who decide to give their lives in service to the Imperium. My family was honored that I was chosen."

"I can't imagine you being a boy," Sannah giggled a little, despite herself. She pictured Valin, but gigantic, but still looking like Valin. It was ridiculous.

"I was as small as you were. When the time comes a boy is made into Astartes. We aren't human after that. We do not age and we will die in battle."

She felt his pride when he talked about it.

"Why?"

"Why do we become Astartes?"

"If you were a little boy, how did you know it was what you wanted?" She left her home and everything made sense. She wanted to be like Lyric. She wanted to go and learn about the Force and come back home. She wanted to be like the valiant Anakin Solo and Tahiri Veila who came from the stars and protected her people. She knew exactly what she wanted when she was nine. Now she had no idea what she wanted.

To her surprise, she felt Aeonid pull his hand back, suddenly leaving her chilly. Sannah shivered in the breeze that crept into the gunship.

"I suppose that I didn't." He sounded distant and she finally turned around, peering up at the man's face. He had a faraway look. "I had…faith."

"But then why? Weren't you afraid?"

"I don't remember what fear is like," the Astartes admitted. "I understand it, but those like me - we cannot feel it anymore. I suspect I was afraid. It would have only been reasonable."

She held onto what he said before, about being a boy, but then becoming an Astartes. He said they weren't human anymore, but he had been human? It didn't make sense.

"But why? Why does the Imperium need to make you Astartes?"

From Aeonid she felt darker emotions, edges of hatred, but not directed toward her.

"Imagine the greatest predators of this world-"

"Reel," Sannah cut in, immediately. "They're giant snakes. They can eat a dozen Melodie in an instant."

"Reel, then. Imagine a Reel ten times as large and with scales as hard as adamantium - as durasteel. Imagine its venom can melt stone."

Reel were bad enough as it was. The nightmares of the one squeezing Tahiri to death before Anakin stopped it woke her up for months after. She didn't want to even dare to think about what Aeonid was saying, just in case it somehow made it happen.

"That is what humanity faces where I am from. Astartes are made so that mortal humans might be safe."

"But you said you weren't human anymore?"

"Yet I still was human. Do you understand duty, Trainee Sannah?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Duh. Of course."

"Service?"

"Sure."

"Duty and service. They are selfless concepts, correct?"

She guessed so. She said so aloud.

"Then you have your answer. It is the duty of Astartes to protect mankind. Because were were born of mankind and it was mankind that created us."

"But you retire, right?"

"No."

The total certainty in that one syllable made Sannah shiver again. The Astartes, mistaking it for a chill, reached out and to her surprise, slid her along the enormous bench seat until she was pressed to his side. By the Force, he was warm!

"Apologies, I forget the weather. I should shut the ramp."

"Anakin and Tahiri will be back soon."

Sannah didn't know what to say next and the silence hung, becoming thick and stifling. She could sense Tahiri's bright presence down in the tunnel along with several other Melodie. From Anakin she caught a sense of sudden concern, smothered quickly. That probably meant Suz told him where the monster went.

"What was it like, changing into - into what you are now?"

Aeonid didn't speak for so long that Sannah's cheeks burned red. She offended him. No one talked about the finer points of their Changing. It was personal and intimate. Who knows what it was like for - for Astartes.

"It was painful and prolonged."

Her stomach dropped.

"I cannot say much more, as that is privileged information, but to become Astartes, there are surgeries. Many such. And then there is learning to live with one's new body."

She felt him, for the first time, actually brush up against her in the Force. Compared even to the other trainees, Aeonid's command of the Force was clunky and clumsy and childish.

"Can you be a human again?" The question was finally asked. Sitting on the tip of her tongue from the start, daring her to release it.

"No. And I would not."

She hugged her arms around her midsection. There's never any going back.

"I left the life of a human behind. I am Astartes now and what I lost I gained in a noble father, honorable brothers and a duty that is the purest in the universe." A bit of humor entered his voice. "You ask incisive questions, Trainee Sannah."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Questioning everything is the cornerstone of enlightenment. I fear I forgot that, of late. Master Katarn helped me to remember this." He shifted his weight, leaning forward to rest elbows on his knees, hands folded. He met Sannah's eyes over his shoulder. His were very blue, like Anakin's, but a truer blue, without Anakin's ice.

"Be glad, Sannah. You have a homeworld you can return to and a people to fight for. Many others do not."

She didn't feel very blessed by that.

----------------------------------------

With Suz's holotopographic map and a re-entry track recorded by her ship's sensors, it was a cinch to pinpoint where the creature came down. Tahiri hadn't had luck meeting with Lyric, who was many days away in another part of the mountain. Still, a few Melodie she remembered were excited to greet the blonde, talking her ear off. Whatever Sannah had been up to she seemed to be thinking something heavy over, her presence in the Force closed off and face pensive.

"A half an hour, perhaps a quarter," Aeonid confirmed, leaning slightly closer to Suz's holotable. A blinking marker picked out their target location, deep in a glacier field that swept down from the north pole. Concerning to Anakin was that Suz also recorded likely Sith ruins beneath that very same glacier. The pendulum was swinging back toward 'definitely a sithspawn', unfortunately.

"Suz, can you call back to the Praxeum and let Kam Solusar know where we're going? I think my Uncle and Master Katarn left already for Coruscant."

"Sure, Anakin. You four sure you don't need me too?"

"It's a Sith temple and a giant monster. We'll let you know if it's safe after."

To her credit, the Rodian accepted his reasoning with easy agreement. No one took risks with Sith. No one sane, anyway.

"Go on then, go on. The sooner you four heroes finish up, the sooner I can get my hands on - I mean, I can start to study the area."

Rodian habits died hard, even for a xenoarcheologist. Anakin laughed, shaking his head, and then they were gone again.

Aeonid handled the Thunderhawk expertly, dipping just high enough to leave the atmosphere and accelerate far past hypersonic speeds, tundras below them sliding past. Tahiri filled Anakin in about the goings-ons of the Melodie and some things Lyric had been up to: she'd found a mate, it sounded like, and was very happy. Sannah half-listened in, sitting in an overlarge co-pilot seat with her chin on her fist, staring sightless at the moon passing beneath them.

In turn, Anakin revealed the Sith presence on Yavin 8, carefully watching the younger girl. While Tahiri was unsurprised, Sannah had almost no reaction besides a flick of her eyes toward Anakin, then back out of the canopy again. He'd have to ask her what was going on later. Returning to Yavin 8 had really unsettled his young friend. He and Tahiri could sit down with her. Tahiri, alone, could sometimes be a little…energetic. It's why the two worked so well. Complementary.

The glacier field shone harsh and bright white, tinged with blue as they approached, dropping closer. Aeonid memorized the coordinates from Suz's map, but as the Thunderhawk swept low and closer, they didn't need to guess where to get started.

Much like on Yavin 4, there was a huge, gaping hole surrounded by sprays of powdered ice and snow.

Exactly as if something huge and angry burrowed down.

Aeonid circled once, letting them see down into the icy passage.

"We'll go in after it." Anakin studied the hole in the glacier. Aeonid shifted the Thunderhawk, keeping it hovering, and it was clear that, luckily, this time the creature dug in at a sharp but navigable angle instead of straight down. "It might be better if you stay on the surface with the Thunderhawk, in case it tries to run again."

Aeonid frowned for a moment, then his brow eased.

"The three of you did face it once already. This Thunderhawk only has lascannon sponsons, but it will be enough. Very well, Jedi Solo. This is your mission."

"Set us down."

Tahiri smirked at how seriously Anakin gave the order. He poked her through the Force, right under her ribs. She squawked.

----------------------------------------

Ice gave way to eerily familiar stone. Massassi stone. Of course, the creature tore right through that like it had the glacier. When it came to serious environmental damage, this thing was unmatched. Anakin ran his hand over the old stone then frowned. He ran his hand over it again.

"Tahiri, look at this."

Sannah followed Tahiri over, the three of them examining the outer stones of the long-buried temple. Both girls also touched the gouges and scarring on the stones. Sannah beat Tahiri to it.

"They're smooth!"

"This is old. It dug through the glacier, but it didn't do this. At least, not today."

Aside from the hazard of slippery ice, the greatest danger for the three as they climbed down the glacier was razor-sharp shards of ice left behind by the tunneling tentacles and claws of the beast. Meltwater still dripped into little pools here and there, showing just how recently the sithspawn came through. According to Suz's logs, it made landfall only a few hours before they got to Yavin 8.

The stone of the temple was ripped and torn and gouged, but under his fingertips it was smoothed out. Scars were round-edged and weathered, not sharp and clean.

"I think it was torn open and then buried under the glacier." Anakin knelt down, picking up a loose fragment of stone and tossing it from hand to hand. Rounded edges.

"So this guy knows where this temple is, it comes all the way here from Yavin 4, it digs down to it…" Tahiri said, slowly. The conclusion was obvious.

"This was where it came from."

Sannah swallowed.

"Do you think there's more? Here?"

"Your people don't have any legends about something like this thing, do they?"

"Just the horrible animals you already met."

The ragged entrance to the buried temple yawned wide and dark. Anakin directed his lume in, washing white light over other fallen stone slabs and a cracked, intricately etched tiled floor. Unlike the last temple, this one must have been massive, maybe even the size of the Great Temple. The ceiling soared far, far above them and as Anakin panned his lume around he saw huge arched passages leading off the chamber at each cardinal direction. Each was easily big enough for the monster to move through.

"This is serious deja vu," Tahiri said as they climbed down, Anakin leading.

Like the temple the creature nested in back on Yavin 4, they found themselves inside what was probably the main hall, like the Praxeum had. Most temples followed the same plans. There was an entrance chamber, likely for receiving slaves or petitioners, and then an attached, grander hall. This was where the Sith ruled from publicly and the decoration suited. There were always frescoes and intricate carvings that drove archaeologists wild.

The real meat of the Temples was in areas harder to access to anyone but their masters. This meant deep catacombs or lofty tiers.

"Let's see if we can find where it is." Anakin reached out for Tahiri's hand and she tucked her smaller hand into his own. Cold fingers, he thought with a smile.

Like before, Anakin gave the power, Tahiri the precision. Remembering how it felt to seek out the beast's slumbering psyche, they tuned their mental net for the remembered sensation. Unlike on Yavin 4, out here in the middle of the barren wastes, there was barely any life to distract them. They felt mute, senseless auras of extremophile colonies and some exotic, lethargic fish species that were filled with more antifreeze than blood.

And, of course, the monster itself. Slumbering again and right below them.

Anakin opened eyes he didn't remember closing.

"Wow, that's easy."

"Where is it?"

Tahiri jabbed a finger straight down.

Two lightsabers left belts. Sannah interlaced her fingers, cracking her knuckles. Then she drew the blaster she insisted on taking this time. Smugly smiling, she made a show of checking its charge. It was a little thing, a basic holdout blaster, but Anakin couldn't argue the logic this time.

Anakin pulled out his comlink.

"Aeonid?"

"Jedi Solo?"

"We found it. It's sleeping again, so we might be able to get it before it wakes up."

"Understood. Keep me apprised."

He hooked his comlink back to his belt.

----------------------------------------

Deja vu. Tahiri couldn't be more right. The place was different - another chamber of the temple instead of a burrowed cave, but there the sithspawn was, curled up again and sound asleep. Like before, Tahiri and he crept closer, carefully watching its mind through the Force as it slumbered. He wondered if sithspawn dreamt, and if they did, what about.

It hadn't noticed them. Its mind stayed muffled and distant, like a warm blanket draped over it.

'Sabers to the head. Anakin felt Tahiri's agreement. No chances this time. Quick and clean.

Its breath was rank, gusting out and smelling sour-sweet, like rotting greens and old meat. Burning suns, it was huge. Its head was the size of a landspeeder with a broad, flat forehead between its bulbous, albeit closed, eyes.

Eyes?

Tahiri sent an image of blazing lightsabers and blood red eyes. Anakin shook his head. It might blind it, but with a head that big, it might not hit the brain. They had to do it quick and instant. Right through the skull. Not even a sithspawn could resist a lightsaber.

Sannah, tense behind them, sent waves of reassurance and good luck. Anakin positioned himself before the creature's right eye, Tahiri before its left. Gently, both teenagers raised quiet lightsabers, emitters facing downward.

He sent Tahiri an image of a hand with three fingers up. Two. One.

S-snap h-hiss. Two brilliant blades lit, erupting, throwing shadows in the darkened chamber.

Anakin's hands jolted and his lightsaber skipped. Beside him, Tahiri cried out in surprise.

Fury, physical, slammed into both of them, bodily staggering them both backward.

Searing incarnadine eyes snapped open. Two steaming tracks slashed deep into its skull, exposing bone. Something in that bone had resisted his lightsaber.

The creature rose up on tentacles and folded wings, mouth dropping open, wide enough to swallow the world and all light.

A wall of telekinetic Force slammed into the creature, staggering it back. Sannah opened fire, spanging bright lasers off of its thick hide. Tahiri opened herself entirely to Anakin, pouring her strength to him and he shoved the creature again, trying to buy distance. The air shimmered, the chamber rang like a gong.

The beast slid backward another meter or two. It felt like trying to move a Star Destroyer. Tentacles snapped out, lashing for them both. He ducked one, leapt another, met a third with his blazing lightsaber. This time, it cut clean through like before on Yavin 4. A length of fleshy tentacle thudded down and the sithspawn howled.

Tahiri cried out, reeling back and he felt her surprise as his own ears rang. That was all the creature needed. One tentacle lashed out, showing unexpected intelligence, slapping Tahiri's 'sabre from her hand. Another snapped around her waist, yanking her up into the air. A third encircled her shoulders.

Anakin screamed as he felt his bones grind - Tahiri's bones.

He thrust his hand out, reaching not for Tahiri, not for his best friend, but for the sithspawn.

So unlike Yuuzhan Vong, it was there in the Force. He could feel it. He opened his mind and felt all of it. It was a living thing, ichor-blood pumping, muscles tensing, nerves firing. A few strange, hollow voids within its body did not distract him. It had a heart. Two hearts. Three. Enormous masses of thumping muscle.

Tahiri didn't scream. She didn't even cry out. The air left her lungs in a rattling wheeze and Anakin wrapped his hand around those three hearts and squeezed. Squeezed a thousand times harder than the monster did his friend. Squeezed like he was forming diamond from carbon, like his fist was a neutron star.

Its life winked out.

The beast flopped, boneless, to the ground. Tahiri unrolled from its tentacles, writhing. Sannah screamed.

Anakin was at her side, rolling her onto her back. He planted his palm on her sternum, flooding her with the Force. No broken bones - stressed, but not broken. He had been fast enough. But she couldn't breathe. Her mouth worked, eyes bulging, cheeks purpling.

Just as he could feel every part of the monster, he felt Tahiri. Her lungs were collapsed, diaphragm spasming and shocked.

"Breathe!" he shouted, forcibly pushing air down into her lungs.

Tahiri arched off the ground, gasping and Anakin fell back on his rear, tears sudden and hot in his eyes. Eyes pinched shut, Tahiri propped herself up, leaning heavy on one arm, wheezing and clutching her stomach.

She was vibrant in the Force. Aching, but alive.

She whined, ramping up into a quiet:

"Owwwwww-"

Then Sannah arrived like a small missile, sliding on her knees and thudding into Tahiri's back and nearly strangling the girl again with a back-breaking hug. Peering over Tahiri's shoulder, Sannah was wide-eyed, goggling at him.

"Is that what you did to the Reel?" she asked, breathless.

Anakin frowned, but Tahiri, around deep breaths, chimed in.

"It was just like the Reel," she said, breathless, panting.

There was the Purella, the one that strung both him and Tahiri up in its web. There were the Raithe that attacked them too. And the Avril that made off with Lyric. A Reel was the one thing that hadn't made an attempt-

"Just like it," Sannah continued. "It even went after Tahiri too. Boy, you have really bad luck."

"What are you talking about?"

Both girls looked at him like he'd declared for the Empire.

"The Reel? The one that grabbed me?" Tahiri coughed, cleared her throat. "At the Changing cove. Remember? It was suffocating me and then you killed it with a glare."

Half-meter wide purple coils swept around Tahiri, the girl vanishing from sight aside from a few locks of her blonde hair. Muffled, she cried out for him. Sannah and the other Melodie watched in horror. Lyric, with the other Changelings, drifted peacefully in the pool, oblivious to the life-or-death struggle just outside their waters.

It had Tahiri. His best friend. His only friend. Something cold filled him, from his toes to his scalp and the world turned crystal clear. The Reel, hissing, turned transparent to his mind. He could see its muscles contracting, trying to crush the life out of Tahiri, his best friend. He could see its cold blood pumping through veins and arteries. Its heart thumped: bump, bump. He could sink mental fingers into its coils and yank its grip apart. He could bash its head into the ground until the creature was dazed and the Melodies finished it off with their stone spears.

It was trying to kill Tahiri. It wanted to eat Tahiri.

Anakin reached out with his hand. The Reel's heart beat: bump bump. He squeezed. Through the Force, he told its heart to stop.

It did.

The Reel slumped over, coils loose, dead.

He'd done this before. He killed something with the Force. Directly with the Force. Somehow, he'd forgotten. Blocked it out. Stuffed it away, deep down and moved on.

"I did…"

"I mean I'm not complaining, but next time if you could do it before it cracks my ribs, I'd really appreciate it."

Still shocked, Anakin mutely nodded. Neither girl seemed to realize exactly what he'd done, or if they did, it didn't matter to them. It was defense, wasn't it? He didn't kill the Reel or the creature until it was about to kill one of his friends. He didn't just snuff its life out without reason. It wasn't an attack. It was defense.

Unbidden, the memory of Centerpoint's eagerness came to the fore and Anakin shuddered. In that moment, he was more sure than ever he made the right choice.

----------------------------------------

Sannah crouched down in front of the sithspawn, poking at one of its fangs with her middle finger. Tahiri winced now and then, holding her bruised ribs, but kept meeting Anakin's anxious gaze with a smile. The cuts their lightsabers made in its head drew his attention. Few things were known to resist lightsabers. Cortosis overloaded a 'saber's containment and shut it off. Phrik, in contrast, was resistant, with an unbelievably high capacity to soak up heat and disperse electricity.

Those weren't what Anakin was thinking of. Now that he had a chance to think, he definitely did not want to think of another possibility. There was no reason to speculate. None at all. He just had to examine the beast. Both slashes were cauterized. Several inches of blubbery, thick flesh was blackened and crackled and beneath he could see scorched bone. He rapped a fingernail off the exposed bone. Sure sounded like bone.

He lit his lightsaber, carefully placing the tip against the thing's skull and applying pressure. It hissed, spat, crackled, but slowly it gave way. It was an odd feeling, something a lightsaber should never feel like. Having true resistance.

It reminded him of one other thing.

Vonduun armor.

Vong body armor deflected lightsabers as easily as this thing's skull did. Once, Anakin had even knocked a vong off his feet with the strength behind his blow. As if his lightsaber was a club instead of an edgeless blade. Continued contact could and would cut through vonduun armor, just as he was feeling with this creature.

But it couldn't be. He could sense it. He and Tahiri had felt its mind. It couldn't be a Yuuzhan Vong thing.

There were the strange hollows he sensed. One was near the surface of its back. Ignoring Tahiri's confusion, Anakin leapt atop the corpse with a brief shove of telekinesis. There was the hollow. Like a gap, or a space in its body. An abscess. Gently, he cut down with his lightsaber, through flesh and muscle.

Something shifted.

Anakin leapt back, feeling Tahiri and Sannah tense at his alarm.

Flesh bulged, swelling, bulging - and out popped a fleshy black orb. It trembled, little tendrils sticking off of its central mass. Greyness spread across its shiny flesh, like a calcification, before Anakin's eyes.

"Anakin?" Tahiri coughed, clearing her throat, voice hoarse. "Anakin? What is it? Anakin? Anakin?"

He was bleeding horror. He knew it.

He knew what he was looking at. He knew exactly what this was.

A dovin basal.

The Yuuzhan Vong had been on Yavin 4 all along. His fingers shook so much he tried three times to activate his comlink.

"Aeonid?"

"Jedi Solo? I sensed-"

"Contact the Praxeum. It's vong. It's vong."

"Repeat. Anakin, are you saying the creature is Yuuzhan Vong?"

Aeonid used his given name. He felt the Astartes' sudden alertness.

"Yes. It had a dovin basal in it. It's vong. They've been here all along. On Yavin 8. And 4. Tell the Praxeum."

"Return to the Thunderhawk and we will inform the Praxeum together."

Sannah was white as a sheet. Tahiri swayed in place, mouth open.

"No," Anakin sighed. "If they've been here all along, we need to know what else is down here."

A stone sat in his gut. Sannah had tears in her eyes. Tahiri scrubbed hands over her face. Every shadow cast by his humming lightsaber seemed sinister. Anakin just felt…tired. Weary. Yavin was supposed to be safe. The war was so far away. He just wanted -

He had a job to do. Shutting off his lightsaber, he leapt off the top of the dead vong biot, landing light beside Tahiri and Sannah. He put a hand on both their shoulders, burying his disquiet, his frustration, his anger, his fear deep and pushing only calm surety to them through the Force. Maybe his smile was weak, maybe it was fragile, but he was Anakin Solo. A lopsided grin, a lightsaber, and the devil's luck.

Vape the vong. This one was dead. If there was anything else down here, he'd kill that too.