XXIII: Not Happenstance
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Bhindi was doing magic. She was crouched over a battered terminal, which she had actually had to plug back in, and was jamming all manner of random tools into various ports. The woman’s mind was going a thousand kilometers a minute and she never seemed to second guess herself. Typing away at the terminal, cracking open a side-panel to rummage through wiring, slotting another wafer into a reader, hooking another torture device into a socket - Bhindi’s hands moved faster than Mei could see.
The Jensaarai could move things with her mind, but slicing - that was real magic.
Ascratus, the big silent Astartes, didn’t care to watch, because he didn’t have a single inquisitive bone in his body. How could it not be fascinating? Instead, he was at the atrium of the library, glued to his ‘auspex’ and as still as a statue.
Whatever. It let her crouch next to the Wraith and try to hand off tools that she’d never once seen before.
“Spike,” Drayson ordered. Ah, a spike. Those she knew by now. Mei grabbed three out of a hard plastek pouch. When Bhindi asked for one, she really meant at least two. She handed them over and the Wraith jammed them with some force into a socket, electric arcs crackling for a second as she swore nonstop under her breath.
“Good sign?”
“Shoo. I don’t need you anymore and now you’re distracting me.”
Mei clapped her hands on her thighs and rose from her crouch. “Mmokay. I’ll be over with the Sarge, if you need me.”
“Shoo,” Bhindi said again. It wasn’t anything personal - Drayson had been quiet but polite before and Mei knew what it was like to get into the zone. If someone interrupted her in the middle of going through forms, or when she was working on her armor? They’d be lucky to escape with all their limbs intact.
Joining Ascratus, Mei shut her eyes a moment, feeling for any of the chazrach aliens. Faint presences, but far away, far enough she couldn’t be sure they weren’t some of the mind-shackled slaves. Just thinking of them had her shudder. Being a captive would be bad enough, with hosts like the vong, but to be a captive within your own body? Not able to act without permission? Driven like a droid, restraining bolt and all?
No thank you - kill her now, Mei would pass into the Force with a smile on her face before that fate. She’d been manipulated once already and that was enough fun for a lifetime.
“Jedi,” the Sergeant grunted, without moving.
“Jensaarai, really,” she said idly, leaning against the doorframe. The previously occupying door was halfway down the steps outside, hinges ruined. “But I won’t argue.”
“Good.”
They observed the ruins of Obroa-skai in silence for a while, the wrecked skyline, toppled ziggurats and thin, smoky haze that hung in the sky. Every now and then, a line of light creased the blue skies above, crossing the bloated presence of Obroa overhead. The gas giant looked nothing like Yavin, the only other Mei had really seen from a moon. Blue-grey instead of rich in oranges and reds, it was like a ball of snow to further chill the library world.
“Why do the other Jedi not wear similar armor?”
Mei jumped, startled. Her cheeks warmed at being caught off guard - excellent job there, Jedi Knight - and craned her neck to look up at the stern snouted helmet a meter above her head. She rapped knuckles off her breastplate.
“This thing? It’s ‘cause I’m Jensaarai, like I said. Jedi prefer robes, Jensaarai live by our armor.”
“It is…an interesting design.”
“You think? Thanks. I made it myself.”
That actually earned the Sergeant’s full attention, glowing eye lenses peering down at her. She could sense him looking her over, head to toe.
“Did you? I am impressed, Jensaarai. Among Astartes, proper care of our wargear is a source of pride.”
“Did you make yours?”
“I did not. It is Maximus pattern, produced by the Mechanicum.”
“You don’t even modify it?”
“I am not an Iron Hands.”
Well, that meant less than nothing, but she’d managed to draw more than one sentence out of the Ultramarine, so it had to count as a success.
“What’s it made of?”
“Ceramite and adamantium.”
“Do you mind?” She reached out a fist, knuckle poking out, pausing just over his plastron. Mei could imagine the Sergeant’s flat stare, something they’d all been subject to several times aboard Samothrace.
“Fine.”
She rapped her knuckle against his plate, that ‘Maximus’ armor. Interesting. She did it again, this time feeling the material through the Force, like she would her own armor. She didn’t risk a third time, but she felt enough. Orderly, extremely orderly, almost ridiculously so. Crystalline beyond crystalline, nearly perfect structure in parts of it. Other parts and she frowned - some kind of ceramic, felt like a heat resistance that actually made her want to light her ‘sabre and press it against it.
Like how all Jedi knew their lightsabers intimately, understanding every part, every component, as they brought the iconic blades to life, every Jensaarai understood their armor. Personally, innately.
“Never heard of either,” she said. “Can I get some?”
Slowly, Ascratus turned his head to look back outside.
“Fine,” Mei sighed. So this mission wouldn’t be a perfect success.
“Whoa!” Bhindi exclaimed from behind them, the Wraith’s voice echoing painfully in the empty library. “Sorry! It’s good, don’t worry. I’m in.”
Mei patted Ascratus on the arm, because everything else was too high, and jogged back to the Wraith.
“You’re in?”
“I’m in. I think -” Drayson tapped on a cabled keypad, glancing between a datapad in her lap, one propped up next to her, the terminal itself, and the clunky, chunky skull-stamped ‘datadrive’ the Imperials had brought. “-oh, wow, okay, I have full access here. This library must have been a primary point for the Institute. Damn, that’s ten creds to Zev, he was right that the Director wouldn’t clump this up.”
Mei peered at rapidly scrolling lines of text across three datapads.
“So we’re good?”
Bhindi craned her head back to look up at the Jedi, beaming. The Wraith could really stand to smile like that more often, Mei thought.
“Oh, we’re so in. I’ll set up a scrape and then we’re golden.”
“I could hug you, Bhindi. Let me tell Face and Master Skywalker the good news. If Anakin found us transport, we could be off this rock by dinner.”
The Wraith nodded vigorously, going back to poking and prodding and doing her dark sciences again. Just like that, Bhindi was lost again in code and data and the endless trove of Obroa-skai. Mei tapped her comm. Good news, still out of the vong’s eyes, and it was barely local noon.
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Solidian did not understand the core concept of their mission. Zev tried to explain it to the Ultramarine, but gave up shortly thereafter. Luke could feel the youth’s confusion and irritation at being split off from his Sergeant and his fellow neophyte. It was too bad, and he would need to learn. The Imperium thought lives cheap, one of their many, many flaws, though Luke understood at least where it probably came from. This wasn’t the Imperium’s command and Face agreed with Luke’s intent to make contact with the locals.
It was a good idea in theory - not as great in practice.
They couldn’t find any locals.
At one point, they found a secluded boutique and both Zev and Solidian stood guard while Luke sunk deeper into the Force, kneeling, spreading his sense across the entire city. He hoped to find pockets of survivors, areas out of the control of the invaders, but somehow, there were none. All the minds were clumped up, reeking of sorrow and pain and hopelessness. Here and there he caught snatches of what might have been solitary individuals or perhaps pairs, but the senses were fleeting and he couldn’t be sure they were real in the first place.
Unwilling to give up so easily, he led Zev and Solidian toward the closest mass of despairing beings. Captives all, he was sure, but there was a chance they might only be corralled up, not yet implanted.
Using Zev’s macrobinoculars, Luke sighed as his last hope was dashed. Every single of one of the thin, battered slaves working in long chain gangs to clear streets and excavate collapsed buildings bore a gnarled burr at their temple. Coral implants. All of them. Refusing to believe it, Luke squinted at every single being and then again. Twi’leck, Bothan, Human, Duro - many and more, and all ensnared by the biots of the vong.
Lowering and handing the macrobinoculars back to Zev, the Wraith read Luke’s face and his own fell.
“All of them?”
“All of them,” Luke confirmed with a sigh. This close, their anguish was like a physical blow, rippling up from the work site. Yuuzhan Vong overseers stood around in their sleek armor, amphistaves curled around their waists.
“Bastards. As if it wasn’t enough to sacrifice our people or work them to death, they have to steal their minds too…”
Luke reached out, grasping the Wraith’s shoulder.
“We’ll find a solution to them. It’ll take time, but we can free them, I’m sure of it.”
“Not them,” Zev said, gesturing down toward the workers. “They won’t last that long.”
Luke felt Solidian’s contempt before he spoke.
“They should have fought to the death, then.”
“You can’t ask that of people.”
Solidian scoffed, but said no more as they crept back into cover, breaking line of sight with the worksite.
“So what now?” Zev asked.
Luke worried his lower lip with his teeth. It went against everything to just walk away, but he had admonished Jacen about the same before, on Belkadan. It would be hypocrisy to go back on that now, but something told him to try anyway. Even if they were all seeded with the coral, the vong couldn’t possibly have such tight control on them anymore? NRI said that the old slave-seeds used at the start of the invasion were phased out, since they killed the hosts too fast. These new ones might be simpler and less invasive. Maybe there could still be some free will.
But then - to what end? This wasn’t a prison break or a rescue mission. Depending on the ship Anakin found, they could evacuate a dozen, perhaps two dozen. How to choose? Younglings first? Did the vong even spare children?
The feeling didn’t fade. Try anyway. Do anyway.
Indecision held Luke still until his choice was stolen away by all three of their commlinks activating, Mei’s voice coming through quiet and tuned low.
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“Bhindi says she’s in and downloading now. She says - yeah, I know - she says she has total access to the Institute archives. No? Oh, to the astrographical archives. That’s what we wanted, right? Phenomena?”
“Astrography and anomalous phenomena, yes. Anything else is bonus. Literally - the Director said he’d pay a bounty.” Face joined in, cutting through Mei’s rambling.
“Is the datathief functioning?”
“Bhindi says yes, your thing is working fine.”
Luke keyed his own comm, joining in.
“We couldn’t locate any survivors that haven’t been rounded up already. We can move to rendezvous.” His feet didn’t want to move. Try anyway, they said. “Face, what about transportation?”
“Anakin, you tell him.”
“Got an old YT. It’s melty and the ignition systems are down but I think I can cobble something together. Won’t have shields or weapons, but it’ll fly. Probably.”
“Make that probably a definitely, Anakin. Do or do not-”
“There is no try, I know. I’ll make it work.”
“Anyone have trouble with the vong?”
A chorus of negatives met Luke and he nodded. That was good at least. If they could extract from Obroa-skai without the Yuuzhan Vong any wiser, all the better. Rhonabeq’s sacrifice would be made whole - tricking the Yuuzhan Vong into thinking she was the only interloper. It didn’t make up for the pirate princess’ death, but Luke knew she would be proud. Like he was.
Casting one last look back toward the worksite, Luke forced himself to walk away. You can’t save everyone. Sometimes, you can’t save anyone. All that could be done was to make sure it never happened again.
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Bhindi was already packed up by the time Luke and his trio reunited with the Institute team. The Wraith was positively bouncy, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, spilling over with enthusiasm. Mei welcomed him with a lazy wave, while the two Ultramarines simply nodded to each other. Zev high-fived Bhindi, shouldering some of her bundled toolkits.
“Spaceport, then?”
“Spaceport,” Luke agreed and Mei clapped.
“Called it, gone by dinner.”
“Auspex remains clear,” Ascratus intoned. “But I would warn you, within the confines of the city, there is greater dissonance.”
“I don’t sense any chazrach nearby,” Mei offered. “And Face said that the patrols they saw by the spaceport were always chazrach and vong. Small blessings, really, and pretty polite of the scarheads. Can’t sense them? Pair them up with the little guys we can.”
Ascratus took point, leading them down the esplanade from the library, alongside a frozen river. Here and there the icy surface was spotted with meltholes, left over from superheated debris. Other patches had refrozen around slips of scree from buildings alongside.
Eerily quiet, the group made for the spaceport, Zev and Bhindi conversing in low tones. Mei was humming again, occasionally glancing at the Ultramarines Sergeant.
Something still drew him back to the worksite and the captives. Maybe this is what Jacen felt, on Belkadan, before his ill-informed attempt at a rescue. Was it this urge that led his nephew into getting captured. It didn’t make rational sense, or even make sense emotionally. It burned to leave slaves behind like that, knowing their fate. Worked to death, killed for sport, sacrificed to bloodthirsty ‘gods’. A Jedi should stand against it, of course, but that wasn’t what Luke felt. He felt sorrow for their suffering, sympathy for their pain, but he didn’t feel the urge to mete out judgement, or even free them.
Try again, the feeling said. Talk to them.
He shook it off.
The mission was over, now. Every minute on Obroa-skai didn’t just risk their lives, it also risked failure of the mission and failure of the mission risked consequences with the Imperium. The New Republic and Imperium had a lot riding on this proof-of-concept action. The Senate didn’t need more ammunition, correct or not, against the Jedi. Defenders like Viqi Shesh were few and far between, these days.
He turned to ask Bhindi about how much information she was able to scrape. Zev was beside her, facing toward Luke, with Mei behind, Solidian taking the rear while Ascratus was on point at the fore.
Luke heard a quiet whip of air as Zev opened his mouth to say something, then his expression slackened and he sighed.
The Wraith’s life snuffed out; a hole in the Force.
Mei’s ‘sabres lit with doubled snap-hiss while Luke felt like he was in slow motion. Zev slowly toppled forward, toward a surprised Bhindi. Solidian wrenched his pistol from his thigh, snapping it up to ready so fast the air cracked.
Still Luke watched Zev fall.
Bhindi tried to catch him but she was caught off guard and surprised, only managing to stumble sideways, sudden blood drenching her as Zev twisted in her grasp.
The back of his head was a mass of gore and crumpled bone.
Wings flickered within. A bug the size of Luke’s fist backed out, covered in brain matter and flicked razor-sharp wings.
Then Luke had his ‘sabre in his hands, coming up to catch - zhizz zhiss - two more razorbugs in the plasma, vaporizing both into wisps of foul odor and ash. Mei span her blades, catching more bugs, the only hint of them ripples in the air from their passage. Bhindi threw herself flat, training taking over even as she screamed Zev’s name.
Yuuzhan Vong spilled onto the boardwalk from behind the broad edifice of the library. Amphistaves, already stiffened and clutched in hands, spat and hissed. Another hail of bugs preceded them.
Anakin! Luke called.
This wasn’t happenstance.
They knew they were here.
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Anakin!
His uncle’s voice, as clear as if he shouted in his ear, made Anakin jump so hard he jammed a soldering iron into his thumb. Swearing words he didn’t precisely know the translation of, he sucked his digit for a moment and then - no, it couldn’t be. His uncle’s warning hit like a ton of duracrete, staggering the teen.
“Whoa,” Face exclaimed, catching Anakin’s elbow and propping him up. They were both in the cockpit, Face assisting with his own knowledge of starships while Zalthis kept watch from atop the freighter itself. The ship wasn’t in the worst shape, not like some of the burnt wrecks in other bays, but it had definitely had an amphistaff or the shorter coufee blades shoved here and there. At least the vong’s total hatred of all things technological had the saving grace that they really didn’t know how anything worked or the best ways to wreck it.
It was all coming together, maybe another ten minutes before they could try an initial powerup when his Uncle shouted into his mind.
Face hauled him upright, grabbing at his hand, seeing the burn.
“No - that’s not - it’s an ambush!”
“Confirmed,” Zalthis spoke through the commlink. “Biots approaching.”
Biots.
Anakin swallowed and peered through the canopy. Face leaned in next to him.
A hunchbacked reptilian monster glared back at them, peering around the starport’s retaining wall. Just its head alone was massive, the size of an aircar, and worse, Anakin knew it.
“Rakamat,” he breathed.
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There were twenty Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Three were already dead, put down by precise headshots from Solidian, the Ultramarine braced with feet shoulder-width apart. Bugs splattered on his armor plate, some slashing his fatigues and drawing lines of blood but the neophyte weathered it. Mei whirled like a dervish, her indigo blade contrasting with the blood-red of her brother’s. Two warriors danced with her, their armors pink and green, pearlescent.
Luke ripped a chunk of duracrete up, slamming it into the back of a warrior’s head, knocking him off balance and into Luke’s lightsaber. Vonduun crab resisted for a moment, guiding the tip up to the crab’s vulnerable neck seam and the warrior died, charred hole in his throat. Another down.
He chanced a look to Ascratus, seeing the Sergeant slip past an amphistaff and punch a warrior in the chest. The armor held, mostly, carapace crumpling in a crater with a sound like ice cracking and he stumbled back, loose limbed, blood drooling from under his helmet. The Yuuzhan Vong tried a step, two steps, then went to his knees, then his face. Five down.
“Rakamat! At the space port, we are gone!”
Luke’s blood chilled and he reached out for his nephew, feeling his fear, his anger, his mild panic but - Luke sidestepped, deflected an amphistaff, ducked a spray of venom - nothing worse.
“The starship?”
Ascratus’ voice was flat and unbothered by any exertion, even as he waded into a near storm of bugs, razor bugs scree-ing along his plate and thudbugs splatting without leaving a mark. The Ultramarine met an amphistaff with his long combat blade, surprising Luke as it managed to survive the edge of the alien bio-weapon.
“About to be a puddle of molten metal. Zalthis, stop shooting the blasted thing!”
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Scowling, the neophyte clamped his pistol back to his thigh and darted after Face, the bulk of the YT freighter between them and the biot. Hot air whipped at Anakin’s back and they could hear the massive biot hauling itself into the bay, claws screaming on duracrete and yorick coral grinding it to powder.
The bay the freighter sat in was arranged like a half circle, the open section left for take-offs and landings and currently occupied by an AT-AT sized vong monster. The curving back wall of the bay had access to the starport itself, sealed off by blast doors and Anakin swore, yanking his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it, knowing they would need to cut through, which would take time, and the rakamat was probably about to turn the freighter into slag and then them -
Zalthis dashed past Face and Anakin both, set his shoulder and launched himself into the nearest blast door, legs pistoning hard to cannon him forward almost horizontal.
He rebounded with a boom but the door was visibly dented.
Zalthis battered it again and the door crashed inward.
“Kell would love you,” Face called as they followed the neophyte. Anakin paused at the threshold, feeling more heat behind him, seeing his shadow cast before him and he spun around.
The freighter was haloed in golden light, almost painful to look at-
“Get inside!”
Face grabbed him by the collar of his jumpsuit and hauled, just as superheated air kicked them both in the chest, knocking them bodily backwards several meters into waiting hands.
Zalthis propped them both up.
“Theoretical is as gone as our ship,” he said. “Practical is we run.”
The heat coming from the door into the bay was almost physical, enough to shimmer the air. The rakamat bellowed, loud enough to tremble dust from the floor and shake it from the ceiling.
“To Uncle Luke,” Anakin added.
“And Bhindi and Zev.”
“What else could I possibly mean?” Zalthis asked.
The rakamat continued smashing the bay behind them, roaring and stomping. The inside of the spaceport was dark, light only coming down in splashes from holes in the roof or gashes in the walls, but it was more than enough. Anakin was a Jedi - he’d braved the caves under the Praxeum where the darkness was almost physical. Adrenaline helped keep him moving, just as much as the way the Force sung in his blood.
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What could stop a Jedi? What could stop a trio of Ultramarines? Two veteran intelligence operatives? Zalthis put chazrach down with each pull of the trigger, his slugthrower booming out each kill like an announcement. Solidian used a long knife, close to the length of a vibroblade, and caught coufees on its edge. Over his shoulder he carried Zev’s body, his head bound by stained cloth.
Bhindi refused to leave him behind.
Mei was a whirl of indigo and red, her two sabres keeping the reptoids at bay. Bhindi Drayson, staying back with Face along with Solidian, joined the Colonel in providing pinpoint shots from their own carbines. Tears dried on her cheeks and now she pulled the trigger with a look of pure hatred.
Ascratus didn’t even bother with anything but plowing forward through the chazrach that swarmed him, ignoring shrieking scrapes of coufees and splatted bugs on his armor.
And his Uncle?
Luke led the group, wading into dozens of the diminutive footsoldiers with his green blade spitting.
Chazrach bloomed in the Force and Anakin felt almost bad at how easily they pushed through them. How many now? A dozen? Two? Just by his own ‘sabre? A Jedi was supposed to care about those things, a Jedi was supposed to know - he couldn’t keep track. The reptoids may have individually been as threatening as a wokling, but they didn’t come one at a time. They came in mobs and swarms. They came in packs that surged out of hideyholes and down rubble-choked sidestreets.
Anakin could feel, behind their minds, like faint threads in the air, the vast and alien presence of the yammosk. It knew they were here, it knew they were coming, and it wanted them dead.
So Anakin didn’t keep track, he didn’t try to count. He killed chazrach like they were droids and he thought of Rhonabeq and Daeshara’cor and Miko and Chewbacca and Zev. Another name on a list that wouldn’t end.
Anakin twitched his head to the side, hooked coufee sliding past his cheek and he removed the arm of the reptoid responsible. It didn’t even flinch - through the Force he felt it’s muted pain but it slashed at him with claws on its remaining hand and Anakin removed that arm too and then it lunged, stumps smoking, fangs bared and Anakin’s blue blade swept across its chest.
It died, life draining out into the Force, weakly trying to snap at his boots.
Did it even count as killing when they didn’t care about living?
He felt his uncle’s attention and snapped his head around.
Very carefully, Luke nodded.
Anakin swallowed and nodded back.
Of course it did. Life was life.
But it didn’t mean they stopped.