XI: ibi'Yun
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Being so near to the Vong compound that he could see the invaders going about their business was a special sort of torment. Tahiri was there, she was right there, she was so close he could almost feel her in his arms. Anakin found himself touching the lightsaber at his belt, kept finding himself about to get to his feet. The pull was physical. The ache was overwhelming.
Zalthis, next to him, lay flat on mossy shale, elbows propped up and a clicking, blocky set of goggles held up to his eyes. The Ultramarine forced them to stop here, just at the last set of foothills that rolled up into the taller peaks of the Ersham range. Right where they could get a solid vantage over the entire plateau, see the whole Massassi site sprawled out before them. Right where Anakin could see, minute after minute, hour after hour, where his best friend was being tortured and having who knew what else done to her.
The way she felt more and more distant, more and more muffled as the days went by had his stomach twisting in knots.
Between Anakin's own macrobinoculars and Zal's own complicated magnifiers, they had perfect vision on the Vong compound miles away. Macrobinoculars zoomed in and he could see the individual tattoos on warriors stalking along in squads. Zal's set had a bunch of settings, showing thermal blooms, weird wire-frame ghosting images and false-color contrasts that picked up on exotic radiation and gravity effects.
The practical, as Zalthis put it, was that they had a very nebulous theoretical.
"It's like this," the Ultramarine had explained patiently, voice pitched low as they crouched under bushes and undergrowth. "In the Thirteenth, the Primarch teaches us a simple exercise. Determine a theoretical, construct a practical. Theoretical: we need to exfiltrate Tahiri from the Vong compound. Practical: as a Jedi, Tahiri is a valuable prisoner. Practical: we do not know the strength of the Yuuzhan Vong on the moon. Practical-"
"I get it," Anakin sighed. "We need a plan."
"No," Zalthis corrected. "We need more than a plan, we need actionable data." The Ultramarine had appeared regretful for a moment, before exhaling. "We did not have enough data on Obroa-skai and it cost the Sergeant and Lieutenant their lives."
When Anakin had asked just how exactly they could get that data, it had led to them here, and now. Laying belly-down on uncomfortable and cracked stone, shot through with lichen and stubborn moss, shadowed by a squatter, hardier subspecies of Massassi tree that preferred the growing elevation of the range. Zalthis had a datapad out, a big and chunky thing that held only general resemblance to the sleek tablets Anakin was used to, tapping away with a stylus without once putting down his macrobinoculars. The Ultramarine was noting down every unique patrol and Vong he saw. Anakin's job was a little more ephemeral.
Readjusting himself, Anakin closed his eyes, probing out with the Force. Zalthis could analyze what was seen - it was Anakin's job to work with the unseen. The sensations of the jungle could tell a lot. Fearful runyips ahead of a curiously quiet bubble - an unseen Vong patrol that was spooking the native life away from them. Woolamanders hooting and howling at interlopers that Anakin just couldn't sense - another group. The primitive and instinctual fear that emanated from a school of fish, held packed together in close confines with a great deal of other aquatic life - some kind of catch, or trawler?
Jacen, he figured, would be able to tell a whole lot more. Maybe even be able to soothe some of the creatures enough to get some to help out, or even act as lookouts. Woolamanders that would bark a certain tone only when Vong were around; yes, Jacen could probably do that.
Anakin never had the greatest talent for it, but he felt like the edge of a knife. Stripped clean and simple, refined to a point, obsidian-sharp and focused.
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When Zalthis was comfortable with what they both had noted down, he broke it down again. Night had fallen, the nocturnal jungle just as alive as the diurnal. Anakin didn't feel tired. He hadn't felt much of anything either, in the hike here: not hunger, not thirst, not fatigue. Just sharp. Pointed.
Zal flipped his datapad around, offering it to Anakin.
"I have it memorized," he said simply. The datapad was heavy and durable, with buttons that were large and recessed. Large enough, he realized, for armor-clad fingers to be able to press them. Anakin snorted with something adjacent to humor at the thought. Displayed in ghostly sketches and lines, in crimson and emerald and bright gold, the general map of the center of the plateau, the bend of the Unnh river; everything. Along one side scrolled a list of observed squad strengths and compositions, as well as simple timing annotations.
It was almost overwhelming. There was so much everything there, along with shorthand he didn't know, icons that didn't ring any bells and color coding that didn't follow a logical sense. Zal seemed to expect this.
"Today, I observed nineteen unique patrols. I counted one hundred and seventeen individual warriors, which I distinguished by implant, scar patterns and tattoos."
Anakin nodded along, the twist in his stomach tightening.
"There is a full squadron of coralskippers landed in that field there, a likely shuttle or lander analogue here and I recognize that formation of buildings as troop habitation from Fondor." Zal reached out, tapping the datapad to punctuate each point.
"I felt more patrols too. I think maybe even some fliers, like landspeeders, or airspeeders," Anakin admitted. "I think they're doing search patterns."
"It would make sense. Even if they believed that you and Sannah had perished, they would have found the salvation pod by now. Besides that, I have no doubt they would believe the Thunderhawk truly shot down."
"Then they're ready for us."
Against one warrior? Anakin would take that head on, any day. Against two? Not a problem. Three? Doable. Four? Tougher. Five? He'd be pressed. Six? Seven? Ten? Two hundred?
Anakin of a year ago would be open mouthed and shocked at Anakin of now measuring how many trained, adult warriors he could kill in pitched combat. It wasn't arrogance either. After Dantooine, after Ithor, after Obroa-skai and now Yavin, it was, as Zalthis would put it, a practical. He hadn't yet met a Vong warrior that had truly, truly threatened him, one-on-one. Oh, sure, he had taken injuries here and there, but individually?
When there were more, that was when it was dicey. There were a lot down there, around the Vong buildings. They didn't have a monsoon to give them cover and they didn't have half a squad of other Ultramarines and one of the finest Jedi duellists alive to help them. Just Anakin, just Zalthis, and just a few hundred Vong and whatever biots were lingering around.
Maybe Sannah had been right. Maybe they should've taken the Thunderhawk - which still needed a name - and rammed it right down the throat of the Vong.
"I think it is more appropriate to say they are expecting us." Zalthis showed a rare smile; just a slight grin. "A Jedi and an Ultramarine - I don't believe any theoretical can ever make them ready for us."
"We can't go in the front door, we don't know enough to sneak in and we can't just fight through all of them. Maybe they're not ready, but I don't know if that really makes a difference."
Zal beckoned for the datapad. Anakin handed it back. A few tapped buttons, a flick of a stubby stylus, then Zal spun the datapad back around to reveal a looped recording.
"Did you notice these Vong?"
Anakin squinted, leaned closer. It was a little strange to view a flat, two dimensional recording without a matching holo, but he recognized the scrolling text and reticle of Zal's macrobinoculars in the vid. A group of beings that, at first glance, looked Human, toiled alongside the Unnh River, right on the bank. They flung out handfuls of something that trailed long, thin lines of gossamer. Bugs, probably, since the specks moved and arched and then darted down, into the water. The gossamer lines snapped taut, and then the fishermen - because it couldn't be anything else - hauled in catches hand-over-hand. Silver-scaled, flopping fish were dragged out of the water before each bug released their catch, tossed underhand back out into the shallows to repeat.
They looked Human, at first glance, but Zal hadn't been wrong. They had the same elongated skull and flattened forehead that was so dreadfully familiar. Their hair was universally black, done in various styles from simple buns to complex braids. Their robes clung too organically to their muscular frames.
What gave it away the most were the darkened sacs under each eye.
They looked bizarre.
Not a single tattoo or scar among them. They looked so unsettlingly normal.
"I didn't see them," he said, unable to look away from the mundane activity as it looped, over and over. Just some Vong. Fishing.
"I would wager they are the servant caste we have predicted, but never seen. No tattoos, no implants? If both are the measure of ascension, then these are the lowest of the low."
NRI - common sense, really - speculated on the various castes of the Vong. It was an important topic, since the invaders had such a rigid social structure. Theory was that there were orders of magnitude more non-combat, 'civilian' Vong out there that did the actual day-to-day stuff needed to make an interstellar civilization work. They couldn't all be ferocious warriors, cunning spies and priests; they had to have workers and supervisors, laborers and artisans.
"I also saw several overseeing groups of slaves."
"I sensed the slaves, too," Anakin added.
"Of course. Theoretical: slaves are overseen by the workers, who in turn are below all other castes. The practical, then, is we take one of these workers for interrogation."
Anakin rocked back on his heels.
Talking to a Vong was kind of the grand prize for half the intelligence agencies. They had a penchant for dying in 'glorious combat' or killing themselves before being taken alive. Even the one that Aunt Mara and his siblings had scooped up on Coruscant died to a sneaky biot that had replaced their tongue.
Those had all been Warriors, though. None of them ever seemed to care even a little about their own lives. A worker? Huh. He could see it. Surely, not all the Vong were so violently self-destructive. And a Warrior would be noticed, but maybe a simple worker could go missing for a while? Then they could ask anything about the place. Where was the Jedi held? Passcodes, or phrases? Patrols? Strength? You name it.
Although, ask meant-
"Wait, but how can we talk to them?"
Zalthis truly smiled this time, broadly.
"Ekgt dag't et-zil ibi'yun."
He knew that rolling intonation, that blend of melodic and sharp anywhere.
"How in the hells do you speak Vong?"
Zalthis scratched at his cheek.
"By the grace of the Throne," he said, evasively.
Anakin chewed on his lip.
Well. Now this was a plan.
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Ralroost was, to use the cliche, a veritable hive of activity. No one knew just what was on the books; no one knew quite when, where, or how, or even entirely who, but everyone knew that something was afoot. High Command didn't just reel in most of the elements of First Fleet to Coruscant for no reason and the amount of tenders and resupply going on was fit to match some of the musters during the Galactic Civil War. Jaina could feel the same sort of unreality that permeated a lot of the other pilots and sailors, as they took glances out of transparisteel at the thousands of glinting hulls sprawling across the anchorage. The unreality of: how can we lose? What could possibly stand against this?
All the Rogues were cycling through Combat Air Patrol. All the Rogues were in the cockpit and doing checks and simming it up and begging, bartering and bickering to get last minute tune-ups and tweaks on their snubfighters.
All the Rogues except Jaina.
They set her up in an office that overlooked the 'Roost's starboard hangar. She had all the basics for a junior officer's space and she didn't need to use any of it. All she had to do was sit on her ass for hours on end and listen to the Force. The space used to be probably for a Chief or something, with a big transparisteel pane that let her see out into the bustling hangar. It was slightly tinted, making it reflective from the other side.
For hours, she sat and watched as shuttles and transports cycled in and out, bringing resupply and rotating crew. She watched as beings of all sizes and stripes embarked and disembarked and she looked for the ones that had nothing behind their faces. She listened, alert and sharp and bored out of her skull, for smug duplicity, for fearful subterfuge, for anything that raised the hairs on her neck.
Jaina had a panic button that would call down marines in seconds.
Days had passed and she hadn't used it once.
Everyone was nervous. Everyone was anxious. Everyone was tense and eager and a little fearful. Everyone had secrets.
So far, not a single masquer'd Vong had tried to come aboard. So far, she hadn't caught a whiff of prickling danger in the Force. On the other side of Ralroost, Alexandra Winger was doing the same job and Jaina could pick up on the older woman's similar low-burning frustration.
Apparently, Captain Winger had been pulled from her own command, the cruiser Webley, just like Jaina had been pulled off the Rogues. The other woman buried her boredom under a hard layer of professionalism in a way that Jaina felt faintly envious of. She should be prouder, probably, because this was a request to Colonel Darklighter from Admiral Kre'fey…but all the same, couldn't someone else do this? Anyone else? Kenth Hamner was on board too, he could do this. Or another Jedi. There were still like a dozen down in the HQ on the surface. The Navy couldn't tap any of them?
At least they let her bring up stuff to tinker with. She turned the graviscoop antenna unconsciously in her hands, moving on autopilot as she tweaked and twiddled with the extremely fragile, high-precision sensor. Her toolkit was spread out on the desk beside her, every spanner and plier neatly set out, ready to use.
Another shuttle slid into the hangar, passing through the containment shield with a ripple. Usual kind of activity: hangovers, regrets after shore leave, some anger over some slight or another, excitement. Jaina glanced up, eying each being to slouch down the ramp, feeling a mind behind each face until the ramp hissed shut again.
Catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she reached for a microspanner and a tiny wafer-chip the size of her smallest fingernail. Well, at least when she was back on duty with the Rogues for the op - whatever it ended up being - she'd have her XJ dancing cleaner and faster than any other starfighter in the sky.
She spared a moment to nudge toward Jacen - distant, across the galaxy and deep in meditation - and then a moment for her little brother. Anakin never had quite the same connection to the twins as they did with each other, but it'd be a cold day that she couldn't sense the kid. As ever - cold, hard determination. Fixated intensity. Anger that churned deep, deep underneath it. He could do it. He'd be okay. Like how in the cockpit of a fighter was where Jaina belonged, if anyone could pull off a harebrained rescue right under the noses of the Vong, it'd be Anakin.
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The Unnh River wended and wound through the Massassi Complex, spilling down from north in cataracts down toward the plateau, before settling into a placid, tranquil and meandering flow. Southward it worked, throwing off oxbow lakes and tranquil pools until it reached the escarpment, tumbling down as a feathery, ethereal waterfall a hundred meters wide.
It teemed with life, just like the rest of the moon, and the Yuuzhan Vong made good on that bounty. The biot they'd found (because even fishing trawlers had to be giant living monsters) made its way upstream with long, languid strokes of a wide, lobed tail. Most of it was submerged, revealing only a humped and muscular back above water and the occasional breach of its tail and fins as it adjusted itself. At least twenty meters long and shaped like an inverted triangle, it gaped open a giant mouth that spanned the width of its flat, broad head, sucking up crustaceans, fish and even amphibious mammals too. It felt so bizarre: he could feel the panic of the growing mass of catch, but not the huge creature that sucked them up.
It just felt like a weird, compressed ball of prey instincts going haywire, moving against the river's current.
The Vong could make anything unsettling.
They weren't here to learn about the fishing traditions of the Yuuzhan Vong. No, the biot had an entirely more important cargo, and that was the Yuuzhan Vong guiding the creature from a strange, fleshy sort of hollow at the peak of its spine. He seemed fixated on his task, arms folded across a broad and robe-clad chest, hair drawn back into a tail and a deep scowl twisting grotesque creatures.
Yuuzhan Vong were ugly, but this one took the cake. He looked rotted. Part of his lip was missing, revealing stained teeth. His nose was a crater that leaked, his eyes were bloodshot and rheumy. Hanks of hair were missing from his scalp and two fingers on one hand were gone, the stumps stained black.
He didn't look like the clean-skinned and un-marked workers that Zalthis had noted, but neither did he look like the grotesque but purposeful mutilations of warriors.
If he was doing scutwork like driving a living fishing trawler up a river, he couldn't be anyone important. Better yet, he was totally alone. No slaves, no other workers, no even any warriors or patrols nearby, so far as they could tell.
"Definitely this one," Anakin said.
"I concur. Isolated and unarmed."
The plan was simple. Anakin would remain on the shoreline, tracking any disturbances in the local wildlife. Zalthis, able to hold his breath for a shocking amount of time, would swim to the biot and ambush the Vong, incapacitate him, and then drag him back to shore. Then they'd get some answers.
For the trillionth time since it all began, Anakin wished he could just pluck the Vong from the saddle with the Force and haul him right over. Not even his trick with crushing the air could work here - that was brute force and he didn't quite trust his control to not just smush the prisoner they were hoping for. Against a warrior, unexpected crunching was perfectly fine. Here, they might not get another golden opportunity.
Zal left his armor behind, shucked down to just his thick black bodyglove. Delicately, he placed down his power sword and pistol, along with his other gear, out of sight of the river behind a broad treetrunk.
"I'll keep an eye on it," Anakin swore.
"I will hold you to that," Zal returned. The biot was downriver, just around a bend and still out of sight. The Astartes slipped into the water, barely a ripple disturbed despite his bulk. He took a long, deep inhale that didn't seem to end, then sunk down and was gone. The Unnh river flowed on without a care. The trawler biot cruised languidly into view. Long minutes passed, the trawler growing closer and closer. The Vong riding it still seemed just as bored and unattentive as they saw earlier, slouched atop the biot. He felt Zal slip closer, closer, closer.
The Ultramarine erupted out of the river like some sort of water monster, breaching meters into the air and landing right behind the Vong. There wasn't even a scuffle. The Vong seemed shocked, stunned into stillness, allowing Zalthis to rip him out of the biot's 'cockpit'. The Ultramarine tensed and leapt again, kicking off from the biot with enough force the whole thing shuddered.
Reflexively, Anakin reached out, easing his friend's trajectory, buoying as he soared meters above the surface of the river. He almost waited for Tahiri to join in and give Zalthis an extra push.
Zal landed easily on bent knees. The trawler lazily swam along, utterly uncaring that its driver had been stolen. Anakin left his hide behind, jogging along the open riverbank.
Up close, the Vong wasn't just a mess, but reeked too. He coughed, covering his mouth with one hand. Zalthis had the Vong's arms twisted behind his back, one outsized fist wrapped around the man's wrists, the other holding tight to one shoulder. Dark eyes ringed in bruises flicked to Anakin, down to the lightsaber at his belt. The lightsabers.
"Jeedai," murmured the Vong.
"Yeah," Anakin agreed. "Jedi."
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Admiral Traest Kre'fey never failed to wrongfoot Jaina. She'd known Bothans all her life - after all, her mother's on-again, off-again feuds with Borsk Fey'lya were legendary across half the galaxy. To the last, they were usually fairly serious, focused and formally professional. Maybe that was biased, given that her life was filled with politicians and soldiers, but when Jaina thought 'Bothan', she pictured tailored suits, perfectly combed fur and doublespeak.
Admiral Kre'fey welcomed her into his office by bouncing to his feet, snapping off a return salute with a big and toothy grin.
"Lieutenant Solo!"
The Bothan wore an unmarked and insignia free flight suit, unzipped to just above his navel, showing a wide triangle of cream white fur. Kre'fey was shorter than Jaina, but as he came around his desk, holding out a hand, he seemed to fill the entire room.
"Colonel Darklighter's had only glowing reports on your time in the Rogues. Bit late, but congratulations on qualifying. I had a laugh at Gavin when he argued you were too young - imagine the irony! When a young woman knows what she wants in life, and that's serving the state? Protecting the Republic? Well, I'd never turn that down."
"Thank…you sir?" she stammered. The Bothan firmly shaking her hand was her superior by about…five grades at least. And he was shaking her hand like she was the important one in the room.
"No, the Navy should be thanking you. You're a real icon, you know that, Lieutenant? Following in your uncle's footsteps, joining up with the Starfighter Corps? I hope more Jedi follow your example." The Admiral gestured toward one of several ejection couches arrayed in front of his desk. "Take a load off. We'll be quick, but there's no reason to stand around."
She couldn't think of anything else to say besides 'Yessir'. Kre'fey, for himself, perched on the edge of his desk.
"So I hear you've been keeping an eye on people coming aboard my ship."
"Yessir," she repeated.
"And none of those scarheads have tried to slip through."
"Nossir."
"And no hint of Peace Brigade."
"Hard to say for sure, sir, but I don't think so."
Kre'fey rattled his nails off his desk, smoothing the fur of his chin with his other hand. His office had a hologram set up, displaying the exterior of Ralroost and exposing the whole anchorage spread out around the Bothan Assault Cruiser.
"Good, good. Very good. I hope you understand how important this job is that you're doing. I bet you're itching to get back in the cockpit, but we all have to play our strengths."
To her strengths as a Jedi, Jaina sighed internally. She'd proven her skill at the stick, racking up 'skips and even going toe to toe with Colonel Fel - he still had the lead on her, but not for long. She'd earned her place in the Rogues through sweat and tears. They trusted her and her wingmates needed her when the furball hit again. But still, the Admiral looked at her and saw a Jedi.
She said instead: "Yessir."
Kre'fey frowned at her.
"Lieutenant, this isn't a lecture. At ease."
"Yes-" Jaina cleared her throat. "Okay." She felt the Admiral's mood brighten a little, amusement shooting through his thoughts.
"This isn't just a pat-on-the-back either. This is a serious job. Jaina - mind if I call you Jaina?"
She nodded.
"I pulled Alex off of Webley and requested Kenth just like I had Gavin tap you as well. The details are classified, but NRI is still having trouble seeing through those Vong masquers. Until they can, Jedi are the best bet against Vong infiltrators. It's been an oversight. A bad one. We got complacent, which is why Shesh is on the warpath right now. Do you know what we learned on Fondor and from the Exiles? Those gravity biots the Vong use? They can make tiny ones that could be smuggled on a body. You can imagine what it would look like if a singularity opened up inside the 'Roost."
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A few months ago, during a small skirmish over some moon she couldn't even remember the name of, a Vong frigate had been bullied hard by the 'Roost and a Nebulon-B. It's dovin basals were sucking up everything and the ship was dead in space, hunkering down under its singularities when something had obviously gone wrong. After action speculated that one of the basals had something like a stroke, because there was a spike in gravity waves that had alarms blaring across half the fleet and the frigate smeared and swirled into a single, tiny point. A heartbeat, and then there was a wash of radiation and a cloud of gauzy, expanding plasma like a new-born nebula.
Jaina had a vivid image of the 'Roost twisting like that and goosebumps prickled her neck. Suddenly, the boredom of the past few days felt a lot easier to handle.
"Saboteurs aren't the only thing we're watching out for. Don't spread it around, but our girl here is carrying the flag for the 'completely secret operation' around the corner. Ralroost will be leading the battlegroups from First Fleet, which makes her security even more important."
Kre'fey sobered a little, leaning forward with his hands gripping the sides of his desk.
"There are going to be staff conferences through the end of this week. 'Roost is hosting them. We'll have members of High Command on board. I want you sitting in the room. Kenth will be there too. Everyone has to be vetted. Don't even trust me. We haven't seen a masquer that can hope to match the beauty of a Bothan, but the Vong like their surprises."
She'd have almost laughed off the idea - her, sitting in on High Command's own top-secret meetings? Even her own father hadn't ever been high enough rank to, even if he wanted to, have access to those closed door mysteries. Sure, her mother had been Chief of State, but the NRDF liked to keep its distance from the civilian leadership, and vice versa. Stay in their lanes, and all that.
The amount of trust the Admiral was laying out caught her breath in her chest. Kenth Hamner was a Colonel and a career soldier to boot.
And yet - it was because she was a Jedi. Not a pilot, not a member of the Navy. But like the Admiral said, they all had their strengths to play into.
"I'm not sure what to say, sir," she managed.
"It's not an order. Something like this is sensitive. Kenth can handle it on his own, if you feel like you're better off continuing to cover embarking with Alex. I'm asking, Jaina, not telling. Think it over. Let Gavin know your decision by 0900 tomorrow."
She left the Admiral's office deep in thought. She ate robotically in the mess with a few of the Rogues who were off-duty - Major Varth was there - but they gave her space, clearly noticing her mood. They talked about the next patrols and who was slated for flights tomorrow and it hurt a little that she knew her name wasn't up on the wall of the ready room. Kre'fey's trust in her balanced it some: whatever operation was planned, everyone agreed it would be huge. Sithspawn, but she'd get to find out about it before almost everyone else, if she agreed to sit in with Kenth. Idly, she fingered the sore spot over her ear, where her hair was stubby and prickly, growing back. The oncocidal injector was gone and she hadn't had a single bout of dizziness since, but regs, she supposed, were regs. That was the bright spot: Jedi or not, Colonel Darklighter couldn't have let her back into active flight yet.
But to be so close, all the time…
Well, if the Admiral had that much faith in her, how could she not do her duty as a Jedi and as a servicewoman in the NRDF? It wasn't like she wouldn't be back in the cockpit for the big op. And, she considered, eying the laughing Rogues around her, she could lord her secret knowledge over them a little too. It would definitely drive Liav crazy.
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The Vong and Zalthis snapped back and forth at each other, clear fury writ across the face of the former as Zalthis interrogated him in the Vong's own native tongue. Anakin couldn't follow even a scrap of it; it was all Jawa to him. The Vong's hands were bound now, in front of him, and his ankles too. Zalthis had shoved him to the ground against the trunk of a tree, hemming in the Vong who, strangely, didn't seem to be at all interested in escaping. He wasn't glancing around or tense, just laying there like he didn't care in the slightest about being bound up.
A real far cry from the crazy warriors that had been captured, that was for sure. The Vong gesticulated with bound hands, gesturing toward lumpy and disgustingly fleshy pouches that gripped onto his robe, over his hip. Zalthis snapped back and crouched, roughly tugging one open with a wet sort of sucking noise. Anakin watched, rather disgusted, as Zalthis drew out a thick wad of some sort of green-grey material, balled up, and then pinched between two fingers, a horrible, wriggingly worm-thing of some kind.
It was a little gross that Anakin recognized it.
"That's a tizowyrm," he said.
"I'm aware," Zal growled, scowling at the thick, grublike biot. It flexed and squirmed a little, small between Zal's thumb and forefinger. "The Vong told me what it does."
"It was in Danni's briefing about the Vong that infiltrated her science outpost." Anakin narrowed his eyes, looking over the tormented looking Vong. Close up, not only were the oozing scabs and inflamed scars all the more disturbing, but the Vong's stench was overpowering. He smelled like rot and sick and Anakin did his best not to breathe through his nose. His eyes were surrounded by bruise, hanks of hair missing and on the knuckles of his bound hands, where Anakin had seen implanted talons were pus-dripping sockets.
He had to be in unbelievable pain. The Force should have been redolent with it, this close to the Vong.
As ever: nothing.
"Why's he have it?"
Zalthis straightened up to his full height, looming over Anakin. He turned the tizowyrm over, flicked it gently and watched it recoil.
"He hasn't said. He's being uncooperative. He says he wishes to speak to us both."
Both eyebrows raised skyward. A talkative Vong? Next, there'd be a altruistic Hutt.
"Might as well let him," Anakin said with a shrug. "A worm in his ear isn't going to be any danger, right?"
Zalthis was long in replying.
"I…suppose." He spat words back at the Vong, who obligingly shifted, cocking his head to the side and exposing a raw-looking ear, missing its lobe. Zalthis crouched down and Anakin winced, glancing away as the Astartes fed the worm into the Vong's ear. He could still hear a quiet grunt of something between pain and pleasure, along with a meaty squelch.
"Ah," the Vong grunted out. "You hear sense. The jeedai convinces you. I am in debt; how awful."
His accent was atrocious and his Basic halting, but understandable enough.
"You're welcome," Anakin retorted. A trickle of blood leaked down from the implanted ear, but the Vong paid no attention.
"You have your translator. Now speak, creature."
The vitriol in Zal's tone matched the disgust radiating from the Astartes like heat-shimmer from duracrete tarmac. His normally level-headed friend sounded more like Solidian, or maybe that other Astartes, Varien. The Vong turned his head and spat.
"I pollute my tongue with your speech; but you will not ohffend my ear with insult to ibi'Yun. I am Vua Rapuung. You are Jeedai and Aistarteez. I will help you."
Zal's surprise surely matched his own. Open mouthed, both he and the Ultramarine looked at each other simultaneously.
"Huh," Anakin said eloquently.
"What?" Zal echoed.
"Does the tizowyrm fail? I say: I will help you."
Anakin shook his head.
"No, no, I heard that - I just - why?"
His first thought was the obvious: a trap. Elan, the monster that she was, had pretended to be a conscientious objector right up until she had his Uncle and a dozen other Jedi in her sights, then killed herself just to try and wipe them all out. She'd died and had been ready to kill her friend, or pet, or whatever Vergere had been, just out of pure spite to strike at the Jedi. Almost none of the Jedi that went to meet her had even fought the Vong in the first place! Then there were the Peace Brigade, and Nom Anor subverting the Duro, and the attempt on Viqi Shesh's life, then the dark promises of the Warmaster.
Honestly, it was easier to count the times the Yuuzhan Vong hadn't been duplicitous instead. They didn't respect truces: Senator A'kla learned that, fatally. They didn't care about surrender: the slaves proved that. They didn't care about humanitarian protections, or rules of war, or anything decent beings did.
So when a Vong looked up at Anakin and said 'I will help you', his first thought was to immediately scan their surroundings, again, scouring hard for any pockets of disturbed jungle life, expecting Vong fliers to be bearing down on them immediately, tipped off somehow.
"Help us with what?"
Zalthis kept quiet, eyes narrowed and a hand on his recovered sword, returned to his hip. He'd reclaimed his armor too, what there was of it, replacing it all and triple-checking each piece.
"You come to Shaper compound from far away. You return to this world, when you might have escaped. Why? Hm? I will guess: the Jeedai captive."
Anger pulsed in him - the Vong dared to even mention Tahiri - but he fought it down.
"That's right. We're going to rescue her."
The Vong hacked something that might've been a laugh, or a way to clear out a lung.
"Pitiful. What a pitiful goal. How pitiful. All this, to save a life."
No emotion: there is peace.
"I didn't ask for your opinion. Spit out why you want to help us, or Zal here can make sure there's one less Vong in the galaxy." His friend frowned, eying Anakin, but didn't contradict him.
"You seek the Shaper compound, as do I. Our goals are one. I know much; you know nothing. Your enemies will be my enemies; my enemies will be yours. We will fight back to back until glory or Yun-Yuuzhan calls us."
Zalthis nudged the Vong's thigh with his boot, catching the alien's attention.
"Why do you need help to enter this 'Shaper' compound? Are you not already part of this garrison?"
The Vong sneered.
"Only Shaper and Warrior can enter the damutek. Do not mock me! Look at me! I must enter, and it will be in blood. You see: our goals are one."
"You didn't answer his question. Okay, you can't get in, but why do you want to?"
The Vong - Vua, apparently - bared misaligned and stained teeth.
"Revenge! Purest revenge. Revenge, and proof before the Gods - no. I do not need to explain to you, Jeedai. Or you, Aistarteez. Know that Vua Rapuung will hold his oath before Yun-Yammka, or the Slayer may eat my soul if I break faith."
Speaking low, Anakin stepped closer to Zalthis, jerking his head to the side.
"Let's talk," he muttered. Zalthis nodded, keeping his eyes on the Vong. From his hip holster, he pulled his pistol, the barrel aimed unerringly at the Vong while they stepped a dozen meters away. For his part, though bound up, the Vong stayed still.
Parsing the unexpected, Anakin gathered his thoughts.
Coincidence? Zalthis had been moaning about not having enough intel on the Vong compounds and who might be inside. They'd barely talked to this Vong and already he'd given them new tidbits: it was something called a 'Shaper' compound, and only those 'Shapers' and Warriors were allowed in. Shapers had to be another caste, and he could guess what they were by name alone. Warriors he knew, but no one had ever seen a Shaper. What kind of tricks did they have up their no doubt living sleeves? Were they just as deadly as a Warrior? More so?
Zalthis spoke up first.
"I did not tell you how I learned the Vong language."
"Not really, no."
Zalthis spoke evenly, still focused on the supine Vong, still holding his pistol out and trained, finger just outside the trigger guard.
"Astartes bear more than a dozen implants. Each performs some vital function. One allows us to learn from the…remains of another."
He could sense the quiet disgust that underlay the clinical terms.
"You eat them?"
"Only…" Zalthis sighed. "Only parts of their brains."
Anakin turned away, scrubbing his hands over his face.
A Vong wanted to help him rescue Tahiri and now he knew that his friend ate brains.
"When they're dead?" He asked without thinking.
Zalthis shrugged broad shoulders. "If they were not already before getting to the brain, they…would be."
"Emperor's black bones," Anakin groaned. "Zal, I really didn't need to know this."
The Astartes had the presence of mind to at least appear chastened, shifting his weight a little.
"It's not often spoken of. We are…not unaware of how it appears. But the Emperor, in His wisdom, did give us all the tools we need for the most terrible of times. Anakin, I don't like it either. I know of no Astartes who considers it with relish. Understand: it is not simple knowledge like reading from a book. It is memories, with the sensation and emotion that follow."
"You know, I think that's actually worse."
"It is. I have memories of Yuuzhan Vong warriors. I have memories of dying to my own blade. It is unpleasant at best. But I will do whatever I must do to complete the mission. I wanted you to know. There are other alternatives. We do not need to trust the Vong."
Anakin slumped, craning his neck to exasperatedly stare up into the blue skies above.
"Because you could just eat his brain."
"Because I could eat his brain."
"Sithspawn, Zal, is there anything else I should know?"
It was truly unsettling that the Ultramarine actually paused to think about it, before shaking his head.
"No."
"Fine. Let's try something before breaking open some skulls, alright?"
"That, I can agree with."
----------------------------------------
Vua Rapuung eyed them both. Anakin squatted down next to the Vong, Zalthis stayed looming over them both, bolt pistol still out, though pointed down and clear.
"Are you finished? Do you need more time to spin slander and cast vile aspersions on my character?"
"Not really what we were doing, you know."
"I know nothing of your infidel ways. You worship perversions of the machine. What other infamy might you spin?"
Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose, before massaging his eyes with thumb and forefinger. Bright lights burst and spun behind his eyelids, illuminating the darkness as he fought the edge of a headache.
"All we were talking about is if we could trust you. Can you offer anything that could, I don't know, assure us?"
"I gave my word as bond, by Yun-Yammka. If you do not believe, cut me down or cut me free. You are Jeedai and Aistarteez. I hear the rumor: I will die before you if I am false. Why are you so filled with fear? Disgusting. Pitiful. I worry the rumors are lies, the Jeedai and Aistarteez are timid brenzlits."
"Sure thing. How about you tell us what a Shaper is? Give us something to trust you on."
The Vong closed his eyes, mouth working silently.
"Your ignorance is - a Shaper is of the caste nearest to the great god Yun-Yuuzhan, through his handmaiden Yun-ne'Shel. It was He who Shaped all the Universe, and it is She who teaches them his ways. It is they who know the ways of life and bend it to our needs."
"Bioengineers," Zalthis grunted. "Scientists? Like the Magi."
Vua's eyes narrowed.
"The words do not translate. I suspect they are obscene."
"Never mind that. Why would these 'Shapers' have Tahiri? You said it's a Shaper compound, but why wouldn't the Warriors have her? Another Jedi, Miko Reglia, was captured at Helska and they tried to break him with a yammosk."
He was sure he would sense one of the battle-coordinator brains if it was on Yavin, though he couldn't be sure. After Obroa-skai, and whatever he did in that strange mind-place, he was confident that he could pick up the lingering, strange influences of a yammosk if it was present. It sent a shiver down his spine to consider them doing to Tahiri what Jacen said was done to Miko; the Jedi had been a shell of a person at the end, choosing to stay behind and die on Helska to delay the Vong enough for Jacen and Danni to escape.
What he felt from where Tahiri had balled herself away in a corner didn't really feel like what he imagined that would be like, but then again, how could he know for sure?
"Pfah," Vua spat. "Breaking is not Shaping. It is a parody. It is a child's aping of it. I knew of a Shaper who scoffed at Warriors who thought they could do as they did. The Shapers have your Jeedai because your Jeedai will not be broken. She will be remade. This is as I said. Pitiful. You fight to save her life. She is dead and gone. If you fear what the Shapers will make, you would fight to kill your Jeedai friend."
Anakin leaned down, close enough for Vua's rancid breath to make his eyes water. Ice-cold blue pinned algal green-black and the Vong's eyes bulged.
"Don't ever talk about Tahiri like that. I'm going to save her."
"Anakin," Zalthis called. "Let him go."
He prised open the hand he hadn't realized he'd put around Vua's throat. The Vong coughed wetly.
"Ah, fury. I see the warrior spirit of the Jeedai is not a tale."
"Shut up unless I ask a question."
Vua glared, but held his tongue.
He could be lying. He could absolutely be lying. Why not? Anything he said they had to take at face value. Maybe there were no such things as Shapers at all, even though logic would say that of course the organic technology needed someone to make and maintain it all. Maybe there were Shapers, but they were totally different from what this Vua was saying. Maybe Tahiri was, as he had been expecting, strung up in an Embrace of Pain just like Jacen.
Just the word remake almost made him sick.
He saw the Man in Horns again. Right there again, right in front of him, just as clear and sharp and horrible as back on Yavin 8. The memory hadn't faded, not a single bit. He could still recall every single feature of the Man. The cloak that fell from hooks in his shoulders, the organic and scalloped armor, that looked painfully like vonduun. Pale skin, dark brown hair, worn long and woven with bone and totem. Tripartite horns that burned with radiation light.
And the voice that was all Anakin's.
And what Tahiri had mentioned too, what she had seen at the end, when they had lit their 'sabers and driven the Man away. Anakin hadn't seen it, but she had said she saw herself, but older, with tattoos and scars and wearing vonduun armor too. She didn't say much more about it, only that this other-her had smiled a grim and cruel smile and said nothing else.
Remake. And why wouldn't Vua be right? Everyone already knew the Vong wanted to remake the galaxy in their image. They wanted to burn down everything that wasn't theirs and they wanted to take their horrible, twisted religion and force it on everyone. Enslave every last being that didn't bow down. Kill the rest.
Why wouldn't they have an equally horrifying plan to twist the Jedi into some kind of monsters they could control?
Anakin wanted to accuse Vua of lying. He couldn't. It made too much sense.
And if this was all some elaborate trap, why use a Vong who looked sicker than a poisoned gundark to tell them weird lies and not have any Warriors lying in wait?
No.
Tahiri, he pushed out toward the sense of his best friend. Tahiri, please hold on.
"Okay. So if they want to 'Shape' Tahiri, then she's in…what did you call them?"
"Damuteks. The sacred compounds of the Shapers."
"Right. How many Shapers?"
"I do not know for certain. I am not a Shaper. Around twelve in each damutek, if initiates are counted."
"And the warriors," Zalthis added.
"The Shapers do holy work. They are always protected."
"How many?"
Vua sneered.
"I cannot say. You slew many. I do not know how many. No more than three hundreds. More, and the miid-ro'ik will be undermanned. Likely less."
Zalthis hummed, nodding.
"Close enough to my theoretical."
"What about workers? The Vong we saw without scars or-"
Vua barked something in his own tongue, recoiling. For once, he didn't appear angry or brooding, but genuinely shocked.
"How can you be so ignorant? Or do you mean to insult?"
"Workers? What-"
"No! You say - do not ever refer to us in such a way."
"Vong?" he asked, befuddled. Vua shuddered again.
"Yes! To use the word Vong alone is an insult. It says the one addressed so is abandoned by favor and kinship with the Gods and family alike."
"Oh. I didn't know."
"Now you do. Such ignorance." Vua sighed. "For workers, there will be many hundreds. No one cares to count. I do not know. They will not fight; it is not their nature."
It was enough for Anakin. Vua was unstable and disturbed, and the culture barrier probably meant the Vong would try to kill one or both of them over some imagined slight, but just at a glance, whatever infections and sickness the man had running through him would make him a lot less of a threat. Besides, he hadn't woken up planning to execute an unarmed prisoner. They couldn't turn him loose, and he couldn't stomach murder. Not even to a Vong. He hoped he never would.
"Alright, Vua. I'm Anakin. That's Zalthis."
The Vong scoffed.
"I do not need your names."
"Too bad. Zal, let's get him up and get back to our camp. I think we've got those practicals you wanted."
The Ultramarine stooped down, hooking a hand under the Vong's underarm and hoisting him up almost effortlessly. The Vong muttered something that was probably a profanity, eying Zal.
"You are quite monstrous," Vua said.
"I'll fetch you a mirror," Zal muttered.
It was going to be a long day.