XIV: Are You Jeedai
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Anakin knew the jungle now. He recognized landmarks. He knew the trails they crossed. The Blueleaf Temple would be farthest south - if it still existed. The Uunh river was to their left. Had they been on the other bank, they might well run into the Palace of the Woolamader in enough time. Tsik vai gunships passed overhead as they crashed through the underbrush. He'd left the bits of armor Sol had leant him, including the cracked breastplate, behind as they made for the temple. It wouldn't help now. A slave could get away with a sweatstained jumpsuit - not body armor.
"We will spin tale of pursuit! The Jeedai and Aistarteez hunt in the jungle, and so we seek shelter among the grashal!" Vua shouted. The dead patrol was well behind them, but they had to have roused an alarm before Vua strangled their leader and Anakin and Zal put the others down. "Your light blades! Give me them!"
"What? No!"
"They will not search me! But a slave; you will have no property. Give them to me, now!"
Swearing under his breath, Anakin unhooked his 'saber and tossed it to Vua. The Vong caught it easily, tucking it into one of the fleshy, living pouches at his hip. But Ikrit's 'saber, Anakin tossed underhand to Zal. The Astartes nodded in understanding and the small hilt went to his belt.
"Aistarteez, you must split away from us. Forge a new trail! Evade pursuit, and then hide! Like the plan!"
They were supposed to have more time. Another day, just about, to creep closer and make final preparations. Vua hadn't even applied the dead coral to Anakin's forehead yet. Bad luck. Bad luck to run smack into a patrol, bad luck to have the fliers out here spinning nets to hem them in. Bad luck that Tahiri got caught, bad luck that the Vong found them at all, bad luck, bad luck, bad luck…
Zalthis slowed to a stop and Anakin did too. Vua eased to a jog, finding a toppled tree and leaping nimbly up its craggy side to get a better vantage point.
"We'll meet again," Zal assured him. "Call, when you are ready."
Anakin pushed a sense of urgency toward Zal, saw when the Astartes was torn between a wince and a grin.
"It's still strange, every time." Zal offered a hand. "Luck of Terra be with you, Anakin."
"Thanks. You too, Zal. Keep your head down."
"If you are finished," Vua called from ahead.
"Go and get Tahiri. I shall bring the fury of Ultramar." Zal pulled his bolt pistol from his belt and fired off two shots, the mass reactives blasting thunder through the jungle. Birds took to the air. "Go!"
Anakin went.
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In the vivarium was where Nen Yim discovered her Master, after word had come that her vaa tumor removal was complete. She expected Mezhan to spend another day in seclusion and recovery, and her stride hitched a moment as the hatch-sphincter irised open to reveal the Master Shaper kneeling beside their subject. If her Master was here, then she had proper business, so Nen Yim did not intrude or disturb her. Instead, she made her usual rounds: replacing a borrowed qahsa, checking the health of the vivarium, replenishing the feeds to the saline-pools that held tissue samples. She busied herself with the work of an Adept, one ear to the quiet words her Master spoke.
Mezhan's usual supercilious tone was gone, replaced by a soft and gentle murmur as she stroked Shaping fingers over the subject's scalp. The subject hunched over, hands in her lap, eyes downcast.
"There is no great hurry," Mezhan said. "Take your time."
"They hurt," whispered the subject, voice broken and small. "I can't think of them. I can't remember. They hurt so much."
"It's a byproduct of their magics. The Jedi powers they used, they twisted you so terribly. Your mind was not meant to bear such torment; but you are a child of Kwaad. You were strong to survive it. That pain was a pain you felt every single waking moment, then. But they had tricked you that it was normal."
"Can't you take it all away?" The subject sniffed, rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand. "All the memories? Then they won't hurt. I won't - I won't be confused."
"Pain is a teacher." Mezhan pricked her palm with a sharpened finger-blade, showing the subject a bead of black blood. "It instructs us, as the Gods ordain. The Jedi didn't understand this. They made you hurt for every moment you were among them, for fear that you would one day be saved and return to your people. They don't wish for you to remember, for if you remember the teachings they so foolishly shared with you, then you could turn their Force against them. To the aid of the Chosen People." Mezhan hummed a simple creche-tune and leaned closer to the subject. "Do try, Riina."
Nen Yim turned aside from her tasks, placing full attention on the vivarium. The results of the modified - and invented - protocols were already showing incredible progress. The implanted neurons carried rich and comprehensive experiential memory that already integrated almost seamlessly with the subject. Her mastery of ibi'yun easily proved this, but it was these moments, when the Riina personality seemed almost seamless, that Nen Yim felt almost religious awe at what she and her Master were accomplishing.
This was Shaping as it should be, as it could be. A being never recorded by any Shaper, already understood and now almost remade. Yun-ne'Shel - for Nen Yim did believe - had to love them for this.
The subject gingerly raised a shaking hand from her lap, hairless brows furrowing in concentration and bracing for expected pain. A small stone, smooth and plucked from the river, trembled on the floor of the vivarium. Smoothly, it raised without interruption, as if lifted by an invisible hand. The subject's brow cleared and her eyes grew brighter.
"It…it doesn't hurt!" she breathed. Her thin lips twitched as if too frightened to dare a smile and green-gold eyes remained fixed on the stone. As did Mezhan Kwaad's delighted gaze, as did Nen Yim's own wonderment. The Force, demonstrated baldly. The thing many warriors feared and other Shapers jealously sought.
"You are without fear. When you have no fear, pain has no purchase, for the Gods smile on you."
Nen Yim glanced to the spineray's adjustor, seeing that all the settings had been switched off. The 'Gods' indeed did smile, when the organism buried into the meat of the subject's brain was told not to excruciate her when her 'false' memories were accessed.
"If I don't fear…" the subject echoed, a strange look twisting her face. To Nen Yim's left, flashes of light flickered across a facsimile of the subject's brain, rendered by an everted stul-villip. The semi-transparent gelatin wobbled as it matched what the spineray sensed. Neural activity was increasing. Long term memory was stirring.
"She's remembering more," Nen Yim muttered, watching the stul-villip display closely.
Within the vivarium the subject lowered the stone down again and exhaled a shaky breath.
"I did it."
"You did. Wonderful, Riina. Most wonderful." Mezhan stroked the subject's scalp again, then stood. From the corner of her eye, Nen Yim caught the subject's expression as her Master rose to her feet. There was a moment when Mezhan could not see the subject's face. A moment when the Human's eyes flashed with hate, when her lip curled and hands tensed into claws.
Then it was gone again, so fast that Nen Yim might have only imagined it. The subject watched Mezhan open the vivarium membrane and step through, sealing it again behind her with a look that approached loss and loneliness. There were no flickers across the amygdala.
"Ah, my apprentice. Another cycle of Shaping awaits us. Our Holy duties never end."
"Yes, Master," Nen Yim agreed.
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They went from the jungle to sudden cleared spaces. The underbrush and trees simply stopped, truncated sharply as though some enormous gardener had gone along and plucked them up like weeds. Anakin almost stumbled in surprise, but kept up with Vua's steady jog.
"These are the working fields," Vua told him. "Where Shamed and slaves labor." The fields ran far and wide, pushing back the jungle around the tall coral walls of the Vong compound. The damuteks, as Vua called them. Each one was a sort of citadel-town all in one. Again, the world felt upended and wrong. It wasn't just the waist-high grains and other strange plants that threw him off - though they were bizarre to see so rapidly cover what had just been lawns and training spaces when last he'd seen them - but again, the heart-aching gap in the evening sky where the Temple should be.
The setting sun caught along the coral walls, throwing long and dark shadows that stretched out into the fields like fingers. Figures moved in the distance, already clustering around small, domed structures near the damutek. Another distant boom of a bolt shell echoed out behind them. Zal was continuing to make a ruckus and on the horizon, a small, dark shape scooted across the sky, heading out into the jungle.
Vua slowed his pace, until they were walking swiftly through the grain. He peeled open a pouch, rooting around inside it, before producing a small bead of coral.
"Here," the Vong pressed it into Anakin's hand and he studied it. It was pale and looked dry, like a bone that had been left out in the sun. Peering close, the small fleck of coral didn't have the sheen that caught the setting sun like the damutek had. It was a dome about the size of his smallest fingernail with a tiny spike projecting from the flat side. "Place it on your temple."
"Why do you even have a dead slave seed?"
"I have live surge seeds to restrain new slaves. This one has expired. Life ends. You ask pointless questions."
"I'm asking because this is my butt on the line." He turned the seed over in his palm. Memories of the knurled, knobbly growths on the Obroan slaves rose painfully. Vomar, asking to be remembered, before he spent his life against the warriors. He wanted to remind Vua that if this was all an elaborate and deranged trap, that Zal would kill him if Anakin didn't. Distantly, he supposed he should probably have more of a problem with threatening death on people.
It didn't seem that important right now.
He pressed the coral to his forehead. There was a brief prick of pain, like a needle, then a pinch. He tugged at it - it pulled on his skin, already attached.
"So how would I even know if this was alive?"
"It would bore through your skull. The pain would be exquisite."
Anakin shuddered.
"Uh. Sure."
A few figures, far distant, stopped, then began to make their way through the fields toward them.
"I think we've been noticed."
Vua nodded slowly.
"Good. If the coral prickles, pretend pain. If it causes actual pain, pretend to die."
"Wait, it still works?"
"It was not Shaped by children. It retains some function. You will need to know when you are commanded, idiot."
Then Vua slapped him across the face. There was no warning; the Vong simply moved in one fluid motion. Anakin stumbled back, tasting iron in his mouth. His hand went to his belt - where there was no lightsaber. His cheek, numb, flared hot.
"Sithspawn! What the hell was that for!"
Vua glared at him.
"Are you a slave, or a Jeedai? When a slave is struck, he cowers. A Jeedai fights back."
Deep breath in, deep breath out. This was what he'd agreed to. This was the best way to get in to find Tahiri. He needed Vua. Anakin repeated those like a mantra.
"Anything else I should know?" he asked dryly.
"Do not speak back. Avert your eyes. Do as commanded as soon as commanded. You have no name and you are of no importance. Do not be noticed."
"That's great. How are we supposed to meet up again?"
Vua extended a hand high - not quite waving, but clearly signaling. The distant figures began to lope towards them.
"I will seek you out. Now be silent. Look simple. I will say that you are damaged by your implant. These things happen. It will deflect attention further."
When the coming figures were close enough to make out as two warriors and a third Vong wearing a simple loincloth, Vua muttered under his breath something Anakin didn't follow, then shoved him to the ground. Anakin let him, going to his knees, surrounding by rustling, shifting grain. It was just short enough to reach his chin as he knelt, some of it smashed down by their passage. The Vong, when they were close enough, shouted some sort of greeting. Vua responded.
Anakin didn't understand a word of it.
He kept his eyes downcast, but tensed. Vua and the others spoke back and forth, quick sentences bit out in their own tongue. At least the tone was evident. The welcoming party sounded almost bored. Vua had the same sour, sneering tone he always had. The warriors stopped a few strides away and Anakin fought down the spike of adrenaline. He'd never been so close to a warrior before in a situation that wasn't life or death. It felt alien. Wrong, to be so close to the vonduun-clad Vong and their amphistaves and beetles without his lightsaber in hand or a blaster at the ready.
"You! Slave! Stand!"
Anakin scrambled to his feet, trying to look uncoordinated. The two warriors were still speaking with Vua, punctuated by gestures toward the jungle. Their amphistaves remained curled around their exposed biceps - both warriors wore a strange sort of armor that Anakin hadn't seen before. It looked cut down, covering only their torsos to leave arms and legs bare. A dress-down armor, maybe? Some other type? The Vong who addressed him, though, was like those he'd seen fishing. No scars or tattoos to be seen anywhere. He looked frighteningly Human, aside from the eye sacs, elongated head and rangier build.
"This one will oversee your tasking. Follow." The Vong spun on their heel and stalked off. Anakin hesitated - glancing toward Vua, whose attention was entirely on the two warriors he was speaking with.
"Slave!" repeated the unadorned Vong. "Follow!"
One of the warriors laughed as Anakin stumbled forward. Vua said something else and he felt three pairs of eyes watch him.
"Vua Rapuung said you were damaged. Do not delay my tasking, slave, or I will kill you here and now." Anakin kept a step back from the Vong. Should a slave follow behind? Or walk in front? The hells was the etiquette? He chanced a glance back, saw that one of the warriors had decided to continue on toward the edge of the jungle, fingering a now-alert amphistaff. Vua and other still spoke, punctuated with gestures by the former, the latter listening with arms crossed. No violence so far. No alarms. He couldn't imagine the Vong, at any level, being comfortable letting a Jedi walk around like this.
He let himself feel a dash of optimism. Maybe it could work.
"I am Varuud Kwaad. Do not dirty your mouth with my name. I will take you to the executor, who will assign you. Wander away from your tasking again, slave, and you will die. Vua Rapuung said you are of the latest stock. Ignorance is not an excuse. The True Gods demand rightful obedience. Do you understand?"
The coral at his forehead prickled and he saw the Vong, saw 'Varuud Kwaad' fiddle with something in his hand. The prickle was uncomfortable, like a muscle spasm, but it didn't hurt. Anakin let out a groan and trembled, stumbling for a moment until the prickle went away. Varuud seemed satisfied.
The Vong led Anakin right up to the mouth of the damutek. The coral walls, several stories tall, loomed overhead. Some sort of organic membrane bunched up around the rim of the circular opening, like lips peeled back. The sun hung on the edge of the horizon. Bored warriors flanked the entrance as other Workers and slaves filtered through. Varuud led him in. Just like that, Anakin entered the domain of the Shapers.
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Inside, Anakin got a much better understanding of the place in just a few minutes following in Varuud's wake. His skin prickled in such close proximity to so many Vong, but he wasn't the only Human or denizen of the Galaxy around. There were dozens, if not hundreds. All had their eyes downcast and heads bowed and they wore a broad variety of clothing. Scraps of tunics and other normal gear, some in just the simple living loincloths like Varuud wore, others in nearly-pristine jumpsuits like his own. A cross-section of the Galaxy, plucked up, implanted, and enslaved. He could sense them even more clearly now and one and all, there was an ache of hopelessness and sorrow. Some looked dead-eyed, just shifting from task to task, while others seemed more alert. Those buried a glimmer of hope for escape and it was from those that Anakin's thoughts turned over and latched onto another avenue. Like the Obroan slaves, they all had coral to control them, but these slaves had much, much clearer and less staticky, damaged presences in the Force. The coral was smaller and neater too, looking more like a tiny restraining bolt than the more grotesque growths he'd seen in the past.
Vua claimed there wasn't a yammosk, which meant that the coral had to be controlled by hand, probably, maybe by a biot. Varuud had used something to make Anakin's implant react, though he hadn't gotten a clear look. Maybe, like Obroa Skai, he could prompt an uprising? There were definitely a lot of slaves in here, though not enough to outnumber the Vong entirely.
Even as he thought it, the idea made him ill. Vomar and the slaves on Obroa Skai were already dying. That's what the Bimm had used to find the strength. They knew they were going to die, either from overwork, sport, or the imprecise implants in their brains. That was a sacrifice that was their decision to make, to choose to die on their terms and not the Yuuzhan Vong's. Anakin couldn't ask these slaves to fight and die just for him and Tahiri. He couldn't rally them up and sacrifice their lives - he'd be no better than the Vong to just use them and toss them aside. Worse, he couldn't even promise salvation.
The Thunderhawk could fit a dozen, maybe two dozen, but that was it. And no rescue could be bet on to come either.
No. He set it from his thoughts, shaking his head. It would be worth it to talk to some of the other slaves, but unless he could promise them real, actual rescue, it just wouldn't be right to light that hope in them.
The damutek compound was, like they had seen, shaped like a many-rayed star. The outer walls were very thick, thick enough he bet there were passages and chambers inside, and rose at least three stories from the ground. The interior, bounded by the wall, bore an orderly layout of domed buildings that Vua called 'grashals'. Technically, the actual damutek was the tall, plant-like bulb that loomed large in the center of the compound, but the whole structure was usually just referred to by the same name. It was that central living building that housed all the Shapers, housed Tahiri, and was what 'sprouted' like a plant to grow the walls surrounding it, the grashals themselves, and all the rest needed for a working 'town'.
The damutek itself rose half the height of the Great Temple and was nearly as broad at the base. He saw Vong entering and leaving hatches that sighed open and puckered closed. None stayed open for any length of time; security was definitely tight.
And he could feel Tahiri. More nebulous, more distant, but that part of his brain for her knew she was near. Like a compass, dragging his attention again and again toward the hulking damutek and its living walls. She was there. Right there! Right inside!
I'm here, Tahiri. I'm coming for you.
No response, not this time, but he felt a little warmth wash back from her. That alone was enough to almost make him sob in relief. She'd been quiet the past few days. Even a little bit was a splash of water in the desert.
Varuud led him past a few pits dug into the ground and the smell coming from them made him retch. He caught a glimpse in one and wished he hadn't.
Corpses. Disjointed and piled corpses. Insects buzzed.
His coral prickled again and Anakin feigned discomfort.
"Unless you wish to join them, move with purpose," Varuud hissed.
"I obey," Anakin mumbled, trying to match the way Vua spoke. Varuud's eyes narrowed but he nodded, seemingly satisfied.
A grashal beside the damutek was their destination and Varuud came up short before it. He genuflected, bowing low with Anakin following suit just a moment later. There was a warrior guarding the open entrance. Like the other two, he had the same sort of half-crab on. Varuud and the warrior gabbled at one another for a moment, then the warrior nodded sharply and stepped into the grashal. He returned with a tall and spindly looking Vong with a sort of hungry look, clad in a shockingly vibrant robe that dangled with tassels and wrapped around his frame.
"I will speak the infidel tongue, so I will not repeat myself. Slave, your tasking?"
Anakin wet his lips.
"I was with Vua Rapuung, uh, Great One." What had Vua been doing? Fishing. "We were catching fish."
The Vong, the executor, sighed.
"I do not recall such a tasking. But I believe that Vua Rapuung would need assistance even to catch fish. Very well. Slave, you will report to Remog Kwaad. Varuud Kwaad, you will as well. The lambent harvest approaches and it has been generous. More hands are needed."
The Vong sounded bored. Like an overworked supervisor which, Anakin supposed, he actually was. It was frightfully mundane. Even the executor's tattoos and scarifications looked almost pedestrian compared to those of warriors. His face was inked with whorls of acid green and pink, that intertwined and wove into knots and twists. Raised scars formed orderly grids across his cheeks and a few piercings seemed to grow out of his lip and ear. The executor sighed again.
"I suppose Vua Rapuung will be reporting to me as well."
"Yes, Executor," Varuud replied.
"The Gods punish me. Varuud, see to it that the slave is given a tizowyrm."
"At once, Executor."
The executor waved them away, turning on his heel and vanishing back into the grashal.
Tarkin's teeth! Anakin followed Varuud again, but this time had to fight to keep a grin from his face. It was working. It was working.
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Nas Choka prosecuted the Hutts with a dogged persistence that pared away layers of resistance each and every day. Nal Hutta, the Glorious Jewel, had fallen almost immediately. Nar Shadaa, the dark mirror to Coruscant, an insult in every shape to the Yuuzhan Vong, became a training ground for the capital. On every front, the Kajidics were pushed back. The losses were brutal and costly. The Yuuzhan Vong drums of war pounded and pounded loudly.
Now the Hutts had been pushed back into the Bootana, the ancient seat of the species besieged on all sides. Already there had been punctures and sallies into the entrenched sphere of space. Some lesser throneworlds already burned. Their backs to the wall, the Hutts fought with a ferocity and doggedness that would have shocked the rest of the Galaxy, had any news of it been able to leak out through the Yuuzhan Vong blockade.
As Malik Carr did in the North, so did Nas Choka do in the south and east. The Hutts were a lesser concern, a small faction in truth, but they occupied a particular position on the flanks of the advance. Battleplan Coruscant progressed at the Warmaster's tasking. The flanks must be made secure. Malik Carr worked to defang the Exiled Imperium, or at the least, stopper them up. For Nas Choka, there was no expectation to merely blockade the Hutts within their ancient territories. They could, and would, be conquered entirely.
The Supreme Commander played his cards superlatively. Losses had been minimal. The Hutts were decadent and effete, spoiled by their long influence. True war was alien to them. By the time they realized their double- and triple-dealing was over, coral warships already darkened the skies over key worlds.
All Nas Choka needed was time.
The Taldik Suggaja Nebula spanned several lightyears on the edge of the Bootana. A navigational hazard as well as a celestial marvel, the nebula acted as both a natural landmark and a bulwark shielding that section of the Bootana. Rich in xircxonium and cuprine, the Taldik Suggaja was a marble of greens and reds, ranging into pink and brilliant lime. A handful of young stars lived within the nebula, their light creating the iconic inner glow that gave the nebula its name: the Sparkling Eye.
For as long as the Hutts had been spacefaring, the Taldik Suggaja had seen adventurers, trailblazers and prospectors navigate its treacherous gravitational winds and mass-shadow shears. In a few tens of millions of years, most of the matter would accrete and clear the spaceways, but until then, the Taldik Suggaja was not unlike the Deep Core in miniature. Only the Hutts knew the secret ways through the nebula, or the hidden worlds delightfully rich in minerals rained from the gauzy, celestial clouds.
Unfortunately for the Hutts, the finely honed senses of a dovin basal could sniff out and even shape their own passage through treacherous environs. The Taldik Suggaja was breached for the very first time, as Nas Choka sent expeditionary fleets piercing through the shimmering veil to strike the Bootana from unexpected angles.
Within the nebula, washed by its mineral-rich gales, the Supreme Commander found another boon. The hungry living ships of his command, usually succored by feed-stock shipped up from worlds, could extend baleen-filters and graze on the hearty winds of the Taldik Suggaja to restore magma, plasmic reactants and other necessities.
Thus it was that the Horde of Lashing Tentacles Tipped With Endless Blades found respite, sprawling dozens of miid ro'ik, frigate-analogues, battlecruisers and more across thousands of square kilometers. Hungry and tired, the warships drank deep. Warriors unshouldered their burdens and found moments for prayer and reflection. Shapers attended wounds and battle-damage. Yorik coral grew and restored itself, patching wounds.
A quarter of Nas Choka's total forces, under the command of Warleader Lus Choka, rested in the safety of the Taldik Suggaja.
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The slaves, workers, and Shamed Ones lived outside the walls of the damutek compound, of course. Varuud led Anakin back out, whistling and gathering a few other slaves along the way. A Rodian, a Weequay and two Humans. They shambled along next to Anakin, backs bent. He tried not to look at them. He should. He should talk to them, ask them their names, where they were from, if they had family, or younglings.
He couldn't save them. But he was a Jedi. This was what he was for. What he wanted to be; a hero. Jacen tried. Jacen failed. But how could he go and find Tahiri and whisk her away and leave all the rest? She was his friend. His best friend. The other half, the one that made the universe make sense.
Anakin grit his teeth and didn't have to pretend to feel the same hopelessness as the other slaves. None of them spoke.
Varuud led them back out, to the shantytown of tiny, shell-like shelters hugging the walls of the compound. They were all tiny, barely tall enough for a being to stand upright in, and Anakin would bet that trying to lay down and sleep in there would be cramped and uncomfortable.
"Remog Kwaad will summon you at dawn. Sleep." Varuud turned and stalked away. The four other slaves shuffled off, toward random domiciles. Were they assigned? Did he just choose whichever?
"Excuse me," Anakin muttered to the Weequay, who was still closest. "Which one should I use?"
The Weequay, whose craggy features only served the exaggerate the stress lines on his face, shrugged.
"The sithspawned scarheads don't care. So we don't either. They don't even care if we run off. Jungle'll kill us, if the warriors don't for sport." He shook his head. "At least here there's a roof over our heads, and some kind of food."
The Weequay turned away, but Anakin called after him.
"I'm Bail Lars. What's your name?"
He didn't turn back.
"Slave," he said.
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Ralroost was first from hyperspace. The Bothan Assault Cruiser, a slate-grey, blocky vessel that oozed warlike intent, was, for a long moment, all alone. Sniffers and observers sounded alarms. Blaze-bugs fell out of nesting alcoves, fluttering across command grottos to form the new contact. The Yuuzhan Vong fleet woke slowly, surprise rippling across shipmasters and commanders. Warleader Lus Choka stared, slack-jawed, at the arrival.
Then came Waste Not, then Judiciar, then Sunrise over Belderone, then Mhshtfl and Abraxes Ultimate and another and another, more and more. Entire squadrons of capital ships, stacks of escorts, wings of starfighters. First Battlegroup poured out of hyperspace from Coreward, spilling out of hidden ways known only to the privileged of the Kajidics.
Aboard Ralroost, Admiral Kre'fey, nonchalant, buffed his nails against his flightsuit and observed a sprawling field of false asteroids.
"First Battlegroup, target designations incoming. Focus fire, cover your partners. We've trained for this. We're ready for this. Let's kick them out of our galaxy."
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Thumps of too-close magma missile detonations shook the Roost. They barely registered in Jaina's awareness as she leaned forward, hands planted on the table-sized holocaster. The display was enormous and the detail exacting; only the best for the flagship's strategic amphitheater. Desks and workstations climbed up in three tiers toward the domed ceiling. The lights were cast low, bringing out the detail in the holocaster even further. Captain Winger paced, eyes flicking back and forth, while Kenth Hamner sat at the base of one of the three stairways that gave access to the tiers.
Tiny icons of friendly and hostile starships coasted through the air. They shaded through colors, indicating battle-damage and morale. So far, First Battlegroup was tearing into the Vong armada. They'd caught them refueling and rearming, just like the intelligence indicated. Elements of First Fleet moved in hunter-killer packs. Centered on a trio of cruisers, they ganged up on sluggish miid ro-iks that struggled to respond. Coralskippers dumped into space formed into hasty pairs and squadrons, but were hounded by the fighter wings led by Rogue Squadron.
Quiet chatter filled the auditorium, tuned just low enough to make out the active comms of the battlespace.
They were hunting yammosks.
According to her Uncle, the way he had caught the one on Obroa-skai was to Gammorean-back along the link they held to slaves until he found the monster itself. He'd said that the sense was diffuse and vague and took almost all his focus and effort to pin down. Anakin, by contrast, had simply melded with Luke and then did whatever he did to kill the thing.
They'd tried to sense slaves aboard the Vong ships as soon as they exited hyperspace, to no avail. That was expected, though. There'd never been indications that the Vong employed them in that way. The next option was to try to sense the chazrach, except that with how stifled the reptoids were and how much the battlespace was filled with emotions running hot and hard, that was probably a fool's gamble too.
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That left what they'd expected in the first place. Watch the movements of the Vong fleet and try to narrow down where the yammosk might be. The hunter-killer packs were to help with that. Yammosks were a precious resource and the Vong guarded them to the death. The idea, Colonel Hamner said, was that NRI figured if one was threatened enough, the Vong might act out of the ordinary to defend it. So they would apply pressure across the Vong fleet, digging into the orderly anchorage of rocky starships and see where the scarheads flinched.
Except, they weren't. The hologram Jaina studied showed something she hadn't seen before.
The Yuuzhan Vong were in disarray. Coralskippers formed motley little groups, but none of that uncanny swirling coordination shone through. Cruiser analogues fought alone, like duellists, instead of as a united front like they always did. She watched as Imprecator, an old Star Destroyer, managed to cut a frigate analogue off from its fellows. It died alone, almost flailing out in vain confusion.
It wasn't a small armada. First Battlegroup basically matched the tonnage, which on any other day, would have been a rout for the Navy. You didn't match the Yuuzhan Vong's strength, you had to come down hard with a hammerblow three to four times as heavy as the fleet you faced. But now capital ships exchanged fire with miid ro'ik cruisers and while she saw slashes of red and yellow that indicated shields were down and armor was taking plasma, they weren't being mauled.
The Vong couldn't have been that caught off guard, could they? Sure, they were refueling and didn't expect to get jumped in a place where supposedly only the Hutts could go, but to be this confused?
"There's no yammosk," Winger said first, voicing Jaina's deepening suspicion. "Jaina, you know what I'm seeing. Colonel, there's no 'spool up' time for a yammosk. The krakana are either awake and giving you absolute hell, or they aren't there. There's no reason for them to be taking these kinds of losses." Winger gestured and the hologram zoomed in to a bundle of icons that made Jaina's heart beat faster. The Rogues.
Colonel Darklighter, with Major Forge on his wing, ripped through a cloud of coralskippers that barely seemed to register them. The other Rogues were dancing and reaping an incredible toll.
That could be me. I could be matching Colonel Fel's count.
The 'skips should swirl like hiving insects and gut the daring Rogues for being so overextended. Instead, they died. Over and over.
"Look at that. Colonel, there's no yammosk."
It wasn't all a rout. Cruiser analogues were forming up on battlecruisers, forming pockets of resistance that beat back hunter-killer packs and left not a few cap ships burning in space. A flight of B-Wings was jumped and barely managed to escape the mauling, limping back to cover of friendly Lancer cruisers at barely half strength.
Ralroost's hangar was about six minutes away, through the main turbolift…
Colonel Hamner pinched at his lip, frowning.
"This makes no sense. Even if they thought they were safe, we've never seen a Vong fleet without one. And with this many ships doing resupply, they would be crazy not to have coordination."
"Maybe it's holding back?"
"Why? We're hitting them hard, but this is far from a done-deal. It would tip the scales back in their favor, easy."
Jaina blocked out the other two Jedi's debate, taking a deep breath and focusing. Tactics and strategy weren't her thing, but after flying with the Rogues in the biggest war the Galaxy had seen in generations, one tended to pick up a thing or two. Major Varth had made noises about sending Jaina to an accelerator officer candidacy program - ignoring that she was an officer, technically - but the demands of the war had nixed that until she'd been spaced.
There was a lot here that was new. They'd never seen Yuuzhan Vong ships at anchor like this before. They'd never seen how they resupplied; NRI would be scouring nebulas now. Maybe this was normal? Maybe yammosks had to be 'taken offline' like a normal computer to recharge and rest. They were alive, after all. Maybe they had to sleep? Maybe they'd caught one while it was still snoozing off the last clash with the Hutts, and now the Vong were scrambling to adapt without it.
"We can't give up," she said suddenly. Hamner and Winger both quieted and looked her way. "There has to be one here. I think we should go ahead with the meld and look for it anyway."
There were mats set aside, comfortable and ready for three Jedi to meditate on. It was too late to launch and chase the Rogues anyway. Damn it all, but Jaina would do something. The three Jedi sunk down, cross-legged. Jaina had the experience. She reached out, careful, touching on the Colonel's orderly, lockbox mind. Captain Winger was like a filing cabinet stuffed full. Orderly on the outside, disarray inside. The Force rallied to Jaina, and the three opened eyes that didn't see the auditorium around them.
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Grab. Wiggle. Pull. Repeat.
What constituted weeds and what did not was beyond him. All the plants were strange, even the ones that supervising Workers directed him and the other work cadre to winnow out. The 'produce' itself were tall and richly green stalks, heavy with thick, velvet-skinned bulbs that dangled heavily from beneath thick, frond-like leaves. They had strict instructions not to jostle the fruits. One slave who had clumsily bumped one and knocked it loose had writhed and shrieked on the ground for almost a minute, chastised by the nearest Worker.
He'd tried to soothe their pain, at least a little. At least he got a look at the palm-sized control biot the Worker held. She'd pointed it at the slave and fiddled with it. A living equivalent of a restraining bolt remote. That it was being used on a sapient being turned his stomach.
Grab. Wiggle. Pull. Repeat.
Vua had found him in the dead of night. Anakin had found one of the little shell houses that had only two other occupants jammed in. They hadn't spoken, just made a little room for him, and he hadn't wanted to break that silence. The guilt tugged at him. He should've talked to them. Reassured them. Something.
He'd called out Vua, after the Vong pulled him out by the arm, barking nonsense commands. The tizowyrm in Anakin's ear translated, the disgusting fleshy worm vibrating against his eardrum to create the right sounds in Basic.
"Vua Rapuung. You're a Shamed One."
Of course, Vua had slapped him again. Anakin didn't know if there were eyes watching, so he took the blow and stumbled.
Shamed Ones, as it turned out - because there were more than a few sleeping in amongst the slaves - were Yuuzhan Vong like Vua. Well, not insane, bloodthirsty and crude, though he couldn't entirely be sure of that, but rather, ones who had that same sickly, rotting look that Vua did. Their implants were festering and oozing and their tattoos were scabbed up and infected. Varuud had turned his head and spat when they passed one on the way to meet their 'supervisor'.
"With every breath you insult. Is this is a skill of the Jeedai, or are you unique?"
"Hit me again and you'll regret it," Anakin said softly.
"Then hold your tongue and I will not need to!"
They'd argued, back and forth, until Vua finally relented and explained just what a Shamed One was.
They were exactly as the title implied.
Their implants that marked ascension failed. Their tattoos didn't take. Their body healed scars poorly. They were seen as cursed by the Gods, rejected by all the rites the Vong held sacred. They were lowest of the low, spurned and sneered at by every single other caste, even the Workers. Only slaves and infidel were lower. Even chazrach might attain higher rank.
Vua was tightlipped about anything beyond that. Anakin wasn't stupid. A Vong like him, a clearly capable warrior, now Shamed? It didn't take a genius to figure out just what the 'revenge' he was obsessed with was. It actually settled his trust in the Vong, finally. Sure, he'd proven himself in protecting Anakin after he'd been shot, he hadn't stuck a living slave-seed on him and he'd gotten him into the compound, but there was still that nagging worry that he might just flip on them.
But if being Shamed was as distasteful and cursed as Vua made it out to be? Well, it definitely meant that hand-delivering a Jedi wouldn't be enough to wipe that out, otherwise he was sure Vua would have handed Anakin over, gift-wrapped. So he could trust in Vua's hatred.
Groaning, pausing just a moment to stretch and roll his shoulders, Anakin shifted onto the next row of plants, reaching for another weed with dirty, scratched fingers.
"Tonight I will surveil," Vua promised. "The idiots are lax. They do not fear Jeedai. They say they are driving them deep into the jungle. They say they hunt the Aistarteez."
"Tonight? Then tomorrow we get Tahiri?"
"Perhaps."
Enough was enough. He met Vua's dark, hooded eyes and didn't look away. In the red yavinlight, the Vong looked like a monster out of myth.
"No. Tomorrow. Whether you're ready or not."
Vua hissed through teeth.
"Very well. We die gloriously, if that is your wish."
At least the Shamed One hadn't been wasting time. He'd checked the damutek, and found he still had access to it. He had been granted it to take out the trawler-beast that they had found him on and no one had seen fit to revoke it. With passion in his eyes, he relayed a new idea to Anakin. With his access, he could convince one of the damutek roots to relax its filtration membranes. At Anakin's confusion, he explained.
The damutek had roots that dug deep into Yavin, but it had others that ran like arteries to the river, which dumped out waste-water from the damutek. Normally, porous membranes kept out any local fauna that might want to swim up the current. If they were opened, then a being that could breathe underwater…or perhaps hold their breath for a protracted time…could make their way up the root.
To emerge, Vua said with relish, from the succession pool in the center of the damutek itself.
He'd laughed. The mental image it gave Anakin was sublime. Zal, in his scout-armor, bolter and sword in hand, bursting out of what was supposed to be a calm, quiet pool right in the middle of whatever Shapers and Workers were there.
So it would be today. One way or another, Tahiri would be free. She'd be safe. And every single Vong that hurt her would pay for it.
Anakin yanked more weeds and let that thought keep him going.
----------------------------------------
The subject had been quiescent for several days. She spoke when spoken to, but otherwise sat listless and empty-eyed, staring off into space at something no one else could see. She did not rage or spit insults.
"We are breaking through," her Master assured Nen Yim.
They had to employ the spineray only occasionally. Selectively, now, they could censor particular memories that the subject tried to access. They selected for those that activated the reward circuit, that released bonding hormones. These would be the memories of those she was most friendly with. The conditioning was easy: override the positive recollections with pain, skewing the subject further and further away from her old life with each memory.
Other memories, which the subject drew on when they asked her to demonstrate the Force, were allowed to be pain-free. It was the teachings of the Jeedai that they wished to preserve. More ideally, they would remove all unwanted memories and personality entirely, leaving at truly blank slate, but even in the perfectly understood psyche of the Chosen People, such a thing was fraught with hazards at best.
In a Human, only newly mapped, it was much more likely to kill the subject.
Midday slipped past, sacs of sweet broth brought by workers to sate their appetites. Mezhan Kwaad brought one in to the subject and both Master and Adept watched with pride as the subject reflexively knew how to coax the sac to release its contents. The subject sipped without disgust, when only a week previous, she had railed and screamed and hurled a similar offering to splatter against the vivarium membrane.
"The procedural memories adhered most easily," Mezhan commented as they enjoyed their meal. "I believe that with further Shapings, that it would be most ideal to implant the procedural first, then episodic."
"It is a useful substrate," Nen Yim agreed. "It helps to convince the subject of our truth."
"Quite so. If she was not always of the Chosen People, then how else would she know so easily to speak our tongue, to use our blessed creations?" It was a rhetorical question, and Nen Yim did not answer. To her surprise, Mezhan set her meal aside and produced a small, slender spur. Its like were used as simple tools for cutting and other menial labor. The biot took the shape of a long talon, anchored by a toothed band at the base. Even slaves could use such a thing, and often did.
"Riina," Mezhan called, stepping up the the vivarium membrane. It flicked aside and the subject raised her eyes, still sipping at her broth.
"Master Mezhan," she said. Nen Yim could still not quite tell the tone when the subject spoke. Sometimes she heard tones of disrespect, sometimes she spoke flatly and without inflection, yet sometimes there was something there akin to love.
"Do you know what this is?" She knelt beside the subject, holding out the talon. Gingerly, the subject took it with her free hand, turning it this way and that.
"It is a hook-spur. It is used in harvesting of fruits and in tasks that require cutting."
"Good, Riina. This is a special hook-spur. Most are bred to never harm one of us. Slaves cannot turn them against their masters. But this one is most ferocious." Mezhan took it back, and pricked her finger with it. Black blood shone. "You try."
She handed it back and the subject did the same. Red blood beaded.
A complex emotion rippled across the subject's face. Her lips twisted, her nose wrinkled, her eyes narrowed. Then she relaxed. Mezhan tapped at her own forehead. There, three scars, parallel, rose from her brow.
"We in Domain Kwaad bear this mark. When the Jeedai stole you away, they ruined the body the Gods gave you. They took from you the mark of your Domain." Mezhan guided the subjects hands, gently putting the sac of broth aside. She slid the hook-talon onto one finger, where the toothed band tightened. The talon stood out proud and sharp.
"Mark yourself again, child. Remember more who you are."
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"The task is simple. With the talon, you pierce the husk, like so."
As Yavin's primary reached the apex of the sky, a Shamed One found Anakin where he sweated away among the rows of produce. Uunu, she introduced herself as, even asked him his name. Where her arms and legs were bare, exposed by her robe-skin, he didn't see a single mark or failed implant. She led him back to the front of the field, far back to where he had started earlier. There, she produced a small, blade-like biot and handed it to him, explaining its function.
She was a lambent-harvester, and she had a quota to make.
And so, just like that, she simply selected a slave and tasked him along.
Uunu took one of the round, velvet-skinned fruits in her hand and gently, slowly rubbed the velvet petals off. She seemed distracted as she did so, her fingers working carefully. With the petal stripped away, a thick, rough husk was revealed, which she jabbed with the talon anchored to her thumb. It pierced in, then she sawed it, splitting the husk until a round crystal roughly the size of a small datacube popped out, coated with a milky, sticky sap. Incredibly, Anakin could hear the thing. A quiet, gentle peeping that took him a moment to realize he wasn't hearing with his ears, but rather in his head. It wasn't the Force, it didn't have the crisp clarity. It was something more like through an old and distant comlink.
"I will prepare the lambents. You will follow behind and remove them from their husks." He had a living bag, which had wrapped tendrils around his waist and now, unsettlingly, kept twitching where it rested against his thigh. She dropped the one she had plucked into the bag, where its 'voice' diminished somewhat.
It was rote, but it was far better than weeding. Uunu stayed a plant or two ahead of him, methodically and gently preparing each lambent fruit. Anakin split each one, carefully sawing the husks in two, then catching the crystal and dropping it into his bag. A breeze worked through the field as they worked, leaves slipping and sliding against each other with a sound like whispers.
"What are they?" he finally asked, after some time.
"I said. They are lambents." she brushed petals from another, then peered at him over her shoulder. Suspicion clouded her face. "Why do you ask, Bail Lars?"
He wasn't sure. Maybe it was the silence all day, maybe it was the increasing agitation growing in the back of his mind. Maybe it was that Uunu had actually asked his name. Maybe it was because with each that Uunu prepared, the quiet little peeping grew a little louder as his bag grew heavier.
"I've never seen them before."
"Of course not. You are an infidel. When would you?"
He shrugged. Uunu continued to work.
"I have not spoken with an infidel before," she continued.
"There's a lot of us around here," Anakin retorted.
"Do not be impertinent. My tasks have never brought me near slaves."
"Well, I guess there's a first time."
Another few minutes passed.
"Lambents are used for controlling superorganisms. Like those of the spacegoing sort. Or as light sources."
He started, not expecting her to speak again.
"Oh. But why can I hear them?"
Uunu scoffed.
"I said they are used for control. How can they function if a pilot cannot make his will known?"
So it wasn't just Anakin. And it definitely wasn't the Force. He peeled back the husks of a few more, enough lambents now in his bag to clatter. They also didn't just make noise when Uunu prepared them; he slowly realized the entire field was whispering quietly. It clicked; he'd been hearing it all day, but had dismissed it as the wind, or something like it. It was so quiet, just on the edge of his senses. Those that Uunu prepared, they grew more distinct, but somehow more distant at the same time.
It reminded him of nothing else but the sense of the yammosk. That strange other, that tickled and poked at his brain. Uncle Luke had to pin down the war coordinator through the chazrach and the slaves, but these things, Anakin could hear them immediately. Was Uunu attuning to them, somehow? Making them more sensitive to Yuuzhan Vong, and not so much Humans or other beings? They might even be a relative of the yammosk.
The thought struck him. Could he attune to one? Uunu was just gently peeling away the petals, but that seemed like it was all it took.
The connections unfurled in his head. These lambent, they helped control ships. They did it with telepathy, with the Yuuzhan Vong who piloted them. But if Anakin could hear the lambents, but the lambents could also hear the Yuuzhan Vong.
Excitement bubbled up in his stomach. Uunu caught him grinning.
"What?" she asked, suspicious.
"Nothing, it's just…they're kind of fascinating."
She still looked suspicious, narrowing her eyes.
"Yes. Well. The gifts of the Gods are miraculous."
After that, Uunu grew more and more talkative. A talkative Yuuzhan Vong. Yavin attracted all sorts, he supposed. She asked him where he came from; he spun up a tale about being part of a freighter crew that was taken in space. He told her about Coruscant and Corellia, where he was from, and she was almost morbidly fascinated by the idea of an entire world encased in technology. Disgusted, but fascinated. In return, she told him about worldships, which carried the Yuuzhan Vong between galaxies. They worked as they talked, and he was surprised when they finished the first entire row. His bag was heavy, clattering with lambents.
Uunu took it, placing it aside as it shut its own mouth tight. Handed him another. They continued.
"You know," Anakin said, in a lull. "There are a lot of uninhabited worlds out there. The New Republic would've given them to you."
"Why would we take them? The Gods decreed this galaxy would be ours. Why should we tolerate abominations in our home?"
"How do you know the Gods made this promise?"
She laughed - the first time he'd heard a Yuuzhan Vong laugh with humor and not murderous intent.
It was very strange.
"You are truly an infidel. Be careful who you wag that loose tongue around, or one less forgiving might take it." But her chiding was light. "The signs were many. The worldships began to die and there was much unrest among the Domains. Then, Lord Shimrra had a great vision. He saw a galaxy corrupted by heresy and infested by heathens, and he saw a great cleansing. The Priests were convinced, and in time the Warriors, then the Shapers, and in time all came to understand His great vision."
He tucked that name away for later.
"So it was a vision."
"So the Gods communicate," Uunu said gravely and made a gesture he didn't catch.
"What about the Shamed Ones? Like you?"
"And Vua Rapuung? Yes, Bail Lars, I heard who returned with you. I would not listen to him. He is quite mad." Uunu paused, rocking back on her haunches to watch him as he worked through lambents, a few stalks behind her own progress. "Our Goddess, Yun-Shuno, has promised us great redemption here. What shape it takes, I do not know, but it is whispered and it is known."
He pried another few crystals out, then paused too to stretch and flick accumulated sap from his fingers and the claw.
"What happens when you aren't Shamed?"
Uunu set her shoulders back with pride.
"My body will take implants again and I will no longer be casteless." She eyed him carefully. "Bail Lars, are you a Jeedai?"
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The subject eyed the hook-spur. Her gaze flicked from the biot to Mezhan Kwaad's marks and back again.
"It will hurt," she said.
"Pain is instructive. It will be the clean pain of cutting away the fake life the Jeedai enforced on you." The Master Shaper took the subject's wrist gently, raising the hook-spur up until the tip pressed against the smooth skin of the subject's forehead. "Come back to us, little Riina."
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Anakin coughed, fumbling the lambent he'd just plucked from its husk. It dropped to the dirt between his feet.
"What?"
"Are you Jeedai? The question is simple."
"Why would you ask that? And if I was a Jedi, why would I be a captive?"
Uunu studied him. Her eyes were very blue, but a deeper, more oceanic blue than his own ice. Wind tousled her black hair, pulled back into a long tail.
"There is a Jeedai captive in the damutek-" Anakin's heart skipped a beat "-and there are Jeedai loose in the jungle. You returned with Vua Rapuung last evening. There are some mutterings."
"Yeah, but the jungle isn't here," he retorted.
"No. But you are a strange sort of slave. You speak back and you are too unbent."
Uunu wasn't a warrior, and the others in the field were quite far away. The lambent plants came up to around shoulder height, each row thick enough to block sight. Squatting as they were, no one could see them. He didn't want to hurt her - she'd treated him like an actual person. She was friendly, almost friendly enough to forget what she was. But he couldn't be captured. His cover couldn't be blown.
He noticed the set to her mouth. The way her gaze flicked away.
"You wanted me to be a Jedi," Anakin realized. "You're disappointed I'm not."
"If you were Jeedai, you would have attacked me by now. You would have attacked last night. It as they say." She rose back to her feet, reaching for another lambent. Break time was over. Anakin grabbed another fruit, splitting it. "I would like to meet a Jeedai. The Warriors fear them and the Shapers squabble over them. I think if I were to find a Jeedai, perhaps Yun-Shuno might be moved to intercede on my behalf."
He thanked the Force that Vua didn't agree with that idea.
"So it's only this Yun-Shuno who can redeem you?"
"I have said so. Who else? Ah. You were with Vua Rapuung. I imagine he filled your ears with many things."
"I don't think he accepts that he's a Shamed One. He never admitted it to me."
Uunu shook her head.
"He is mad, as I have said. He blames not the Gods, but one of the Shapers. He tells all who will listen."
Click, click. More things slotted into place.
"A Shaper," he said, hoping to draw out more.
"Once he was a great warrior and Commander among his caste. Now he is no one and he is Shamed." Uunu shrugged. "He could not bear the dishonor, so he invents lies. He is not the only one to do so."
"But you don't."
Uunu hissed, the first real anger she'd shown.
"I was born Shamed. The Gods made me this way, so the Gods must want for me to endure this disgrace. Thus; only the Gods can set me free. Enough. We have much more to do."
He chewed on that for a while, while Uunu grew quiet.
Nothing was simple with the Yuuzhan Vong. When he thought he began to understand them, they upended his ideas. Vua led him down one path of understanding, but now Uunu, in a few short hours, pulled him onto another. He could imagine sitting down at a cafe on Coruscant with her and discussing the philosophy of Jedi compared to her Gods. She was reasonable and well-spoken. How many Vong were like her? How many just accepted their lot in life and went with it, because the Gods said so?
"We make good time," Uunu said. "Your work is decent, for an infidel. I will meet my quota."
Anakin opened his mouth to reply when pain lanced through his skull. He gasped and fell to his knees, clutching at his forehead which surely had to be ripped open. It was the coral, it had to be - Vua said the pain would be unbearable; the Vong betrayed him, he sold him out and now Anakin would be captured - blood trickled hot and thick and he smelled it, hot and iron in his nose. Uunu called out a name that wasn't his and Anakin doubled over.
His hands didn't touch any blood. The coral moved with his skin as he moaned and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.
It wasn't that. He'd been slashed from hairline to the bridge of his nose - but he hadn't. Uunu's hands grasped under his arms, tugging him upright. Woozy, he stumbled.
No. Not his head.
Tahiri's.
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The subject trembled, crimson blood flowing free and fast. Scalp wounds bled most fiercely and she had been unerring in the first cut. The hook-spur dug deep, clean to the bone. Mezhan Kwaad leant forward, avarice in her eyes.
"The first mark is for Domain," she said. "Now the next."
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Uunu, finding that his legs wouldn't support him, eased him down to the dirt. He barely paid attention. His vision swam - the hook on his thumb overlaid with another, dripping blood. His forehead throbbed and he wanted to spit the taste of blood out of his mouth.
Help me.
Tahiri burst out of the corner of his mind, the place she had curled up and away into. She was here, now, so close he could smell her hair, so near that her hand was his hand, her delicate fingers overlapping his own stronger ones. His sense of self shifted, tilted - he knelt on hard carapace; he laid in loamy soil. An unknown face, marked with so much ink that barely any bare skin could be discerned, leaned close. Uunu, looking almost human, made motions with her mouth that probably meant she was speaking.
He was sweating from the sun; he was sweating from the pain. The air was crisp and filtered; it was humid and thick.
Anakin - I can't - please
He held her. I'm here.
Uunu restrained his arm when he tried to raise it. He raised/didn't raise his hand. The hook crept closer/was held back. The point touched his skin/went flaccid as Uunu clamped her hand over it.
Her horror was palpable. Tangible. Her body acted without her guidance. She watched, from behind eyes that weren't quite hers. Some other girl pressed the tip of the spur until it punched through her flesh, drug it down. Made a second gash as deep and raw as the first.
Anakin ate her pain. She bled and he took it, he pulled it in and felt it for her.
In the dirt, he writhed and twitched. Tahiri raised her talon for the third cut. He knew there would be third. He didn't know how he knew.
Anakin watched with Tahiri as she mutilated herself. He felt her pain and shouldered it, he bore it with her, and diminished it with his sharing.
I'm dying
No. She wasn't.
No.
The Vong watching Tahiri said words in their tongue and the meaning echoed for Anakin. It was alien and it was familiar. It was incomprehensible and he understood it, because Tahiri did.
The Vong said: "I'm proud."
Tahiri felt a blush of pride and screamed her horror, clawing against the walls of her mind.
Then she threw him out.