XV: A Friend
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There was a particular irony to how Zalthis criss-crossed the jungle around what had once been the Jedi Praxeum. But only a couple weeks previous, he had done so in the grips of the mightiest storm he had ever seen, flanked by his brothers and aided by the Jedi Masters. He had seen through eyes not his own, heard through ears he did not have, and felt the adrenaline of battle and the buried delight in the duel through the skillful machinations of the Jedi meld. Even with his gene-gifted memory, he could only amuse himself by imagining that he recognized that fallen tree, or that cluster of mossy stones, or that trickle of a creek. Perhaps that splintered bole had been one broken by a bolt fired by Captain Thiel, or from Brother Varien. Was that mud-filled crater a result of Lexicanium Alebmos' unleashed warp-craft?
Perhaps that clearing he passed through, loping low, was where he had saved the life of the Jedi Master Ikrit, for a time.
The Yuuzhan Vong hunted him, but they were fewer now, and the sons of Corax did not own entirely the craft of stealth. He may not live up to the rumors and tales of the black-clad infiltrators, but hard training on Parmenio inculcated tactics and training for every situation where survival was paramount.
A sharp crack echoed from behind him, perhaps a hundred meters. A broken open bolt shell, a thin, papery fuse leading to the spilled grains. That was a trick he had learned from Isidiran.
The delta-shaped flyers, that the Vong called 'tsik-vai' kept out of sight, sowing more of those netting bugs the Vong had also warned about. He'd had a chance to glimpse them, once, as he drew back and further away from the Yuuzhan Vong compound. True to the Vong's description, they wove web back and forth, from bough to branch, from the canopy to the ground. Indeed, from a higher vantage point on a humped hillock, Zalthis had seen an unnatural stillness cutting through the jungle in a sharp line, working towards him.
Still he imagined the Yuuzhan Vong were expecting him to flee further - and he was pleased to upend their assumptions.
Anakin would need him, soon enough. When that moment came, Zalthis would be ready. Close by, blade and bolter prepared. He'd given his word. His word was his bond, else he might as well scratch the Ultima from his plastron.
Through the night he kept in motion, after Anakin and the Vong had gone on ahead. He lurked through shadows, darted from cover to cover. He set pitfalls when able, strung a krak grenade here, there. If a Vong warrior died in a trap here in the jungle, it was one fewer when the time came to spring Anakin's young friend. He judged no ammunition nor material expended now a waste.
Dawn's light crept across the moon. He wondered if the enemy slept. Perhaps they rotated patrols. He'd not seen any, not since the brief scuffle wherein the Vong had, to his begrudging acceptance, proven himself less likely to betray them. A few sharp detonations punctuated the night and he imagined further warriors added to his toll.
Anakin would not wait long, once inside the compound. They had hoped to begin the jailbreak on the next day - which would be this new one, freshly dawned. When was unsure. Evening, or night would be preferable. The Vong claimed that there would be few, if any, impediments to getting Anakin and himself into the 'damutek'. It would only be a question of when they could believably invent a task for them within the Vong construct. It beggared belief that it might be so simple. He recoiled at the idea of so lax a system of security. Even a simple Legion outpost would require triplicate verifications, through ident-tag, gene-sample and vox-thief comparison.
Reaching the bank of the Unnh River, Zalthis paused in a particularly dense cluster of undergrowth, ignoring the rasp of ferns against his greaves and the scratch of thorns at his fatigues. The wide, lazy river ran right to the very edge of the Yuuzhan Vong compound. Indeed, the 'damutek', the central, grandest structure, which had supplanted the Jedi Temple, reached the waters themselves.
Close as he was now, peering downriver, the damutek was even larger than when spied from afar. The living construct reminded him of a water-lily, or a similar sort of flower. He could imagine it as a bulb, descending from orbit to plant itself in the skin of a world. Then, the bulb would open, revealing the thick, towering petals that he studied even now, unfurled to bare inner precincts and courtyards to the sky. The Vong claimed that those 'petals' housed chambers and internal spaces and from the thickness and size of them, he judged the Vong's claims to be true.
Making up his mind, Zalthis slipped from cover, entering the waters of the Unnh with barely a ripple. Between the weight of his enhanced physiology and his stripped down scout plate, he merely strode deeper, and deeper, until the waters lapped at his chin. He inhaled a long breath, inflating his tertiary lung, and continued.
Perhaps the petals of the damutek could be shuttered again, should attacks from orbit or air come. They might provide a measure of protection - or maybe serve to entrap infiltrators. There was a species of plant Sol had related to him, which lived in the humid environs of his family's farm. It spread wide, garish petals, beckoning in pollinating insects. Yet no nectar awaited - only the sudden snap of motile sepals as the flower swallowed its prey.
He put the thought from his mind. He bounded further into the river, making for the center, the deepest depths where his scent would be lost and all trackers likely confounded. Heat sensors would be led astray by the cool waters, motion tracks would be fouled by the currents. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, he moved through silty, gloomy waters following only the mental map he seared into his memory.
And waited, waited for that subtle tug on his mind.
Zalthis might even admit he was eager.
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Nen Yim busied herself with cleansing the vivarium. A slug-like ngdin wormed across the glossy floor of the space, eager cilia waving about the edges of the palm sized creature. It worked along the smear of dark crimson blood left by the subject, leaving only clean nacre behind. Her Master still knelt beside the subject, speaking in low tones. She stroked the scalp of the subject, gently running the thumb of her Shaper's hand through the smeared blood across her forehead. Where Mezhan Kwaad's thumb brushed over the raw edges of the ritual cuts, the subject's slight frame trembled, but no sound escaped her lips. Her eyes were wide, gold-green shining from a mask of still-wet blood.
The spineray required attention and Nen Yim knelt behind the subject, stroking along the interface tendrils of the biot. Her hand tasted the connections, finding them clean of spinal fluid, of rot, of effluvia. The thin slime layer of the 'ray remained sterile, the subject's body tamed and unrejecting of the invader. No immune response, even now, proving all the more correct the modifications to the protocol her Master proposed. Where the spineray's long tail linked into the bond-orifice of the vivarium, she cleaned out some shed scale and skin, applying gentle unguents to encourage regeneration of the neural socket.
The tasks of an Adept were not merely assistance of their Master in Shapings, but also in maintenance and husbandry of the myriad life-forms within the Master's Shaping grotto. The implanter-beasts and ngdin herds needed feed and removal of frass. Water must be checked for proper levels of salts, nutrients and minerals.
In many ways, Nen Yim did duties no different than before her ascension, sped along of course by the blessing of her hand. Now, instead of requiring a stol'an sampler to taste waters for her, she could trail her smallest digit through the circulating pool in the grotto and feel the bloom in her mind as exact parts-per-million of each discrete chemical washed through her senses. She could taste the neutral flavor of balanced mineral gradients and the slightly sweet tinge of dissolved calcium and fixed magnesium.
Engrossed as she was, bending over the squirming colony of ngdin in their niche, she almost missed the quiet stride of a warrior. Her Master did not.
Mezhan pulled away from the subject, rising swiftly to her full height, a glower turning her fair features dark.
"You are within the sanctuary of the Shapers, warrior. Tell my why I should not take this as an insult."
The warrior genuflected on one knee, offering surprising obeisance for one of another caste.
"I do as tasked, Lady Shaper. Commander Harmae bids me deliver warning; Aistarteez and Jeedai make trouble in the jungle beyond. A patrol was slain to the last and even now our tsik-vai hound them. The Commander worries for your safety, and the safety of your most holy project. He asks that you remain within the damutek until the danger has passed."
The warrior, a young male, kept eyes downcast, not daring to look upon a Master Shaper within her own laboratory. He was of low rank, Nen Yim noticed, glancing at the smooth skin of his arms and the few tattoos that worked about his cheeks and neck. Only a handful of cross-hatched scars roughened his skin, and his vonduun had telltale signs of being newly molted.
"I have little desire to step foot from my damutek as it is," Mezhan drawled. "But consider the warning heard and understood." The Master hummed, then stepped from the vivarium, flicking the membrane shut behind her. The subject stayed motionless, head drooped and blood slowly drip-drip-dripping for the gleefull ngdin to chase. "My counterpart, Master Qesud, wishes for the Astartes to be brought to her alive. I should like for the Jedi as well. Relay this to Commander Harmae. He may maim the Jedi, but I wish for them to still draw breath." Over her shoulder, Mezhan eyed the subject. "I have a new test in mind for Riina."
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If Tahiri had drawn down their connection over time until it was like a cracked door, then the empty thunderclap inside his skull was as if she had slammed that door shut entirely. In the span of a breath, Anakin went from writhing in pain and clutching at his forehead to panting, sweaty in the dirt, and achingly alone. Tahiri? Tahiri?
Tahiri?
She was gone.
Not dead. Never dead - he was sure the Force would scream that loss to him, just as it did in his worst nightmares, but gone. Her warm presence, the little flickering candle in his mind, snuffed out. She'd shut it entirely. Blocked him out.
"No - Tahiri!" he cried out, barely noticing Uunu pawing at him, trying to roll him on his side. The borrowed tizowrym buzzed, feeding him translations that fell on deaf ears. Blindly he grasped out, trying to find his friend. She was there, she was right there, he could feel the presence of a Jedi, not far away at all, but she was like a sealed hatch, locked and bolted from the inside and he pounded fists against it fruitlessly.
"Bail Lars! Is it the lambent? Their cries can be confusing. Bail Lars, speak to me!"
He let Uunu drag him up until he was sitting. The wind felt cold on his skin, goosebumps shivering up his bare arms.
"Ah, I am a fool. Slaves are never prepared for harvesting the lambents. Have I broken you, Bail Lars? I hope not - you were an able slave."
Leaning forward and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, until bright lights and stars burst, Anakin managed to groan out a choked denial.
"No. No - just, my head hurt, all of a sudden."
The Shamed One rocked back on her haunches, bracing her hands on her knees.
"The lambents," she said decisively. "They can overwhelm, at least, they can overwhelm those who are not the Chosen People. I forgot, and now Yun-Shuno punishes me." Uunu picked up the living sack Anakin had dropped, jostling and clattering the lambents within. "Still, this is well beyond my quota."
It was hard to focus on what she was saying. Something had happened to Tahiri, something worse than everything before. He had to restrain himself from leaping to his feet and charging in half-cocked. Even though the corner of his mind set aside for his friend lay quiet and empty. At least Uunu offered an excuse.
"That has to be it," he agreed. "The whispers, they got loud enough that -" he didn't have to pretend a wince at he memory of the searing pain that slashed through Tahiri's - and his - forehead.
Uunu chewed her lip a moment, then rose and started pawing through the lambent plants in the row beside them. These had not yet been harvested, the bulbs still heavy on their stalks. She would touch a lambent, mutter something and shake her head, then go to the next. Anakin focused on his breathing, calming himself, drawing on techniques to push the adrenaline out and the need to do something back. Vua was getting everything ready. The afternoon was ending; he'd made it another day.
Uunu finally seemed to find what she was looking for, sucking in a breath and wrenching a small bulb away from near the bottom of a stalk. She turned to Anakin and hefted the lambent bulb, clearly coming to a decision. She held it out.
It was smaller than the ones they had harvested. Where those had been large, smooth crystal spheres, big enough to rest in his palm, this whole bulb was about the same as the husked, ripened crystals.
"It's a stunted fruiting," Uunu said by way of explanation. "It would be cast aside anyway. Carry it with you tonight when you sleep and your mind will grow accustomed to the whispers. Tomorrow, when we harvest again, you will not be overwhelmed."
Tomorrow Tahiri would be free and a whole lot of Vong would be dead, but he couldn't exactly say that. Instead, he took the little bulb from her palm, turning it over. It peeped quietly and whispery, a little susurrus of unsound strange to his usual senses, both natural and Force-given. The bulb even had the soft petals around it, though these were thicker and a little bristly. It was easy to see the difference between a 'ripe' and 'unripe' bulb.
"Thanks. I'll do that. Sorry that I, you know."
The look Uunu gave him was strange, but she nodded all the same.
"I worked you hard for an infidel. Gently, for one of the Chosen People, but we are hardy and made for the labor." She thumped a fist off her chest, then beckoned him to follow her. Back down the rows of whispering lambents, back along the empty rows they had harvested. "Here is a secret, Bail Lars. A slave that is useful is a slave that avoids the sacrifice pits. I would not like to see your blood offered to the Slayer. You are interesting and perhaps we will speak again. It made the harvest less tedious."
With that mildly unsettling declaration, the Shamed One brushed past him and left him behind, at the edge of the harvest fields. Other slaves and their Shamed One and Worker taskers were filing out as well, from other lambent fields and ones whose harvest he had no idea of. There was little speaking, which struck him as the strangest. Everywhere in the galaxy, people talked.
Getting off a shift, beings would chatter and talk about their days. Complain about overseers and gripe about breaks, argue about where to get food. He'd been around it enough times, when shifts would change over at Coruscant's Eastport where the Falcon was usually berthed. Dockworkers and longshoremen, slapping backs with hand and tentacle and grasper, shoving goodnaturedly and loudly declaring how they'd spend their evening.
The slaves didn't talk to each other, even when they were given leave to clump up around little cook fires and around the simple dwellings given to them. The Shamed Ones avoided the Workers, and the Workers looked unwilling to waste any sound around the lowest caste.
It was a decidedly quiet and uneasy evening that swung in.
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'Roost's sensors were finding nothing and analyst droids were throwing up their metaphorical and sometimes literal hands. No indications whatsoever of any yammosks at all. Each part of the ambushed Vong fleet reacted independently. 'Skip squadrons separated by only a few hundred kilometers would totally ignore openings the other ones might reveal. It was disarray, entirely disarray.
The Navy figured the yammosks communicated in some kind of ways they could detect, so each battle had been scraped and turned over with every available sensor log triple and quadruple checked. There were weird gravimetric readings that burbled in the background, and those could be something as mundane as dovin basals burping after swallowing down enough energy to light a Coruscant block. But it might also be yammosks muttering back and forth.
Well, points went to whoever guessed the second, because those gravimetric bumps?
Jaina didn't see them on any plot that flicked past in the holotank.
"I think this is a bust," Captain Winger said, disappointed. "How the hell did we pounce on the one fleet in the whole Galaxy that didn't get a squid?"
"It's the first one we've seen," Colonel Hamner agreed. He paced, head down and lips pursed, cracking knuckles back and forth.
"Fantastic," Jaina muttered under her breath. She'd missed a chance to fly in the biggest furball of the war so far and wasn't even going to get to say she did anything. She braced her palms on the edge of the holotank, leaning to rest her weight as she idly looked over the abstract battlespace. Little icons danced around and if it had been months ago, it would've all been Gree to her.
Now she picked out the meanings of each one, tracking down the marker for Rogue Squadron. There they were - slicing through what looked like a pile of Vong transports. Bet they were racking up kills like that. Major Varth was about to run out of paint marking up all the snubfighters later…
It wasn't immediate. First it was a tickle, like humming a few bars from a song that she just couldn't quite remember the lyrics for. Or seeing a familiar face, but not matching a name just yet. While Winger and Hamner talked about their next moves, Jaina reached for the holotank controls, rotating the battlespace and zooming to different locations almost at random. She wasn't sure why. It just seemed right.
A miid ro'ik flamed out, flanked on either side by Bothan Assault Cruisers. A Star Destroyer limped back into the cover of its squadron, mauled and missing half the guns on one side.
"Hey…" she murmured, narrowing her eyes.
A Vong frigate analogue sped up, outpacing others in its squadron, before being punched apart by concussion missiles spewed out of a nearby Vicstar. A squadron of 'skips swirled and came about, the red dots clustering up and making a sudden run on that same Vicstar.
"Hey, wait…" she said, a little louder. Colonel Hamner raised an eyebrow, glancing her way.
"Jaina? You see something?"
Did she? It felt like it. She couldn't quite, didn't quite…she twiddled at the comm, cycling over to the control band for starfighters. Immediately, tinny voices filled the auditorium, the sound of two dozen squadrons and more engaged in dogfights and bombing runs. All three Jedi winced at the sudden echoes and Jaina toggled to Rogue Squadron's own internal band.
"Colonel Darklighter?"
There was a pause.
"Sticks? That you?"
"Yessir. I'm on the 'Roost with Colonel Hamner and Captain Winger."
"Tell me you've got us a target." Her CO sounded almost hungry and she imagined him leaning forward in his cockpit.
"Not quite. Got a question though, and I think it's important. That 'skip squadron you're about to tangle with, tell me if they break."
In the holotank, the pips marking out the Rogue's first and second flight cut across the track for a mob of coralskippers. A few of the Vong starfighters blinked out and Jaina frowned as she saw no signs of the Rogues having to go evasive.
"Well, damn. They didn't. They're keeping on course."
Vividly, she remembered an embattled Victory Star Destroyer, listing hard and fuming from rips and tears in its hull. Coralskippers coming about, all together, screaming down on Pure Pazaak as she chased them in -
Her stomach twisted and she took a long step back from the holotank. For a moment, she was back in space, spinning out in the stars. She felt the cold bite at her neck, the way her flightsuit puffed around her in the vacuum, her precious air straining against the hungry void.
"Sticks? You there?"
"They're breaking. Colonel, the Vong are about to break. And when they do, they're going to start suicide runs."
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There were slightly more dome-shaped domiciles than there were slaves to pack into them. Not by a lot, but he'd been told yesterday that it was better to bunk together, to at least share a little bit of body heat. The Vong didn't believe in things like blankets, bedrolls or anything but the simple robe-skins they offered. Plus there was a sort of company in misery, a little bit of tactile reassurance that you weren't alone in this forsaken place.
So to the point, there were a few left empty in the little slave shantytown outside the compound's walls. He didn't want to think that the reason there were some spares was because of those sacrifice pits inside the compound. Anakin leaned against the low dome inside one, waiting on Vua. He'd choked down a weird sort of stew, recognizing a few greens in it from the jungle. Whatever the mystery meat was, it was probably better not to know.
The domes were probably cast-off shells from something. They had a bit of a lip around the edge, where they dug into the dirt. He imagined some kind of turtle-like creature and wondered if that's what the mystery meat was. Chop them up for stews, use their shells for homes. Brutal and efficient, just like the Vong to do.
The breast pocket of his jumpsuit held the lambent bulb. Uunu wasn't wrong, either. It still made weird little telepathic noises, but over 'dinner' he'd slowly tuned them out.
Still was strange, though. But sort of reasonable - the Force wasn't the only means of telepathy in the Galaxy. Nothing was all-encompassing and holistic as the Force, sure, but there were beings who had natural empathic or telepathic abilities. The t'landa Til, for instance. Something about the Vong having that capability, even in a biot, rubbed him the wrong way.
Maybe because if they could feel how someone else felt, it made it even harder to understand why they could possibly worship pain so much. How could they do so much horror, if they could feel the wrongness of what they did?
Well. Sith and Dark Jedi did, and they had all the boons of the Force.
He grimaced. Always did come back down to what you chose to do, didn't it.
What Uunu had told him kept returning to his thoughts while he waited. The Shamed One gave maybe the best explanation for why the Yuuzhan Vong were doing what they were doing that anyone had ever heard. If NRI had word of it, then Uncle Luke hadn't ever shared it. The Vong didn't really broadcast much, except for demanding his brother's head and that of all the other Jedi. She'd talked about it so frankly. Naming the Supreme Overlord, talking about the strife in the castes, the long travels in the space between galaxies. And then this one Vong decided that hey, I think your galaxy should be mine.
And here they were. Killing each other with a kind of reckless fervour that was unbelievable. The Vong didn't try to ask nicely or even demand anything. That was insane, wasn't it? Sure, it would be naive to think that their Supreme Overlord would show up to the Senate floor and humbly ask for a handful of systems to settle in, but that was only one extreme. They hadn't even demanded anything. In fact, the Warmaster's bounty on Jedi was just about the first 'diplomatic' overture the invaders had offered. When they dusted Sernpidal, they didn't say 'Give us your planet or die'. They just dropped the moon.
It was like they couldn't even conceive of the concept of surrender. Like they didn't ask for it because they didn't know that was an option.
Uunu was so sure about her own lot in life. Barely better than a slave and working day in and day out for a culture that spit on her, but all because the Gods promised that one day they might - might! - bless her, she was okay with it. Warriors killing themselves just to get closer and kill a single 'infidel.' Those chazrach on Obroa-skai, not a single one could ever hope to overcome a Jedi or an Astartes, but they died in droves.
No, it wasn't that the Vong didn't offer surrender because they wanted to kill people so bad, no, they didn't offer surrender or terms or anything because they would never accept it. They'd fight to the death before accepting droids around them or technology and they would be glad for it. They didn't make demands when they arrived because they expected any demands from the most unreasonable to the most reasonable to be rejected, because that's what they would do.
The bulb was in his hand and he was turning it around between his fingers before he realized he'd taken it from his pocket.
But that was like the Exiles. They had all these hangups about things that Zalthis talked about. The Ultramarine had freaked when he realized, really, what the 'Rebellion' had meant. Hated that the idea of it became the reality of 'a bunch of guys turning against the government to overthrow it', even if the government was sort of unquestionably evil. And Anakin had been surprised that it was even a surprise in the first place, except that now with what he realized with the Vong, it had to be the same kind of blindspot, didn't it? Zalthis knew the concept, but it wasn't quite real until Anakin talked about how his dad had turned on the Empire. Like they just dismissed it out of hand, like it was ridiculous that a person could have different morals than the nation they were part of.
Droids too, the Imperials hated droids with the same kind of focus as the Vong did. They burned them up on Eboracum and more than a few times he'd seen Aeonid unconsciously shift to the far side of the hall in the Praxeum when passing an astromech or one of their handful of cleaning droids.
He turned the lambent bulb over and over, running the pads of his fingers over the coarse petals.
Bad decisions, from bad thinking. Aliens hurt us, so all aliens are bad. Technology hurt us, so all technology is bad. Droids hurt us, so all droids are bad.
It was ridiculous, it was - it was like a child's view of the universe. One time, in the apartment on Coruscant when he was a kid, he'd tripped when running around and burned his knees on the carpet. So, all carpets were evil. He'd had a nasty shock from a capacitor he didn't realize still held a charge when fixing up Fiver once. All electricity was dangerous and probably evil.
He wanted to laugh. That couldn't be it. It couldn't be that simple.
The Vong really weren't trying to negotiate, not because they couldn't talk to disgusting infidels, but because they seriously believed the New Republic wouldn't negotiate. Because if the Vong had the upper hand, ruling the Galaxy like the New Republic did, why in Corellian hells would they care to negotiate?
Was this war, was all this death, was this all just misunderstanding. Well, Uunu had said that the Vong would never be content with living alongside 'unclean technology' and 'perfidious unliving intelligences', and Anakin did know first-hand how intense their religion was. No people could all be the same, though. Chewie - and thinking of the big Wookiee did not hurt as much as it had - was his dad's best friend, he was Anakin's uncle, sure. So all Wookiees were good and honorable and trustworthy? There were Wookiee pirates, Wookiee criminals and smugglers and drug dealers and some had even sold their fellows to the Empire!
There had to be Vong that would break from their Supreme Overlord. Ones that just wanted a place to live that wasn't a dying ship, and they didn't care if their neighbors a dozen lightyears away had a top-of-the-line Cybot Galactica SweeperPro droid.
Like how there were Exiles who didn't shy away from nonhumans. Astartes who fought alongside Jedi.
Because that was it, wasn't it? That was what Uncle Luke was afraid of. Master Durron didn't get it and Anakin could admit that until now - just now - he didn't really either.
It wasn't that they shouldn't fight the Vong. Luke Skywalker was a warrior like the Galaxy hadn't seen in a hundred generations. Anyone who said his uncle was a coward was an idiot.
It was knowing how far to fight. Kill this warrior who was trying to kill you, yes. Kill that ship that was trying to blow you up, yes. Bomb that Vong colony? Blow up that Vong world? Destroy that Vong worldship?
Right now, right now, his best friend was being tortured. If even half of what he was afraid of was going on, what Vua warned about, was true, then Tahiri - he cut off the train of thought. Tahiri was hurt by the Vong. They killed Ikrit and Chewie and so, so many others.
But it was a Vong that got him here. It was a Vong that right now was setting up to let Zalthis into the damutek. It was a Vong that was going to help him save Tahiri.
Vua was going to help him save Tahiri because Vua wanted bloody revenge. Saving Tahiri was just a sidenote. That was dark. The Force should draw a line there. The blood-hunger that drove the angry Shamed One should reverberate through the Force. Anakin shouldn't have accepted his deal, no matter what, because that's what a good Jedi would do. That path of revenge and retribution had 'DARK' written across it in huge, blaring Aurebesh.
The Force didn't care. It didn't twist and groan around Vua. It didn't swell up around the moon like it did when Exar Kun made his last, desperate gambit for power. Vua's anger didn't gnaw on the Force like Palpatine at Byss. Did that mean the Force didn't care? People were dying, worlds were dying, but wasn't death part of the Force? Everyone would die, eventually. Death wasn't unnatural in and of itself, it wasn't dark. The Vong weren't pulling dark powers to them, they weren't steeping themselves in the dark side like Palpatine and Cronal and Exar Kun and Jerec.
The Force never once warned the Jedi that the Vong were coming.
The Vong didn't play fair, they didn't fit into the nice and simple worldview, so other Jedi were scared. Luxum found a new enemy that did make sense in the Exiles. Jacen stopped using the Force completely. Kyp and Ganner and some of the others figured that if all the Vong were dead, then the uncomfortable questions didn't have to be asked. His Uncle, for a while, couldn't decide on anything.
He clenched the lambent bulb in his palm. The crystal inside cheeped soft little noises.
Anakin imagined if Palpatine had won. The Empire, triumphant. They take over the whole Galaxy and stamp out every single last bit of light and goodness, until it's all a dark Empire eternal. The Emperor gets his wish to live forever, and in millenia to come, the Empire invades another galaxy. Would those people there, if the Force had never touched them, and they faced the coming hordes of Sith magic and dark side sorceries, would they have any idea what the light was? Could they even imagine a use of the Force that wasn't for evil, when they only experienced alchemical monsters and torturous lightning?
Maybe it was that the Yuuzhan Vong left whatever light was in them, or part of them, behind a long, long time ago. So long ago that they forgot it, and now here, no one could imagine them any other way.
Vua wanted justice for being wronged. That was…that was right. That was a good thing, but he wanted it in a twisted way. Uunu wanted redemption and blessing from those that she looked up to. That wasn't bad either, but it was because they had pushed her down first. The warriors, they called out challenges and sought honor and to show their bravery - which was good - through slaughter and killing anyone and anything in front of them.
They rejected the Force a long time ago; or maybe the Force rejected them.
Anakin wasn't the Force. He served it, but it didn't own him. Rule him. The Force couldn't find anything good in the Vong, maybe, but he held the lambent bulb that Uunu had offered him. She didn't need to. It wasn't even the lambents that made him collapse. But she'd come to him and helped him sit up and asked if was okay. And she'd given him this little gift, so that maybe he wouldn't hurt so much in the future.
Anakin was tired. He was tired of the killing and the pain and the war and the fear. He huddled in a little shelter made of a dead creature, made to hold slaves, on what was once the lawn outside his home. His one, real home.
It was so easy to hate. It was right there. His forehead still tingled with ghostly memories of earlier. He could feel Ikrit's body in his arms.
Quietly, Anakin laughed. It was not a laugh of amusement or humor, but one of realization.
He never did like to do anything the easy way.
Any time now, a crazy Shamed One named Vua Rapuung was going to haul him out of this shelter and bark orders at him. Anakin would touch the mind of a genetically enhanced supersoldier made to kill people just like himself and Vua. And then the three of them would go and save a girl.
It was time to stop thinking about everything in the universe like it could fit into neat boxes.
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Zalthis lingered in the cool waters of the Unnh, kicking off from the silty bottom every half an hour to briefly let his lips and nose break the surface and refresh his oxygen. It wasn't the most pleasant, but after tsik-vai directly overhead darkened the rays of the sun and the flyer continued right along, he knew he had succeeded. Night was falling. Anakin and the Vong had parted ways almost twenty-four hours ago.
Any moment now.
----------------------------------------
Attuning, she'd called it. She had to attune them, then Anakin could pop them out of their husks. Each one she peeled the petals from, they'd gone more distant to his senses. If the 'unattuned' lambents were a clamorous hum, the ones Uunu readied were like a conversation several rooms away.
Well. If there was ever a time to put his theory into practice…
The petals on this bulb were stiffer. The ends came together in a nodule of cellulose. He picked at it, first with his fingernails, and then worked his thumbnail into the firm flesh of the bulb. The lambent inside peeped louder, a different note filtering into his mind. A question?
He had nothing else to do besides wait for Vua. And think. Assuming the crazy Shamed One wasn't dead for mouthing off to the wrong person, or being in the wrong place, or being annoying. Anakin leaned to the side, peering out of the entrance of his little shelter. The neck-hole for whatever monster this thing came from, he thought. Yavin 8 was a small prick of light, creeping up into the sky. He'd give it another hour, maybe two. Then regardless, he was getting Tahiri. Vua could handle his own problems.
The cellulose nodule cracked under the pressure of his thumbnail and Anakin jumped in surprise. A thin, milky fluid leaked out, the petals loosened a little. The peeping upped in pitch.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
All Uunu did was brush the petals off with her fingers.
The thought didn't cross his mind not to.
These petals didn't come off as easily. He had to peel them away and the sticky undersides clung to his fingers. He shook his hands, flicking them away. One petal. Two petals. The peeping grew louder, more urgent. Another petal.
He didn't have the thumb-spur that Uunu had given him. She'd taken it back, even though it couldn't be used to hurt another Yuuzhan Vong. When the last petal was stripped away, leaving just the husk, the lambent was loud, loud enough that Anakin paused, straining his ears and listening hard for anyone nearby. It had to be audible, the desperate peeping and meeping. He imagined it was more than telepathic, but none of the slaves stirred in neighboring shelters.
It wasn't easy to dig his nails into the rind. Without the sharp spike of the spur, the thick, husk-like bulb just did not want to give. The tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, Anakin sat up more straight and grimaced, jamming both thumbs into seam of the husk. Almost - just - it was just about -
His nailbeds ached. Maybe a rock, or something he could - he was almost free in here, the cramped confines, he was almost free, he could feel the whole world shifting -
Sap spurted, catching him off guard.
Peep peep peep peep -
Anakin prised the husk open. The lambent was faceted, not round and perfectly spherical like the ripened ones. What yavinlight slanted through the door to this shelter caught on the dazzling edges of the little crystal.
Peep peep peEP PEEP PEEP-
The closest approximation to the shout that hammered into his mind when he touched the crystal with his bare skin:
FRIEND!
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There was light glimmering among the slave minshals. Golden light, familiar light. Vua Rapuung hissed irritation between clenched teeth, stalking down red-tinted paths of churned mud and dirt. Slaves peeked from within their own minshals and recoiled at the sight and smell of him. He paid them no mind. There was only one slave on this entire cursed moon stupid enough to break cover so obviously, so blatantly -
Vua swung into the minshal just as the light was doused, grabbing the idiot Jeedai by the collar of his dead clothing. It sickened him to touch the material, but his existence had been sickening and suffering, and this was a trifle of an insult.
The Jeedai stared back with wide eyes and opened mouth and a lambent, a lambent of all things clutched in one hand.
"Idiot! A thousand curses on your stupidity. Stealing a lambent? Senseless! We go, we go now. There is alarm raised and soon, they might think to look within."
To his infinite frustration, the Jeedai remained lax and slack in his grip, staring at Vua as if seeing him for the first time.
"I can sense you," Anakin gasped.
----------------------------------------
It didn't happen at once. It wasn't like with Pure Pazaak, where it swept through the Vong fleet like a reflex. Jaina watched as it happened in ones, and twos. A cruiser-analogue took sudden bombardment all along its midline, because its dovin basals stopped shielding it. It barreled forward, nearly clipping a Nebula that rolled hard, reaction thrusters flaring and etheric rudder hard to port. Coralskipper squadrons, piecemeal, broke toward capital ships.
It wasn't comprehensive and with Jaina's warning, it saved them.
"Sithspawn, they aren't even reacting." Colonel Darklighter swore, voice hissed with static. The Rogues led all of Ralroost's wing, intercepting sudden suicidal rushes of coralskippers and gunship analogues.
Jaina, joined by Captain Winger and Colonel Hamner, leaned over the holotank and gave updates as fast as she could. Colonel Hamner was exceptionally good at picking out patterns, and Captain Winger knew the performance of half the ships in the New Class like the back of her hand. Jaina watched for the telltale shift she remembered, and before she could say a word, Hamner was already pulling up the frequencies for the ships affected, while Winger was laying out advice on how to break, to cover for one another.
It felt like they had one mind and in the holotank, the friendly icons moved with a certainty and a fluidity that Jaina had only seen so far in the blinking red of hostiles.
The Vong fleet peeled apart. Dozens of ships pulled hard, piling on speed and breaking out of the rear of the battle. They plunged into the gauzy veils of the nebula, some leaping into hyperspace, others continuing on sublight. Ships along the line of contact turned into the New Republic battlegroups, sacrificing defense for the purest and most brutal offense. Plasma spitters flung clouds of superheated material out, magma missiles rippled out of emptying magazines and collision courses were locked in. Some cruiser-analogues switched to projecting gravity wells, shadowing whole swathes of First Fleet to keep them from giving chase to the evacuating ships.
Jaina's cheeks hurt before she realized she was smiling, wide and toothy because the Vong were fleeing. Not a rout; there was order still to how some squadrons broke off and escaped and others came around, but they were running away. Against the thunder of the guns of First Fleet, the entire Vong armada broke apart.
There were losses. The three of them, they couldn't expect everything. Even with Jaina's spotting, Hamner's warnings and Winger's direction, suicide runs made contact.
But they were winning.
They were winning.
----------------------------------------
Anakin jogged beside Vua, the Shamed One taking long, purposeful strides.
"I have scent-marks for the damutek. Today I tended to the vangaak. The beast you saw me ride in the river."
The fishing trawlers. Right.
"I will not be questioned. If you are, say nothing. I will speak for you."
There were warriors out, in full vonduun plate this time. Several loped past, amphistaves curled around their arms. Their eyes were forward, to the distant jungle line. Vua paid them no mind, continuing to lead Anakin up from the slave town to the yorik coral wall of the compound. All the while, he kept up a low report of what had happened, what was prepared.
It took all his focus to pay attention to Vua's words.
Through the lambent, the compound was alive. The Shamed One was alive. The warriors that ran past - alive. They were all shadows, like an outline or an impression, but one that rang with a sense of them. From Vua, Anakin grasped a distant shout of aggression and anger. The warriors that loped past - focus, discipline. He felt others, more nebulous, smeary, like ink-clouds in water. Curiosity there, frustration here.
They were real. The lambent purred ceaselessly, a background hum like the flowing of a nearby river in his mind. The little crystal, it had hints and sensations too. That first moment, the bonding; he could barely unpick. Senses of joy, pleasure, surprise. Contentment, maybe - maybe familiarity? Friendliness?
For a little rock that could glow if he focused on it, it had a remarkably complex, tiny little mind.
He kept it clenched in his fist. It didn't feel right to put it in his pocket. He wasn't sure why.
"I have prepared the intakes for the damutek to cycle their filtration. When I provide the tasking, it will open the membranes. The Aistarteez is ready?"
He could sense Zal nearby. Around the river. …in the river? He suppressed a smile.
"Yeah."
For the second time, Anakin entered the compound of the Shapers. The damutek was their target, but he took a chance to look around, getting a lay of things. The inner space, bounded by the coral walls, was much like the previous day. Taller, more elaborate shell-buildings that rose in a twist like a seashell. There were lights up on the walls, lights he recognized as lambents now, held by warriors. A dark shape loomed on the opposite side of the space to the damutek - a ship of some kind, maybe as big as a corvette. That hadn't been there before. Did it come down during the day, when he was working? Last night?
Vua marched right up to one of the sealed entrances to the living building and none stopped them on the way to the damutek. They were only momentarily challenged by a warrior guarding it, who narrowed his eyes and sneered at Vua.
"You would be better dead," the warrior added as parting, after the entry orifice unsealed itself, a small tongue-like sensor beside it tasting Vua's wrist. "So that you do not show your Shame around."
It amazed Anakin that he could feel the fury wafting from his companion. Not just see it etched onto his ruined face. Vua, admirably, held his tongue, and the entry orifice sealed again behind them. Inside the damutek was strange. The ground was spongy and slightly springy, the walls tall and curved, the hall gently bending along. There were natural openings that Vua led them past, Anakin glancing into each. Some had piles of shell-like containers, stacked neatly. Others had slumbering piles of biots and beasts he'd never seen before.
"The succession pool is in the center of the damutek. It is secluded and considered sacred. Likely, it will not be occupied. The outer chambers are for storage."
Luck, or the Force, stayed with them. The outer halls of the damutek were almost empty. They passed only two other Yuuzhan Vong, both in colorful robes that visibly turned up their noses as Vua led Anakin past. It was amazing. Just Vua's presence was like a stealth field. The Vong didn't just overlook them, they wanted to overlook them.
It was as easy as just walking right in. The pool was empty. If the damutek was like a huge flower, relaxed open, then the center, open to the sky, held the dark waters of the succession pool. Tiers of coral stepped down toward the circular pool in the middle, no more than the height of a shallow step for each tier. The pool itself lapped against the coral rim, smelling slightly of ammonia and chlorine. Above, familiar stars glinted in the night sky.
"It's a little crazy that you can just…do all this." Anakin commented, crouching down beside Vua as the Shamed One prodded at few nerve bundles hidden beneath a yorik coral scale near the water's edge.
"Why? It is the task of Shamed Ones to do all those duties most odious. Cleaning the root of a damutek is a duty no Worker would lower themselves for. It is suited for only the unclean."
Nothing seemed to happen when Vua folded the coral plate closed again.
"How will we know?"
"When your idiotic questions cease, and the Aistarteez is here! Did you expect great tremors, to warn all the guards that we open the way?"
He chose to ignore that, reaching for Zalthis. It would have been harder, far harder, before their meld. Now, the Astartes stood out from the jungle life and the life in the river easily. Anakin let some of his nervousness and sense of urgency bleed through, focused on ideas of water, darkness, picturing the succession pool in his mind. He wasn't sure what Zalthis would get from it. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
He waited, with baited breath. The lambent's sense of the Vong all around him intruded; it was hard to get much of a read on things, almost like he had to pierce the Force through the veil the lambent suddenly sprung up around him, shaped like the emotions of the Yuuzhan Vong inhabitants. It seemed like Zalthis was moving, but he wasn't sure.
"Time passes, Jeedai." Vua remained crouched beside the pool, his eyes glittering in starlight. Lank hair fell to his shoulders and if possible, the Shamed One smelled even worse.
"Tell me something I don't know."
Vua squinted at him.
"The coufee is unrelated to the amphistaff. They are different clades entirely."
"What?"
"You did not know this."
"No?"
Vua grunted, returning his focus to the lapping waters of the pool. Anakin did too.
A minute later he reached over and shoved Vua. The Shamed One absorbed the blow, scowling.
"I wasn't being literal!"
"Nuance does not translate."
Thankfully for them both, the water of the succession pool rippled hard, sloshing - and then the familiar sight of Zalthis climbed out of the far side, water pouring from his scout armor, splashing deafeningly - to Anakin - back into the pool.
"Zal!" he called, pitching his voice low. The pool itself was only a dozen meters in width. He met the Ultramarine halfway, arm already out. They clasped, hand to wrist.
"I heard you loud and clear," Zal said with a smile.
"I was worried."
"I gave my word."
"I do not care." Vua held out Anakin's lightsaber. The feel of it back in his palm was right. Like he was complete again, the cool metal perfect under his fingers. The urge to flick it on was intense. Likewise, Zal offered Ikrit's 'saber, and then a comm bead to place in his ear. Funny. Tizowrym in one, comm bead in the other.
Vua said he suspected where the Shaping chambers lie, but wanted to reconnoiter. Unfortunately, Zal agreed, so Anakin had to concede. The Shamed One could get around with that convenient aura of 'don't look at the casteless', but once someone spotted Zal, their cover was blown. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. Jaina had said something about that whole dynamic with the Rogues…
"I will return momentarily. If you are found, I will return even quicker, for I will hear the slaughter." Vua grinned suddenly, teeth rotted and black in the starlight. "Either way. The Slayer feasts tonight. Aihya!" He dashed away and Anakin felt the swell of excitement chase the shape of the Shamed One.
There wasn't really anywhere in the round chamber of the pool to hide, so he and Zal took either side of one of the sealed entrances. Orifices. Hatches. Whatever it might be called. Idly, the Ultramarine wrung out some of his fatigues, gathering a handful of the material and squeezing. Anakin belted again the holstered bolt pistol Sol had given him, Zal handing it back. He'd also managed to pick up Anakin's discarded chestplate from the jungle, and he secured that back over his jumpsuit again. The big crack from the bug he got shot with weakened it, but a bit more protection was better than none.
Zal offered grenades, but Anakin turned them down.
"Did you really spend the whole day in the river?"
Zal rolled his shoulder, patting at the hilt of his power sword, the grenades at his belt, ammunition pouches.
"Most of it. It was surprisingly peaceful."
"Jaina always told me there were monsters in there."
Zal raised an eyebrow.
"Well, you don't count."
The Ultramarine smiled.
"This has gone better than I could have hoped," Zal said a few moments later. A small understatement, since they were in the most secure Yuuzhan Vong place on the moon and no one knew it, but he could definitely agree. "Perhaps…perhaps you were right to place your trust in…Vua."
"He's crazy, but he's, well, he's a predictable crazy."
"I could not have made that leap," Zal admitted, voice low, almost a whisper. "And I think, that may have cost Tahiri her life."
"But we did. And we're here."
His friend's silence was telling.
"What is it, Zal?"
"What is more worthwhile - to complete your duty, or to do it rightly?"
"That's a heavy question."
Zal rolled his shoulders, something adjacent to a shrug.
"I had time to think, today. I disobeyed orders to come here. Did I tell you that?"
He had not. He racked his brain, thinking back. No, not after they left Sol and Sannah behind; that had been a blur of days sliding past and terrain slipping under his feet. And not when they were at the makeshift 'camp' as Anakin fixed up the gunship either. They'd both been a little evasive, mentioning about how 'Captain Thiel was well prepared' and that they only brought what they had on hand.
Neither of the Ultramarines said anything about going against orders.
"Is that why you're asking?"
Without his helmet, the Ultramarine was like an open book to read. His hair, curly and dark, was longer, curling at his ears. His jaw was set, the unnatural broadness and solidity of his features not quite enough to hide how young Zal still was. It was hard to believe they were just about the same age, as best as they could determine it. Zal was probably a little older, maybe a year or so, but the conversions were tough.
"Obroa Skai was my first combat deployment." Zal mused. "Fondor was my second. My entire service has been fighting for your galaxy."
"Not counting Calth."
The Ultramarine grimaced.
"Not counting Calth, no. I never even saw the Word Bearers, then. Just their cultist auxiliaries. I - we, were lucky. I said that my cadre was preparing to board. We only ever faced the dregs of them. We weren't important enough, I suppose. But Obroa Skai…"
"Where Sergeant Ascratus died. And Zev Veers."
"Yes. In many ways, I have served more closely with Jedi than my own brothers." He palmed the pommel of his power sword, a steel Ultima to match the one on his plastron. "Varian, Amalius, Tercinax; I don't know them. Sol and I had a chance, a short one, on Temerity, but…"
Tahiri was better at stuff like this. He felt like he had to say something, should say something, but anything died long before it reached his tongue. Anakin opened his sense a little, just for a quick read - was Zal…was he embarrassed?
Two meters tall, punch-out-a-wookiee, and the Ultramarine seemed abashed.
"You are my brother, Anakin. I am proud that you've trusted me with this."
Anakin swallowed the sudden knot in his throat. Zal rubbed at the back of his head, digging at his damp hair.
"There is a habit, you understand. Among the Legions. When seconded to another, sometimes - when there is a-"
"A friendship." He cut in. "I'm honored, Zal. Really. I couldn't have done this by myself."
The Ultramarine held up a hand, halting Anakin.
"No, let me finish. Sergeant Ascratus shared it with us once. He had served with the Iron Hands. There was a mark, here, at his wrist." Zal turned his hand palm up, showing his inner gauntlet. The cerulean ceramite was still a little damp from the pool and the river. He tapped at the armor. "A mark of the X Legion, their emblem. A recognition."
Zalthis seemed young, his face alight. Younger than Anakin, suddenly excited.
"I would be honored if you would leave a mark for the Jedi."
He had a sharp little stylus, for digging debris out of ceramite. He handed it to Anakin, and with a surprisingly steady hand, Anakin etched the rayed Starbird, bounded by a ring. The order lacked an official emblem, but this one had been used sometimes, even by the HQ on Coruscant; and of the many sigils old and new the Jedi used, Anakin had always liked it best. The Starbird was the symbol of the Rebellion, after all. And he'd always thought of the rays behind it as the Force, radiant.
Zal peered down at the mark, lips quirking in a grin.
"I don't really wear armor, at least not usually." Anakin unhooked his lightsaber. "But this would work, right?"
The pride that rolled from Zalthis as the Ultramarine worked a tiny Ultima into the silvery casing was almost physical.
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Tossing and turning in her nest-bunk, Nen Yim finally gave into her restlessness and rose, pulling a simple robe about herself. She left her headdress, tugging her hair into a simple knot, held by a squirming clasp, and padded out of her small chambers on bare feet. Yet another benefit to her rank as Adept: her own living space. Cramped, yes, small, certainly, some distance from the Shaping grotto in the outer shell of the damutek, but it was hers. She had never had her own space before.
The lambents in the halls were low and dim, just enough to see by. All was quiet and restful. Her vaa tumor was a little swollen and sore, pressing against the inside of her skull above her temple, but not painful. Just a sensation of pressure, slight light sensitivity. Barely any symptoms for the sacred implant, in truth. In time, it would be a transcendent agony, and she would have to take her leave as Mezhan did for a time.
That pressure, combined with ruminating on the spineray's modified interface kept sleep away from her. It had occurred when she checked the connection to the subject earlier and it stuck like a grain of sand in the eye. Her notes on the modification of the implantor process were messy and poorly collated. None had access to them but Mezhan. Her Master likely didn't even care. But Nen Yim cared, and realizing that such a disarray was a simple qahsa query away from Mezhan's attention was mortifying.
Was it sensible to lose sleep to review her notes and better sort them? Perhaps.
The subject slumbered inside the vivarium, leaning against the clear membrane with her legs pulled to her chest. Nen Yim beckoned to a stool and it clambered over, offering its smooth carapace for her to perch on as she stroked a stul-villip awake. The biot everted, gelatinous internals flickering as pinpricks of phosphorescence rippled through the medium. She'd need a cognition hood, likely, to best approach this.
There were several slumbering on the other side of the chamber. Nen Yim rose, nudging the stool to step to the side. An hour. She'd give herself an hour, at least organize her notes into a more legible, digestible format that wouldn't bring shame on her Domain to the fourth generation. One cognition hood was dehydrated and she frowned, caressing the soft, leathery flesh, before picking out another.
The soft sound of membranes wicking open indicated someone else had found themselves restless and insomniac.
"Master," she began, turning around with an explanation on her lips.
It died at the sight that stole the breath from her lungs. A Jeedai, all dark hair and icy blue eyes, hands gripping the cursed dead-metal weapons of their kind. A Shamed One, leering and looming, a disaster of a creature mutilated and decaying. And the largest, looming behind them like a monster from myths. An Aistarteez.
It was impossible.
She was dreaming. Surely, she was dreaming.
"Good evening, Adept Shaper," the Shamed One said, voice redolent with mirth and a promise of violence. "We have business with your Jeedai."
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Vua was talking to the Shaper woman. Zalthis was standing there, intimidatingly.
Anakin was trying to breathe. The air in the lab was thick. Stifling. He tried to suck it in through his mouth, but it wasn't enough. Someone was messing with the atmospheric systems. Something was wrong.
There was a girl in the lab. She was leaning against a clear wall that sort of looked like transparisteel. She was pale, folded up in the corner, resting her head against the partition. She was wearing a robeskin like the slaves and workers wore, a sleeveless and backless one that reached her knees.
Someone was squeezing Anakin's ribs.
He could see her chest slowly rise and fall. Blood covered her face. Dried blood. Three parallel gouges ripped down her forehead. A thick, fleshy cord wandered around the enclosure, linking up to a hunched and leathery shape on her back. Long, finger-like digits curled up to cradle the nape of her neck and base of her skull.
She was a human. A woman. A girl.
She wasn't Tahiri.
She couldn't be.
Tahiri was bright. Tahiri had long, wavy hair the color of gold, the color of the sun glinting off the Unnh River at sunset. She was loud and she was full of energy, she was always moving, she was - she wasn't this.
Vua shoved the Shaper along, barking words. The Shaper looked terrified. She was shaking. Her black hair was done up in a complex, shiny knot. Vua pushed her toward a fleshy console. More barked words. Anakin couldn't look away from the person in the chamber. The girl. Woman. Human. The - she -
She woke up when the clear partition slid open. It jostled her. She turned, arms around her knees, turned just her head. The thing on her back, her neck, restricted the motion a little.
Those weren't Tahiri's eyes, that looked at him empty and uncomprehending.
Her eyes were green, green as grass, green as the deep jungle, the green of life to the ice of his own blue. She didn't have gold flecks that tinted her irises toward hazel. There wasn't space between where he was, and where she was. She was there, in the lab chamber, and then he was kneeling in front of her, reaching out with shaking hands, for her shoulders, and she recoiled. She recoiled back from him, hairless brows furrowing. The shape of her face was right, even under the dried blood - her cheekbones sharper, a little more fleshless. The gashes on her forehead made his stomach turn.
"Who are you?" she asked, and the tizowyrm buzzed in Anakin's ear. The feeling of the trembling biot, the sound of the rolling syllables that came from the girl, a language that meant death, that meant death and pain - would never leave him. His eyes burned.
"It's me, Tahiri. It's me, it's Anakin."
Gold-green eyes narrowed. She didn't even have eyelashes.
"I don't know you."
"You do."
Gently, ever-oh-so-gently, he brushed against her with the Force. Tentative. Caring. Soft, like fingertips to fingertips. She shivered, wincing. Confusion swam across her face and her eyes flicked to the pale-faced Shaper watching them both.
"It didn't hurt?" She frowned again, eyes darting back and forth. Bare wisps of hesitation trickled from the iron hold she held in her mind. "Why didn't it hurt?"
"You cannot -" the Shaper whuffed out breath, folded almost in half by Vua's casual fist in her gut. The Jedi in Anakin said that it was unnecessary. The rest of him felt nothing but gratification. They did this to her. They made her like this, left her covered in her own blood. They did this. They did this.
He took her shoulders, wincing at the feel of her bones, sharp against her skin. Why hadn't he been faster? He took too long. He waited, he dithered, he wasted time, he should've, he should've -
Anakin physically wrenched his skytrain of thoughts back on course. She needed him, now.
"Tahiri. Think. It's me. Come on."
She shivered, turning away but watching him from the corner of her eye.
"I know your voice. It was in my head."
"Yes! Yes. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"
Gold-green eyes warmed. The tension in her face relaxed.
"Anaykin?" she whispered. In the Force, she reached back. Fingertips to fingertips. Slender arms came up, and hands grabbed at the collar of his jumpsuit.
"It's me," he sobbed. Tears burned hot down his cheeks.
"I don't know who I am," she whispered, voice cracking. "Riina, Tahiri - I don't, I'm - Anaykin, am I Riina? Tayhir'ai?"
It wasn't Basic that tumbled from her in a sudden rush. The accent on her name, on his - fury flashed through him, a forestfire, a flash-burn in the summer jungle, sudden and rippling and searing, leaving drifting ash behind.
"Tahiri," he said, enunciating each syllable exactly. "And you're my friend. My best friend."
Her hands felt boney when she grabbed his jaw.
"Am I?" she whispered, then pulled him roughly to her.
Her lips were chapped, cracked and tasted like iron. It was a moment. Just a moment.
Then she shoved him back and he stumbled, falling on his rear.
"Get me out of this," Tahiri hissed.
"Vua," Anakin coughed out, mind spinning. "You heard her."
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Nen Yim's life could be counted in minutes. Her time slipped through her odd-numbered fingers like grains of sand. The Jeedai would torment her, kill her, destroy everything she had done. She watched, numb as weeks - weeks - of careful refinement, neural sculpting and Shaping unlike anything done before came apart as the male Jeedai crouched in front of the subject. She took a grim measure of cheer that she still spoke in the holy tongue, in ibi'Yun, instead of the gutteral barking of the infidel, but it was a trifle.
The ugly expression on the male Jeedai when he turned, pointing a demanding finger at her made her step back - against the broad chest of the Shamed One who held her Shaper hand in a punishing grasp.
"Let her go," the Jeedai snarled. "Now."
"But the project-!"
"She is Tahiri!" He leapt to his feet, the slender dead-metal cylinder of the Jeedai weapon clenched in white knuckles. "She has a name! Let her go, or, I swear on the Force, I'll kill you, I'll kill you and every single last Vong on this moon. I'll burn this whole place to the ground, I'll find every single Shaper and I'll kill them too! Let her go!"
By the end he was shouting and the air itself rippled, his words a physical force that stumbled even the Aistarteez back.
The Shamed One manhandled her over to the manipulator for the spineray. Nen Yim gasped as he gave her Shaper hand a friendly squeeze, enough that the carapace and endoskeleton creaked.
"You heard the Jeedai. Free her."
"You are betraying your people," she hissed, but reached for the neural bundles. It was salvageable. They were deep in the damutek, there could be an alarm raised. They might free the subject for now, but they could retrieve her. The fury in the Jeedai's eyes told her that his threat wasn't idle. All the memories, all their records and the new-found methods would be lost, irretrievable - no. No, this was acceptable. She would free the subject, yes, free her and then sound the alarm. Master Mezhan would do the same. The project was paramount; this would preserve it.
The spineray, at her prodding, first released the subject's skull, then, one by one, withdrew the tendrils that wove into the subject's spine. Nen Yim felt faint pride at how the girl twitched and shivered, the pain of each retraction undoubtedly incredible, but made no noise at all.
The biot slid down her back, dropping to the floor. Before it could scuttle away to its niche, the Jeedai lit his weapon and clove it in half.
Better the spineray than her. Better it than all the records and memories in the chamber. She repeated it as a mantra.
"You will be condemned forever for this, Shamed One." Nen Yim promised. "Your name will be cursed for a thousand generations."
"My name is Vua Rapuung," he corrected her, as if guiding a misled pupil. "And I have already been cursed."
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Tahiri stood up on trembling legs. She slapped away Anakin's offered hand, scowling. Her robeskin shifted, readjusting to seal up over her spine. He wanted to hug her, he wanted to grab her hand and run away forever. He wanted to take his humming lightsaber and turn the entire place into a charnel house.
Worse still, he could feel the terror of the Shaper through his lambent. It felt good. He hated that it felt good.
"We're going to get out of here. No one knows we're here, Vua has a way out. It's over, it's all over."
She reached up, prodding at the slashes on her forehead. Warning died on his lips as she didn't even flinch as she poked at the torn flesh.
"It's not over." she said. Their connection was weak, but not so weak that he didn't sense her resolve shift. Firm. The intention hit him about the same time as she made up her mind. Ikrit's 'saber ripped from Anakin's belt, yanked by the Force. It slapped into Tahiri's palm and the short blade hissed to life.
"Mezhan!" she screamed.
The temperature in the grotto dropped. The damutek quaked.
Like a freighter kicking into hyperspace, Tahiri sprinted from the grotto, shoving Anakin aside with a fist of casual telekinetic force.
"Oh, sithspawn," Anakin swore.
The very walls started to howl.