Kativie\u2019s lightsaber was a shining green blur, moving faster than her own eyes could follow as she parried blows and struck in return, hard, fast attacks that left limbs and corpses in her wake as she cut down Yuuzhan Vong attackers. The humming blade sang a symphony matched by her heart, by the flow of the Force through her, as she fought and killed and fought.<\/p>\n
The Yuuzhan Vong didn\u2019t break; they never broke. When the last warrior fell in a heap with his own arms and legs, barely bleeding through the cauterized stumps, the reptoids shrieked and broke for cover. Kativie let them go. Without the Vong to drive them onward, they\u2019re no threat.<\/em> She felt a moment of conflict. As a Jedi, I let them go\u2026but Halyn would tell me not to let up, because they\u2019ll be back and fighting again soon. If I strike them down now, they can\u2019t kill any of us later.<\/em><\/p>\n The choice was robbed of her as the survivors of the fire support team opened up with their T-21 blaster rifles, mowing down the retreating slave troops. There were too many for the handful of snipers to get them all, but the problem was resolved by the reappearance of the Muurian transport that had dropped her into the combat zone. Its heavy ship cannons poured fire into the crowd. The streets below overheated and exploded upward, sending flesh and blood into the air in clouds.<\/p>\n Kativie grimaced. War is not for the Jedi.<\/em> She shook her head at the slaughter as she turned back to ensure the Vong warriors she\u2019d struck down were dead. Halyn was a pilot during the Civil War, but it was nothing like this. Pilots cloak themselves in the nobility of starfighter combat, because it\u2019s clean and quick. This war isn\u2019t clean nor quick, and a lot more people are going to die.<\/em><\/p>\n Satisfied that the Vong had all been cleanly dispatched, she shut down her lightsaber. Even if we survive this, what will this do to the Jedi? The Clone Wars wiped out the entire Order, and there were few Jedi left to fight in the Galactic Civil War. Master Skywalker has trained barely a hundred of us; will any of us still truly be Jedi when this is over?<\/em><\/p>\n The survivors of the Zabrak squad were clustered together, some leaning heavily on zhabokas while others stood straight with blasters in hand. One of them looked squarely at Kativie, his eyes blazing. \u201cShould\u2019ve known it\u2019d be you,\u201d he spat. \u201cThe Ul\u2019akhoi send you to kill me? I know he sent me out here to die, and since I won\u2019t oblige him or the Vong, it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJram,\u201d Kativie said coldly. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t notice, there\u2019s plenty of Vong here to kill. I\u2019ve got bigger things to worry about than you. Besides,\u201d she added as an afterthought, \u201cif I wanted to kill you, I only would\u2019ve had to wait another thirty seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lusp stared daggers at his sister-in-law. Kativie shrugged. \u201cJram, I\u2019m out here to win the war. Can\u2019t do that if our front squads get massacred.\u201d She deliberately looked away from him. \u201cSergeant, pull your men back a few blocks and regroup. We\u2019ve got more volunteers coming up to reinforce you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about you?\u201d the sergeant asked.<\/p>\n Kativie allowed herself a predator\u2019s smile. \u201cI\u2019m going to delay the Vong. Just get your troops to safety, Sergeant.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Halyn\u2019s voice was raised in mild alarm. \u201cDo we have identification on the new contacts?\u201d he asked again, his voice carrying over the din in the Cathleen<\/em>\u2019s bridge. The Yuuzhan Vong had begun a major push into the city, and bridge officers were coordinating ground units in the defense, their voices and orders occasionally overlapping.<\/p>\n \u201cSir,\u201d Kryi said, \u201cRed Leader is identifying the newcomers as Li Coden and Abi Ocopaqui\u2019s squadron.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan you confirm that?\u201d Halyn asked sharply as he watched the tactical hologram.<\/p>\n \u201cNegative; comm chatter\u2019s been too heavy on the open combat channel to confirm by countercalls or voiceprint recognition.\u201d The starfighter coordinator\u2019s voice was taut with stress. \u201cI have multiple confirmations that the newcomers have scored coralskipper kills and are trading fire with the landing vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre Kaman\u2019s wings going to catch up in time to do any good?\u201d<\/p>\n Kryi shook her head. \u201cNegative. They were too far out of intercept position before we realized what we were facing up there. The Vong transports will be over the city before they can catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo we have anything left in reserve?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot much,\u201d Kryi said flatly. \u201cThe few squadrons we have left here are running air support for our troops on the ground, and everything else is spread all over Iridonia trying to turn back coralskipper strikes all across the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n Halyn lowered his head. They suckered us, and I fell for it. If we wouldn\u2019t have tried to launch our preemptive strike, we would\u2019ve had enough fighters here to blunt this landing force. One mistake, and I may have lost us Rak\u2019Edalin.<\/em> He looked up. \u201cPull our air cover off the troops. Get everything you can up to intercept the landing force\u2014all our reserve fighters, any armed transports, hell, civilian ships with blasters if you can find them. Anything that can put down a Vong transport or buy enough time for something bigger to catch it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPutting out the call now, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n Anishor put a huge paw on Halyn\u2019s shoulder. <If you pull the air cover off the ground troops, they\u2019re going to lose ground,> he warned. <The Vong will take advantage of it to push hard.><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t doubt it,\u201d Halyn said tightly. \u201cBut if all those Vong transports make it to the ground, we might as well write off the city. I\u2019m not ready to do that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n <But you will be soon?> Anishor asked with a trace of wariness.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d Halyn shook his head as he watched the tactical hologram, gripping the edge of the display tightly. His voice was low and even, hard for anyone further than the Wookiee to hear even if the bridge wasn\u2019t a cacophony of voices and orders. \u201cWe have an entire population here that have been raised from birth ready to fight. There are only a handful of worlds aside from Iridonia willing and capable of fielding an entire population of warriors. We can stop the Vong here.\u201d<\/p>\n <You\u2019re sure?> Anishor\u2019s rumble was uncertain. <How many Iridonians will die here to stop them?><\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t the time to argue about this,\u201d the Ul\u2019akhoi said, his voice rising slightly.<\/p>\n <Halyn, you and I have been friends for many years,> Anishor said calmly. <I\u2019ve never seen you willing to throw lives away.><\/p>\n \u201cThe Vong aren\u2019t the Empire,\u201d Halyn said distantly. \u201cThere\u2019s more at stake here than ever. If those crates set down in Rak\u2019Edalin intact, we\u2019ll lose Rak\u2019Edalin and quite possibly Iridonia. With Iridonia goes Zabrak space. I won\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n <All those warriors that are fighting now\u2026><\/p>\n \u201cAnishor, I don\u2019t have time to do this now. There\u2019s a battle to win or lose.\u201d He spared a look for the big Wookiee. \u201cI know the Cathleen<\/em>\u2019s crew won\u2019t be able to force you off the bridge, so don\u2019t make me ask you to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n The Wookiee sighed. <Halyn, I\u2026><\/p>\n The Zabrak shook his head and turned away, raising his voice. \u201cKryi, where are my fighters?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Abi Ocopaqui was in her element. The Twi\u2019lek had been many things in her lifetime: bounty hunter, Alliance agent, New Republic officer, Intelligence infiltrator. Many of her professions during her long career with the Republic had nothing to do with flying, but she still found pure joy in the release of starfighter combat.<\/p>\n Her career as a pilot had not been long\u2014several years between Yavin and Endor, flying as wingmate to Halyn Lance in Sabre Squadron. After Halyn\u2019s elevation to General and commander of the Vanguard Wing, later reformed as the 118th<\/sup> Starfighter Wing as part of the fleet\u2019s reorganization under Admiral Ackbar, she had been drawn further and further away from the cockpit to instead work for Alliance special operations. During those months pulling starfighter combat missions, she had felt the most alive she ever recalled\u2014death-defying missions, bravery, skill.<\/p>\n Of course, at the time, she\u2019d also been Halyn\u2019s lover. In hindsight, they had been a supernova\u2014they created a lot of heat and light, but it eventually collapsed under the stress of their separated lives. Halyn had gone on to become a heroic commanding officer up until the battle of Endor had devastated his fighter wing; Abi had become a distinguished special operations agent, specializing in extraction and deception missions. Halyn had racked up an amazing kill count in the fighter cockpit, while Abi had totaled nearly a hundred lives saved from Imperial Intelligence\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n She\u2019d nearly forgotten how much she enjoyed starfighter combat.<\/p>\n The B-wing starfighter she had borrowed from the Cathleen<\/em>\u2019s hangar before it had been destroyed was more agile and faster than her Y-wing, though it wasn\u2019t near as tough. Still, she had to allow that the amazing array of weapons at her fingertips was useful.<\/p>\n The coralskipper in her sights was concentrating its dovin basals directly aft, soaking up firepower. Abi continued to hammer at it with laser cannons, then thumbed the controls over to ion weapons and squeezed off a burst.<\/p>\n Ion cannons were designed to disable starships without outright destroying them. Light versions, like those mounted by her B-wing or her old Y-wing, were capable of neutralizing circuitry without major damage. Other starfighters were vulnerable to such fire, but larger vessels often had multiple-redundant systems which would prevent a starfighter from knocking out major systems. Heavy ion cannons, like those sported by Star Destroyers, could outright fry and fuse circuitry, knocking out redundancies and causing major\u2014but repairable\u2014damage.<\/p>\n Yuuzhan Vong vessels lacked reactors, ion engines, computers, or even a single circuit. However, ion attacks weren\u2019t much more pleasant to living nervous systems; not unlike a stun bolt from a blaster rifle, they tended to fire multiple nerves simultaneously, overloading sensory systems and potentially knocking a living being unconscious.<\/p>\n Few pilots would turn an ion cannon onto a living being; it was a gross waste of power when a single shot from a blaster rifle would effectively accomplish the same thing.<\/p>\n That is, before the Yuuzhan Vong arrived with a mighty armada of living ships.<\/p>\n The coralskipper was stunned by the blast and its defenses failed. It began to fall into a trajectory that, to Abi\u2019s eye, would end a few kilometers north of Rak\u2019Edalin not-too-far below. The Twi\u2019lek\u2019s index finger tightened on her trigger, sending a trio of high-powered bolts into the coralskipper. There was always a chance it would recover before it hit the ground<\/em>, she justified as the skip came to pieces, throwing yorik coral chunks in all directions.<\/p>\n She pushed the nose of the fighter down again, picking up more speed. A kilometer below, she could see the Vong transports continuing their drop towards Rak\u2019Edalin unabated. We\u2019re not going to stop them in time<\/em>, she thought distantly. There\u2019s just not enough of us.<\/em><\/p>\n The B-wing\u2019s dive was faster than the Vong transports. She squeezed off long distance attacks with both lasers and ion cannons, but the Vong transports picked off the bolts with ease. She smiled\u2014her hunting smirk, Halyn had called it once\u2014and swapped to proton torpedoes. The B-wing\u2019s targeting computer gave her a solid tone, and she fired.<\/p>\n \u201cOne,\u201d Li\u2019s voice interrupted her thoughts as she watched the proton torpedoes close. \u201cWatch your fire. Rak\u2019Edalin is scrambling everything they\u2019ve got into the air.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWonderful,\u201d Abi answered automatically. Far below, the proton torpedoes were caught by a Yuuzhan Vong gravitic void and detonated. She fired torpedoes again, watching and waiting.<\/p>\n \u201cSo watch your fire,\u201d Li warned. \u201cNo stray fire over the city where we might take out a friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vong transports had been thrown by the shockwave of the detonating proton torpedoes, and a little disoriented. They were apparently still trying to regroup when the second set of torpedoes hit one of the coral vessels. The vessel shattered in a bloody fireball, and shrapnel from the blast hammered three more transports so hard that their descents turned into uncontrolled falls.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll watch my fire,\u201d Abi repeated.<\/p>\n Far below, laser fire began to spray up through the Vong formation. Then two coralskippers were closing on her, and she had to pull up from the dive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kelta was standing quietly near the bridge\u2019s entrance, staying out of the way and carefully maintaining her mental defenses. I can still feel them all<\/em>, she thought distantly as death crashed against her mind through the Force. There\u2019s just so much of it.<\/em><\/p>\n Part of it, she knew, was because she was just sitting still and not fighting. She\u2019d found that actively fighting helped her keep her mental defenses in place\u2014the activity distracted her from many of the sensations the Force brought to her. Now, though, she was merely trying to not feel<\/em>. She remembered as a child on Nam Chorios an old mental game: to not think<\/em> of a pink cu-pa. Of course, once that instruction was given, it was impossible to think of anything else.<\/p>\n So intent was she on the distant feelings in the Force that she nearly missed the frustration of a very large Wookiee as he stalked past her and out the bridge door. Of course, Anishor was more capable than most of harnessing or suppressing emotion; it was part of his nature as a berserker and as a Force-user.<\/p>\n She fell into step behind him; it took several heartbeats for her to catch up with his long, rangy strides. \u201cIs something wrong?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n The frustration slowly bubbled up from the Wookiee. <The General is risking everything,> Anishor said at last. <And I do not understand why.><\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d Kelta asked.<\/p>\n <You fought with him during the Civil War, though not as long as myself. Tell me, how often did he commit everything to a battle without having a reserve or a back-up plan?><\/p>\n The Jedi thought for several moments before she responded. \u201cHe didn\u2019t. The only time he gambled everything was at Endor, and that was under direct orders from High Command. The One Eighteenth took heavy losses there and he blamed himself for it. Other than that, he wouldn\u2019t commit everything to a fight; if it was all-or-nothing, he would refuse to engage it.\u201d<\/p>\n <Avoiding a potentially decisive battle for the enemy,> Anishor agreed. <So tell me, what has changed?><\/p>\n Kelta frowned. \u201cChanged?\u201d<\/p>\n <He gambles everything here on Iridonia. The Yuuzhan Vong slowly whittle away his forces with superior numbers, in spite of hideous casualties, and he stands and meets them toe-to-toe. He would never have done this before.><\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps,\u201d she allowed. \u201cBut it\u2019s different now. He\u2019s fighting to defend Iridonia from the Yuuzhan Vong\u2014back then, we could pick up and move if we were found. We fought a guerilla war, not a traditional one.\u201d<\/p>\n <He could have drawn all of Iridonia\u2019s forces out of the cities, abandoned them to the Yuuzhan Vong,> Anishor pointed out. <The Zabraks could have easily withdrawn into the jungles and fought warfare from there. The Yuuzhan Vong would never defeat them in such an engagement; it would be impossible to root them out with so little civilization on the world, just as they fought the Empire for twenty years. Just as my own people fought the Empire.> He shook his furry head. <Each time I\u2019ve asked him about his battle plans, he deflects me.><\/p>\n Kelta slowly shook her head. \u201cI don\u2019t know what his overall plan is.\u201d<\/p>\n <You used to be among his most trusted confidants,> Anishor recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a long time ago,\u201d Kelta said bluntly, ignoring the painful stirring the Wookiee had evoked. \u201cA lifetime ago. If someone else knows his plans for the war, I don\u2019t know who it is.\u201d<\/p>\n <Nor I.> Anishor reached the end of a corridor and looked around. <I do not know if I can stay. Perhaps my leaving will persuade him away from this path; he risks all of Iridonia, all of his people by this course.><\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Kelta protested. \u201cYou can\u2019t leave, Anishor.\u201d<\/p>\n <No?> The Wookiee looked at her uncertainly<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d She shook her head. \u201cAnishor, I know you haven\u2019t seen Halyn much since the end of the Civil War, but he\u2019s going to need you. There\u2019s not a warrior on Iridonia that can match you for strength or wisdom. I might be a Jedi, but even I\u2019m no match for you.\u201d<\/p>\n <He keeps me and my warriors from fighting.> Anishor looked tired. <There are many theaters where our strength could be used.><\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re needed here<\/em>,\u201d Kelta reminded him. \u201cHalyn has to have something in mind for you and your berserkers. He has needed you several times already to prevent disaster, and he\u2019ll need you again.\u201d<\/p>\n Anishor was silent for long moments. <Then I, too, will stay,> he said at last. <Even if I don\u2019t understand.><\/p>\n Kelta smiled. \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of the Force, isn\u2019t it?\u201d she asked. \u201cTo trust what we don\u2019t understand?\u201d<\/p>\n The Wookiee rumbled a wordless assent.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me ask you something, Anishor,\u201d she asked, changing subject. \u201cWhat is your take on the Yuuzhan Vong and the Force?\u201d<\/p>\n The Wookiee was clearly hesitant to answer. <The Jedi have not drawn a conclusion?> he asked.<\/p>\n It was Kelta\u2019s turn to hesitate. \u201cMaster Skywalker concluded that we need to fight the Yuuzhan Vong, regardless of whether they exist in the Force or not,\u201d she said at last. \u201cThat\u2019s been answer enough for me. They\u2019ve slaughtered so many people\u2014they may not be part of the dark side, but that doesn\u2019t mean their actions aren\u2019t dark.\u201d<\/p>\n <I\u2019ve known many evil individuals,> Anishor said slowly. <The Sith cult Dusk, the Emperor\u2019s Inquisitors, fallen Jedi, the Imperial agent Suuzanne, even a handful among the berserkers who have followed the dark path. Even among the worst of them, however, there is a spark of light, a chance of redemption. It often does not succeed, for redemption requires forgiveness of self\u2014a forgiveness not possible without acknowledgement of one\u2019s guilt.><\/p>\n The Wookiee grew even less certain. <Yet even the worst of them was merely a fallen individual\u2014consumed by their own anger, or desire for power, or greed. They manipulate, they lie, they kill, yet all of them still exist<\/em> in the most fundamental way: the Force. That is why there is always the possibility of redemption.><\/p>\n Anishor bowed his head. <The Yuuzhan Vong are an abomination, Kelta Rose. The Jedi state that there is no life without the Force. The actions of the Yuuzhan Vong are without a doubt evil. But how can there be redemption without the Force?> He shook his head. <I sometimes wonder if they were created by the Sith to destroy the galaxy, but I know that such things are beyond the power of the dark side. After all, those who follow the dark side destroy; those of us who follow the true Force heal and grow.><\/p>\n \u201cThen what do we do with them, even if we win this war?\u201d Kelta asked.<\/p>\n The Wookiee reflected before answering. <That answer must come from the Jedi and the New Republic,> he said at last. <I follow the Living Force, but the question you pose must be answered by the Unifying Force.><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kativie\u2019s lightsaber was a shining green blur, moving faster than her own eyes could follow as she parried blows and struck in return, hard, fast attacks that left limbs and corpses in her wake as she cut down Yuuzhan Vong … Continue reading