Zonama Sekot Orbit and Outlaying Space

[lotvashai]

They had been getting ahead of themselves. When the group had reached the edge of the clearing it became obvious that they weren't just going to be able to hop onto the nearest vessel and get themselves out of here in time. It was still unclear to Shen'g what was actually happening, was this the start of another invasion attempt? The traditionalists had attempted such a feat before, but always Sekot had rallied to their side and defended those still upon the surface. The worlds consciousness had driven away the attackers so many times it seemed implausible, to him at least, that they would even consider attempting this a third or fourth time.

But this time was different, something about this just felt wrong, more so than the last time. For one thing, no Yorik trema had begun descending upon the settlments, no tsik vai, other than those utilised by the loyalists streaked through the skies above their heads. The only signs of enemies were the torrents of fire that rained down from above, bombarding their villages and settlements, laying waste to the lush landscape and toppling the boras, which swished and swayed erratically in their own form of biological pain.
There wasn't an invasion force, Shen'g realised, because their plan had never been to invade...

Just as soon as that thought hammered through his psyche, he observed out the corner of one eye, the aide that had travelled with Kommisar, breaking away from the main group and heading up the embankment not far from where they were running. Even he did not see the danger lurking up in the trees, not until it was too late. The regent, too, had attempted to rein in his counterpart, but the sudden strangled cry that permeated the air was punctuated by the grotesque way in which the aide tensed suddenly, stilled as if hit by an unseen force, and then crumpled to the ground like a sack of bones.
Stunned, the priest stared wide eyed at the coufee sticking out of the man's back, and then rushed to reach out to Kommisar, who was, himself, going over to investigate. That was when he heard that dry rasp of a voice, and glanced up to see whom it belonged to.

There, up at his vantage point, stood a warrior in full vonduun crab armour, a sight the likes of which he had not seen in some time. The armour was permitted only to those warriors travelling off world, to oversee the cleanup operations on many vongformed worlds. Those warriors wore armour for their own protection, so that they could better protect the shapers they guarded. Not that shapers were, themselves, defenseless...he knew better than to think that.

"Wait...I do not know from where this one hails," He urged Kommisar not to step forward any further, if the warrior was guarding something important, perhaps they could negotiate a way around.
And if he is a traditionalist? Shen'g's mind cautioned him, Then he has forfeit his life.

He took a step forth, placing half of himself in front of the Regent. The good thing about being Yuuzhan Vong was, that you quite literally wore who you were, Shen'gs scarring and ritual tattoos would have given away both his domain and rank immediately, the implants he bore were of another time in their history, just adding weight to the rank and status. That might well have a profound effect on him.
He would not apologise, since that would imply submission where the warrior would find none, and Yuuzhan Vong never apologised to one lower down the food chain. A warrior only outranked a priest, were they anything less than a supreme commander.

"Yuth ugg, vinim'hok!..." He began in their own tongue, then reverted, understanding that this could well put the Regent at ease, he didn't need a coufee in his own back this day, "...we must pass now, these infidels are ours." He dare not say what for, context was everything and if he had said they were travelling together as equals, it could have tipped the balance out of their favour. It was already far too late for the aide.

"Guvvuk! And find your way to the yorik-et...there will be nothing left for you here."

---

Something wasn't right, S'uun Esh could feel it in her bones, the infidels weren't reacting promptly enough to the threat, perhaps they thought it would buy them some immunity in this? They were wrong, nothing more than nuisance flies in a maelstrom of destruction...so she believed.
Everything indicated that they were moving to make the retreat, but when they failed to initially fire upon the approaching coralskippers, choosing to wait before deploying any form of weaponary, the Commander knew they had been had.

A sudden shriek and white hot stab of pain ignited S'uun's senses untill all she was was pain. Unaware of anything but the heat of it burning her synapses and the sudden realisation that the Yammosk was experiencing acute fear, caution, whatever you wanted to call it, it was directed towards it's 'children'. A warning, she knew, 'Get back, get away!'

Almost instantaneously the Commander realised that the pain she was feeling was not just that conveyed from the Yammosk's surprise, but the fact that she ached intensely from head to toe, right to the core of her bones was informative enough to know she had quite literally been thrown from the platform upon which she had stood. Blinking furiously, a snarl already forming on her lips, her vision began to clear, her hearing returning along with it...it wasn't a welcome return.

Around her, people scrambled to stabalize the thrashing creature in the nutrient tank, only to be sent flying themselves when a tentacle struck them and propelled them head, foot and sidelong into the cavern beyond. Some landed safely enough, others broke bones and those whom had been thrown into the wall nearby wouldn't make it at all. Experimentally she tesed her limbs, finding little more than cuts and bruises as a result of her impromptu flight. A shard of the coral ceiling had landed point-end down nearby, narrowly missing impaling her directly through the gut and she had lost part of the coral spikes that her cloak of command hung from on her shoulder, but that was about it. Seething, she got to her feet to survey the damage, and was surprised when she saw the attending shaper adept scurrying over to her side, head a mass of chaotically flailing tendrils that appeared to be mimmicking the yammosk's own distress.

"Commander! The ship has taken a direct hit, the rikyam is reporting the loss of two of our outer ganglia. It has sealed off those sectors as it should and we are no longer venting atmosphere." She said nothing about the losses, those went without saying and the ones who were lost to them would soon find their glory with the gods.

That snarl had not yet faded, nor fully bloomed on S'uun's tattered face, nor would it for a moment yet. The loss of the spiral arms was significant but not wholey detremental to their operation. A worldship did not need all of it's ganglia to survive, but this was just embarrassing. This, she could not let go unmarked.

"Bring me the tactical villip." She hissed, ignoring the thin ribbon of blood now dripping viscosely from the brow of her cranial ridge.

The shaper saluted without word, and spun on her spurred heels to do just that. The infidels were going to pay with their lives for this humilliation, she would not return until that ship, it's crew and anyone on the surface of Zonama were little more than a cloud of atoms.

Moments later, an attendant bearing the vessel's primary villip returned, heavy burden in arms, the biot had already fully everted, revealing the scarred and tattooed visage of the tactician. All on the bridge would have heard her orders, but she would go there immediately after to ensure they were enforced.

"Redirect the yaret-kor on our damaged side, the dovin basals there need time to protect the severance points." The rikyam could do the rest, a worldship was a living organism, comprised of many smaller living organisms, it would heal as well as any Yuuzhan Vong could. "Fire upon that infidel vessel, leave no trace of it's existance! All other vessels will remain as they stand while the world retalliates, but we go to stage two. Order them to commence bombardment of the worlds dark space abominations, deploy their coral skippers to pick off those who dare flee the inevitable."

The villip seemed to physically tilt on it's own axis, making it a chore for the attendant to hold, but he did not dare complain or show his discomfort. It would have meant sudden death.

"It will be as you desire, Fearsome one." The response was as it should be.

By the time that she would reach the bridge again, everything would be in motion.

[El Supremo]

After the initial firing of the super-laser, the batteries of turbo-lasers opened up to try to sweep the groups of coral-skippers making attack runs. Plamsa from their runs, left splattered blossoms of color along the length of the black-skinned Atrocity, It's shields while a match for anything in the galaxy, could not sustain this level of short range pounding of plasma, like it could withstand more conventional ordinance.

As Tuulk deliberated and waited for the behemoth reactors to re-power the charge-coils of the super-laser, the tactical officer barked out picking up a set of new contacts decelerating from hyperspace.

"Sir! New contacts, bearing 22 mark 394, distance 75,000 Kilometers. They are coming up on us fast sir! ... Sir!?! they just started transmitting Imperial code, but there are no life-signs!

The dead ships, upon dropping out of hyperspace, engage shields and weapon-systems come online. However, the bridges are dark, and the usual chatter across Imperial com channels is silent. This "dead" fleet, having arrived in a semblance of a battle formation, moves to flank and threaten the Worldship.

*"Dead Fleet" Data:
3 Kherlen Class Battle Cruiser
10 ISD-IV Star Destroyers
12 Gladiator II Star Destroyers
8 StarWolf Carriers
10 Phennyd Class Frigate
20 Saar Heavy Transport Ships*

[lotvashai]

Back on the bridge, the Commander was less than thrilled. Through the viewspider’s optic lens, she could see the atrocity clearly, looming up on their flank as it maneuverd into position. On the outset, S’uun Esh had assumed, as had the tactician, that they were preparing to make the jump to darkspace and flee. Did they not understand how outnumbered they were? Standing their ground was a rare occurrence among these infidels, but in her prior experience, those whom called themselves the Imperials, were among the more honourable ilk. She wouldn’t extend to calling them worthy, however, they still displayed the detestable trait of self preservation - something that was ingrained in her psyche as abhorrent.

Sekot, too, was putting up a valliant fight, but it would all be for nothing. Once the worlds darkspace drives were disabled, it wouldn’t be able to flee this time. They had it right where they wanted it. Shimrra Jamaane would be looking down on them from the heavens now, his absolution and will complete.
That she was losing a few squadrons to the Imperials mattered nothing to her, it kept them busy, out of the way while they laid the groundwork where it was needed, and Yorik-et could be regrown, fast, by the shapers they had in place in their enclaves. She was a commander before Nas Choka’s rise to Warmaster, but first and foremost, she understood his theory of a strategic retreat. Retreat wasn’t failure, as his predecessor would have refuted. It was expedient in bringing forth the next stage of a carefully thought out strategy, that would have the same end without losing important resources frippantly. One might have assumed that was exactly what she was doing with those squadrons out there - but this she could excuse for one simple reason: The pilots were not Yuuzhan Vong.

For milennia the chazrach had lived among the children of the gods, serving as slaves for the most part, implanted with sometimes dehabillitating coral growths, that allowed their thoughts, actions and feelings to be governed by a Yammosk. Few survived more than a standard Ket, but those who did sometimes proved themselves worthy of escalation. Many had even made it into the warrior caste, at it’s most basic level. And since the chazrach laid in litters of a dozen or more, with growth excellerant shaped by using the protocol of Yin’na, it allowed them to become a useful resource when the time required it.

“My life in payment, Commander, but the Rikyam is sensing more enemy vessels arriving in system...” Came the raspingly dry tones of one of the warriors, monitoring their current status.

He need not have told her that, already the blaze bugs in the command niche were forming up to indicate the new arrivals, each of them winking into existence in the viewspider’s optic jelly, also.
Reinforcements? The infidels had called for reinforcements, perhaps to aid with the emergency evacuation, that had seen scores of sekotan craft pouring out of the worlds hastily put together capital settlement. Most of them were being picked off by squadron’s she had since ordered to linger closer to the worldship. But whoever these newcomers were, they were bold.

Now the commander didn’t require the viewspider to see them, they were as plain as the stars burning brightly all around them, all of them made-thing craft and all of them moving in to flank them on the right hand side. S’uun could feel her blood begin to simmer anew...they were in severe danger of being boxed in. And although she couldn’t be sure, the tactician had correctly drawn her attention to the formation the newcomers were arriving in, even before they’d all winked into existence to begin with.
A nearby high pitched keening, that of the tactical villip, rang true in Esh’s ears, and there was no point in praying to the gods that this would not be more bad news, to tempt fate was akin to lending your trust to Yun-Harla...you never quite knew what you would end up with. Nothing could have prepared her for this, though.

The villip was already fully everted by the time she had turned to face the ship’s villip mistress completely, and displaying the bemused, heavily scarred features of their chief tactician’s lesser. What could he have possibly noticed that his senior had not? And more to the point, was it of such significance that she would soon be finding herself a new chief tactician?

“Speak, And do not concern yourself with protocol.” S’uun Intoned gruffly, she didn’t want to waste a moment.

“Belek tiu, Commander, the sensory nodes from the outer most flanking miid ro’ik vessels are transmitting confusing information to the yammosk. Master shaper Yal will not confess his mistakes, he insists that these made thing ships show no signs of life...”

This was nothing new to her, infidels were able to construct all manner of abominations...droids were one

perfect example of their disgusting use of heretical technology. And she knew whole vessels could be piloted by remote...but a small fleet? Still not beyond the realms of possible. And suddenly she was reminded of one of their people's most tragic historical events...the death of the legendary Czulkang Lah at the hands of the infidels. She had never trained under his instruction, but so legendary were his teachings that is methods and lessons were used by many a high ranking warrior. Today was time to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors.

“Listen to the master shaper, tactician. The miid ro’ik have their orders, they will intercept and engage immediately, the infidels will not surround us here, this worldship is one of few still in existance, it is vital that we...” She detested this word “..preserve it.”

And even as she willed it, it was already being done. Yuudai Lah was going to be most displeased...and the embrace of pain well fed.

[El Supremo]

As Admiral Tuulk nervously sat on the bridge of the Atrocity, its main batteries of SICs continued to unleash upon the Worldship. Then came the news of the reinforcements. Tuulk new well the Imperial ship roster, aside from the lesser ships, he could even recite the majority of the fleet by name. What he looked upon on the monitor baffled him, he new a new contract had been awarded for constructing ships, but to have three Battlecruisers of the new class show up, let alone show up so fast was perplexing him. Way out here, any ship other than the atrocity would have taken many hours to respond. However, he was not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

"Ensign, transmit tactical data to the new ships, have them proceed at flank speed and come in behi...."

The Ensign immediately began hammering commands out upon the com, but looked up at the screen puzzled before he turned and cut the Admiral off.
"Sir? The ships are non-responsive, as a matter of fact, they are sending they are trying to send their own commands to the Atrocity!"

Tuulk turned and scowled as he looked out upon the fleet that had arrived, something was amiss and he did not like the one guessing.

Among the ships of the new fleet, the shiny new ISD-IVs opened up with their heavy batteries at the Worldship itself, while the frigates opened up formation and began to advance upon the Cruisers. Their launcher shutters snapped open, and each unloaded a cluster of heavy torpedoes at the Crusiers. They continued to advance to close the range, and cut off the Vong's ability to surround the Atrocity.

Deep inside one of the Kherlen Battlecruisers, the final calculations were completed on one of the "thinkers" . If it survived the battle, it would finish installing itself as the main processor for the Navigation computer, it would have done so by this time already, but it had been instructed to delay in order to retain enough individuality to think tactically. As the last of the equations slotted into place it was transmitted in a burst to one of the Heavy Transports. Within moments of the transmission, the modifications to the nav-system of the Heavy Transport was complete. The isolation rods of its reactor withdrew and the fuel-slug furnace flared to maximum output. The Nav-computer initiated the micro-jump.

Twenty some thousand years ago, enterprising Corellians had gotten their hands upon Rakatan technology, they had tackled the problem of faster than light travel by adapting the force-drives of the Rakatan to run off of less esoteric energy sources. In short order, they discovered many additional sets of problems, most notable, the problem of a mass, though in hyperspace encountering another mass, even if it was in real-space... With the titanic energies involved, this frequently had very bad results... and so the Corellians had wisely developed complex safety interlocks on the Hyperdrive motivators to prevent things like a ship jumping into another or a celestial body.

When Revan several thousand years ago awoke the Starforge and provided it with additional plans, things such as the Corellian re-engineered hyperdrive, The Forge learned much of how the galaxy had progressed, however it had retained its own secrets from antiquity. It was more than smart enough to know the differences...

The Heavy Transport initiated its micro-jump and departed, only to arrive seemingly as it left... the terminus of its brief sojourn the identical coordinates of one of the Vong Cruisers.

Hyperspace Hazards - oh my!

[Emperor Ire]

Back on the planet's surface...

Kommisar stood still, heeding the High Priest's warning to not approach the angry Yuuzhan Vong warrior, Ibu's quick move to get between him and the warrior meant that Ibu was in clear danger of meeting Kommisar's fate at the end of a coufee. As the Priest tries to talk to the warrior Kommisar watches the growing disdain on the warrior's face, even as the searing hot plasma bolts from the worldship's lava cannons impacted around them the warrior wanted satisfaction from the Imperial that had brought destruction to the Sekotan landscape. With each passing moment Kommisar could see Ibu's words falling on the warrior's dead ears, he would kill any who tried to pass, if any of them were to escape this hell it would have to take a drastic move on Kommisar's part.

"Listen to me, Warrior, can you understand me?" Kommisar asks as a plasma bolt impacts only twenty meters away with a loud boom, the warrior give a rigid nod that he does in fact understand the words coming from Kommisar. "If you want satisfaction from me then you shall have it but let's leave this world first before you are robed of the opportunity to send me to the Gods yourself."

Kommisar didn't care if he had spoken out of place, he didn't want to see another die for him like Kaalyanii had, he gave a viable alternative to the situation that would see the warrior given satisfaction and would ensure might live long enough to make it to another system in one piece. The Warrior stood there for a moment as fire rained from the sky, eerily calm in the chaos that surrounds them, he gives another rigid nod to indicate that what Kommisar suggested will do and growls to the High Priest that a Yorik-trema capable of taking them and the infidel off planet is near. Kommisar looks at Ibu as he motions for the High Priest as if nothing has changed, getting off Sekot was their goal and Kommisar would see it done.

[lotvashai]

One moment they were setting up the counter offensive, the miid ro'ik move into position to intercept the new arrivals, the next...

The next their entire fleet was near thrown into chaos. All at once the bridge crew of the worldship fell from their stations, heads torn free of the cognition hoods they wore, while they clutched their heads in spasmodic agony. The blinding white - hot pain a lesser being might not have taken so well, and there was little more than colourful expletives uttered from each of them in turn, like a wave. But things like this only happened in the worst of situations...and it was the worst.

S'uun Esh, too, found herself thrown across the command deck, sprawling into the blaze bug niche and succeeding in crashing into several of the blazing hot creatures and crushing them under her weight in the force of the fall. Each one of them burned deep, blistering welts into her skin, drawing out a hiss of angered pain that caused her eyes to lose focus ever so slightly. But it was the anger that won through. The will to discover just what had happened out there.

"Report!" She growled above the sounds of bewilderment, and the bridge fell into silence once more, giving the attendants chance to get back to their monitoring biots.

And after much scrambling and scuttling of claws on the chitinous floor, she realized that they were no longer on an even keel. In fact, the ship was at such a slanted angle, the attendant had great difficulty in climbing his way back to the station at all.
The more S'uun cast her dark gaze around the bridge, the clearer the state of the damage became. Many of the cognition hoods had been torn from their umbilacles, laying scattered around, or partially clinging to the remnants of their parent like flapping rags in the breeze. The floor was slick with ngdin trails, indicating that the usually wall-bound clean up creatures, were preparing to hastily feast on the blood of any injured. But this didn't make sense, no proximity warnings had been given, no signs that they'd taken a direct hit...the only vessel firing upon them had been the Atrocity, and she'd been looking at the new arrivals when she'd been thrust across the chamber.

She should have stayed with the yammosk.

"Sensory nodes report we were hit by a wave of siesmic energy, eminating from the location of the..."

The worldship had already begun to right it's self, and S'uun was back on her own two feet, claws grasping ahold of the edge of the viewspider's pit with gnarled claws.

"...speak it!" patience was never the virtue of a good commander, and she needed reasons right now.

"...We have lost tsam'pah, fearsome one..."

As yet, the viewspider had failed to refocus, and the blaze niche was next to useless. Esh was forced to march towards the central blastula, and stare through the mica canopy herself. The attendant wasn't lying, and both their sets of eyes couldn't be playing tricks on them, because the Tsam'pah really wasn't there anymore. And in place of the cruiser...a swirling mass of debris as fine as the silt that collected in the mernip breeding pools.

A throbbing streak of hot pain burst in the Commander's wrists, followed by the viscose dripping of black blood on the deck at her feet. Fists clenched tight enough, that she'd sunk her own claws into her palms, S'uun literally quaked with anger...enough to make the young warrior attending nearby keep his gaze averted.

Preemptively, the worldship's villip mistress was at her side within seconds, clutching in her hand the fleet's primary villip. At least someone here had the insight to understand what was expected, she would remember that if they survived this.

"All remaining vessels, open fire on the flanking enemy... I want all available yorik-et strafing their shields and main weapons emplacements. Keep them away from the Koros strohna at all costs...those of you who remain aboard this domain, we must withdraw, but keep targeting Sekot's hyperdrive abomination for as long as we are still within range. " If something could be salvaged from this botched mission, then that would have to be it, the worldship was too precious to lose, and it pained her to not dig her heels in and die trying...she still might.

***

The skies above were a constant torrent of flame and molten plasma, the resonating 'whump' of another bolt going to ground hadn't lessened since the beginning of the attack. They were going to die here this day, the High priest could just feel it in his bones. Perhaps he should have just made peace with his gods, gone to them willingly like one of the worthy? But these infidels were his charges now, they'd risked their lives to come here and bring him the news they had, the least he could do was repay them by helping them escape...even if it meant he could not.

This warrior was another matter all together, and whatever dispute he might have with their party, they didn't stand a chance at surviving, any of them, if he didn't back down and see sense. But of course, his sense was completely different to their own.

"The infidel speaks the words I would speak, warrior...if we remain here we will all go to the gods ingloriously!" He called back, advancing a few careful steps at a time.

The warrior didn't seem bothered by the priest's advancement either, he was too focussed on whom he saw as the enemy. Shen'g didn't know if this warrior was even one of their own, or if he was a traditionalist, hell bent on seeing this attack through. He just kept his hard gaze fixed on Kommisar, as if debating if he had time to sever the man's head from his shoulders before the next random bolt of plasma hit them and blew them away with the rest of the ashes.

And then, as sharply as any warrior would have sprung an attack, he foist the amphistaff he was carrying in the direction of the plateau at his right, where many of the extolled had been hurrying.

"We go...but I will not forget infidel."

Shen'g wasn't sure what astounded him most, the fact the warrior had effectively stood down, or that he was now heading off in the direction of a vacant yorik trema trasport. He wasn't about to question it though, and with a wave of one hand, he headed off, shaper in tow, in the direction of that transport. Yun-Harla had dealt them another good hand, their luck would run out at some point, but everything happened for a reason.

[Emperor Ire]

The SICs fall silent as one of the small ships impact against the Vong cruiser and the Atrocity is rocked by the shockwave from the fierce collision between the Vong cruiser and the smaller ship from this 'Dead fleet'. Tuulk is tossed violently and lands on the floor hard, hitting the corner of his eye on the cold durasteel floor below as he falls, others aboard the bridge fared far worse than him. As the violent moment passed Tuulk begins to get his feet and puts his hand to his head where it hit the floor, he pulls it away to see his blood on his palm, the fall had left him a cut above his eye to remember the moment.

"SITREP, NOW!" Tuulk shouts for those that might be hard of hearing at the moment, he's calm and in control even when most senior commanders might be phased, he knows his crew can pull through as long as he keeps his head on his shoulders.

"Shields are holding at 53%, weapons were down but are coming back online, Sir. the tactical officer replies. "All the Vong ships are moving off to engage the new arrivals, one of those new ships destroyed that cruiser coming to bare on us."

"And the Worldship?"

"Moving away from the new arrivals, sir, but they are still targeting the surface. They appear to be moving off."

"Admiral, I ran those Imperial codes the new ships transmitted an they seem to be authentic." Ensign Ricky, who remarkably doesn't have a scratch on him, reports to Tuulk. "Our firewall seems to be keeping them locked out for the moment but the contacts seem to be trying to slice the ship's system. I estimate four minutes till mainframe breach."

Tuulk is faced with a decision, stay and fight and crush the retreating worldship and take on this new friend/foe at the same time or retreat himself, the choice needs to be made sooner rather than later so Tuulk goes with what his gut tells him. "Once weapons are back up, lock target the center of the Worldship, if we're lucky they're facing those black holes of theirs at the new ships and we might get a couple of shots in."

"Yes sir."

Navigation, plot a course for home base, jump when ready. Tuulk says as he makes his way back into his command chair, he hopes that they manage to break off in time, he thinks little of Kommisar on the planet surface.

=========================================

Kommisar watches as the High Priest secures their path and runs off for the ship that awaits, the Regent can hear the warrior's warning to him as he charges past with the rest of Sheng's party as they make their way to the transpor, perhaps if they do live through this he will come face to face with this warrior again. Now isn't the time to think of such things, getting to the ship is more important, Kommisar weaves his way along with the teeming masses of Extolled as they flee. In any other instance a human running among a swarm of Yuuzhan Vong might seem weird but all were running to for the same reason, self preservation can make you new friends.

As Kommisar nears the top of a small hill he sees the Yuuzhan Vong ship in all its ugly splendor, it didn't matter how wretched the ship looks, its his ticket off this planet. Just as his foot reaches the transport, Kommisar had been lost in the thought of safety he nearly forgot about Sheng, he turns to look for High Priest to make sure he isn't left behind. Thats when strong hand grabs the front of his Rancor hide robes and draws his attention to a frail and horribly rancid looking female Yuuzhan Vong that begins to hiss angrily at Kommisar. She growls words he cant understand except for one... "Infidel..."

It appears its not Kommisar's day for warm welcomes...

[lotvashai]

Shen'g reached the transport half a step behind Kommisar when he was pulled aboard along with their warrior 'friend' from back along the path. The young shaper he'd lost sight of, but such was their kind that they were often kept separate from the rest of the castes. Many people feared them, believing they to be some of the closest to the gods, they, directly, did the work of Yun-Ne'shel, and sometimes that work took on the most arcane of forms. The legend of Vua Rapuung was still widely told among the extolled, both adult and crecheling's alike.

Hauled aboard the Yorik Trema, the high priest didn't need to look far through the press of heavily set bodies to locate the Imperial regent. If he wanted to find him, all he need do was follow the trail of surprised sounding insults, and push his way through the throng.
It sounded simple in essence, but when a warrior's elbow spike caught him hard in the side of the pronounced cheekbone, piercing the skin and snapping his head to the side abruptly, he'd really had enough.

"Guvvuk!" He shouted, placing both sparely fleshed palms on the warrior's shoulder blades and shoving him out of the way. An act that drew more than the occasional gasp or profanity from the onlooking masses. That was often the deceptive thing about their kind, for those who were near rail thin in terms of figure, they made up for it in strength. Their physique was as deceptive as Yun-Harla's true form.

The warrior, meanwhile, had whirled around, knocking over a couple of young Intendants in a bid to flatten whoever had just attacked him..but the second he saw who was standing there, he dropped to the ground almost instantaneously. Now prostrate, forehead pressed tightly to the chitinous deck, he muttered his apologies - and rightly so, thought Shen'g, at least some traditions were not about to die off anytime soon.
Ignoring the warrior, he stepped over him light footed, and slipped passed the gnarled female, still hissing her disdain at Kommisar.
The main oqa membrane to the transport was now closed, and the creature had since risen into the air. But they weren't home free just yet, there was still the small matter of a traditionalist fleet in the air and they did not yet know if Kommisar's people had survived.

"Pay this one no mind," He told the female, herself a former priestess, "This infidel is mine to use." There was no other way of putting it to her, and in their own tongue that would have been the literal translation. It seemed to do the trick for the most part, she wasn't yet trying to kill anyone.

Now turning his head towards Kommisar, he spread his palms in a gesture of placation the infidels seemed to prefer using on occasion. "Apologies, Regent, but if we survive this, I would have the shapers graft you a biot, few can say they have stood where you do now." He paused, wondering if he had been right on his humour - since Yuuzhan Vong humour never translated well, he'd attempted theirs. If that worked, it remained to be seen.

[El Supremo]

As the seconds ticked by, the "Coordinator" tasked himself in calculations, his various parts called out alerts, targeting solutions, threat assessments, orbital cycles, and high-mass density equations. In a moment after a command is issued, the carriers accompany "the fleet" accelerate off into hyperspace, bound for Carratos. It will still be several cycles before their full compliment of fighters could be completed, and to do so would render them impossible to manage in combat. Simply there would be too many of the droids built into the fighters to run the carriers themselves, not to mention provide processing to coordinate their effective use.

The Vong had responded, and had now turned their full attention to deal with him. He provided directive to un-stabilize the cores of the stellar-reaction missiles, in short big nukes, increasing the amount of reactive matter, but un-balancing the ignition detonators inside of them, means they would be less efficient in raw destructive power, but had the advantage of casting a huge radioactive fireball, not to mention seeding pockets of local space with highly reactive clouds of fissionable material.

As the strange fighters bore down upon their positions, the heavy launchers of the Kherlen Battlecruisers launched the warheads, some destined for the swarms of fighters, some destined detonate among the Vong cruisers, and a single one to detonate upon the upper atmosphere of Zenoma Sekot itself.

As he issued the proceed directive to another of the transports to suicide, updated estimations on the progress of the Worldship as well as the Atrocity came to him. The probability of the worldship being in range of what he had devised was uncertain, it would certainly damage it significantly. He did not have nearly enough data on the commander of the Atrocity to determine the probability of them retreating or pressing the attack. It was of little matter, the patterns of that ship type were in the databanks of the forge, the "Coordinator" felt another could easily replace it should it be lost.

The transport micro-jumped to the same coordinates as the first, it tearing apart under the differential torsion or re-entering real-space at a hyperspace disturbance. The shock-wave output was greatly reduced, it was low on probability to even produce enough yeild to damage the closest cruisers enough to make them completely inoperable. But the massive output of energy was exactly what was needed to rip through the real-hyperspace barrier. The glowing and slowly growing point of space was perfect... A micro-singularity...

As the first of the Vong fighters made their strafing runs, he re-ran the calculations with the actual data of the singularity, the nearby stellar mass and the density of Zonoma Sekot. If the coordinator had a face, he would have grinned; it was not everyday one created a spontaneous Quark Nova... and he now had all the ingredients in the mixing bowl.

[lotvashai]

It had begun - S'uun Esh thought to herself with a bitter resolve - the out and out fight for Sekot, or so she assumed. Why these infidels clung to this world like the last bastion of hope against the traditionalist, was utterly beyond her comprehension. Did they not see themselves in the traditionalists? Were it not for the abominable blasphemies, the Imperial infidels were not too unlike them at all. Ruthless, unrelenting in upholding their standards, territorial and perhaps genocidal too. One might have gone so far as to suggest they were the closest an infidel could come to being worthy...but S'uun Esh was not one of those who believed so. What they had done here was underhanded, and yet they deliberately endangered the lives of their own to gain the upper hand. Most unlike the infidels she was aware of.

Standing where the T'sam pah once resided, was now strewn with dust and small fragments of the yorik coral cruiser that scores of coralskippers were now tearing through in a race to harry the enemy from their nearside flank. They began their strafing runs in an acute attack formation, with the yammosk to guide them it looked unworldly odd, how such craft could handle such tight turns at near right angles at a moments notice. Whoever the imperials had called on for backup, they had no means of jamming the war coordinators connection with it's 'children'.

Nothing was as it seemed out there, and with the miid ro'ik cruisers bearing the brunt of the assault, the loss of just one was going to press them for time. They might not be able to pull this one out of the back, but the way in which their ships just seemed to loom rather than attack in the standard way she was accustomed to, just didn't sit right with Esh at all.
Too many minds, however heretical, have outdone me - those words reverberrated around her slanted skull, and she snarled quietly in the face of them. Not this time, not above this world and definitely not on this mission. If they died, then Sekot would die with them.

In the time it had taken her to utter those words to Yun-Yammka, the infidels made their next move, launching those warheads into the bulk of the Yorik-et cluster offensive. The yammosk was compensating even as the missiles sped towards their target, peeling the small fighters round on a trajectory at neck break speed. The commander could almost feel the adrenaline and sudden surprise thrill the pilots would have felt at that moment, being so close to meeting their maker. But it was second to the boiling anger she felt, the desire to see this through and there they were in the midst of a botched retreat.

Along with the first of the enemy missiles, the tactician was reporting that others had also been fired. The most obvious of which were directed at the flanking miid ro'ik vessels, who's dovin basal singularities had turned all their attentions to shielding the far side of the ship's hull.
Argent light ripped across the darkness of space in distant plumes of fire and molten debris, indicating a hit on the far end of the fighter's formation, but in stead of the explosions simply igniting a small portion of the cluster, it apparently set off a chain of them.

S'uun didn't need to look at the tactician to know he was just as anger-driven dumbfounded as she was. The sensory nodes had been thrown by the earlier shockwave and were taking some time to adjust, slower than usual, but they were living creatures, even the Commander wasn't fully aware of the levity of the situation. But she was getting there. If only she had known.

One by one those fighters detonated, the reaction picking up speed until one of the crew monitoring the communications from various points of the vessel grasped at his head in a bid to pull the remaining nodes of the cognition hood from his head. When he did so, the reaction had been so violent he'd actually torn some of the skin from his scalp.

"The Yammosk, Commander...."

Esh glared balefully at the sight, unable to take her eyes off the forward view blastula. She already knew what the Yammosk would be doing, could invision it thrashing around wildly in it's tank and whipping up the nutrients...maybe it had even broken free of it's containment tank. It was essentially a feral crechemother, and nobody stood between a crechemother and her crechelings.

"Fearsome one, we are receiving reports from the vessels moving into the positions nearest where the T'sam pah was destroyed...their dovin basals are no longer responding..."

"What heresy is this?!" S'uun whirled on the villip mistress, who shamefully did not drop to the floor as protocol would have dictated, not in time to avoid the swiping sweep of Esh's arm, spiked bracer catching her straight across the side of her gaunt cheek and sending a streak of black blood across the floor in a wide arc. She fell, of course, and did not attempt to get back up. In stead, she reached for her coufee and held it out, waiting for the moment when the Commander turned away from the villip choir and would no doubt take it up. But not before she'd heard this with her own ears.

"...need immediate assistance, our biots are inert, we're-"

Another explosion detonated across the way, the force hitting the worldship profoundly enough to throw it's biots into a minor form of the chaos it had previously experienced. And the villip that had been trasmitting at the time fell quiescent completely, inverting to sag in it's pod.
Another miid ro'ik was gone, and their flank was suddenly becoming far too vulnerable. They needed to speed this up or they'd all become if'ii.

And then she noticed Sekot....

S'uun's hopes suddenly rose in that instant, caught in what felt like a status of divine intervention. The world's hyperdrive veins, once standing aloft and prominent, were now engulfed in a cloud of thick, unrelenting smoke and fire...and that fire was spreading rapidly.
They'd done it, they'd actually done it.

[El Supremo]

The damage reports were fast coming in to the Controller, it "felt" the blast wave with its own sensors when the first of the Star Destroyers exploded, the bolts of super-heated plasma from the Yorik-et had cut deep into the hull and found their marks, the regulation and the cooling systems for the stellar reactor failed and in seconds it went critical in a blinding flash. It was disappointing he had not had better data originally, or he would have provided a greater buffer zone between ships. In short order, two others and a gladiator were reduced to burning hulks.

Upon noting the reaction these outsiders had to the bombs and the difficulty the increase in radiation levels, the controller quickly re-tasked several processing units to explore the feasibility of a change of attack. He then re-examined the transmission that they responded to originally. Location, enemy... When they arrived they found signs of some signs Imperials had been on the surface as well as many of these outsiders. With no significant Imperial installations remaining upon this world, a thorough cleansing would follow both rational as well as Imperial protocol. Leave nothing for your enemy to use against you. He was satisfied this was the correct course. The data bore it out after all. Further with the size of the star the planet was orbiting, there should be more than enough debris from the initial nova to form a large accretion disk, by a million years or so there was a good chance there would be a brand new viable world here to teraform.

The data of the inquiry came back, it was workable, enough of the "builders" on several of the ships had not yet incorporated themselves and were still producing the elements needed for the biologicals of the Empire to inhabit and staff the vessels. It was a simple matter of un-tasking them, directing them to outfit themselves for deconstruction purposes, and downloading warfare software into them. As the Phennyd Class Frigate nearest to him exploded, he completed the instructions, and two of the Gladiators and a Star Destroyer changed course and proceeded at flank speed to intercept the Worldship. The reactors of those vessels were run over the line, both provide as much output as possible to the engines and the shields, but to saturate the cooling and regulatory systems. As they closed on the Worldship, the coolant was vented into the ships environmental systems irradiating everything within. The retrofit machines started to cut through the hulls at specific points on the ships. It was not going to be artistic, nothing so perfect as the singularity, but driving the ships into the Worldship, and releasing their complement of machines and droids, should prevent it from regrouping anytime soon.

Such little did he know...

THe remainder of the delivery group turned rescuers, held their line as best as possible while the singularity stabilized, soon, very very soon, he would create a new star...

[Emperor Ire]

The Yuuzhan Vong transport rises to the upper atmosphere like a beast chasing down its prey; the evasive maneuvers it takes to avoid the hurling wads of plasma coming from the worldship and supporting craft above make Kommisar feel ill, that and the smell emanating from the ship itself. Kommisar is indeed in a place where very few humans have seen with their eyes willingly, that fact isn't lost on him as he locks eyes with the warrior who wants his blood as he stands a mere three Extolled away from the bloodthirsty warrior as other transports audibly meet their ends around the Yorik-trema. Kommisar wonders if he will even survive long enough to possibly meet his fate at the hands of this apparent warrior.

"If we survive this, High Priest Sheng, I just might take you up on the offer."

A quick jab to his ribs from one of the spikes protruding from another Yuuzhan Vong standing next to Kommisar brings him back to the moment and a breathtaking realization -- there was less turbulence in the air and the transport had stopped its evasive tactics, something had caused the Vong plasma cannons to stop... but what?

As the ship climbed higher and reached the atmospheric surface ceiling, Kommisar waits to see if he can spot the Atrocity but he is nowhere near a viewport to see properly, the Regent cant see a single viewport where they are at in the ship. If he could see outside, he wouldn't like what he would see... that's when the shock-wave is felt by all aboard the Yorik-trema.


*****


The Atrocity is rocked be several shockwaves from the detonations the new arrivals were making, the shock-waves' intensity were lessened by their position in relation but they were still enough to knock weapons and shields out. The tactical officer shakes his head in disbelief as he reports to Tuulk. "Sir, weapons and shields are down."

"Navigation, are we still go?" Tuulk asks not caring about the weapons and shields, it didn't matter as long as the navigation and other main systems were still online.

"Yes, sir, Admiral. Course to Carratos is plotted." the navigation officer replies.

"Then get us out of here while you still can." Tuulk says before the Atrocity breaks off from the engagement zone and moves to jump to hyperspace. Still there is no thought of Kommisar in Tuulk's mind, to the Admiral, Kommisar was most assuredly killed in the attack. No sooner had the Atrocity made clearance, the massive Eclipse-class ship disappears in a flash of light.

[lotvashai]

“We have lost both Kor Chokk, Commander, the remaining miid ro’ik are no longer in contact. The yammosk can no longer communicate with it’s fighters...”

S’uun didn’t need that report to know what the attendant was going to ask, nor if she should question her judgement in doing so. When just a moment ago they had stood on the brink of failure, these infidels had actually done them the biggest favour of all. There were and still would be, great losses here today, but she would have done well to remember the words and strategies of Nas Choka if the worldship were to be salvaged.
She gave the order.

“Full retreat, plot a darkspace jump for the shipwomb...those who remain, their sacrifices will be remembered honourably.” Whereas she, on the other hand, was questioning herself again. She always had, ever since that single lapse in judgement had ruined her rise to glory. Were it not for that, she wouldn’t have minded betting her implants on the fact she’d be supreme commander by now.

The silence on the bridge was poigniant, and not least of all because she’d given the order to retreat, but it appeared like they were running while the worthy remained to die, just as they should. But some had to live to report this, and with the villips thrown into chaos she couldn’t do that from here. They still might die here.
But with the dovin basals turning their attentions to getting them out of here...minus the ganglia they had arrived with, that was looking less and less likely by the second. The process would be a little slower than usual, but the biots themselves had not been damaged, the further away from the source of the disturbance they became, the easier it was for the huge creatures to compensate. Like made-thing ships, dovin basals had auxillery biots, these were currently working ten to the dozen just to hulk them away from the world’s pull.

In the distance, every so often, scores of smaller vessels were seen fleeing the world’s atmosphere, but there was no point in diverting fighters to go and pick them off, they’d done what they came here to do and now they had to preserve what resources they had. The miid ro’ik were a worthy and necessary sacrifice, one the infidels would pay for in time, this was just the beginning.

When they had reached their designated distance, S’uun Esh wished those who would remain behind a good and honourable death. Their sacrifice would not be in vain and they had just secured themselves a place at Yun-Yuuzhan’s side. The god of war, too, would derive much from this outcome. She could only pray it was the right time to curb her bloodthirstiness. The infidels ship that had attacked them initially had fled as well...leaving their seeming rescuers to finish what they’d started - that just wasn’t right. Especially when one considered that the Atrocity was not badly damaged at all. It was but another thing to ponder when she next entered the acidic contemplation pools to be cleansed, yet another thing she was hoping would not return to bite her in the ass at a later date.

After that, the worldship made it’s departure, all on board left wondering, just what had happened out there.

[El Supremo]

May 9, 2011 23:29:48 GMT -5 Emperor Ire said:

!!!WARNING!!!
Zonama Seket is a living sentient planet that can mess you up big time if you act threatening towards it,
SO DON'T FRAK WITH THIS PLANET!

"So you see, it is not overkill, from a certain point of view...

Obi Wan Tupak

***************************

As the Controller "watched" data accumulated was sorted and parsed, computations were completed and analysis finished. Without enough data showing the true capabilities of the Worldship or the Atrocity, he had been left to make imperfect assessments.

As frustrating as that was, he could only predict so accurately, and this had been far from a perfect situation... he had been half installed and had postponed the final process in order to take command of the fleet for battle. He had not been up to his full capabilities.

Still, in front of him he faced a formidable foe, the remaining ships were biological marvels and by all data from the archives he was privy to were a serious threat to what remained of the fleet. Measuring the numbers and capabilities of what remained he made his final selections for what would stay and what would depart. In moments the remainder had their commands and proceeded with their orders.

It was sad, he would only see the flash from afar, and at that point his consciousness would wink out and he would become a simple machine. His mission was always one that would effectively end himself as he completed his installation and became the core processor of a Kherlen class battlecruiser.

And with his final act of command, he gave the orders to execute.

****Departing for Carratos:
3 Kherlen Class Battle Cruiser
6 ISD-IV Star Destroyers
8 Gladiator II Star Destroyers
8 StarWolf Carriers (departed previously)
5 Phennyd Class Frigate
15 Saar Heavy Transport****

***Lost in battle:
3 ISD-IV Star Destroyers
4 Gladiator II Destroyers
5 Phennyd Class Frigates
5 Saar Heavy Transports***

The departing fleet proceeded as fast as possible away from the system, leaving a handful behind to cover their retreat and engage the remaining Vong forces. On the last ISD remaining, the one that had prepared to drive itself into the worldship, the control-rods deep in its reactor retracted and the less stable ignition fuel, Cobalt-75 was injected into the solar ionization reactor.

As it maneuvered towards the optimal position near the star Zanoma Sekot orbited, it was pummeled by the Vong who pursued it. Streaming debris, parts of its hull was breaking up when it reached its destination... and then in a blinding flash it ceased to exist.

For those watching, the sun seemed to flatten for a moment, as if some younglings hands had smashed the titanic ball of fire like a soft toy. As it rebounded, the glowing mass of the outer fission layers are ripped from the core. In micro-seconds with the lack of pressure, the core cools below fusion-state and the sun, no longer constrained goes supernova. As the rapidly expelling clouds of dense, still fissioning matter expand, the devastate the system incinerating everything in their path.

The core knocked from orbit "wobbles" until the weak force of the singularity attracts it, as well as forms the nucleus of the typhoon of devastation. The process takes hours, stretching into days to fully unfold, but eventually the singlularity wins out and as the remnants of the star, Zonoma Sekot, and everything else unfortunate to be in the system is pulled in, the density raises off the scale, the temperature rises rapidly, and in a blinding flash fusion begins anew.

In the mammoth nebula that was once the adopted system Zonoma Sekot, a star is born.