CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Upon his solitary return to the Legacy of Torment, Deign Lian assumed command of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Appropriating Shedao Shai’s suite, he immediately issued an order, the preparation for which he had begun over a month before when he realized it was the most expedient way of dealing with Ithor. Shedao Shai had rejected it, but Deign Lian’s other master had approved.

From a dozen coralskipper sockets that had been refitted launched twelve seed-shaped, yorik coral pods. While not nearly as sophisticated as a coralskipper, these unpiloted craft did possess a rudimentary intelligence. It enabled them to use the dovin basals to lock onto Ithor’s planetary mass and speed their descent into its gravity well. Their outer sheathes began to heat up and ablate as they entered the Ithorian atmosphere. The twelve pods fanned out, streaking through the sky on courses that spread them all over the daylight side of the planet.

In the Ralroost’s medical bay, Admiral Kre’fey turned away from where Corran Horn floated in a bacta tank, and raised his comlink to his mouth. “Kre’fey here. Report.”

“Sensors here, Admiral. The Rainbow reports a dozen gravitic anomalies from the Yuuzhan Vong fleet.” The Bothan officer growled. “It looks like coralskipper traces, but they’ve gone into the atmosphere. Rainbow is reporting airbursts.”

“Airbursts? I’m on my way to the bridge. Relay the data to the Chimaera.” The admiral flicked off his comlink and turned to ask Luke Skywalker what he might make of such strange behavior. His question went unasked as the Jedi Master winced in pain and slumped against a bulkhead.

The airbursts over the Mother Jungle vaporized each Yuuzhan Vong weapon’s payload, expanding into a vast cloud. The aerosol droplets descended over the jungle in a fine mist. The bacteriological agents in the mist touched down unharmed. The jungle was to them what a herd of tauntauns would be to a hungry wampa ice creature. The bacteria began to metabolize everything and reproduce in an exponential progression.

Black slime teeming with bacteria dripped from high leaves on down, streaming along branches. So quickly did the bacteria work that the fetid fluid seemed almost acidic. Branches fell, splattering the bacteria over other branches and onto arboreal creatures. A leather-winged shamarok flitter launched itself skyward, but black droplets on its wings quickly holed them, sending the beast circling down in a spiral of agony to crash on the ground.

An arrak snake slithered over and scooped the flitter up. Opening its jaws, the snake began to swallow the rare treat, but the bacteria went to work on it, too. As it devoured the flitter, the bacteria devoured it, opening ulcers in its flesh and consuming it from the inside out. The snake lashed out its life in a painful frenzy, then melted into a stinking pool of protoplasm that started in on the organic matter on the ground.

That pool slowly spread as grasses wilted and flowed into fluid. Falling branches splashed more of the protoplasm about, creating colonies all around the parent puddle. As the branches themselves liquified, they created enough protoplasm to let it flood out of the small depression on the ground, washing into the colony pools. In fits and starts, a black flood began coursing through Mother Jungle, gnawing at roots, toppling whole huge trees, then melting them almost before the echoes of their fall had died.

Nothing that lived on Ithor could resist the bacteria. It soaked into the ground, destroying insects and other microbes. It coursed through wormholes and gushed into rodent warrens. Creatures taken unaware had a putrid wave wash over them, dissolving flesh, leaving bone, then cresting again to destroy the skeletons.

The wave ate its way along roots, both up and down. Sometimes a plant that had a shallow root system would simply topple. Other times, the bacteria attacking a sturdier plant would surge up through its circulatory system, devouring the core. Black sap would begin to drip here and there, staining the trunk. A steady trickle would start, and branches would fall, with protoplasm pouring free. Finally a torrent of foul nectar would gush forth as the plant’s bark split and the whole thing collapsed.

The bacteria attacked relentlessly and fast. Its metabolism of the planet’s life released a lot of hydrogen and oxygen. The planet’s temperature began to rise, the oceans darkened, and a stinking shadow stole over the face of Ithor.

In no time at all on a human scale, the bacteria reached the place where Shedao Shai’s lifeless body lay on the ground. His flesh resisted the bacteria for a moment or two, but the agent found egress through the wound Corran had opened in him. The bacteria ate into him, consuming him bone and sinew. His skeleton fell apart, then his bones cracked and oozed black as the marrow was devoured. Finally the bacteria liquefied his skull, removing the last trace of his presence from the world his death was meant to save.

Pellaeon stared hard at the holographic representation of Ithor. “I agree, Admiral, they’ve done something. Oxygen, hydrogen, temp rising. If Skywalker is right, that all life is being devoured . . .” The Imperial admiral shivered, unable to conceive of ever using a weapon that could metabolize a planet.

Commander Yage looked up from her position at the sensor station. “Admiral, the Yuuzhan Vong fleet is moving. They’re coming up on an outbound vector.”

“Vector alpha-seven?”

“The only one open to them.”

Pellaeon nodded at the small image of Kre’fey in the corner of the planetary scan. “They’re outbound alpha-seven. Time to move. Ithor cries for vengeance.”

Deign Lian smiled as he looked at the villip bearing his master’s face. “It is done, Warmaster Tsavong Lah. Shedao Shai is dead. The threat of Ithor is no more. I have the fleet moving out.”

“Splendid.” The villip’s image smiled, making the warmaster’s face seem almost pleasant. “You have done well, Lian. The Legacy of Torment is yours. When you get to Dubrillion, I shall have orders waiting for you.”

“I understand, Master.” Deign Lian nodded solemnly. “This one awaits your pleas—What was that?”

A jolt shook the Legacy of Torment, knocking the villip off its perch. Deign Lian reached for it, then another, heavier tremor shook the ship. The Yuuzhan Vong crashed to his knees. Something is wrong, very wrong. Ignoring the shouts from the villip on the floor, Deign Lian ran from the cabin and sprinted toward the bridge.

In the week Corran’s challenge won for the New Republic, Admirals Kre’fey and Pellaeon had not been idle. In studying the performance of Yuuzhan Vong ships, both large and small, they had discovered a vulnerability they thought they could exploit.

Snubfighter pilots had noticed that projecting voids cut into a skip’s ability to maneuver. The two admirals wondered if the reverse would also not be true, especially in the case of the Yuuzhan Vong capital ships. Toward this end Kre’fey had summoned the Corusca Rainbow from the fleet arrayed to defend Agamar and had it jump in where one of Ithor’s smaller moons hid it from the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. As the Yuuzhan Vong started to move out, the Interdictor cruiser jumped into close orbit around Ithor and brought all four of its gravity-well projectors on-line. That effectively doubled the mass of Ithor, steepening its gravity well and slowly beginning to suck the Legacy of Torment back toward the dying world.

The Yuuzhan Vong at the helm of the Legacy immediately moved to counteract this effect. They brought more dovin basals under helm control, reaching out to latch on to moons and the sun. They slowed the slide, then stopped it. They slowly began the climb back out onto the exit vector, and by the time Deign Lian reached the bridge, his ship was again on the move.

Unfortunately for Deign Lian, the Legacy’s crew, and even the living ship itself, the Corusca Rainbow had done more than jump in and power up its gravity-well generators. Its gunnery officers computed firing solutions for the Yuuzhan Vong grand cruiser. Their telemetry was fed to the main defender fleet. Every snubfighter boiling out of the ships, every cruiser, every Star Destroyer, used that data feed to provide targeting information for their proton torpedoes and concussion missiles.

Barrage after barrage arced over the curve of Ithor’s expanding atmosphere. They slammed into the voidless Legacy, shattering yorik coral plates. The energy released by their detonations incinerated neural tissue and boiled dovin basals. The first wave completely disintegrated the aft hull, opening the ship to the void of space. Yet, before air and crew could be sucked out, another wave hit, vaporizing more of the ship and igniting the vessel’s atmosphere. Fire flashed into the Legacy.

Deign Lian knew a moment of agony as a fireball expanded into the bridge. He would have screamed, but the air was burned from his lungs before he could make a sound. For the half second of clarity his mind possessed, he could hear Shedao Shai counseling him to embrace the pain, to make it part of himself so he could know union with the gods. His last thought was to surrender to the pain, to allow it to consume him, denying himself the ultimate goal because he could not bring himself to admit that Shedao Shai had shown him the one true way to reach it.

The assault cracked the skeletal structure that held the Legacy together. It broke into three parts, the most forward of which surged up away from the planet for a moment. The burning aft descended toward Ithor, picking up speed. The central piece hung in space for several seconds, then began its slow, tumbling fall to the planet. The prow, with its dying dovin basals quitting one by one, likewise succumbed to Ithor’s embrace.

It really did not matter that the Legacy was burning when it hit the planet’s atmosphere. The friction from entry alone would have produced enough heat for the hull to ignite the oxygen-rich atmosphere. Fire flared out, quickly wreathing the planet. The superheated atmosphere expanded, flicking out little tendrils that bounced snubfighters around and buffeted the New Republic’s fleet. One flare did reach out and caress a small Yuuzhan Vong corvette, causing the ship to explode, but the rest of the ships had pulled far enough away to escape.

The Yuuzhan Vong fleet—what was left it—sped along its outbound vector and disappeared.

Ithor, once a peaceful planet, blazed in their wake. With it burned the hopes of the New Republic.