The New Jedi Order: A Vision of Confluence

PART III: A DANCE, MACABRE

VII: Tool of Law

If the demonstrators on Coruscant were heated with their rhetoric, then the several thousand arrayed in a milling, jeering mass just beyond the gates were incendiary. Jacen frowned, adjusting the focal distance of a pair of electrobinoculars, panning left and right as he picked out more and more slogans. Credit where it was due, they were inventive. The grounds had once been a tranquil enclave, home to the Duchess of Mastigophorous, now Governor-General, and her sprawling, prized nannarium gardens, but now they were just another flashpoint in a system fit to overflow.

""Jedi Warmongers"," Jacen read aloud to his brother, the younger teen sitting with his arms folded, back to expansive bay windows. ""Servants of the dark side", "Corellia will stand to see Coruscant fall", "Feyl'ya's Pawns" - oh, Dad'll love this one - "Solos go home"."

Both brothers traveled directly to the estate on Drall, where Governor-General Marcha had secluded herself away. The aging female Drall perhaps hoped that by removing herself from the limelight, tensions would ease with a less obvious symbol of Senate meddling, but it seemed the opposite had happened. Chased to her estate, now a prevailing sentiment was that she was hiding.

Unfortunately, Jacen thought, feeling terrible for blaming the Drall woman who'd only ever been a friend to the Solo clan, they were mostly right. There was a difference between the position of Duchess for a clan and the Senate-mandated seat of Governor-General of all five worlds. Marcha's initiatives to rebuild positive relations between the Five Brothers and the Senate were laudable, but the memories of Corellians were long and their grudges longer. Maybe Anakin didn't remember much of the Sacorrian Triad's attempt to secede close to a decade before, but Jacen reckoned it would be a century before people here began to forget.

The shuttle that delivered Jacen sat alongside Anakin's own X-Wing on a small, shrub-enclosed permacrete pad that managed to look like it belonged in the riotous gardens that flanked it. Droids bustled along crushed gravel paths, pruning here and there. He'd said his goodbyes to his mother and Aunt Mara and Jaina, after she'd woken from her trance. Aunt Mara claimed to have a job for both him and Jaina, if they were interested, and one that she noted didn't require the Force or fighting. Few knew Coruscant quite as well as the twins, who'd had their fair share of adventures throughout the labyrinthine layers of the city-crust of the world and Aunt Mara intended to capitalize on that.

The thought appealed: chasing down what seemed to be a traitor was pretty close to entirely an act of defense and protection, Jacen figured.

For Anakin; his younger brother was looking a great deal less tense than the last Jacen saw of him in the aftermath of Ithor.

"They really think you could have stopped the New Republic from commandeering Centerpoint…" Anakin accepted a slice of dark-brown, homemade ryshcate from Marcha, glaring down at the spice-cake as if it were the source of all ills. To Jacen and to Marcha's nephew Ebrihim went two more slices, then the Governor-General settled herself into an overstuffed armchair with the remaining piece. Like all Drall, Marcha and Ebrihim were diminutive, if slightly plump, furred humanoids, with inquisitive snouts and small, alert ears. The two differed in patterning of their fur and in dress: Ebrihim preferred a sash and belt, while Marcha usually bothered with only a small tiara and vest.

Nibbling at her own cake, Marcha studiously avoided even the slightest glance toward the bay windows, though the crowds at this remove were just a vague mass beyond wrought-iron fencing.

"They know my place as a political appointee. I lost half my office when I didn't take a firmer stance - yet even if I had, Borsk Feyl'ya would've simply removed me and replaced me with someone who would hold their tongue."

"So they know there was nothing you could do!"

Ebrihim, ever the tutor, rubbed paws against his knees and set the youngest Solo with a fatherly stare.

"That only stokes their indignation higher, Anakin. Now, not only does Marcha not stand for Corellian interests, they're only reminded that the position of Governor-General is one that exists at the sufferance of the Senate and Chief of State. It's a double insult, you see."

"It's stupid, is what it is. If they're angry, they should be angry at Chief Feyl'ya. As far as they know, it was his vote anyway that redeployed the fleets to Bothawui."

"They know that too," Ebrihim assured.

Jacen tucked his electrobinoculars aside, needing to see no more and besides, the smell of his own ryshcate was too tempting. The vweilu nuts baked into the crumbling pastry melted on his tongue, blending with the dark, smoky flavor of the Whyren's Reserve whiskey that was the cake's other signature ingredient. Around a mouthful, he spoke up.

"See how you end up with unintended consequences?"

Anakin rolled his eyes.

"Here we go…"

"I'm just pointing out that even though Admiral Brand's plan was made with the best intentions…"

"Jacen, if you don't support this, why are you even here? You could have stayed on Coruscant with Jaina."

"Boys," Marcha exclaimed, putting her snack to the side, surprise writ across her face. "I'd heard the rumors, but what is this? You two never used to argue!"

Chastened, Jacen turned his fork over and over but Anakin shrugged, unconcerned.

"We grew up," the young Solo said, as if it explained it all. "Jacen can tell you all about how Centerpoint is a great big lightsaber that the Chief of State wants to use to beat the Vong over the head."

"It can be - where am I wrong?"

"Where Admiral Brand didn't authorize even reactivating the star-killer. Jacen, there's rumors that no one can figure out how the Triad managed it in the first place without ripping the station to pieces."

"Boys, stop this. I can tell this is a conversation that didn't begin today." Marcha fixed both with the sort of glare Ebrihim knew well, the sort that dredged up every scrap of shame you had because you made her disappointed. Anakin pressed his lips together, jaw tight. "Tell me your worries, Jacen. Anakin, you will have a chance as well."

The words burst from the young Jedi, like he'd been holding them back by threads.

"The Force is all about balance. How can turning on the biggest superweapon since the Galaxy Gun supposed to help that! I can't believe Uncle Luke doesn't see anything to be worried about-"

"-he does, if you'd asked him-"

Marcha cut her eyes to the youngest brother, who held up his hands in defeat.

"-anything to be worried about putting this much power just out there!"

"You think the Senate isn't responsible?" Ebrihim's tone was neutral, neither agreeing or disagreeing, merely proposing the idea.

Jacen chewed on his lip.

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it." Anakin dug fingertips into the armrest of his chair, knuckles whitening. "Jacen, you're talking about power but what kind of power do I have if I just tell them no? If I make myself into the keeper of Centerpoint? Is that what you want?"

"No, but-"

"I don't want this responsibility. I never did, I never will; Jacen, I remember when it sounded like when the repulsor on Drall talked to me. I can still remember it. It was too big for me, for anyone."

"That's all the more reason to let Centerpoint stay inactive."

"If I turn on only the interdiction field, then it's on the Senate to decide when to turn it on and off. It won't be me anymore."

"You're passing off the responsibility," Jacen accused.

"Yeah," Anakin admitted. "But at least I'd be making a choice."

Like it was placed in the firmament by a God's hand - and perhaps it was - the ancient station of Centerpoint hung precisely between the Twin Worlds, Talus and Tralus. Once, the station's long-axis had been arranged such that it was aimed toward each world. In the hands of the Sacorrian Triad, when the station was enabled and used to fire immense packets of repulsor energy across stellar distances, the station had been re-oriented, away from its aeons-long repose, spun up to simulate gravity about its axis.

Larger than the Death Star in both mass and size, the grey-white relic bore two thick polar cylinders that acted as guidance vanes for the incredible power the station could harness. Its bulbous, spherical central mass, studded with a proliferation of confusing and arcane pipings, antennae, cables and conduits held the greatest wonder of Centerpoint: Glowpoint.

Theories abounded about its nature with a handful of likely contenders: a tesseracted transdimensional 'pilot light', an artificial sun maintained by the magnetic field lines of the station, a quasiphotonic recombinant wave-form reaction…all were merely ways to describe its function. Glowpoint, hot as a main-sequence star and just as bright, acted as the heart and soul of Centerpoint. It seeming to contain and release the incalculable amounts of energy the station siphoned from the gravitic play of Talus, Tralus, and the rest of the complicated Corellian system.

Whomsoever built the solar system, who captured the worlds from unknown sources in ages long forgotten, had done so with a calculating and careful plan. Centerpoint, though named for its position between the twinned worlds, was more aptly named than many originally knew. It was the center of the entire Corellian system, a lens for a gravity and matter manipulation engine astronomical units in diameter.

So, it was fitting that the pre-eminent political party pushing once more for independence and rallying support from Selonians, Drall and Humans across the Five Brothers chose the name 'Centerpoint Party'.

"Although, really, I don't think the Centerpoint Party has really thought their position through," Jeneca Sonsen declared with some authority, arms folded over her chest. "I mean, I suppose there's a complicated kind of legal case that since each one of the Five Worlds came from different stars, they should each have a representative - but if that's the ruling, Centerpoint itself should get a seat as well since it wasn't native either." Once the administrator of Hollowtown, the small settlement that encrusted the interior walls of Centerpoint, lit by the permanent shine of Glowpoint, Sonsen had been key in the resolution of the Centerpoint Crisis years ago. She had helped Anakin and Jacen's uncle along with his allies in boarding and navigating the station. A slender, serious woman with a long face and a carelessly loose bun of dark hair, Sonsen had eight years of experience as an intermediary between the interests of the Senate, the archeological community, and the rabid nationalists of the Corellian system.

Sonsen, along with the two Solo boys, Ebrihim and his droid, Q9, filled out the turbolift that sped through the interior of the station. The smell of fresh paint was lingering. Wall panels were new and polished, pile carpet underfoot springy and unstained. Through transparisteel panes, the group watched the sights and marvels of Centerpoint roll past.

Hollowtown filled the central spherical space of the station, years ago, as settlers over centuries set up little homesteads, using shadow-shields that could be tuned to block out Glowpoint's constant light. It was a peaceful little tourist attraction; beings living in the ruins of a civilization beyond comprehension and it was a popular stop for those visiting the Corellian system.

Hollowtown was gone now, burned to ash by the activations during the Corellian Crisis, when Glowpoint seared scorching. All that remained inside the 'firing chamber' of the station were shadow-shields still set up around a handful of prefab science outposts. At either end of the sixty-kilometer wide spherical chamber sprouted the Conical Mountains - North and South - that were a cluster of smooth-sided, monolithic focusing structures. One single cone, the largest, was ringed by six smaller, equidistant, all pointing toward Glowpoint. There had been comparisons between those structures and some of the oldest repulsor designs, yet another mystery and clue about Centerpoint.

Sonsen pointed out a few sites, apertures here and there for access, where the cartography team she led found entry to the endless, winding halls of the rest of the station.

"Did the archeologists work with your team before they were deported?"

Sonsen rolled her head, neither agreeing or disagreeing.

"They weren't quite deported, Jacen, more like relocated for their safety. But we did work together for a bit and they had some priceless insights into the functions of the station. And a few maps we've been able to add to our own."

The process of mapping out the entire interior had become Jeneca Sonsen's life goal, though she knew that there were like to be millions of kilometers of bundled up, labyrinthine ways that would take centuries to fully plot out. Every bit she and her cartography team contributed helped to understand the station that much more and helped to prevent another tragedy like the loss of Hollowtown. It had happened under her tenure as administrator and though none blamed her for events out of her control, the thousands carbonized in an instant never ceased to weigh on her.

"It's really why I think Centerpoint should stay in the New Republic's hands for the foreseeable future. The Centerpoint Party, well, I think they're short sighted. Like I said before - if Drall and Selonia and Corellia and the Twins all get their own votes, then Centerpoint does too, and all of us here would want to stay independent and with the New Republic." She spread her hands, shrugging. "There's just so much more experience we can draw from under the New Republic."

"And you want to solve Centerpoint," Anakin said.

"I wouldn't mind it." Sonsen smiled. "Everyone sees Centerpoint as a weapon, but we all think it is a tool. It built a star system! Imagine what could be done if we understood it."

Jacen shivered.

"I don't need to imagine," he muttered.

Two thousand levels of decks passed quickly, the turbolift sliding to a careful halt. Sonsen ushered everyone out, gesturing up at the pale-pink tunnel the lift was built into.

"Take this, for example. This whole tunnel runs through the station and we have no idea why! Was it just a structural feature? Does it have some other purpose? Who knows!"

The administrator-scientist meant it to be fascinating. Q9 had other thoughts.

"The lesson of Hollowtown indicates that casual use of Centerpoint architecture could be deadly," the droid declared, always desiring to be of use, even if it meant filling the air.

"That's…mostly true, yes. But don't worry, even during the firings, nothing was detected in this tunnel, not even the slightest radiation." She pointed up ahead, toward what looked like a nondescript alcove in the reddish walls. It stood out, only by dint of two armed New Republic guards outside, blasters slung over their shoulders.

What many considered the 'control room' of the entire station evaded discovery for the entire span of inhabitation, until a group of Mrlissi colonists looking for a fine place to plant a life-support monitor stumbled across it. They hadn't a clue about the provenance of the instrument-filled chamber, merely marking it down as just another room filled with technology no one understood in a place already overflowing with it.

It had taken the scientists of the Triad to truly grasp the meaning of the out-of-the-way room.

There was no door - because after the Mrlissi opened it, no one figured out how to close it. Sonsen simply led them inside where for a moment bustling activity halted. Several Humans, a Duro, two Verpine, Selonians and even Drall were packed into the cramped, instrument-tangled chamber, but the abrupt appearance of two Jedi in robes, another Drall, a tall human woman and a bullet-headed droid, was notable enough to bring pause.

That pause allowed one of the few humans in the control room to take the limelight for himself - just as Jacen and Anakin would've expected.

"Nice to see you again, Anakin, Jacen. I hope you remember me."

Standing with his hands on his hips, the man looked oddly like their father, seen through a fogged mirror. A little taller, sturdier, stouter, with rounder cheeks, but enough to be startling.

"Thracken Sal-Solo," Jacen sighed. "See Anakin? I told you they wouldn't tell you everything."

Sal-Solo looked hurt.

"You weren't expecting me? Not a happy reunion for cousins, then."

"You imprisoned Master Ebrihim and Masters Solo on Drall," Q9 accused.

"And you made dad fight a Selonian just for fun," Jacen added.

Sonsen shifted uncomfortably.

"I would've said something…"

"But you didn't, Jeneca, and now I have to deal with it. It's fine, don't worry about it. I know what I did was wrong. Misguided right?" The other technicians lost interest, back to muttering back and forth, twiddling with dials and computers and datapads. "I know it's hard for you Jedi, who aren't plagued by banal emotions like normal people. Anger, hatred, desire for retribution, revenge…guilt, uncertainty. Us lessers have to deal with that, but a good eight years in Dorthus Tal prison helped me see the error of my ways. Part of my rehabilitation and newly attained self-awareness is pitching in where I can. Offering my technical expertise in service to the cause, you see. Shoulder to shoulder with the New Republic against the Yuuzhan Vong."

"And that's all," Anakin scoffed. "You're just doing your civic duty."

Sal-Solo stuck hands in his pockets, hunching shoulders.

"You Jedi are supposed to be about forgiveness, right? Why, even the Yuuzhan Vong must have simply just failed to see the error of their ways and well, give them a chance and they'll be on the side of the Force. Am I right? I have to be, otherwise you'd both be right there in the trenches with us, ready to fight to the last drop of whatever Corellian blood is left in those veins."

"Enough, Thracken. This solves nothing." Ebrihim cut in, sharp.

"We're here to help," Anakin stressed the last word, daring Jacen to contradict him.

"Are you? How ironic it takes a galactic war to reunite the old gang-" Sal-Solo gestured toward a Selonian, a Drall, a Human- "and to bring you back to the station you helped shut off. Back to the home I know old Han loves to still claim. I gotta know, though," Sal-Solo pointed a finger at Anakin, eerily like how their own father would gesture. "You personally banished my illusions for a free and independent Corellia. Still think it was wrong to make a try for freedom?"

Jacen answered before Anakin could.

"Your methods, that was wrong."

"Maybe. Methods. You know, we've been abandoned since the crisis. Now they want to use us as a battleground. Did we even get a vote? Don't bother answering, I watched the news. Well done, on tricking the Chief of State into your little plan."

"It's not my-"

"Funny that you know you can't even trust him, and-"

"I said, Cousin Thracken, it wasn't my plan." Anakin spoke louder and Jacen started. For a moment, Han's loud baritone came from his brother's throat. "We're not here to listen to you complain. You blew up two stars and you lost and no one is going to cry over it no matter how much bantha crap you blow out your airlock."

One didn't need to be a Jedi to sense the older man's surprise, blended well with irritation at being cut off in the middle of his grandstanding.

"You want to talk about fighting the Vong? Sure. After we get Centerpoint online, I'd be happy to hear the finer points of treating razer bug injuries and how to survive amphistaff venom."

"Anakin-"

"Not the time, Jacen." The younger solo brushed past Sal-Solo, eyes hard and cool as ice, looking over the other workers who had started to eavesdrop. "Who's in charge here? It can't be-" he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder "that guy."

One hand was slowly raised across the chamber, while behind Anakin and still nervously fidgeting by the doorway, Sonsen managed a quiet "well, I kind of am…"

"Antone Baris," said the owner of the raised hand.

Antone walked them through what was known, what was guessed, and what was pure speculation. He'd been on-station during the Crisis, like most others, though he'd not been involved in the Triad or the firings. Instead, Antone had been an electrical engineer working in Hollowtown to tie colony systems into the native grid of Centerpoint, which appeared to have nearly limitless energy, courtesy of reactors that were still being located. He'd had a front-row seat to Centerpoint's power and his knowledge of at least some of the station's electricals made him a clear choice to head the team.

That, and his family lived on Bovo Yagen, one of the stars on the Triad's list. Had it not been for Anakin's actions in shutting down Centerpoint back then, Antone's whole family tree would be free-floating space dust.

"Centerpoint can indeed induce stars to go nova," he explained. "The Triad caused EM-1271 and Thanta Zilbra to blow, but those results can't be duplicated."

Anakin could feel Jacen's relief.

"You're saying Centerpoint can't be used as a weapon?"

Antone ran fingers over one of the smooth-silver consoles in the chamber. "Frankly, we're not sure. In order to loose a burst of power from the South Pole, the station has to do so many things perfectly. It has to reorient its spin axis, go through a rapid and complex series of sympathetic power surges, transient events and radiation releases all in advance of actually firing. And as you know, destroying EM-1271 made Glowpoint burn out the entire interior of Hollowtown."

"No one wants a repeat of that, of course," Sal-Solo added from where he was lingering nearby.

Anakin scratched at his cheek, frowning at the technician's explanation.

"I remember that the Triad was able to put up the jamming and interdiction fields pretty easily. What's changed that I have to be here?"

"Put simply, nothing is working like it used to. Since the station was shut down, all the commands and protocols we'd made aren't working anymore." Sal-Solo laughed. "Don't worry, we know you have precious Jedi business. You're not here for a lark."

"It's the barycenter. The station is no longer stable." Antone waved at a hologram, a wireframe of the station and the two worlds that flanked it. "Something happened during the shutdown years ago and now Centerpoint isn't keeping itself stable like it used to. And that seems like it's locked us out of everything."

Antone pointed at the console just before Anakin. He recognized it, of course, from memories on Drall. He'd been young then and most of the events had blurred away due to time and his extreme youth, but everything about the repulsor seemed to shine in Anakin's mind. The console itself looked unimpressive, not really any different from any of the others in the room. Dials, knobs, switches - everything a person would expect, littered across a silver-steel surface.

"I've been proposing it for years, ever since then, that it's you. Your fingerprints, maybe DNA, maybe brain pattern, but Centerpoint is imprinted on you. You got the repulsor to do things no one ever knew it could do. With everything we keep butting up against here, the only way to describe it is that we just don't have admin access anymore."

Half listening to the tech, Anakin slowly moved his hands over the console, a fingerwidth above it. Not touching, just feeling. He could see all the buttons and dials, but there was more. There were other levers and switches - linkages too, that wavered like holograms. Not blue, but a sort of silver-green, and something deep in Anakin's gut told him only he could see them.

"I think you might be right," he said absently, too occupied by the strange shifting of the virtual controls to say much else. There was a pattern there, a familiar one. He just had to see where it all led.

"Take the controls then, Anakin," Sal-Solo demanded. "Take them, let's see where it goes and if we've all been wasting our time."

Jacen rested a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Be sure," he whispered.

There was nothing Anakin was ever more sure of, reaching out-

A plane of flat, polished metal twisted up and shimmered. It swelled, rippling like quicksilver, like ferromagnetic fluid under an electromagnet. A handle like a joystick settled itself into Anakin's palm.

Everyone in the room - Jacen included - gasped.

Vernier control tingled in his feet and hands. His stomach growled, demanding he increase capacitance by a significant percentage. The clustered dials and levers across the panel melted away as quickly as the joystick formed. His other hand, palm flat, rested on the blank surface. He didn't remember placing it there. Centerpoint wanted him to. Thrust balancing calculations burned through his mind. Shielding constraints made his arms itch. Geogravitic energy transfer spiked adrenaline and raised gooseflesh on his neck.

Above the console a wireframe appeared. One moment there was nothing: the next, it was there. No flash of light, no shimmer, no warning. It looked nothing like a hologram - it looked real. Like Anakin could reach out and feel the projection. There was a cube made of smaller, semi-transparent cubes, each separated by a hairsbreadth. Five deep, five across, five tall.

Breathing out, Anakin exhaled fermion poisoning. One cube lit, shining green. He blinked, narrowing his eyes. His pupils contracted along with five hundred meter wide solar collectors. Another cube lit, green. The others shifted toward indigo-purple, dull and lifeless.

Sal-Solo alone found his voice. "You've done it boy," he breathed, sounding eight years younger. "You've done it."

Centerpoint grumbled. The station trembled.

Anakin cocked his head, twitching joystick to the left a degree. Three cubes lit.

Glowpoint blazed cold fury, luminance tripled in a microsecond. It bled no heat. Lightning struck staccato from the searing white speck, grounding out to the South Conical Mountains. Shadow-shields auto-tinted to maximum.

Fingertips gently stroked smooth, featureless metal. Six more cubes lit. Teeth vibrated as subsonic whining rippled across three hundred kilometers of station.

"It's re-orienting! We're reorienting!" a Selonian shouted.

Antone, deathly pale but eyes alight, held his datapad in trembling hands.

"It's armed," he whispered. "We're capable of firing."

Centerpoint, off-white, ancient, older than suns, stepped sideward. New Republic fleet escorts, station-keeping at four hundred kilometers, found the station one thousand, four hundred and seventy three kilometers away. An eyeblink. Centerpoint stepped sideways. Open mouth shock slowed reactions. The station rotated, smoothly, visibly this time, bringing polar columns in line with Talus and Tralus. Directly below, on both worlds, clouds parted.

Magnetic fields screamed and snapped. Sunspots burst on Corell.

Anakin turned his head and looked up at his brother.

"I was so sure," the youngest Solo said, voice doubled, tripled, echoed and reflected.

Aboard Yald, the news hit like punches: one-two.

Centerpoint was online. Online.

The Yuuzhan Vong fleet elements, monitored carefully, were on the move. Thirty-six hours, at best speeds, and they would be decanting in the Corellian system. Admiral Brand immediately ordered all staff to the tactical information center. Real-time holograms sprung to life, resolving into captains and commanders of Third and First fleet. Now there was no time to waste. HIMS needed to be run through final checks. The hyperwave sustainer devices were the last part of the trap, as essential as Centerpoint and the Exile warships now hopefully soon to arrive. Each HIMS device activated when a hyperdrive was cut off by interdiction field or gravitational shadow. They did one thing and did it well: they created short-lived static hyperspace bubbles, keeping the ship in hyperspace. While the hyperdrive itself might be shut off, removing forward impulse, the HIMS would keep the ship 'skipping' through hyperspace, relying on remaining existing momentum.

They weren't pretty or clean and it would be hell to keep a fleet in formation during HIMS-enabled skips, but they would allow the New Republic fleet to penetrate deeper into the Centerpoint-spun interdiction fields. Then the Exile warships, with their peculiar 'warp' drives, would dart about with theorized impunity, striking and dismantling the trapped Yuuzhan Vong whenever they tried to rally.

Conferencing with the other battle groups, Brand allowed a moment's thought toward the four warships en-route to where Yald and Brand's own command waited. Fondor would be the receiving point, close to Corellia for deployment and final preparations. Word from Eboracum and Legion Command was the squadron should be arriving within the day. There were warnings that warp drives did not allow for exact timetables, but even at the least generous timetable, Brand estimated it would fit.

It would work.

It had to.

"What are you saying, Anakin?"

Jacen's little brother's eyes were the same blue they'd always been - but burning now with Cherenkov radiation, hard to look at.

"It's all or nothing."

"What does that mean?"

Anakin growled in frustration, undertones and reverberation sounding almost mechanical.

"I'm trying to explain. I can't just turn on part of Centerpoint. It wants to all turn on. It wants to be alive. I can't - I can't tell it not to."

"Then turn it off." Jacen's words, but spoken by Ebrihim. "Turn it off, my boy. No one knows what it's doing to you."

"It's not doing anything. This is - this is the interface. I can see it all. I can feel it all, it's so complicated but it wants me to understand. It's translating."

"But it can fire?" Hunger dripped from Sal-Solo's tone and he shoved Antone aside. Reflexively, Jacen felt cool metal under his fingers. It took a force of will to pull his hand from his 'saber.

"We can shoot?"

Anakin's eyebrows beetled close.

"It's not shooting. I see. That's why. The stars - that was a hack. I don't like it. It's ugly. They began a stellar repositioning, but then crashed it out." Anakin's mouth twisted. "It hurt. It doesn't work that way."

"But it can be done?" Thracken Sal-Solo repeated, reaching for Anakin. Jacen interposed, bodily.

Turk Brand fought down a smile. Centerpoint wasn't just ready to interdict, it was fully reactivated. This was beyond anyone's wildest expectations and though he knew there was going to be endless inquest and debate over what to do, he let out a sigh of relief. He'd been right. It could be done. Corellia was ready. The trap, baited, set.

The other Battle Groups reported full readiness. Excitement, even. Eagerness. No one had illusions that this wasn't going to be ugly, but this was it. The New Republic Navy was finally on the offensive. They were done reacting. It was time to act. It was time to bring the hammer down.

Yald, Brand's command, a stately Nebula Star Destroyer, buzzed with activity. He left tactical, headed back for the flag bridge. He shared a turbolift with two runners and an ensign.

"This is it, sir?" the ensign asked. Brand nodded.

"This is it," he confirmed.

Through the transparisteel viewports, Brand had a breathtaking vista before him. His battlegroup, a large chunk of Fifth Fleet, at anchor. The shipyards beyond, sprightly and flickering as work progressed. Fondor, looming up underneath them all, watching over the preparations. He checked his chron. Any time now, he thought. The Exiles should be here any time now. He wondered what Admiral Regil would be like. He was anxious to meet the man. The Yuuzhan Vong were moving earlier, beyond planned timetables, but the New Republic was born from the Rebellion.

They lived to adapt.

Turk Brand glanced one final time across nearspace.

His eyes narrowed as a new constellation appeared.

Sweat mattered down her fur, ears flattened back. Her uniform was rumpled and Jacen felt her horror.

"Colonel Tel'isk?" Antone questioned, raising an eyebrow at the Bothan, who stood panting in the doorway of the control room.

"It's not Corellia," she gasped. "It's Fondor."

Q9 found he had a moment to be useful. Tapping into real-time HoloNet feeds, the droid projected a blue-grey hologram into the air.

The footage was shaky, it was grainy, but it was unmistakable. Yuuzhan Vong capital ships, looming out of the dark. Coralskippers, pell-mell. Blackened starships, drifting. One was distinct, the triangular shape unmistakeable.

There was a groan and Ebrihim held his head in his hands.

"That's Anlage," he mourned. "That's Fondor."

Klaxons blare. Cool light sours to bloodred.

"Call the fleets," Admiral Brand says through ash in his mouth.

Chaos ripples through Centerpoint. Mrlissi, who had been such key members of science teams due to their diminutive and avioid biology, are in a panic. Their homeworld borders Fondor in the Tapani sector. Others are at a loss. It's a joke. It's a poorly delivered joke. Centerpoint is all dressed up with nowhere to go. The impossible was realized. The station is more alive, more active then it has been since the Brothers were harnessed.

Jacen relaxes. Relief. Disgust that he feels relief. Anakin won't have to make this decision, but the cost is Fondor. Ebrihim knows the cost that will be paid and cannot decide if he is glad the station will not be used this day.

Thracken Sal-Solo is more inventive.

"This is ridiculous," he barks. "There is something we can do. We have the space-time coordinates of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet right here, right now." He hurries to a console and brings up a star chart. "Look. They're Rimward of Fondor's fifth and sixth moons. Colonel Tel'isk, you can use your authority to get us real-time updates, can't you?"

The Bothan nods, eager.

Sal-Solo claps his hands together. "Then we can target them by focusing Centerpoint's repulsor beam."

A dozen voices shout over each other, one managing to raise higher.

"We have no authority to take such actions!"

Aghast, Jacen must speak up too.

"We could miss, or even hit Fondor - or it's primary!"

Conversations, arguments, shouting:

"Mrlsst is next!"

"Admiral Brand surely-"

"We must assume the risk-"

"No one else can-"

"You ass-"

"-I won't be part-"

Only Anakin says nothing at all, electric blue irises fixed on Jacen.

"I can't promise we'll hit the target," Sal-Solo is saying - arguing - "but space is so empty-"

Jacen wants to say something, anything, but words vanish from him. A sudden memory takes him, one with Anakin, from before the war. They're training in the hold of the Falcon, honing lightsaber techniques. They're en route to Dubrillion and Destrillion where everyone's lives will change.

"You keep thinking of it as a tool, a weapon in your war against everything you see as bad," Jacen was saying - griping, he has the awareness to admit.

"It is an instrument, Jacen. It's a tool of law." Anakin maintained that view the whole time.

"The Force isn't about waging war. It's about finding peace and your place in the galaxy."

Anakin is watching him now. His eyes are lit from within. His pupils are white holes.

"We can't be part of this," Jacen announces.

Sal-Solo looks at them both like they've gone insane.

"Fifth Fleet is being decimated, Anakin. The task forces from Bothawui and the other staging worlds can't possibly arrive in time."

"The Tapani Sector is our home," a Mrlssi cries, feathers ruffling in panic. "You must take the risk, the Jedi must take the risk, for our people!"

"For the New Republic," another demanded.

"For Tynna and all the others."

"Take the shot."

"Take it."

"This is our only chance to score a decisive victory," Colonel Tel'isk insists. "It bears your imprint, Anakin. It answers to you and no one else."

Anakin's starfire eyes flick to the Colonel, to Sal-Solo, to the rest of the technicians, now bunched around him. His hands have not moved. He holds the joystick in one relaxed grip, the other hand flat.

"Anakin, you can't," Jacen begs, wide-eyed. "Step away from it. Please."

Anakin looks through Jacen. He sees across space and time. He sees Fondor, appended by a name he can never pronounce, a designation that makes no sense. But he sees it. Centerpoint shows him. He sees the cloud of asteroids that move of their own will. He sees them approaching. Everything is there. He is as wedded to the ancient repulsor as he is to his lightsaber and he knows with the certainty of a warrior born and champion trained just the angle of thrust to lay open the armor. He knows the action, as clear as the cant of his 'saber to take a Yuuzhan Vong in their vulnerable armpit joint.

Centerpoint holds him and he holds the station.

"Take the shot," Thracken hisses through clenched teeth. "Take it!"

"My boy, no," Ebrihim begs.

There are tears in Jacen's eyes, unshed.

Anakin looks to his hands. He holds the joystick gently. His palm is flat. There is a tone like music: one two three. Black gloves cover his hands, his forearms. A cloak drapes from his shoulders. Anakin hears his breath, hard and atonal. Sucking inhale. Modulated exhale. He can do this. He can reach out and he can end every single Yuuzhan Vong warship that has entered local space over Fondor. It won't even be hard. Centerpoint shows him more. He can see the ruins of Sernpidal. The cracked world, devoured bit by bit to furnish new hulls. He can destroy that world too. He can burn that sprawling shipyard like Chewbacca was burned down to ashes. There they breed, and he can feed them their undoing.

Why stop there?

He can end the Yuuzhan Vong tonight. Today. Here. Now. Centerpoint will help him. It wants to help. It wants to be used. It is a machine, it is a tool, and it yearns to fulfill its purpose. Anakin only has to provide the will.

"No," he says, and lets go.

"I'll take the shot," Thracken shouts, shoving past Jacen, reaching for the trigger. His hand knocks Anakin's aside: Anakin lets him. Thracken hunches over the console, awkward, jamming elbow into Anakin's stomach. The chamber is silent. Everyone can hear the dull klack klack klack klack of the trigger, pulled again and again and again.

"I said," Anakin pushes his chair back, coming to his feet. Sal-Solo is slackjawed, unbelieving.

"No."

Centerpoint goes dark.

Fondor.

To the New Republic, it is a symbol of everything wrong with the Empire. It is the birthplace of Executor; a smog-shrouded industrial hellscape devoted to the production of the Imperial war machine.

To the Yuuzhan Vong, it is an emblem of the sins of this decadent galaxy. A world slaughtered, choked to death on the emissions of debauched technology; its flesh ripped and resources raped.

To the Imperials, Fondor is familiar.

The first impressions of Magos Orichi-Mu upon setting foot on the surface is that the Motive Force feels stronger here than he has felt so far in this strange galaxy. To Brevet Lieutenant Sannad Optarch, assigned as consultant to the defending forces, it is no different from a dozen other industrialized worlds of the Imperium.

For all of these reasons: Fondor is a target. For all of these reasons: Fondor is embattled.

The initial engagement begins with the upper hand held by the scarred invaders – the Yuuzhan Vong arrive in force, decanting just outside the gravity well en-masse, in numbers yet unseen in a single theatre thus far. Grand cruisers, vast battleships, swarms of coralskippers – a veritable asteroid field appears without warning, yammosks already waking and crying out to one another as dovin basals flex and stretch.

The Republic fleet is outnumbered, out matched. Star Destroyers rub shoulders with MC-series cruisers, escorted by squadrons of frigates and light cruisers but against a Vong fleet twice their size there is no hope of parity. The new tactics of splinterfire, of reinforcing shields against energy-hungry basals – these serve to begin to tip the scales back toward equality, but there is yet still far to go. Fifth Fleet is strong, but it has been whittled. Reinforcements have been slow. Crews have been worked to the bone, supply cut to the quick. This stay at Fondor, resting before the promise of Corellia to come, is the first real breather the Fleet has had. They have suckled at the teat of the industrial world, they have taken the time to exhale.

They are caught before they can begin to breath in again.

The Republic has not been idle. From locations Rimward three more Battle Groups enter hyperspace, careening toward the threatened world to catch the invaders on their flanks. A pincer movement, carefully planned and executed under what was deemed the utmost of secrecy. Weeks of planning, of shuffling and adjusting of patrol schedules and under-the-table negotiation with the triple-dealing Hutts. Of manipulation at the very highest levels of the Republic. All meant to corral the invaders in the perfect trap of Corellia.

Now leaping to answer the unexpected strike at Fondor. Beings, apocrine sweat beading and zwitterionic chemicals flushing through bodies, jab digits at holograms and bicker over real-time infeed data. This is not catastrophic. It is not. It is manageable, it is salvageable - Corellia was ideal, Corellia was the plan, but plans can change. They assure themselves of this, they place manipulators on shoulders and hunch-back analogues. We'll get them, they say, we'll get them at Fondor instead. It's just a change of plans.

Supreme Commander Nas Choka is not to be taken in. Dovin basal mines seeded across a dozen major routes force emergency reversion after emergency reversion for the harried Third, Fourth and First Battle Groups. Starships are devoured by the deadly point-masses, ripped apart under gravitational stresses and thousands of sailors lose their lives in the deep black between stars. Voices are stolen from screaming throats as the chill of the void wrings silent crystal-fume shouts of dismay. Clouded eyes peer at pinprick-stars that will never warm them, amidst the ruin of the Navy's Finest. The fleets meant to strike against the rear of the Yuuzhan Vong force never appear. The sum total of Republic forces remain the handful of Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari cruisers with supporting squadrons arrayed in low orbit, shields squealing against the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere.

Thus does Nas Choka, receiving villip-relayed notification of the three Battle Groups removed from the field of play, advance his fleet deeper into the well of Fondor, sailing past the handful of moons. Abreast of the largest, a salvo of world-shaping seeds is flung carelessly against Nallastia, the garden moon that hangs in stark contrast to the ecumenopolis beyond. The Supreme Commander, confident in his thwarting of the machine-lover's plotting, foresees no hindrance to the conquest of this critical world. Here he will crush one of their largest shipyards and go on to honor the gods by sweeping the planet clean of its infestation, so that it might be, as all things, reborn in their image.

Fondor is a world touched by machine and droid, a world cursed by heathen technology but it is a world who has been miserly in her gifts. Beneath the caress of the Chosen, it will offer up her gifts in both hands until yorik-et grow in fair fields and rakamat low at the morning sky.

Nas Choka is confident, as well he should be. In all ways he can conceive of, he has outmaneuvered and outplanned the Republic. In all theatres he knows of they are embattled, pinned down, unable to answer the likely frantic calls broadcast by the inferior fleet that even now huddles before him. All known routes to Fondor are seeded with deadly mines, impassable to any creations of steel and unliving minds. His confidence is justified, his planning impeccable. In all ways he can, Nas Choka has calculated this next phase of the war to the utmost of his abilities.

Unfortunately for Nas Choka, Supreme Commander, there are, at that very moment, several factors far outside of not only his knowledge, but his frame-of-reference. Deals have been made, meetings held, accords reached. Tongues held and minds still suspicious yes, but common ground forged.

At the moment his fleet bears down on Fondor, these factors are thundering through a nether-realm of souls, screaming along at speeds that cannot be charted by logic, navigating reefs of passion, hatred and antipathy. A woman, young, bright, glut on the freedom of this galaxy and the peace of her mentors, whispers worlds in mind and meaning to soul-bound creatures of curated genetic legacy and millenia of training. Together, they reef the sails, they tend the rudder, they spy the shoals and by their hands and their minds and their eyes, which see beyond sight, they light the way.

Turk Brand gives the order. Stay Awhile and Listen spools up her four mass shadow projectors. The Interdictor does not attune them to the necessary levels to inhibit hyperspace translation. The Admiral knows the enemy will be confused. Let them be. Instead, the Interdictor projects a wide cone, far past Fondor's moons, wider and broader than usual, adjusted by the gravitational values of each of the satellites and the world they spun about.

Jedi Eryl Besa, brow furrowed in concentration, hunched over and shivering as frost rimes her boots and crackles on her tunic, speaks around chattering teeth. There is a moment. Gellar operations confirms. Navigation confirms. The Mandeville slides.

Nas Choka learns of this new paradigm when the blazebugs of his strategium hum a discordant note, buzzing in confusion as every yammosk writhes in sudden, expected unease. Vestigial senses, barely understood, lurking remnants tingle and tremble in the complex biocomputers, sending shivers of uncertainty through their tentacles. Glutinous nutrient baths heave and swirl. Sabre'd teeth gnash.

Invisible to most eyes of the Chosen Ones, locked away inside yorik-coral fortresses, a vast slash in the flesh of reality reels wide, crackling lips curling back in a snarl that stings eyes and jolts nausea from all who laid eyes on the phenomenon. Sudden ill dreams sweep the nightside of Fondor.

Erupting from the writhing wound in space come four warships.

In another time in this galaxy, they might have been seen as cousins of a sort.

Each is a naked blade, an ingot of steel hammer-forged, bristling from prow to stern with an endless array of weaponry. Baroque architecture rises into buttressed fortresses along the spine, descends into gothic spires from the ventral surfaces. Blade-edged prows, sharp as swords, encrusted with designs of eagles and laurel, picked with bolts of lightning around blackened barrels of spinal-mounted cannons pierce through the veil between this world and the other, spraying ectoplasmic matter in streams a hundred kilometers long. Short lived seraphim spirits and dancing, simple-minded intelligences careen and lope alongside the ships as they burst free, each fading into scraps of light and prismatic color before being sucked back into the rift of uncolor.

They are the Grand Cruiser Opolor's Vow, three hundred and ninety-six years old. The Cruisers Guilliman's Glory: a young ship, merely six decades of age, but with the scars of a dozen wars etched along her flanks; Son of Iax: whose exuberant markings of cobalt blue and gold were scorched and blackened; and Sorpenton: whose keel had once been Shepherd's Due.

Blaze-bugs arrange themselves as best they could, faced with new vessels of unknown allegiance and incomprehensible provenance.

In the holotanks of the arrayed Republic fleet, the four vessels are marked with a simple yellow. Friendly, but not under command. Admiral Brand, aboard Yald, presses his fist to his lips and leans forward, tense. Surprised, but with a sudden flare of what he dares believe might be hope.

The closing Yuuzhan Vong fleet and the newly arrived squadron of Imperial warships together form a rapidly shrinking triangle, with the station-keeping Republic First Fleet and the sprawling shipyards of Fondor forming the anchoring third vertex.

Nas Choka has two choices. Continue his assault or ease the basal's attraction, slowing his advance to take time to investigate this new variable in an equation he has thought balanced.

He elects to push forward. Honor to Yun'Yammka.

The drives of the Republic ships, previously holding them in stationary orbit, light with coughs of azure ion, boosting them up from the edges of the ionosphere, shrinking the triangle yet faster. Timetables scroll, countdowns indicating time to engagement. Spheres of pale blue and red and yellow ignite in the holotanks, showing the estimated engagement ranges of each force.

Some do not believe the scale of the yellow sphere.

They are promptly educated.

From beyond the orbit of Fondor's largest moon, more than a million miles away from the low orbits of Fondor and the encroaching Yuuzhan Vong fleet, Opolor's Vow speaks her first argument and the old lady is concise. Her handmaidens add their own denouncement, spoken slivers of a second later: their mistress is always to be allowed to first word. Massive lance arrays in the prow and battlements give voice to harsh light. At lightspeed, collimated beams of energy cross the vast expanse of space in but moments.

Bloodied and Unbowed, alerted by a crackling fore-shock of radiation, tasted by ever-vigilant yammosk coordinators, aligns its voids. The Yuuzhan Vong battleship, two kilometers long, bulky and massive, has micro-seconds to shift point-mass singularities to absorb the screaming energy.

Time it does not have.

One void manages to choke down a single lance strike with the dovin basal exhausted and falling into slumber immediately after. Other dovin basals - peerless biots all, the apex of the Shaper's craft, are merely flesh and blood, and cannot react in the span of time allotted. Spears of light pin Bloodied and Unbowed through. Yorik coral vaporizes, erupting into vast plumes of superheated plasma as the entire warship kicks sideways by the explosive vaporization of a significant portion of its mass. It is dead in seconds, more than a third of the ship molten and blown apart. The remains spin out of formation, smearing a spray of rubble across nearspace like a fan of gravel flung from a bucket.

Opolor's Vow and her attendants begin to recharge their capacitor banks.

The blaze-bugs that had been Bloodied and Unbowed return to their niches as Nas Choka leans forward, one sharp fingernail running along his lower lip.

For he is Supreme Commander and even the sudden and unexpected loss of a miid-roic in a single volley does not unnerve him. The weapons of the new arrivals are powerful, that is clear. The speed in which they cross space: that too is remarkable. But they are four vessels and even with the loss of a miid-roic his fleet still greatly outnumbers both forces. It does not escape his notice that the largest of these strange ships was the one that slew Bloodied and Unbowed. The smaller vessels added their fury, which means it is but a concentration of their potency that has struck this blow.

His own flagship can do much the same to one of the infidel's triangle ships in a single great volley, of course. Already, the yammosks would be adjusting, preparing for all dovin basals to combine strengths to attempt to repel the next assault.

The battle might simply be more costly, that is all. Four ships cannot prevent the fall of Fondor and the breaking of the New Republic here.

Nas Choka indicates to a tactician, ordering a deepening of the basal connection on Fondor. As one the fleet accelerates, eager to come to grips all the sooner with the Republic fleet.

At estimation, glancing over the blazebugs, he can be within close-range engagement with the heretics in a handful of minutes at which point the new arrivals, still many minutes away, will need to pick their targets much more carefully.

He will use the weaknesses of this galaxy against them. They will not risk the deaths of their allies; such is their obsession with life.

A tougher fight. He nods. In a way, it is better. It will be more satisfying.

Minutes tick down. Long-distance fire begins to crackle between the Yuuzhan Vong and Republic. Turbolasers, less effective at range, sleet upwell, absorbed easily by voids. Of course, for every shot consumed, the ship assaulted slows. The time to close-engagement lengthens. Ripples of magma missiles erupt from the massed fleet, targeted against both the onrushing warships and the fixed emplacement battlestations. Golan Is and IIs and a handful of IIIs throw their own munitions into the fray, adding a capital ship's worth of firepower at the expense of maneuverability.

The Grand Cruiser Opolor's Vow speaks five more times, each lance strike eviscerating a Yuuzhan Vong warship even through its dovin basal voids. Her escorting cruisers, measure of the enemy taken, now link their own lance volleys together. Commodore Sogan, aboard Iax, calls the targets. Admiral Regil is enjoying picking off small-fry, but Sogan has higher sights. Together, Son of Iax, Sorpenton and Guillimans's Glory hold charge until their lances are trembling, seething, screaming for release, and that release he commands.

Ascendancy in the Eyes of the Sacred takes lance volleys along her flank. Voids flare, devour, burst. Sogan is adamant: continue fire. Beams pierce through the point-mass interdictors. Yorik coral ripples and plumes. Chunks of warship the size of city blocks are ejected, spiraling on trails of glittering atmosphere and plasmic tendrils. Ascendancy slows. Her basals are redirected entirely. A yammosk has turned its full attention to the stricken warship.

Absorb the hits. Cease locomotion. Make as a fortress and shutter the gates. The yammosk is insistent, the basals wail in agony. More lances, firing at a rapidity that concerns the shipmaster of Ascendency, continue to pick and peel the flesh of the vessel. Opolor's Vow deigns to accede to the aspirations of her lessers. Her bow twitches in her headlong rush, a minute adjustment of targeting.

The next volley of lance fire is bolstered by Candelum Romanii Pattern firepower as the finest energy projectors devised by the Magi of Konor discharge. Ascendancy in the Eyes of the Sacred flinches. Autocogitator targeting and expert experience honed in the fires of the Great Crusade deliver four line warship's worth of firepower on a point roughly the diameter of a main battle tank. A textbook killing blow, straight from the training manuals of the Imperialis Armada.

A flare of light illuminates the ink-dark coral from within before the length of the ship caught flame and immolated. Volatile compounds, destabilized plasmic containment and exotic materia combust, lose coherency, rage and riot through the superstructure. Squirts of strange color vent like fumeroles. Magnesium white, copper green, caesium blue.

Nas Choka straightens. Ascendancy is one of his three Grand Cruisers, the smallest. He is in one of the remaining two. He notes the potency of the prow batteries and traces each path of hateful photonic fury. Only a few degrees of allowance. He waves to a tactician, ensuring that the yammosks are aware. These new warships are formidable. But thus far he hypothesizes it is their frontal weaponry that is wreaking the most damage. Now their distant reversion and range from the battle proper becomes clearer.

'When we fight them again,' he considers, 'we shall not allow ourselves to be caught at range.' Already he imagines the viability of pinpoint hyperspace reversions to flank these newcomers in future conflicts. Reserve forces to be held at bay and tasked to close and engage.

But for all his theorizing, he notes they are not slowing.

The battle descends into melee and chaos. For the Republic, hampered by mortal minds and arguments and the necessity of explanation, chaos is a weakness. For the Yuuzhan Vong, impelled by the commands of the yammosk, chaos does not exist. Every warrior is a part of the whole and the whole is unquestioned. Even the Supreme Commander, to a degree, is subordinate to the greater motion. From his strategium where he oversees the clash, issuing orders, he trusts in the yammosks to interpret and enact each command. The War Coordinators have never failed. They are the children of the Slayer, the boon the Warrior Caste treasures most.

When the Imperial squadron arrives, minutes after the melee begins in earnest; they have only just begun to slow. Tendrils of golden plasma reach out to embrace the latecomers alongside clouds of coralskippers and a rain of magma missiles.

Son of Iax unleashes salvo after salvo of macrobattery and its own plasma, the warship veritably erupting with a shudder of solid shot and pitch-metal bangs of magnetic containment impellers, recoiling enough to momentarily neutralize the forward impulse of its engines. It pummels and hammers a miid-roic of roughly half its size. The Yuuzhan Vong warship rolls, dovin basals projecting voids that devour some of the incoming fire before being brushed aside. Others try to take up the slack, but the weight of fire is immense. Explosions crackle and rip across the thick coral plating, pluming up sprays of gravel and molten debris. Return plasma smears and splashes across flickering violet barriers, vanishing almost as soon as it impacts. Magma missiles spiral and detonate on the hull proper, but each spray of jellied plasma is brushed past as Son of Iax accelerates.

For any other navy in this galaxy, there would have been confusion. Uncertainty. Perhaps: disbelief. But it is almost as if the Yuuzhan Vong understood the language of this new foe.

The captain of the embattled miid-roic, a prefect of some skill, recognizes immediately an attempt to ram. Dovin basals struggle to slew the craft around but the Imperial ship is too close, too fast and they are too weakened from acting as insufficient barriers.

The prefect's last thought is of how odd it was to sacrifice a warship that seemed, so far, mostly undamaged. The armored prow of Iax sinks home into the cruiser, bodily slamming it aside and ripping into the guts. Rapid decompression blows out entire segments of the warship as overpressure and hydrostatic shock of the impact compresses the warship. Engines flaring, Son of Iax pushes straight through, plasma batteries punching into the tumbling halves of the Vong ship as it splits in half. Chewing apart the remnants, killing that which was already dead, Iax searches for new prey. Impacts of debris strikes along the four kilometer length of the light cruiser, rattling and banging off of the slabbed armor plating.

In other quarters, the battle proceeds less well for the defenders. Quiet Tides, shields stripped by the concerted efforts of three frigates, wallowes under repeated impacts. Holed, punctured, bleeding plasma and molten metal, the Mon Calamari craft dies by cuts. A Golan platform suffers critical containment failure in its primary fusion reactor: a plume of sun-hot efflux spitting like a blowtorch in the night a hundred kilometers long. Rapid surges of thermal radiation overloads the shields of any warships nearby and sears the surfaces of Vong craft black before full containment fails and the platform vanishes in a globe of light and radiation. The Star Destroyer Interregnum loses its port-side weaponry after a staggering one-two punch of plasma and magma barrage, forcing her captain to order disengagement.

Two Nebulon-B frigates, flying escort for the cruiser Tuwara are laid upon by squadrons of coralskippers before being immolated by a contemptuous broadside from the Grand Cruiser Screams of the Heretic.

Warships run rampant through the shipyards, braving fierce fire from Golans and harrying snubfighters alike. Anlage, nearly finished, takes several coralskippers amidships at high speed. The triangular capital ship breaks apart, spraying debris into nearby slipways. Amerce, another Star Destroyer, ceases to exist in a stroboscopic flare of light. Its engine segment, near to completion, spins out of the firestorm, crumpling Yard 1321 and -47. One Star Destroyer, atmosphere gouting from ruptures along its flanks, hews hard in its slipway, slamming into fragile workings and scaffolding, wrecking them before becoming entangled with its sister in the neighboring dock.

The two die as one as coralskippers plow into their silent engines, sparking off the half-status reactors and painting local space with light. Hypermatter spill illuminates the skies of Fondor.

There are spans of container fields, set aside for eventual shipment. Each container is enormous, equivalent in size, in some forms, to frigates or even cruisers. They are bright in primary colors and shaped polyhedral. Red prisms and blue dodecahedrons; they are designed to be mated to freighters through magnetic plating. They are filled with war matériel meant for the fronts. They are full of ordnance, they are packed with medical supplies, they are topped to the gunwales with replaceable parts.

The Yuuzhan Vong do not know which is what. They do not care. Frigate analogues laze down the vast container fields. It is punishment detail, far from the glory to be grasped in daring combat against the infidel. It is punishment detail and they vaporize months of production, an act that will with cold certainty stress the supply chain of the New Republic to snapping.

Yuuzhan Vong carriers fling coralskippers on ballistic paths. Like slingshot stones they kill quiescent starships hanging at rest, they puncture docks, they careen through unshielded bays. Many survive, with dovin basals roused and ready. The vast yards unbind like a necklace pulled too tight, spraying arcs of debris and machined components in broad fans hundreds of kilometers wide. There is little fire – the simple mathematics of kinetics is enough to kill these fragile stations. Bursts and squirts of light signify significant matter-to-energy conversion. Sunlight reflects and shatters across a growing field of riven metal.

In lower orbits, shipyards tangle and collide, spiraling lower, erupting into long-lived streamers of smoke and flame as the atmosphere consumes them. Larger segments, solid and massive enough to survive re-entry, strike like bombs across the industrial surface. Factories catch fire, droids running amok in panic and confusion.

A Yuuzhan Vong carrier, finished with its attack run, accelerates to escape the massacre of the shipyards. A succession of ion bolts spatter along its midline as the basals lock onto Fondor. Skittering lightning crackles along coral, seizing muscle and disorienting biots. A flurry of proton torpedos thunder into its flesh, leaving the carcass dead.

And still locked onto Fondor.

Clouds part around the artificial meteor. It punched home like lightning, a flash from the heavens, crust rippling for a hundred kilometers around, heat blast igniting a huge swathe of smog-choked sprawl. Billions, trillions of tons of matter is vaporized and ejected upward, a pyroclastic blast that reaches the upper reaches of the atmosphere where it flattens like an anvil. The entire local plate grumbles, shocking earthquakes across a third of the surface.

Ten minutes later, the planetary shields come online, only to flicker off shortly thereafter as the continued aftershocks destabilize the projectors.

But where the Imperial ships fly, the line of battle stabilizes and tips for the defenders.

Commodore Sogan is sweating as he bellows. His officer corps do not take it personally. Tyber Sogan is a man of some vitality and in battle he surrendered to his passions. They did not rule him and his exuberance, in many instances, bled to that of his crew.

'Bring us about! Full burn! Batteries echo through terra, port, hold fire. Roll us! Roll us, dammit all! Throne alive, I can touch them, I can touch them! XO, why isn't that damned frigate dead? Kill it!'

Son of Iax wheels and spins and four kilometers of Murder cruiser dances under the ministrations of Sogan's handpicked piloting cadre. Plasma ripples in sequences from port and starboard. Salvos are timed to lure voids, then slap them aside. Macrobattery banks to supplement are as chisels to the lumpen stone of the grown warships. Space about Son of Iax appears not dissimilar to an accretion disk, with the cruiser as the forging planetoid.

Opolor's Vow is untouchable, stately sliding through the melee. Sleeting broadsides overwhelm basals and batter aside Vong craft. Macrocannon and banks of las and Martian plasma prove more than a match for biot-forged plasma and magma missile. Its void shields, enigmatic to the senses of the yammosks, crackle constantly under high energy impacts of plasma. Banks of interception cannon swat coralskippers from the sky and detonate missiles before they can dare touch her armor. Flights of brutally armored Thunderbolt fighters run combat patrols, keeping coralskippers at bay, layered ceramite proving efficient at absorbing more than their fair share of plasma.

For more than thirty minutes the melee rages. Sorpenton, as per her unlucky reputation, takes a dozen magma missiles to the midsection, knocking out a half dozen batteries and venting thirteen decks to space. Opolor's Vow and the remaining Vong Grand Cruisers, Screams of the Heretic and Yammka, engage in close proximity. Space between the three becomes inimical to life, a harrowed expanse where macrocannon shell and plasmic discharge seem to saturate every square meter. Dovin basals tug and haul at the eight-kilometer length of the Vow, adamantium keel groaning under the conflicting gravitational pulses. Plasma coats her voids so thoroughly the ship is barely visible save for the rippling salvos of macrocannon that slash outward.

At such proximity, Screams of the Heretic and Yammka alloy their dovin basals as one, projecting massive voids that manage to consume several lance blasts as the prow of Vow tracks across Heretic. Three lance strikes connect, carving out craters and calving off a frigate sized piece of coral from the warship. Spumes of crystalline air and tumbling bodies pour from the breach before eroding in the hostility and heat of local space.

As these monsters clash, the rest of the fleets give a wide berth, unable and unwilling to contend with such continent-searing firepower.

Yald, a strapping new Nebula Star Destroyer, blares with klaxon. Admiral Brand is pacing and has been pacing. He rarely looks to the expansive transparisteel of the bridge, caring not to see the flickering vista laid out before him. Fondor's legacy is dying around him and he can do nothing at all. He has no command of the Exiles who have arrived, just ahead of schedule. He has no answer to the Yuuzhan Vong, who have seen through all his plans like so much flimsy.

He has Yald, he has a dozen other Star Destroyers and MC series cruisers, none of which is hale. All are venting atmosphere, all are pockmarked and scorched. He is relegated to ensuring that none of the invaders are able to mount a coordinated assault on the Exile's ships. They are the only thing keeping Fondor from becoming a total rout.

Brand can see the truth in the holotanks around him. He watches Opolor's Vow, though it steals his breath. It fights like a demon out of some Sith hell, it fights like the myth of Executor. He can't fathom any class of starship he knows weathering not one but two of the Vong capital ships in such a way. One of them is fifteen kilometers, a real monster, and the second just larger than the Exile ship. The plasma and magma missiles, not to mention the way Yald's sensors scream as the duo of capital ships flex their basals - Yald would've been erased in a minute. He thinks even Lusankya or Guardian would be lost, with maybe Harbinger or Viscount able to bear it a while longer under their latest shields and next-gen armor.

But Brand can see the truth in the holotanks around him. Opolor's Vow fights two Grand Cruisers to a standstill. Son of Iax chases down a miid-roic and murders it. Sorpenton is beset by wings upon wings of coralskippers, becoming the anchor to a starfighter brawl of legendary proportions. Guilliman's Glory sails to the side of her embattled sister, but Brand sees it. Each, they are unmatched. Unparalleled.

It's not enough. Should the Yuuzhan Vong fold back in, collapse back the tendrils of their fleet - the Exile's ships will burn.

So Brand does what he can and he risks every ship of his command to draw the ire of the invaders. He stokes their warrior fury. He lures their battle-lust. He keeps them from looking, truly looking, at the scope of the clash. The Exiles can save Fondor, and maybe the Fifth Fleet, but only if the Fifth Fleet can save the Exiles.

He watched Bad Moon die, the Star Destroyer listing, keel straining, hull going dark. Escape pods bloom like bursting seeds.

Finally, the order comes. As one, the Yuuzhan Vong fleet retracts, peeling back and away, piling on distance. Screens of coralskippers cover their flanks. Screams of the Heretic and Yammka heel over and pull away from the Vow, both scarred and battered but intact.

The first Battle of Fondor is concluded.

Both sides are disappointed.

Nas Choka, moving beyond the horizon line, chews over the loss. Fondor was supposed to be a simple campaign, breaking the Republic's shipyard and securing a critical world near to the Core.

Lord Admiral Cornelius Regil frets at the Yuuzhan Vong's stubborn resistance. Ignoring that his flagship has taken on two of their largest warships to date and emerged nearly unscarred, he nonetheless stews over the fact he has not simply killed them both.

Admiral Brand seethes. The planned trap at Corellia has failed. All of the careful planning, plotting, the deception and desperate gambles for this chance – wasted. The ability of the Exiles with their unknown warp drives to have full impunity of movement within the interdiction field - wasted. Worse yet, the Republic has been forced to show their hand too soon, revealing the careful alliance with the strange newcomers before they had wanted. Worse – the shipyards are lost and thirty nearly finished capital ships along with them. Not to mention the incredible damage done to the world.

Placing the world between them and the Republican fleet, reinforced now by the Exiles, Nas Choka orders what he must but fears may be disastrous. Landers, yorik-trema and -troka and -triket, peel away from the Yuuzhan Vong fleet, nosing down toward the increasingly storm-choked world. Neither fleet is anxious to force a second encounter. Neither is certain of victory. Fondor remains, tarnished jewel, polluted by industry, grievously injured by accident - but still a prize. The combatants lurk, like spurned lovers, on opposite sides of the world. There is unspoken understanding. To poke above the horizon is to invite assault, is to reignite the suspended fleet action.

The Yuuzhan Vong forces make landfall in the northern hemisphere, coming down and using the continental electrical storms and ash clouds thrown up by the impact of their carrier to mask their landfall. They ride the turbulence down, blasting their own craters with the force of their landfall. Cadres of tall, lithe Yuuzhan Vong stalk beneath the iron sky, directing hordes of reptilian chazrach. Lowing biots snuffle and snort at the air, waving vast spines and crests in threat displays. Vast, leviathan shapes in the gloom shake the earth with each plodding footstep.

With such a large section of Fondor gone dark, ruined by ashfall, quakes and scorched by sweeping firestorms, enacting a full cordon is impossible. In much the same fashion, there is no way for the Vong to assault across the entire stretch of devastation. Nas Choka has a timetable and while there was an expected ground invasion of Fondor, it was one planned with expectation of orbital supremacy, not this tense standoff.

Instead, as the planetary shields finally crackle back online, tremulous, fragile, the goal of the invaders is clear. They have to reach the projectors and reactors in the capital and shut them down for good. Otherwise, Oridin City may stand inviolate, defended by surface-to-orbit laser cannons, missile tubes and wings of starfighters. The capital must be taken, the capital must fall, for the Chosen of the Gods to begin to midwife the rebirth of the world.

Brevet Lieutenant Optarch tasks his entire demicompany to embark. There is no reason to maintain garrison aboard Opolor's Vow. The Yuuzhan Vong xenoform is not given to boarding actions. The void battle is concluded. Aboard Vow, his squads, his Astartes, his Ultramarines, are wasted. There is need for Astartesian mettle below. His remit from the Primarch, cosigned by his Captain (who had been but a Sergeant like Optarch only months ago, for how swiftly do things change), is broad and flexible. It is open to much interpretation.

Optarch considers the holocom mount aboard Vow, which is keyed to a partner across the galaxy. He does not activate it. He was chosen for his inventive nature, his willingness to follow instincts. For his adherence to the teachings of the Primarch in spirit, if not in exacting word. He replaces his plumed helm, he nods to the Lord Admiral, who is preoccupied, and he departs the strategium.

The orbital battle is over but the planetary one is just beginning.

The Supreme Commander's visage smoothes away into fleshy uniformity, villip beginning to close itself. Nas Choka's words echo in Malik Carr's ears. Tak tak tak goes his claw on the coral deck underfoot. Nom Anor's villip, still everted, still bearing the face of the spy, radiates smug amusement.

"Did I not deliver on all my promises?"

Malik Carr narrows dark eyes.

"They have not been subtle in their actions. A blind quednak could have found them."

The intendent is silent for a moment.

"As ever, Warleader, I live to serve." Without requesting dismissal, Nom Anor's villip stills and reverts. Let him slink away, Malik Carr cares little. He has his orders and he has what he needs. Nas Choka was unambiguous.

"Four great battleships of unknown mettle have taken the field. I leave to you the honor of choosing the moment, Warleader. Do not disappoint."

Commander Harmae, Subaltern no longer, chose to remain with Malik Carr aboard Wrath with his Warleader after his elevation. Carr nods to his trusted subordinate. Harmae inclines his head, crossing arms across his chest in salute.

"Make translight," Malik Carr commands. In the command grotto, there is a sizzle of bloodlust, a tangible eagerness to cross blades. Tak tak tak, scratches his claw. "There is to be a reckoning with these Aistarteez."