The New Jedi Order: A Vision of Confluence

XI: A Soldier, Alright

A knock at his door drew Aeonid's attention. He'd heard the footfalls long beforehand, of course, but the Praxeum, despite his misgivings on some aspects of the Jedi, was not a place of danger, and thus he had let the awareness pass him by. The man at his chamber, leaning on the doorjamb with a hand in one trouser pocket was one Aeonid had not yet met. Brown hair, worn short, paired with a cleanly maintained fringe of facial hair. Tan tunic, brown trousers, a light jacket over shoulders, with sleeves empty. A satchel of sorts was slung over one shoulder.

Aeonid rose, shutting off his dataslate. He had been reviewing notes and organizing the day's thoughts, a task that could be resumed after. He offered a hand, in common fashion to this galaxy. The other man took it.

"Kyle Katarn," he said.

"Aeonid Thiel."

"So I've heard."

Aeonid looked him up and down, from boots to crown of the head. This man was the blademaster of the Praxeum, who taught lightsaber form to youthful Jedi. Undoubtedly less of a swordsman than Skywalker, but just as undoubtedly a great talent. Aeonid remembered his duel and looked on Katarn in a new light. Perhaps he could match his longsword against this Jedi and see the difference.

"Just got in this afternoon - thought I'd swing by and introduce myself. You're making waves around here."

"It was not my intention," Aeonid offered.

"Not a bad thing, just an observation. I also hear that you've hit some walls."

The Ultramarine gestured, offering Katarn entrance to his chambers, as was only polite. A conversation should not be held on the threshold, after all. He returned to his outsized chair, interlacing his fingers in his lap as Katarn perched on the edge of Thiel's similarly outsized bed. He suspected the scale of the mattress was due to varied breeds of xeno that passed through the Praxeum. The realization was not a pleasant one.

"I have found your Force to be…trying." he admitted. "Master Skywalker has done his best, as have the Masters Solusar, but manipulation of the Force eludes me."

Katarn brushed palms over his knees, peering around Thiel's spartan chamber.

"You've been here for what, a week? Two?"

"Thirteen days," Aeonid clarified.

"Sure. You can't expect to be slinging TK and jumping skyhooks that fast."

"I do not expect to. I expected to, at minimum, be able to consistently touch this Force."

Katarn grunted in understanding, absentmindedly patting at his satchel, laying beside him.

"I might have some thoughts on that," he said, flipping open the satchel's flap and producing a dark bottle, sealed with golden foil. "Shk'ano's Blood. Interested in a drink?"

Aeonid rose, Katarn with him, and he motioned for the Jedi Master to lead on.

"After you, Master Katarn."

Katarn led him up to the middle tier of the temple, out on to an open tier beneath the stars. No railing nor lip encircled this tier of the ziggurat and to Aeonid's eye, the aperture to access was likely a window rather than a door. Regardless, the view was fair and Katarn led him to the very edge, dropping to dangle his legs out over the steep slope of the ziggurat's side. Aeonid lowered himself down, crosslegged, beside the Master.

"I don't have any cups," Katarn said, offhand, peeling off the foil seal about the stem of the bottle. Katarn frowned lightly at the embedded cork, which promptly launched itself out over the jungle with a quiet whoompf. The Jedi took a pull, handed it to Aeonid who accepted it gently.

It hit his palate with a surprising wash of flavor and alcoholic bitterness. Woody, smokey, hints of iron and dates. Aeonid held no great interest in wines or other spirits, unlike quite a few others of his brothers, but, as he passed the bottle back to Katarn, decided this 'Shk'ano's Blood' was quite agreeable.

"The thing with Luke is that he's not like people like us. He sees the world differently. Way he describes it sometimes, I'm jealous. It sounds beautiful." Katarn trailed off, shaking his head. He took another quick pull from the bottle, letting it dangle between his fingers, perilously loose over the edge of the temple.

"I love the man and I'd follow him to the ends of the universe, but in the same way he's the best of us, he's kind of apart from us." Singular - now that was a concept Aeonid understood well. It was said of each Primarch, but also of Primarchs among their own brothers. None other was a Guilliman, but so too was none a Sanguinius.

"His lessons hold merit. I understand the purpose behind them, though a part of me recoils from the concept of the 'spiritual'."

"I've heard that about you Exiles. Not big fans of religion, are you?"

"It is proscribed. It has never served to benefit mankind."

"Good thing the Force isn't a religion."

"So you claim."

"You can't argue the Force isn't real."

"I would be fool to. My concern, Master Katarn, is that the empirical truth of phenomena does not make the fanciful trappings of moral sophistry constructed around them to also be true. The warp is the cruelest example of this."

Katarn rolled his head, neither nodding nor shaking. He offered the bottle back and Aeonid took a mouthful. The alcohol burned his tongue, but faded swiftly even before it reached his stomach. Rubio had much to speak on as regards phenomena of the warp. He waxed at length about the way the Thousand Sons wrapped themselves in mysticism and abstruse methodology, all to accomplish the same ends that Librariums in other Legions did in a far more secular, empirical way.

"The Force isn't the Warp. Call it sophistry if you want, but you already agree with the core ideals, here."

Aeonid narrowed his eyes, reviewing his notations on Skywalker's teachings and the Order's moral commandments.

"Expound."

"I know what you're going to say, but you Astartes do care about life and preserving it." Katarn held out his hand and Aeonid passed the bottle back. "If you didn't, then you wouldn't be a warrior but a murderer. A warrior, a soldier, they fight for a reason."

"Human life is my concern, Master Katarn. The Jedi preach care about all forms of life. This is…difficult for me."

Katarn shrugged.

"It's a start, in my opinion. Once you realize you do care about people living, all it takes is a little longer to realize that 'people' can mean more than what you thought at first." Katarn set the bottle between them, leaning forward to rest elbows on his knees and peer out over the night-time jungle. Nocturnal creatures made their calls. "Ever heard of stormtroopers?"

An easy answer: "Elite soldiery of the former Galactic Empire," Aeonid rattled off, drawn from briefings on the Imperial Remnant. "Subject to a range of rumors from indoctrination as infants to cloning."

Katarn barked a laugh, shaking his head.

"They come up with something new every year. They're probably all right to some degree, you know. It's a big galaxy and there were a lot of us. Stormtroopers."

Aeonid raised an eyebrow, looking over the middle-aged Jedi with new eyes.

"You served the Empire?"

"Most of us did, at some point or another. I was just deeper in. I think there's some similarities between being a Stormtrooper and being Astartes."

Likely not at all, Aeonid mused. Stormtroopers, regardless of rumor, were all, to the last, purely mortal, baseline humans. Their armor was sufficient, though unremarkable, and their role was as elite soldiery and policing forces both. More to the point, Stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire were homogenous and lacking nuance. The Legiones might clash heads from time to time and rivalries could become legendary, but each Legion was elevated by its own unique culture and aspect. The wisdom of the Emperor, as described by Guilliman, was clear.

"Being a stormtrooper was simple. We were loyal to the Empire, we followed orders, we did our jobs. There wasn't a lot to think about - thinking was above our paygrade." Katarn laughed. "And life was cheap. Most stormies were lifers. You'd live and die in that white armor and a lot of us thought it was a good deal. I think you know what I mean when I say that having a definite purpose gives some real peace of mind."

Would that Katarn knew just how true his words were. Aeonid saw it clearly, each time he evaluated another Ultramarine for his nascent company. His requirements were exacting: he sought those who, despite circumstances of a foreign galaxy, were adaptive and possessed of thoughtful alacrity. Thus it was that of the four thousand Astartes in the 4711th, Aeonid had thusly only been successful at recruiting less than a hundred. Too many of his brothers smoldered beneath their careful exteriors. Too many burned with the most dangerous of all afflictions to an Astartes: uncertainty.

One need only look to the Word Bearers to see the poisonous result of Astartesian uncertainty.

"'Duty is its own reward'," Aeonid quoted, though he could not recall the originator. "Is this your assumption? My role as Ultramarine is inflexible, and thus the Force eludes me?"

"Not exactly. I was a stormtrooper, now I'm a Jedi Master. It's not insurmountable, but…" Katarn trailed off, taking the bottle of Sh'kano's Blood. He paused, halfway to his mouth and lowered it. "It's going to take longer for you, I think. It did for me."

"Any theoretical is welcome, Master Katarn."

"Call me Kyle," the Jedi insisted. "I can tell you what worked for me, and maybe it'll work for you. I didn't use the Force to protect people or preserve life. Terrible Jedi, sure. It just didn't matter that much to me back then. What did matter - the mission. It didn't lead me to the best places, but that kind of focus, that kind of mentality, that clicked for me. The Force wants to be your ally, you just need to find out how to bridge that gap."

"This appears contrary to the teachings of Master Skywalker and others. You are implying that I reject the moral grounding of the Jedi to turn the Force to my own ends."

Katarn finally took another mouthful of Blood, holding out the bottle and waggling it until Aeonid accepted it.

"Yes and no. If you really turn the Force to your will only - that's a short trip to the Dark Side." Katarn shivered. "Trust me on that. I'm not saying to bend the Force to your will, what I mean is that you need to find a way for the Force to work alongside what you believe in." Katarn stroked his beard a moment, brows drawn. "Have you head of the Matukai?"

A moment of reflection and Aeonid shook his head.

"I have not."

"I'll have to introduce you to Sel Sang next time he's around, if you're still here. The Matukai are another sect of Force-users, like Jensaarai, but their focus is more on the physical and the body, at least if you listen to Sang. All their meditation techniques are built around some kind of martial arts or meditative but physical activity. That sound more your speed?"

Considering his first 'touch' of the Force was in the midst of his duel with Master Skywalker, Aeonid could but nod in agreement. His second success was in reliving that moment.

"I think it's exciting. For Luke, you know. He's so excited to share what he can see that he forgets that even for him it wasn't instant." Katarn smiled, eyes crinkling. "Reminds me of a kid with a new hoverbike. Let me give you some advice, Aeonid. Remember what Luke tells you, but interpret it. He's right, but the path to righteousness isn't a quick one and some of us are - well, we're not exactly as far down it at the start that he was."

Aeonid made a noise of assent.

"'Remark 101.x: What wins the fight is what wins the fight. Ultimately, nothing should be excluded if that exclusion leads to defeat.'"

"I'll take that for the spirit, not quite the literal meaning."

"Then, Master Katarn - Kyle - if I am understanding your meaning, I should attempt to suit the 'Force' to my purpose as Ultramarine, rather than suit my purpose as Ultramarine to the Force."

Katarn saluted, still holding the bottle.

"That's it exactly. It worked for me. I started out thinking of the Force just as a tool, like anything else in my kit. It helped me get the job done and I did good work with it. But then, the more I used it, the more I started to understand the Force better. Now, here I am."

"You allowed it to shape you."

"Manner of speaking, certainly. What doesn't shape you? Just living life changes a person."

The thought of this Force changing him was repulsive. It twisted his gut, bringing to mind the warped abominations of daemons aboard Macragge's Honour and the gaunt, horned visages of Word Bearers baying like animals. He was Ultramarine, Astartes, made by the Emperor and perfected by His wisdom. Some supernatural power wielded by xenos and unreformed humans - changing what He on Terra designed?

"Learn from the Jedi, my son," his father had said.

If Katarn spoke the truth and the solution to his blockage was so simple - he could make great strides, strides that placed him on the path to returning to Eboracum and the 4711th and the war.

"My task," Aeonid said aloud. "Is to learn of the Force to aid my Primarch and my Legion in this new war."

"That's helpfully straight-forward. Don't worry about the webs of life or luminous beings. The Force is a tool, Aeonid. It's like your bolter or your armor. Say, another Ultramarine is about to be killed by a squad of vong. Only you can save him, Aeonid. Do you think about pulling your gun or drawing your sword, or do you just do it?"

Just the thought put the tactile feel of his longsword's wire grip in his palm, the satisfying weight of a bolter against his shoulder.

"Hey," Katarn said. "Catch." He threw the half-full bottle of Shk'ano's Blood, out and arcing away from the Temple.

Four meters away it stopped, frozen in midair. Aeonid glanced down, realizing his right arm was extended, fingers curled into a loose grip. He…pulled the bottle back. No different than the rote swap of a bolter's magazine. Thoughtless. Reflexive. He reached out and plucked it by the stem, feeling an uncommon sense of what might just be awe.

"You used the Force to save the booze," Katarn said around a laugh. "You're a soldier alright."

The monster, uncurled from its sleep, was huge. On the one hand, this meant that it filled almost its entire lair with snarling, tentacle-lashing anger. On the other hand, this meant that it filled its lair. Anakin ducked beneath a whirling tentacle, as thick as his thigh. It was angry, it was confused, and it was finding it extremely hard to maneuver. Something that he and Tahiri had a much, much better time of.

Plasma cracked and spat and Tahiri, blonde hair tinged green by her lightsaber's glow, shouted. The creature howled, deafening in the rocky chamber, recoiling as best it could with a seared slash through one of its flailing tentacles. It had at least a dozen of them, sprouting from both sides of its enormous, disc-shaped body. It propped itself up on folded wings, like some kind of overgrown hawk-bat, using smaller, secondary tentacles like limbs to keep its bulk above the ground. Its head was almost flush with its body, little to no neck, and it snapped and roared with a gaping, fish-like maw filled with way too many teeth.

Anakin was still pretty sure it was some kind of sithspawn, because he'd never seen anything that ugly before.

It had to writhe about almost on its belly to move and between the lume wagging on Anakin's belt, Tahiri's lit 'saber and the glow from where Sannah was, all they could make out was impressions and shapes as the creature moved.

"It's going to bring down the whole cavern!" Tahiri cried, diverting a tumbling cascade of loose rock with a burst of telekinesis, co-opting it to hurl back at the beast. Anakin grabbed her hand, pulling her along as they ducked and wove beneath flailing tentacles, darting around behind the creature as it bellowed and struggled to shift its bulk around. It reeked - like decaying, wet grass and rancid meat. Another tentacle lashed out, too slow to catch them. The impact of the muscled appendage was enough to tumble another section of the cavern wall, boulders the size of Anakin's head bouncing and rolling.

"I'm seeing that! We need to get out - draw it up to the surface, then we can drive it off."

"Or kill it-" Tahiri gasped, releasing Anakin's hand and knocking him flat with a shove of the Force. His hair ruffled with the wind of a tentacle's passage. "Because this thing really, really hates us-"

Hates. Whatever the beast was, its presence was powerful and loud. It wasn't radiating the justifiable anger of a cornered animal or a territorial predator confronted with interlopers. No, all Anakin felt was a bitter and consuming hatred of these tiny irritants. It longed to crush them, to kill them. Not to eat them or to secure its lair, but because it wished to. It wasn't sapient, that was for sure, but even its primitive mind appeared capable of impassioned fury.

He caught a glimpse of Sannah's pale face, worried, peering at them from across the chamber, just around the bend of the tunnel that led back to the temple and the surface of the moon.

"Here-" Anakin rolled to his feet, keeping his lightsaber at hand but unlit, unlike Tahiri. "Get it to turn away from the tunnel. Then we can run under it."

"Under it!" Tahiri laughed, half panic and half exhilarated adrenaline. "Anakin Solo, I love how crazy you are."

His stomach did something strange that he didn't have time to consider right now, not when a sithspawn the size of the Falcon was doing its very best to crush him into a smear of Jedi paste. Like they shared a mind, Tahiri and Anakin moved as one. Tahiri span her lightsaber, turning it into a bright green fan that dazzled the creature, reflecting in its huge, glassy red eyes. Anakin launched rocks, pelting it with ineffectual but infuriating impacts, managing to even sink one right down its yawning throat. It noticed not at all the impromptu snack, fixated only on the interlopers that taunted it.

Propelled on too many tentacles and with its muscled, wing-clad limbs, its maw yawned wide with an ear-splitting bellow and it dove for them.

"Over!" Anakin bit the word and he and Tahiri leapt, the Force swelling around them and then their boots were on its back and they ran, over knobbled and leathery flesh. Stalactites cracked loose in showers of rock-dust and pebbles, thudding down behind them, before them, beside them, only enraging the creature further. It tried to crush them, surging up to smash its back against the stony roof above - too slow. Anakin and Tahiri leapt off the beast's back, and left it, still flopping, hauling itself back around. Its excavated tunnel, the only way in or out was just in front of them and they dashed for it, fast as thought. Sannah was with them then, the Melodie sprinting hard too, eyes wide and a combination of delight and adrenaline rolling from her.

"It's so mad!" She shouted, high to be heard over the world-ending howls behind them.

Absolutely an understatement. After months against the Yuuzhan Vong and their eerie silences, it was a relief and a distraction to sense the creature behind them. It almost threw him off, how very obvious its spasmodic lashing out was. Anakin didn't have to try to read body language and react in split-seconds to subtle shifts of weight and tenses of muscle - the Force just told him where and when and how and, even hearing the thing tear its way out of its lair, trembling the stony floor of the tunnel, he didn't feel the slightest bit in danger.

Surprised, yes, a little uncertain with how violent a reaction it was, but in danger? Tahiri and Sannah both were almost drowning in adrenaline but he felt strangely calm.

The trio skidded to a halt, all peering up at the circle of light far above. The rope hung ready and waiting and Sannah was the first to grab onto an ascender.

"Wait," Tahiri held out a hand. "Anakin, how fast-"

He looked behind them. Down in the dark, out of the reach of their lumes, a mass moved and strained and bellowed.

"Not nearly fast enough. Okay. Sannah, come here."

He hoisted her onto his back and was grateful for how much smaller Melodie were than humans. She locked her ankles around his waist, Tahiri killing her lightsaber and hooking it back to her belt.

"Straight up, then?" She said, wild grin bright.

"Straight up," he agreed.

She grabbed him/he grabbed her, the Force moved and Yavin was their launchpad. It was the opposite of the falling trick they'd perfected and Anakin leaned into it, into the meld, the link, the feeling of Tahiri's presence as she focused on him. They shot upward, like corks out of a bottle, blurring past the hanging rope. A ten meter, twenty meter leap: effortless. She lifted him and he lifted her and like all those physics thought problems, they laughed at the boring laws of the universe.

Tahiri pushed at him and he pushed back and they both angled into the rough walls of the pit, kicking off again, right toward each other. He saw only a flash of Tahiri's face as she whipped past him, close enough to touch, spun around their fulcrum in the force. Brows drawn, green eyes bright, blonde hair whipping - and then they kicked off opposite walls and continued their dance.

Their orbit.

Wind rushed past, biting at his cheek and Anakin wondered - could they fly, like this? and then the roof of the temple chamber was rushing at him and he thrust out his hands. The Force formed a cushion, soft as summer dream and he slowed. He felt a pull at his body and Tahiri guided him to land, light on his boots, just beside the pit. Sannah slid off his back, stumbling on wobbling legs for a moment.

She looked up at both of them from under wild, windswept brown hair, mouth agape.

"It's not over yet," Anakin said, pre-empting both girls. As if to underline his words, another shaking roar echoed up from the hole, growing louder. He glanced back down the pit. The beast wasn't up the tunnel yet - they had a minute, maybe two.

"See, this is why I needed a blaster," Sannah said, feelingly.

"Why's that," Anakin asked offhand, barely paying attention. It was fast, its size was going to be a problem, and it could fly. They'd have to find some way to bring it down to the ground, since - "Oh, right."

Tahiri joined him, peeking down into the dark as well. Her hand moved and then a lume fell, bouncing once off the wall before clattering to the bottom. It glowed a second, bright, and then something blocked it out.

"Here it comes," she exhaled. "Hey, why don't we just deal with it here?"

The temple trembled around them as the creature started up the shaft, squeezing its enormous body into the thin passageway. Anakin lit his lightsaber, sharp snap-hiss joined a moment later by Tahiri's. Blue and green, side by side.

"That's really not a bad idea." It was stuck in there, couldn't move, couldn't dodge - one good strike and it'd die. Right between the eyes, probably. The thought should've bothered Anakin more, considering the best way to kill - execute, really - some animal, but the way it's anger broiled up the shafter before it hit wrong notes. If it was some kind of natural creature, there was something wrong with it now. It might even be a mercy. Anakin paced away from Tahiri, giving them both space and Sannah drew back, back against the far wall of the temple's main chamber. Sunlight spilled through the gaping hole in the side of the temple. The jungle outside was silent.

"We're really gonna do this," Tahiri looked to him, her question more of a statement. Bracing herself.

"Yeah. I don't run anymore."

"Raithe, Purella, Reels, Krayt Dragons - we kinda had good reason to."

He nodded toward her lightsaber.

"That was before we were Jedi."

His friend blushed and he felt her pride swell.

"Right. Jedi." Louder, Tahiri called to Sannah. "Hey, Sannah! Throw things if you need to, keep it confused." The Melodie offered two thumbs up and then a few smooth stones hefted up from the clutter of the temple chamber. He felt the creature's anger, boiling, cresting - and then there it was, close enough that the light from their lumes, hanging on their belts, fell across it. Close enough the sunlight, leaking in through the gash in the temple wall, caught on the tips of its tentacles that lashed out before it, hauling it up.

Green, leathery skin, darkened to deep olive on its back and lightened to a pale, sickly color on its belly. Enormous red eyes, as big as a man's head, glared up at them without lids or pupils.

Tahiri blew out a deep breath, stance firming up.

"Now!" Anakin cried, leaping forward, as tentacles slapped over the lip of the pit, as its head, big as a landspeeder, came level with them.

Tentacles lashed, as fast as Anakin and Tahiri could strike. Green and blue lightsabers seared slashes along whirling limbs, severing thinner ones and gouging deep into thicker tentacles. The creature howled, wiggling and managing to pull one wing-limb free, planting it on the edge of the pit. Go for the head, Anakin thought, ruefully. Sure, it's that easy. Tahiri slashed a long line through the membrane of its freed wing, drawing its attention. Anakin pointed his 'saber, jabbed - and another tentacles interposed, punctured through but blocking him from the beast's broad, flat forehead. Baleful red eyes seemed to watch them both, pupil-less and like pools of blood.

Sannah slung stones, mostly useless but anything that could draw its attention was worth it.

"Vaping moffs," Tahiri swore. "I can't get close!"

Anakin leapt backwards as the second wing-limb slammed down, the creature wiggling and twisting, like a cork on a tight bottle. It was almost free and time was running out.

"Tahiri!" he shouted. Without asking, she threw her lightsaber. It arced, high, and he imagined the beast's bottomless eyes fixated on it. Anakin caught it, hefting both blades, suddenly thinking of Mei. Jar'kai, he thought with a grin.

The next tentacle that lashed for him he caught like a scissor, both 'sabers snipping cleanly through the undulating muscle. Four meters of tentacle dropped, end steaming and charred black. For the first time the creature howled not in anger, but in surprise and pain. A Massassi stone block almost the size of the thing's head struck it hard in its flank and Anakin saw Tahiri and Sannah both posed, sweating, arms outstretched.

Wow. Sannah had a lot more in her than he expected.

It redoubled its efforts to pull itself free, this time with an edge of what Anakin imagined was panic, wing-limbs slamming down. Enormous, razor-sharp claws struck down, right where Anakin had been just as he threw himself backwards, deactivating both lightsabers. He rolled, coming back to his feet, igniting them both again with a doubled snap-hiss - but the beast was totally free, slumping out onto its belly, drool dripping and frothing from its maw. At least five tentacles were stumps now, just as many scarred with cuts and slices.

All its focus was on Anakin - Tahiri and Sannah were behind it and he realized with a particular sinking feeling, that he was between the beast and the hole in the temple. And now its overriding impulse was not fury, but retreat.

"Oh, blast," he gasped and threw himself flat. The wind of the creature's flight almost pulled him up into the air as the two girls shouted his name - then it was gone, out of the temple chamber, out into the jungle. They'd failed to kill it, but maybe the original goal of driving it away was a success -

Tahiri offered her hand, looking down at him, haloed by her blonde mane.

"Thanks."

Though a head shorter, she pulled him to his feet and the three scrambled up the debris pile, out into the sunlight. Anakin shaded his eyes, peering up, following his sense of the creature's mind. Already it was the size of his outstretched thumb, flapping hard and gaining altitude.

"That was a little anticlimactic," Sannah said.

"Where do you think it's going?"

Anakin frowned, squinting. The beast shrank further, barely moving in the sky, as if it was climbing straight up.

"...I have no idea."

Sannah dashed away, back to the parked landspeeder, digging out a pair of macrobinoculars. They were cartoonishly large compared to her hands and face and she trained them up, up into the sky.

"It's going straight up," she called.

"Looks like," Tahiri agreed.

"So what, it's going to space?" the Melodie shouted back, incredulity thick in her voice.

Anakin exhaled, calming himself, reaching for the creature's rapidly diminishing mind. He caught flashes - fury, some degree of confusion. Pain. An overwhelming desire to seclude itself and heal. More than that: flashes of - he gasped.

"Sithspawn. It is going to space. It's not from Yavin 4, it came here from another moon. It's remembering snowy tundra and a range of mountains right around the equator-" Sannah's sudden shock and fear was tangible.

"That's home!" she cried.

Yavin 8. Cold and snowy, frozen to Yavin 4's humid jungles. Home to Sannah's people, the Melodies, along with Anakin and Tahiri's friend Lyric. If he squinted hard, he could just make out the little star that was the moon, a million kilometers away. They had driven the beast away, that was for sure - but now it was heading straight for the defenseless Melodies.

Three things he loved above all else: discovery, the beauty of body, and the Omnissiah. The order was interchangeable and day-to-day these loves shifted in priority. This was good: stagnation was anathema to the pulse of life and life itself fed all three fixations. His love of discovery is the drive that infused his mortal, flesh-body that pushed him to stand head and shoulders above his peers. This love was the love that teased and encouraged, that ran flighty before him and in alluring whisper dared him to give chase, chase even unto the ends of all space and beyond, beyond sense, beyond logic, beyond reason itself. This was the love that was the tempest, the whirlwind itself, on whose anvil his body would break.

The beauty of body is the love that tempered him. When he dreamed of the impossibilities of the ancients, the temporalities of his fragile form anchored him to the flesh. As he pared away that flesh, he learned of its weaknesses and its flaws, the flaws that were anchors to him, the weaknesses that were challenges. Unlike others of his kind, he did not shy from the flesh, because the flesh was the origin, it was the beginning, and while he peered onward to the end, he could not forget the path he came from.

If his loves had been of flesh and discovery, he was reflective enough to know his end would have been bought by polonium slug in the depths of night. He had witnessed peers burn out in such ways, as they carved obsession into virtue and chased that fitful mistress into the darkest pits. His third love, his love for the god-of-machine, the flesh-in-fusion, the machine-made-man, this was the love that smiled on him and bound his hands in manacles of tempered restraint.

Discovery alone would have made him aimless, yanked and dragged by every whim. The flesh trammeled him, hemmed him, taught him patience. The Omnissiah placed hand before his eyes and warned of the stygian depths, where none but He made dive.

Orichi-Mu ran hymnal on progressive recursion, broadcast lowly from auxiliary voxcaster. This hymnal was one of his own creation, one that evolved with each repeat, played forward and backward, seeking the perfect palindrome in meaning, rhythm and rhyme. His lone flesh-ear, which he kept for just the purpose of sampling the imperfect tones, caught each subtle shift in meaning as the loop adjusted. His cadre, attendant to him, assumed the hymnal was one of blessing, to beg forgiveness of the Machine God for dirtying his hands on such unclean technology.

Their assumption was one he would not deny, as it served purpose well.

Orichi-Mu merely enjoyed the puzzle of the hymn and found that when devoting a branched subroutine of attention to it, his primary attention attained an appreciable benefit in problem-solving and lateral thinking.

This was most beneficial, as he attempted to enact repairs, comprehend, and improve on an active machine whose smooth functioning provided safeguard for several billion beings and, most importantly, himself and loyal servants of the Omnissiah. What a challenge it was, the planetary shield projector of Fondor. A most potent technology, complex in the extreme, built upon a school of theory that Orichi-Mu had only begun to plumb. Shielding, delivered unto his many hands on the Compliance of Eboracum, sat low on his hierarchy of attention. Though the variants of ray and particle intrigued with their bias along with the relative lightweight scale of the projectors, Orichi-Mu had greater interests and demands on his time. Hyperdrive, for one, by command of the Primarch, was utmost in the minds of all his Magi and himself. The 'droids', the abominable intelligences that infested this galaxy, became a close second.

Thus it was that the more mundane operations of technologies of this galaxy fell to examinations of his savants and not his own hand. Those Magi that attended him now bore the greatest experience, and from their minds he plucked and borrowed, but given the situation, no touch but his own could be entrusted to this task. He muttered gracious thanks to Lord Admiral Regil, whose majestic demonstration of the power of Mars and Terra allowed him such unfettered access to the most sensitive systems of Fondor. The Guilds practically fell over themselves to give Orichi-Mu the most detailed tour of the shield generatorium. A brush with calamity proved to be excellent social and political lubrication, on par with the most sublime of graphia-sulphidite.

Such a challenge it was. The principles revealed themselves easily enough, such that Orichi-Mu within hours became confident of replicating, at least on prototypical scale, the theory behind the grand generatorium. The greater task was stabilizing the fitful, restive spirits of the array. Electrical conduits across the continent were ruptured and compromised. The beautiful Motive Force leaked away, useless, grounding out from insulation-stripped hypercondua and starving the generatorium of precious sustenance. From his own stores, Orichi-Mu called down compact seed-fusion reactors to bolster the hungry projectors, but they were a mere stopgap. The required draw of the generatoria was impressive, though considering the aegis it projected covered an entire world: reasonable.

Further complications were the demands of the Guilds and Lieutenant Optarch himself. Unlike a void shield, these Republican 'shields' could be deactivated in sectors, rather than as a whole. A most efficacious refinement of the concept of phasic wardings, one that otherwise would be replicated in function by an array of voids, overlapping. Given the fevered thanks of the Guilds, Orichi-Mu held confidence that full template schematics of this planetary shield could be acquired and prove most beneficial to Eboracum.

Future plans aside, to restore sector de/activation functionality was of prime importance. Such would allow the Republican fleet in orbit along with Admiral Regil to contribute further supporting craft to the planetary conflict without allowing the Yuuzhan Vong to do so as well. As it stood, the spirits cried out in offended restiveness and would not allow such precision operations. Lowering the shields entire was out of the question, and thus did Orichi-Mu find his hours, his days, occupied in his most favored of activities of late:

Discovery.

The rotary cannon hung slack in S'hmu's grip, the Herglic gawking and slack-limbed. The other Fondorian conscripts huddled together, grabbing each other for some measure of comfort. Their eyes were hollow, faces blank and trembles twitched limbs. It was no mean thing to see a Titan.

Zalthis, for his own part, glared at the retreating back of the hulking beast. Each footfall rumbled ground underfoot for kilometers. Debris and dust still spilled from its rugged scales, left from its eruption out of the subterranean tunnels. Jagged plates waggled atop its broad back. His analytic eye assessed those as heat-dispersion and catalogued a potential weak-point. The greater part of him worried for the three neophytes, whose path of return to the Republican lines matched exactly the route the bio-titan had chosen after emergence. The vox remained nothing but static and interference; Mors Vigilia, Lieutenant Optarch and all others unreachable.

Solidian, as if sensing his concern, clapping Zalthis on his pauldron.

'Qario isn't a fool. They'll go to ground, let it pass. It didn't notice us.'

He had to trust in the training of his brothers. No Astartes, not even the finest Tetrarch, would dare challenge a Titan alone. Sol had to be right. The three would stand aside, let it pass, find another route for return. If the conscripts with them reacted as S'hmu and his cohorts did, there'd be even less choice.

'You! Have you knowledge of what that - " Sol jabbed an accusing finger of ceramite "- thing is?"

The Herglic did not appear to hear the Ultramarine. Zalthis gently settled his broad palm on S'hmu's back, jolting the being from his shocked reverie.

'We're dead,' he muttered. 'Aren't we?'

It was hard to gauge the expression of one so far from the human form as S'hmu, but over the past week Zalthis had picked up cues. He saw now the whites of the Herglic's usually uniformly dark eyes. His thick, black blubbery skin looked almost grey under coating of dirt and dust and ash.

'We are not yet, Conscript S'hmu.'

'We can't fight that. Nothing can. Nothing can!'

'Calm yourself. Of course, we cannot. There is no viable theoretical for infantry to engage superheavy armor. That will be the tasking of artillery and other platforms.'

S'hmu blinked, seemed to steady himself.

'Artillery?'

Perhaps the former longshoreman did not understand the word.

'Cannonry,' Zalthis clarified. 'Large bore, high yield. Either local or Imperial make.'

'I think the First brought Basilisks. Primarch's orders - no armor deployment is to be without indirect fire support.' Solidian supplied.

'Thank you, Sol. Basilisks then. I am sure they can knock the beast down.'

The biot in question shoved through a chemical factory half again as tall as it, pushing into and through the building as if it were made of simple paper. Explosions rippled around its ankles and fire flashed hard as volatiles were set off. Oddly, no Yuuzhan Vong followed in its wake. It had torn itself up and out, bellowing all the while, but neither Zalthis nor Solidian noted other biots or infantry in support. Maniples of the Collegia always preferred to walk with at least Knight escorts or at the van of an army, so as to keep at bay lighter hostiles and allow the Titans to focus on their counterparts.

While there was no theoretical for a lone soldier or even platoon to engage a Titan, it was known that massed light forces could, feasibly, mire the God-machines enough to overwhelm them not in quality but quantity.

He said as much to Solidian, who had removed his helm, scraping out accumulated ash from the edges of darkened lenses and vox-slits.

'Perhaps they're inside of it, like the Taghmata are wont to do.' He shrugged, pulling microfibre cloth from a pouch at his belt and polishing lenses. 'Or the beast is uncontrollable and would eat them instead. Who knows the mind of an alien?'

Zalthis hummed, deep in his throat, considering.

'Forget all that. What do we do? We can't stay here. What if it comes back, or what if those vong are all hiding in the tunnels anyway?' S'hmu jabbed a meaty thumb toward the half-dozen Fondorians that had remained. 'And my boy's're fit to break,' he continued, lower, pitched so that only Zalthis, beside him, could hear.

'Desertion is treason,' Solidian observed, inspecting his helm one final time before replacing it. Red lenses glared again. 'The penalty for treason is death.'

Choosing to ignore his belligerent brother, Zalthis gestured widely, taking in the general area.

'We allow the beast to distance itself from us. Vox is still down and perhaps it is the cause. Should that prove the case, we can call for extraction later. If not…I understand you are mortal, S'hmu. But do not lean on that. Even mortals can find themselves stronger than they think.' As the Jedi were, on Obroa-skai. Anakin Solo, a youth just like Zalthis, just like Sol, putting Astartes to shame with his martial prowess. 'I…I do not want to spend lives freely, Conscript S'hmu. That is not the way of my Primarch or my Legion. Remain strong and hold our purpose to your heart.'

'And what's that purpose, Blue Boy?'

The enormous biot receded further, only its dorsal fins visible above urban construction. Zalthis ran his tongue along the backs of his teeth, taste-memory of bitter, saline flesh flaring. Tshek Ulm, commander of these warrior cadres. He looked to the blank faces of the Fondorians and their wide, empty eyes. Mortals could be strong, but they needed purpose. Guilliman said so himself, as he tasked the Legiones to oversee the Compliance of Eboracum. Task them and give them purpose to build and they can shape wonders, the Primarch said.

'We came out here to kill a commander, did we not?' Zalthis waved a hand toward the biot, whose distant roars were rumbling echoes. 'It seems to me that he has sent off his greatest asset.' If Tshek Ulm was in the rail tunnels, they could find him, kill him, and perhaps sever whatever command directed the bio-titan. Sparing that, they could at least remove a vong officer of some standing, a worthy goal at any time. 'On your feet,' Zalthis ordered, peering down at the Fondorians. They looked up at him, blank. S'hmu cleared his throat.

'Come on, boys. The big scary monster left, it's back to work.'

'Today's the worst,' one of them groaned, clambering back to his feet.

'Today?' another rebut. 'Every day on Fondor is the worst.'

Orichi-Mu beckoned to one of the Republican 'droids', motioning for the blocky automaton to toddle after him. His own seed-fusion reactors were beneficial for macro-support, supplementing the incredible power draw demanded by the generatoria, but there were incompatibilities in their output of energy that required converters to properly interface with Republican grids. For simpler uses, here and there, Orichi-Mu fell back on Republican technology so as to not cumber himself with clumsy interfaces.

'Come along,' he ordered in binharic, the droid stumping along behind him on clumsy feet. The Republican droid's capacity to understand binharic was pleasing to him, that they at least could speak the lingua-technica. Curious inventions, all of them, coming in myriad and diverse form with no two pattern exactly the same. Their minds were simplistic and easy to follow - more in common, in his learned opinion, with the orderly minds of Cybernetica machines. Many of his fellows decried this, of course, declaring all droids to be abominable intelligences but most of them were young.

Orichi-Mu, as befit his august position, held ten-thousand subjective years to his thousand sidereal ones. In those times, he had wealth of experience with silica animus and those noxious intellects all, to the last, held a pervasive and corruptive hostility that made them inimical to all life. Not just sophontic life, but life itself. He had touched those minds, as he destroyed them, as understanding the nature of the enemy was essential to future victories. In that, he found the philosophy of the Omnissiah's thirteenth son most agreeable.

The droids he had disassembled did not bear that stifling blackness that he swore was the font of all silicon animus. They were innovative, inventive, complex - but so too were Cybernetica machines. And, like robots of the Legio, droids required consistent resetting and wiping of memory and protocols to ensure proper functionality.

This all to Orichi-Mu spoke of respectable capacity in automated action, but fell far short of true intelligence.

Thus did he point a five-jointed finger at a socket on the wall, watching with clicking optics as the 'GNK' mobile power automaton shuffled over, interfacing itself. He directed two Magi to supporting consoles, their red robes sweeping behind them. One sneered toward the GNK, distaste evident in her noospheric halo. Orichi-Mu chuckled in his flesh-voice, then blurted a chastisement to diminish emotional protocols and focus on the task at hand. Her noospheric halo flared with contrition signifiers.

'Gonk,' said the droid, signalling successful connection. Beautiful power flowed, reactivating local consoles. From this node, there was alleged access to secondary subroutines that would allow him to refine the crude Fondorian code that governed capacitance for individual shield projection vanes.

'Delightful,' Orichi-Mu observed.

Every few seconds the strategium trembled, just slightly. Optarch scowled at the broad hololith, swathed in greens and reds and innumerable icons. Four held his attention the most: Worldeaters. Two lingered just over the horizon, almost close enough to touch, kept at bay only by constant and unceasing shelling from SPHA/m artillery brought up from storage. Eight of the massive walkers squatted in a W formation, filling a vehicle pool near the center of Kadyin Memorial. Nonstop speeders delivered more and more shells from factories, keeping the artillery firing.

When the first Worldeater had pressed close to Kadyin, chasing retreating Fondorians and Exiles alike, General Ullos had been as good as his word. Eight SPHA/m and four SPHA/t waited, rushed into position in impressively short order. First the mass-drivers fired, arcing high-explosive shells up above the cityscape. Explosions burst around the enormous biot, blooming against its armor. It had not deigned to even project voids. AT-ATs waited in the wings, hidden behind high-rises and looming refinery stacks.

All seemed to be in order and Optarch allowed Ullos to give the command to execute. Demolition charges blew, collapsing spans of buildings and giving clear shot on the Worldeater. Leman Russ of the First Auxilia and Iax Tertius thundered first, followed momentarily by AT-ATs punching out verdant green lasers from chin-mounted cannon. Now the Worldeater did rouse its dovin basals, greedily sucking up shells and lasters alike.

Then the SPHA/t fired. Turbolasers, like those aboard capital ships, threw stark shadows and speared at the biot. The Worldeater recoiled - recoiled - to the cheers of all in the strategium, tuned into a hardline feed. Vox and comlink had been out, cut, Optarch assumed, by some manner of interference from the bio-titans.

Yet when the smoke and dust and explosions cleared, the Worldeater was retreating. Some blackened scars dug channels into its armor and the creature looked furious, but it was otherwise unscathed.

The other Worldeater that joined it had not tried to press Kadyin Memorial and the center of the defensive line, instead joining its compatriot and lingering beyond visual range. On the flanks, the other two to north and south went unopposed, languid in their pace but unstoppable in their momentum. There had been no word from Brother Zalthis and his squad, something that stuck in Optarch's mind. The young Astartes had great promise and with the emergence of a Worldeater in that sector, he feared the worst.

Mors Vigilia whispered endlessly, reporting rakamat packs and Worldeater movements, Yuuzhan Vong infantry strikes and where flyers and coralskippers wandered.

Ullos leaned forward, supporting himself on his palms as he too examined the battlefront.

'It'll fall to Mors Vigilia, then,' Ullos mused. 'Whatever they are.'

'We proved the bio-titans may be challenged by conventional weaponry. These SPHA/t are potent.'

'But limited.' Ullos said.

'But limited.' The weapon carriage was far too slow, leaving the artillery pieces more as a static emplacement than anything else, requiring a heavy lifter to reposition in any reasonable time. For defense of a position, Optarch would mark them highly, but against mobile targets or as part of a counteroffensive, they would likely be useless. 'Magos Dominus Orichi-Mu reports positive results with the shield generatoria.'

'Fingers crossed, then.' Ullos stepped away, calling over an aide to discuss maneuvers of Fondorian armor to the south. Optarch studied the hololith again, remembering Mors Vigilia's demand: to draw all four Worldeaters together. A difficult tasking, but given how impregnable Kadyin Memorial remained with the SPHA/t and /m defending, Optarch wondered if they would not be able to further reinforce the center, enticing the Yuuzhan Vong leader to attempt a climactic engagement that would cripple the defenders in one single clash.

If the psychological profiles of the invaders bore true, they would be unable to resist the potential for glorious battle, over slow, marching attrition to the north and south. He waited for General Ullos to finish his own conference, before waving the Republican over and voicing his theoretical. At first, the mortal seemed uncertain, until as they discussed and sketched out plans in the hololith and the theoretical was refined cleaner and clearer. Mors Vigilia joined in at the end, adding their own agreement and warning that the time was night that they would need to disengage as observer and begin awakening procedures.

Mantallikes, darkened and quiet, kept station a hundred kilometers from Eboracum Orbital. Her embarkation decks serviced combat air patrols that swept local space. Her sensorium, almost entirely replaced through extensive efforts of Orichi-Mu's magi, tracked all motion out to Eboracum's furthest moon. The redoubtable Retribution battleship held moodily to her forced retirement. Engineseers spoke of recalcitrant systems. Sometimes hatches would refuse to open to valid credentials until the third, or fourth try. Diagnostic protocols dragged their feet, revealing clean functioning but only after protracted and non-standard delays.

Two local days previous, Yuuzhan Vong capital ship analogues appeared in the eerie, pseudomotion way of local faster-than-light. They blossomed with plasma fire and antimatter missile before darting away. Untouched. Mantallikes weathered a few splashes of plasma on her weakened voids. Spiralling magma missiles were splashed by strikecraft and the battleship's interception batteries. The crippled lady had barely needed to stir to deny the probing barrage.

Word came from elsewhere in-system. Macragge's Honour, the empress of the little fleet, had been poked at as well. Numinous, in her patrol, experienced similar. The Yuuzhan Vong had come, but they came with uncharacteristic care.

Today, local traffic held to strict and particular lanes. These passed below Mantallikes and were warded by Fourth Honor. The ancient Ironclad bore no voids but rather meters upon meters of slabbed adamantium plate. That battleship, at least, retained normal function, maintaining a circuit around Eboracum Orbital and warding the set hyperspace beacons that traffic was required to revert at.

Numinous and her patrol kept the outer reaches of the system under watchful eye, remembering the arrival of Mousetrap those months ago.

Today, the Yuuzhan Vong probed again. Two miid-roic, comparatively tiny next to an Ironclad and Retribution flickered into being. As before, weapon pits scattered across the glossy, rocky warships vomited plasma and missiles into space. Dovin basals groaned and tugged at space-time, both warships beginning to accelerate into a hyperspace vector. They emerged high, five hundred kilometers up-well from Eboracum Orbital and Mantallikes' lonely vigil. Plotting in the battleship's strategium showed ghostly impressions of the world's mass-shadow: where it limited hyperspace travel and forced reversions. Both warships of the invaders comfortably avoided the deeper reaches. They would be gone in moments, just as the last time.

Mantallikes, however, was a battleship crippled. She was rendered conventionally helpless: her engines cold and unlit, attitude thrusters all she could manage to keep herself in stable orbit. She was a sitting target, the very thing every Captain feared.

Mantallikes, therefore, bore months of stress. Unspoken but felt, unsettling and undefinable. An itch that couldn't be scratched, a restive and anxious energy that built and built and built.

Her two surviving lance turrets, sitting proud along her dorsal midline, moved smoother than they ever had. Hydraulics as large as superheavy tanks worked as smoothly as they had, fresh from the Forges that made them. Capacitors overfilled with energy at a rate just shy of physically illegal. Mantallikes was angry and her directionless fury had now, finally, found a target upon which to vent.

The lead miid-roic elongated and was gone. The second, soon to follow suit. They would have been in local space for no more than forty-three seconds. Mantallikes' turrets had a registered maximum traversal rate of one and a half degrees per second and an elevation rate of four and a half.

Dovin basals latched onto one of the Eboracum system's far planetoids, six hundred million kilometers away. The miid-roic slowed for just a moment, the biots catching their metaphorical breath before the plunge.

Two steaming bars of visible light cracked into the stern of the warship. Focused as they were, not a single void was offered. Yorik coral vanished under countless ergs. In a parody of hyperspace translation, the miid-roic kicked forward at the same time that its surviving dovin basals seized in paralyzed shock. All inertial dampening failed. More than two thirds of the warship remained, but every single being aboard was pulped and dead, slain by the cold physics of sudden, high-G acceleration.

Mantallikes scowlingly retrained her turrets to the fore again. Darkened and quiet, she continued her endless vigil over the traffic lanes to Eboracum Orbital.