<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> Holding 100 meters over Capricia's surface...<!--EZCODE BOLD END-->
The planetary batteries had started to achieve horizontal trajectories and had started to fire salvos at the Religious Command Ship.
Even given it's distance the gunners showed surprising accuracy as the mighty invader ship rocked against the hits.
However, the Corralskippers picked up their frenzied activities as they started to target those weapons trained on the command ship.
Tallien stared impassively at the light display the near-transparent skin of his ship was portraying.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> These infidels know nothing. They fight against inevitabilty.
It is time for them to learn.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
He looked at the Caprician sun blazing and knodded to a guard.
//Bring the Jeedai to me.//
It was midday.
**
Tyscio Zier picked himself up slowly grimacing in pain as he noted a fallen computer console that had torn a gash into his right leg.
His breathing was shallow and his head hurt.
The medic lay dead on his side and he noted very few people moving.
A hand touched his shoulder and he tried to focus on his Exec.
"You're alive?" he asked dumbly (in shock).
"Don't sound so disappointed when you ask that. I may jettison you out an airlock and take command." his First Officer quipped.
Tyscio sat up which caused even more pain to his head. He silently cried out at the movement and vowed to remain still after that.
"Y..You can have the command. Right now, outside this ship seems to be the safest place to be." he grunted.
"We will not survive another attack of those..those bloody missile things." his Exec informed.
"Cloud forming!" someone yelled, trying to coax more than a smidgeon of power out of the scanning systems.
"This is it.." Tyscio said, surprisingly calm.
He hoped that Gomorran fared better than he did.
"It's been a pleasure, Sir." his Exec mumbled and saw the man stiffen.
Tyscio closed his eyes and simply sat on the smashed bridge waiting.
"Cloud dissipating! N.. Nothing came out!" the officer shouted in a surprised voice.
Tyscio opened his eyes and saw that he could focus better.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> Adrenaline makes everything work harder...faster.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
"How?" his Exec was starting to ask but Tyscio merely grinned.
"Sweet Clannus Prime! Who the hell cares? Let's check the status of the fleet."
"Sir. I am afraid you will find us and it dead in space at the moment."
Tyscio Zier scowled. "Then let's make the best use of the time we have and NOT wait to die shall we?"
"Sir!"
Tsycio started to stand up, forgetting his five minute old vow, and his Exec ran to his side to support his Captain. This time, Tyscio did cry out in pain.
**
//The infidels attack Master// an aide respectfully mentioned to Tallien.
Of course, the transparent skin of the ship provided Tallien with all the details he needed as he watched the Vinda Corporation's Flagship descending towards them.
//They dare assault this chariot of the gods?//
Tallien relayed the incoming vessel's trajectory through a villip to Tslah Vhess' Command Ship which was holding over Natabb City.
Tslah's reply was short but to the point.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> When the infidel ship heels, we strike.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
Tallien smiled at the course of action open to him. The War Coordinator was sly.
//Redirect our dovin basals to the approaching ship. The closer it gets to us, the closer I want it to be to the ground.//
Corralskippers rained down from above against the Victory Star Destroyer in an attempt to strike at its gun emplacements.
The dovin basals used the velocity of the approaching ship as a catalyst to pull the ship's trajectory to a lower and lower horizontal plane.
By the time Vinda's officers picked it up, he had already committed them to their course of action. Coming in at such great speeds, it was hard to tell what was a natural gravity flux and which was artificial.
Suffice to say that the gravity threshold was reached and surpassed. The Victory Star Destroyer was coming down.
The capital ship was no agile starfighter. It was just too big to overcome the pull.
Vinda, of course, had the luck of the devil on his side for his ship was both well armored for it's size and built for atmospheric conditions.
He nodded to his helm and the ship slowly changed position.
The triangular warship hit the ground with such force that it shook the ground as it cut a grove through it's crashing course.
The vessel slid for kilometers before it came to halt leaving a swath of destruction to both nature as well as the Yuuzhan Vong forces that were setting up some sort of ground base of operations.
Seth had managed to land the ship in the midst of the gathering army in the unloading zone.
The shadow of the Religious Command ship loomed overhead.
Tallien was livid with anger as he saw Seth's coarse correction to take his crashing ship into the masses of his soldiers.
//Burn that ship!// he trembled with rage.
Weapons fire opened up at the downed capital ship.
His mind suddenly reverted back to his conversation with his old captive Xanadal as he chanted a familiar prayer.
<!--EZCODE HTML START--> <font color="light blue"><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> "Yun-Yuuzhan, bring swift death to all and allow this humble keeper of your Doctrine to honorably endure this life we call Misery." he whispered in prayer, but loud enough for the slave to hear.
"..this life we call Misery?" he asked, picking his head up.
When the Master Shaper nodded, suddenly intrigued by the slave's uncharacteristic interest, Xanadal continued, "I think I know one of the problems.... in the lack of understanding between our peoples."
When Tallien remained silent, the slave went on, "You view life as misery and as nothing else. You say, '..this life we call: misery'. Capricians, on the other hand, say, '..this misery we call: life'."
The slave continued:
"You view misery as life and therefore exist with that resignation and have built your belief structure around that."
"It is Doctrine." came the simple response to the slave's statement.
"But if you were to view life as misery..as a Caprician, then you WOULD NOT resign yourselves to it.. Capricians would change it."<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></font><!--EZCODE HTML END-->
//And just what would your precious Capricians do now to change their fates?// he snarled in his mind.
At that point, Leia was dragged in kicking slightly. One warrior had her by the hair while another held her wrists still behind her back.
The pain must have been excrutiating.
When Leia was dropped on her knees in front of Tallien he noted the same fire in her eyes as before.
He backhanded her once and touched the side of his ear to allow the translation creature to reduce his words into a tongue the Jeedai could understand.
"You refuse to accept the truth. You refuse to acknowledge your debt to the gods for your misery called life. You refuse to decide an appropriate sacrifice for your continued existence. You attach to your lives no value."
He moved closer and whispered. "So why should I?"
"The Truth, Jeedai, is that the gods have given this galaxy to us... and no one's <!--EZCODE BOLD START--> will<!--EZCODE BOLD END--> is strong enough to stop us!"
He turned a disgusted head away from her as he motioned for his guards to bring her closer to the transparent skin of the ship.
On it was displayed the various groups of Yuuzhan Vong warships hovering over different Caprician cities as well as square with an empty crater.
"You play at being a soldier.. You play at being a protector.. You play with your philosophies.. and you play at defiance."
He poised his hand over a certain creature that looked like a villip yet slightly different.
"Well, Jeedai, you shall play no more. When we are done here, you will lead us to your twin and you will fight for the honor of sacrifice."
His voice grew manacing.
"Because if you continue to remain defiant, you will be cast aside like garbage."
His hand touched the villip-like creature and suddenly, plasma rained down on the Caprician cities from the hovering fleets. Within moments, most of the major cities of Capricia burned.
"As soon as the fires die, our slaves will enter and destroy all abominations."
Tallien's eyes had taken on a frenzied look and he nearly shouted at the wall..
"WHERE IS YOUR WILL NOW, XANADAL!"
And suddenly, the transparent square showing the crater went up in a fiery blast.
The skin of the ship suddenly acted like a window and Leia could see one of the most massive explosions she had ever witnessed on the surface of a planet (save for Alderraan)
"The seed was rather deep..." Tallien murmured.
"Behold, Jeedai, the doom of this galaxy. The Leveller of Empires."
And with sickening realization, Leia knew that what was just unleashed was as horrible as any armies the Yuuzhan Vong could bring to bear against them.
For this weapon was small...
unseen...
and very deadly.
A bio-weapon.
A pathogen.
The Leveller of Empires.
"We could leave now and within one year, perhaps six months, no life would remain on this planet." Tallien continued as if reading a daily report.
**
Ironically, the explosion that served as a delivery device for the pathogen also seemed to affect the fault line.
The ground began to shake once more and Caprician soldiers were frantically trying to keep order.
"Great Clans!" Leantre whispered as the explosion cloud rose. It was many many kilometers away and yet still was an impressive sight to behold. The fault line moved and, suddenly, the once impregnable battery line began to crumble.
The resulting earthquake effortlessly broke apart the bridge Mathias had been heading towards and the ground began to sink.
The Caprician strongpoint was a mess as people scrambled to get away from gun emplacements that suddenly crumbled and sunk into the growing bottomless ravine.
Leantre saw Gomorran helping people across an ever growing fissure. He yelled himself hoarse over the roar of misplaced weapons fire and overhead Corralskippers.
Leantre stood at the edge of the fissure motioning for Gomorran to jump. The Regent, however, shook his head, picked up an injured soldier and tossed him across the fissure into Leantre's aging arms.
The seventy year old man caught the injured soldier with surprising strength just as the ground Gomorran had been standing upon gave way.
"NO!" the old man shouted, almost dropping the injured soldier.
But the Regent was gone...
Corralskippers started shooting plasma weapons at the retreating soldiers and Leantre saw the discipline of the Capricians break. The masses scrambled for any sort of transport (ground or air) to escape the onslaught.
Leantre Vio carried the injured soldier into a shattered building and out of visual sight of the Corralskippers.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> Their ground troops would be landing soon..<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
And that's when his eyes drifted toward the burning cloud that was slowly being scattered by the wind.
Right under the window flashed a computer consol that read the words: VIRAL CONTAMINATION - PATHOGEN PROTOCOLS IMPERATIVE!
"Damn!" Leantre hissed and he moved to claim a Hazmat/environment suit from a nearby compartment proceeding to dress himself and the injured soldier.
He activated a small system that automatically released the Emergency Contamination Warnings.
At that moment, he felt very tired.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> I'm too old for this..<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, he thought and found that he had no strength to even mourn the loss of his friend's son and Regent.
"Herridian, our fates are in your hands now. We shall hold on as long as possible...but we are running out of time, old friend."
As the pathogen spread, symptoms of sickness were not readily noticed. Even then, makeshift hospitals and contamination wards were set up.
The strong wind currents took the virus into most areas but the initial level of infection was still seemingly small when compared to symptom breakouts.
People were infected but nothing seemed to show. Doctors knew, from the reports from Tirus, though, that this would not last.
Only the Highlands remained free of the pathogen, natural barriers causing it to go no further. But what wind coudn't carry, people would.
For it was to the Highlands that refugees were heading. The last bastion of protection against the invaders.
And it was here that Tslah Vhess would turn once the cities were subjugated and cleansed.
*
Leia was taken back to her holding cell so she could "meditate" on her defiant course.
The guard left a bowl of something for her to eat if she desired.
There was no worry.
For, in the invader's camp, victory seemed imminent.
End Part III
The planetary batteries had started to achieve horizontal trajectories and had started to fire salvos at the Religious Command Ship.
Even given it's distance the gunners showed surprising accuracy as the mighty invader ship rocked against the hits.
However, the Corralskippers picked up their frenzied activities as they started to target those weapons trained on the command ship.
Tallien stared impassively at the light display the near-transparent skin of his ship was portraying.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> These infidels know nothing. They fight against inevitabilty.
It is time for them to learn.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
He looked at the Caprician sun blazing and knodded to a guard.
//Bring the Jeedai to me.//
It was midday.
**
Tyscio Zier picked himself up slowly grimacing in pain as he noted a fallen computer console that had torn a gash into his right leg.
His breathing was shallow and his head hurt.
The medic lay dead on his side and he noted very few people moving.
A hand touched his shoulder and he tried to focus on his Exec.
"You're alive?" he asked dumbly (in shock).
"Don't sound so disappointed when you ask that. I may jettison you out an airlock and take command." his First Officer quipped.
Tyscio sat up which caused even more pain to his head. He silently cried out at the movement and vowed to remain still after that.
"Y..You can have the command. Right now, outside this ship seems to be the safest place to be." he grunted.
"We will not survive another attack of those..those bloody missile things." his Exec informed.
"Cloud forming!" someone yelled, trying to coax more than a smidgeon of power out of the scanning systems.
"This is it.." Tyscio said, surprisingly calm.
He hoped that Gomorran fared better than he did.
"It's been a pleasure, Sir." his Exec mumbled and saw the man stiffen.
Tyscio closed his eyes and simply sat on the smashed bridge waiting.
"Cloud dissipating! N.. Nothing came out!" the officer shouted in a surprised voice.
Tyscio opened his eyes and saw that he could focus better.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> Adrenaline makes everything work harder...faster.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
"How?" his Exec was starting to ask but Tyscio merely grinned.
"Sweet Clannus Prime! Who the hell cares? Let's check the status of the fleet."
"Sir. I am afraid you will find us and it dead in space at the moment."
Tyscio Zier scowled. "Then let's make the best use of the time we have and NOT wait to die shall we?"
"Sir!"
Tsycio started to stand up, forgetting his five minute old vow, and his Exec ran to his side to support his Captain. This time, Tyscio did cry out in pain.
**
//The infidels attack Master// an aide respectfully mentioned to Tallien.
Of course, the transparent skin of the ship provided Tallien with all the details he needed as he watched the Vinda Corporation's Flagship descending towards them.
//They dare assault this chariot of the gods?//
Tallien relayed the incoming vessel's trajectory through a villip to Tslah Vhess' Command Ship which was holding over Natabb City.
Tslah's reply was short but to the point.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> When the infidel ship heels, we strike.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
Tallien smiled at the course of action open to him. The War Coordinator was sly.
//Redirect our dovin basals to the approaching ship. The closer it gets to us, the closer I want it to be to the ground.//
Corralskippers rained down from above against the Victory Star Destroyer in an attempt to strike at its gun emplacements.
The dovin basals used the velocity of the approaching ship as a catalyst to pull the ship's trajectory to a lower and lower horizontal plane.
By the time Vinda's officers picked it up, he had already committed them to their course of action. Coming in at such great speeds, it was hard to tell what was a natural gravity flux and which was artificial.
Suffice to say that the gravity threshold was reached and surpassed. The Victory Star Destroyer was coming down.
The capital ship was no agile starfighter. It was just too big to overcome the pull.
Vinda, of course, had the luck of the devil on his side for his ship was both well armored for it's size and built for atmospheric conditions.
He nodded to his helm and the ship slowly changed position.
The triangular warship hit the ground with such force that it shook the ground as it cut a grove through it's crashing course.
The vessel slid for kilometers before it came to halt leaving a swath of destruction to both nature as well as the Yuuzhan Vong forces that were setting up some sort of ground base of operations.
Seth had managed to land the ship in the midst of the gathering army in the unloading zone.
The shadow of the Religious Command ship loomed overhead.
Tallien was livid with anger as he saw Seth's coarse correction to take his crashing ship into the masses of his soldiers.
//Burn that ship!// he trembled with rage.
Weapons fire opened up at the downed capital ship.
His mind suddenly reverted back to his conversation with his old captive Xanadal as he chanted a familiar prayer.
<!--EZCODE HTML START--> <font color="light blue"><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> "Yun-Yuuzhan, bring swift death to all and allow this humble keeper of your Doctrine to honorably endure this life we call Misery." he whispered in prayer, but loud enough for the slave to hear.
"..this life we call Misery?" he asked, picking his head up.
When the Master Shaper nodded, suddenly intrigued by the slave's uncharacteristic interest, Xanadal continued, "I think I know one of the problems.... in the lack of understanding between our peoples."
When Tallien remained silent, the slave went on, "You view life as misery and as nothing else. You say, '..this life we call: misery'. Capricians, on the other hand, say, '..this misery we call: life'."
The slave continued:
"You view misery as life and therefore exist with that resignation and have built your belief structure around that."
"It is Doctrine." came the simple response to the slave's statement.
"But if you were to view life as misery..as a Caprician, then you WOULD NOT resign yourselves to it.. Capricians would change it."<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></font><!--EZCODE HTML END-->
//And just what would your precious Capricians do now to change their fates?// he snarled in his mind.
At that point, Leia was dragged in kicking slightly. One warrior had her by the hair while another held her wrists still behind her back.
The pain must have been excrutiating.
When Leia was dropped on her knees in front of Tallien he noted the same fire in her eyes as before.
He backhanded her once and touched the side of his ear to allow the translation creature to reduce his words into a tongue the Jeedai could understand.
"You refuse to accept the truth. You refuse to acknowledge your debt to the gods for your misery called life. You refuse to decide an appropriate sacrifice for your continued existence. You attach to your lives no value."
He moved closer and whispered. "So why should I?"
"The Truth, Jeedai, is that the gods have given this galaxy to us... and no one's <!--EZCODE BOLD START--> will<!--EZCODE BOLD END--> is strong enough to stop us!"
He turned a disgusted head away from her as he motioned for his guards to bring her closer to the transparent skin of the ship.
On it was displayed the various groups of Yuuzhan Vong warships hovering over different Caprician cities as well as square with an empty crater.
"You play at being a soldier.. You play at being a protector.. You play with your philosophies.. and you play at defiance."
He poised his hand over a certain creature that looked like a villip yet slightly different.
"Well, Jeedai, you shall play no more. When we are done here, you will lead us to your twin and you will fight for the honor of sacrifice."
His voice grew manacing.
"Because if you continue to remain defiant, you will be cast aside like garbage."
His hand touched the villip-like creature and suddenly, plasma rained down on the Caprician cities from the hovering fleets. Within moments, most of the major cities of Capricia burned.
"As soon as the fires die, our slaves will enter and destroy all abominations."
Tallien's eyes had taken on a frenzied look and he nearly shouted at the wall..
"WHERE IS YOUR WILL NOW, XANADAL!"
And suddenly, the transparent square showing the crater went up in a fiery blast.
The skin of the ship suddenly acted like a window and Leia could see one of the most massive explosions she had ever witnessed on the surface of a planet (save for Alderraan)
"The seed was rather deep..." Tallien murmured.
"Behold, Jeedai, the doom of this galaxy. The Leveller of Empires."
And with sickening realization, Leia knew that what was just unleashed was as horrible as any armies the Yuuzhan Vong could bring to bear against them.
For this weapon was small...
unseen...
and very deadly.
A bio-weapon.
A pathogen.
The Leveller of Empires.
"We could leave now and within one year, perhaps six months, no life would remain on this planet." Tallien continued as if reading a daily report.
**
Ironically, the explosion that served as a delivery device for the pathogen also seemed to affect the fault line.
The ground began to shake once more and Caprician soldiers were frantically trying to keep order.
"Great Clans!" Leantre whispered as the explosion cloud rose. It was many many kilometers away and yet still was an impressive sight to behold. The fault line moved and, suddenly, the once impregnable battery line began to crumble.
The resulting earthquake effortlessly broke apart the bridge Mathias had been heading towards and the ground began to sink.
The Caprician strongpoint was a mess as people scrambled to get away from gun emplacements that suddenly crumbled and sunk into the growing bottomless ravine.
Leantre saw Gomorran helping people across an ever growing fissure. He yelled himself hoarse over the roar of misplaced weapons fire and overhead Corralskippers.
Leantre stood at the edge of the fissure motioning for Gomorran to jump. The Regent, however, shook his head, picked up an injured soldier and tossed him across the fissure into Leantre's aging arms.
The seventy year old man caught the injured soldier with surprising strength just as the ground Gomorran had been standing upon gave way.
"NO!" the old man shouted, almost dropping the injured soldier.
But the Regent was gone...
Corralskippers started shooting plasma weapons at the retreating soldiers and Leantre saw the discipline of the Capricians break. The masses scrambled for any sort of transport (ground or air) to escape the onslaught.
Leantre Vio carried the injured soldier into a shattered building and out of visual sight of the Corralskippers.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> Their ground troops would be landing soon..<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
And that's when his eyes drifted toward the burning cloud that was slowly being scattered by the wind.
Right under the window flashed a computer consol that read the words: VIRAL CONTAMINATION - PATHOGEN PROTOCOLS IMPERATIVE!
"Damn!" Leantre hissed and he moved to claim a Hazmat/environment suit from a nearby compartment proceeding to dress himself and the injured soldier.
He activated a small system that automatically released the Emergency Contamination Warnings.
At that moment, he felt very tired.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> I'm too old for this..<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, he thought and found that he had no strength to even mourn the loss of his friend's son and Regent.
"Herridian, our fates are in your hands now. We shall hold on as long as possible...but we are running out of time, old friend."
As the pathogen spread, symptoms of sickness were not readily noticed. Even then, makeshift hospitals and contamination wards were set up.
The strong wind currents took the virus into most areas but the initial level of infection was still seemingly small when compared to symptom breakouts.
People were infected but nothing seemed to show. Doctors knew, from the reports from Tirus, though, that this would not last.
Only the Highlands remained free of the pathogen, natural barriers causing it to go no further. But what wind coudn't carry, people would.
For it was to the Highlands that refugees were heading. The last bastion of protection against the invaders.
And it was here that Tslah Vhess would turn once the cities were subjugated and cleansed.
*
Leia was taken back to her holding cell so she could "meditate" on her defiant course.
The guard left a bowl of something for her to eat if she desired.
There was no worry.
For, in the invader's camp, victory seemed imminent.
End Part III