Star by Star: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars: The New Jedi Order Book 9) by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307795571
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-TWO

Fixing his mind on the driving rhythm of Vaecta’s chanting voice, Tsavong Lah thought of Yun-Yuuzhan’s sacrifices, of the eyes he had surrendered to light the stars and the tentacles he had given to make the galaxies. As the gods had done in their time, now the Yuuzhan Vong must do in theirs. Today’s victory would establish the left pincer of his final attack, so it was his left hand that he laid on the cutting block. He understood the place of faith as his predecessors had not; that was why he would succeed where they had died or floundered.

That was why Tsavong Lah had requested the return of the priest Harrar, his own spiritual guide and the only person he would trust to advise him on the offerings necessary to ensure victory to the Yuuzhan Vong. He would have liked to have Harrar lead the ritual himself, but it would not do to insult Vaecta. Today, Harrar would stand at his side as a witness and a friend, not a priest.

As Vaecta blessed the radank claw the shapers would attach in place of his sacrificed hand, Tsavong Lah gazed out at the steamy blue-green disk of Borleias, now swaddled in a flashing meshwork of energy bolts and plasma streaks. By all accounts a world completely lacking in resources useful to the enemy, it was nevertheless an ideal staging area for a strike against Coruscant itself and therefore fortified both heavily and cleverly. The infidels had arranged their orbital defenses in three layers, with the heavy platforms on the exterior, the smaller fast-targeting platforms on the interior, and a dense shell of space mines between.

A plasma ball the size of a small moon finally overloaded the shields of a heavy platform and reduced the unliving abomination to a melting mass of metal, but the island-ship that had made the attack paid dearly for success. A cone of meters-thick turbolaser bolts converged on the vessel, overwhelming its singularity projectors and blasting four huge breaches into the hull. The ship began to bear away, the life inside gushing into open space, a swarm of infidel missiles streaking out from the heavy platforms to complete the kill.

Seef, his communications attendant, stepped into his view bearing the already everted villip of Maal Lah, a shrewd officer from the warmaster’s own domain and the supreme commander charged with securing today’s victory. Though Tsavong Lah could see the alarm in his subordinate’s face, he waited in humbleness until Vaecta finished her blessing, then gestured at the villip.

“Is it permitted?”

Vaecta nodded. “The gods are never offended by one who answers to his duty.”

The priestess immediately began to make the obeisances that would be required to Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods before dedicating the warmaster’s sacrifice to the Slayer, and Tsavong Lah turned to the villip.

“Your commanders grow too bold,” he said.

“They are eager to win your praise,” the villip replied. The image was that of a square-jawed warrior with so many battle swirls that he been forced to start laying red tattoos over blue.

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