Kor Chokk Grand Cruiser Yammka’s Sword
In orbit of the Baanu Amnan, Tingel Arm, Wild Space

Varesh Shai drummed his talons against his throne’s armrests as he studied the blaze bugs swarming around the Yammka’s command chamber. The Scepter of Power coiled around his neck sissed. He had grown weary of the Hall of Confluence. It was the Warmaster’s place to lead from the front, not relax in the royal chambers while his minions did the work.

The order to sever ties with Domain Amnan had not gone down well. In fact, it had not gone down at all. Contact with the Voice of Agony had broken off during the flight home to the remains of the dead worldship. No communications had been received from Tolok Amnan. No communications had been received from any of the domain’s subcommanders either.

‘I warned you the consequences of his heresy,’ Seef whispered from the left.

Varesh ignored the High Priestess and continued to idly twirl the dead Sseeth’s metallic sword of light in his free hand, tired of her supposedly ‘clairvoyant’ prattle.

It was easy to ‘ordain’ things that had already happened.

Hidden beneath the full body cognition wrap at the front of the bridge, Romm Shai twisted his head around to the Warmaster. ‘Picking up something on the long range sensors—’ the Supreme Commander said, his voice unsettled. ‘All ships have already returned . . .’

Varesh narrowed his eyes. ‘Put it through on the viewspider.’

Romm turned back to the front, then a moment later a vine uncoiled from the ceiling above; its stalk, covered with red glowing eyes, lowered in front of Varesh’s face. The image feed reflected on the surface of one of the eyes just displayed the broken chunks of the dead worldship—

Suddenly the darkness opened up and a brown ball and rust coloured metal burst into sight, eclipsing the stars behind. Behind the rusted sphere, smaller grey shapes popped into being a short distance from the Baanu Amnan.

Izvoshra . . .

Varesh slammed his fists into his armrests, causing the throne’s thorns to recoil in shock.

‘That fool!’

‘Transmission coming through,’ Romm called. ‘Transferring it to the viewspider.’

The white skull mask of the Kaleesh admiral formed on the surface of the red eye.

‘Fearsome One, forgive my—’

Varesh cut him short, ‘Do you realise what you have done?’

‘I—I had no choice, Warmaster. The Sith regained control of their defences—’

‘You will have led the Sseeth here! Where is your . . . Jeedai watcher?’

Yashais visibly gulped. ‘I—She—I had no choice . . .’

Varesh’s talons tightened even harder around the throne’s armrests. He felt no remorse at the death of Nen Muyel. Amnan should never have relied on Jeedai in the first place. But that changed nothing. Tolok had assigned the Human Slayer to watch over the Kaleesh.

Now Tolok’s decision had jeopardised everything.

Varesh reached up and tore the viewspider’s stalk off the ceiling.

‘Warmaster . . .?’ said Seef cautiously.

He turned to her, his pulse racing. ‘This is your fault! You of the Order of Yun-Yuuzhan! You who I turn to for guidance! Why did you not foresee this?’

Seef involuntarily took a step back as the gigantic Vong climbed down from his dais. ‘Warmaster, it can only be as I have said all along. This is the work of Tolok Amnan and his lover, Eckla Muyel. It is the Jeedai who have brought shame on us.’

Varesh froze, his eyes flared and searched the shadows behind the High Priestess.

‘Us? By your own pronouncement, I am the Avatar of the Slayer! It is not us who have shamed. It is you! You have failed Him! Failed His Chosen Race! Failed me!’

Seef stared back in disbelief, her head shaking. Her mouth moved but she had lost her voice.

‘This farce is at an end!’ Varesh continued. ‘The Gods have abandoned us! The Ruling Castes have failed! You, High Priestess, have failed!’

The lightsaber still in Varesh's hand snap-hissed to life as he nodded to something in the shadows.

‘No . . .’ Seef muttered, unable to hold her voice any longer, frowning at the Sseeth blade, and disgust filling her features. ‘You have truly forgotten. Forgotten our ways; forgotten the Light; the Truth. It is not our place to question the will of the Gods, to question the True Way. Everything that happens is what they—urk!’

A bone white coufee burst through the priestess’s belly, her blood spilling across the floor as she fell to her knees.

Tsaak Shai stepped out of the shadows, bloodied dagger in hand. Seef’s eyes widened as she looked into the face of her assassin. The warrior-seer merely stared back coldly. ‘Through the Warmaster the Slayer has spoken,’ Tsaak declared.

The warriors throughout the bridge stared, open mouthed, but none dared answer back.

Tsaak dropped to his knees before the Warmaster and presented him the dagger.

Varesh took the blade in his free hand and examined it as he watched the High Priestess’s life bleed out across the deck, then tossed it back at her.

‘I am the Voice of Yun-Yammka,’ he said, eyeing the fiery core of the bloodshine blade, ‘and your sentence is death.’

The thrum masked the crunch when the priestess’s headless corpse hit the floor.

Varesh shut down the lightsaber and looked back at the blaze bugs still circling in formation above his head.

‘This alliance is over. The heretics amongst us must be cleansed alongside this galaxy’s infidels.’ He looked across at the captain still sheathed beneath the cognition wrap. ‘Supreme Commander, the armada is to open fire and destroy both the infidels and all Amnan ships that have not yet pledged their allegiance to me.’

The Warmaster spread his arms and stared up into the heavens.

‘By the Light of the True Way, I, Varesh Shai, khattazz al’Yammka, God-Chosen of the Lord of War, hereby deem this to be the Day of Judgement! This is the Great Sacrifice as was prophesied ages past! The priests have proven their failing; it is time we, the warrior caste, took control of the Gods’ Children once more. Shimrra may yet live, but first we must cleanse the Jeedai and Sseeth heresies that are blighting the Promised Land, as it has ordained to be by the Supreme One, to return the Chosen Race to its rightful place alongside the Gods. For the blood our generation must shed, forever to be remembered for beyond the Gate to the Lands of the Dead, I declare us the Yammka Vong!

‘The Children of War!’

Matalok Cruiser Voice of Agony
In orbit of the Baanu Amnan, Tingel Arm, Wild Space

This was the Truth.

Their amphistaffs died when their fangs pierced Vasi’s skin. Millennia of lies, of deception—washed away by one, simple injection; he, not they, could embrace the Truth of the Ancients. The priest in front froze when his amphistaff slackened and fell limp; then the priest looked up, into the eyes of the creation that floated atop phantom wings before him, the Chosen One they declared an abomination.

‘Impossible!’ they all said. ‘Heretic!’ they cried!

‘Bastard offspring of that unholy union!’

The beloved children, unable to accept the truth: they were the heretics; their entire race had been shamed for centuries. Deliverance at last was upon them. The falsely shamed were rising up. The heresy was now Truth: Vasi was now the Light.

‘What—what are you?’ Taug Lacap stuttered, his voice disappearing as fast as his life.

Vasi stared into the male-female eyes of the apostle. How he could sense Taug’s hate; how he could feel the seer’s disgust. ‘I am your Undying Flame.’ Vasi grinned as he stole the life out from beneath the apostle’s skin; Taug withered, shrinking until he was nothing but bones.

Then the priest crumbled to dust.

The two malformed attendants shivering behind the pile of ash averted their eyes, knowing they would be next . . .

Only the death blow never came.

Vasi smiled softly and gestured for the pair to come forward.

‘Arise, my fellow Shamed! Arise! This is the day the Extolled rise up and take back what is rightfully ours! We are the Chosen! This is our Galaxy! We are its new Gods!’

The sedated Sith drooped forward as Krag and Shok unhooked him from the Embrace. The next second, another shockwave rumbled through the Voice of Agony and Krag narrowly caught Ashura before the Sith could slip out of his restraints completely.

The tizowyrm fitted in Eshin’s ear whispered the damage reports from Tolok.

‘We can’t sustain many more hits like that—Eckla you must—’

The tizowyrm went silent.

Eshin felt no true bond with Tolok, but he was still her ticket off this ship.

‘Hurry it up!’ she snapped.

As her two Slayers freed the Sith, she wrapped a white robeskin around the baby and gently, if urgently, picked it up, cradling it against her bosom. Much as she hated the Sith more than anything, the Ancient was still the prize she had long sought. She could try again, even if it meant finding another Shaper to assist her; she had all the time in the world.

The minutes dripped by, the baby screaming in her arms.

Once the Slayers had finally released and restrained Ashura, Shok hauled the human’s body over his shoulder. ‘I have the Ssseeth,’ the Barabel sissed.

Eshin reached the bridge just as a white flare exploded outside the main viewport. Krag steadied her as the ship rumbled violently from the blast; human or not, she didn’t care enough to brush the Slayer’s hand off her.

‘Eckla!’ she heard Tolok call across the chamber.

Another blue-white flash exploded, and she averted her eyes, her hands still busy with the baby, Remulus Sadow. It took a few moments for the impact’s starry blind spots to dissipate—

The flash had not come from outside.

‘Impossible . . .’ Tolok said.

As Eshin’s eyes cleared, the source of the explosion focused into view. The sphincter opposite where she had entered, ripped and shredded, burst open from the other side. In the gap shone the body of a man, a beacon of light, so bright she wanted to look away, and yet so captivating she dare pull her eyes away for fear it was just a dream and would not be there when she looked back again.

A horde of Shamed Ones, of all shapes and sizes, some deformed and hideous, others favouring limps and withered arms, surged through the new rupture in the wall.

‘Heretics! Kill them all!’ cried Tolok, and he and the other warriors on the bridge abandoned their stations to defend against the now more immediate threat; the ripples of the dying Voice of Agony no longer foremost in their minds.

Two snap-hisses sounded in either of Eshin’s ears, but she could not move.

Like an angel, leading the Shamed Ones stood—or rather floated—Vasi Khess.

The Shamed One levitated into the space above the cognition stations, his eyes burning with the same white fire that had erupted moments before. He caught Eshin’s gaze and smirked. The next moment lightning erupted once more from his fingertips, and the warriors fell dead in unison, Tolok among them.

Eshin still could not move when she saw Shok leap from her left side onto one of the coral arches, then across to the other side, and up again until the Barabel was in position to lunge straight for the godlike Shamed One. ‘You ssshall not harm the missstresss!’

Vasi did not as much as flinch when Shok fell upon him, driving his emerald lightsaber blade toward the levitating Vong . . .

Then, like the others, Shok’s body exploded into white, his skeleton flashing.

Vasi floated down to the ground.

‘The Great Shamed One Eshin Shul,’ he said. ‘Failure. Traitor. Infidel.’

‘Vasi—’ Eshin mumbled, still unable to find her voice. ‘I—I’m glad you survived. . .’

Vasi snorted. ‘I should thank you. But I shan’t. You did this for yourself, not for the Extolled; not for the Chosen. You are worse than even that blind fool Varesh Shai. At least he has the excuse of faith; what is your excuse, Eshin Shul? Your own inferiority? Humiliation? Perhaps revenge?’

His eyes flashed as they narrowed, and Vasi’s fingers crackled with static again.

‘You have no goal, Eshin Shul, beyond anarchy.’

Krag stepped forward, bringing his hands up to throw a ball of lightning before Vasi could react, however—impossibly—the Vong had already pre-empted the attack, throwing a wave of energy that caught Krag’s at the same time, linking them for a moment as they threw crackling energy at each other, before a moment later Vasi took the upper hand and then hurled Krag into the wall beside Eshin, the human’s armour cracking in the impact.

Vasi let out a cold laugh that seemed to send a shiver through the Voice of Agony itself.

‘You and your Dark Jeedai Slayers have failed. Now witness the power of the Light.’

Vasi looked directly up, thin rivulets of blood started to trickle from the corners of his eyes, and for a moment Eshin thought the fellow Shamed One had finally lost it. Then she felt the ship start to turn and struggled to keep her footing as the Voice of Agony shifted to face the Yammka. In the darkness beyond, she spotted a series of ships pop out of hyperspace.

‘Ah, it seems our final audience has arrived—’ Vasi whispered, his focus not seeming to be fully there, ‘how good of the Sseeth to join us . . .’

Suddenly, Eshin was shooting across the floor, barely holding onto Remulus—who was still wailing—she reached out and grabbed onto the nearest coral stalagmite, elsewhere the now semi-conscious Ashura doing the same. The baby slipped from her grasp—but Krag slid along the floor right in time to intercept. Above them all, Vasi burst into an insane cackle as the cruiser kicked into maximum ramming speed and rocketed towards the Yammka . . .