Orian System
Day 173, 31 ABY

Six years have passed since they first appeared.

The Far Outsiders.

For four years they waged their holy crusade, holding the Galaxy to ransom from their fortress of power on Yuuzhan’tar in the ruins of Coruscant; their incursion into Orian Space averted only by the timely assassination of Drathul Amnan and his worldship’s debilitation.

For four long years the Galaxy burned. Trillions died.

Until, finally, just as all hope appeared lost: they were defeated. Their Supreme Overlord slain; their religion exposed as a sham built on a bed of lies. With their beliefs crushed, their holy war was over, and their hierarchy finished. The gods had deserted them.

Thousands surrendered.

Many more simply committed suicide, incapable of the heresy that was the truth.

The death of the Supreme Overlord brought with it Judgement Day. With the backbone of their empire broken, the remaining warleaders fractured into rival cults. The Galactic Alliance dealt with the remaining resistance, mopping up alien and sympathiser alike, and reclaiming its lost territory across the Outer Rim; the Jedi crusaders of Lord Omancor Crask prised the throne world of the dead from the still warm hands of the would-be conquerors; and around the Galaxy the vassals of the Iron Throne took back what was rightfully theirs.

And so, at last, the Yuuzhan Vong Empire was destroyed.

But belief is not so easy to extinguish.

One Supreme Commander managed to escape the empire’s purge. For two years he rallied the faithful, unified the dispersed survivors, and planted the seeds for his eventual revenge. All the while the Galaxy thinking the Chosen Race defeated and the Galaxy free.

But now, finally, he has returned.

His forces marshalled, striking from his hidden base in deep space, his attacks have been without mercy. This time it is not an invasion; no conquest of the prophesied holy land. There is no pantheon of gods to appease. The gods have failed, turned their backs in their Chosen Race in its time of greatest need.

This time there is only Yun-Yammka, the Slayer, God of War—the one true god.

And the shamed Children of Yun-Yuuzhan will yet reclaim their rightful place.

Varesh Shai, Warmaster of the Yuuzhan-Vong, has willed it.

Their attack hit the Orian system before the early warning stations even knew the armada was there. Hundreds of alien ships—Yuuzhan Vong cruiser and frigate analogs, swarms of coralskippers and assorted bio weapons; all bolstered by the bloodstained daggers of the sympathisers’ durasteel battleships and rusty Star Destroyers. Throughout settlements masked infiltrators revealed themselves, peeling aside false masquerades and revealing their true defiled and disfigured faces.

And not just alien and sympathiser . . . but Jedi; Jedi and Sith alike as well as an army of others standing alongside the invaders who had been thought defeated. Across colonies, lightsabers flared into action as Vong, turncoats, and backstabbing Jeedai warriors took to streets and burnt cities to the ground. In the skies above, organic fire unleashed itself upon the skies, setting light to atmosphere as the towering walls of Seng Karash, Kar Alabrek and San Korinar reduced to molten liquid.

Buildings burned.

Bodies collapsed.

Rivers of blood surged in scarlet torrents down streets.

But where were the shields? The defence systems? The heroic Sadow knights?

Gone. Betrayed from within. Unknowing.

The blinding star shine of Orian Major burst open as fire lanced across the system.

Laggard, the men, women and aliens of the Disciples of Kressh and Ragnos and Sadow awoke from the dead of slumber into the orange inferno of daybreak, finding the nightmare not just a dream . . . their eyes befell the apocalypse.

A star system on fire.

But by the time they took up arms, it was already too late.

The Warmaster had vanished back into the oily blackness of deep space once more.

In his wake, mountains of disembowelled bodies, districts shattered, weapons batteries reduced to ash. Where there had been hundreds of opposing ships glued together in fatal battle, all that remained were the burning wrecks of friendly cruisers and the charred corpses of those unfortunate souls now spiralling forever through space.

The invasion was no invasion. This time the invaders are no conquerors. Their quest is but one of martyrdom, of reclaiming their lost honour in death. Throughout streets, their minions still move, building to building, slaying and setting fire to whatsoever and whosoever.

Vong, Peace Brigader and Jeedai betrayer: allies.

And traitors.

As the smoke still smoulders from ruins to the skies, shrouding cities in a haze of ashen grey, battleteams flood the streets, every pretence of stealth behind them as crimson blades snap-hiss to life to cleanse their blasted homelands of the invaders’ and their allies’ filth . . .

And praying the locusts of Warmaster Varesh Shai do not return.