Koros-Strohna Worldship Baanu Amnan
Telos System, Kwymar Sector, Hydian Way
Day 187, 28 ABY

Yorik coral rained from the roof of the chamber as the yammosk, the mighty war coordinator, performed its last act, going about its final death throes. Mile long tentacles thrashed through the interior of the worldship, tearing the vessel apart and splitting off Kor Chokk sized chunks and pebbles the size of miid ro’iks.

The dying worldship broke from its orbit, beginning its final spiral to cremation in the azure skies above Telos. Rifts cracked along the cavernous yorik coral interior as the flailing tentacles ceased their convulsions, slouching back into the mucous filled pit where the corpse of the war coordinator now rested, and the ship at last split apart.

His eyes befell the sight he had dreaded.

Crunched up against a shower of rocks in a small alcove, the lifeless eyes stared back.

He reached down, brushed the debris aside, and closed his claws around the severed skull of the one who had been their Supreme Commander, the great warleader of Domain Amnan: Drathul. The flesh across the base of Drathul’s neck was cauterised clean off.

A lightsaber wound.

He briefly bowed his head in respect, then hurled the skull down the corridor.

There was no time to honour the dead. And he knew Drathul would have had it no other way. He turned back up the corridor he came, using his amphistaff to carve through the unresponsive sphincter that flapped idly in his path. The smell of death permeated the walls where he ran, black sludge bleeding out across his feet as the dying vessel breathed its last breaths. There was no time to help the wounded as he passed, and they did not bother to ask him for help. They were Yuuzhan Vong, Children of the Creator; it was their duty to die for the glory of the Yun’o.

He only hoped he was not too late. To die in battle was one thing.

But to be slain from within was another.

Eshin Shul . . .

He cursed the name of the whore who had betrayed his domain. Like the Shamed One she was, she had damned them all. This was their fate for having allowed her to life. This was the gods passing judgement for their weakness.

They should have executed her. Those fool priests had done this to them.

If there was one thing he would do before this was over, even if it meant his death, it was to hunt down every last one of those seers who had ordained to spare the traitor. The will of Yun-Shuno shined on her? Pah! If this had been the will of that Many Eyed Mother of Snivelers, then the Pardoner was no longer worthy of the worship of the Chosen Race.

He reached the command chamber, punching through the slack membrane across the entrance. The floor was painted black in his brothers’ blood, matched by the vacuum that peered in from outside, held back only by a shuddering dovin basal that vibrated chaotically outside the new opening. Across the floor assorted body parts littered the chamber, ripped open by a variety of weapons—mainly of shaper origin.

Jeedai heretics . . .

It was not enough for Eshin Shul to betray the race who had spared her? Now she had led a rebellion? Heresy! The only thing stopping him drawing his coufee and plunging it into his own heart there and then were the numerous bodies of fallen Shamed Ones that decorated the floor. The heretics had got what they deserved.

He turned back to the cognition throne where the vessel’s commander still slouched within the full body membrane and wormlike tendrils of neural clasps from which the worldship and its forces had been directed. A hardened amphistaff was speared straight through the commander’s chest cavity.

In a single, inelegant motion he tore the cognition wrapping off the commander’s body, then, with a foot, kicked the carcass aside; it tumbled across the other bodies underneath in the unstable gravity, then out into the freezing vacuum where its arms instantly crystallised.

His eyes did not watch any of it. He only had moments to spare.

He leapt up onto the inflamed cushion of the cognition throne, its vivid reddishness drained of all but the last traces of life. Unlike normal seats, the hau polyp now felt cold, almost corpselike, its swelling completely deflated.

The chamber shook. Fragments from the ceiling crashed onto his skull; he tasted the iron ting as his own blood dripped into his lips. The worldship had only minutes left. He plunged his arms and head into the tall-yor cognition suit, and the body-length cilia wrapped around him like a moist glove, drawing him into a breathless skin tight embrace. The frail blaze bugs fanned to life before his eyes, their rainbow designs emitting little more than a muted glimmer and soft buzz in his ears.

He closed his eyes and reached out for the minds of the dovin basals throughout the ship. His head exploded as the pain of a thousand life forms flooded his thoughts. This was the job of the rikyam, the central brain. Without the yammosk . . .

His body convulsed under the pain. The dying of an entire planetoid was too much, even for a Yuuzhan Vong; it made the Embrace of Pain seem like light relaxation. But he had to continue. There was no choice. Either way he was going to die. And if he had to choose, then he was going to go out as a Yuuzhan Vong.

He pressed his mind upon the creatures spread throughout the ship. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Perhaps millions. From the mightiest yaret-kor to the tiniest bacterium. Every one a biotic life form, engineered by the shapers to do their bidding. And right then that was precisely what he needed them to do. To hold Domain Amnan’s worldship together. To direct it toward the stars. Where maybe, just maybe, they might all stand a chance of survival.

His mind touched the legion of dovin basals spread throughout the ship; most no larger than a thud bug, tasked with nothing more than maintaining gravity throughout the vessel; others like the massive Keepers powerful enough to drag a small moon out of orbit. Right then he needed all of them. Each and every last one. For one final plunge into darkspace.

He set his thoughts upon a random star out beyond the depths of space . . .

Then his world went black as the dovin basal outside the breach followed his command and reached toward the star in the vast distance, at last allowing the vacuum to pour into the command chamber. He felt his body turn to ice as in his last seconds he watched the assorted chunks of the dead worldship launch away into deep space.