Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 04_ Agents of Chaos 01_ Hero's Trial - James Luceno [36]
“Fleet strength and disposition get us only so far,” Sovv said after a moment. “It’s more important that we achieve some understanding of the Yuuzhan Vong as a species. Exactly what sort of beings are we dealing with?”
Legorburu scanned faces in the console displays. “Uh, Dr. Eicroth, perhaps you’d care to shed some light on the admiral’s question.”
Joi Eicroth’s hologram did justice to her fair-haired allure. Briefly married to Admiral Drayson, she still worked with him as an operative in Alpha Blue, a covert branch of New Republic Intelligence. One of the first to have a look at a Qella recovered on Maltha Obex some years earlier, she was currently a member of the xenobiology team tasked with compiling a profile on the Yuuzhan Vong.
“Essentially we are dealing with a near-human species,” Eicroth said, “both externally and internally—excepting, for the moment, the semisentient reptoid proxy troops the Yuuzhan Vong deployed at Dantooine, Garqi, and Ithor. This is borne out by the fact that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker suffered no ill effects after donning both a Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper cognition hood and an organic breathing apparatus. However, the examples we’ve autopsied present some intriguing puzzles.”
Holographic representations of three Yuuzhan Vong appeared above the light table, rotating slowly while Eicroth continued.
“The distinctions you see—this one’s curiously elongated head, this one’s auxiliary ribs, the deep patterns etched into the torso of this one—may indicate the existence of separate lineage groups among the Yuuzhan Vong. What is clear is that they undergo what must be excruciating physical alterations in service to some religious or warrior ideal. In any case, the uniformity of the disfigurements and markings suggests a complex social hierarchy.
“This is fully consistent with the nature of Yuuzhan Vong applied science, which, from what we’ve been able to determine, is based exclusively on a form of animated technology. The use of bioreactors, neuroengines, and biological weapons is indicative of a species that places great importance on organic rather than artificial innovation. Where we invent machines, they create life-forms that serve the same function as machines.”
“Can they be brought down?” A’baht asked above the murmur of several separate conversations.
“They are taller and heavier than most humans,” Eicroth said. “They are strong on an individual basis and in some instances enhanced or encased by living armor. However, they can be killed by conventional weapons and apparently by Jedi lightsabers. Bafforr tree pollen shows promise as an allergen that affects the armor, but it will be some time before the pollen can be synthesized in the amounts needed to serve as an effective deterrent or biological agent. Still, each encounter has furnished us with additional data as to their weak points—psychological, anatomical, and social.”
Silence prevailed until Commodore Brand, former commander of the Fifth Fleet cruiser Indomitable and the most curmudgeonly of the cardinal commanders, drummed his thick fingers loudly on the console.
“All the while I’ve been sitting here listening to these reports I’ve been asking myself one question: What is it they ultimately want from us? Is this war about territory, resources, religion, some injustice committed by one of us so far in the past we don’t even have a record of it? Do the Yuuzhan Vong consider us vermin like the Yevethan Duskhan League did, or do they want our life energies as the Ssi-ruuk did?”
Anyone who might have been formulating a reply was interrupted by the communications technician. “Sirs,” he said, addressing Sovv and his peers, “I have Director Scaur with an urgent message