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Without thinking, Leia ran to the dazed soldier and yanked the weapon from his lax hands. “We’re supposed to be rescuing these people, not injuring them!”

She threw the weapon aside. Drawing her hand across her forehead, she inadvertently dislodged the brimmed cap, spilling her hair to her shoulders. Wending her way back to the bunker, she grabbed the nearest comlink and demanded to be put through to the task force commander.

“Ambassador Organa Solo, this is Commander Ilanka,” a basso voice responded shortly.

“We need every available ship, Commander—immediately. Yuuzhan Vong forces are entering the city.”

Ilanka took a moment to reply. “I’m sorry, Ambassador, but we’ve got our hands full out here. Three more enemy warships have exited hyperspace on the far side of the moon. Whatever craft are on the surface will have to suffice. I urge you to load and launch. And, Ambassador, I strongly suggest you get yourself aboard one of them.”

Leia thumbed the comlink off and scanned the crowd in alarm. How can I choose? she asked herself. How?

A storm of blazing yorik coral meteors battered the embassy and neighboring buildings, setting fire to all they touched. The inferno triggered an explosion at a fuel dump near the landing zone, fountaining shrapnel far and wide. The right side of Leia’s face screamed in pain as something opened a furrow in her cheek. Instinctively she brought her fingertips to the wound, expecting to find blood, but the airborne fragment had cauterized the wound in its white-hot passing.

“Mistress Leia, you’re injured!” C-3PO said, but she waved him back before he could reach her. Peripherally she saw that a tall sinewy human was being ushered forward, his arms vised in the grip of two soldiers. Beneath a soft cap he wore low on his forehead, the man’s face was bruised and swollen.

“Now what?” Leia asked his custodians.

“An agitator,” the shorter soldier reported. “We overheard him telling people in the crowd that we’re only extracting New Republic loyals. That anyone with an Imperial past might as well kiss his—”

“I understand, Sergeant,” Leia said, cutting him off. She assessed the captive briefly, wondering what he could possibly have to gain by spreading lies. She had her mouth open to ask him when a meaningful sniff from Olmahk put her on alert.

Leia stepped closer to the man and peered intently into his eyes. As she raised her right forefinger, a low growl escaped Olmahk. The captive recoiled when he realized Leia’s intent, but his reaction only firmed the soldiers’ resolve to hold on to him. Leia’s eyes narrowed in certainty. She thrust her finger into the man’s face, striking him just where his right nostril curved into his cheek.

To the soldiers’ utter astonishment, the man’s flesh seemed to recede, taking with it his expression, to reveal a look that combined pain and pride on a face incised with brilliantly colored designs and flourishes. The fleshlike mask that had taken flight at Leia’s touch disappeared down the throat of the man’s loose-fitting jacket, bunching somewhat as it flayed itself from his torso, only to pour from the cuffs of his trousers like flesh-colored syrup and puddle on the ground at his feet.

The soldiers leapt back in shock, the sergeant drawing his blaster and putting repeated bolts into the living puddle. Free of their grip, the Yuuzhan Vong also took a step back, tearing open the front of his jacket to expose a body vest every bit as alive as the ooglith masquer had been. With his lashless eyes fixed on Leia, he lifted his face and howled a bloodcurdling war cry.

“Do-ro’ik vong pratte!” And woe to our enemies!

“Down! Down!” Leia screamed to everyone nearby.

Olmahk drove her to the ground even as the first of the thud bugs were bursting outward from the Yuuzhan Vong’s chest. The sound was not unlike that of corks being popped from bottles of effervescent wine, but accompanying the lively explosions were the pained exclamations of soldiers and