Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [70]
Nearby the priests sat cross-legged, chanting the invocations that would put the villip in sequential contact with scores of signal villips that had been positioned in space along the invasion path.
With loud sucking noises, a cavity resembling an eye socket puckered to life in the center of the villip’s ridge; then along that line the villip everted, turning completely inside out and assuming the features of Warmaster Tsavong Lah.
As elect protector of Supreme Overlord Shimrra, and well on his way to a kind of apotheosis, Tsavong Lah, through an endless series of escalations, had come to resemble the incarnation of Yun-Yammka, the god of war. Tsavong Lah’s head sloped back from his face, with dark hair both upswept and trailing like tassels from the blunt end. The blue sacks under eyes that were all pupil drooped like deep pockets to the corners of a voracious-looking mouth, and a deep notch bisected his skull from ear to ear. His full lips were ridged by myriad scars, and his ears protruded from his skull like little wings, with the lobes of each descending almost to his shoulders like elongated teardrops of molten wax. Below the neck, overlapping scales the color of rust grew like armor plates from breastbone and collarbones.
“Behold your leader,” Tsavong Lah’s villip told the commanders in a voice garbled by space and time.
“Warmaster,” the two said as they lifted their eyes.
Each had learned of the warmaster’s role in the poisoning of Ithor and the downfall of Shedao Domain Shai. To dishonor Tsavong Lah was to court an untimely death.
The eyes of the facsimile fixed on Nas Choka. “Inform me of recent events, Supreme Commander.”
“We occupy the world called Tynna, Potent One, which fell to us with so meager a fight we might have deemed it unworthy were it not so well suited to our needs and our campaign.”
The eyes moved to Malik Carr. “I would hear more of this.”
“Tynna’s clement waters will one day furnish dovin basals of the size needed to remove the shields that guard Coruscant and other worlds of the Core. It is our conviction that the indigenous species—furred bipeds of diminutive size—can be reeducated and trained, and will make for able and affable tenders of our creations.”
“And as to Tynna’s importance to the conquest?”
“Potent One, the world will also serve as a staging area for eventual incursions into the Corellian and Bothan sectors.”
“Eventual, you say.”
“Tynna is but the first stage of a strategy that will speed us to the Core. To guarantee this, we entered into an agreement with the Hutts, the terms of which require that we apprise them of planetary systems to avoid in their dispersal of a ludicrous product called spice. We did so in complete expectation that they would either alert the New Republic, or that New Republic analysts would discover that spice was moving freely in some sectors and not at all in others, and leap to the conclusion that the latter provided a glimpse of our battle plan. Tynna was one of the worlds we cautioned the Hutts to avoid, along with Corellia and Bothawui. Tynna was deliberately won as a means of fortifying the disinformation.”
The villip was silent for a long moment. “The meager battle you waged suggests that the New Republic failed to behave as predicted. Otherwise, their fleet would have been lying in wait.”
“Testimony to the New Republic’s notion of cleverness, Warmaster,” Nas Choka answered. “Through the whole of the battle and its aftermath we observed spies observing us from a stealthy craft I’m certain they believe went undetected. To have met us in force might have saved the day for Tynna, but the New Republic is well aware that we have targets of greater significance in mind, so they purposely gave Tynna away.
“With tribute to Commander Malik Carr,” Choka continued, “I am now convinced that the same tactic will work for the planned assault. Many coralskipper