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On the other hand, Poesy couldn’t have reached Gateway’s quadrant before the Yuuzhan Vong did, or launch its fighters in time. By holding that point in orbit, it could still defend several evacuating settlements.

The enemy’s main force seemed to be shapes that the sensors represented as bigger than skips, but smaller than cruisers. Landing craft? she guessed.

“All evacuation ships,” Leia called into her pickup, “you’re on your own. If you think you can make hyperspace, go! If not, do whatever you can to save lives.” She flicked a tile on the console. “Gateway to all crawlers. Don’t turn back. Get to Thirty-two. We’re ground zero.”She turned on Jaina. “Where did you park your shuttle?”

“I just sent it off,” Jaina admitted.

Leia hesitated only a second. “Good girl,” she said. “I can’t get through to SELCORE now. We’re going underground.”

“And we aren’t quite alone,” Jaina exclaimed. “Look!”

On the local-space screen, a single white “unidentified” craft blasted down from Bburru City, headed toward Duro’s south pole.

“Got to be Aunt Mara,” Jaina said. “They dropped off Anakin’s X-wing down there.”

Leia smiled grimly. “Two X-wings and Mara’s Shadow? I’m glad they’re here, but we could use Rogue Squadron. I’d even take Kyp’s Dozen if they showed up.”

Ten yorik-trema landing craft dropped in formation toward Duro’s surface, each captain keeping the other flattened ovals in view as they decelerated through hideous mists. The ultrasensitive eyes of each living yorik-trema moved constantly, tracking the wedges of deadly coralskipper fighters flying escort. In this atmosphere, it was almost a blind fall.

Tsavong Lah stood behind his pilot in the small forward compartment of the lead lander. Beside him, cradled in a blastula, was a specialized villip. A second creature gripped it, surrounding it like a husk that dangled a long straight tail. A metal-rich diet had deposited conductive material in the oggzil’s vertebrae, creating a living antenna, a means to send villip-speech over frequencies that the infidels used, just as Tsavong had been promised. A master shaper waited back at the Sunulok for his praise—if it worked—or else his reduction in caste. There were many former shapers among the Shamed Ones.

Tsavong stroked the villip, careful not to dislodge its oggzil companion. He already wore a tizowyrm in one ear.

“Citizens of Duro,” he addressed the villip, “we have no interest in your mechanical cities, only the planet’s unwanted surface. The ychna, our servant in orbit, will destroy any of your other monstrosities that threaten us. Stand ready to send down a delegation to consummate your surrender, with your … in your … in persons.” The tizowyrm had some trouble with that phrase. He gave the villip a sharp pat, and it shrank again.

Once they’d passed through the worst mists, he stared out the mica-scale viewing panel between the yoriktrema’s ablative, regenerative ventral surfaces. He’d ordered his coralskipper pilots to make a symbolic sweep, a first step toward cleansing the planet that would be his next staging point. The coralskipper fighters swooped down, launching deadly accurate plasma streams at monuments too huge to have been crafted by hand tools. Black and gray stone shattered into shards. A massive, flat-topped ruin fell beneath their deadly fire-flow. Three small dome shelters collapsed. In the distance, a trio of slow-moving mechanical vehicles, undoubtedly full of infidels, crawled away from the target dome. The coralskippers attacked. Yellow-green flame erupted from the crawling vehicles.

“To you,” Tsavong Lah murmured. “Yun-Yammka, accept those lives. In return for that gift, grant us success.”

His yorik-trema shuddered as its landing claws seized the ground. Ignoring the settlement’s artificial boarding tubes, he ordered molleung worms extended from the yorik-tremas’ sides.

One of his lieutenants gave his cadre of landing troops—young warriors in unscarred armor—final orders.One group, assigned outdoor duties, already wore gnullith breathing