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Shedao Shai smiled as he gazed down at Dubrillion. One truism of war was that even the most careful plan could shatter against the opposition; and so it had here. Nom Anor, a Yuuzhan Vong agent provocateur, had conspired with his brethren in the intendant caste to usurp the role of the warriors. A premature attack had been launched and repulsed by the New Republic, though not without losses to the infidels. Shedao Shai’s initial assaults had to be shifted to the worlds where the Yuuzhan Vong had been driven off, so their conquest could be completed and the shame of defeat effaced from Yuuzhan Vong honor.

The Yuuzhan Vong commander closed his right hand, his smile broadening. Were your throat in my grasp, Nom Anor, my pleasure would be boundless. Though the warrior did not deign to imagine how the priests or other intendants would explain away Nom Anor’s action, Shedao felt certain the gods would punish him. When next you come to Changing, Nom Anor, you will find your perfidy rewarded.

Shedao Shai reached his mind into the memories stored within Legacy of Torment. He plucked one from a slave that had been employed as a soldier in the ongoing pacification of Dubrillion. The short, stocky, reptilian humanoid Chazrach had served the Yuuzhan Vong well in their wars, with some of them being celebrated enough to be allowed into the warrior caste at its most basic levels. As Shedao Shai pulled the memory to himself and donned it like an ooglith masquer, it felt odd, since the creature was much smaller than he was. It took him a moment to accept the discomfort of wearing the creature’s flesh, then he pushed through and began to live the Chazrach’s mission on the planet below.

As missions went, it was not very challenging. This Chazrach and his squad had been assigned to clean out one of the warrens the infidels had created amid the rubble of Dubrillion’s main city. The Chazrach each carried a coufee—a large, double-edged knife—and a breed of amphistaff that was shorter than that employed by Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Not only was it more suited to the Chazrach’s shorter stature, but it remained largely inflexible, since the slaves seemed genetically incapable of mastering the whip skills needed to use an amphistaff to its full capabilities.

Shedao Shai shifted his shoulders, still poorly suited to the alien flesh he wore, but allowed his mind to plunge into the memory. Through Chazrach eyes he saw the soldiers move into narrow, dark recesses. A sour scent assaulted his nostrils and the Chazrach’s heart quickened. Two of his compatriots jostled and moved forward as their passage broadened. The Chazrach fingered his amphistaff and raised it out of the way as another slave slipped past him.

A red energy bolt exploded from the darkness, momentarily dispelling shadows, then burned into the Chazrach formation. Clutching hands to its blistered and smoking face, a screaming slave spun away. With his amphistaff still raised, the Chazrach Shedao wore sidestepped his wounded companion, then looked up as the scrape of metal against stone and a spark alerted him to new danger.

On a ledge above the passage’s mouth an infidel had hidden himself. He swung a heavy metal bar, which sparked against the chamber’s ceiling. The bar whistled down toward the Chazrach’s head, but the slave parried it with the amphistaff, then lunged up with the amphistaff’s sharpened tail. The staff punctured the meaty part of the man’s leg, allowing salty blood to spurt out when the slave yanked the amphistaff free.

The man came with it, spinning through the air and landing hard on his back. Bones cracked and the lower half of the infidel’s body went limp. Blood still pulsed from the hole in his leg, and his hands grabbed for it. The infidel looked up into the slave’s eyes, fear widening his own orbs until the white balls looked as if they would rattle around in the skull. The mouth formed words that came with piteous tones, but a quick whirl of the amphistaff brought the flattened tip down to slash through the