Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [115]
As a living creature has long evolved the capacity to do. Shedao Shai saw one of his warriors go down and reached his side in a heartbeat. He tore the amphistaff from the lifeless hands, began to whirl it over his head, then charged forward, letting his fury and outrage fuel his assault.
Yuuzhan Vong attack bugs filled the air around him. Some struck targets and exploded, crumbling walls, destroying computer-controlled gun mounts, and reducing automatons to shrapnel and sparking limbs.
A living foe would continue fighting, but not these things.
The Chazrach swarmed over the wall and raced up the ramps to the next level. From the roof towers more laser-fire poured down, though the guns failed to depress enough to rake the building’s upper terraces. Shedao Shai smiled grimly at that fact, since no living creature—no intelligent creature—would have made that mistake. A true warrior would hoist the weapons from their mounts and spray that lethal energy over us. These automatons are not even as intelligent as beasts.
Well-thrown explosive bugs blasted the top of one tower off, sending a triumphant shout throughout the Yuuzhan Vong host. The squeal of metal as amphistaffs were ripped from metal and the snap of sparks as coufees sliced cables wove themselves into a percussive symphony of destruction. More explosions split the night, and a second tower crashed down with enough force to shake the whole building.
Shedao Shai found himself shrieking victoriously with his ennead, but his cry died prematurely. He stepped back, a cold sense of dread seizing him as Yuuzhan Vong warriors and Chazrach flooded into the building. Something was not right, and not until he realized that the impact from so light a structure as the tower should not have been able to send more than a minor tremor through the building could he pinpoint what was wrong.
This is not a permanent structure. He looked around again, his eyes widened with growing horror. An orgy of havoc surrounded him. Chazrach were beating consoles into debris. Circuit boards were yanked from their middles, rainbow ribbons trailing out like colorful intestines. Even his warriors appropriated wires and gaskets, adorning themselves with relics of the vanquished.
His force had lost all its cohesion and discipline. The razing of the facility and the shattering of its technology continued deep inside, with shouts luring more and more of his troops into the white building’s heart. It is what they wanted, what they expected when they put their abominations here. They knew we would take offense and lose our minds.
Shedao Shai vaulted the low wall and began to back away from the building. He shouted for his troops to retreat and heard his call repeated. The Chazrach near him came away immediately, and more of their brethren began to flee, but none of the Yuuzhan Vong warriors. No, of course not. They would not take orders from Chazrach to leave off their sacred duty.
He started to use his villip to get the command center to issue a recall, but a rumble began to build, shaking the ground, and Shedao Shai knew it was too late.
The New Republic defenders, having long acknowledged that hitting a target was tough if there was no target, decided to provide the Yuuzhan Vong with something to attack on the surface of Ithor itself. They defended it with automated blasters and peopled it with droid shells, cobbled together from spare parts and just enough circuitry to allow the machines a little motion. They knew that using what appeared to be droids to defend the target would likely unhinge the Yuuzhan Vong and get them committed to a frenzy of destruction. Toward this end they constructed