Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [60]
Through the goggles he watched a mixed force of reptoids and Yuuzhan Vong warriors enter the plaza through the south end. The reptoids hurried forward, crouching behind planters and benches, wading through fountains. Anxiety pulsed from many of them, and several clearly had been wounded. At least one stumbled while running forward and never got back up, though a thin ribbon of dark blood raced on ahead of him.
The Yuuzhan Vong warriors, by way of contrast, strode into the plaza with the air of soldiers on parade. Only three of them came—one for every twenty of the reptoids—but they looked magnificent in their armor. Silver highlights flashed from the edges of the black armor as they marched forward. They had small villips on their right shoulders and turned their heads to speak at them. The other warriors nodded in response or spoke back, then issued orders to their reptoid charges.
Suddenly a mixed cadre of what once had been humans attacked from the buildings surrounding the plaza. Manyran normally, but those more heavily armored loped along awkwardly, sometimes on knuckles as well as feet. All of them uttered inarticulate war cries, and many, though carrying blasters, brandished their weapons as if they were no more useful than clubs.
As crude as the human ambush had been, it proved effective initially. The Yuuzhan Vong right flank broke, pulling back, and would have fled had the warrior in their midst not whirled his amphistaff and used it to behead the first human within reach. As that twitching body hit the ground, the little fighters regrouped and counterattacked. They drove the humans back to a line of planters, then engaged them with their own amphistaffs.
On the right the human attack faltered, then the reptoids charged. The humans fell back, drawing the reptoids deep into their lines—lines that consisted of the most recent cadre of humans. Though more bestial in form than the other groups, they also appeared to be more cunning. As the reptoids forced a salient into their line, the wings folded in, cutting the enemy off and falling upon them savagely.
Jacen shifted to a holocam view that took him farther from that knot of breaking bodies, then a tone ripped through his comlink. He tugged the cord from his goggles, killing the images, then summoned the Force and blew the hatch cover up and away. He scrambled to the surface and ignited his lightsaber.
All around the plaza the resistance ambush closed on the Yuuzhan Vong. Blasterfire from snipers in the building splashed the various villips posted to study the war games. Red bolts burned through the fleshy communications pods, bursting them like overripe fruit. A couple of snipers tried to shoot the villips from the Yuuzhan Vong warriors’ shoulders, but succeeded only in hitting the warriors themselves, spinning them around, but not putting them down.
Ganner rose through a conduit just as Jacen had, but did it by force of telekinesis alone. He looked magnificent, popping up there, at the rear of the Yuuzhan Vong formation. The hatch cover, a heavy metal disk, whirled around him and crushed the first reptoid to get close. The disk clanged to the ferrocrete and rolled around in a lazy circle, drawing a line after as it passed through the blood pooling from the broken reptoid.
The centermost Yuuzhan Vong warrior spun and snapped an order that parted the reptoids heading toward Ganner. Bringing his amphistaff up with two hands, he pumped it in the air. He said something, and Jacen was certain, from the tone, that it was a challenge. The warrior began to twirl his amphistaff, waiting.
Ganner thumbed his lightsaber to life, producing a sulfurous-yellow blade over a meter in length. With his free hand he waved the warrior in. Contempt masked Ganner’s face while his movements appeared casual, almost sloppy, compared to the tightness of the Yuuzhan Vong’s approach.
The Yuuzhan