Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [55]
One did not often see a Yuuzhan Vong warrior this old. Most had gone to a noble death long before achieving this age.
He walked behind the black coral benches of his teaching chamber, behind the rows of his students, warrior-officers clad only in loincloths. At the head of the chamber, blaze bugs took on the form of a planet, of its defensive platforms and screens, of attacking Yuuzhan Vong forces.
“See there,” he said. “The upper right quadrant of the world Coruscant. The stream of ships against the visible screen, how it flares into incandescence and disappears. These ships held our enemies’ refugees, and they disappeared because we ordered them into a region of space protected by the enemy’s passive defenses. When they could no longer bear the notion that their innocent relatives were being consumed by their own defenses, they lowered those defenses, and we entered their world-sanctuary.” The blaze bugs altered their configuration so that the stream of ships passed through the shield, now accompanied by colors suggesting Yuuzhan Vong attack craft. “Now, what was the most important piece of information we needed to implement this plan?”
For a moment there was silence. Then a young warrior, his body scarcely graced by scars or tattoos, stood. He remained rigid, his back to the elderly instructor. “We needed to know where their passive defenses were.”
The elderly Yuuzhan Vong drew back his coil of amphistaff and then snapped it forward. The pointed tail cracked out and stabbed into that warrior’s back, punching a hole into the flesh over his shoulder blade. As the elderly one yanked his living whip back, the hole bled.
“Sit,” said the old one. “What you have just received is a Czulkang Lah pit. Everyone who studies with me receives several. They become badges of honor, a sign that you have survived instruction with Czulkang Lah. But the more hopeless among you receive many pits, countless pits, and rather than it being a badge of honor, such scars tell other officers that you were an idiot. I recommend you not gather unto yourself too many. Now, who will answer the question I asked?”
No one stood or spoke.
The old warrior sighed. “All stand, all but the one who had the courage to venture an answer.”
All the students, except the one still bleeding, rose. Czulkang Lah lashed out at them, methodically and rhythmically cutting two pits in each back. The warriors he struck did not cry out; none offered any sound more dismayed than a grunt. But they would remember this day and how their fear of offering a wrong answer had earned them their teacher’s ire.
When he was halfway through the group of thirty students, one who had not yet been struck spoke up, saying, “We had to know that the enemy would sacrifice all to save a few. We had to know how they thought.”
“You, sit.” Czulkang Lah continued his whip-cracking, sparing the one who had last spoken. When all but that one had bloody backs, he said, “All sit.
“Now, all think. Tudrath Dyn is correct. We had to understand their weaknesses … and their strengths. Their ability to train great warriors despite their daintiness concerning death and pain. Their hateful love of machinery … and their correct evaluation of that machinery’s effectiveness. We had to know. Else we would not have beaten them on Coruscant. Else we would not beat them elsewhere.”
A warrior with a bloody back stood. “May I ask a question, Warmaster?”
“I am not Warmaster,” Czulkang Lah said. “Not for a lifetime. Yes, you may ask. I punish wrong conclusions … not curiosity.”
The warrior asked, “How can one understand the ways of the enemy without learning to think like the enemy? And if one learns to think like the enemy, is that one not infected with his thoughts,