-> FALL OF ANTEI
Movement to Contact
Raken <- <p>
Antei haunts us like a dream. It’s back there somewhere over our shoulder. It waits at the end of one of the ragged convoys fleeing the storm. It calls us back, but we cannot answer.

Like the galaxy, the eyes of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood have been opened. It has been months of exile for the adherents of the vaunted Final Way. But all that has become final is that the galaxy which the Brotherhood intended to rule has become a burial ground for the enemies of the Yuuzhan Vong.

Shimrra Jamaane, Yuuzhan Vong Overlord and herald of the gods, knows that he has broken the back of the Dark Side Jeedai. Though he has not forgotten those who have slipped his grasp, his attention has been drawn back to the Core and the infidels there. In the meantime, their worlds are his. Their dark bastion of power sacked, they pose no threat to Shimrra’s plans.

Though defeated, the Brotherhood has not been idle. The Dark Council rules from a mobile strike fleet of warships. The Clans have reclaimed some of what was lost in the war. There has been reorganization. Forces have mustered. Weakness has been culled. Strategies have been enacted. The Dark Lord Sarin oversees all...

Abyss Mining Station
Lamaro System, Corellian Run
Fall of Antei, Day 58

Few things came easy to the Hunter. Unblessed as he was with the talents bestowed others from the dark Force, what he lacked in gifts, he compensated for in application. The evidence of which continued to stain the metal decking in the form of perspiration. Rising from the deck where he had last been felled, Rannik Narius stood to his full height and leveled his gaze at the Yuuzhan Vong warrior stalking him in the dim lighting across the compartment.

For his efforts in standing, the Hunter received a razor bug across the cheek that he had barely managed to keep from taking off his head. Parrying it with his new lightsaber was out of the question. Since the edict had come down from on high to arm every member of the Dark Brotherhood with a lightsaber, regardless of rank, he had spent more time admiring it than practicing with it.

Now the price of his vanity would be paid in blood.

Another razor bug hummed past by a wider margin this time. His feet under him fully, the Hunter was getting the feel for the timing and trajectory of the Vong warrior’s throws. He backed off a pace and stepped to his right to put a steel column between himself and the incoming fire. He couldn’t block them yet, as others more seasoned with the blade could do, but he would. He would have to.

Those already awarded the honor of bearing the lightsaber under the merits of the old system had yet to cease their rumblings. Narius wanted to complete his training and earn the right as everyone else had, but what was to be done? The Brotherhood had gone to war and war required weapons, not toys.

His training saber had been reclaimed by the Herald for the parts needed to construct the vast number of new lightsabers being issued. His new blade was plain, unadorned unlike those of the Equites who gave him cold stares in passing with the weapon clipped at his waist. Their eyes said, unworthy, but their mouths said nothing. The Dark Council had ruled and it had been obeyed.

His foe circled him tighter, inexorably diminishing the space between them. The chamber was only so big. Narius would be out of room soon, but he had to deny his opponent’s ranged advantage if he were to survive. Putting the last column available between himself and the warrior, the Hunter waited for his enemy to emerge from one side of it or the other. When the Vong failed to appear, Narius angled cautiously to his left.

He had lost sight of him.

Impossible. In the crushing silence of the compartment, he was unsure whether he had spoken the word aloud or not. His ears filled with the rush of his own blood. The Hunter’s heart beat so loud he wondered if he could hear his own steps let alone the Vong’s. The fog of war rolled in quietly to enshroud his mind until he was barely aware of his saber humming softly in his hand.

Silence. The tapered end of an amphistaff appeared from his chest where it had been rammed home by the warrior now behind him. Rannik Narius felt no pain. He was frozen on the creature’s blade. Disbelief argued briefly with his reason, but there was no trick. He was dead.

Again.

The simulation ended with the generic setting melting away to reveal the spartan lines of the morph hall. The lethal organic blade of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior evaporated from his chest leaving no trace of injury but to that of the Hunter’s pride. Looking on from above, the Combat Master shook his head in disapproval. Now that the Antei Combat Center’s new facility was up and running, warriors of all ranks had been rotating in from the clans in order to learn their enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Too many of the former were evident and not nearly enough of the latter had been discovered.

This would take time.

Yuuzhan Vong Vessel Recovery Operation
Bilbringi System, Namadii Corridor
Fall of Antei, Day 61

Great drafts of blackness separated the stars here. Rim-ward, bands of color from the Utegetu nebula could be seen caught in the galactic wind. Toward the Core lay the crush of light from the stars of ten thousand worlds at war. The unflinching ideology of the Yuuzhan Vong had brought all of it to its knees. Whether it would rise again could not yet be said.

Amid the tracts of nothingness hung millions of slowly tumbling asteroids varying in size from moons to micro-debris. From the Core side of the system the flashes of thirty-six dark gray ships reentering realspace were hidden against the spinning column of brilliance that spanned the galaxy. The TIE Avengers decelerated from lightspeed, but pushed the throttles of their sub-light drives to the stops despite the jagged field of debris ahead. With rehearsed precision the squadrons split into three-ship elements weaving and rolling through the asteroids toward a single point of convergence.

In the distance before the raiders, several Yuuzhan Vong creatures worked around a lamed matalok cruiser rigging it for tow. The crab-like beasts skittered across the living ship’s hull affixing independent dovin basals at key points of maneuver to stand in for the ones lost in combat. Several flights of coral skippers actively patrolled the scene wary of attack. They flew loosely, indicative of the lack of a war coordinator guiding their pilots. And they were the perfect targets on which to practice the Brotherhood’s evolved combat techniques against the Vong.

The sortie commander’s subspace radio crackled to life. “Tasker Six-Four, Tasker Six-Four, this is Steel Two-Zero, you are weapons free at this time, over.”

Shadow Taldrya worked himself deeper into the TIE’s grav-chair as he rolled level to his wingmates now clearing the asteroid cluster. While checking his port and starboard wings for visible damage from micro-meteor hits, he answered the traffic from Nightfall waiting on station a short hyperspace jump away. “Steel Two-Zero, Tasker Six-Four. Good copy. Pleasant Sierra online. Rolling in.”

Pleasant Sierra was the Dark Council’s code name for a dark Force Meld that allowed its pilots a level of coordination at least equal to that provided by the enemy’s yammosk. With practice, they hoped it would exceed the war coordinator’s capabilities. It required exclusively Dark Jedi ranked Equite or higher—which limited the application of the tactic—but if successful, would allow for far greater efficiency and provide a way to level the battlefield. Shadow, Dark Jedi Master and accomplished pilot, had been hand-picked by the Grand Master to lead the strike.

“Roger. Good hunting, Six-Four. Steel Two-Zero out.” Nightfall combat control went silent to monitor all comm. traffic and watch the attack play out on its tactical displays.

Today’s sortie would provide one of the final gatherings of data on the Brotherhood’s newly revised tactics. The use of shield trios, stutter fire, and several other Vong-specific techniques had already been established and trained on in the months following the fall of Antei. What remained was a way to counter the unerring precision of the enemy pilots when under the guidance of a war coordinator. The dark Force Meld was to be that counter.

Brotherhood-class Super Dreadnought Nightfall
Objective Rally Point Titan, Bilbringi System
Fall of Antei, Day 62

“The mission was a success, my lord,” the flight operations officer, Uncas Stadle, said.

Sarin stared in silence through the viewports of the newly christened Brotherhood flagship. There was nothing to see but stars and rocks sprinkled endlessly through the void, but Sarin’s steel gaze penetrated beyond the physical. Since the loss at Antei, he had spent more time like this gazing into the nether communing with whatever dark spirits guided the hand of one so powerful.

The living web of energy that bound all things lay open to him. Each star in his view was tied to lines of energy that connected it to the system in which it was found, the galaxy to which it belonged, and the universe in which it turned. Along each line connecting the star with all around it Sarin could travel to find its terminus. From there he could see other connections linking more stars, planets, life, death and beyond. He could see much. And he could see how to destroy it.

All he need find was the Shatterpoint. That nexus of lines connecting one thing to another that when smashed brought all built upon it tumbling down. Everything and everyone had one; even the Grand Master. But his enemy; the defilers of Antei, the humblers of a galaxy, had none. At least none he could see and he could see very far.

The officer made to speak thinking Sarin had perhaps not heard him, lost in reverie or perhaps speaking with spirits, but he was silenced.

“Fifteen percent casualties, flight officer.”

Stadle unconsciously loosened the collar biting at his neck. That the Grand Master already knew the casualty figure was not surprising. What did surprise him was that he was still alive. Ten percent casualties had been the threshold for this mission template. The meld simply wasn’t effective enough yet. Even without the benefit of a yammosk, the enemy in this sector were seasoned veterans of the Vong’s core-ward campaign and were formidable nonetheless.

Uncas had dealt with the Jedi before; they would brook no excuse. “With your permission, my lord, I will debrief the pilots and immediately resume training.”

“Dismissed.” Sarin did not turn from the window. His mind was consumed with the variables of the Brotherhood’s progress since their defeat. The efficacy of the meld would improve. Soon it would be that his forces would be a match for the Vong. But to retake their home would require resources. Resources he did not yet possess, but soon would.

Beyond this however, he needed leaders capable of employing the resources he provided them. Of late, leaders were scarce. The war had taken many from Sarin’s fold; if not through death, then by those nameless ills that take those seemingly unscathed by war long after the guns have fallen silent. The Brotherhood had been so affected that Sarin found himself turning to the past in order to look to the future.

Names of warriors thought fallen to obscurity had risen again to the fore. Braecen Kaeth; once-Consul of Scholae Palatinae had been charged with bringing young Plagueis to the level of its peers. Syn Kaek; Adept, stalwart, again Master at Arms. Anshar Khan Tarentae; former Headmaster, now returned to his clan in order to unify, train, and lead those of the old guard. Finally, Jedgar Paladin had returned from the nether to add his blade to the wall of warriors struggling to defend what remained of the Brotherhood.

With these and others Sarin could plan. He could calculate what was necessary, what could be spared, and what sacrificed. All things went to the effort of mending what had been. The Brotherhood would heal. It would re-create itself more powerful than before. Not with words. Not with grand promises left unfulfilled. It would do so through that which any force in peace or war had become accustomed to in victory: blood and sweat.

Even now Sarin received regular updates from those charged with exacting these most valuable commodities from the newly re-organized Army of the Iron Throne. Disarray had been supplanted by discipline. Weakness was forgotten and strength introduced. Organization and efficacy now ruled; and pain, as in many things, had been the path to it all.

Sarin would officially review the army soon. He did not anticipate disappointment.

Noting the time, Sarin finally turned from the viewports and stalked off the bridge deck of Nightfall leaving the hub of activity behind. In an adjacent ready room, the Grand Master moved to the head of a long conference table fashioned in the old Imperial style. A small metal base rested on the table covered with a dark cloth. Removing it, Sarin beheld the ovoid shape of a Yuuzhan Vong villip. The living communications device everted to reveal a mass of wet, pulsating flesh. Revealed, the creature’s delicate musculature contorted until it mimicked the tortured face of a Yuuzhan Vong Sarin had come to know well over the preceding weeks.

“Grand Master,” the villip intoned with minimal distortion.

“Volngah,” Sarin replied and sat down.
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