Chapter One

Sang Anor gaped his mouth open and allowed the gnullith to snake it's tube down his throat while it's starfish limbs sealed around his face. The air in the subterranean caverns was supposedly clean of disease, but he was taking no chances. Nom Anor, similarly attired, held his hand up inches away from the coral wall. A slender tendril protruded from the living seal, it unsheathed a needle-stinger and stabbed through the ooglith cloaker that covered the young Vong's hand to taste his blood. Recognizing the one before it as authorized to enter, the orifice opened and the two Yuuzhan Vong stepped into the tunnel beyond.

The seal snapped closed almost the instant they were through. Nothing in this place would be permitted to escape, and the ooglith cloakers both Vong wore kept them safe from infection. Dozens of large caves lines either side of the tunnel, all of which were sealed with walls of clear gel, hardened until it was strong as transparisteel.

The tunnel was lit by lumin bugs that crawled along the high ceiling and the thermal energy given off by the crasso fungus on the rocky floor made caverns that would have been coated with ice instead merely chilly. The world the infidels called Sevac III had another use than as a seed world: the subterranean caverns in the arctic poles were idea for housing some of the Shapers' more 'sensitive' material. Pathogens that Sang Anor was uncomfortable keeping onboard the worldship in their experimental stage.

If, by any chance, the hosts carrying the microscopic spores escaped their containment the sub-zero weather and lack of life for hundreds of miles in any direction all but guaranteed they would not infect the coral fields growing far to the south.

The many small side-caves in the main tunnel were not natural, but had been shaped by acids excreted from some of the Vong's creatures. Each 'cell' was large enough to comfortably house one being.

'Comfortable' being a subjective term.

A little over half the cells were occupied by various sentient species, beings the Yuuzhan Vong had taken prisoner before setting up shop on this planet. Humans, Miashku, Torgols, a few others, each species held widely different traits, but one common thread linked them: they were dying.

Some had disgusting boils and growths on their bodies. A human's limbs were so twisted he could barely move, and would have been howling in agony if his lungs weren't slowly collapsing in his chest. Some lay on their backs and moaned in delirium while others reeled and staggered around the room in psychotic rages.

One fur-covered being had torn ragged gashes in it's face and body with it's own sharp claws, striking at insects it could feel under it's skin, and on seeing the two Yuuzhan Vong it roared and hurled itself at the gel wall again and again, leaving bloody stains on the surface. Neither Sang Anor nor his son paid the thing any mind.

The Shapers had taken the ones who were already dead to the tunnels below, and were engaged in taking them apart a little at a time to find out if the pathogens had worked as they were designed to.

This was no place for warriors, but Sang Anor felt slightly relieved to get away from the worldship. Since his failed attempt on Admiral Thrawn's life had resulted in the deaths of three warriors including Hren Silra, one of his best operatives, his life had become intolerably difficult. Besides all the planning for a campaign that the future of the invasion could very well hinge on, he had been beset with more private concerns as well.

His condolences had gone out to Hren Silra's wives and children, with full ceremonies to make up for the inability to recover his body. That didn't keep his door from nearly being broken down by five very angry Yuuzhan Vong females and all their respective children above the feenir stage demanding to be put on a ship and sent out to avenge the death of their lord and recover his body for proper immolation.

Of course, since two of the wives were yet with child they demanded that the others bring back the perpetrators alive as well so they could share in tearing them apart. In many ways, Yuuzhan Vong females were even more bloodthirsty than the males.

Sang Anor had vetoed this proposal, naturally, and there was little they could do about it aside from take up more of his valuable time. As Executor, he had final say in all familial matters between the Yuuzhan Vong in this galaxy, and even the priests had to bow to his judgement. He had the authority to delay, pause or even call off a blood-debt of any kind between families, and they?d had no choice but to but their feud aside. But after placating this branch of Domain Silra, there was still two other families to deal with.

Blood feuds between families and divisions of families had always been a problem for the Yuuzhan Vong, and had stopped them from uniting to dominate their own galaxy for countless centuries, despite all the efforts of the priests. In the end, it had taken the Cremlevian Wars and the legendary Yo'gand's victory to settle this dispute and make it clear that familial matters were secondary to serving the Yuuzhan Vong race as a whole.

At the end of the tunnel there was another seal, which opened and closed the same way. Beyond it was a larger series of tunnels and chambers, and enclosed within those chambers...was a greenhouse.

Beneath the snow-heaped surface, plants from hundreds of worlds back in Home Galaxy thrived in climates ranging from desert to tropic. The soil in each gel-sealed chamber was different, as was the light they basked in, for the lumin bugs in each chamber glowed with a different light of the spectrum just as the moss raised the temperature to a different degree in each.

"Very impressive," the gnullith vibrated and reproduced his voice in the air, "but are many of them are ready for use in real conditions?"

"For the most part, I would say yes." Nom Anor walked along the gel-sealed caves. "The gulo spores, certainly." He indicated the plump growths at the bottom of a scum-lined pond. "But the mwre and seeln might not take." He went on, explaining how each of the diseases reacted on various hosts and in the different environments the Shapers simulated. Sang Anor listened with half his attention, cataloging and filing what he said.

A small smile crept across his hidden face as he saw Nom Anor's eyes flash with excitement. In many ways, the young Vong took after his mother, and that did not displease Sang Anor. Although Lyrra Anor had been a Shaper, she was as vicious as any warrior when her blood was up. His eyes grew distant as his wife appeared in his mind's eye, her body a glorious masterpiece of lacerations and tattoos. She had given him his favorite scars, and it was in times like these he saw her in Nom Anor.

It had pleased him that his son would show such a strong aptitude for his mother's work. Of course most Yuuzhan Vong males are expected to be warriors, the Executor's son most of all. Truthfully, a Yuuzhan Vong male who chose to become a Shaper was generally considered less of a man, and so the shaping of spores was officially just Nom Anor's hobby. Unofficially he was probably more skilled than any Shaper in this galaxy.

Sang Anor grimaced as he realized he was close to sighing like a smooth-skinned youngling. Instead he remembered how he had found her three years ago and fury nearly choked him. The Jedi had ruined his schemes more than once, and that was the least of the hurts she had done him.

By now she had undoubtably told Grand Admiral Thrawn everything she knew about the Yuuzhan Vong, jeaprodizing the entire invasion. His eyes narrowed as he recalled his report to the Overlord via his villip, at how close he had come to being feed for the Vong creatures himself. It had taken some fast talking to convince the Overlord that all blame lay at the feet of Sang Anor's predecessor, the original Executor, in allowing Vergere to escape in the first place.

Not that he had cried out his innocence and said straight- out that it wast he other's fault, of course, that would only have made Sang Anor appear all the more incompetent and dishonorable. No, he had only given the bare facts, but in just the right way and with the proper inflections and emphasis to make it 'clear' that Sang Anor himself was faultless. After which he had put forward his plan to deal with the infidel threat, to which the Overlord had reluctantly agreed.

Sang Anor's eyes gleamed. He could yet survive, and more, he could gain the power and rank he craved: to be the master of this galaxy, bowing only to the Overlord. And who knows, perhaps become the Overlord himself one day...

"-so it is these eight that have the best chance at success." Nom Anor finished. "Fast, large-scale infection and all but incurable." He strode back to the Executor's side.

"I will have the Shapers prepare samples to be taken to the worldship." Sang Anor watched with cold eyes above the starfish arms. "You have all that is needed to replicate them onboard?" Nom Anor nodded. "Good." Prefect Ke'Nass, along with his supporters, had been transferred to the surface of the seed world to begin their own important mission: quelling the primitive natives. Sang Anor could be confident in proceeding without the Prefect's bumbling.

He surveyed the chambers and all the many deaths they held, and lifted his hand to clasp his son's shoulder. "We can begin in earnest."