Queen Ahsoka (Book 4, Yuuzhan Vong War)

On a Vong Ship 2

Letho's POV:

Letho ordered some of the Shrike and the dropships with the invisible SWAT on board to try seek entry into the Vong ship, by following the Coralskippers. He wanted to go first and inspect matters before the others followed. Letho had never been inside of a Vong ship and he had no idea, what was to come. The returning Coralskippers approached the side of the ship, in particular a section with a lot of circular spots in a row. He followed a Coralskipper and getting closer it all looked like a line of elephant asses. At short distance, they were more like giant elephant asses. Currently a number of asses were open and the Coralskipper picked such an open hole and vanished into darkness. Letho wondered, what would happen, if some giant elephant shit would come out right now? Much to his disappointment nothing the likes happened, instead he had to make sure to get in as well. The inside, was a barely lit tube in which the Coralskipper came to a stop. Letho had to be careful not to bump into the Coralskipper, yet to completely be inside the tube. Soon, the rear of the tube closed and one of the displays in his cockpit showed, that an atmosphere built up within the tube. Once the atmosphere in the tube had reached life supporting levels the inner side opened. Letho hoped not to get into the colon now. He had little motivation to inspect the digestive system of a Vong ship. Despite his expectation, he entered a well-lit hangar. Looking around he quickly decided to bring the Shrike to a corner right below the ceiling. There was no air traffic at the upper edges of the hangar and the risk of a Vong ship bumping into his ship, was pretty low. Having figured the mechanics of entering a Vong ship out, he instructed his team to follow the Coralskippers into the assholes. The dropships had to look for bigger assholes than the Shrike. Then wait within the tube for atmosphere to build up and after the inner side opened, enter the hangar and park the ship in a corner below the ceiling. It took about 10min. until his entire team reported being inside the hangar. In the meantime, he had time to scrutinize the hangar section he was in and how the Vong operated it. The hangar was not as big as he had expected and it led him to believe, that there were many small hangars instead of one big one. Likelyhood would have it, that his team would get separated into various hangars. The inside was not square and white like hangars on manmade capital ships were, no it had rather round edges and uneven surfaces. The walls were covered with white and yellow blooming flowers, while the ceiling was emanating light. Unexpectedly, it was quite beautiful. Bigger plants grew in some places and they seemed to bear fruit. Two tunnel like pathways provided for access into other parts of the ship. Instead of air trolleys and lorries animals transported materials and goods. He had never seen such animals, at least he believed them to be animals. One kind was donkey like, the other more like a big centipede with a flatbed. Each animal was accompanied by a number of beings from this galaxy, probably slaves the Vong captured. Few humans, a good number of Wookies, some Twi'leks and Togrutas. It was a bit weird, that the same species always got enslaved: foremost Wookies, Togrutas and Twi'leks. In this part of the hangar, two Vong coordinated the work of the slaves and animals. The slaves tended to the incoming Coralskippers, cleaning them, caring for injuries and feeding them, while the pilots quickly left via one of the tunnels. The two Vongs seemed to discuss something and from their gestures he figured, that two Coralskippers were missing. Looking at the arrangement of the Coralskippers on the ground, two spots were empty. The Coralskippers were neatly set next to each other kind a like angle parking, with two spots still empty. 16 would find space in here. There was the asshole he had come in through at the rear and another one at the front. Most likely, one was for entry and the other for exit. Given the lengths of the asshole tube, two or three Coralskippers could fit into one at the same time. One of the Vong now left through a pedestrian tunnel. Letho believed, he had to seize this moment. He ordered his team to remain in their ships for the next 10min. Silently he opened the cockpit of the Shrike and exited. He pushed himself off his ship and his intention was to smooth the landing with the force. Unfortunately, he did not slow down during the 8-10m fall from the Shrike to the ground and he barely managed to engage the jetpack right in time. His landing was hard, but he did not brake anything. Obviously that landing was not only clumsy, but also loud and attracted the attention of the Vong. The Vong did not see him, but he approached the spot where he was, where the noise had come from. Letho stood still and remained silent, light saber drawn. The Vong came closer and eventually bumped into him. That moment, he turned the light saber on and cut the Vong's head off, then immediately turned the light saber off again. Some of the slaves had watched the Vong and obviously seen the light saber light up and the Vong losing its head. With their companions, they started to discuss what to make of it. Letho had to make sure, they would not raise an alarm. He decided to force jump over and reveal himself by turning the cloaking off. Well, the revelation worked, but the force jump did not. It reminded him, that the Vong were abandoned by the source and the force must have limited if any effect even inside the Vong's ship. In the traditional way, he walked over to the slaves and greeted them in basic: "Hi there, I'm Letho, a Jedi from the New Republic", he lied to make them more comfortable, "I assume, you are the slaves we came to rescue?" In case they truly were slaves, the chances they would help him would be high, in case they were Vong substitutes, he had to massacre them as fast as he could. If these guys tried to cry or in any other way raise an alarm, there life would end quicker than they could think. These ones were within the force and the force would warn him.