Where the streets are wild [GR dominion for Denon]

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

He stalked with two long strides for three of hers, keeping shoulder to shoulder – or, rather, shoulder to elbow – with the Commander as they made for the lower deck. He vocalized his assent, trusting [member="Khallesh"]’s judgement of the battlefield. Though his doubts were many, and deep, Kur-gal remained unshakably certain of a singular truth; Yuuzhan Vong knew how to make war.

“Good. Let them feast on the infidel carrion,” he ground out viciously, rows of fangs gnashing as they sliced perfectly through the syllables of his native tongue. Almost as if he’d been engineered for it.

With a final bow of the head, the Slayer pivoted on the spot and moved to intercept the group of Warriors now under his command, leading them towards the gaping maws of two Yorik-Trema. The passengers and vessels alike were afire with excitement and zeal as they filed into the waiting bellies, neat, orderly lines, just like they’d been trained.

Kur-gal felt it the moment they took off; the need.

It grew even stronger and more pronounced as they plummeted towards the world below, scoring the skies with two angry red lines as they caught aflame in their descent. This mattered none to the men and women inside, who were mostly muttering their appeals to Yun-Yammka in expectation of a magnificent battle.

Or, failing that, a magnificent death.

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]
District Seventeen

The small war host appeared in realspace over the planet. Small, manoeuvrable cruiser-analogues drew fire and tempted ships away as much as they could, before the carriers appeared down a new vector to disgorge the troops. Coralskippers darted through the upper atmosphere, some descending towards the surface and leaving chaos in their wake.

Khallesh never enjoyed the moments in a transport on the way down. For these moments she had no control over her destiny at all. Was that a heretical thought? she wondered. Perhaps the Yun'O would let her feet hit the ground if they desired it, but then it was the warrior's arm that decided the fight. Was it the Republic soldier's aim from the ground that now decided hers?

Soon. Soon she would be on the ground and at least resume the illusion of controlling her own destiny. The chazrach were jittery, they'd been out of battle for too long. Nothing like a trial by fire and if they refused to go forwards, then the sting of her arachnostaff would find them.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

Upon touchdown, the Slayer was nigh-offended to find that someone had already done an excellent job of demolishing half the infrastructure and setting the rest on fire. It wasn’t in Vong style, either; someone had beaten them to the punch.

Ineffable, almost, but true. Their pride stung – he could see it reflected in the eyes of the host with him – and spurred them on into carnage so atrocious that the writer couldn’t possibly put it to paper. Or keyboard, as it were.

The thirteen Warriors, doing what they were born and bred to do, went on to show the upstarts just how urban warfare was to be conducted. The Dragon at their fore did his best to embody the title bestowed upon him during training, many Escalations ago, and tore through flesh and ferrocrete alike in his effort to grip at the beating heart of the planet.

They fanned out, slaughtered whatever ran into their path, then regrouped again, exchanged honors paid to the Yun’O, and continued straight ahead.

By the time the rest of the Yorik-Trema joined Kur-gal’s vanguard, a radius of some two hundred meters in every direction had been reduced to naught but smoke and rubble, with a few bloodied limbs sticking out of the smoldering ruins at odd angles. Magma seeped slowly into the ground around the living vessels as Yaret-Kor gorged on the soil and rock below, spewing it back out white-hot at the edifices that still clung to their foundations for dear life.

Not for long.

[member="Khallesh"]​

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

Khallesh meanwhile, barely a kilometre away, was busy gathering civilians. A particularly tall building houses several hundred civilians. Males and females in their prime, perfect to be turned to thralls.

As they fled in terror from the building, chittering Chazrach herded them into the waiting transports. One of the taller human males made a run, but Khallesh was before him in a flash. Just a gentle back hand by Yuuzhan Vong standards, but humans were such fragile things. He appeared to still be alive, but Khallesh had no interest in checking. The Chazrach carried his limp form away to the transport regardless of his state.

"There are still lifeforms in there, on the upper floors," Subaltern Jakere Val reported.

"Let us go and encourage them down."

Across the world small pockets of Yuuzhan Vong forces were gathering civilians for thralls before the resistance could be mounted. The world had already been in the chaos of revolutions, it would be no easy job to coordinate the removal of the Yuuzhan Vong, especially as they had released some spare beasts in densely populated areas. An interesting choice for the military, save the people from being torn apart by beasts or mount a strategic resistance.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

He was pulled from his trance and the bowels of a particularly ballsy infidel with a rough grip on his shoulder, spun around, and socked straight in the face.

Which, were he a human, or even a normal Hunter, would’ve been all well and good. A crushed arcade, swollen eye, that sort of thing.

With Kur-gal – much to the misfortune and chagrin of the attacker – all his fist met was teeth. Lots and lots of teeth, jutting out of his blood-red gums like jagged black rocks of a reef. With the flanges of his split maxilla flaring in a display of irritation and anger, the Dragon lashed out in return, twisting the hungry edge of his blade into the stomach of his foe.

A gurgling, hissing sound escaped his lungs as the aging soldier slid a few inches further along the poisonous sword, reaching weakly for the Slayer with twitching fingers. The Vong shoved him off with a sneer, eager to get away from the accusatory look in the man’s gaze. They were burning homes today; killing mothers, fathers, children; letting loose the beasts of war upon the unprotected populace of Denon.

Then again, it was what he’d been made for.

What was their excuse?

[member="Khallesh"]​

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

Ever the patient hunter, Khallesh waited. Her fingers twitched, her lips kept curling up into a snarl, her arachnostaff flicked its tail in frustration. But she waited. A scout had spotted the armour airspeeder approaching. She heard the warning in her air.

Khallesh turned and ran.

Tenth floor of the building, reinforced glass window already removed. Khallesh ran and she leapt. The armoured speeder rushed up to meet her and she landed as lightly as she could, but it still dipped under her weight before the repulsors could adjust.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

Some sort of commotion erupted above him, and Kur-gal craned his neck to locate the source of the ruckus.

A coralskipper had crashed into an incoming freighter, and now the entangled mess of infidel machinery and Yorik coral was spiraling at breakneck speeds right at the Dragon, already spitting burning bits of flesh and metal as it streaked through the sky.

Before he could find out what Yun-Yuuzhan felt like, one of his Warriors pulled him aside and into a ditch – well, more like a crack in the ferrocrete, to be perfectly honest – and there the four Vong lay piled one on top of the other in a glorious, grisly mix of blood and gore that belonged to neither, waiting out the inevitable.

A breath later, the screeching fireball sailed over their heads and came crashing into a building just behind them, demolishing what little still stood. Hungry plumes of flame erupted from the wreckage, and the war host made haste out of the district to avoid the fire that had already begun spreading with a rapaciousness reminiscent of the Shaper beasts unleashed unto the streets.

Speaking of which… Kur-gal shot out his arm and grabbed onto one of the spikes of a passing Vaghrokka, swinging onto its back with the smooth fluidity that could only be gained through extensive practice.

Like so many times before, the towering Slayer flattened himself against the scaly torso beneath him and held on with an infernal grin.

This had only just begun.


[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

Holding one arm out, Khallesh set her balance against the rushing wind before drawing herself up to her full height. The moment she heard metal screeching against metal her arachnostaff made its way down her forearm to her hand. The human who appeared behind the laser turret was impaled on the sting of her staff.

As he slipped back down Khallesh followed him with quick, agile steps. A glob of fire jelly followed him back down the the interior of the vehicle. Khallesh slammed the hatch back done after him, already feeling the hot glow of the burning substance.

The screaming was blood curdling. As the nose dipped she set off again. The speeder had only been slowly cruising, looking for the Yuuzhan Vong who had landed. If she remaining any long she wouldn't have the luxury of departing a slow vehicle. One leap took her to the building on the other side, a razor bug shooting out ahead of her to smash the window. Behind her the speeder dropped like a stone. The fierce heat of the jelly would rapidly turn metal to fluid. Internal components would be failing, including the crew.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

Meanwhile, the Dragon and his team were doing a damn fine job of cutting a swath through the slum district of the city. Igniting the cobbled constructs that passed for houses around here was child’s play, and so they did just that. The fires were already reaching sky-high by the time they reached the border of the dingy neighborhood, and found it to be walled-off.

How… distasteful.

A few blast bugs took care of the problem in short order, and the group filed through – missing one Warrior, who had perished under an unfortunate collapse – ready to move on to richer targets. The district ahead was replete with sprawling manors and villas, and peppered among them stood the towers of glass and metal that infidels loved so. If he’d picked up any more of their habits, Kur-gal might’ve thought they were compensating for something, but the Slayer had avoided that particular cultural influence.

Instead, he simply ordered them demolished.

[member="Khallesh"]​

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

Now the locals were mounting a resistance. Khallesh knew they couldn't tarry, but for now she could indulge herself until the Republic arrived with a larger fleet. The soldiers were approaching cautiously. Some provided covering fire whilst the others closed. She had to restrain her group from charging. They were clearly attempting to goad them into coming out into the open. Vonduun could only protect against so much.

Instead she left two hunters cloaked and hidden as they fell back. When the support group has passed them she gave the order. That repeater fire that held them back came to an abrupt halt. It was replaced by panicked shouting.

Chazrach charged first, absorbing the brunt of the enemy fire. Khallesh swung her wide in a wide arc to fling a razor bug into the fray. The enemy platoon started to panic. Just two well placed Hunters to ruin everything for them.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

On the other side of the city, another Vong was trying his hand at a balancing act while enemy fire streaked through the air around him. With his poison-weeping blade in hand, the Dragon was truly a sight to behold.

A sight whose terrifying impact was slightly ruined by the pink dress that had caught on one of the horns of Vaghrokka and just wouldn’t fall off.

It had stopped irritating Kur-gal after a few minutes – though only because he had better things to do – and already it had earned the unfortunate mount in question a rather derisive nickname from the fellow Warriors riding alongside it.

Just as well.

The Slayer refused to worry about such trifling things while imminent danger loomed, and so he dug his heels even deeper into the soft flesh peeking out under the shifting chitinous plates. It sent the creature beneath him flying into the fray, tearing at the infidels with its sharp claws and teeth as it jumped over their hastily erected cover.

Doom was here.

[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

She rounded an overturned airspeeder, knowing there was a pair of riflemen on the other side still reeling from the flashbug. At a subtle shift of her fingers the arachnostaff hardened into a spear. It was flung, overarm, at the human who looked most likely to shoot. The teeth clamped down on his chest and only then did the creature turn flexible again. It curled about and slammed its stinger into his belly three times. Khallesh kept pumping her legs,

She leapt as the second man raised his rifles. Her agility allowed her to land a two footed kick to the chest. More agile, yet also nearly thirty kilos heavier than the man she sent him reeling. Khallesh landed on all fours, looking back over her shoulder as she drew her coufee.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

The war cry tore out of his throat with a mighty bellow, and then the Dragon was upon his foes, fighting tooth and nail to make it past their armor. They were wearing vests and some basic plate, but it was all sloppily pulled on, as if the Vong raiders had caught them with their pants down.

By the smell of things, that exactly what had happened, and given the expletives gracing the air every now and then between screams of agony and the wet crunching of bones… then yes, the infidels in question were well and truly karked.

Kur-gal gored his immediate opponent with one of his horns, impaling the woman through her unprotected neck as she tried to move out of the way. Trying to pull out, the Slayer found to his dawning horror that the bony protrusion was quite stuck, which wouldn’t be all that important if he were engaged in single combat.

Seeing as he was stuck in the thick of a melée, his situation was several factors more severe.

Grunting with effort and displeasure, the man simply reached over to rip the pesky head off and gain freedom of movement once more.


[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

In lieu of any serious opposition, Khallesh was now playing with her food. Her arachnostaff had coiled up on chest of the other trooper. He twitched in the final throws of a lethal, venom-induced seizure. Her arachnostaff looked quite pleased with itself, but perhaps she was projecting. She slowly stalked towards the other one, waiting for him to get back to his feet. Such an ungainly creature. No poise, no balance, no strength. They gathered up the dregs of their society, gave them arms and called then soldiers. Pitiful.

He turned to bring his weapon to bear. Khallesh grabbed the rifle with her left. Instead of bringing the blade home, she bent her right at the elbow and slammed a forearm into his head. Rifle clattered to the floor, human stumbled away. Khallesh slid off her helm and left it on the ground. Her eyes flicked between the man's face and the combat knife at his belt. After a few moments he seemed to get the message into his thick skull and he slide the weapon free. Finally.

Khallesh circled, waiting for him to make his move.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

He was just a second too late, however, and no sooner had he released the bloody skull into the fray with a splaying of his claws, the Dragon felt a bullet sink into the flesh of his arm. It burned like his muscles after his first Escalation, tearing a black trail through the thick hide before shredding the rest of the flesh as it shot out once more.

The Slayer keeled over, veins bulging against his pale skin, and gnashed his teeth.

Arryn Slade, Private first class, lifted his weapon to fire again, but he, too, was a second too late. He’d been counting on the beast to be incapacitated by the pain long enough for him to reload his weapon, but such wasn’t the case.

Instead, he met the business end – front? – of a Vonduun Skerr Kraetos, along with all the associated hissing goodies that happened to spew fire too.

There was no word for overkill in the tongue of Yuuzhan Vong.


[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

Khallesh growled in frustration when the mewling pustule kept backing away. That only seemed to send him back-pedalling even faster. When his back hit the wall of the building behind him it seemed to spur him on into action. Perhaps the cornered creature would offer more sport.

In the periphery she could see other Yuuzhan Vong milling around. This platoon had offered far too little resistance. At least when they moved into the next area there should be some more preparations in place.

The human slashed out and Khallesh backed away, letting the blade swish through the air just inches from her midriff. A clumsy stab followed, and she stepped off line and used her elbow to push it wide. In return she offered a backhand that sent him staggering away.

"Come on!" she barked in their tongue. "Come on."

This time the human's face seemed to screw up in rage. He launched himself forwards, stabbing and slashing. Always Khallesh danced away, only once using the flat of her own blade to block metal. Eventually she tired of the game. His arms seemed to be growing week. He overextended himself and she stepped aside. Her foot found the back of his knee and drove him down. One hand grasped the front of his helmet, the other drew the blade across his throat. A bright arterial spray followed and the man slumped to the ground. Some sport was better than none, she supposed.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

The shot went high and plinked rather insignificantly off the sturdy Yorik coral of a passing Yorik-Trema. Not that Private Slade ever lived to see the uselessness of his last action, mind you. The last thing he ever saw or realized was instead that the fangs of Slayers are awfully sharp, and that Kur-gal’s oral hygiene could use some work.

Extracting his dripping jaws from the soldier’s flesh with a snap, the Dragon drew to full height once more. Glancing at the bodies twitching and writhing all around him, he observed with no small amount of pride that none of them were his people.

The Warriors in question stood off to the side, cleaning their weapons or digging out bugs from the corpses – or soon-to-be-corpses, anyway – while others still were already scouting ahead for any other potential enemies on their way.


[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

"Anything of interest in your sector?" Khallesh called into her villip. She was going through the others in the District one by one. Certainly, the Yammosks were coordinating, but they wouldn't understand that she was simply bored loading civilians into transports. It was a vital job. Already thousands had been spirited away. The Shapers were likely already planting surge coral to turn them into compliant workers.

Local law enforcement were in no way prepared to deal with the threat of Yuuzhan Vong Warriors. Khallesh had expected the Republic to attend, even if they hadn't the time to stand up some garrisons. She had hoped perhaps a Jeedai or two, but that was simply wishful thinking on her par.

Those warriors of legend were few in number, but each she met was a test of skill beyond anything else she could find on the battlefield. Probably would have shamed myself through being out of practise, she told herself.

 

[Kur-gal Kwaad]

Basic and Vongese curses slipped out under his breath, staggered off his tongue, and faceplanted in the corpse-littered streets of the city. In the distance, a fire was consuming what he presumed were the remains of someone’s attempt to induce greenery and foliage to the ferrocrete vista. It was being turned into char at an alarming rate, the hungry red flames eating away of what little had been there in the first place.

His arm stung worse than an insulted Sith, and the stunt with the horn earlier had earned him a pulled muscle.

“Not really. Some scattered militia, but that’s it.” Used to be it, to be exact. They were all dead now.

“Should we continue?” By now, Kur-gal presumed they’d gotten enough of everything they’d come to collect, but the counting side of the whole warring business had never been his strong suit. He’d been made to swing a sword and look menacing, and little else besides.

[member="Khallesh"]

 

[Khallesh]

[member="Kur-gal Kwaad"]

"Load up transports until we receive more orders then," Khallesh replied. Disappointing. Then again she probably shouldn't have been hoping that his position was nearly overrun and he desperately require reinforcements. Khallesh returned to standing and watching her troops file civilians into transports. The great organic ships swallowed them up into the dark chambers within twenty at a time. Yet soon she felt the subtle touch of the War Coordinator. Her villip buzzed.

"The spaceport has shielding and is holding. We need more ground troops. What can you assemble Khallesh Val?"

"There is little fight left here, the chazrach can remain with some Thrall Herders and continue. We are almost at full strength."

"Excellent. Position sent for coordination with Commander Feskt Lah will also move into position on the far side. Their shields must be brought down before we can destroy the landing platforms."

"Understood," Khallesh replied. She swapped the ooglith that connected her to the next rung up in command for the one that broadcaster to the commanders below. They had a strict hierarchy, but the Yammosks coordinated everything with incredible efficiency.

"All forces embark and move to new location being sent. As fast as the Yun'O permit, I'm not getting there and attacking after Commander Feskt Lah!" she snapped.