Note: And here is where the fun begins...If this makes abseloutely no sense to you, you need to be looking in my blog history for the first post like this (of the same title). You will also find past chapters there :)
Thanks for reading if you do, and if you do, please review.

As I Die

Chapter 6





Worldship Baanu Rwrnn - 172 years ago.

The loud, shrill cry permiated the thick, fleshy walls of the damutek's birthing chamber, piercing it's membrane and echoing out into the crumbling chambers beyond. This worldship was in a state of severe disrepair, it's inhabitants doomed to a slow agonizing death, when the vessels' days were numbered - which would be soon, if Supreme Overlord Quorreal sat idle too long.
Many of the older worldship's inhabitants had voiced on many an occasion, that the new galaxy - of which many an scout had mentioned in supposedly confidential meetings with the dread one - was their only chance at survival for the majority of their species. Left to languish out here, the warriors turned on each other, thirsty for war which they could only simulate in blood-feuds and domain disputes. Such pleas had fallen on deaf ears, the ageing Overlord had sent many to their deaths for daring to voice such concerns.
"Look to the Gods," he had said, "look to the Gods for guidance, they would show the doubtful the true way."

Within the birthing chamber walls, a shaper busied herself in tending to the rooms only other occupant, who was laying propped up on her elbows, knees drawn up as she sweated and growled her way through the process of giving birth. Like all things Yuuzhan Vong, pain was the mainstay of this event, and the shaper tending to her pregnant female, would have no more offered her something for the pain, than the woman trying to embrace it would have asked for such things. Pain brought them closer to the Gods, it was cleansing and this female, the shaper knew, would need all the cleansing she could get.

During the earliest stages of her pregnancy, the secrets of this female's heresy had gone unseen, but as the klekkets went by, she could not deny the abhorrently obvious truth. She was a shaper herself and as such, knew the act that she had partaken in - though it had not been entirely of her own free will - was forbidden to her, let alone the one form of shaping denied to shapers of her rank. Yet the gods had sought to teach her a lesson in servility, bestowing upon her the very product of forbidden shaping, before long, it was too late.

She held no form of love for this child's father, he was as self serving as he was cruel - and that being half the reason of their union, was why she could feel nothing but contempt for him. This child was a permanent reminder of that hatred, a stain upon her domain and would be denied ascension into the shaper caste, she had seen to that herself. The shaper wanted nothing more to do with this child, or their father, she would not tarnish her domain name any further. Indeed, once this task was over and done with, the priest's ornate sacrificial coufee awaited to open her veins and return her to the gods for her final, eternal punishment.

The young female would not pray for leniency, only that whatever horrors and agony awaited her in the afterlife, that the one partly responsible for this, would face the same atrocities tenfold, for what he had brought upon them.

When what seemed like all the agony in a thousand worlds would overcome her ability to embrace it, a loud mewling cry broke the uneasy sounds of laboured breathing and grunts of stifled pain.

The tending shaper stepped forward, one serrated finger-tool outstretched, to cut the crecheling free of it's umbilical cord, wrapping the infant in a pre-prepared living cloth as she went. After a while, she glanced down at the exhausted female beside her - she had once been her colleague.

"It is a healthy male," she assured the rather stony-faced female, "You have a son."

The bedraggled female closed her eyes, head lolling listlessly to one side, she gestured with one hand uncaringly - sight might hold sway over her feelings, and she could not afford that now.

"Take it away,"

The tending shaper's headdress knotted in a sudden surprised motion, serpentine tendrils remaining rigid as she glanced from mother to son and then back again.

"He will need a name and it is not my place to provide one, his domain - "

The other female cut her off sharply,

"-is not my domain," she said "he will have his father's domain name, he deserves no less."

The onlooking shaper, restless crecheling in arms, seemed to bristle some, who was this heretic to think she could order her around?

"And his forename?" she persued, unable to keep the irked nature out of her voice.

The crecheling's mother turned to look at them now, gaze flickering to the still-mewling infant. Her eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment or two, then suddenly cleared again as she came to a final decision.

"Nom," she replied with much clarity, mulling over the way that sounded in her mind and on her tongue.

The shaper's tendrils were a picture of chaotic confusion - had she heard right?

"Nom?"

She did of course know what that word meant, enemy, more specifically 'enemy of a people.' Yuuzhan Vong were a species very much into giving their offspring symbolic names, but this? This was a carefully thought out subtle insult if uttered in the right context.

"Yes," the other female reiterated, "Nom Anor."


*****

Present day.

'Crack - splash!' The sound of Nom Anor falling from his precarious perch and into the belly of the maw luur, would not be heard by those working furiously outside the space-hardened corpse. However, the tormented agonistic cries he issues as he plunged, face-down, into the acrid, corrosive stomach acids, would be heard clearly. There was no denying this pain, be you Yuuzhan Vong or otherwise, and had he not been assailed by it, Nom Anor may well have wondered why this was not used as a means of torture.

Abominably poisonous, searing chemicals tore into the outer skin of his ooglith cloaker, ravenously disintegrating it in a matter of seconds. It then began to eat away at Nom Anor's own flesh, causing the skin beneath to crack and blister repeatedly, as it attacked all that it touched. The gnullith lasted only long enough for the former prefect to dunk his whole head into the festering pool of biochemical fire and then raise it again, it burned away the fragile flesh of his ears, leaving only raw cartelidge in it's wake, the delicate lids of his eyes too, at which he was unable to resist balling his burning fists, in order to rub the veracious enzyme-laden liquid away - lest he lose his vision.

The venom spitting plaeryin bol was not so lucky, as when he had raised his head, Nom Anor felt it detach it's self as it died and then plopped into the chemical soup with a sizzle. His plan was not to render himself disabled, only that he be rendered unrecognisable.

Surging liquid fie continued to burn his nerves to smouldering embers, every torturous second a new level of agony more unthinkable than the last, he could no longer hear the sounds of his own self torture...his vocal chords had been shouted into raw oblivion.
And then he felt something latch onto his blistering shoulders, yanking him free of the effluent pool with a force that sent his weeping skin searing with a new torment - that was when Nom Anor, though he forbade it in mind, lost himself to a state of woeful unconsciousness.

*****

Miid Ro'ik cruiser - Yammka's Punishment - Yuuzhan'tar/Coruscant orbit.

The first thing he became aware of, was the smell, or more accurately the acrid stench. Putrid as any festering shamed one, yet almost overpowering in it's raw form.
The next thing, was the rasping sounds of tense, hushed voices arguing nearby. For a considerable length of time, Nom Anor could not remember what, exactly, his plan had been, nor why he lay here, limbs splayed out undignified on the knobbly surface of the miid ro'ik cruiser's deck. That was until, of course, he felt the searing, blistering pain return to assault his nerves, and the intendant was forced to grit his teeth unbearably hard, in order to stifle his grand discomfort. The stench was, he realized, coming from himself, a miasma of burning flesh and digestive juices that made the bile rise in his throat.
Now he remembered every last moment of his ordeal, from entering the mouth of the maw luur, to the final moments languishing in tense silence as it's festering stomach juices bubbled up from below, almost taunting him, daring him to do what he had done next.

He had been found though, that was one minor triumph, though now the former prefect knew his fate rested partly in the hands of those who had found him. It was a bold and dangerous move Nom Anor had thrust his hopes into. The warriors who had retrieved him, would surely be aware of the fact that he was not Shimrra by now - there were few ways to replicate someone of that sheer immensity, and none of those ways took anything short of years.
Nom Anor was shorter than most, far too short to be mistaken for an overlord, even a considerably horrifically burned one.

What he was banking on, was that his descent into the dead maw luur's digestive acids, had disfigured him enough to be beyond recognition, even by Yuuzhan Vong standards. The intendant was rather infamous, for one reason or another, even among his own kind and his re-defection would not have gone unmissed - nor unreported.
Yet the fact these warriors had not slain him outright gave him some hope, and if it would not have burst boiling blisters upon his irreversibly marred face, he may have found the cause to smile.

The gnullith that had protected his vulnerable throat, lay dead and stiffened -starfish limbs arcing up in the in - a few meters away, he noted as he dared to crack open a scarred eyelid. His vision remained relatively unchanged, light blinding him for a second or two. Beyond the gnullith, lay the decaying maw luur, much worse for wear after it's sudden space adventure. Before it, Nom Anor could see the booted feet of warriors.

He closed his eye tight, listening to their incessant bickering, effectively deciding his fate with their quarrel.

"Subaltern, you will inform Commander S'khim Vorrik of what we have discovered here." piped up a rather stocky female of the same rank as who she was addressing.

The subaltern to which she had spoken, drew himself up unimpressed by this females petulant lack of respect, his imposing form towering over her by several inches. She remained steadfast, equally unimpressed by the male's intention to intimidate her.

"You hold no authority over me, you pulled this shamed one from the maw luur, you should inform him!" He rumbled in outrage.

A dark smouldering fire seemed to burn in the female subaltern's eyes, incensed she managed to control her anger well, though she too, took a step forward threateningly,

"Inform him of what?" She hissed icily, "That we were unable to locate the Supreme one? That we recovered instead, his familiar?! This is unimportant!"

"-That is not his familiar." A new voice intoned curiously, and the pair of subalterns - now inches away from each other - turned to face the new speaker, incredulous.

A far younger warrior, of slighter build and a tight knot of black hair adorning the top-most point of his slanted skull, approached with confidence.

"I was present at the slaughter of the heretics, at the place of bones, I observed Shimrra rejoining his entourage...and his familiar, this is not him."

A long, tense silence ensued, during which, many wayward glances were cast from warrior to warrior, all had the same burning question licking flames at the back of their minds. But it was the first subaltern only, who had the courage to ask what she did next.

"Then who, is that?" She pointed a quivering finger in the direction of Nom Anor,

"One of the heretics?" The second subaltern suggested, and each warrior present, snarled in distaste.

"Stay your hand!" A voice filtered out from the crowd, just as the female subaltern had taken several steps towards the acid-burned figure still prone on the floor.

"It may withhold information about what has happened here, dread Lord Shimrra may yet live! If we sacrifice this shamed one now, we may never learn his whereabouts." The voice explained.

"If he lives, why send a shamed one to do his bidding?" Yet another new voice rasped.

The exchange continued, much to the annoyance of both subalterns, but it was during this time that the tactical villips upon both subaltern's shoulders, everted to convey some devastating news.
Unlike normal, free-standing villips, these were smaller, bioengineered to convey voice only, much like a secure comm frequency.

The rowdy warriors continued to argue amongst themselves, some even issuing challenges over the matter, all unaware of both subaltern's slowly darkening expressions of purest incredulity.
Ashen-faced, aside from the deepest blue of their eyesacs, slowly they tried to make sense of the words they had heard from their commander. They had been words conveyed down from Warmaster Nas Choka, passed to them through S'khim Vorrik, ordering them to do likewise with their own subordinates. The orders had barely left S'khim Vorrik's tattered lips, before the sounds of him opening his own veins with his coufee sounded through the villip also - a second later, the creature inverted, taking with it the gurgling sounds of death.

The first subaltern opened her mouth to relay the last words of their Commander, of their Warmaster, realization still slowly descending into her mind like drizzle.

There was no hope, no glory awaited them in the afterlife....

Neither subaltern had noticed now, that all eyes were upon them, nor would they have cared if the circumstance had been any different. And when the male did notice, he too found difficulty in forming the words to speak upon his own tongue.

"Word from the Warmaster...." he paused, disbelief staining his every thought, "Stand down, we have failed. Those of you who cannot face the disgrace of surrender, may take their own lives accordingly."

Realization took a moment more of everyone's time to slowly dawn upon the small group. Cries of anger, disbelief and denial, filled the air, all intermixed with a palpable and veracious anger that seemed to tear through the large chamber- a stark pre-emptive metaphor for what was to come.
This was followed by the sounds of coufees and amphistaffs tearing through flesh and bones of their wielders, anger-saturated death cries cursed the heretics, some cursing Shimrra, his madness and his betrayal of the gods too.

And from his unforgiving resting place, Nom Anor watched it all, embraced by an inner anguish of his own.

TBC.