Open Space and Hyperspace

"That's fine by me," Dice finally conceded. "You both have my permission to come aboard - we've finished clearing some space in the hangar."
The Venator's bay doors had finished opening after a series of mechanical failures along its length was finally rectified by repair crews. A few V-19 Torrent fightercraft launched, gliding around the Venator gently, keeping their distance from any shuttlecraft. Any party who boarded the Victores, if they did so without incident, would be greeted by a squad of twelve Clone Troopers in late Clone Wars armor, along with the captain himself.

"That's right," Dice replied. The clone didn't remove his helmet, keeping the red and white plasteel armor set intact. Though his hands didn't reach for any weapon, the clear form of an S-5 heavy blaster pistol was visible on the right of his waist, along with a somewhat uncommon vibroknife. These items were not entirely standard issue for the time, and told of a commander who chose to lead from the front, rather than the safety of a bunker or bridge. By far, however, the most intriguing thing visible on Dice would be the third weapon placed on his belt - a real, authentic lightsaber. The likelihood of his knowing how to use the exotic Jedi weapon were very, very slim, but to an observant man, it told a story of loss, and the fact he may be even more out of his depth than previously thought. Not too long ago, it seemed he wasn't the person in charge, and now he was entirely alone in terms of leadership.

"Thanks for being expedient. I don't want to risk giving the ship's problems time to worsen. I imagine there's more you want to discuss than the state of my ship, though. I've had a meeting room prepped a corridor down from this hangar section." As Dice spoke, Vasili noticed the uncomfortable shifting and ticks of habit kicking in for the clone troops when they saw their more modern counterparts. They clearly didn't like the sleek, red soldiers for a variety of reasons that Vasili could only guess at. The feeling of being replaced, the fact of time moving on, or maybe the clones were smart enough to associate aesthetic with purpose - threatening and sharp with none of the softness and reassurance that they were on the side of the good guys.
As the engineers were off-loaded, their clone counterparts approached them near immediately, showing them holo-tablets loaded with a long, long list of problems that needed fixing. Ignoring the confusion and shyness from first contact and immediately trying to head to work, it was a trait that was quite apparent and shared among the clones.

"The ship's hyperdrive needs fixing, along with its shield generators," Dice admitted, a lot more freely now. A sudden confidence had taken him. "Once those problems are fixed, we can probably limp back to a spacedock. We can't do all the repairs with available staff and onboard equipment. We've also got some parts of the ships that weren't as well preserved, which has disrupted power flow across the ship. Some rooms and sections are just...dead. Half a century and over, dead."

The Clone engineer nodded to Padrea, sharing a glimpse at his vintage datapad with her. "Yes, ma'am. We need you on the upper aft decks, near and with the hyperdrive. That section of the ship has had the worst of it. Our chief engineer's already on it, but we need him to handle the rest of the ship, so taking the hyperdrive off his hands might speed up repairs in other places.

Dice looked away from the Vice Admiral, and waved towards Padrea. "Director! If you'll join us to the conference room?"

Vanqor.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace above the planet and moved into a low orbit and six transports headed for the surface. Dropping down to a few thousand feet the pilots watched their sensors until they were able to see what they were after. Clusters of life forms between 1 and 2.5 meters in size. This happened to be near a cave system as expected.

The transports swooped in and the warriors inside surged out before the transports lifted off again a few dozen meters. Warriors formed lines facing both directions and advanced on the caves. Howling came from the cave and was immediately answered from the areas around and four armed two legged red humanoids came charging out, some waving rock hammers or sharp sticks. The warriors responded by halting and reaching into pouches and flinging blorash jelly at their attackers. The gundarks, having never encountered the jellies before were quickly anchored in place, not being subdued but howling and and swinging all the more, which just got them stuck quicker as the jelly claimed limb after limb. The warriors facing the cave, two thirds, moved around the stuck gundarks and into the cave. The warriors facing the other direction, countered the returning gundarks with the same method as they trickled in. Inside the cave the females charged the warriors, who again used copious amounts of blorash jelly to capture every creature there. It was all over in a matter of minutes. This wasnt a hunting expedition, it was a military strike. Something these warriors excelled at. Twenty seven gundarks were bound with blorash jelly and moved into a transport which headed for the matalok. The other five moved off towards another location that the matalok had pinpointed and repeated the process. After a hundred gundarks give or take had been captured from seven different tribes scattered about had been captured and taken to the matalok did the transports all return to the matalok.

The matalok turned and jumped into hyperspace.

……………..

Jagomir.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the green, blue, and white planet below with coralskippers popping off of the ship to scout ahead, slipping into the atmosphere.

As the ships flew looking for a suitable landing spot for the matalok a number for aquamarine and black creatures with four wings flew up and around the coralskippers, zipping by the matalok.

“It seems sir that you were correct,” remarked the captain.

“It would seem so. These creatures will be an easy acquisition. I would prefer to gather younglings and or eggs if possible. Reports said that the creatures would share in hunting if they received some of the kill. So lets put that to practice while we gather information on them.”

“Do you think that they are that intelligent sir? We could just grab a number of them now.”

“That is true, but if if they are so intelligent and willing to work with strange beings then they are easily domesticated. If so they may help us on other hunts, on this planet or others. There is another creature that we are here for. We will see if the reports all of the creatures are true. Order the coralskippers to locate some kind of herd animal and make a kill. The warriors are to carry half of the kill up in to the air and drop it for the creatures. Have everyone observe the creatures and begin tracking them.”

“Yes sir.” After relaying the orders the captain asked a question. “Is it wise sir to be away from base so often or so long?”

“We arent at war anymore. The risk is considerably smaller than it would be otherwise at any other time. Now is the best chance to gather undisturbed.”

In the four hours it took to find a landing location for the matalok, the azurdactyls were had already grasped that the coralskippers would share food with them, and new creatures that flew in soon started actively seeking out other creatures, leading the coralskippers and their superior catching ability to them.

Esthh watched the map of blaze bugs, representations of glowing mights and insects buzzing about representing coralskippers, animals they encountered, and the azurdactyls movements. It quickly began forming traces, repeating patterns of the creatures locations. The map that was being painted happened surprisingly quickly. Azurdactyls that had eaten large amounts flew off to specific locations, usually cliffs or very tall trees to rest, and the coralskippers flying about kept an eye on them. Coralskippers flew slowly by cliffs and the senses of the coralskippers were capable of seeing young in nests or sitting on narrow clefts in the cliffs. The azurdactyls acted aggressively when a coralskipper started wandering too close, and the coralskipper would veer away. He nodded, pleased with the progress. He ordered the coralskippers to return for the night. They would begin again tomorrow. The azuredactyls seemed to be quite full at the moment, not having been fed before, and not used to such a glut of food.

The next day they began again, the coralskippers cruising slower and lower, further out from the matalok, looking for prey for the azurdactyls and scanning for the other creature that was being sought after. Esthh was once again watching the map take form and noticed that there were areas that seemed to be avoided by the azurdactyls, or at least the creatures tried to lead their apparent coralskipper partners away from. These areas started forming circles, or roughly circular areas when accounting for terrain. Looking at the information being sent from the coralskippers it seemed to be swampy areas, which is what the information claimed these animals preferred.

He ordered some warriors into transports to go and see what they could find. The transports started in the center of the area and slowly started scanning further and further, spiraling out, though it didn’t take much to find the nests by scanning for life signs. The evarrian were not small creatures, at four meters they were quite good sized, and it seemed that when the transports hovered over the nests other evarrians, likely hunters or warriors, seemed to move back towards the nest, giving the warriors an increased reason to believe that they had found what they were looking for. Not taking chances a transport dropped six vagh rodiek out of the back and onto the swampy ground. The handlers remained above but within command range, though little prompting was needed aside from attack, for the attack was mutual. The four meter long armored insects surged out of the muck towards the intruders, stabbing and biting at them with poisonous dagger limbs. The fight was brutal and quick, and not one sided. Evarrian when a vagh rodiek got a good hit or hold, were crushed or pierced and wiggled and writhed violently, desperately trying to stab or bite their attackers to defend their hive. The vagh rodiek that were on the receiving end were pierced and their muscles started failing immediately, but they continued to battle their foes with violent desperation. Having drawn out the creatures to great effect the handlers and supporting warriors started flinging blorash jelly at the giant insects to slow them down and even threw a few blast bugs in order to subdue the survivors. When it was over it truly looked like a battle had occurred. There were in fact no survivors a the transport touched down and warriors moved quickly but carefully to collect the bodies of every creature involved. Their was a pair of prizes, several eggs that had not yet hatched and a dead queen. The warrior in charge had no doubt that these first specimens would be useful in capturing more of the creatures in the future. They loaded up and returned to the matalok.

Esthh and the shapers examined the bodies, the venom’s effect on the vagh rodiek being of great interest. The dna sequences of the evarrian and their bodies were examined and it was determined that without drawing the creatures onto dry land, it was just going to be a bloody fight without much more finesse. Talking with some of the warriors a new plan was devised to limit the damage done to the evarrians for live specimens and using fewer resources.

Blast boulders and transports were sent out for other nests. This time the blast boulders moved lower and drew the attention of the hive, occasionally firing a shot near the nest to stir up activity before using their capture tentacles to grab an evarrian and yank them up into the air where a warrior from the transport would toss blorash jelly on the struggling creature before it could get free. This was repeated again and again until all the defending evarrian were picked up and neutralized and on their way back to the matalok for the shapers to administer a drug concoction to render the creatures safe before going into hibernation. The transports then landed and raided the nests themselves for eggs or anything else. With the unintentional help of the azurdactyls and the coralskippers fifteen nests were discovered and collected in this way over the course of several days.

Having looked over everything that seemed of interest it was time to gather azurdactyls. It was quite easy, the azurdactyls had gotten comfortable with the coralskippers and their proximity, even coming down to feed next to a coralskipper sitting on the ground at a kill. The animals had been tracked to their resting places repeatedly, mapping parents to adolescent animals and after the animals had been gorged heavily the coralskippers struck in pairs wrapping the creatures up in capture tentacles without warning. With three squadrons of coralskippers eighteen of the creatures were grabbed in the first strike, but really they were the last ones of the day, the majority had already returned to their roosts far away and did not witness what had occurred. The matalok lifted off and made a quick circuit to collect the beasts before freeing the coralskippers to move off in the failing light with the blast boulders and matalok drifting after them, allowing them their lead. The coralskippers however did not go empty handed, having drifted close to the breeding grounds repeatedly over the last number of days they had even carried parts of their kills with them, several of the daring pilots tempting the wrath of what had been determined to be typically the females, to toss food to the young along the cliff ledges. The coralskippers approached closely this time and tossed their offerings towards the ledges and moving in closer when the young started eating. It didn’t take much, the biggest issue was the adults that were still capable of flying. The young had been gorging over several days with more food than they had ever seen and would never see again, their minds and gullets screaming that food was good and they had become quite lethargic with little energy for anything but sleeping and digesting already. When the coralskippers grabbed adults when the matalok was not far off, the blast boulders moved in, along with the transports. The blast boulders grabbed even more azurdactyls and the transports simply moved up to the ledges and warriors captured the young with the use of blorash jelly, others moved to pick up eggs that had yet to hatch, bringing them back to the transports. When all the screeching and flying and flapping was all said and done. Nearly fifty adults, almost the same number of adolescents, and almost as many eggs near hatching were collected.

The matalok, having all the creatures collected stored with the rapidly filling holds and spare areas, moved back into space, and leapt to hyperspace.

…………..

Gigor.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the planet dropping its fighter squadrons that went in front of it, followed quickly by a handful of blast boulders not far behind. The matalok followed its fighters down into the atmosphere allowing them to scout. There was little of note on the planet and so resistance was not expected. No this cold windswept mountainous world was home to a beast that Esthh did not understand, a creature with interesting powers. He assumed that it was something to do with the Force, and in that sense the je’dai, but he couldn’t prove it...yet. If it was true however...it could and did run in bloodlines...bloodlines that could be traced, and manipulated...something the Vong did not have or have access too at this moment in time. It was a common species for cold worlds of the so called known worlds, at least common enough so to speak, a species that had been seeded on a number of worlds as livestock for milk and fur and occasionally meat. An interesting thought, that creatures with such supposed powers were domesticated so, perhaps it was all a lie...perhaps not.

The coralskippers fanned out above the ground sweeping down the mountains and through the valleys looking for their targets, it took some time to locate them, but when they were there was little mistake from the descriptions. The creatures were large, quite large, with horns and tusks and stripped fur. The best description would be a creature the size of the bantha, just with cold sand instead of hot.

The matalok moved nearby and set down still several kilometers away from the herd and Esthh stepped out into the cold making his way across the snow until he could see the herd and watched. He tapped his forearm and the communications creature woke up and made contact with the captain of the ship.
“Send a rodiek from the trees up towards the herd. I want to see their reaction.”

Fifteen minutes later a vagh rodiek emerged from the trees and charged towards the herd screaching. Esthh watched with his maa’it implants as the herd shifted towards this noisy creature charging them. The largest animals, the bulls shifted to face the threat as the females shifted and put the young in the midst of them. As the rodiek got close the bulls roared and then the snow and dirt and rock jumped towards the rodiek from the herd and bowled the rodiek backwards a number of meters.
Esthh’s eyes narrowed as the vagh rodiek got up and charged again, and again the creature was bowled over as if from a wave from the herd. The rodiek charged a third time, this time digging its legs into the dirt and its claws into the soil and was only scooted back, its dug in digits ripping up the soil in furrows. It roared in triumph and surged forwards feeling as if it was making progress, this time it gained more ground and the herd roared and a wave of much greater strength ripped out from the herd as half of the bulls roared and the vagh rodiek was tossed all the way back to the treeline.

“Enough.”

The vagh rodiek stumbled to its feet and started towards the herd again before pausing as if listening and then turned and moved back into the forest. The creatures watched and snorted for a bit and then slowly returned to grazing, using their long tusks to uproot the snow to expose the dry forage underneath, several keeping an eye on where the vagh rodiek had disappeared to.

Esthh sat back in the snow and contemplated what he had witnessed. It was fantastic. He wasnt sure exactly what had happened, no that wasnt correct, he KNEW what had happened, he had seen it, but he had never personally witnessed it. The beasts had demonstrated what he had heard of je’dai doing. Throwing someone or something back with just their mind. He wasnt sure if this was a use of the Force that the je’dai and sitii tapped into, but unless there were some other explanation, then he would have to accept that it was true. If that was in fact the case… How to examine the problem.

He stood and started back for the matalok.
“Find me herders.”

It took two days to find locals that seemed to be herding the jakobeasts, and they were understandably not welcoming of outsiders, considering the way they had been treated by others before. In the meantime Esthh had his shapers prepare ooglith cloakers and his warriors to study everything they could find on herding and controlling the beasts. There was much but it was scattered and fragmentary. It seemed that they were not a cherished animal for those that wer in the bastions of strength in the galaxy, but rather those that were on the fringe, and those people were not always the best at recording their information where it was accessible. It seemed that word of mouth and traditional knowledge would have to fill in the gaps.

The ooglith warriors contacted the herdsman claiming to be settlers but had been unprepared and the animals they had brought had died. They had seen animals but had not been prepared to domesticate them, they had attempted to hunt one but been thrown back. They begged for help and were taken in and cared for. The warriors offered their services and worked tirelessly and began learning the ways to domesticate or at least control the jakobeasts. It took three weeks for the warriors to feel confident that they could handle the creatures. They were, unsurprisingly not that different than most other herd creatures. The largest difference was simply their defense mechanisms. The jakobeasts acted like any other beast and would trust their masters, even to the slaughter, but would react violently against an unknown or always hostile threat. With the colonists help they went out and rounded up two herds of jakobeasts. Thanking the herdsman the warriors departed with their new charges.

Over the next several weeks the warriors herded the jakobeasts as they had learned and slowly introduced Vong warriors and slowly removed their own ooglith cloakers, transitioning the jakobeasts to being used to seeing the Vong as their masters. With the acquisition of their own herds and having already gone through bodies with the colonists during butcher time and having the shapers run scans on them, even butchering and vivisecting them, they were unable to describe an organ or group of organs that was directly responsible for the beasts ability. They were able to ascertain that the horns of the creatures seemed to be able to focus the energy somehow, but beyond that they were unable to figure it out at the moment. Esthh was forced to accept this for now, but with a starter herd and with the knowledge and ability to obtain more, it was time to leave Gigor. The jakobeasts were herded onboard the matalok, and the matalok headed for space, jumping shortly into hyperspace.

……………………...

Cholganna.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved down towards the planet, gently being welcomed by the, to the matalok, the warm and moist atmosphere.

Coralskippers, blast boulders and transports immediately set out through cool temperate forests, flying low and seeking their prey. This was a sparsely populated world with barely a million sentients who were concentrated in a handful of cities. The planet was rich in wildlife, typically dangerous wildlife. Hunters frequented the planet for Nexu, that large feline with four eyes and a fearsome reputation. Esthh was not so interested in the creatures as their genetics were well cataloged within the invasion corridor. On this visit they were looking for something else. The prey of nexu, or one of them at least. Esthh sent out other teams of warriors with bissop hounds, not the ideal creatures for this sort of work but it would have to do, along with escorting tsik vai fliers for support or rapid movement if necessary.

It didn’t take long to locate a first specimen and warriors quickly directed the bissops onto its scent as the creature swung through the trees. Warriors set the bissops in motion as the tsik vai grabbed at the creature from above. It was a cephalopod, an Arboreal Octopus. The creature swung through the trees and branches as the bissops howled in half excitement half confusion as they were not completely certain what they were tracking and they had to scent from the air instead of the more traditional ground. A tsik vai was lucky and speared one of the creatures. The creature furiously wrapped around the offending thing and tried to bite it and tear it out of itself. The tsik vai lowered to the ground and the hunting party quickly gathered to allow their bissop pack to scent the creature fully, searing its scent into their limited memories. The hunters and their packs set off again as the tsik vai flew to each group and let their bissops smell the still struggling creature before returning to the matalok to deliver the first specimen to the shapers.

With the smell now in the lizard hounds minds they were quicker to find what their master’s wished. Soon their howls and wails filled the forest, growing further apart as each pack chased its prey. It didn’t take long to find a school of young ones, likely hatched not too long before, and the tsik vai unleashed their netting beetles which quickly started tying everything to everything else ripping through the trees quickly. It didn’t take long, the netting beetles came in from all sides and even the very leaves were halted in place by the netting beetles strands. The immobilized creatures were quickly gathered up from the air, their instincts trying to make them climb higher to avoid nexu and other ground based creatures. At least most of them. There were of course aerial predators but the sounds of the bissops had them scattered high and made easy picking from warriors riding on the tsik vai’s wings. The shapers quickly vivisected some of the creatures and looked in their entrails, testing the plants and other foods in their stomachs. Word was quickly relayed to the coralskippers and blast boulders who quickly tuned biots towards those things and concentrated on those areas. It didn’t take long to more efficiently track down other young. Soon it was discovered clusters of eggs, dangling from trees near freshly hatched creatures, trying to catch the the tiny things did prove to be somewhat difficult at first, but it didn’t take long to obtain millions of eggs, suspended in the near upper area of trees near waterfalls or heavier areas of fog forming and higher humidity areas, even some found in pockets of water in trees, or small pools in rocks. Other adults were captured and their genetics sampled and the creatures studied for their needs. With the large amount of netting beetles being released it didn’t take much to do a quick survey for any other creatures that might have been captured in their unintentional nets. Loud screeching led them to a number of nexu and quite large reevo, who took some warriors by surprise by knocking them over with powerful streams of water, much to the laughter of other warriors, but only lightly as they realized that it could easily have been another matter entirely had it been acid, poison, or something molten. Possibly deadly mistakes.

With the creatures loaded up and all the warriors and craft recalled and returned, the matalok once again lifted off and headed for space, jumping to hyperspace not long after to its next destination.

…………………….

Bogano.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into the planet’s atmosphere. It was a beautiful planet, virtually untouched by industrialization. Savannahs, sinkholes, scattered forests, a beautiful planet. There were mentions of it in imperial archives and imperial surveyors had mentioned a number of interesting creatures, one being quite resistant to stormtrooper weapons. The matalok settled onto the planet and coralskippers were sent out to scout, Hunters were dispatched to seek out their prey, tsik vai whined off and groups of warriors headed out with bissop packs. With three squadrons of coralskippers and a squadron of tsik vai made things quick. These animals had never seen such things and did not know how or even why they might hide. The vast majority of them had never had a reason to fear anything from the sky. The bissop packs were another story, searching in places where the airborne warriors could not, and the Hunters with their cloaks of nuun looking in even more places.

The first find was by a tsik vai flying over a broad marsh, the creature was small but clearly a predator, and from its reaction wanted to do nothing more than eat the tsik vai, which made it easy prey for the crafts arrest tentacles. The creature was quite upset and tried to grab the tsik vai with a shockingly long tongue. After delivering the struggling and screeching creature to the shapers, the tsik vai took off again. Bound with blorash jelly the shapers and warriors immediately went to work sampling the creature, confirming quickly that it was the Oggdo that they had been told to look for by Esthh and the hide was extremely durable, on par with a vonduun crab’s resistance, but without the specialized crystal and energy matrix. It was their opinion that there was a potential for the creature was quite impressive. With the first capture and examination out of the way, the coralskippers and tsik vai were directed over the marshes and it didn’t take long for just over a dozen of the creatures to be captured and returned, already in blorash jelly, with especially their mouths sealed shut.

Satisfied that enough specimens had been gathered for a decent genetic representation, Esthh ordered the matalok back into space, and into hyperspace to their next location.

………………

Ottethan.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the planet, shedding its coralskippers and blast boulders to range ahead of it and look for their targets. There was only one reason that they had come to this planet. Rancors. The large intelligent beasts were found on many worlds and in many different forms, these were nothing special, they were as far as Esthh knew, the mildest variety of them, simply standard Rancors. They were also well documented which made their life signs easier to calibrate their sensor biots for. Rancors, being the alpha predators on the planet made them likely unafraid of anything, which made it easier to find them...well relatively speaking. The coralskippers had to cover several thousand square kilometers before finding a rancor. Once detected a pair of blast boulders quickly arrived on scene to use their added capture tentacles to grab the beast who roared in defiance at the offending flying things. Warriors jumped out with modified tkun, though much larger, nearly ten meters in length and the size of one’s wrist and quickly started binding the creatures feet and arms together, rapidly drumming small creatures, the sound causing the binding snakes to tighten to a certain point. Once secured a blast boulder picked up the rancor and headed for the matalok as the coralskippers continued searching. It didn’t take long to locate a second rancor and repeat the process. After the second one was secured all the coralskippers and blast boulders returned to the matalok and the ship headed back into space with its cargo now happily sleeping in the hold.

Not long later the ship leapt again into hyperspace.

………………….

Unnamed Planet.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and headed towards the planet with coralskippers leading the way. The planet did not have a name, all it had was an imperial survey number tag and an entry from the survey team. The survey had one interesting mention, a large carnivorous creature. That was only half of it Esthh assumed. For such a large carnivorous creature and from the description seemed to be primarily an ambush predator, not unlike many in the galaxy, there would have to be equally large prey animals on land, and likely, from the armored description, other large predators on the planet. Regarding the planet, a large amount of it appeared to be desert with long deep interconnected lakes or fjords. The planet was uninhabited and the survey team had not reported anything of interest that might draw colonists...or perhaps not draw colonists with a near certain death wish if such predators were in fact on the planet.

The coralskippers fanned out ahead, quickly locating tracks for large animals in the ground. It didn’t take long to find them, the beasts were massive, easily larger than a rakamat, by over a hundred meters, in fact it was larger still, almost 200 meters. The beasts appeared to be herd animals with over a dozen of the beasts moving along eating large shrubs, but without stopping. The amount of energy that the beasts had to consume to stay alive was mind boggling. Esthh wondered about this and set the shapers to task to start finding out how these massive animals stayed alive on what seemed to be not nearly enough feed. After six other herds had been reported he ordered one herd to be killed for vivisection and another to be driven slowly towards the water where the carnivorous creature had been reported. Other coralskippers were ordered to obtain dna samples from the other herds and then rejoin the main effort.

It never ceased to amaze Esthh of the small minds of many of the species of the galaxy. A creature was dangerous if it were big, but if one had the larger tools, and economy of the size of the force wielded, the task got smaller. One didn’t try to take on a planetary defense with a handful of warriors. One did so with a fleet of ships with large weapons. So it was with many of the beasts that the hutt had asked of him. The hutt had a small mind if he pictured Esthh sending hordes of Chazrach and Vong warriors to physically subdue such large beasts. It could be done of course, but without knowing what chemicals the creatures would react to and be subdued by it would just be a massive waste of resources and using the incorrect tools.

Once the coralskippers had returned their samples to the matalok they were sent out to fly along the waterways and sandy areas looking for the giant beasts that they had been sent to find. The surveyors had called the creature a Dinosaur Turtle, whatever that was to them it seemed to be aptly descriptive. The coralskippers began density scanning the shores and waters, looking for areas that did not match up with the background of the rock and dirt, and underwater plantlife, which seemed to be in abundance.

Esthh went out with the team of shapers to examine the large herbivores while a herd was driven towards the water. At the current rate it was projected that the beasts would reach the water in a day, nearly 300 kilometers away, which was quite impressive but large legs did cover ground much more quickly. Esthh stepped out of the transport and next to one of the giant saurians. It was impressive, with six legs, the middle set apparently helping to support the massive weight of the creature. Esthh and the shapers started examining the creatures, and quickly found out how the beasts were able to survive on such scrub. The plants were nutritious, at least for the beasts, but high in silicon, and with further testing it appeared that the beasts absorbed sunlight as their primary energy source, and the silicon plants were merely a way to create the energy gathering materials needed so that it could be fashioned into what was essentially highly efficient solar collecting cells on the beasts broad backs. The beasts had potential, he would keep it in his back pouch.

One of the coralskippers reported that it had discovered an anomaly consistent with large buried eggs at the edge of a cliff near the water, and not long later reported that there was another anomaly in the water a few kilometers away. Esthh looked at the map on his light creature. It was quite far from where the herd beasts would reach water, and frowned inwardly. He ordered coralskippers to look where the herd would reach the water and then reboarded the transport and ordered it back to the matalok. He alerted the matalok to be ready. If he could bring bait to the creature...if it was the creature he was after, then so be it.

An hour later found the matalok bearing down on the nearest herd and reaching out with its arrest tentacles to grab what they now knew was a large male. The beast was a decent load on the matalok, but the dovin basals had the strength to pull the matalok from the grasp of a planet, and do so at speed, the arrest tentacles also were made to grab fleeing starships capable of the same and weighing hundreds of thousands of tons. Such a creature, despite its size in the animal kingdom, just wasnt going to win. The matalok carried the struggling creature to the beach near the suspected nest, which was tucked up against a cliff where it appeared that the crumbling sandstone cliff had been pulverized and drug out over a shallow hole that the eggs had been laid in on the sand of the beach. The beast roared and stomped upon being released. Coralskippers reported immediate movement of the underwater anomaly straight for the beast as it splashed and thrashed against the single capture tentacle holding it in place. In mere minutes a beast could be seen in the water, making a wake as it moved, the bow wave rippling the surface as the creature charged and sprang forward to grab the larger herd beast. Arrest tentacles snapped out from the matalok to grab the creature who immediately started rolling violently to its right. This only helped the tentacles really, serving to only wrap the beast rapidly in the firm tentacles. What it did do to the herd beast however was rapidly rotate and flip the creature onto its side before ripping the leg that had been bitten out of its socket, tearing the skin underneath and pouring the creatures blood out into the sand and water. The cacophony was incredible even through the yorik coral of the hull.

“Move the matalok back over land.”

The matalok moved back over land, picking up the still struggling beast who refused to let go of the herd beast that made a large trench in the ground as it was dragged, still bellowing and struggling. The ship shook slightly as the dinosaur turtle managed to get a clawed paw on an arrest tentacle and pull against it, pulling itself even tighter into the tentacles embrace. The matalok moved a kilometer away from the water before setting the beast on the ground, selectively releasing arrest tentacles to rerwrap them in a better way to control the rapidly exhausting creature. When all was said and done there were four arrest tentacles around the creatures tail, and two on each leg and two around the muzzle. The herd animal was released and it staggered away before collapsing, shuddering and breathing heavily in pain and trying to recover its energy. Shapers and warriors were dispatched to begin vivisecting the massive creature which was no easy feat. The sheer size of the thing making the tools that they had simply not suitable for such a task. It was however what they had. The tough hide that resisted amphistaffs in most areas required different means of entry. The chazrach got the short straw for this task and had to enter…less armored orifices in order to get into the creature to start dissecting it without damaging weapons fire, or acid from grutchins that might damage something that the shapers wanted to see.

Esthh was impressed with the creature, but had not forgotten another important find. Operating on the assumption that had yet to be proven that the creature was protecting a nest he dispatched warriors to dig up and collect the eggs from the nest and a squadron of coralskippers to keep watch for more of the creatures that might come to defend or take advantage of a missing guardian.

It took six hours before the shapers were certain that the arrest tentacles could be released safely. It took another two days to completely dissect the creature to the shapers’ satisfaction. The warriors and shapers collecting the eggs, took half the amount of time, but spent the rest of the time taking environmental samples to make sure that the eggs might be hatched. Using ultrasonic biots the shapers determined that the eggs were not far from hatching, but could not say how long it would take as they did not know the life cycle of the animals.

Esthh decided it would be good to collect another adult, preferably a male and after moving the injured herd beast to several locations over the course of four days, they finally got their break, ironically enough it came from the herd they had driven towards the water originally, and then driven along the shores when they located another of the creatures. Using the same tactic of baiting the creature up to the shallows the matalok captured the beast and it too was dissected. Two more nests were discovered and both were carefully raided without alerting the creatures that were not too far away. With forty eggs and dna samples and an understanding of adults, the matalok climbed back into vacuum and jumped into hyperspace.

……………….

Socorro.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the volcanic planet below, aiming for the slightly cooler extreme latitudes. The planet was one of the hives of scum and villainy and so there wasnt a challenge to the Vong’s arrival, though Esthh knew that one could kick a proverbial hornet’s nest if one tried to strong arm. He did intend to find a hornet’s nest, or rather a kind of wasp.

A blast boulder and a transport headed down to the planet. Heading for a bar called the Black Dust Tavern.

Esthh walked into the bar with a pair or warriors, the result couldn’t have been much different had he fired a blaster, the place went still and silent. All eyes and most bodies were shifted towards them as hands slowly drifted towards weapons. Esthh glanced around and then held up a sack and tossed it in his hand a few times letting the sound of credits clink, clearly heard in the silence.

“I am looking for a guide. I want to go hunting. Animals, not anyone’s friends. Who wants to earn some credits for a safari?”

The mood shifted, it was subtle but noticeable. There seemed to be a collective pause and then a wave of relaxation seemed to move through the patrons, ever so slightly but the relief was obvious.

“What are you looking for and what are you paying?” a voice finally sounded alone.

Esthh turned to the youth on the edge of adulthood, who clearly could use a few good meals. His rough life on this rough planet had not been kind to his upbringing so far.
“A thousand credits. I am looking for Chiru. Six nests. You also don’t have to participate beyond locating active nests.”

“A thousand credits for that? Not a problem. I don’t know why you want nests of those. I hope you have something to keep them out, when you mess with their nests, they really call in the clans.”

“That will be taken care of. Are your willing to take the job?”

“I think you’re crazy, but yeah. I’ll point it out, and then when you get done with it, I’ll meet you back here. I don’t want to deal with those critters when they are mad. My credits?”

“You’ll be paid per nest.”

“Fair enough, lets go.”

The young man led them out of town and pointed at a tree where a large bulb hung from a tree. The activity was obvious even from over two hundred meters. It looked like a cloud or fog around the nest. Esthh handed the young man a small stack of credits and the young man shook his head.
“Good luck. See you back at the tavern.”

Esthh and his warriors shifted in their specialized armor and the vonduun crab contracted slightly, sealing its hard protective edges. Esthh took out a kind of living sack and the trio started towards the nest. At a hundred meters the cloud seemed to notice the intruders and the cloud became a buzzing solid mass that seemed to spew into the air to the point where even the tree couldn’t be seen and moved towards the Vong. Esthh and the pair of warriors continued forwards as a hailstorm of Chiru flew at them, coating them and trying to find a weakness in their armor. The creatures began to slow them down and it started getting warm with the hundreds of thousands of bodies and vibration. Esthh reached up with the living sack and enveloped the nest, forcing the paper nest off of the sturdy branch, the weight of it bearing him to the ground as he closed the sack round the nest. Once the living sac was closed the pair of warriors shook the living creatures in their hands and threw them to the ground. Billowing smoke immediately filled the air as the creatures burned through the chemicals within them. Chiru by tens of thousands started dying and falling out of the air as the insect poison killed them on contact. When the breeze finally blew the poison cloud away, the three were left standing in literal mounds of 2.5cm sized wasp-like insects with stingers nearly the same length. Esthh looked down at the dead insects that mounded up to his hips. He tapped the sealed bag next to him and put his head to it, even through the sealed armor and the bag he could hear buzzing, letting him know that the creature had done its job in keeping the nest alive and safe from the insecticides. The blast boulder arrived not long after to pick up the nest and resupply what was needed.

The day went quickly and at the end of it there was a young man that had a thousand credits, and a happy Vong with six nests of prolific wasps.

………………………………..

Drongar.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into a low stationary orbit over the Jasserak Lowlands and dropped four transports which headed for the surface of the planet.

The planet was an unimportant one, not that it hadnt been important before. Records indicated that it had been quite important just before and during the Clone Wars, but no longer. There was quite a bit of literature on the planet as once upon a time there was a plant that was more important than even bacta, which for this galaxy was quite impressive. While samples of this plant would be taken it was apparently the very nature of the plant that had made it so desired, and then made it undesired. Ironic. The planet was covered in jungle and its species were in ever continuing evolutionary warfare, really the perfect story for the Vong these days, Esthh thought acidly.

The transports set down in the jungle and warriors and shapers immediately started gathering samples. One of the samples appeared to be spores that was trying to eat at one of the transports with only limited success. Reports had said that the spore layers they had flown through wreaked havoc with filters on the old mechanical ships of the time. Chazrach spread out, some standing in water up to their knees. Esthh noted a bright purple plant of some kind in a small field and thought nothing of it. The plant called bota was readily recognizable from information in its files and he moved over to talk with one of the shapers who was already gathering samples.

A sound like thunder clapped. Esthh spun in time to see a chazrach halfway in the air, water streaming from his feet as he was launched out of the water, his coufee wildly thrashing in the water that was now churning and thrashing as some kind of creature reacted to being injured. The chazrach landed in the water several feet away and the nearby chazrach rushed towards the threat. As they got within ten meters of the still thrashing creature they started twitching and stiffening as if being electrocuted. In fact that was what was happening. The creature was known as a wriggler, and was actually used by food by clone troops and other organic combatants and support staff on the planet during the war. The creature stored a static charge for defense and when the chazrach had stabbed the creature for coming too close, it was hit with hundreds of thousands of volts for his enthusiasm. The creature slowly stopped thrashing as it died and the chazrach was pulled from the water, still stunned and twitching, eyes dilated.

Esthh was impressed and immediately ordered that a number of the creatures be gathered for sampling. They turned back to their tasks, or new tasks when one warrior alerted him that a chazrach was missing. It didn’t take long to find it. It was laying just inside the purple plant that Esthh had observed earlier. The creature had made it four steps into the cluster of the purple plant. Esthh looked at the sea beyond for a moment and then back at the problem. He stopped his troops from entering the field of plants.

“Pull him out from a distance and gather that plant.” The body was hooked with an amphistaff and pulled back out of the purple plant where the shapers immediately examined. They quickly discovered the chazrach had died of acute anaphylactic shock when he fell into the plants and wasn't noticed during the encounter with the wriggler. Later they would figure out that the plant was called Purple Stingwort. This place had yielded more than he had anticipated. He doubted that the bota would turn out to be useful, but one never knew. With their new samples they returned to the transports and headed back to the matalok.

Shortly later the matalok jumped into hyperspace.

………………….

Pallaxides.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace, and moved towards the planet, settling gently into its atmosphere. It was a beautiful planet with snow capped peaks, scenic valleys, and temperate rainforests moving towards the equatorial areas descending from the mountains. The matalok moved towards a major river system with surrounding plains, the habitat most favored by their first prey species. They would be staying for over a day this time as their second target was a nocturnal one. Esthh had his troops review again their target animals. Zuxu looked like a fish with legs...an angry fish with legs...and with an elongated snout and sharp pointy teeth. The kind that just screamed “I need a hug!” The plan was going simple. Bait animals would be placed at the waters edge and be allowed to move away from the water. Netting beetles would be used to capture the creatures. Traps were set up in twenty places along the river and warriors settled in to wait as nets were being prepared on the matalok for dredging the waters for the creatures. The first afternoon netted one animal. The beast came boiling out of the water at a high rate of speed, and then kept sprinting on its specialized fin legs. The bait had no chance and the creature screamed as the Zuxu started pulling it towards the water. Netting beetles were launched at the waters edge and quickly spread inland, trapping the unsuspecting Zuxu quickly. The creature was of course not happy. Shapers quickly examined the creature but determined that they were likely solitary hunters, and the best way to gather a number of the species would likely involve dredging with nets over long areas of river.

Esthh decided to give up on the traps and instead set new traps for their second prey. Shredder bats. The plan was simple as well. Use the bait animals that they had planned to use for the Zuxu and instead use them for the shredder bats, and use dovin basals to create inhibition fields to literally ground the creatures as they struck. The beasts were placed out in the open with dovin basals set out, linked to a control in a blast boulder that was observing the creatures from a kilometer away with the use of viewspiders. The beasts not being native to the planet and not used to the planet made enough noises of discomfort that it didn’t take too long for the attention of the shredder bats to be brought to bear. The creatures were silent on the wing, save their sonar, but they could be seen with sensors due to their body heat. The creatures struck with incredible speed, folding their wings and diving at incredible speeds. Their aim was fantastic and they blasted through the baits coronary arteries startling accuracy. The rapid destruction of the bait creatures was impressive. The whole flock of bats struck so quickly and brutally that the bait creatures barely had a chance to complain. The warriors waited until more of the bats settled to feed on the dismembered and bleeding corpses before triggering the dovin basal inhibition field. The beasts were suddenly pinned to the soil, screeching and trying to flap in agitation. The blast boulder lifted off and quickly moved to the trap site. The warriors moved sluggishly when they entered the inhibition field, the gravity had been turned up to four times. Enough to be workable for a short time, but too much for the shredder bats to get into the air, or even seriously try to get away. The creatures were quickly subdued and packed aboard the blast boulder. This experience was repeated at two more locations with the other two blast boulders.

The next day the net creatures were ready and paired coralskippers started dredging the river, from downriver to upriver. Six sets of coralskippers moved to block the upriver sections in a static positions, and then started moving slowly down stream. Four teams of coralskippers moved and waited behind the downstream pair, waiting to drop their nets into the water before the set in front of them pulled out their catch. It wouldnt do to have their prey escape. The coralskippers continued to work pulling large amounts of wriggling catch. The up river pairs all started moving down river, more expecting to push fish than actually capture them, even though they did catch some. Warriors were sorting through and restraining the prizes when a near disaster struck. Shredder bats came dropping out of the sky slamming into both fish and warriors alike. Warriors were lucky to have their armor, being smashed from high velocity bats. Others were less lucky. One warrior had a shredder bat punch through his neck and out the other side. Warriors and chazrach responded immediately, tucking back to back to present an armored exterior as they slashed at the offending beasts. It was a mad five minutes as coralskippers scrambled to put up a barrier to deter more shredder bats from arriving. Warriors and chazrach sorted themselves out and started working again. The end of the day netted twenty six zuxu, with about an even mix of males and females, plus enough protein to feed quite a few of the beasts for some time, before they were put into a stasis for later study.

Esthh ordered everything loaded up onto the matalok, and then the ship headed for orbit, and then jumped to hyperspace.

………………………..

Relkass.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the planet, dropping down into the equatorial grasslands area of the planet. The matalok touched down and shapers moved out into the grass and started collecting samples of soil, the local razorgrass, and seeds of the local plants before reboarding the ship and the ship lifted off again climbing into the sky. If one hadnt seen the ship arrive or depart, one would never have known that a ship over a kilometer in length had been there at all. Not long after the ship moved out of the gravity well of the planet and leapt to hyperspace.

………….

Saki.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into low orbit of the planet and a transport left for the surface.

The transport headed for an industrial center on the planet, cities were difficult to pin down as everything continued to be shifted on account of Hutt raids on the planet, but Esthh was reasonably certain that the proud and apt Sakiyan wouldnt view a single shuttle as a threat enough to move operations. It took some convincing but the Esthh managed to buy a number of Umbraspiders from one of the ranchers in exchange for genetic improvement of the spiders to increase his production by nearly ten percent, which was quite a bit to the ranchers bottom line. Not only would the improved line make him more money, but also as potential stud stock for other ranchers. After this the transport returned to the matalok, and the matalok moved off and jumped to its next destination.

………….

Utapau.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into a low orbit. Several transports left the ship and moved into the atmosphere headed towards one of the sinkhole cities. Upon landing on a landing pad Esthh and his entourage were met by several tall stately Pau’ans in red robes. They greeted their visitors with a bow.

“Welcome to Utapau. What might we do for you?”

Esthh gave a slight bow in return, it was irksome that he had to now play politics to lesser species, but he was accustomed to playing the role, if open to the galaxy, and it was a new galaxy now.
“Greetings. I am here to make some purchases of creatures. I would appreciate your assistance in this manner.”

“There is no war here, and we do not wish one,” replied the administrator. “A warship in our orbit is unnerving to many here.”

“An unfortunate side effect of not having many transport ships to chose from. All of our ships are warships, though I assure you of my peaceful intentions. Not only is this a new galaxy to my people, but we have to forge a new way in it. We are trying the way of peace, but until our tools of war can be changed out, we are left with what we have to work towards that goal. Today we are here to purchase a breeding stock of ginntho. Even though we can interact with dead technology, we would prefer living creatures to ease transition into this galaxy’s society.”

The administrator bowed.
“A worthy goal. One we would be happy to assist with. Please this way.”

“Thank you Administrator.”

The combined group moved off towards a tunnel, and it didn’t take long to move two more levels to where a number of Utai were caring for large arachnids, collecting silk and rolling them on wheels for use elsewhere in the city. With the administrators assistance as a mediator a deal was struck and the entire assembly headed back to the landing pad with a good quality stock of ginntho spiders and information on how to train and care for the beasts.

Esthh was the last to board the vessel and turned to the administrator.
“Thank you again for your assistance Administrator. May the gods favor you and your people with peace and prosperity.”

The administrator bowed again.
“I thank you sir, and I wish out the same on your journey of peace and integration.”

With a final bow Esthh turned and entered the transport. On its way back to the matalok the shaper turned to him and commented.
“I thought you didn’t believe in the gods.”

“I don’t. If they think we do, then a little misinformation can’t hurt us.”

Not long after docking the matalok jumped into hyperspace to its next destination.
………….

Elphrona.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace above a fairly brown ball of a world below and headed for the surface. The ship moved into the atmosphere and down towards the only town on the planet, Ogden’s Hope.

Again this small backwater wouldnt even be called a hamlet on other worlds, but this was a mining world and one that didn’t even really have large corporations mining it, it was however the largest concentration of beings on the planet, and the most likely place to find the desired items quickly.
The site of a kilometer or so long warship dropping out of the sky was quite a deal in this small place that barely saw tramp freighters coming in and out of the atmosphere bringing much needed supplies and buying raw ores from the local miners all working their own claims. Esthh had little interest in the ores, though getting more would be a way to bring the locals more to his side, at least as long as he needed them to.

There was quite a gathering, he imagined that just about everyone in town had gathered to see the spectacle of the rocky ship. It didn’t take much to find the mayor.

“Greetings. I am looking to buy some animals here.”

The mayor looked a bit apprehensive.
“That all depends. We can’t use many credits. Trade might be more useful.”

“I can be most persuasive. In a business manner. I will donate one week of mining biots time to those who furnish me with a herd of my choosing of steelee, and several packs of charhounds. My handlers will withdraw after the week with my biots, all the ores that are uncovered are to be the property of the persons that own the mines. At the end of that time, I take possession of hand picked animals.”

The mayor scoffed slightly.
“A week? I don’t know if that would be enough to bother with.”

“A demonstration if you will. Bring out a gragricha!”
A giant snail emerged from the ship being prodded by shapers and it immediately began digging, removing large amounts of material and leaving behind exposed minerals. Esthh continued.
“I have twenty of these, and I know that this ore that is dug up is not nearly so rich as the veins that are being worked. This is just the example of how much these creatures can do. I am not interested in selling them, they would not do well in this climate for long. However I feel that the ores that they uncover would be worth the exchange.”

Several people in the crowd had seen enough and shouted that they would bee happy to help. With that things picked up pace and Esthh and his Shapers began traveling and taking samples and observing various steelee and charhounds that the locals had tamed, if not domesticated. The gragricha were delivered and handlers prodded their beasts to work. At the end of the week the gragricha had uncovered more ore than could have been dug out by hand in eight weeks and opened up even more seams. Esthh had in fact lied. He had twenty-two gragricha and used them to dig into areas that had not been claimed, and at the end of the week, donated the material to the use of the town as a whole. The locals were ecstatic, others cautiously optimistic, but all felt that it had been worth it. The amount of ore that they had that they could sell would replace worn out tools and allow them to purchase more powerful tools.

Esthh quite happily watched the packs of charhounds and hand selected herd of steelee board the matalok, and with a final wave boarded the ship. The matalok lifted off silently and climbed into space, leaving the dusty rocky planet behind, and jumped into hyperspace.

……………..

Saleucami.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved to a low stationary orbit and a single transport launched and headed for the surface.

The transport landed in Taleucema, the major city on the planet and Esthh and his retinue quickly headed for pet stores in the city. It didn’t take intimidation, armed and armored Vong had about the same reaction as a group of Mandalorians. The shop owners were happy to give the warriors a discount just to get them out of their shop. Who knew what they could do to the stock let alone customers? It took about four hours to hit every pet shop in the city, there weren’t a whole lot, and empty them of their entire stock and egg stock of Carrier Butterflies. Loaded up with the living cargo, Esthh, his entourage and the transports returned to the matalok in orbit.

Not long afterwards the matalok jumped to hyperspace.

…………………...

Andelm IV.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into a low stationary orbit and a pair of transports dropped out of landing bays and headed into the atmosphere.

The transports headed for a series of cave systems outside of a city the home of their target on this trip. The Andelm Beetles were an interesting species, their economic desirability rose and fell with war. With a boom and bust rotation, at this point in time, it was in a bust economy and Esthh and his warriors found several cave systems to be completely abandoned. Entering the cave he observed the equipment that was there and the beetles crawling about. His warriors and shapers quickly began gathering beetles that were literally crawling all over, and especially scooped up tens of thousands of larvae that were conveniently found at the end of large tubes, where he assumed the tubes when running, gathered the gas that were put off by the larvae to be used in blasters. All in all another short stop for a huge potential gain. It was frustrating that sometime it seemed like duplicated effort gathering so many species that might do the same thing, but then again one never knew what would workout and what would not.

After two hours on the surface, Esthh and his team returned to the transports, and headed back to the matalok, and then jumped into hyperspace.

…………………..

Almania.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the planet. It was ironic that the Yuuzhan Vong should be here, it was the home of one of Tendrando Arms manufacturing plants during the war, the hated Yuuzhan Vong Hunter Killer droids were manufactured there, but not a threat any more...well at least not now. The ship moved to a mountainous area and didn’t land exactly, but hovered in place and sent out its coralskippers, blast boulders, and transports spread out, traveling low but at a decent clip, looking for a four legged pink and white creature. Reports claimed that the creature was telepathic, but there were always reports and rumors of far off magical things. Esthh would believe it when he saw it. There were Yuuzhan Vong creatures that could do such things. The ancient cavern beasts that were the basis of the dying worldships for example, though the telepathic abilities had been removed from them, their seed maps still remained in the Shaper Qhasa’s and they had been seeded onto Coruscant when it was briefly Yuuzhan’tar. Even the villips were consciousness linked, but only to their paired others.

This creature called a Thernbee was supposed to be able to communicate even across species, which is what made the reports a bit fantastic, even if there were creatures known to the Yuuzhan Vong that could. One thing was missed however in his search. The creatures of the Yuuzhan Vong, could not touch the Force. He wasnt sure why, he just knew that they could not, and that creatures of this galaxy could. He knew this was an important distinction, why could they but not the Yuuzhan Vong or their creations? Creatures from this galaxy could be made by the Yuuzhan Vong, and they could be connected to the Force, the voxyn for example, a genetic cross of a fero xyn and a vornskr. This was why he was so interested in this creature. It was important. He wasnt sure how it might be important, but any advantage in this new place could not be ignored.

The transports dropped off Hunters in their cloaks to observe when the fliers passed by to see if anything stirred after the silent craft sped by. Creatures ran and ducked and dodged up and down cliffs and valleys, over snow, grass, low lying brush. Mostly herbivores, but precious little that looked like it might be a thernbee.

The next day a hunter reported in. He was watching several thernbees, a mother with young apparently, eating late season fruit just below the permanent snow line a dozen kilometers away. He was ordered to proceed as tsik vai were launched and headed that direction. He slipped in close, silently, keeping the wind in his favor, moving closer. When he got within a hundred meters the mother turned her head and focused on him. She bolted across the hillside, her four offspring starting to move even before she turned to run. Cursing the hunter relayed what was going on and the tsik vai popped over the ridge line and swooped down on the fleeing creatures. The tsik vai unleashed netting beetles all around the creatures as the transports scrambled to move towards the excitement. The thernbee mother turned left and right but couldn’t find a way out as the netting beetles waved over them. The hunter and the tsik vai pilots were hit with visions, pleading, pitiful and one tsik vai almost crashed as the pilot reasserted his will. The hunter shook his head to clear it as he approached. Marshaling his thoughts towards capturing the creatures, thinking of food and safety, offering food and companionship, not danger, curiosity. The beast responded with thoughts of pain of the netting beetles and the fear of being immobilized and new experiences, joined by visions added by her pups.

The transports arrived and the warriors under direction from the hunter, freed the creatures mouths and offered food first as the shapers took blood and hair samples, before immobilizing the creatures for safety, before loading them onboard the transports and taken back to the matalok. The creatures were put under sedation and into stasis for later deeper examination, and orders went out to focus in the areas where the thernbee had been found. It didn’t take long to find others, but it took six more days to capture another thirty-eight beasts. Adult females with young, and a number of adult males, though not all were found in the same areas. Some had been found actively hunting, others feeding on fruits or grasses, and others simply moving through an open area at the wrong time.

Esthh was happy once they were under sedation, the bombardment of visions was annoying, but he was pleased that the rumors were correct about this creature. They would be a most interesting study. He ordered all the warriors return and then the matalok climbed into the cold vacuum of space, and jumped to hyperspace.

………………………...

Valo.

A shuttle dropped out of hyperspace and headed for the planet, aiming for the city of Lonisa. After setting down at the star port Esthh stepped out and went through customs dressed in an ooglith masquer, passing as a tourist large animal veterinarian from another planet coming to tour the zoo and to interviews with some of the experienced vets there for a research paper on extreme megafauna. The customs agent quickly got bored as Esthh babbled on and waved him through. There was little more than communications equipment and recording equipment, along with literature and contact numbers.

Esthh took the local transport to the zoo that was renowned for its large creature exhibits, covering hundreds of kilometers, and thousands of square kilometers of territory just for the outside exhibits, let alone for the inside exhibits. Esthh was impressed with the size of the thing, he had never seen one and so took time to walk through some of the exhibits just to expand his knowledge quickly and easily before he turned his attention to the task at hand.

It didn’t take long to find someone in charge enough to put him in contact with some of the dangerous megafauna veterinarians.

“Can I help you?”

Esthh turned to find a woman in her thirties in plain dress with what was clearly an intern.
“I hope so. I am Dr. Tresen Sbathan and I am working on my thesis for large megafauna and have come to try to do some interviews and take samples if I may on the genetic diversity and its implications within megafauna species and its effects galaxy wide in hopes for a future program of a long term breeding program for such creatures to ensure genetic sustainability in zoo based species. You are?”

The woman replied with slightly raised eyebrows of interest.
“I am Dr. Rissi Vorrim. It sounds interesting doctor. Have you dealt with many megafauna?”

“I must admit that I have not, my main focus was large predators and other hazardous species, but this will be my first step into true megafauna. I was hoping to interview someone on the Sanval and hragsythe that your zoo maintains, and if possible the precautions that were put in place after the unfortunate terrorist attack that released a number of your charges many years ago.”

“Of course. May I first see some credentials? Its just a formality mind you but we need to make sure that you have the proper training before possibly going into harms way.”

Esthh smiled and pulled out an ID.
“Of course. Here you are. I am afraid its not a very prestigious school and rather new after the wars so its not so well known.” Which was true, and it hadnt taken much to have warriors who were versed in such things to plant a fake ID that would stand up to scrutiny until it was likely to be found in some weeks or months. The school in question had been chosen for its location, its local time was exactly opposite of this local time, ensuring that it would be seen as rude to call and any messages would take some time to get, and then longer to research and respond to. With secretaries likely not to even think to question an ID that popped up in their system.

Dr. Rissi Vorrim glanced at it and pulled up the school and gave it a look over, seeming to be satisfied without further digging, she returned Esthh’s identification.
“Please this way doctor. We are not far from the Sanval enclosure, and we have a decent genetic database on the creatures thanks to our affiliated network of zoos. After that we can move on to the hragsythes and the gorog.”

She led Esthh to an observatory section protected by shields and three layers of transparasteel. Esthh looked out into the habitat to see four legged four winged reptiles, toothy and large, easily large enough to carry a number of riders. The creatures were a blue in color, at least the ones that he could see from here. One flashed by on the wing in front of the viewport before arcing out into the exhibit to land.
“Beautiful creatures. Would you mind doing a short interview for promotional material doctor?”

“Of course not.”

Esthh set up to have both the doctor and the sanvals in the shot and started recording and asking a number of questions on the sanval, the safety, any attempts to train or behaviors to watch out for. After about fifteen minutes of recording he shut down the recording and they moved on to the hragscythe exhibit and repeated the process. Esthh promised that not everything would make it into the final cut but the final product would be run by Dr. Vorrim before being released officially, also for the Lonisian Zoo officials to approve, to make sure everyone looked like they were in good light.

The next exhibit was the gorog containment, a massive brutishly built environment with beams of metal fully fifteen meters in diameter with short stiffeners of equal thickness added every so often, and then hidden with a holographic projector. An impressive feat. Dr. Vorrim mentioned that everything could be electrified to several million volts, and tractor beams on the floor of the exhibit could work in conjunction with pressors built in the overhead to restrain the beast, shields not being strong enough to hold it should something go wrong and the creature go beserk. Esthh was suitably impressed not just with the precautions...but with the beast itself. It was massive, one of the largest creatures that he had seen, and only the beasts that they had seen on the planet where they had captured the Dinosaur Turtle had been bigger, but he hadnt seen a land predator of that size...what could be made from such a creature….but he was getting ahead of himself and he shook his head, thinking of the vast resources such a creature would require just to grow, let alone transport...for a Hutt though….a Hutt would likely be very willing to pay for such extravagance...after all the Hutt he had dealt with had already asked for several large and dangerous creatures…

They went through several more creatures mosgoth being one, the doctor being quite proud that their program seemed to have helped save the species from the Yuuzhan Vong, and ended with the Krayt dragon exhibits of which there were several subspecies. Esthh made sure to ask detailed questions on their habits and preferred habitats. The greater krayt dragons were impressively sized, longer than a gorog was big, the canyon krayts were considerably smaller but no less fierce looking and ill tempered, or so he was assured.

“There is a third subspecies of krayt that we are aware of but no one has captured one for exhibit, or brought back a corpse. We only have some bones and a couple of dna samples from leavings.”

Esthh ended the final interview and the pair went into the labs to view samples and genetic data and do some more detailed interviews and resources that Dr. Sbathan might need to help get other zoos onboard and move his study in the right direction. Dr. Vorrum at the end supplied Dr. Sbathan with samples from the gorog, several thousand sanval, several hundred mosgoth, and the dna of about ten hragscythe. Esthh promised her that with the information they would see a benefit to the zoo, and would share dna that he would collect from other zoos and any wild samples that he might obtain.

Going back through customs was smoothed over by official papers from Dr. Vorrum giving him express permission to transport active animal dna for laboratory purposes and testing, skipping some of the more intrusive and possibly damaging scans. With a private transport it was easier than a commercial flight and an hour later Esthh was moving the throttle control to jump into hyperspace. As the stars elongated he wondered if it might be worth cultivating a relationship...perhaps in disguise...with many of the zoo networks. They might even pay for yuuzhan vong creatures for display. With that thought the shuttle flashed away into hyperspace.

…………………..

Eol Sha.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into a low orbit of the planet. It was a bleak volcanic planet, and in a number of years the shockwave from a distant septuple supernova would wipe out from existence, finishing off what the moon would leave behind. The moon was nearly at the point of crashing into the planet and the gravity wave could be seen rippling the surface of both of the spacial bodies. There was little of use on the planet, except for some entries in old reports about some of the fauna.

Esthh ordered the matalok down into the orbit, scanning for life forms, it didn’t take long as the matalok raced along behind the great wave of lava lifted up by the moon, giving the sensor biots a clear look from sky to sky, even through some of the dust and ash created. Operators identified large wormlike creatures in the lava, and it was doubtful that the creatures would last another few years and would of course be wiped out when the shockwave arrived. Esthh ordered the dovin basals to draw the creatures out by focusing their gravity waves on the creatures, slowly causing them to fall out of their molton hiding holes. The beasts were collected one by one and subdued before being sampled and put in stasis before being stored away. Several of them spewed lava at the matalok, splashing against its yorick coral hull. It was quickly determined that the beasts didn’t create it themselves, but rather breathed it in and spat it back out, and the moving up and down in the lava column was due to specialized gas bags inside of them. They were also weak to extreme heat if their protective scales in the inside or outside were breached. Pleased that they had enough samples to recreate the species the matalok left the doomed world, and retreated to the calmness of space before moving to the edge of the gravity well and jumped to hyperspace.

………………………..

Sedri.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved towards the planet, dropping into the atmosphere and landing lightly on the surface of the shallow oceans, maintaining its position with its dovin basals. Warriors in ootligh cloakers and gnulliths hopped into the fairly shallow water above reefs and started hunting in groups. They were looking for for Twenchok, a kind of octopus that could reportedly shoot quills in self defense. The crystal clear uncontaminated water world was beautiful, full of fish and life and the swimming troops didn’t take long to locate several of the creatures. The creatures could indeed shoot their quills but the ooglith cloakers sealed themselves around the quills and the creatures were hunted down and gathered. The creatures were few and far between, and Esthh decided that a second day of gathering in another location would be required, despite the six that they had.

The next day warriors again went into the water. This time they were expecting predators. They had dined on captured fish and used the entrails and bodies as bait the night before before jumping into the water. What they were not prepared for was the razort, or rather razorts. A number of the beasts, drawn by the blood in the water swarmed and the warriors found themselves in a desperate fight with the large creatures. A number of warriors disappeared into the maws of the giant sea beasts, to be saved from being impaled by the giant teeth of the creatures by the vonduun crab armor underneath the ooglith cloakers. The warriors retaliated by stabbing the creatures with their amphistaffs, and the blood poured into the water so thickly that the water started becoming red and cloudy. When the fight was over one warrior had been killed, along with seventeen razorts. The beasts were gathered and eggs in two of the beasts were taken and cared for, the shapers quickly trying to obtain information on them and their hatching requirements. A second set of warriors was sent out, this time with coralskippers draping nets into the water to capture any beasts that might come to attack. This happened, but over more time. By the time the warriors had netted and gathered the congregation of twenchok that were gathered to eat the dead fish of the day before, the coralskippers had gathered another fifteen of the razorts alive. A bonus also arrived, a number of large armored amphibians, later learning that they were called gweld, had been drawn to the blood in the water. The beasts were large, easily weighing as much as fifteen or more warriors and blorash jelly was deployed to stick the creatures to themselves before warriors moved in to handle the creatures.

Happy with the haul Esthh ordered the matalok to return to space, and to leave the system. Jumping to hyperspace a short while later.

…………………….

Af’El.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace, and moved towards the planet and dropped into the atmosphere heading for the city of Uhur’qah, settling down on one of the empty landing pads normally used for ore haulers that might show up once a year. Esthh wore a visor courtesy of captured equipment that put off infrared lights, allowing him to see easily in the darkness of Af’El, where only ultraviolet light reached. The high gravity was a good test for his muscles, since growing up at the tips of a worldships arms where high gravity demanded density from bone and muscle. He was met by a Defel who was a bit apprehensive as the organic ship was certainly not what he was expecting, let alone a Yuuzhan Vong.

“You arent from Vulca.” The defel growled.

“Perceptive. No I have come to trade.”

The defel looked him over.
“Since when do the Vong trade and not just take?”

Esthh sighed inwardly. There was a time, but the truth was that there were times when trade was faster than force.
“Since we lost the war. I have goods to trade if you are interested. I have a hold full of exotic meats and other foodstuffs. Something that I believe is typically more difficult to get here.”

The defel looked him over once again.
“True enough. We have some meleenium, don’t know about much else.”

“I want a number of kheilwar. About forty. I wont turn down several tons of meleenium either.”

The defel looked at him.
“That is a lot of kheilwar. What do you want with them?”

“Contract to get them for some zoos.” He wasnt sure if the defel believed him but he didn’t care.

“What do you have?”

“I have eighty-six tons of foodstuffs.”

“That will get you ten tons of meleenium. Likely won’t get you the kheilwar though.”

“I also have four tons of fine Abrogian Whiskey, and….one ton gundark steaks….if…you get me the kheilwar. Bonus for younglings of both sexes.”

The defel’s ears perked at the mention of the whiskey and the gundark steaks. The whiskey would be a nice touch and would last for months...but the gundark steaks….those where highly coveted. Nigh impossible to get, and something only dreamed of by most.

“I will see what I can do.”

“Don’t take long. I wouldnt want the gundark steaks to get thaw out.”

It was what he figured was a record time, two days and there was twenty tons of meleenium and forty kheilwar with three quarters of them being just hatched or very young. Esthh figured that all production in the local mines had stopped in order to fulfill his order. The exchange was made quite happily made with the defel now having food for sometime, and luxury food at that. Esthh considered that maybe he should start breeding gundarks just for the exotic meat market. It never hurt to have credits to spare when dealing with the species of this galaxy, or just the item to trade.

They loaded up their new cargo, the meleenium would make a tidy profit on the black market for some backwater spacer needing to make some durasteel for ships or whatnot. With the living cargo secured the ship lifted off, straining a bit against the heavier gravity before gaining more and more velocity to escape the atmosphere and out into space. After that they made a quick orbital slingshot to boost velocity without taxing the dovin basals too badly, shot out of the gravity well, and jumped to hyperspace.

………………………….

Abafar.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved in towards the planet, its coralskippers ranging out in front of it towards the planet and down into the atmosphere.

The coralskippers fanned out in pairs with nets over the vast expansive desert on the planet known as The Void. The whole planet was essentially desert but the Void was the worst. The coralskippers were looking for one of the few creatures to call the Void home. Void Striders. Two legged beasts that ran for days and days. Anything that could have that level of endurance was of interest to Esthh. Not just that, but they apparently located water, through sonar, which seemed absolutely ridiculous on the surface. It wasnt difficult for the coralskippers to find the beasts, they just had to fly, and fly, and fly some more at an altitude that they could tell the difference between heat shimmer and the 1 meter tall reptavians they were looking for. Finally one pair of coralskippers found a herd of roughly several hundred animals. The dust cloud stretched for kilometers as the beasts ran, and ran. Half of the coralskippers were recalled to the matalok and equipped with nets as the matalok started moving in the direction of the beasts. The coralskippers moved back out with long nets, quickly relocating the herd and started from each side and slowly started closing the sides in to narrow the herd as other pairs of coralskippers ahead created a three sided box with others completing a trunk to the box. As the creatures entered and were narrowed and concentrated coralskippers at the back of the herd started looping in, closing the escape to the rear. As the front of the herd slowed because of the net in front of them, the ones in the back pressed forwards compressing the herd tighter and a spare set of coralskippers draped a net over the top of the herd. Void Striders screamed in protest as they tangled up and struggled in place. When the matalok arrived the shapers and warriors quickly set up contained animal chutes and began grabbing the still kicking creatures and moved them through sampling chutes. Giving each a handful of water to calm the creatures just enough to get the samples that were needed before turning the beasts loose. The shapers picked out a number of the animals to keep, they couldn’t take the whole herd and didn’t care to. Even before the herd was sampled two other herds had been found, several hundred kilometers away, but one was headed towards the matalok, and judging from the way some of the beasts milled around and kept coming back for water, the creatures where coming for the water. Esthh decided to wait and let the beasts come to them ordering the warriors to set up a trap with the open side facing the direction of the nearest herd and placing water inside.

By the time the second herd arrived their was a two pen system with the Void Striders who had already been sampled in one with a large pool of water, and the baited area with another. The second herd thundered right into the trap, not even caring or expecting anything, they never had an issue before. The second herd was quickly sampled and more creatures were kept aside before the warriors took down the traps and returned to the matalok. Even as the matalok lifted away the beasts turned and thundered off, heading for water. Esthh ordered the matalok that direction looking for water. They found it 362 kilometers away. Amazing. Esthh was certain that the shapers would have an interesting time coming up with something from these creatures.

The matalok climbed into the coolness of space and leapt to hyperspace.

………………………….

Crushank Nebulae.

Following the old reports of a battle a matalok dropped out of hyperspace. Esthh viewed the scenery as the crew ran a scan of the area. It was impressive. The lights of nebula’s never failed to impress in their ethereal beauty. If you were close enough to one, or in one you couldn’t actually focus on it. You looked through it, but there was nothing to actually focus on, trying to reach out and grab it was like power, a nebular force. It was real as long as you didn’t try to grab too tightly, then it would slip through your fingers like so much smoke. Esthh turned as the captain stepped next to him.

“We found no active threats. There are a series of biologicals and metal signatures clustered some distance away, but there is very little activity.”

Esthh nodded.
“Take us there.”

The ship moved towards the cluster that had likely drifted over time with the lack of updated charts, it had been several decades after all. The matalok came close enough for its great eyes to start picking up details and slowly what was there began to make sense. There was a series of what could only be described as whales coated with machinery along their spines, cybernetics and armor and weapons were clustered and floating about. Those that were there seemed to be immobile, either from damage or only partially converted into cybernetic abominations. The matalok got closer and Esthh could make out more features of the creatures.

The creatures were large, easily a kilometer long though thinner than his matalok. The creatures seemed to have a smaller head compared to other species that looked like whales with toothy slightly upturned mouths, giving them more of a predatory look, two sets of large flukes, horizontal tails, and what appeared to be a pair of insect legs underneath each front fluke. Some of the beasts seemed to still be alive, which was not unexpected considering space borne species who had to live for extremely long times just to get from food source to food source, let alone grow to maturity and breed.
Esthh turned to the captain.
“Begin taking samples. I doubt we will find a creature in its original form, but we should be able to gather enough information to find their systems of origin.”

The captain nodded and headed off to give the orders. Shortly after transports with warriors and shapers headed away from the matalok to board the beasts and take samples from inside and out as the matalok started mapping internal biology from what the sensor biots could ascertain.

It took some time, days in fact, almost a week, for the shapers and warriors to sample each of the 147 creatures that were floating there. It was possible that this was a considerable portion of the species by percentage. They did find a few prizes however. There were 27 calves that had not been born, two were still alive though likely malnourished. This discovery of unmodified creatures was a boon for the shapers and Esthh ordered the two that were still alive to be kept alive. The systems designed and grown to facilitate this took another week before the wombs could be extracted intact and protected and the small calves fed with chemicals and energy that they examinations had determined was required. It seemed that the species worked off of a mix of minerals and proteins that they most likely acquired through predation, considering the teeth and examinations of the beasts stomachs.

Pleased with the results, and the two space whales still in the womb tucked aboard the matalok in its holds, the ship leapt to hyperspace.

………………………..

Mirran Six.

A matalok dropped out of hyperspace and moved into a low stationary orbit and coralskippers were launched. Inside the pilots watched the ground get closer as they stared at the creature in their lap. They weren’t exactly happy to have it there but there was little choice. Contained within was a young conduit worm. The plan was simple, they were looking for a feline that could turn invisible, or possibly move so fast eyes could not track it. Their commander was convinced that they could turn invisible rather than move so incredibly fast. If they could move so fast, then sensors would have been able to confirm it. The rumored abilities however had in years past caused their numbers to plummet as scientists tried to duplicate their abilities via dissection. It had been over a hundred years since then and it was possible that the felines were extinct, but things like continuous wars tended to draw peoples attention away from such matters that had not been answered. The Clone Wars had made things dangerous in the Outer Rim, followed by the chaos following the rise Galactic Empire, then the Galactic Civil War, and finally the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, not counting the various other minor wars and long distance dangers and continuous pirates and other wars, and the sometimes violent or hurried removal of scientific establishments, had long disrupted the demand for a supply. This was what Esthh was counting on. The one ability the felines did have that was not disputed, was that they could form and launch electricity through some kind of use of the horns on their heads. It was the electricity that was the key to finding them, if they existed, and so the pilot warriors kept a close eye on the conduit worms that were tugging towards them at the moment, as their nervous systems were the nearest source of electricity for the creatures to feed on. If they got close enough, the conduit worms...should...indicate a stronger electrical field and draw the warriors attention towards it. Other warriors were standing by in transports with bissop hounds, Akk dogs, and other electrical indicators that they didn’t have a name for yet and was a rather rough creation that would likely be refined or replaced later. Tsik vai were also standing by to be launched from the matalok once it entered the atmosphere so they could be used to drop netting beetles in large patterns.

The matalok directed the mission from orbit as new information became available, gathering information from the coralskippers sensors and directing new patterns of search. The warriors on the matalok were directing the search on several basis, mineral deposits close to the surface, which likely would be used by the cats, called Vollka, and also towards concentrations of likely prey species.

After eight hours Esthh recalled the searchers and plans were set forth for the next day in a new area.

The next day the coralskippers dropped down into the atmosphere again. Again they came up empty. This went on for four days, the ships having covered a considerable portion of a continent. On the fifth day Esthh switched locations again and sent the coralskippers over a series of large offshore islands. Two coralskippers got hits almost immediately and the fighters turned to investigate. To their frustration they were old weather monitoring systems that weren’t functional but still had power. They returned to their base course and kept looking. Six hours in the pilots were starting think that this day would be like the others. One warrior, looking out towards the water off in the distance was jarred back to the present by a violent wriggling in his lap as the conduit worm kept rocking off to his left. He reported his contact and looped around to try again. The conduit worm shifted as the craft moved but he couldn’t find any metal. The line halted and he came in and dropped lower where the bearing claimed the thing was that excited the conduit worm. He was starting to think that they had discovered some random bit of technology, when he passed the space that the conduit worm indicated should have been the location...if it hadnt moved.

Excited the coralskipper pilot started moving again, angling off to one side, and then zig zagging the other direction, the bearings kept changing. The thing was indeed moving, but a quick check with his dovin basal confirmed that it was not a repulsor or gravitational in nature. He quickly reported his find to the matalok and marked the location and the current path.

In orbit the matalok dropped down into the atmosphere and transports and tsik vai launched and sped for the location. The coralskipper line rescrambled to a tighter line. The tsik vai came in a line and started dropping netting beetles in a box around the moving contact, several kilometers away. The coralskipper continued to keep tabs on the moving thing as the netting beetles halted all movement in a wave going towards the center, and radiating out. The netting beetles washed over the location and the transports moved in. Warriors dropped down, landing on the nets and moving carefully over them, blorash jelly at the ready. It was there, near the center, a gray feline with colorful rosettes that helped break up its outline, with two horns on its head. Warriors tossed blorash jelly from as far away as possible as electricity crackled menacingly. The blorash jelly quickly did its job and warriors moved in carefully leading with a modified mynock that was hungry for energy. The Vollka let out a bolt of lightning at the mynock and the mynock drank it in, sucking the energy in hungrily. The cat stopped and as the warrior approached again, again the cat let out a bolt of energy, again the mynock drank it in hungrily. The cat mewled in pain, the netting beetles were painful but were not lethal. Convinced it was now safe a shaper came up and took blood, hair, and other samples. The cat was a female and was lactating. It was likely her kittens were not far off. The shaper carefully inserted a near microscopic tracking beetle underneath the creatures hide and ordered any animal captured by the netting beetles to be brought. It wasnt difficult there were a number of creatures that had been captured. While the warriors were off getting an animal the shaper gave the cat a sedative and pain killer. The shaper ordered the creature killed and then backed away, ordering the warriors to carefully free the large exhausted feline. The warriors departed from the sleeping feline.

Hunters were left behind with tracking equipment, waiting for the cat to wake up. The cat slowly woke up and ate some of the dead animal in front of it, then picked up the rest and started making its way through the disintegrating netting beetle webbing.

Esthh ordered the samples to be analyzed and cloned immediately to see if it was a stable sample. The feline after all was discovered to be not that much different than other felines. Meanwhile the coralskippers continued their search for more Vollka.

The Hunters trailed the female vollka with her prey for quite some time, over fifteen kilometers before she stopped in one place for some time. The hunters moved in carefully, using all of their abilities in their cloaks of nuun to get a look at where the cat stopped. One hunter looking through a series of branches and vines made out six kittens. He waited as his partners carefully moved into positions to observe as well, and then they settled in to wait.

The coralskippers did get lucky, and found three more vollka, but there was no way to be certain that many didn’t get by them. Warriors on the transports let their akk dogs and bissop hounds smell the vollka samples and they set out on their own hunting expeditions as the tsik vai and shapers took samples from the other vollka, two males and an adolescent female. Onboard the matalok the shapers and Esthh poured over the map that was taking place and where the vollka were being found and where they were going, and adjusted their hunting strategy based on remnants from their stomachs, sampled by probe worms down their throats and from the other side. With the creatures being so rare, and possibly having very few samples to dissect Esthh had no interest in making the species disappear by killing them all before being able to unlock their secrets, at least to the point where they could be recreated and then studied further.

The hunters waited for another day as they waited for the female to leave her kittens. When she did the hunters moved in quickly with small rodents that they used to distract the vollka kittens with while they quickly and efficiently took samples from the kittens letting the kittens have a positive interaction before withdrawing after giving them each a tracking beetle. The hunters withdrew to the original point where they were dropped off and called for pickup.

For four more days they hunted vollka with varying degrees of success, only finding two more before Esthh decided to move to a new location. Using what they knew they searched another large island. The teams managed to gather samples from eight of the creatures over the next three days and found two more litters of kittens. When they had samples of nearly thirty of the cats the shapers also announced that they had six hundred growing embryos, and so with a stable population the warriors went back and picked up the sixteen kittens from the three litters ,and the Vong left the planet.

The matalok jumping to hyperspace not long afterwards.

"Yes, that sounds..." Dice took one last look around the hangar of the Victores. He couldn't fix the ship here, not without resources - resources that, if Vasili told the truth, were no longer available. The Victores and her crew were islanded, never able to return home. This was the only way, Dice figured. He knew that in another world, it would be General Callyon venturing to this emperor, alongside himself. Now, all that remained of his general, his friend, rested on his hip. He was all the crew had, and he would be damned if he wouldn't do his very best to secure their safety. "...good. Sergeant Acklay!"

A squad of six troopers approached, halting before Dice. "Yessir!" Acklay began.
"You and your men are going to accompany me to the First Order's capital, where we are to meet with their head of state. I know this situation is complicated, and out of the blue, but-"
"Dice, every situation is complicated," Acklay interrupted. "You just tell us what to do and we'll do it. I trust you to make the right decisions. We ain't shinies."
The captain nodded, appreciating the sergeant's candidness. He had led troopers into dozens of battles, but without Callyon or any support, he was rattled, worrying about everything. "Right. Vasili?" he said, turning around to face the vice admiral. "Let's go visit your emperor."

Dice took in a deep breath. This was either going to save his ship, or doom it. Acklay and his troopers stood close behind him, armed and ready to go. His staff were working vigorously on repairs, and though they were somewhat suspicious, he had even gotten his ship aid. He had done all he could.
The captain and his escort walked aboard the shuttle. Already, the design gave him goosebumps. It looked Republic, but almost built to be menacing. It was going to be a strange day…