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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3850875" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 534: Two Months Gone“Sir.”    Commodore Rulae Nok lifted his rather large, blue head up from the report he was buried in to see the red-haired human woman, Adria Harken, had just entered his office aboard the Araddon with surprising stealth. He hadn’t even heard the door open. Rulae also noticed that she was wearing her flight suit, or at least, the orange jumpsuit without the rest of the life support systems or anything like that. For some reason, Harken seemed to wear it all the time. It was probably a good sign of dedication, but he was used to pilots craving their downtime.    “What do you need, Lieutenant?” Rulae managed to keep his usual calm voice despite the report he’d been reading.    “I was going to ask about the recruits, sir,” Harken took a few steps forward before stopping behind the only other chair in his office that barely anyone ever sat in, “But you look like hell. Are you alright?”    Raising the datapad in his hand, Rulae said simply, “Duro has been taken by the Vong.”    “What?!” the shock in Lt. Harken’s voice was not because it had been her commander’s homeworld. Truth be told, Rulae had been born aboard a freighter in the Outer Rim and had only been to Duro twice in his lifetime. It was a riuned world, with most of the population living in sealed domes.    But it in the galactic core. Duro was a Core World, the first taken by the Vong. Suddenly, all of the worlds that had thought the war so far away were beginning to worry even more. The Vong had made it to the Core.    “The defense fleet put up a good fight, but it wasn’t good enough,” Rulae finally placed the datapad down and out of his reach so he couldn’t look at it again, then turned his two large, teardrop shaped eyes on the human woman staring at him, “We don’t even have orders yet, Lieutenant. High Command is going crazy and the Senate is in chaos. They’re all too busy trying to save their own hides to actually fight this war. And now...”    And now, the Jedi were to blame.    At least, according to Chief of State Borsk Fey’lya, who was placing the blame for the loss of Duro squarely on the shoulders of the Jedi. According to the report, a great many Jedi had gone to the planet to do everything they could, and there was even mention of one of the Solo children fighting the Yuuzhan Vong Warmaster and surviving. But it wasn’t enough, obviously, and now the planet was in the hands of the enemy. And now the Yuuzhan Vong had a foothold in the Core.    It had been a little over two months since the Battle of Fondor. In that time, the only good news was that they had managed to secure enough recruits to completely reform Zephyr Squadron and that the Araddon and the rest of her battlegroup were ready to be deployed again. Everything else, though, was bad news after more bad news.    And now, Duro was gone.    “And now  what, sir?” Lt. Harken was not the kind of woman to let anyone trail off, even her commanding officer. It helped that Rulae admired this trait, but it still could be seen as pushing her luck a little too hard.    Rulae’s hand reached for the datapad again, but just stopped over it. He didn’t need to read it again. He knew it by heart now. So, instead, he kept his focus on the newly promoted pilot standing in front of him looking worried, “The Yuuzhan Vong Warmaster made a proclamation and sent it all over the galaxy: if we do not turn over all of the Jedi to him, he will unleash the entirety of his people’s might on the rest of the galaxy.”    There was a short, uncomfortable silence before Lt. Harken asked, “You don’t think people would actually believe...”    “Of course they will,” Rulae cut her off before she had a chance to finish that, “They’ll betray every single Jedi in the galaxy just for the slight hope that the invasion will stop.”    By now, Adria was leaning on the chair in front of her with a sullen look on her face. She seemed at a loss for words, which was very much a rare thing for her. Seeing this, but noticing she also didn’t go anywhere, Rulae attempted to change the subject, at least, “Lor is with the recruits right now. They’re in the simulators and seem to be holding their own well enough.”    “Simulator missions so soon? They just arrived two days ago,” there was a definite change in Harken’s voice now, and it was obvious that the subject of the report was best avoided for the moment.    Rulae got to his feet, glancing down at the few other things cluttered across his desk, “The fleet’s been deployed. We’re a smaller battle group than most of the other fleets so High Command has decided to keep us off the defense forces for now. We’re heading into Hutt Space.”    That got a reaction out of Adria that was similar to the one after hearing of the loss of Duro. Ever since Fondor, the Hutts had been targeted by the Vong. Their so-called peace treaty crumbled the second the Hutts realized the war was damaging important markets, and it seemed the Yuuzhan Vong didn’t take such a turnaround lightly. Nal Hutta was completely invaded, as were most major planets within Hutt Space, with most of the Hutts retreating to various other planets all across the galaxy for their own safety.    The was wasn’t going well, but Rulae had a feeling all of the fleet would feel the same way he did. Hutt Space might be extremely dangerous right now, but it was better to be on the attack then waiting for another massive fleet to jump a Core World...or worse, to watch some kid tortured by the populous of a planet just because he was a Jedi doing his best to help the people who suddenly didn’t give a damn anymore and just wanted someone to blame.    Maybe when the fleet got back from Hutt Space, if it got back, things would be better.    Rulae knew it was a fool’s hope, but they needed something at this point.    There wasn’t really anything left.</blockquote>

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