Malik Carr

Malik Carr was a male Yuuzhan Vong warrior who fought during the Yuuzhan Vong War. A skilled tactician and leader, Carr was cadaverously slender, and wore his hair as a long black mane, often in a purple headcloth. He was promoted to commander shortly before the invasion and led his flotilla to the conquered world of Obroa-skai. There, he became caught up in Executor Nom Anor's plot to infiltrate a deception sect priestess into the New Republic and use her to assassinate the Jedi. Carr's involvement in the scheme was minor, and thus when it failed he was able to escape punishment.

With the majority of senior Yuuzhan Vong officers still in transit from the Outer Rim, Supreme Commander Nas Choka placed Malik Carr in command of the push towards the Core Worlds. Working alongside Nom Anor once again, Carr entered into a specious alliance with the Hutts, and manipulated the flow of intelligence to the New Republic in preparation for a strike on the vital shipyards at Fondor. The ruse was successful, and the New Republic Defense Force was caught off guard. However, elements associated with the New Republic fired Centerpoint Station on Malik Carr's forces from the Corellian system, wiping out half of the armada attacking the shipyards.

Disgraced and demoted, Malik Carr spent three miserable years guarding over prisoners on Selvaris, before he demonstrated his worth once again by saving a Yuuzhan Vong convoy from destruction and capture. For his actions, Carr was escalated to Supreme Commander, and on Warmaster Nas Choka's orders assaulted Caluula in preparation for an attack on the Galactic Alliance capital of Dac. Malik Carr's forces took Caluula with ease, once the defenders had been routed and the government capitulated. However, unfortunately for the Supreme Commander, the Galactic Alliance utilized Caluula as an experiment for their anti-Yuuzhan Vong bioweapon, Alpha Red. The highest ranking Yuuzhan Vong officer known to have fallen victim to the virus, Malik Carr died on Caluula.

Prior to the invasion
Born into Domain Carr, one of the more illustrious warrior domains of the Yuuzhan Vong, Malik Carr entered training and rose rapidly through the ranks of the warrior caste, his scars and escalation markings demonstrating his military prowess. Shortly before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the Galaxy began, Carr was escalated to the rank of commander.

The defection plot
Once the invasion was fully underway, Carr was dispatched by his superiors to Obroa-skai, a world recently conquered by the forces of Tla, a fellow commander. He arrived at the head of his sizeable flotilla in mid 25 ABY, and met with Tla and his staff to discuss the progress of the invasion. Tla's tactician, Raff, appraised Carr of the military situation; the Yuuzhan Vong were poised on the threshold of the Inner Rim, having cut a swathe through the Outer Rim Territories from Belkadan. Malik Carr informed his fellows of the ships under construction at the shipwomb housed in the ruins of Sernpidal, and advocated a subtle approach to Coruscant, the galactic capital, through Hutt Space&mdash;the Hutt kajidics had already been approached by executor Nom Anor. Carr approved of the specious negotiations with the Hutt Grand Council, eager to take command and conquer the territories that the Council ruled over. However, Carr had also arrived at a crucial stage in the plans of Commander Tla and several of his confederates, the priest Harrar, Nom Anor and Raff. Anor and Harrar had hatched a scheme which would see a deception sect priestess, Elan, falsely defect to the New Republic before assassinating as many Jedi as possible. The Order had been seen as a suitable threat to the progress of the Yuuzhan Vong, and the plan had been long in the making, and yet, almost immediately upon Malik Carr's arrival, news was recieved that complications had arisen in the false defection. A collaborative organisation, the Peace Brigade, had discovered Elan's location at Bilbringi and in good faith had sought to return her to the Yuuzhan Vong. At the mortified request of Nom Anor, Carr provided his personal vessel, an advanced frigate, to the executor, and the intendant rushed to the nearby Bilbringi system to salvage the situation.

While Anor raced to Bilbringi, the priest Harrar explained the plan to Malik Carr, who expressed serious doubts on the convoluted and costly nature of the scheme. Harrar assuaged the commander's fears with the promise that the success of the plan would see Carr escalated to the position of Supreme Commander, and the two contacted Anor via villip to remain updated on the battle which unfolded in the Bilbringi system. Elan had been being transported on the starliner Queen of Empire by New Republic Intelligence operatives&mdash;before the misguided Peace Brigade had ambushed the liner and boarded it. Carr and Harrar believed that all Anor had to do was dispatch a dovin basal to prevent the Peace Brigade corvette from leaving the Queen of Empire, but the arrival of the New Republic cruiser Yald further complicated the situation. Carr's personal vessel was pounded by New Republic forces as it used its powerful dovin basals to microjump around the system; Anor was desperate to ensure that the New Republic recaptured Elan from the Peace Brigade so that his scheme did not fail, and so attempted to fight convincingly while keeping his erstwhile allies at arm's length. At Obroa-skai, as they observed the confused skirmish, Tla complained to Carr that alienating the Peace Brigade was self-defeating, and only served to muddy the waters with their newfound collaborators. Carr asked Nom Anor if he would relinquish command of the frigate to the worried Tla, but the executor refused. The farce at Bilbringi only worsened as the Peace Brigade, despite Anor's best efforts to impede their progress, rushed Elan towards the Yuuzhan Vong frigate, and eventually the defector was discovered and killed. With the entire complement of coralskippers lost, Malik Carr saw the phoney defection as a ludicrous error. He accompanied Anor, Harrar, Tla and Raff to deliver a report to Supreme Commander Nas Choka, Carr's immediate superior. Whilst the priest and Commander Tla were recalled in disgrace to the Outer Rim Territories, Nas Choka bestowed the prestigious command of the invasion of Hutt Space upon Carr. Nom Anor was spared punishment by Prefect Drathul of the intendant caste, and Malik Carr joined the executor on a diplomatic envoy to meet the Hutts' nominated leader, Borga Besadii Diori, on Nal Hutta.

Manipulating the Hutts
"The environment is rich with targets, Commander Malik Carr."

- Raff

Before travelling with Anor to meet the Hutt, Malik Carr had been briefed by the executor on the nature of the species; devious, amoral and practiced negotiators. Carr was disgusted by the world of Nal Hutta, and disgusted by Borga and her thinly veiled duplicity. Nevertheless, the Hutts served Carr's purpose. Following a brief discussion concerning their new alliance, which Anor and Carr mostly spent mocking Borga in their own tongue, Carr advised Borga, at the Hutt's request, to end spice shipments to the Tynnani system, Bothan Space and the Corellian system. By doing so, Carr and Anor were weaving an intricate deception within their specious deal; they knew, and expected, that either Borga would inform the New Republic of the obviously impending strikes on Tynna, Bothawui and Corellia, or that New Republic Intelligence would notice the discrepancy in the spice trade, alerting the New Republic Defense Force to the threats. In fact, the true target was Fondor and its shipyards, although Tynna actually remained an objective so as to provide the spice trade intelligence with its own verisimilitude. Thus, while Borga and her allies believed they were duping Malik Carr into providing them with vital information, they were in fact being used themselves, while granting the Yuuzhan Vong worlds to inhabit&mdash;such as Runaway Prince&mdash;and offering their services as slavers.

Yuuzhan Vong politics extracted Carr from the Hutt project, as Supreme Commander Nas Choka arrived in Hutt Space to be welcomed to the war. Malik Carr received the future warmaster aboard his own flagship, the Yammka, though it was Nas Choka who addressed the assembled Yuuzhan Vong, and who escalated several subaltern. Nom Anor then informed a doubtful Nas Choka of the plan to manipulate the Hutts, requesting that the Supreme Commander accompany him and Malik Carr to Tynna. There, Choka and Carr coordinated the conflict, well aware as they wiped out the defense forces and seeded the world for later use that a hidden New Republic vessel was observing the battle&mdash;this vindicated Carr's plan, as it proved that the New Republic were aware of the fluctuations in the spice trade, and believed that the Yuuzhan Vong did not possess knowledge of an apparently vital flaw in their invasion plan. Returning victorious to the flotilla assembled over Runaway Prince, Carr and Choka appraised Warmaster Tsavong Lah of the scheme. Carr had already begun preparing coralskipper pilots for suicide runs on Fondor's shipyards, and the hyperspace lanes between Bothawui and Fondor, as well as those between Corellia and Fondor, were seeded with dovin basal mines.

Before the assault on Fondor, Malik Carr returned with Anor and Nas Choka to Nal Hutta for another meeting with Borga Besadii Diori. Although Choka was less facetious than Carr in his dealings with Borga, preferring instead to threaten the Hutt with invasion and death, both he, Carr and Anor were shocked when they discovered that a Jedi Knight had been captured at Gyndine, and had since then been aboard the Crèche, a yammosk-bearing vessel vital to the battle soon to be waged at Fondor. This sudden turn of events&mdash;Choka was desperate to lay his hands on a Jedi&mdash;excited the Supreme Commander to the extent that he insulted and threatened Borga; Malik Carr and the Yuuzhan Vong present readied themselves for a fight. The situation was defused when Choka made contact with Chine-kal, who commanded the Crèche. However, although Carr and Choka ascertained that the vessel was currently in the Kalarba system, in doing so they revealed the Crèche's location to Borga. The Hutt, already alarmed by the nature of the deal with the invaders, betrayed Malik Carr and the Yuuzhan Vong. By means of a series of Hutt contacts, a New Republic starfighter squadron was informed of the presence of the lost Jedi Knight at Kalarba and engaged the Crèche, forcing Chine-kal to take the vessel to Fondor ahead of schedule.

The disaster at Fondor
The unforseen attack on the Crèche prompted Choka and Carr to advance their plans, and the Yuuzhan Vong armada sped to Fondor at all haste. The Yuuzhan Vong bypassed both Bothawui and Corellia, the targets Carr had advertised his intentions for to the Hutts, and arrived at Fondor to conduct a relentless assault on the shipyards and the New Republic First Fleet which guarded them. The thirty prize New Republic vessels nearing completion were destroyed by Carr's forces, and coralskippers hurled themselves into the shipyards. Thanks to Carr's strategy, the elements of the New Republic Fifth Fleet which launched from Bothawui were unable to reach Fondor in time, as the hyperspace lanes had been seeded. Fortunately for Carr and Choka, the Crèche arrived at the same time their armada did, although the vessel was boarded by the squadron which had pursued it from Kalarba, and the yammosk was killed. Nevertheless, the attack on Fondor and its shipyards, vital to the New Republic war effort, continued, with the First Fleet beaten back to the planet.

At the same time as a task force of Hapan warships arrived from nearby Commenor to defend Fondor, Centerpoint Station was fired upon the system. Dormant in the Corellian system since its last firing in 18 ABY, Centerpoint was a construction of unparalleled power, capable of swatting entire fleets out of the sky with repulsor waves or inducing supernovas with a massive pulse of gravitic energy. Malik Carr had been aware that Corellia was a trap for the Yuuzhan Vong, and thus the target had remained Fondor, but he had possessed no intelligence indicating the extraordinary abilities of the ancient space station. When it was fired upon his fleet, it obliterated half of the Yuuzhan Vong ships in an instant, along with three quarters of the newly arrived Hapan forces. Malik Carr could only stare at the carnage and voice stunned comments while Choka attempted to communicate with a dying Chine-kal on the Crèche. Shocked but partially successful in their original goals, Choka and Carr retreated the remnants of the armada, aware that the Hutts had betrayed the location of the Crèche.

Relegated to obscurity
"Has a particular fondness for subjecting prisoners and droids to immolation pits."

- Judder Page on Malik Carr.

Hutt Space, once viewed by Malik Carr as the means by which he would ascend to greatness, was beyond his grasp. Following the failure at Fondor, both Choka and Carr were blamed, but while Nas Choka managed to campaign tirelessly in his destruction of the Hutts and eventually gain redemption, Carr was demoted to a prison warden, guarding captives on the backwater world of Selvaris, in the Tantara system. A prison was constructed, high-walled and dotted with watchtowers, guarded by a host of warriors&mdash;testimony to the poor progress of the war against the reconstructed New Republic. Malik Carr, the formerly glorious warrior, lived out long days in Selvaris' blistering heat, while in his absence Nas Choka was escalated to warmaster, Harrar to high priest, and Nom Anor to prefect of conquered Coruscant. During his time on the planet, however, Carr learnt to speak fluent Galactic Basic, and was well respected by the lesser warriors. Nevertheless, he watched over the captives with disinterest. Depressed and miserable, Carr allowed food to be brought in to the sickly prisoners from the outlying settlements, and left the running of the camp most to his subordinate, Subaltern S'yito. By 29 ABY, over three years after the disaster at Fondor, the prison was full of high-ranking Galactic Alliance officials and soldiers; with the failure of the Galactic Alliance's Operation Trinity at Bilbringi, Carr's camp saw the arrival of Judder Page and Pash Cracken, who quickly organized the prisoners and spent months planning an escape with local aid. The prisoners' subterfuge remained outside both Carr's and S'yito's notice; Carr was accustomed to spending his time inside his quarters, brooding upon his failings. Eventually, Carr received word that a sacrificial ceremony to be conducted on Yuuzhan'tar would require hundreds of prisoners. A Yuuzhan Vong and Peace Brigade convoy was visiting the Yuuzhan Vong prison planets in turn, and Selvaris was the final stop for the vessels before the Yuuzhan Vong capital. Thus, when a few days before the convoy's scheduled arrival four prisoners managed to escape the camp through a tunnel, board swoops and race out through Selvaris' jungles, Carr first contemplated suicide, aware that Warmaster Nas Choka's wrath would be too much for him to take. Before long, however, Carr regained his composure and sent out search parties to recover the fleeing captives. Coralskippers, bissops and tsik vai were dispatched to intercept the prisoners; two were killed, one was captured, and one escaped&mdash;a Jenet, whisked off the planet by the Millennium Falcon. Angry and vengeful, Carr had the remaining prisoners drugged, ordered several of S'yito's guards kill each other, and tortured the surviving escapee, a Bith, to death with a tkun in front of the assmbled prisoners. Carr was unable to determine the content of the intelligence the Bith and his fellow escapees had been fleeing with, only that it was a code. To punish the captives further, he forced Cracken, Page and the others to spend a day of stifling suffocation in an immolation pit; fifty of the prisoners died. Lastly, Carr sent S'yito and his warriors to the surrounding villages to execute every local they could find; the warrior surmised correctly that someone local had abetted the prisoners in their escape. Having failed to extract the information on the code's contents from Judder Page, Malik Carr awaited the arrival of the prison convoy.

The Battle of Selvaris
"Commander Fath, charge the villips to spread word of our plight. Deploy dovin basals to protect our vessels. Order the Peace Brigade ships into defensive formation while we launch coralskippers" "Yes, yes, do as he says&mdash;quickly."

- Malik Carr and Bhu Fath

Commander Bhu Fath and the convoy reached Selvaris several days later, and the surviving prisoners were loaded onto the vessels. As a guest, Malik Carr boarded Fath's Uumufalh gunship, the Sacred Pyre, and gloomily watched as the Yuuzhan Vong ships docked with those of the Peace Brigade, transferring the prisoners throughout the convoy. Carr felt disgusted by the consortion with the Peace Brigaders and their abominable ships, and loathed the idea of meeting Nas Choka on Yuuzhan'tar. It was not long, however, that he discovered the contents of the code the captives had escaped with; coordinates for the convoy's route. A flotilla of Galactic Alliance warships exited hyperspace and engaged the convoy; without a yammosk Malik Carr realised that he needed to react, or face further demotion. Giving orders on instinct, Carr called for reinforcements, demanded that the Peace Brigade vessels flee to Yuuzhan'tar, and deployed the convoy's coralskippers&mdash;Commander Fath deferred to the judgment of the more experienced warrior. As the Galactic Alliance force coped with the escaping Peace Brigade freighters, Carr moved across to the Brigade freighter tethered by an oqa membrane to the Sacred Pyre to take the prisoners back onboard the Yuuzhan Vong gunship. However, the Galactic Alliance had numerical superiority, and their agents among the Peace Brigade had disabled the hyperdrives of several of the convoy vessels. Before long, coma gas was fired via boarding harpoons into the freighter; the Galactic Alliance strike troops moved through the organic cofferdam and defeated the warriors aboard the Sacred Pyre. Carr and Fath were captured in the Sacred Pyre's aft hold. Once Carr's nemesis, Judder Page, was freed by his rescuers&mdash;Han and Leia Organa Solo&mdash;both he and Carr had a brief conversation. Fortunately for Malik Carr, Page turned down Solo's offer of a blaster with which to exact his revenge, deciding instead to leave the prison commander to his fate on Yuuzhan'tar. At that moment, however, reinforcements arrived from Yuuzhan'tar in the form of slayer ships, and the Galactic Alliance forces retreated. Before Page left, Carr called out to his former charge, promising that he would see the captain die. With under half the prisoners required for the ceremony, Fath and Malik Carr led the remnants of the convoy to the Yuuzhan Vong capital.

Ascension and death
"Rise as Supreme Commander Malik Carr."

- Nas Choka

On arrival on Yuuzhan'tar, the Peace Brigaders were taken captive, and both Bhu Fath explained himself to Most High Priest Jakan. Malik Carr remained silent, until Nas Choka summoned him before Supreme Overlord Shimrra himself, citing Carr's actions at the Battle of Selvaris as exemplary. At an order from Shimrra, a cloak of command was affixed to Malik Carr's shoulders. After three years in obscurity, he was announced as a supreme commander, the highest rank in the warrior caste other than warmaster. However, the planned ceremony still had a dearth of sacrificial victims, and thus Supreme Commander Carr was dispatched to Caluula, a world being prepared as a staging area for an assault on Mon Calamari, in order to acquire more captives for sacrifice. Assigned a full battle group, an ychna&mdash;grown on Tynna, one of Carr's first conquests&mdash;and hundreds of warriors, Carr led his forces to Caluula and immediately assaulted the planet's defense station. Although a complement of Mandalorian Protectors and the station's defenders put up a fierce struggle, Malik Carr's forces overwhelmed them, and the Supreme Commander's vessels were soon loaded with captives to be returned to Shimrra on Yuuzhan'tar. Pash Cracken, one of the leading inmates on Selvaris, was recaptured&mdash;the Millennium Falcon, one of the ships which had raided the convoy, had fled straight to Caluula from the Tantara system.

Nas Choka had ordered Malik Carr to install a yammosk on Caluula, so that when the armada retreated or returned from Mon Calamari, their passing through the Caluula system would be coordinated. Therefore when the governess capitulated to his invasion force in return for certain concessions, Carr set up the yammosk in a well-guarded minshal in the heart of Caluula City, and the population, once their technology had been disposed of, were free to live alongside their conquerers. In fact, Malik Carr even allowed a scientific exploration team to come and observe the Nocturne of the Winged Stars, a phenomenon specific to Caluula which occurred every three hundred years. What the Supreme Commander couldn't know was that Caluula was a test-bed for Galactic Alliance Intelligence; Chiss scientists and Alpha Blue, an Intelligence organization, had been working on a Yuuzhan Vong specific pathogen, highly contagious and lethally efficient. Caluula Station had fallen as part of the Galactic Alliance plan, and the planet's government had been ordered to capitulate so that the Alpha Red virus could be seen in action upon the world. Of the team of scientists recently arrived on Caluula, only one was sincere; the others had been tasked with destroying the yammosk&mdash;in reality, unknown to even the majority of the strike team members, they were also to act as observers of Alpha Red's effects upon Carr and his troops. The virus began to ravage the Yuuzhan Vong present on Caluula; coralskippers became sluggish and crashed, biots began to struggle to perform the simplest of tasks. Lethargy and sickness were soon prevalent among Carr's forces, although the Supreme Commander still possessed enough of his wits to ascertain that the scientist team was a Galactic Alliance force; he had the strike force ambushed and captured by slayers, and discovered to his pleasure that Judder Page, a Jedi Master and the Solos were among its members.

Death
"You have won the day, Captain. I salute you."

- Malik Carr to Judder Page

Although Malik Carr was rapidly dying&mdash;he was supported at most times by two other warriors&mdash;he went to visit the captive strike team in the rotting, diseased minshal. All around him, Yuuzhan Vong and their technology was expiring; the yammosk itself was in its death throes, but the Supreme Commander was still sure that he would sacrifice Page and the others to the ailing war coordinator. After sending the minshal's shaper back to Yuuzhan'tar with the slayers to appraise Shimrra of whatever virus was afflicting the Yuuzhan Vong, Malik Carr went to visit his prisoners. By this time, the Supreme Commander had lost all energy; he asked Page calmly what it was about Caluula which was killing him and his species, before admitting that in this weakened state he could not bring himself to hate his opponents. As the yammmosk and the guards died, Carr made a final effort. Standing unsteadily, Supreme Commander Malik Carr offered Page his respect before collapsing dead to the floor.

Role
Malik Carr first appeared toward the final third of James Luceno's Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial, and though he played little part in the last stages of the Elan defection, was set up at the end of the novel as the officer in charge of conquering Hutt Space. The second novel in the Agents of Chaos duology, Jedi Eclipse, deals with Malik Carr as one of the primary Yuuzhan Vong antagonists; his demotion following the Battle of Fondor is not addressed in the novel, however, and Malik Carr went unmentioned for the rest of The New Jedi Order series before emerging once again in The Unifying Force, Luceno's third New Jedi Order novel and the last in the series.

Appearances

 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
 * The Unifying Force

Notes and references
Malik Carr