Disclaimer: I do not own SW. I'm just making a little castle in George's sandbox.

A/N: I, like many others, after reading Star by Star, chucked it at the wall in anger, and was heart broken to see my favorite character, Anakin Solo, kick the bucket. Since I've just about lost complete hope of him coming back in some way, shape or form, I've written this to console myself and I hope you enjoy it. What would happen if, instead of Anakin dying, he was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and shaped like Tahiri was? And then let loose on the Jedi Order? Oh, all the mayhem he could cause:) I'll try to update frequently enough, based upon reviews and if anyone even likes it. Critique (be brutally honest) is greatly appreciated but please, no flaming. Please don't be shy! R/R, please!

Infliction

Anakin came up for air and his ragged breaths filled his belly with fire. He took ten heartbeats to calm his breathing and twice that attempting to dull the pain his ruptured spleen was causing.

Thinking of his wound brought his memory back in sharp focus.

He remembered a series of pictures and feelings. A voxyn's throaty growl, a ticking blade, his last command to his strike team to leave him to his fate and destroy the queen; a mass of Yuuzhan Vong warriors, too many to fight on his own, but determined to buy with his sacrifice ample time for his brother and friends to complete their mission.

He recalled feeling relieved, just before the end, that his burden of guilt for the deaths of comrades and friends would soon trouble him no longer, and that he was melting back into the maelstrom of the Force. His body dissolving into pure, light side energy.

He remembered smiling as a Yuuzhan Vong warrior felled him with an unanticipated amphistaff strike.

Then: nothing.

What was going on? Was he even alive? He didn't remember dying, just a melancholy feel of departing.

He decided to open his eyes but found them welded shut by a layer of battle grime and eye gunk.

He reached up an arm to rub it away but found his arms and his legs similarly bound by blorash jelly.

Ah. That explained a lot. He was captured. A prisoner of war.

Anakin blinked a few times, and finally managed to open his sore and blood shot eyes.

Only to get a good look at the ground.

He attempted to move his head but felt a shooting pain rush up from his spine and almost cried out but stifled it in time by biting on his already bloody lip.

He delved in the Force to see what damage repair he could do for his wound. Save for a trance, he didn't know what else he could do. And a trance could take days. Anakin wasn't sure if he would survive the next couple of hours, let alone days.

He resigned himself to give it a try, at least, when he heard the rough, guttural tones of conversing Yuuzhan Vong.

Anakin made himself still and closed his eyes; feigning sleep.

He understood some of their speech. As strange as it sounded, Tahiri had been giving him lessons before they departed to Myrkr and Anakin was a good student. He would learn anything that would help him better understand the enemy.

They had to be stopped.

They entered the room, and a deep voice gargled a question that ended with the word: Jeedai. He heard his name a few times, and Jacen's and he thought he might have recognized the Yuuzhan Vong term for twins.

How long had he been out for? What was going on outside of his little cell? Was the strike team successful? Were they alive? Or had Anakin sent his siblings and friends on a suicide mission doomed from the start?

If they were dead, Anakin would never forgive himself and he would let the Yuuzhan Vong kill him because he could not escape and return to his family with that guilt on his shoulders. They would hate him and Anakin would be alone. Death was a more enticing fate than that.

The pair of Yuuzhan Vong abruptly stopped talking. Anakin willed his mind and body quiet and breathed silently through his nose.

"Open your eyes, Jeedai," the deep throated one spat, "We know you are awake."

Anakin obeyed, curious to get to know his surroundings. He allowed his blue eyes to take in the sharp contrast of a scarred warrior's face and the slim profile of a shaper, her headdress writhing in delight. The room was quaint and living instruments that served varying and very unfamiliar purposes were placed sporadically around the villa-like area.

"Oh, how I've waited for this moment," the shaper seethed.

Anakin peered closely at the shaper's features; Sallow blue skin, sloping forehead, jaded, lavender eyes, and scarred lips. His attention was sharply drawn back up to the symbols tattooed on her forehead.

Tahiri!

Anakin's breath caught in a strangled gasp. He flashed upon an image of a blond willowy girl shaped with a mutilated, dark side warrior. The Tahiri from his dream. But it couldn't be…he had prevented that future from arriving. He had destroyed Riina and Tahiri had emerged victorious.

Anakin took in the symbols again. They bared a similar likeness to the ones etched on Tahiri's forehead, the ones she refused to remove. Anakin had an eerie feeling about this Yuuzhan Vong.

"Don't you remember, Jeedai Solo?"

Anakin racked his memory.

"Nen Yim." Anakin attempted a mocking smile. "I see you've come up in the galaxy. Now, instead of kidnapping and torturing Jedi children you're chasing wayward apprentices from killing your rabid pets. What, the Warmaster could not find a more practical way to make use of your talents?"

Anakin could have been taunting the hull of the Millennium Falcon for all the response he received. Nen Yim proved invisible to any jab Anakin could throw her way.

A coy smile lit Nen Yim's features. "So, my creation is creating trouble for the Jeedai, I trust."

Anakin choked back his black anger at this knowledge. It didn't really surprise him. Nen Yim had been busy in the last year. "Oh, the voxyn?" he laughed and ignored the molten agony consuming his stomach, "I seem to remember my strike team felling quite a few on our stroll through your worldship."

The warrior so far had stood stoic and silent but at the young Jedi's brash comment couldn't help but add, "And I recall many of your Jeedai impaling themselves willingly on our amphistaffs, infidel. Soon the Warmaster will see the Jeedai eradicated, and we will cleanse the filth and impurities from the galaxy."

The youngest Solo kept his face impassive but inwardly bristled from the blow. Were his friends alive? Were they prisoners like him? Nom Anor and his warriors had been trying to capture some of them alive. Did they succeed? No, Jedi on his strike team would have gone willingly.

Anakin stretched out in the Force, and weak though he was, attempted to make a connection with his siblings. To assure them that he was still alive; to assure him that they were alive and unhurt.

Nen Yim, somehow sensing his Force usage, shook her head. "Oh, their will be none of that, Jeedai Solo," she muttered softly and pressed the palm of her left hand onto the pulse of a living instrument by her side, it's tendril rays sinking into the sensitive flesh of her palm. Anakin immediately felt shards of icy crystals freeze his veins and fiery molten heat surge through his fingertips and toes.

"And besides," she continued, as if they were sharing a pleasant conversation under the stars, "the voxyn queen is in no danger. I have it on good authority that your companions have been defeated, each one fighting to the death, which can be commended, all true warriors to the last."

The warrior, who Anakin assumed was there for her protection, nodded gravely.

"Though I would have liked to get my shaper's hand on Jeedai Tahiri again. Without you to rescue her she would have made a useful tool in bringing the Truth to this galaxy."

If Anakin hadn't been so weak, he would have done something rash. As it were, all he could do was draw his eyebrows together and close in on himself, letting an inner pain even greater than his numerous flesh wounds numb his core.

Gone.

They were all gone…and the mission had been his idea. Their deaths were completely his fault.

"No," Anakin whispered in denial, "it can't be true." He set his jaw and directed his attention to Nen Yim. "I don't believe you."

The warrior barked a laugh. "Fool!"

"It is irrelevant if you believe me or not, Jeedai," Nen Yim said, "soon I will be your only Truth and your continued existence will be dependant on me."

Anakin lifted his chin. "Then kill me. I'm not afraid to die."

"You mistake my intentions. Soon you will not recognize yourself, Anakin Solo. The young idealistic Jeedai will be no more and the creature that will rise in your place will not be the likes of anything our peoples have seen. You will be the instrument of the Jedi Order's death, Solo. The voxyn weakened you, but your betrayal will break your friends."

An unpreventable shudder ran down from Anakin's shoulder blades. They were planning to do to him what they had tried to do to Tahiri. And this time, there was no hope of rescue. His friends could be dead, or stranded on the worldship, or captured like him.

He was alone.

He had been so ready to die moments ago, but now, in light of the enemy's plans, shaped his resolve into a pointed tool of steely determination. He swallowed and vowed to keep his voice steady. 'You failed with Tahiri and you will fail with me." He took a slow, calming breath. "And if I ever get the chance, Nen Yim, I will send you to join your heretical Master's side. And you better pray that your "gods" have mercy on you because I won't."

Nen Yim's eyes widened and she pressed her palm into the tendril ray again.

"Rest, Anakin. Heal your wounds. Soon you will be the harbinger of destruction to everything you once held dear."

She looked kindly on his writhing body. "The life you led before is but a shadow of the greatness and glory you will achieve."

Anakin was in no condition to answer.

He was busy learning the lessons of pain.