The Afterlife of Jacen Solo
Darth Caedus's eyes flashed open, finding infinite blackness surrounding him. Yet, even with all this blackness, he was emitting an ethereal glow that allowed him to see what little there was around him. He was laying on some kind of cot, with both his arms intact but still wearing his Galactic Alliance Guard uniform. The last thing he saw before he found himself in this darkness was his own sister, Jaina Solo, striking him down with her lightsaber as he called out to his former lover, Tenel Ka Djo, in the Force. He tried to warn her about the nanovirus that the Imperials had sent out against her and Allana, but he hadn't completed the warning in time before he died.
By all accounts, Caedus knew that he was dead, and that this was the afterlife. He never imagined that it would be like this; perhaps this was where he would be punished for all that he tried to bring for the galaxy. All his work would have been for nothing, and now, for all he knew, both Tenel Ka and Allana may very well be dead. And wherever he was, he had a feeling that he would never come to know what happened to them.
Although all biological imperatives within him, such as instinct, should have ceased with the rest of his life, it was that lifelike instinct that told him to turn to his left. What felt like an abrupt, sudden heart acceleration occurred as he flinched at the sight that lay on a separate cot next to him. This cot looked like it was only a few centimetres from Caedus's own, and the figure laying on it stared back at Caedus with mismatched eyes and a horrifying smile topped off with abnormally large fang to boot.
"Onimi!" Caedus shouted.
"I see that you have not forgotten me, Yun-Shuno," the Shamed Yuuzhan Vong replied. "I am touched by that." His tone was one of sarcasm and contempt.
"How are you here?" Caedus asked. "I killed you, and I took the Force away from you when I did it. I watched as you turned back into the Yuuzhan Vong you once were before you melted into a puddle of goo."
Onimi's face stared back at Caedus in wonderment. "Is that what happened? The last thing I remembered before I died, you had me pinned to the bulkhead of my escape vessel with your Force power. I remember nothing about my deformities being reverted before melting away."
Caedus thought about that for a moment. "You were already dead then. Your Force spirit was already here when I defeated you. All that was left was a shell that reverted from the deformities you brought upon yourself with the Force."
Onimi shrugged. "I guess that would stand up to scrutiny."
Caedus then looked around himself again. "So this is where the damned go to when they die."
"That was my guess, too," Onimi said. "You know what is the worst part about this though?"
"What?"
"You do not know what happens in the land of the living."
Caedus thought for a moment as he stared back at Onimi. "So I guess you want me to tell you what happened after I killed you, is that it?"
"It would be nice," Onimi said simply.
"You're not angry about what I did to you and the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong?"
"Oh, I'm quite angered about what you did to me. But that's a moot point now that we're both dead. I'm just curious as to what happened to my people."
"You mean you're willing to let that whole 'I-killed-you-and-brought-down-your-empire' thing go?" Caedus asked.
"Not really, but like I said, what can I do."
"Well, first off, just to make this clear, you do know at this point that none of your gods exist, right?"
Onimi shrugged. "I kind of figured that out after a while here."
"Then why did you call me Yun-Shuno?"
"Because I could."
Caedus looked back at Onimi briefly with an incredulous look before shaking his head. He then told Onimi everything about what happened after the battle in the escape vessel; Warmaster Nas Choka's call for surrender among the Yuuzhan Vong, the remnants of the species placed onto Zonama Sekot as a new home and shipped off into the Unknown Regions; Jacen's six-year sojourn after that; the Dark Nest Crisis and the birth of Allana; the revelation that Nom Anor survived the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar and had been shipped off to Zonama as a result; and finally his transformation into Darth Caedus and the Second Galactic Civil War up to his death.
When Caedus was finished telling his tale, Onimi responded with, "It seems I didn't need to kill you after all. The twins saw to their duel to the death after all." He referred to the Yuuzhan Vong Empire's desire to see Jaina and Jacen battle to the death in the latter half of the war; on account of how rare twins were among the species, the Yuuzhan Vong would often pit twins in a duel to the death, and the victor would very well become the next Supreme Overlord. Shimrra Jamaane, Onimi's puppet during the war, had killed his twin at around seven years old, an omen that cemented his destiny as becoming the Supreme Overlord that would, in a way, bring his species to salvation.
"It is a shame that Tsavong Lah did not live to see that day," Onimi continued. Lah was the first Warmaster during the Yuuzhan Vong War who was one of the most prevalent supporters of seeing Jaina and Jacen fight. This was partially fuelled by his devotion to his people's beliefs, and partially because of the grudges he held against the Solo twins; Jacen for defeating him on Duro, and Jaina for her mimicry of Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess. Lah was killed by the latter twin shortly after the end of the Battle of Ebaq 9, leading to Nas Choka to succeed him as the final Warmaster of the Yuuzhan Vong.
"Well, I didn't cry over that," Caedus replied evenly to Onimi's remark about Lah.
"Who said I did?" Onimi retorted.
"No one," another voice, a female, said from behind Onimi.
The Shamed One turned to the other direction of the cot, and Caedus pushed sat up to see their new compatriot in this empty afterlife. She was an avian humanoid of a purple hue who was all too familiar to Caedus back when he was Jacen Solo. She, too, like Caedus and Onimi, was also laying down on a cot.
"Vergere," Caedus said.
"Hello, Jacen," she said. "Welcome to the afterlife. I've been eagerly waiting for you. Truth be told though, I honestly thought you'd have been a little more aged; and not appear so soon."
"I died because I failed you," Caedus said, disappointed. "And it isn't Jacen anymore. It's Darth Caedus."
Vergere looked confused. "You became a Sith?"
Caedus nodded. "Of course. That's what you wanted, right?"
Vergere sighed in disappointment. "It appears as if I taught you horribly. It's not what I wanted at all. You're right, you have failed me."
Caedus stared back in perplexity. "I don't understand. Lumiya told me that all you did for me during our time among the Yuuzhan Vong–"
"Wait, wait, wait, who's Lumiya?" Vergere interrupted.
"You mean you don't know Lumiya?" Caedus asked, even more confused.
"No. Who is she?"
Instead of answering right away, Caedus stared back, his perplexed look maintained. "She lied to me," he muttered in realization and indignation. "She lied to me."
Vergere looked to Onimi for an answer. "Who's he talking about?"
Onimi summed up: "She was some Sith Lord who told him that if he didn't turn to the dark side and become a Sith, the galaxy would fall because of a devastating war that would happen. He became a Sith and that devastating war happened all the same. Now he's dead, killed by his own sister, who, by the way, I once had under my mercy when she was tied up aboard my escape vessel, and who he saved me from, and he doesn't even know whether or not his former lover and daughter survived the war or not."
"Ah!" Vergere replied with a nod. Then she looked back over at Caedus. "How could you fall for that!"
"What she said made so much sense to what you taught me!" Caedus argued. "And I really thought it would help." Then his face fell when a horrible realization struck him. "But I only made things worse. And because of me, Mara and so many others are dead."
"Only now do you realize it, eh?" another female voice said from the side of the Caedus's cot that he was facing away from.
The dead Sith Lord looked in that direction and found Mara Jade Skywalker sitting up in yet another cot. She stared back at Caedus with contempt in her eyes.
"And don't think I'm not aware of what you did to Ben, Luke, and all the others who loved and respected you after you killed me," Mara said. "What you did to Ben... if I had known you would grow up to be this, I would've never saved you from Grand Admiral Thrawn when you and Jaina were babies. You know how many times I'd like to kill you here!?"
"I guess an apology is out of the question," Caedus replied flippantly.
By the look on her face, Mara appeared way too angry to make a reply.
"If I may make a suggestion here–" Onimi tried to interject.
"Shut up," Caedus said without turning away from Mara.
"You may want to let that anger go, Mara Jade Skywalker, because it is going to get you nowhere here–"
"Shut up," Mara said, her eyes never leaving Caedus.
"I mean, you're not the only one here who was killed by your nephew, so..."
"Shut up," Vergere said.
Onimi turned back to the dead Fosh. "Really, you're on their side?"
"Not really, I just don't want you talking," Vergere replied.
Ignoring Vergere and Onimi, Caedus asked Mara, "So where do we go from here now?"
"Why do we have to go anywhere at this point?" yet another female voice asked from the other side of Mara's cot. She turned to the new voice and Caedus leaned past his dead aunt to look at the new arrival. Onimi and Vergere strained in their cots to see who it was.
"Lumiya," Caedus informally announced.
The dead Sith Lady was adorned only in traditional Sith robes that accompanied her into the afterlife, but she lacked her signature headdress and she had all of her limbs intact, just as Caedus had here.
"But, just to get this out of the way for the hell of it, by now, Vergere told you that all I told you was osik, right?" Lumiya inquired.
"I gathered that already," Caedus said, contempt riddling his voice for the woman who lied to him. "Because of you, everyone I ever loved or cared for turned against me, and I made the galaxy a worse place. And on top of all that, I failed to carry out your evil plans."
"Well, like I said, you were the only one who seemed likely to carry out my plans and fall for my crap," Lumiya said. "But I seemed that I overestimated your abilities, haven't I?"
Caedus sighed in anger. "Yeah, you did."
"And to think the Force selected you save the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong," Anakin Solo's voice said as his form, also on a cot like all the others, manifested on the other side of Lumiya's cot. Everyone turned to him. "If I survived Myrkr, I wouldn't have even fallen for Vergere's teachings, never mind Lumiya's."
Caedus snorted. "Easy to say when you haven't been through any of my experiences."
"Oh, is that so?" Anakin replied sarcastically. "I've seen what you endured and what Vergere did to you." He cast a brief look at the dead Fosh down the row. "And while I understand what you've been through, I wouldn't have been so doubtful to Uncle Luke's teachings like you were. I thought that all Vergere taught you paid off when you killed Onimi and saved the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong. But after that, you disappointed me severely. You disappointed all of us. Even the woman who used you to inflame the Second Galactic Civil War thinks you suck, and how does that feel?"
Caedus refused to answer. He simply looked away from everyone.
Then a thought occurred to Onimi. He looked over at Mara. "Say, redhead."
Mara leaned in to look past Caedus. "What?"
"You say you knew what happened after you died?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, why don't you tell us whether or not Tenel Ka Djo and Allana survived?" Onimi asked.
At that, Caedus looked at his aunt expectantly.
"You killed me, you tortured my son, you betrayed my husband, your parents, your sister, your friends, everybody, and you expect me to tell you whether or not Tenel Ka and your daughter, who you also betrayed, had survived from your machinations?" Mara asked in anger.
"I take it he's not going to get an answer on that one, is he?" Onimi inquired.
Mara didn't answer. She only disappeared.
"Anakin?" Caedus asked.
Anakin, too, disappeared.
"Well, welcome to the afterlife," Vergere said to Caedus.
THE END