Harrar watched impatiently as the shapers-unused to manual labor as they were-moved the bodies off the jeedai, Jaina Solo. At last the shapers moved the last body and Harrar got his first close-up look of the jeedai that had caused him so much trouble and doubt.

Harrar had heard that humans considered the Solo female attractive. Petite even by human standards, her brown hair fell loosely around her shoulders as if to hide her face from observers and her features were often centered around a taunting smirk. In her hand she clutched a lightsaber loosely, a weapon she used with a deadly grace that even a Yuuzhan Vong warrior could admire.

However, none of these were what scared the priest of Yun-Harla the most. What scared Harrar more than anything about Jaina Solo was her eyes. Cold, calculating and mischievous all at the same time, he could see trick after trick being planned in her eyes.

Even more frightening was the fact that Harrar had seen the kind of tricks she planned and they filled even him, the high priest of Yun-Harla the Trickster goddess, with a dread of the supernatural. A dread that told him more clearly than anything else that this jeedai was indeed the Trickster goddess that she claimed to be.

The Trickster raised her eyes to Harrar's and sneered. "Pathetic," she hissed. "You are truly pathetic. How is it that my own priest does not even recognize Me until now?" she demanded mercilessly. Without so much as bending she flew up into a standing position. "You gave homage to Yun-Yammka, and yet you accuse Me of being a heretic!"

Harrar sank to his knees before her. "Oh Great One, forgive me of my sins! You are truly the Goddess of all Deities." The shapers, surprised by his moves stared at each in horror, realizing that if the priest of Yun-Harla recognized this female as his goddess, then she must surely be who she claimed to be and they all dropped to the floor in reverence.

There was a long pause then, "Perhaps…I shall be merciful. For a price."

Harrar felt his heart stop beating. "Anything, Oh Great One. I am at Your service."

"Kill your many-times damned 'Warmaster'. He is a disgrace."

"My Holy One, I am not a warrior and he is the warrior of warriors. I cannot best him."

"Arise." Yun-Harla's voice was low, thick with menace as she waved an imperious hand to include the shapers as well as the priest. "Look into my eyes, Unfaithful one." Harrar stared, terrified of what he would find in the eyes of the One he had tried to serve all his life. Unexpectedly, her eyes were almost curious and pitying.

"If you will not kill him," She continued, "Betrayer of Priests, then I must assume that you have no faith in Me and My Abilities. You say you are not a warrior. I am the Trickster Goddess. How do you know that I did not have a trick for you?" Harrar's eyes widened in horror as she continued. "For your lack of faith in Me you are a coward. Because you will not kill the warmaster I will kill him myself as well as you and these pathetic excuses for 'shapers' that are really heretics in disguise!"

The Trickster's eyes flared and Harrar saw the most perfect Trick ever. The Trick that meant his death.

~*~*~

An aging general, silver streaks in his hair and an ever-so-slight limp in his walk, sighed and leaned back into his chair, staring at his hands steepled as if they held the answer to the universe. The battle had been won and because of it, perhaps the war as well.

So why does victory taste so empty?

His wife, still beautiful even after all these years, bounded into the room with a beautiful smile on her laugh-and-worry-lined face. "Well, general, that was the perfect victory, if I do say so myself."

The man smiled and tried to push away his unfocused doubts. "Yes, it was, wasn't it?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Is it just me or did that sound more like a reassurance than a cocky statement?"

He rubbed his eyes. "Something just feels off." He offered her a tired grin. "Call me crazy but I could swear there were more skips at the beginning of the fight than there were at the end."

She snorted. "That's kind of the point, dear. When you win a fight there should be less skips at the end of the fight than there were at the beginning."

He looked at her. "Oh. Right." He hesitated. "Is it just me or did half the skips disappear all at once?"

She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a Gungan aide running into the room, big ears flopping. "General!" it cried. "Yousa beta come to the grand controls quick! Theresa trouble."

He and his wife shared a look. "I'll see you later," she said. "I have to go over some reports anyway."

The general nodded both his acknowledgement-to his wife-and his thanks-to the gungan-but his eyes were only for the leaving Gungan. I have a bad feeling about this.

***

Tsavong Lah, warmaster to the Yuuzhan Vong, marched through the endless bodies. Not a single being—jeedai, Yuuzhan Vong, or otherwise-that had been in the battle was alive but none of this impressed him.

"Where is the jeedai that I demanded be kept alive?" he demanded an unfortunate warrior.

The warrior pointed to the corner of the large room where there seemed to be nearly a third of the Yuuzhan Vong bodies. Harrar, priest of Yun-Harla, and several shapers were standing in a circle, staring at something in a mixture of awe and something that Tsavong Lah could not immediately place. But when he realized what it was—fear—his mind could still not comprehend it. Because he did not understand immediately, he never would.

~*~*~

The girl regained consciousness to the sound of someone—probably a Gungan, her foggy mind told her—tramping through the swamp. For all of two seconds she forgot what had happened but then she felt her lightsaber and the memories flooded back into her mind. In that moment of change between ignorance and fateful knowledge whatever was left of her heart got stomped on by a bantha and she lost consciousness once again.

***

The general walked into the control room to see a large group huddled together, shouting in anger and shock. "What happened?" the general barked.

A hundred voices began to answer him loudly. He heard snippets—"Jedi," "distress", and some choice curses—but none that made sense.

"Silence!" he roared. The room fell into a shocked silence and the general pointed to a lieutenant. "You. Tell me what happened."

***

Deep within the Maw there was a large ship named the Eclipse. This ship was old and had seen many things. Now it saw a woman, that its sensors got no reading on, oddly enough-bow before a numerously scarred being that the Eclipse had heard called "the warmaster," then say something that angered the scarred one.

Subtly at first, then quickly more obvious, a booming sound was heard that rocked the Eclipse. The female human threw back her head and laughed, saying something in a foreign language. Then the Eclipse felt the shaking stop and it relaxed. Then it exploded.

Deep within the Maw there was tiny pieces of a large ship once called the Eclipse. The pieces were old and when they were a ship it saw many things. It had seen its beginning and thousands of beings, alien and human alike. It had seen the formation of the New Republic and the arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong. It had seen the confrontation of a female human and a male Yuuzhan Vong and the explosion that was the result.

It had seen its end.

~*~*~

The young woman on Naboo somehow found the strength to lift her head and she blinked blearily in the dimly lighted room. Med-bay, her mind offered. "Hello?" she said weakly, her throat sore from her earlier screaming.

"Ah. You are awake." A medical droid slid up to its patient and began checking the sensors nearby then handed her a glass.

"What in all the sith levels am I doing here?" she demanded, after gulping down the drink the droid gave her to soothe her aching throat, and shoving the memory of what had just happened as far from her mind as she could.

"You were found unconscious in a nearby marshland. Several Gungans recovered you and brought you here."

"Where am I?"

"The medical bay."

The woman shook her head impatiently. "No. That's not what I meant. Where is this med-bay?"

"You are at the ground controls, Miss."

"How did the—" she glanced at the medical droid and decided that it wasn't the best thing to ask about the outcome of the battle. "Never mind." She swung her legs out of the bed and pulled on a nearby robe to the droid's obvious distress. It felt so cold without the Force which she had avoided using for fear of feeling more emptiness where she had once believed would always be a fire.

"Miss, I must request that you-"

"I have no physical injuries," she said, cutting the pesky droid off. "It was simply emotional shock."

"But—"

"Argue all you want, I'm still leaving."

"Miss-"

"Later."

***

The lieutenant's eyes grew wide. "The Jedi! They sent a distress holo for you but it was cut off and we haven't heard from the since!"

The general grew pale. "Let me see the holo."

Without any hesitation the same lieutenant dove into the crowd and played with the controls until the life-size image of Master Luke Skywalker appeared. "General, I have no time for pleasantries. The Vong found us. We tried to fight them in space but they slaughtered all the squadrons sent up. They're boarding us now. There must be thousands of skips and a worldship is here as well." Master Skywalker hesitated.
"General—fzzt—request—fft—help—flt—Eclipse—bzzt̵ 2;tell—zzf—the Force—ff—always—bts—her." And then the holo image disappeared completely.

"Why did you not call for me immediately?" the general roared at the silent crowd. "Get to your ships!"

"It's too late," a voice said from behind him and the general spun to see the image that broke his heart and would stay in his mind for the rest of his life.

***

Slowly, deep within the Maw, pieces of the one-time ship named the Eclipse moved into what looked like chaos.

~*~*~

[flashback]

"Jeedai blasphemer" the warmaster grunted.

"Vong idiot," Jaina Solo countered as she bowed stiffly before him, causing the warmaster to grunt in surprise at her show of reverence, then growl in anger.

"You are the heretic, jeedai. Not me."

The jeedai Solo gave a smug smirk. "Are you so sure?" She paused and let the words sink in before asking off-handedly, "And why, pray tell, am I a heretic?"

Tsavong Lah ground his teeth. "You mock the gods with your blasphemy!"

She considered him with a glint in her eye. "Are you so sure it is blasphemy? In moments you will be no more, Tsavong," she stressed, purposely leaving out his title and domain name as a sign of disrespect. "It shall be so because I willed it."

The abomination that the infidels called the Eclipse began to shake and Tsavong Lah's eyes grew wide. The jeedai began to laugh loudly in sheer delight even as the rumbling stopped many moments later.

[/flashback]
*~*~*

"It's too late," a throaty voice said. When everyone turned, they saw—though they didn't know it then—the last of Luke Skywalker's Jedi.

The general stared hard at the girl. "What do you mean, 'it's too late'? If we hurry we might be able to—"


"No." The girl shook her head. "No."

"But—"

"You don't understand, General. I felt them die. They're all gone."

Silence reined as each being tried to grasp what they had just been told. The general was the first to speak. "Are you sure?"

The girl looked at him incredulously. "Am I sure? Am I sure?! General, do you even know how absurd your question is? Of course I'm sure! They're gone! All of them: the Horns, the Skywalkers, the Solos, Kyp Durron, everyone! It was a meeting for all the Jedi and as many of their supporters as possible! Even the Queen of Hapes was there! They are all dead," she finished quietly as if the events were just now catching up with her. "Everyone," she said one last time.

The silent pause was even longer than the first and twice as uncomfortable but no less shocked.

The girl stood there for a long moment, posture defiant in the face of heartbreak, before she spun on her heel and stomped out of the control center.

****

Slowly, the pieces of what was once the Eclipse moved into a recognizable shape. A symbol unknown to this galaxy.

*~*~*

[flashback]

Tsavong Lah watched the blasphemer through narrowed eyes. "What was that?" he snapped.

The blasphemer's smirk grew into a malicious smile. "That," she said in the Tongue of the Gods, "was the Will of Me, Yun-Harla. And now, Warmaster," she said, twisting the title into an insult, "you will die, for I have Willed it."

The ship exploded and Tsavong Lah's last thought was, I called Yun-Harla a heretic, and then he accepted the gods' final gift: death.

[/flashback]

*~*~*

The pieces of the Eclipse would never know what the symbol meant, but if a Yuuzhan Vong ever saw it they would gasp in surprise and hurry away as fast as possible for fear of the gods' wrath. For the symbol clearly marked the explosion-and the Maw, as the Yuuzhan Vong read it-as a result of the Trickster's wrath.

***

~TJF