A Trip With Jacen Solo : Part 7

[soloing]

Source - Canon Review with Trip & Havac!



Part XLVI: Traitor
In which our hero is actually a hero . . . what the heck?

• Previously, in other books: Jaina is angry. She cannot feel Jacen. Then everyone but her feels Jacen give off a huge burst of pain before his presence is cut off. Everyone decides he's dead, except Leia, who is convinced it just doesn't feel like a death. She knows, see, because her other son is dead. Jaina is convinced she's deluding herself. Han temporarily breaks before deciding to believe Leia. Luke later does the same. Jaina insists he has to be dead, while Kyp, on feeling it, just kinda disparages Jacen and wanders off to say sorry to Han and Leia because it's the done thing. Tenel, on feeling it, goes nuts. Apparently, she's madly in love with Jacen, and the fricking idiot kid isn't making any moves, and so she firmly believes he doesn't see her as anything more than a friend. Stupid kid. He needs to spend more time with Lando. So anyway, yeah, OMG IS HE DEAD?!?!?!?! Even Harrar wonders. OMINOUS.

• Now, in this book: Let's see . . . there's some overdone prose . . . I think they're in a ship in hyperspace or something. It could be that there's just nothing going on, and then there's a separate universe . . . oooh, maybe the Charon are going to enter the war or something?

• Oh, wait, Jacen's in a white room. And he's looking at pain. No, no, he's being poetically tortured. Anakin is dead. Everything is broken. Torture. Anakin's death. He can feel Jaina going dark, but can't open himself up to her to avoid it, because he knows his pain would driver her only darker still. Wow. Pretty much nothing is going his way.

• Then Vergere shows up. She is mysterious. She is philosophical. She betrayed him. And he is dead.

"You are forever lost to the worlds you knew. Your friends mourn, your father rages, your mother weeps. Your life has been terminated: a line of division has been drawn between you and everything you have ever known. You have seen the terminator that sweeps across the face of a planet, the twilit division between day and night? You have crossed that line, Jacen Solo. The bright fields of day are forever past."

• Then he feels her as a powerful Force presence, and she takes the Force away from him. Good god, isn't he the protagonist? Seriously, this is grim. How the hell is he going to get out of this? Jacen is absolutely devastated. He has nothing. He is nothing. He's completely bereft of anything. Vergere does more philosophical you're-dead-everything's-a-lie mumbo-jumbo and leaves, and Jacen gets tortured some more.

• Jacen spends probably a few weeks in the Embrace of Pain. He's being tortured to the absolute limits of his endurance. He talks some with Vergere. Mostly about pain. About why the hell this is happening. She chews him out for being a little baby. Good god, she is freaking hardcore. She says is he just keeps crying and whining and waiting for someone to do something for him, he'll spend the entire rest of his life hanging in the Embrace. That's pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen, I think. She tells him about a shadowmoth she had once. About how it panicked and raged in pain, and she could feel it. About how she tried desperately to help it. About how she cut it out of its pupa, and how it was crippled for the rest of its life because she "helped" it get out too early. About how letting it struggle and grow on its own was real help. "I give you a gift, Jacen Solo. I free you from hope of rescue. Can you not see how I am trying to help you?"

• Jacen gets it. But, wait . . . aren't shadowmoths from here? Anyway, he mans up. Screw pain. Pain's been beating him down. Now he's going to take pain, and kick its ass through a plate-glass window. He takes pain and shuts a car door on its head a couple times, until pain gives up and goes home. Now he's impervious to pain. Stick his hand in a waffle iron, and he'll just go, "Oh, my body's telling me I should probably pull that out. You got any syrup?"

• Oh, cool, Nom Anor's hanging out. Chattin' up Tsavong Lah. Nom is excellently Nommish. He is reporting on the Solo Project. And Jacen thrives on pain. Only the best Vong can even do this. Yeah, Nom says. He's gonna turn. He's gonna buy into the True Way. They're gonna break him and set him loose on the galaxy, completely destroying NR morale. He will kill Jaina in a holy Twin Sacrifice. And . . . Vergere is Nom's partner in this. Oooooooooh, this seems bad. This seems ominous. It is, however, relieved by the hilarity of the Vong actually identifying Jacen with Yun-Yammka. The war god. Oh, Stover, you truly are the master of subtle humor.

• They get to the seedship. And finally, Jacen is out of the Embrace. Vergere pulls him out, and has some kind of ominous bone hook that "disappears" and Jacen forgets about like a good patsy. They're going to reshape a world into the new Yuuzhan Vong homeworld. They walk out into some kind of huge inverted world where the dhuryams run slaves around like R/C toys to learn how to use them. Jacen is disgusted, and refuses to go along. Vergere just stabs him in the chest. Well, that's effective.

• Now Jacen has a slave seed. The dhuryam controlling him causes him pain in an attempt to get him to do its bidding. This is about as effective as threatening to shoot Superman. So it patches into his neural system and starts jerking his body around. Jacen doesn't give a damn. He's not going to lie down for some jackass brain-squid. Somewhere between the entire rest of his life and this moment, Jacen grew a backbone. Whenever the dhuryam isn't twitching him around like Geppetto on crack, Jacen goes out and starts treating the wounds of other slaves. The dhuryam (That's too long to write out, so I'm going to start just calling him Ted) finally wises up and realizes, "Hey, this is kinda useful. I guess I'll let you do that." So Jacen's hanging out fixing up slaves one morning when Vergere shows up and is like, "Hey, your wound is infected." And Jacen, who is apparently like five years old, goes, "No it's not. It's fine. Go away." Vergere tells him to shut up, and throws some tears on it. Apparently she has magic tears she can manipulate into being anything. Well, isn't that just uber. I wonder if they'll fully explore the ramifications that could have. Will she ever cry tears of scotch? So Jacen's like, "Cry me up some medicine for these slaves, featherpuff." And she's like, "No. Let me tell you about gardens and weeds." And she tells him. And he's like, "That seems kinda insensitive." And she's like, "Not if you think about it, you dope. Didn't you just kill a ton of beetles to save that dude's life?" And Jacen's all hippie and insists it's different, because the way she says it sounds kinda mean. She must be evil. She must be a Sith. She starts in about how stupid the whole binary thing is, and Jacen says, "All answers fall short of the truth," and Vergere just about pees herself she's so happy. Then she tells him to wonder about how there can be life without the Force, and tells him to garden it up, and leaves.

• So he thinks about it. And he decides . . . there is no life without the Force. Somehow, the Force is out there. In him, and in the Vong. Ted starts giving him a hand in pointing out medicinal herbs and such. So Jacen thinks, "Hey, I'm good with critters." And he goes all empathetic with the slave seed even though he doesn't have the Force, and all of a sudden he's on a new wavelength Vongsensing everything. He goes down by the lake where the dhuryams are on an island and starts up a practice treating slaves from all the Junior World Brains, but only after getting the proper certification from the Yuuzhan Vong Medical Association. You see, Jacen decided everyone was a flower. Then a Vong guard kills a slave for getting too close, and Jacen realizes, "Oh, yeah. I don't like these guys. Maybe there was something to what Vergere said. Maybe they're weeds."

• Jacen Solo's gonna mount up and do some gardening.

• Oooh, big day. It's Seedfall time, baby. Roll out the barrel. So all the seeds get pulled to the coraltree basals by some kind of Vong tech thing, so all the slaves are crowded around. But not Jacen. He's hanging out in the middle of the wild, carnivorous, man-killing amphistaff grove like he's just chilling out in the herb garden. Nom sees him pulling off this uber-badass feat, lurking inside a carnivorous forest like some kind of cross between Rambo and Crocodile Dundee, and is like, "Oh, he's hiding. Wuss." See, Nom actually read the previous books, and figures he has a handle on Jacen's characterization. Little does he know, much has changed. He sends some Vong to get Jacen. They can't go into the grove, because they'd get cut into Vongsteak. So they just shout, "Come out!" Yeah, that'll work. He steps out a little, because he's a nice guy, and they're killing slaves. But that pisses him off, so he starts insulting the Vong leader. He trash-talks him into charging, then just flips him back into the grove. Pwned.

• The amphistaff polyp gets a good meal. In the space of like five seconds, that gets its amphistaffs mature enough to drop off and go looking for a place to start up their own little colony. That's some fast maturation. So Jacen's like, "Hey, I'm free." And the amphistaffs all climb up on him. And now he's covered in living sword-snakes that will cut your head off if you even come near.

• Look at that. That's nobody you want to mess with. Nom freaks out. Except he's unusually shortsighted, and thinks that he's going to get killed anyway making some damn fool stand. Vergere's like, "Oh, hell no. He's going to kick the ass of everything in there." Jacen charges like twenty warriors, and slices right through them. He grabs one of the bad guys' blast bug bandoliers and chucks it at the thing that blocks the dhuryams' signal. And he Steve Irwins it into exploding at just the right time, and there is a very large explosion, as is appropriate for an action scene. Then there is another explosion when Jacen gets nailed by a bunch of blast bugs. And he goes flying and is knocked out. But because it's an action sequence, he's just fine, and he gets up right away and starts kicking ass. Meanwhile, Ted knew what was going to happen, and now he's running his slaves around killing Vong with garden implements which, being Vong implements, are also armadillos. Also, they amp up the XTREMEness of the whole thing by starting fires. See, Jacen hit on a deal. Take care of the slaves and keep them from being sacrificed, and he'll kill the hell out of all the competing dhuryams. So Jacen runs up to the island, and chops up some Vong and some dudes who were in his way. He's pretty much the Terminator. "He didn't even bother to wipe from his eyes the blood that flowed from a deep scalp wound. All he did was walk, and kill."

• He starts going mafia hitman on the other dhuryams. But, see, he's hooked up with Vongsense, plus dhuryams are telepathic. So when he kills them, he can feel it, and it's hell. God, nothing's easy in this book, is it? Anyway, he dual-wields his way through a mob and kills all the dhuryams anyway, and gets all in the zone, and goes for Ted. Anakin tells him no. Except wait, it's not Anakin, it's Vergere. Jacen figures he'll kill it anyway. Kill the Vong homeworld. Show them bad guys a thing or two. Vergere's like, "Hey, what happened to saving lives?" And Jacen decides he can't trust her, and dammit, he's one kill away from leveling up. He goes for it. She knocks him out with some tear-chloroform.

• He wakes up on Yuuzhan'tar. There's something familiar. Must be Dagobah. Anyway, Vergere's there, and Ted followed through on his end of the bargain. Vergere is proud of him. He's not. He's all mopey because he was too badass, and that's dark side. She says hey, he snapped out of it. But none of this out-of-control crap. He did it because he wanted to. It was he who did it, not Out Of Control Boogeyman. Vergere turns his complaints around into a criticism of the idea that intentions are all that matter, and pushes him to acknowledge that outcome is important too. She criticizes the idea that Jacen can kill all he wants so long as he's calm and convinced it's right. Gee, that sounds like an evil philosophy to me. Oh, and by the way, Jacen: you're on Coruscant.

• Oh, ****. Jacen realizes the capital fell. He's home . . . and it's not home anymore. The Vong destroyed his childhood. Yuuzhan'tar isn't beautiful anymore. I need to quote this in full, because Stover is perfect at this kind of playing-it-straight-and-deconstructing-it-at-the-same-time thing:

He hated it. He hated every bit of it. Even closing his eyes didn't help, because just knowing it was out there made him shiver with rage. He wanted to burn the whole planet. He knew, now, that somewhere deep in his heart, none of the war had ever seemed quite real; none of it since Sernpidal. He'd been nursing a secret certainty, concealed even from himself, that somehow everything would be all right again someday--that everything could be the way it used to be. That Chewbacca's death had been some kind of mistake. That Jaina could never fall into the dark. That his parents' marriage was strong and sure. That Uncle Luke would always show up just in time and everyone could have a laugh together at how afraid they'd been . . . That the Anakin he'd seen die had been -- oh, he didn't know, a clone, maybe. Or a human-guised droid, and the real Anakin was off on the far side of the galaxy somewhere with Chewbacca, and someday they'd find their way home and the whole family could be together again. That's why he hated this world spread before him. Because it could never be home again. Even if the New Republic somehow, impossibly, turned the tide. Even if some miracle happened and they retook Coruscant what they won wouldn't be the same planet they had lost. The Yuuzhan Vong had come, and they were never going to go away. Even if Jacen had found a club big enough to knock the whole species back beyond the galactic horizon, nothing could ever erase the scars they would leave behind. Nothing could ever heal his broken heart. Nothing could remake him into the Jacen Solo he remembered: the cheerfully reckless Jacen, chasing Zekk into the downlevels; the exasperated Jacen, trying one more time to make Tenel Ka crack a smile; the Jedi apprentice Jacen, born to the Force, but still awed not only by the legend of Uncle Luke but by the power his uncle's teaching could draw out of him; the teenage Jacen who could wilt under his mother's stern glare, but still exchange roguish winks with his father and his sister the instant Mother turned away.

• Anyway, Jacen has the slave seed out. He's free. Free to wander Yuuzhan'tar. Jacen decides to go home. He spends a few weeks hiking to get there. What!? A Coruscant scene not taking place immediately within Galactic City? Unthinkable! Anyway, now he's finally come to a large, multi-kilometer crater. It's slightly creepy. There is a storm. Apparently Luke's been here and gone and never came anywhere near Jacen. Wow, they were both on the same planet, and they still missed each other! How do you manage that? Anyway, he chats with Vergere about the dark side, and how do you draw the line. Come on, enough with this fascinating and in-depth philosophical exploration and stuff. It's boring. When's something going to explode? Where's Luke? This book has no Luke. It sucks. Or Jaina. If they're not going to kill anything, I at least need something to drool at.

• Oh, cool, the Vong are attacking. They send a couple thousand troopers in an airdrop, because that's how dangerous Ch'Gang Hool thinks Jacen is. Jacen runs into the crater-storm to escape. He's running and it's all stormy and epic and he gets a warrior sneaking up on him . . . and Vongsenses it and kicks the dude's ass, since he can tell everything that's going to happen. He feels all the pain he inflicts on the warrior. He doesn't give a damn. He runs from some more warriors, then falls through a hole to where Vergere is. They run hard. He gets pissed off, since he's down in the tainted Force-well. He realizes it, and talks some more about how the dark side is naughty. He also drops the Anakin-Skywalker-was-Darth-Vader bombshell. Vergere takes it hard because, see, she used to be a Jedi. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, she starts in again with the philosophical stuff, and she's all like, "Oooh, life's a game, but it's serious, who are you? Who, who, who, who? Who are you?" and Jacen thinks about it for a bit. And then he comes out with the Big Epic Declaration, "I AM A JEDI." And Vergere just kinda goes, "Oh. Well, by the way, Nom Anor's here." And Jacen gets pissed. And he blacks out. And then he's back, and holy crap he just tried to fry the Vong. He couldn't get it across to them, though, so he just oven-roasted Vergere. And he didn't even baste her. So he threw the room at the Vong, and that did the trick. You notice he's got the Force back yet? Now he's all, "Oh, no, I was bad." I believe the word is "aghast". Which is a funny word if you look at it. So he starts talking to Vergere, and he's all, "Oh, I'm sorry, this place has too much dark side," and she's sitting there steaming and she's like, "Dude, there is no dark side. Just you taking off the limits, which would be fine, except without limits you're kinda a jerk." Jacen runs screaming into the night.

• Jacen falls over a ledge or something. He can't deal with the fact that he, Mr. Got-it-together, Captain Morality, Señor Self-Proclaimed Saint, actually was less than perfect. He gave in to the dark side. Hell, he might as well off himself now. Hear that, Luke? Go throw yourself off a ledge. How do you live with yourself after Dark Empire (I'm more concerned with how he lives with himself after The Crystal Star)? Anyway, he's about to let himself go, and then, hey, there's Anakin. He doesn't buy it. He checks with the Force. Nothing there. Oh, man. Some Vong must be impersonating Anakin. That jerk. He's really going to get it. Jacen chases him for a long time. He ignores the fact that Anakin seems to keep jumping location every time he gets to a new room. Doesn't matter. He wants to kill. Apparently, the dark side has an adverse effect on Jacen's mental capabilities. He runs into a critter. Oh. A trick. There is screaming. Must be another sadistic trick. He's fed up with it. He checks it out. Hey, there are other dudes in here. Aha, finally, enough people to fill out a character lineup on the Japanese cover! And they just fed a chick to the critter. Except Jacen's convinced it can't be real. Because if one thing was an illusion, everything else in the world must be an illusion, right? He chokes her to shut her up. Wait. That means she's real. Oh, crap. He tries to pull her out. He can't do it. He can't save her. The world is full of senseless pain and sadism. It's broken. It's wrong. Jacen responds the only way that makes sense: Anger at this pointless, stupid, cruel world. He's back to that. But he's got power again.

• Oh, wait, now he's in his old apartment. It's a mess. It's crap. It's full of Vonglife. This is depressing. Nothing's changed. Nothing's different. Nothing's fixed. It's not all a dream. So he just sits in deep clinical depression and lets the little spider things cover him up. And then HOLY CRAP ANAKIN. Oh, wait, we already had that. Twice. And they were tricks. So this must be a trick, right? Right? Jacen sure thinks so. Anakin-who-might-not-be tells him, heck, those instances don't even need to be fake. Who says he wasn't really there? Who says the Force wasn't working through Vergere, or the cavern beast? Whoah, dude. Anyway, he talks about the cavern beast. See, he pulled the chick out. Saved her life. The other dudes were kinda jackasses, though. See, they threw people in there so they didn't get eaten. They were safe in there. They liked what they had going, sacrificing others. Yeah. Jerk move. They wanted to throw him in. Stupid move. The girl shouts to take him, not her. Total jackass move. The world is even stupider and uglier than he'd thought. He flips out. He's pissed. So he gets the cavern beast to puke them all up, and never admit them again. They're out. They're not killed. But they're not safe anymore. The Vong can get them. Deal with it, punks. And you know what? He liked it. He confesses that to Anakin. And he admits . . . he always wanted Anakin's certainty. He wanted to be like Anakin. Awwwwwwwwwww. Then Anakin's like, "Hey, being me didn't get me very far. Maybe what we need is someone more philosophical." Anakin tries to reassure him about the dark side. He didn't do any real harm. He regrets it. Oh, and who says you have to fight the Vong? See, the conversation jumps around a lot. Also, he's real and fake at the same time. Who cares? Why pigeonhole stuff? The Force is one. He's a hallucination. If he is, then this is what Jacen thinks. Jacen passes out from the sheer mental gymnastics of it.

• He wakes up. Vergere is there. She wants him to stop being dead. He can live again. He doesn't care. He's got no motivation. Total apathy. She pushes him to care. To feel. He's burnt out. He doesn't know where he can turn. There are no answers anywhere. And then, he gets it. He has to ask himself. He can't keep waiting for others, waiting for the Force, to tell him what to do. He can't keep being a baby. He's got the answer. He is the answer. To be yourself is all that you can do. So when Nom shows up and starts in on him like the world's cheesiest televangelist, he figures, hey, why not? If the Vong want to think I'm a god, why not play along? He's offered Anakin's lightsaber; he could strike with it. If he chooses the path of the warrior, he could be the greatest fighter in history. Well, you wouldn't know it from KJA. He could be the sword of the Force. But he declines. He's not a warrior. He's not Anakin. He's not Luke.

• Hey, wow. It's Ganner. An actual additional POV character. How do you like that? Anyway, Ganner has given up vanity. He's tracked down some rumors, against Jaina's extremely angry wishes. Some good mockery/tribute of the Solo Happy Warriors of the Force is offered. Anyway, Ganner goes to a camp ship. He's heard rumors. Rumors that someone saw Jacen on Coruscant. He goes to the camp ship, which is full of refugees, and spend a few days finding this dude who's supposed to have seen him. But now he's all scared. But he mans up and does it anyway. There's a generic dude there, who tries to run him off. Ganner won't have any of it. He's on a damn fool idealistic crusade. He tries to Force-persuade the dude, but then he's running away and holy crap he just got a grade-A mindwhammy. Ganner realizes this, stops, turns around, listens to some Rage Against the Machine to psych himself up, and heads back. He busts in, whomps the ass of the four masqued Vong bodyguards, and puts a lightsaber to Mystery Dude's throat. And Mystery Dude doesn't care. He's just disappointed that Ganner couldn't leave it alone, and now he has to come along. He's as good as dead. Because if he leaves, they'll destroy the camp ship and thousands of refugees with it. And then he takes off his masquer, and Mystery Dude is Jacen Solo, returned from the Great Beyond, powerful as hell. And he knocks Ganner out with some more patented Magic Tears. And he is a traitor. This is ominous. Oh no, has Jacen Solo given in all the way to the dark side? Has he given in to the Vong? Has he become evil? OH MY GOD!

• Ganner's stoned. He's semiconscious and stoned on Vong tranqs or something, and he's freaking out because Jacen told Nom they ought to practice a sacrifice for when he converts and kills Jaina. OK, I guess he's bad then. But, wait. He's Force-winking at Ganner. He's good, and is putting Nom over? Awesome. So, Ganner wakes up. And Jacen is there, doing a hilariously bombastic The God I Am! routine, and Ganner's totally bamboozled. Jacen's all big and strong and tall and bearded and grown up, and he's big into the Vong religion. But then he knocks out the monitor creatures, and starts taking care of Ganner and giving him orders and telling him he has to get ready to go. And poor Ganner has no idea what the hell's going on. From here on out, everything is pretty sublime, so I'm resisting the urge to just quote everything.

• Anyway, they chat, and Jacen's like, "Oh, dude, I'm all different. I can't explain how yet. Also, I'm dead. And you're dead. Get used to it." And also, Jacen gives some nice summarized exposition about how it was a trap for Jaina, but Jacen made it incompetent so it wouldn't work, but it caught Ganner, so now he just has to live and die with it. And he's going to go to the Well of the World Brain and get some business done. "We've both been dead for a long time, Ganner. And today . . . Today is the day we stop breathing." So he gives Ganner Anakin's lightsaber, and forces him to choose and act. The Vong come in, and Ganner chooses. Nom totally sees through it, but is just a little too overconfident to care. Besides, everyone else honestly believes Jacen Solo is a freaking god.

• So they go to the Well. Jacen chit-chats as they walk. Apparently the Vong warriors now consider Borsk a minor hero for his fiercely badass last stand. If you're going to lose your capital, stand there to take it like a man and pimp-slap the guy who takes it from you. If you're going to die, take a couple thousand of the other guys with you. The War of 1812 would have been so much cooler if Madison had punched Ross and Cockburn in the face before blowing up Washington and taking out the British. Anyway, they finally get to the Senate, which is now Vongified, and Ganner collapses, which is understandable, because he is going to get killed. Jacen isn't having any of that wussy crap, though. When Ganner won't get up, he TKs him up and does his best Frank Oz impersonation to get him inside. So they go up. Jacen gets up to the doors. He makes his big crowd-rousing speech. Then he shuts the door in their face and goes inside.

• Now that they're safely in, Jacen gives Ganner some instructions to get out, hide, maybe make it a little while longer. Ganner's manning up. He won't have it. He wants Jacen to escape with him. Jacen says no. He has to do this. He has to be himself. Then the Vong blow the door. And Ganner gets it. He has to be himself. He has to play the hero. He has to buy Jacen time. And he has to kick some motherkriffing ass.

• Ted pulls Jacen into the Well of Ted. Ganner sets off to whup ass. First, he goes John McClane on the scouts they send in. Then he strides out and goes full-on Caine on the hundreds of assembled Vong troops. You already know the capper; I'll give you the awesomeness everyone else leaves out.

"There are thousands of warriors out here. You are only one man!"

"I am only one Jedi."

"You're insane!"

"No. I am Ganner."

• So now he's challenged them. And they bring it. And he throws it right back in their face. Ganner rips through them like a concrete saw through cottage cheese and asks for more. The Vong are elated. For guys who live for awesome honorable combat against worthy opponents, this is like Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, New Year, Labor Day, the Fourth of July, National Pancake Week, and Fel's Day all rolled together. Nom, since he doesn't buy into any of that bunk, is freaking out like an alcoholic going through withdrawal.

• Meanwhile, Jacen goes to chat up Ted. Ted's kinda pissed at him, though, since he tried to kill Ted last time they met. Jacen doesn't care. He hits him with his realization: yeah, the universe is crappy. Yeah, it's ugly. Yeah, it's full of pain and suffering and random agony and none of it make any damn sense. But it's your universe. You're part of it and it's part of you. You can't escape it. So love it. Love yourself. It's all the same. And Ted thinks about it . . . and he decides that's not so bad a philosophy. He's in.

• So, Jacen and his new hippie-dippie universal-love pal were going to go off and smoke some of that marrajoowanna with their other longhair pinko friends, but then Jacen remembers Ganner's out there getting one with the Force and cutting off pieces Vong will later wish they had. Overall it looks something like this:

• So he hops out to help. But Vergere's there, and she would prefer that Jacen not run out and get killed. She's like, "Hey, dude, how about you live? He's giving his life to let you escape. So do it." She tosses Jacen his lightsaber, and he realizes he's not a warrior. Which he already did. But now he gets that he's a student. And then Ganner ends the issue by bringing the freaking roof down on himself and a tank beast, which is fully as badass as it sounds, utterly whomping the Vong, guaranteeing no one else can come in, and ensuring first-ballot admission to the Official Badass Hall of Fame. So Jacen's like, "Well, I guess I should leave then." And they go steal Nom's getaway ship, laugh in his face, and take off.

• So Jacen and Vergere are hanging out on Nom's ship, congratulating themselves on a successful escape, drinking champagne, and eating beetles. Vong cuisine leaves something to be desired. Jacen thinks about Ganner. Vergere says he was born to be a legend; he's going to enter the fricking Vong mythology. Oh, and Jacen reveals just what he did: he subverted Ted. Now, and forever after, the Vongshaping isn't going to be perfect. The Vong's glorious new homeworld will be flawed, and there will be nothing they can do about it. The fanatics will have to learn compromise. Fanaticism, you see, is self-defeating. Vergere could not be happier.

• Tune in for Jacen's next adventure, when he sunbathes the war away.
• Part XLVII: Destiny's Way
  In which our hero gets a promotion and immediately takes a vacation
  
  
  • Leia's hanging out in the Falcon with Han, since that's all she's good for now that she's out of politics. And all of a sudden, hey, Jacen's alive. And Leia knows . . . everything changes. Then Han is awesome and kills some Vong, and Jag shows up and dominates the Vong and demonstrates his understanding of the Empire's future. Then Fyor Rodan chews Luke out for acting like his Jedi are above the law, and tells them if they want to do stuff, get jobs like everyone else. Then he goes to complain to Mara, and Mara is horny, so they have sex offscreen and we immediately transition to the later discussion, which begins with Mara being thirsty.
    And then he goes, "Hey, Jacen," and thinks some more about how this is the big turning point. The Force is very heavy-handed and melodramatic today. Also, Jaina kills things and starts to think of Jacen, but it goes away.
  
  
  • Seventy pages in, we finally get to Jacen, hanging out with Vergere. He went and meditated to chat with his family, so apparently it's he who's hitting them with some kind of pompous "I'm coming back! You're all saved!" message, except Jaina since he didn't want to distract her when he was fighting. Then Vergere tells him all about how she met the Vong on Zonama Sekot fifty years ago and went away with them . . . and maybe accidentally caused the whole invasion. Also, she rags on the Potentium. Then he fills her in on galactic history in return.
  
  
  • Then they show up over Mon Calamari right when Jacen's done. Funny how that timing always works. They are in a Vong ship, in case you forgot, over the heavily-militarized capital of the New Republic. So they bail into an escape pod and Jacen starts meditating like hell to contact Luke. Luke rings Fleet Command and says, "Yeah, about that pod, it's this dude I know. Be cool." Luke goes up to wait for them to bring him in, and talks about how Jacen has a special destiny, but, uh, those aren't always good. Then Jacen shows up, and Luke and Mara are all excited, and Mara plays Concerned Auntie, and Luke continues his campaign to completely shut Han out of Jacen's life.
  
  
  • Then they go to see Sovv for no reason. And there's Ackbar, and Winter's there. WACKBAR! So they all act happy, and Ackbar is awesome but old, and Winter is all happy to see Jacen, since she kinda raised the kid. Then he and Vergere get pulled off to get debriefed. They release Jacen, but hang on to Vergere for a while, since she is kinda suspicious. Jacen tells Luke about what happened. Luke gets understandably annoyed that Vergere tortured his nephew. He goes to chat with her, and they talk philosophy for a while, and Vergere explains how she had to reduce Jacen to absolutely nothing other than himself so that he could discover his own strength. Luke and Vergere both agree that Jacen is special special special and going to make everything different. For the big game-changer, Jacen's not really doing much.
  
  
  • Luke notices that, and decides he's not doing enough nothing. So he puts Jacen on Official Jedi Vacation. Jacen winds up going to visit WACKBAR! with Auntie Mara and Uncle Luke. And Jacen tells Ackbar about the Vong, and Ackbar's like, "Yeah, I can kick their asses. I'm fricking Ackbar." And then Jacen tells Winter that Anakin appreciated her, and we get a brief meditation on the pain her holographic memory brings her . . . and the benefits as well. Gee, I hope she doesn't have to have any more tragedies with the kids she raised to pain her forever.
  
  
  • So, more stuff goes on. Basically, everything has started going right for the NR. Jaina kicks some random ass. Luke learns from Vergere. Mara exposes Vong spies and prevents an assassination attempt. Some scoundrels rig the election for chief of state, which is totally OK so long as they're heroes. Luke founds a new Jedi Council. Jacen contributes to the about-face to victory by goggling at technology, wandering out to buy clothes and making the holonews, and telling Luke about Vongsense, but not about the fact that he's still in contact with Ted and is conspiring to release a plague of itchiness and overflowing organic toilets across Yuuzhan'tar, which gets Ch'Gangsta Hool killed. Jacen then "feels delicate" the next morning, which sounds exceptionally unheroic and flouncy (honestly, I have an image of him pirouetting in fairy wings to tinkling music while singing, "I feel delicate, oh so delicate," in a falsetto), then gets a call from Danni Quee to come out and win the much more important war against paleness by going out to the reef with her. They talk. Danni is mildly annoyed because someone finally figured out that she has absolutely no qualifications to actually be studying Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology and she's not working anymore since actual professionals in the field are doing the research for the government. Also, some dudes found some stuff about how all Vong life has a gene in common, and then the government pulled them off to something super-secret and Chisstastic for NRI.
  
  
  • Then they go dive some more. Some random friend of Danni's, an Ishi Tib, comes too and randomly gets to hang out with one of the galaxy's biggest celebrities. Shockingly, no krakana. Apparently WJW does not share writing predilections with certain other three-initialed authors. Then, because he's in kindergarten, Jacen invites the two back home for "snacks". They go back home and holy crap it's Jaina. She's like, "Hi, I'm back. Military business," and leaves. Jacen gives his friends a package of those orange crackers with the peanut butter and sends them away. Then Luke and Mara come back, and then Jaina comes back, and Luke tells her about his adventures on Mindor by way of warning her against her whole resigned-to-death-let's-kill-some-Vong thing. Since everyone's coming back, Han and Leia figure they might as well get in on the action, and show up later that night back from Bastion having accomplished absolutely nothing meaningful. Leia is all motherly and relieved, and Han is completely ecstatic.
  
  
  • Jacen grew a beard during his captivity and didn't really trim it or his hair, so he looks like some kind of hippie boyar. He trims the beard, but decides to keep it, since WJW understands the value of a beard in showing maturity, wisdom, experience, heroic masculinity, and irresistibility to women.
  
  
  
  
  • Well, I'm glad they're actually changing Jacen's appearance to show his growth. I'm glad they'll stick with that. Hopefully we can get some images of that.
  
  
  
  
  • More progress is made in the New Republic being completely freaking awesome. ACKBAR IS BACK. Luke's new Council decides to promote the apprentices from Myrkr. So Cal makes a big hullabaloo about it, and they have a ceremony. For which Tenel Ka comes back. We get absolutely nothing about her seeing Jacen for the first time since his capture and the time she completely totally freaked out thinking she'd lost the dude she loved. Yeah. Apparently she's kinda backed off that now that he's actually back. Jacen got kinda (not) screwed outta that deal. So Jacen gets promoted. He's the only one where we don't get told which pair was involved in sticking a robe on him. And now, since Jacen rejected being the sword of the Force in Traitor, the Force picks you, Jaina, and Luke makes a goofy speech about how, yeah, she really pushes herself hard, and isn't going to stop. They then have a reception, since that's what you have after important ceremonies. Leia talks about how they're all grown up. About how the Jedi have her children. I think that's Han crying in the background. Jaina laughs at Jacen not getting why a woman might be interested in him. Idiot. She's all interested in whether he's been beaching his dinghy in Danni's cove on their scuba trips, rather than, you know, "Hey, have you talked to Tenel Ka? You know, her?" Then, rather than doing root beer keg stands like at a good graduation party, Jacen chats with Vergere about how Jedi should never have anything to do with politics, and tells her about the genetic thingy.
  
  
  • Now a couple chapters got taken out to make an e-book, so we jump to Jacen's vacation being over, and how he's on the bridge of the Ralroost coordinating the Jedi meld so that they can more efficiently knock the Vong around. So they're over Duro, and Jacen the Human Yammosk helps them win a battle, and then they leave, since they're just doing raids to build experience. Then Jacen starts trying to teach Tahiri Vongsense. It doesn't really work. Then Vergere sends him a mental text telling him to meet her on Kashyyyk's surface. So he does. And she tells him holy crap the NR created Yuuzhan Vong Super AIDS! Oh, wait, sorry. How silly of me. Nothing could ever seriously use the word super. The NR created Yuuzhan Vong Dreadnought AIDS! But good thing Vergere heard about it and used her magic tears to neutralize it before wiping out their research and running. But they'll just make it again. Jacen is concerned. He agrees to smuggle her back in his fighter, since her ship conveniently stopped working once it got her there. On his way back, he gets summoned to an Emergency Jedi Meeting. Luke said nab Vergere if she shows up. Oh, the irony! Jacen ignores it.
  
  
  • They make a bunch of raids then go to hide out a little way from Ebaq, which means Jacen can't ditch Vergere. He sits around and worries some about Jaina's resignation to death. Then Tsavong Lah attacks, and there's a ridiculously cheesy-awesome scene in which Tsavong Lah throws his arms in the air in victorious ecstasy as voxyn howl and blaze bugs swirl around him. The minor force at Ebaq holds out for a bit, and then Jacen and Kre'fey's reinforcements hop in and start punching Vong in the face. Then General Solo, General Calrissian, Karrde, and Booster "I have a fricking ISD" Terrik show up to do the tactical equivalent of kneeing the Vong in the groin. Then GARM BEL FRICKING IBLIS shows up and takes a bicycle chain to Tsavong's fleet. And Tsavong does not have enough blaze bugs to represent the forces arrayed against him. And everyone's like "Haha Ackbar you're fricking awesome!"
  
  
  • Then Tsavong is like, "Crap, I'm trapped. Better take out some Jedi. I bet there are some on that moonbase." So he shoots his whole fleet at Ebaq 9, and Jacen realizes, "Oh, crap crap crap crap," and runs for his fighter to try to save Jaina singlehandedly or some other stupid hero crap. Vergere tells him, "You're an idiot, sit it out. There's nothing you can do all on your own." Jacen doesn't care. He's all desperate to save his sister. So Tsavong decides, yay, Jedi hunt! And he invites the other Jedi to join, Jacen takes him up on that, so he totally lucks out of having to shoot his way through Tsavong's fleet and actually makes it to the surface, where Jaina and her squadron are holed up and Tsavong is on the hunt. He then has a couple hundred, or maybe a couple thousand, warriors with voxyn come after him, and he realizes that maybe he should have had a little better plan. So he shoots, and slices, and throws grenades, and backs away, and finally when he's out of other weapons, he starts in with a blast of Force Stun, which since it's described as being lightninglike, means he must be evil (pity Karpyshyn didn't write this; he'd make it much clearer which game power Jacen is casting). And then Vergere shows up and is like, "Dude, you're going to lose your air." Then she crashes an A-wing and keeps talking with Jacen, who's very sad the Vong are asphyxiating. She talks about how she had to save him from the consequences of his own choices, which seems rather un-Vergerelike. Then he realizes she's kinda dead, so he gets even sadder because he made Vergere kill herself.
  
  
  • Jacen lives, victory yay, the end. Except wait. It wouldn't be a good action movie if you didn't have a big epic confrontation with the head bad guy. Or if you didn't have a seemingly-dead baddie rise from the dead to make a last-ditch desperation attack. WJW exercises economy by combining both and having Tsavong Lah jump out of nowhere to attack Jaina, give her a hard time for about five seconds, and then get an anticlimactic TKed lightsaber through the back. OK, now it's over.
  
  
  • So we get a wrap-up scene where Luke tells Jacen they're parking the AIDS Dreadnought, and they talk about how it's sad Vergere died but Jacen's learned to accept his actions and not second-guess, and then they talk some about how Luke's going to have to give way to Jacen and the new generation eventually, and Jacen hopes Luke doesn't end up dying for him, and we leave off with HEAVY FORESHADOWING about how this isn't war of good against evil but a challenge to expand the Jedi's understanding of the Force, and Jacen's got to be the one to do it. Also, yay Jaina, and something strange where you could almost believe Shimrra's a puppet and Onimi's pulling the strings . . .
  
  
  • Be sure to tune in next time to hear about Jacen's exciting and vital adventures between chapters 21 and 22!
  • Part XLVIII: Ylesia
    In which our hero discovers the Ackbar within
    
    
    • Jacen shows up at Kashyyyk. He's finally off vacation! He's with Jaina for some reason despite the fact that she should already be back, and they're talking about the war, since they're soldiers dude, and Jacen remains worried that Jaina's going all PTSD. They go and talk to Kre'fey, who's like "LET'S KILL VONG YAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!" Tahiri is also there and acts nice to Jacen, and Kyp shows up. Kyp has matured, but he's still hardcore. He wants to teach the Peace Brigade a lesson about what happens when you mess with Jedi and generally act like spineless jackass turncoats. Kre'fey's like, "That's awesome, let's show up over their capital and just bomb the living hell out of the. No one messes with the New Republic Defense Fleet!" And all the Jedi are like "Uh . . . that . . . uh, that seems somewhat excessive. Civilians and stuff." Kre'fey says, "Well, you're all a bunch of pansies. You wanna get guys killed on the ground trying to take out their leadership? Just nuke the suckers." And Jacen says, "Well, how about we actually capture them? So we can have big show trials and teach some kind of lesson about how you can't escape justice, rather than a lesson about just how a big a boot the NRDF will put up your ass." And finally Kre'fey says, "Awwww, you guys are lame. Fine, we'll do it your way. Always gotta be your way. Never any fun." And Jacen and Jaina volunteer for the ground party because they find out what the heck, Thrackan is suddenly in charge of the Peace Brigade.
    
    
    • Jacen and Jaina wander off and talk about how it's ridiculous that Tahiri has her own squadron, and Jacen is going to fly with Jaina, and what the heck is the deal with Jaina and Kyp Durron seriously dudes, and then they get to Jaina's room and she gets kiss-ambushed as part of an experiment in love by that most boring and emotionless of characters, Jagged Fel. Once Jaina realizes that this is not in fact a rape, she sends Jacen away so she can bone Jag, and Jacen hopefully goes back to his room feeling vaguely queasy.
    
    
    • So they show up at Ylesia and Twin Suns and Jag's Chiss Squadron start pwning traitors. Jacen is taking the fight to bad guys and not even getting himself in philosophical knots about it. Holy crap! Jacen shoots up a lot of bad guys real nice, but he isn't as good as Jaina, so he must suck at flying dude no way could he ever fly well. Then they take out a Vong fleet, and then Jacen saves Jaina's idiot rookie wingwoman Vale, who sucks at flying (which anyone who's ever watched a war movie could tell you means that in Destiny's Way she will suddenly get acceptably good just before dying tragically), but he gets a grutchin on the wing and has to fly away, pop his cockpit, fly a super-fast starfighter through a war zone backward and standing up, and shoot the giant metal-eating demon cricket in the face repeatedly with a handgun.
    
    
    • Sadly, as he is now missing a wing and engine, Jacen can't really get back in the fight. But the fight is really over anyway. So he goes back to Ralroost to get a new fighter, and lands, and hey Kre'fey wants to see him. Then he gets a Force-meld-signal approximately along the lines of "Aw man Vong fleet!" So he runs to the bridge and, yeah, a Vong fleet showed up. Jacen wants to get to a fighter, man, but they tell him sorry, they're fresh out. So he just has to hang out on the bridge for a while and watch the enemy fleet just sit around. But luckily, Jaina already showed up with General Tigran Jamiro (WJW ran out of BFC background characters Luceno hadn't used already, so he was forced to turn to TESB background characters), captured Thrackan, threw a bunch of Iraqi insurgents off a roof with her Wookiee friend, and nabbed the entire Peace Brigade leadership along with that traitorous and hilariously pompous so-and-so Pwoe.
    
    
    • Then, however, everything goes wrong when Maal Lah ambushes her convoy, and she has to run away because Vong are just killing prisoners and refugees and soldiers left and right, but then Jag saves the day by deploying his precision awesome and tactical genius in order to deliver the bombardment from hell on the Vong. Then, only when Jag is done rocking Jaina's entire lower body but most especially her bowels, does she run out and get up to shuttles and escape yay. Also, Thrackan got to chew out Pwoe in an uproariously racist manner and threaten him with harpooning.
    
    
    • So Jacen gets into the meld, since that's all he can do, and realizes hey, he's kinda got this good spatial coordinating thing going, and is led by the Force and stuff, so he notices that it is, in fact, a trap. The enemy is drawing out their line so they can ambush part of it. So he tells Kre'fey, and being a wily Bothan sonofagun, he pulls the fleet away and lays down a missile barrage that achieves the space-battle equivalent of hitting the Vong reinforcements right in the face with a two-by-four just as they step out the door. Victory and a manly retreat is theirs.
    
    
    • No battle would be complete without a post-battle wind-down scene, so we see Jaina complaining about the fiasco the battle almost turned into while being pleasured by Jag, who defends the outcome as pretty good really, and Jacen looks on and talks about how he's giving up fighter-piloting for life as Kre'fey's resident Force-powered 911 dispatcher. Also, did the Vong really force Thrackan into leading the Peace Brigade? Gee, seems kinda hard to believe . . . but Jag's got it figured out.
    
    
    • Don't miss our next installment, when Jacen makes lifelong friends with Gilly Pellaeon!

And with that, we're up to Jacen's counted_stars canon.