“What will happen to me now?” Qui-Gon asked, changing the subject. He knew he was dead, his mortal body no longer receptive to his soul. He can no longer return to the living in such form. He will now have to be a ghost, a luminous being, a specter of the Force.
“You can still watch over them. Guide them. Even appear and converse with them if you so choose. The only limit would be your very own inhibitions, your own sense of control and devotion to the task. Some could survive for thousands of years, some barely hours. It is up entirely to your determination.” Tahl answered.
“I have heard stories, but most of them are from the dark side of the Force…” Qui-Gon said.
“There is no dark and light in the Force. It is what it is, the Force. The culmination of such distinction was created by mortals. Light and dark dwells in the individual, in the choices they make, in their intentions.” Tahl seemed to shake her head, “Look…”
The other figures around her took a more distinct appearance. Qui-Gon Jinn recognized most of them from his studies in the Jedi Archives. Before him stood Nomi Sunrider, Ulic Qel-Droma, Tot Doneeta, Sylvar, Hoth, Dinno Duneglider, Theenovet Roughweather, Thame Cerulian, Thambanucc, Sifo-Dyas and many others.
“I am… overwhelmed.” Qui-Gon croaked.
“You asked what will happen to you now. That is entirely up to you. But heed first what we have to say. Dark forces are making their move against the Balance of the Force. The debacle on Naboo was just one of the many instrumental events that would be concluded in the overall grand scheme of things. The Sith, as you may know all too well by now still exist and they have a new edge, the Chosen One. They wanted the boy, Qui-Gon. Everything now depends on the Chosen One’s choices.” Tahl revealed.
“I was right then! Anakin is the Chosen One!” Qui-Gon gasped.
“The galaxy is at a perilous era. The Jedi and the people is about to face a threat they haven’t imagined. A war looms closer to reality than it may seem so vast it would shatter the galaxy asunder. Guide them Qui-Gon and that is my counsel.” Tahl and the others begin to face.
“Wait!” Qui-Gon called out but they have dissipated to nothingness. It felt like falling, but there were no virtual indication, no sense of which was up or down, it was like a perverted hyperspace tunnel in which gravitational pull remains non-existent. Yet he could feel he was dropping from an imaginary abyss, he felt helpless and small, and he knew it was a testament to the immeasurable potency of the Force.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes and saw a dark evil metal mask laughing at him.
* * *
Abject nothingness, prevailing invisible vertigo and pure trembling and seething anger and hatred permeated from the inside out of his blackened heart and raging and screaming subconscious.
A tenet imprinted in his years of harsh, brutal and deadly training came out like a part of his very own existence, essence and perverse mentality.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. This has to be the afterlife, he saw himself perished under the blade of the Jedi and that meant that he had utterly failed his Master.
The first tenet rang truer than ever. Even in his death he felt no peace, but pent up rage and frustration for his failure and pure anger and hatred to the Jedi as a whole and to the Jedi who slew him.
Such passion should be adequate to resurrect any of the ancient Sith Lords back to the land of the living.
Through passion, I gain strength. The rage he felt was so strong it revitalized his very core, his very cell, his very soul. The strength surged up from both ends of his existence. The physicality of it was staggering, even in the emptiness of this unknown realm.
Through strength, I gain power. Potent energy caused by the swirling cyclone of dark side power engulfed him, feeding his very own passion and might. Cold seeped into the marrow of his bones, he felt unseen supremacy thrumming on the cold vibrating pavement where he lays, his consciousness beginning to discern light, cold and solidity. The life that was once taken from him was finally coming back to his body.
Through power, I gain victory. He opened his eyes and the blinding glare of the overhead light contracted his pupils and he was forced to wince and snarl in annoyance. For a fracture of a second he was confused as to where he was. He looked around and all he could see was a cylindrical wall surrounding him and rising as high as his straining eyesight could reach, terminating in a beam of white light shining like a beacon above, mocking him and taunting him.
The moment of confusion was obliterated as his memory refreshed everything. He has slain the only person he knew that truly loves him out of his blind obedience to his Master. He has killed the master and was slain by the apprentice in turn. He groaned at the phantom pain and tried to get up. The Jedi believed that he has been killed, but he lives. He was victorious in the face of death itself.
Through victory my chains are broken. Darth Maul, the Dark Lord of the Sith shouted his rage to the empty chamber. The Force rippled from his hatred, sending unseen waves of power through the shaft upward. He survived, but as he tries to get up another recollection hit him. The young Jedi had cut him in half, he saw his lower body opposite him, the flesh cauterized by the lightsaber that brought him down to this abyssal grave.
Yet he felt nothing at all, his chains are finally broken. He now answers to no one. No more Lord Sidious to cast its evil shadow on his every move, to please and serve, no one but himself, no more restraint or bonds of code or control.
Darth Maul is finally free. He looked around him and saw a swarm of maintenance droids designed to be small and in insectoid appearance that reminds him of the mechanical extension nodes of Kud’ar Mub’at. They gathered around him, studying him intently.
He could not tell how long he was out since the duel against the Jedi but as he reach out to the Force he felt a stunning presence of a number of Jedi nearby, somewhere here in the palace. More than a dozen of them and he could feel their silent grief for the one he slew. What shocked him even more was the subtle cloaked presence of his former Master, Darth Sidious among the group of the mourning Jedi.
Darth Maul grinned as the braver nodes came closer and probed their electric-charged pincers at the cauterized halves of the Zabrak.
The Jedi Council is here as well as Lord Sidious!
He would have gotten up, recover his lightsaber and charge out slaying the sanctimonious self-righteous self-serving Jedi from their old deranged diminutive green Grand Master to that cocky padawan who dare delude himself from being the one to slew a Sith, but not before he exposes Darth Sidious first before the pathetic Jedi Council. He relished the idea but it would be impossible to do that in his current state. He must resolve on bidding his time, build up his strength, his power before he reveal himself once more to the Jedi… and to the Sith.
More of the mechanical nodes came out swarming all over his body and took him deeper on the barely accessible recesses of the plasma reactor complex of Theed, “That’s it! Make me whole again! Serve your new master, and in return I shall rid this galaxy of those pretentious Jedi!” Darth Maul laughed hoarsely.
* * *
Everything became overly confusing.
Dark frightful faces streamed before her like an inverted river of evil. The dark side of the Force pulsed in the blinking red orange glow behind the endless flowing images of the dead.
There were howling horned bipedal sentients whose species were utterly unfamiliar. There were millions of them, all emanating hatred and rage… the dark side embodied.
Hands started to take form and they were all clamoring to reach out, touch, grab, grip and pull. Their howls were mixed with a wave of cries from a mass of variations of species, from humans to Twi’leks, to Bith, Rodians and hundreds of others. Dark evil faces laughed vehemently, mockingly while the others gaunt and tortured cried out in despair, anguish, pain, sorrow, loss, longing and fear… no not fear, but outright sheer terror.
Such was the intense combination felt overwhelmingly maddening.
It clun
g on the ears, ringing ceaselessly like an undying aftermath of carnage and bloodlust. It binds in the skin like irrefutable rebuke of fate and tragedy. It permeates the bones like the inevitable clamor of thirst, hunger, desire and downright obsession.
The long vanquished species of the Sith loomed before the unblinking eyes of its owner, they were the Sith Kings of old forgotten past. They looked down with blatant scowls of disapproval, contempt, spite, and disgust and despise.
The Lady Sarc Crimos screamed her voice swallowed by the nothingness in which she was in. There was nowhere to go she cannot move, there was nowhere to look, the visage remains fixated before her.
There was no escape, it seemed forever, and the unending parade of faces went on endlessly goading her further beyond the limits of insanity.
She recognized some of them, King Adas, Lord Graush, Marka Ragnos, Ludo Kresh, Freedon Nadd, Exar Kun, Lord Nihilus, Lord Sion, Lord Revan, Lord Malak, Lord Malgus, Lord Kaan, Lord Bane and hundreds of others she could not identify or even recognize its species. They were all talking to her at once, each demanding something from her, telling her what to do for them, for the Sith Order. Each have their own agenda, their own goals and purpose all desired to use her, as she has been used all her life.
She screamed once more and this time she did not care whether it was heard by anyone. She just wailed pleading for the voice to stop.
It went on for a little longer and when she was beyond endurance of the torturous vision it suddenly ceased without warning. The sudden darkness and silence felt like a physical blow, it left her breathless, an odd analogy considering she wasn’t even alive.
But that was how she felt, and with that strange realization, she knew somehow she still lives, perhaps not in a physical sense anymore. That would be beyond her comprehension, her heart was pierced by the blade of the man she has so hopelessly and obsessively loved all her life.
The darkness slowly took form; it was night on an eerily familiar desolate region. She saw the unmistakable Serpent’s Arc, the Blood River, the Bull’s Trench and the Forbidden Mountains.
Crimos gasped, she was seeing Dathomir exactly as it was in the last night she was with Maul, and then the image changed with nauseating suddenness. She found herself looking up at the face of her Nightsister hybrid mother, sucking on her breast like a craven child, famished. She could not recall ever being aware of her infancy before. Before she could assimilate in full what was happening, the vision changed once more and she saw a muscular handsome man tied, and dozen Nightsisters around him, chanting. She saw her mother coming at him and she realized he was her father, the half Hapan, half Iegon Dark Jedi whose name she could not even remember.
She saw Feral and Savage beating each other for her attention.
She saw the face of Maul, felt his warmth on that kiss they shared the night before he was taken away. It was that kiss that has sealed her fate. It was the reason why she chose to leave the sisterhood, why she dipped into the levels of criminals and why she allowed herself to be absorbed by both the Jedi and the Sith. All because of that kiss, because of him.
She saw the faces of Hutts and other crime lords she has worked for during her days as mere urchin in the Black Sun.
She saw the Jedi Council and the outright rejection of Master Yoda at her. She saw Jedi Master Djinn Altis allowing her to be trained aboard the Chu’unthor II.
She saw the face of her own Master, the human Jedi Nivraet Roughweather, when she stabbed him with her own lightsaber on his heart with the look of betrayed shock in his dying eyes.
She saw Darth Sidious and his false promise to reunite her with her love and finally she saw the tattooed face that kept her going, kept her surviving all those years… all for nothing.
She stared at the face of Darth Maul. The man she has loved since she was even too young to be aware of such connection. The only man she has given herself wholly, flesh and blood, heart and soul. The man she so obsessively longed for, the man who betrayed her, the man who killed her.
Darth Maul faded before her and it was replaced by a hooded Sith with a mask. The eyes behind the mask gripped her with intense fear and terror. It was as if those eyes alone could take down the entire galaxy. It was as if those eyes alone could destroy the entire Jedi Order by a single blink.
He spoke to her, his voice deep and hissing, reptilian at the most.
“Feed your hatred. Succor to your despair. Draw strength to this plasma rich complex. Draw power around you, become a phantom of vengeance. Stay here as long as it takes, a host will come here unwittingly. Use him, bid your time. The Sith Lord who used you and lied to you is still out there. The man who betrayed you yet lives. Yes. The Jedi has slain him but he lives still. Like you, he will fade in the dark and recuperate.”
“Who are you?” Crimos asked.
“I am your new Master.”
“Who are you?” Crimos asked again.
“In time, my young apprentice... in time,”
Chapter 50: Requiem to a Jedi
Anakin Skywalker and Artoo Detoo were greeted as heroes the moment they landed on the Theed Spaceport.
Captains Ric Olié and Hoff Siege carried Anakin on their shoulders as the pilots from both squadrons and the rest of the ground forces and Moviana fleet personnel came and crowded on them to get up close to the savior of Naboo.
Nym, Resnon, Borvo and the Gungan leaders Boss Nass, Jar-jar, Tarpals and Fassa accompanied Anakin, Artoo and the two captains to the Theed Palace where the Queen and Captain Panaka were securing the captured Trade Federation Viceroy.
The rest of the Trade Federation battleships that blockaded Naboo have jumped out of the Chommell Sector after they all saw the destruction of the Droid Control Ship Saak’ak and received confirmation that their Viceroy has been apprehended by the Queen’s soldiers.
Artoo Detoo along with the rest of the R2 units was temporarily assigned to assisting the few medical droids that are attending to the injured soldiers. One of the first patients that Artoo helped to fix was Gregar Typho who lost one of his eyes from a grenade shrapnel during the battle on the streets of Theed City.
Artoo Detoo was next sent to stay with Captain Hoff Siege for the moment while Anakin Skywalker was taken as an honorary guest to the house of Captain Ric Olié. The Gungans collected the deactivated droids and as part of the deal of the Queen with Nym, Borvo and Resnon, the three off-worlders divided the salvaged battle droids, droid starfighters and other Trade Federation vehicles from STAPs to Troop Transports, AATs to MTTs to abandoned C-9979 Landing Ships.
The Lady Crystaé received a special position among the Queen’s Royal Advisory Council. The freshly healed Governor Sio Bibble with the help of the Order of the Sanctuary, Naboo Underground and the battalions of Captain Roos Tarpals and Major Fassa went to attend the first stage of clearing the cities of Naboo beginning with Theed and on to the other cities and villages throughout the planet.
At the day after the Great Battle of Naboo, Queen Amidala accompanied by Captain Panaka, Aluva, Sabé, the Royal Advisory Council including their new member the Lady Crystaé, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, the rest of the Royal Handmaidens and Artoo Detoo gathered at the throne room as the Queen established a contact with the newly elected Supreme Chancellor, Palpatine, after they received a call from Nym, Borvo and Resnon that the HoloNet transmitters has been repaired and were now fully operational once more.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s holographic image appeared and congratulated the Queen and her people for defeating the Trade Federation and being able to capture Viceroy Nute Gunray. Palpatine ended their conversation with a promise to send a small Republic Navy fleet to make sure that the Naboo would be safe and also assured Queen Amidala that he would personally return to Naboo tonight for the funeral pyre of Master Jinn and for victory celebration tomorrow.
After that, Jedi Knight Kenobi contacted the Jedi Council and Master Yoda spoke with the Queen, Captain Panaka and to Obi-Wan about the developments o
n Naboo. The Jedi Council also gave their word to arrive tonight to facilitate the funeral of their fellow Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and for the celebration in the morning.
Artoo Detoo wandered on the palace while Siege Hoff was busy on the Theed Hangar supervising the repairs of their starfighters. He passed by the comm center and decided to take a short detour, inside amidst the busy comm personnel coordinating with security officers of various political and business delegates who wanted to come for the celebration.
He found one of the vacant comm consoles with a blinking incoming call. Looking around, Artoo saw everyone else were already occupied on their consoles so he took the initiative and went to the terminal to answer the call.
Shortly after that Artoo Detoo was hurrying past startled people back into the palace and up to the throne room itself where Queen Amidala and Captain Panaka were having a silent conversation with the Lady Crystaé, Aluva and Sabé.
Panaka saw Artoo rolling straight at them and acknowledged the astromech unit. “Hello Artoo, what seems to be the problem?”
Artoo let out a series of beeps and went straight into the holo receiver of the Queen and turned it on. Panaka saw the incoming indicator blinking and let Artoo continue with the patch.
The holo of Jedi Master Windu appeared.
“I was beginning to think that our call will not get there in time. Greetings Your Majesty, I would just like to inform you that we are already on our way there, we would be entering Naboo space in…” the Korun Jedi Master glanced at his chrono, “…ten minutes. The Supreme Chancellor has decided to take a hitch with us to save time and ships. We will be there shortly.”
The holo winked out and Panaka thanked Artoo. Aluva waved for Artoo to come over them as the Captain and the Queen conversed silently and Panaka began making calls to arrange a welcoming party and prepare the Viceroy for the turn-over.
“Artoo, can you spare some more time for an errand?” Aluva asked him.
Lady Crystaé would have normally frowned for Aluva’s action, to her, it is not for a human to ask permission to a droid but since Artoo is somewhat also a hero, she decided that perhaps the droid deserves a little… courtesy. Artoo beeped an affirmative and Aluva instructed the droid to make a cursory sweep to the Plasma Reactor Complex and see if he could recover anything there from the recent battle that took place there.