Ben Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momslilassassin) wrote2008-12-22 12:02 am
momslilassassin) wrote2008-12-22 12:02 am
Coruscant [very late Sunday night]
Ben tried to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest as he snuck down the hallway towards the rooms where deposed Chief of State Cal Omas was kept under house arrest.
He peeked through the door's window. He could see Omas slumped down in his desk chair, not looking much like a man planning to regain power. But appearances could be deceiving: Omas'd had no problem trying to undermine the Jedi Order, had seen nothing wrong with negotiating with the Corellian Prime Minister in a time of war...had talked about eliminating Jacen and Admiral Niathal...he was entirely capable of ordering the death of Mara Jade Skywalker.
Slipping into the apartment, Ben turned his attention to the attack droid standing next to Omas's desk: it was the same variety that had served as his nanny when he was a kid. Assuming that the droid had the same internal design as Nanna, he visualized the circuit breaker hidden under the neck armor and used the Force to trip it.
The lights in the droid’s eyes dimmed for a second, then the circuit breaker reset itself, and the droid turned its head towards the entrance alcove where Ben was hiding. "Blast!" he muttered, flipping the circuit breaker again. The droid reset itself again. "Double blast!"
As the droid aimed one of its many weapons at Ben, Ben began rolling out of the way and pulled the equivalent of a stun grenade for droids from his belt pouch--fingers slipping past other small explosives (thank you, Professor Durden) and drugs to knock out Omas (thank you, Professor Petrelli)--and threw it at the droid's chest.
Instead of shutting down like it was supposed to, the droid staggered around blindly, shooting up the room. So far everything was going wrong. Ben, hearing Professor Atreides' voice in his head lecturing about poor planning, leaped onto the droid, ignited his lightsaber and slashed down on the cannon arm. The shielding was so thick that his weapon only cut halfway through, and the droid staggered away, falling through a credenza with a deafening crash. Ben swung again, hitting the same spot on the droid and feeling the lightsaber cut deeper. The droid lashed out with its other arm, cuffing Ben across the head and flinging him into a wall.
Ben shook his head to stop the ringing in his ears as the droid lurched closer, then shot his lightsaber straight through the droid's chest, scrambling the processing core and dropping several hundred pounds of suddenly useless metal onto himself.
Could anything else go wrong? he thought as he unburied himself, only to be greeted by the business end of a blaster pistol.
[OOC: Dialogue snurched from "Inferno" by Troy "Rackin' Up the Body Count" Denning. Warnings for violence and gratuitous trauma inflicted on a 14-year-old character. NFB.]
He peeked through the door's window. He could see Omas slumped down in his desk chair, not looking much like a man planning to regain power. But appearances could be deceiving: Omas'd had no problem trying to undermine the Jedi Order, had seen nothing wrong with negotiating with the Corellian Prime Minister in a time of war...had talked about eliminating Jacen and Admiral Niathal...he was entirely capable of ordering the death of Mara Jade Skywalker.
Slipping into the apartment, Ben turned his attention to the attack droid standing next to Omas's desk: it was the same variety that had served as his nanny when he was a kid. Assuming that the droid had the same internal design as Nanna, he visualized the circuit breaker hidden under the neck armor and used the Force to trip it.
The lights in the droid’s eyes dimmed for a second, then the circuit breaker reset itself, and the droid turned its head towards the entrance alcove where Ben was hiding. "Blast!" he muttered, flipping the circuit breaker again. The droid reset itself again. "Double blast!"
As the droid aimed one of its many weapons at Ben, Ben began rolling out of the way and pulled the equivalent of a stun grenade for droids from his belt pouch--fingers slipping past other small explosives (thank you, Professor Durden) and drugs to knock out Omas (thank you, Professor Petrelli)--and threw it at the droid's chest.
Instead of shutting down like it was supposed to, the droid staggered around blindly, shooting up the room. So far everything was going wrong. Ben, hearing Professor Atreides' voice in his head lecturing about poor planning, leaped onto the droid, ignited his lightsaber and slashed down on the cannon arm. The shielding was so thick that his weapon only cut halfway through, and the droid staggered away, falling through a credenza with a deafening crash. Ben swung again, hitting the same spot on the droid and feeling the lightsaber cut deeper. The droid lashed out with its other arm, cuffing Ben across the head and flinging him into a wall.
Ben shook his head to stop the ringing in his ears as the droid lurched closer, then shot his lightsaber straight through the droid's chest, scrambling the processing core and dropping several hundred pounds of suddenly useless metal onto himself.
Could anything else go wrong? he thought as he unburied himself, only to be greeted by the business end of a blaster pistol.
| "Ben?" Cal Omas's confused face looked down at him from behind the weapon. | |
| Ben flicked his hand and sent the pistol flying. | |
| Omas's expression changed to sorrow. "Ah, Ben. I'm sorry it has to be you. This is a nasty business for someone so young." | |
| Keeping his lightsaber between himself and Omas, Ben rose to his feet. "You know why I'm here?" | |
| "I'm only surprised it took Jacen this long," Omas said, nodding his head. | |
| "Jacen didn't send me," Ben said. He didn't think Omas understood why he was there, not really. "I came on my own." | |
| "Why bother lying, Ben?" Omas asked. "I'm only going to be alive a few more minutes, and you'll still have to be fast. For a Jedi, you haven't been very stealthy." | |
| "Tell me about it," Ben said, giving the droid a sour look. "But we've still got time before Coruscant Security arrives." | |
| The look Omas shot Ben was more judgmental than shocked. "You mean you took out the whole detail guarding me?" | |
| "Not dead," he said sharply as Kaylee’s shocked expression flashed through his mind. He deactivated his lightsaber and tossed an empty cylinder at the Chief. "Coma gas." | |
| Omas had leaped out of the way of the cylinder, and was now laughing a little shakily. "That's good, Ben," he said. "I thought you had become...well, like Jacen." He sat down in his desk chair and poured himself a glass of brandy. "But before you do this, there's something you need to know." He opened his cloak and revealed a small scanner clipped to his vest. A line ran across the display, rising and falling in the familiar pattern of a human heartbeat. | |
| "You're death trapped," Ben said quietly. Of course he was. Nothing else in this op had gone his way. | |
| "A venerable tradition for deposed Chiefs," Omas said, nodding. "You'll have to make sure I die slowly or..." he glanced up at the ceiling, indicating it would come crashing down. Then he nodded at the transparisteel window. "And you can't go out that way, either. It's rigged to a thermal detonator." | |
| "Great," Ben sighed. This was going to make faking a death so much more complicated. | |
| "Sorry, Ben," Omas said. "I was hoping it would be Jacen standing here." | |
| "He's too smart for that," Ben said. | |
| "Everyone makes mistakes," Omas said, watching as a pair of hovercars flew slowly past the window. "I've made my share." He sighed and finished his drink, then approached Ben and spread his arms. "It looks like we're running out of time. I'm sure you know better than I where to strike. Don't worry if it's painful--I've done enough to deserve that. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to escape. I don't want to leave this life with your death on my conscience." | |
| Ben used the Force to stop Omas from approaching, shaking his head. The fear and sadness coming from the Chief suggested he was telling the truth: he really did want to make this easy on him. "I won't do anything," Ben said, removing a recording device from his pocket. "Not until you know why." He activated the rod, then watched Omas's eyes widen as he heard his own voice speaking, saying that they needed to redirect Luke Skywalker's attention so his friends on the Jedi Council would be free to reinstate him--that he really didn't need to know how the mysterious you planned to get that done. | |
| A politician as practiced as Omas might've been able to fake the look of horror on his face, but not the shock that was pouring into the Force, or the outrage and despair. The thump of a door-breaking explosion sounded from the front of the apartment and Omas finally stopped staring at the recording rod and looked up at Ben. "You think I had your mother killed?" | |
| "Actually, I don't," Ben said, releasing his grip on Omas, "and I never really did." He yanked on his braid. "I bet it went something like this. One of your guards started being friendly when there was no one around, and eventually told you she was sympathetic to your cause. One day she lets you use her comlink, just so you can tell your family that you’re okay." | |
| Omas nodded. "I was suspicious," he said, "but I was desperate to talk to my daughter before Jacen sent...well, someone like you. I used the comlink for exactly the purpose he wanted." He sighed. "I did say some of those things you heard--" | |
| "But not in that context," Ben finished. | |
| "I never asked my daughter or anyone else to distract your father," Omas said. "Especially by killing Mara." | |
| "I know," Ben said softly. "Because I'm fairly certain the killer was Jacen. He was close by when it happened, and Mom knew he was working with Lumiya." | |
| Omas's jaw dropped. "The Sith Lumiya? You have proof of this?" | |
| "Of course not," Ben said. "Jacen's too careful for that." He pointed at Omas's health scanner as the sounds behind the blast doors became less muffled. "Can you take that off? Jacen's the one who gave me that recording. To find evidence, I need to get close to him again." | |
| Omas's eyes lit up with understanding, then became more penetrating. "You're not going after evidence, Ben. You want to kill Jacen." It wasn't a question. "And to get close enough, you have to convince him you can be trusted." | |
| Ben nodded. "That's right. So we have to fake your death." And he'd had about fifteen opinions on how to do it. Right now, using the Molotov cocktail was the most appealing. | |
| "Jacen would see through that kind of deception in a heartbeat," Omas said firmly, his gaze flashing to the blaster pistol, then to the blast doors where an officer was yelling that they were completely surrounded. "Hurry!" he yelled at the door, rolling towards the gun. "He's going to kill me!" The Chief started firing at Ben, his aim not quite true. | |
| "Wait!" Ben yelled at Omas, deflecting the bolts with his lightsaber. "You don't understand!" A giant boom from the front door caught Ben's attention, and he took his eyes off of his attacker. | |
| Omas charged at him, ignoring Ben's cries to stop, then hurled himself forward--not at Ben, but at the wall beside him, where his lightsaber hung at gut level. | |
| Ben flipped off the lightsaber, but the smell of scorched meat filled his nostrils, and he knew he'd been too slow. | |
| Omas slumped to the floor, a terrible wound smoking just below his ribcage. He tossed his blaster aside, then looked up at Ben. "There was no other way," he said, coughing. He looked toward an earsplitting bang coming from the front door. "Go, Ben," he whispered. "And forgive me." | |
| "Forgive you?" Ben repeated in a hollow voice as he stared at the injury. "I'm the one who--" The rest of his sentence was lost in an ear-splitting crack from the front of the apartment that left Ben's ears ringing, and he suddenly felt the presence of a dozen security officers in the room. Ben watched the health monitor on the Chief's chest slow down as his heart began to stop beating, then made a break for the door. Explaining to the officers in the room what was about to happen would take too long, and there were only ten seconds tops before Omas passed away. Ben raced down the hallway feeling guilty and ashamed, though not for the reasons he'd imagined. "Come on!" he yelled as he passed the backup security team. "I was too late--the whole place is about to blow!" The officer in charge lowered his blaster rifle and stared after Ben, then nodded and followed. "Let's go! He's a Jedi, right?" Ben had never felt less like a Jedi in his life. |
[OOC: Dialogue snurched from "Inferno" by Troy "Rackin' Up the Body Count" Denning. Warnings for violence and gratuitous trauma inflicted on a 14-year-old character. NFB.]
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