Ben Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momslilassassin) wrote2009-03-22 10:16 pm
momslilassassin) wrote2009-03-22 10:16 pm
Entry tags:
Endor, GFFA [Sunday afternoon Fandom time]
Ben reached into his jacket to touch the forensics droid, and only half to prove to himself that it was still there. He was the only passenger on this civilian shuttle, and the pilots were chatty. Ben slouched in his chair and did his best to look angsty and teenaged.
It wasn’t working.
“You know I can only drop you at the trading base, right?” the pilot asked.
Ben rubbed at his jaw, surprised to realize that he needed to shave. Maybe that was why no one had called him kid in the last few days. He was starting to look as old as he felt. “That’s fine,” he said. “Someone’s meeting me.”
“Just checking,” the pilot replied. “I wouldn’t drop my worst enemy in that place. Ewoks. Savages. I’d shoot them all, to be honest.”
“Some of my friends are Ewoks,” Ben replied, unable to let that comment pass. “And I feel safer in the forest than I do in Galactic City.”
Something dangerous must have been in his eyes because the pilot immediately backed down. “No offense. Coruscant…I know what you mean. If it isn’t the gangsters and lowlifes, it’s the secret police.”
And some of my best friends are secret police, Ben thought. He kept that to himself. It was the last leg of a ridiculously complicated trip back to the secret base, and in a few hours he’d be with friends and family. He touched the droid again. It felt like a link to some kind of tenuous peace.
Where do I start with Dad? Do I have all the evidence I need? And when—how—do I tell him Mom came to see me?
Of all the things that plagued Ben in the quiet moments—and he’d worked hard to make sure he didn’t have many of them—that last question was the most frequent. It was a privilege he was pretty sure Luke hadn’t been given, and it made Ben more and more uncomfortable as the days passed. Why just me? Ben had never been comfortable with accepting the will and mysteries of the Force: the show me and prove it world of the police had appealed to him because of it.
The ship set down and Ben could feel his father’s presence—he shone in the Force like a small sun—and was off the shuttle and heading into the small clearing with as little time passing as possible. “Dad,” he said, reaching out to hug him, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back.”
“You look whacked,” Luke replied.
“Been busy,” Ben said, reaching out and poking his father’s flight suit. “Been putting in the flying hours?”
“Going to put more in,” Luke replied. “Jacen’s lined up to take Fondor. We’ve put a hydrospanner in the works, and we’re going to add a few more. Oh, and Han and Leia are still scanning for a new base.” Luke walked over to some parked swoop bikes and gestured at his chest. “You take up smashball while you were back at school? You nearly broke my ribs with whatever’s in your jacket.”
Ben figured it was as good a time as any. “It’s a forensics droid,” he said. “It has evidence in it.”
Luke swung onto the first bike in line. Ben climbed on behind him. “My son the soldier, now my son the cop. What did you find?”
“Plenty,” Ben said softly.
Luke twisted his head to look at his son as they whipped through the trees. “And?”
“Eyes forward, Dad!” Ben replied.
Luke snorted. He was more than capable of flying and listening to bad news at once.
“I’m not the judge or jury on this,” Ben began. “You stopped me when I wanted to kill Jacen, and that was a big lesson. I’m just the prosecution here. I'll show you what I’ve found, and Uncle Han, and Aunt Leia—then you get to decide.” Ben ducked as they whooshed through the forest, coming close to branches and trunks of enormous trees. Luke seemed to relive his Rebel days when he was on a bike. “I’ll lay out the case as objectively as I can. I’ve shown you the Force-hiding trick, and you know Jacen couldn’t have found me on Kavan by chance, but that’s not enough on its own. I’m laying out supporting evidence—and anything else that’s relevant, whether it supports my case or not, like Shevu taught me. I want to know the truth, even if I don’t like it.”
Luke didn’t reply, and Ben began to worry. “Dad?”
Luke shook his head. “You make me so proud,” he finally managed.
Ben blushed, completely embarrassed. “Doing the right thing isn’t something special. It’s the bare minimum. It’s where we start each morning, not where we want to end up. You taught me that.”
Luke slowed the swoop down. “You asked me a question when you first joined the Guard.”
“How to fasten my boots?” Ben asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Which end of the blaster I had to hold? Hey, I was just a kid.”
Luke let out a shaky laugh and shook his head. “A rhetorical question, I think. How many people I killed when I fought the Empire.”
Ben’s stomach dropped. “Oh, that.”
“And I said ‘But they were all…’ and then I had to stop because I hadn’t thought about it before as much as I should have. I should never have said ‘but.’”
“Dad, if you slow down any more, we’re going to stall…” Ben said, trying desperately to change the subject.
Luke landed the swoop and sat there on the saddle in the middle of the forest. Ben hid a smile. As Luke got older, he turned more and more like Obi-Wan and Yoda, needing nature around him. Ben wondered if his grandfather would decide to start living in the Preserve at some point.
Luke was still talking. “And you were right—most of them were just ordinary troopers, or ship’s crew, who maybe didn’t like the Empire very much but had to earn a living, or couldn’t say no. They weren’t all Imperial fanatics set on galactic oppression. They were just people, and I was nineteen and I probably felt deep down that if they weren’t as ready to resist Palpatine as I was, then they had to be cowards, or evil, or something that made them unlike me…made them worth less than me.” He turned to face Ben. “I hadn’t a clue about politics, Ben. I just felt I had to save someone in trouble. So…yes, I killed a lot of people I wish I hadn’t. And their lives weren’t cheap or meaningless. And now…five ship crews are dead because I let Fondor know too much, and I feel terrible about that, too.”
Ben was deeply uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant something he’d said in a fit of teenaged petulance to have stuck with his father. “I don’t know what to say, Dad,” he finally mumbled.
“You were everything to your mother,” Luke told him, starting the bike up again. “Rightly so.”
It had to be now. Ben just wished he wasn’t staring at the back of his father’s head when he said it. “I saw Mom on Kavan,” he blurted. “I mean saw her. She was a Force ghost. She spoke to me.”
Luke’s knuckles went white on the handlebars. “What did she say?”
“She said she loved me.”
“Yeah, she would,” Luke said. “What did you say to her?”
“Same.” Maybe this had been a bad idea to talk about. “Have you seen her, Dad?” he asked. “I didn’t want to say anything in case you felt…ignored. No, that’s not the right word—“
Luke cut him off. “No, I haven’t seen her. But that’s okay. The Force gives us what we need. I’ve learned that.”
Luke didn’t sound bitter, so Ben was just going to sit there for a bit and be angry enough for both of them. How could Jacen have done this? If he’d wanted to destroy Luke Skywalker, killing Mom was worse than killing Luke himself. But even losing Mara hadn’t changed what Luke believed in, the essential core of his being. And so Ben used that example to fight through angry, chest-clenching grief. This was why Dad always knew what was right and Jacen either didn’t know or didn’t care. It was the start of the fork in the road, one microscopic atom’s difference that became two, then four, and then turned into two different worlds. It was the baseline of right that was as much a part of Ben as breathing. It was checking is the next thing I’m going to do right, or is it wrong? It was a hair’s width of a gap that could stretch into a chasm large enough engulf galaxies.
Luke headed into the approach for the old Imperial outpost. Ben could see two StealthXs being towed into launch position. “Jaina’s?” he asked.
“Jaina’s off learning to fight from Boba Fett,” Luke told him.
Ben stared as he got off the swoop. “Seriously?”
Luke nodded.
Ben blinked. He didn’t think the Mandos were all that impressive.
“We voted to evacuate to a less accessible planet,” Luke said, “depending on how Fondor goes. Han and Leia are looking into the Mists.”
Ben had been surprised to find the Jedi still on Endor after the attack on the Anakin Solo. “Good move,” he said. “How much time do I have to collate my evidence before we deploy to Fondor, then? I don’t want to have to take the forensics droid with—“
“You’re not coming to Fondor, Ben,” Luke said.
Ben blinked, for once not arguing. His Dad was back to being in charge. He’d have a reason for not wanting him along. “Okay, Dad.”
Luke waited a moment, then smiled. He’d been expecting a fight. “I’m not protecting you, you know. This is for operational reasons, not because you’re the boss’s son.”
“Understood,” Ben replied. “What do you want me to do while you’re gone?” Ben didn’t even consider the idea that his father wouldn’t come back.
“I want you to plan the evacuation so we’re ready to hit the button and go at a moment’s notice. I’m leaving at least half the Jedi pilots here, too.”
“Relocation,” Ben corrected. He’d be planning and executing the movement of nearly a thousand beings and droids, plus all the equipment. He’d have to learn fast. “We’re not running from anyone.”
Luke’s smile grew wider. “You’re not daunted by the task.”
“It’s common sense,” Ben said with a small shrug.
“You’ve got plenty,” Luke said, patting Ben’s shoulders with both hands. He didn’t have to reach down to do it—Ben was now the same height as he was. “And you’re a moral compass. If some of us don’t come back, I want someone around who’ll keep asking hard questions and won’t quit until he gets answers.”
Ben blinked. He had never really though of himself like that. Logistics he could do—he liked picking things apart and putting them back together—but moral certainty? Jacen had his moral certainty, too.
He looked around and realized that the maintenance crews were firing up the StealthX drives. “Now, Dad?” he asked, looking a little crushed despite himself. “Right now?”
“I waited until you came back. It’s okay. The rest of the flight should be at Fondor by now.”
“What are you planning?”
Luke smiled. “The usual. Help Jacen see the error of his ways.” A tech jogged up and handed him his helmet. “And…Jacen’s enlisted the support of the Imperial Remnant.”
“Admiral Pellaeon?” Ben’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. I’m not sure that’s good news or bad.”
“Yes, I hope everyone’s moral compasses are working…”
Ben locked down the fear he couldn’t help but feel, and let his mouth take over. It was a bit like talking with Ender: a secret code that hid the real truth. “Don’t get killed, Dad. You know what it did to Fett. I don’t want to end up like him.”
“Filthy rich?”
“No, polishing my dad’s old ship and hassling Uncle Han.”
“It’s okay,” Luke said, grinning. “Jaina can get you a good deal on property on his home planet.”
“I mean it, Dad.”
“So do I. Now go, and stop worrying, or I swear I’ll come back as a Force ghost and bug you while you’re on a date.”
Ben choked. He couldn’t count the number of ways in which this would be a horrific idea. “Love you, Dad,” he mumbled, face matching his hair.
Luke gave him another grin, wondering if that had hit a little close. “You too, Ben.”
Ben followed orders and didn’t look back. Jag’s grim face heading toward him was hardly going to improve his mood. “You’re grounded too, then,” Ben guessed.
“I love being rear party. I live to stand around waiting for the comm to buzz,” Jag replied. “Have you heard from Jaina?”
Ben fought back the instinct to ask which one. He hadn’t even known where Jaina was until his father mentioned it. He added that to his list of things to feel bad about. “She got there okay, right?”
“I got the pre-composed ‘arrived safely’ alert, yes.”
What did Jaina see in this guy? “Jag, if she’d had problems, Aunt Leia would feel it.”
“Maybe Fett’s sold her off to the highest bidder.”
“She can look after herself.”
“What if she—“
“We’d know,” Ben replied, voice getting a little sharper. “We’d feel it.”
Jag took a deep breath. “How are you suddenly older than me, Ben?”
Ben didn’t reply “because you are acting four.” He went with “never underestimate the calming power of a list” instead. “Can you get all the senior personnel together for me? I’ve got something I have to do now, but we ought to start scoping the size of the airlift and putting deadlines and names on tasks.”
Jag just looked at him, then broke a big, surprised grin. “Ben, you’re middle-aged! Captain Sensible! Overnight!”
“I still reserve the right to revert to being a goofy kid and not tidy my room when the pressure’s off,” Ben replied dryly. He was pretty sure the pressure would never be off. That’s not how things worked.
“I’ll get your meeting set up, my lord,” Jag teased, walking off.
Before Ben could bury himself in logistics, he had one more task to perform. Poking around his father’s quarters felt like an intrusion, so Ben looked for his mother’s brush as quickly as possible. He found it in a little box, along with two rings, a datachip—family holos, Ben guessed—and a platinum locket. Inside the locket was a tiny, meticulously folded flimsi sheet; when he folded it out on his knee, it showed signs of having been crumpled. In his mother’s writing were the words Gone hunting for a few days. Don’t be mad at me, farmboy.
Ben stared at it for a moment, trying to figure it out, before taking the entire box back to his room. He teased out a hair from the brush with a pair of tweezers, then inserted it into a small slot on the droid. The droid flashed indicator lights and transmitted the results to his datapad. POSITIVE MATCH.
Ben let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It was over. He took the hair from Jacen’s ship out, wrapped it around his finger and then placed it carefully inside the locket. He’d tell Luke he had it when he returned from Fondor.
Dumb thing for a guy to carry around, but I want to, he thought, copying the data to another pad, then checking his encrypted messages. There was one from Shevu:
Ben, this might upset you, but you need to see it. I spoke to two Bith Senators. They witnessed an argument between your mother and JS shortly before she left Coruscant for Hapes.
Ben opened the file anyway, feeling immune to what would come. So…Mom had chewed out Jacen in front of witnesses. She’d accused him of being a Sith and threatened him. …It was all over me. Mom, I was never worth that… Seeing the cold evidence that she’d warned Jacen to stay away from him threatened to crumble his carefully erected serenity.
Then he tried to see the file through Shevu’s eyes. Could it look like Mara had attacked Jacen instead of the other way around? Mara’d been a trained assassin and he wanted to remember her as above dark emotions like lethal vengeance.
He didn’t know what to feel. Part of him was proud that his mom had faced down a Sith Lord in combat. Another part wondered how that worked against the prohibition against vengeance. But most of him was feeling guilty. He was the reason all of this had happened: if he’d said no to Jacen sooner, his mother might still be alive.
He bowed his head and clutched the locket tightly in his fingers--for one final moment a lost little boy—before straightening his shoulders and marching out to do his father’s work.
It wasn’t working.
“You know I can only drop you at the trading base, right?” the pilot asked.
Ben rubbed at his jaw, surprised to realize that he needed to shave. Maybe that was why no one had called him kid in the last few days. He was starting to look as old as he felt. “That’s fine,” he said. “Someone’s meeting me.”
“Just checking,” the pilot replied. “I wouldn’t drop my worst enemy in that place. Ewoks. Savages. I’d shoot them all, to be honest.”
“Some of my friends are Ewoks,” Ben replied, unable to let that comment pass. “And I feel safer in the forest than I do in Galactic City.”
Something dangerous must have been in his eyes because the pilot immediately backed down. “No offense. Coruscant…I know what you mean. If it isn’t the gangsters and lowlifes, it’s the secret police.”
And some of my best friends are secret police, Ben thought. He kept that to himself. It was the last leg of a ridiculously complicated trip back to the secret base, and in a few hours he’d be with friends and family. He touched the droid again. It felt like a link to some kind of tenuous peace.
Where do I start with Dad? Do I have all the evidence I need? And when—how—do I tell him Mom came to see me?
Of all the things that plagued Ben in the quiet moments—and he’d worked hard to make sure he didn’t have many of them—that last question was the most frequent. It was a privilege he was pretty sure Luke hadn’t been given, and it made Ben more and more uncomfortable as the days passed. Why just me? Ben had never been comfortable with accepting the will and mysteries of the Force: the show me and prove it world of the police had appealed to him because of it.
The ship set down and Ben could feel his father’s presence—he shone in the Force like a small sun—and was off the shuttle and heading into the small clearing with as little time passing as possible. “Dad,” he said, reaching out to hug him, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back.”
“You look whacked,” Luke replied.
“Been busy,” Ben said, reaching out and poking his father’s flight suit. “Been putting in the flying hours?”
“Going to put more in,” Luke replied. “Jacen’s lined up to take Fondor. We’ve put a hydrospanner in the works, and we’re going to add a few more. Oh, and Han and Leia are still scanning for a new base.” Luke walked over to some parked swoop bikes and gestured at his chest. “You take up smashball while you were back at school? You nearly broke my ribs with whatever’s in your jacket.”
Ben figured it was as good a time as any. “It’s a forensics droid,” he said. “It has evidence in it.”
Luke swung onto the first bike in line. Ben climbed on behind him. “My son the soldier, now my son the cop. What did you find?”
“Plenty,” Ben said softly.
Luke twisted his head to look at his son as they whipped through the trees. “And?”
“Eyes forward, Dad!” Ben replied.
Luke snorted. He was more than capable of flying and listening to bad news at once.
“I’m not the judge or jury on this,” Ben began. “You stopped me when I wanted to kill Jacen, and that was a big lesson. I’m just the prosecution here. I'll show you what I’ve found, and Uncle Han, and Aunt Leia—then you get to decide.” Ben ducked as they whooshed through the forest, coming close to branches and trunks of enormous trees. Luke seemed to relive his Rebel days when he was on a bike. “I’ll lay out the case as objectively as I can. I’ve shown you the Force-hiding trick, and you know Jacen couldn’t have found me on Kavan by chance, but that’s not enough on its own. I’m laying out supporting evidence—and anything else that’s relevant, whether it supports my case or not, like Shevu taught me. I want to know the truth, even if I don’t like it.”
Luke didn’t reply, and Ben began to worry. “Dad?”
Luke shook his head. “You make me so proud,” he finally managed.
Ben blushed, completely embarrassed. “Doing the right thing isn’t something special. It’s the bare minimum. It’s where we start each morning, not where we want to end up. You taught me that.”
Luke slowed the swoop down. “You asked me a question when you first joined the Guard.”
“How to fasten my boots?” Ben asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Which end of the blaster I had to hold? Hey, I was just a kid.”
Luke let out a shaky laugh and shook his head. “A rhetorical question, I think. How many people I killed when I fought the Empire.”
Ben’s stomach dropped. “Oh, that.”
“And I said ‘But they were all…’ and then I had to stop because I hadn’t thought about it before as much as I should have. I should never have said ‘but.’”
“Dad, if you slow down any more, we’re going to stall…” Ben said, trying desperately to change the subject.
Luke landed the swoop and sat there on the saddle in the middle of the forest. Ben hid a smile. As Luke got older, he turned more and more like Obi-Wan and Yoda, needing nature around him. Ben wondered if his grandfather would decide to start living in the Preserve at some point.
Luke was still talking. “And you were right—most of them were just ordinary troopers, or ship’s crew, who maybe didn’t like the Empire very much but had to earn a living, or couldn’t say no. They weren’t all Imperial fanatics set on galactic oppression. They were just people, and I was nineteen and I probably felt deep down that if they weren’t as ready to resist Palpatine as I was, then they had to be cowards, or evil, or something that made them unlike me…made them worth less than me.” He turned to face Ben. “I hadn’t a clue about politics, Ben. I just felt I had to save someone in trouble. So…yes, I killed a lot of people I wish I hadn’t. And their lives weren’t cheap or meaningless. And now…five ship crews are dead because I let Fondor know too much, and I feel terrible about that, too.”
Ben was deeply uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant something he’d said in a fit of teenaged petulance to have stuck with his father. “I don’t know what to say, Dad,” he finally mumbled.
“You were everything to your mother,” Luke told him, starting the bike up again. “Rightly so.”
It had to be now. Ben just wished he wasn’t staring at the back of his father’s head when he said it. “I saw Mom on Kavan,” he blurted. “I mean saw her. She was a Force ghost. She spoke to me.”
Luke’s knuckles went white on the handlebars. “What did she say?”
“She said she loved me.”
“Yeah, she would,” Luke said. “What did you say to her?”
“Same.” Maybe this had been a bad idea to talk about. “Have you seen her, Dad?” he asked. “I didn’t want to say anything in case you felt…ignored. No, that’s not the right word—“
Luke cut him off. “No, I haven’t seen her. But that’s okay. The Force gives us what we need. I’ve learned that.”
Luke didn’t sound bitter, so Ben was just going to sit there for a bit and be angry enough for both of them. How could Jacen have done this? If he’d wanted to destroy Luke Skywalker, killing Mom was worse than killing Luke himself. But even losing Mara hadn’t changed what Luke believed in, the essential core of his being. And so Ben used that example to fight through angry, chest-clenching grief. This was why Dad always knew what was right and Jacen either didn’t know or didn’t care. It was the start of the fork in the road, one microscopic atom’s difference that became two, then four, and then turned into two different worlds. It was the baseline of right that was as much a part of Ben as breathing. It was checking is the next thing I’m going to do right, or is it wrong? It was a hair’s width of a gap that could stretch into a chasm large enough engulf galaxies.
Luke headed into the approach for the old Imperial outpost. Ben could see two StealthXs being towed into launch position. “Jaina’s?” he asked.
“Jaina’s off learning to fight from Boba Fett,” Luke told him.
Ben stared as he got off the swoop. “Seriously?”
Luke nodded.
Ben blinked. He didn’t think the Mandos were all that impressive.
“We voted to evacuate to a less accessible planet,” Luke said, “depending on how Fondor goes. Han and Leia are looking into the Mists.”
Ben had been surprised to find the Jedi still on Endor after the attack on the Anakin Solo. “Good move,” he said. “How much time do I have to collate my evidence before we deploy to Fondor, then? I don’t want to have to take the forensics droid with—“
“You’re not coming to Fondor, Ben,” Luke said.
Ben blinked, for once not arguing. His Dad was back to being in charge. He’d have a reason for not wanting him along. “Okay, Dad.”
Luke waited a moment, then smiled. He’d been expecting a fight. “I’m not protecting you, you know. This is for operational reasons, not because you’re the boss’s son.”
“Understood,” Ben replied. “What do you want me to do while you’re gone?” Ben didn’t even consider the idea that his father wouldn’t come back.
“I want you to plan the evacuation so we’re ready to hit the button and go at a moment’s notice. I’m leaving at least half the Jedi pilots here, too.”
“Relocation,” Ben corrected. He’d be planning and executing the movement of nearly a thousand beings and droids, plus all the equipment. He’d have to learn fast. “We’re not running from anyone.”
Luke’s smile grew wider. “You’re not daunted by the task.”
“It’s common sense,” Ben said with a small shrug.
“You’ve got plenty,” Luke said, patting Ben’s shoulders with both hands. He didn’t have to reach down to do it—Ben was now the same height as he was. “And you’re a moral compass. If some of us don’t come back, I want someone around who’ll keep asking hard questions and won’t quit until he gets answers.”
Ben blinked. He had never really though of himself like that. Logistics he could do—he liked picking things apart and putting them back together—but moral certainty? Jacen had his moral certainty, too.
He looked around and realized that the maintenance crews were firing up the StealthX drives. “Now, Dad?” he asked, looking a little crushed despite himself. “Right now?”
“I waited until you came back. It’s okay. The rest of the flight should be at Fondor by now.”
“What are you planning?”
Luke smiled. “The usual. Help Jacen see the error of his ways.” A tech jogged up and handed him his helmet. “And…Jacen’s enlisted the support of the Imperial Remnant.”
“Admiral Pellaeon?” Ben’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. I’m not sure that’s good news or bad.”
“Yes, I hope everyone’s moral compasses are working…”
Ben locked down the fear he couldn’t help but feel, and let his mouth take over. It was a bit like talking with Ender: a secret code that hid the real truth. “Don’t get killed, Dad. You know what it did to Fett. I don’t want to end up like him.”
“Filthy rich?”
“No, polishing my dad’s old ship and hassling Uncle Han.”
“It’s okay,” Luke said, grinning. “Jaina can get you a good deal on property on his home planet.”
“I mean it, Dad.”
“So do I. Now go, and stop worrying, or I swear I’ll come back as a Force ghost and bug you while you’re on a date.”
Ben choked. He couldn’t count the number of ways in which this would be a horrific idea. “Love you, Dad,” he mumbled, face matching his hair.
Luke gave him another grin, wondering if that had hit a little close. “You too, Ben.”
Ben followed orders and didn’t look back. Jag’s grim face heading toward him was hardly going to improve his mood. “You’re grounded too, then,” Ben guessed.
“I love being rear party. I live to stand around waiting for the comm to buzz,” Jag replied. “Have you heard from Jaina?”
Ben fought back the instinct to ask which one. He hadn’t even known where Jaina was until his father mentioned it. He added that to his list of things to feel bad about. “She got there okay, right?”
“I got the pre-composed ‘arrived safely’ alert, yes.”
What did Jaina see in this guy? “Jag, if she’d had problems, Aunt Leia would feel it.”
“Maybe Fett’s sold her off to the highest bidder.”
“She can look after herself.”
“What if she—“
“We’d know,” Ben replied, voice getting a little sharper. “We’d feel it.”
Jag took a deep breath. “How are you suddenly older than me, Ben?”
Ben didn’t reply “because you are acting four.” He went with “never underestimate the calming power of a list” instead. “Can you get all the senior personnel together for me? I’ve got something I have to do now, but we ought to start scoping the size of the airlift and putting deadlines and names on tasks.”
Jag just looked at him, then broke a big, surprised grin. “Ben, you’re middle-aged! Captain Sensible! Overnight!”
“I still reserve the right to revert to being a goofy kid and not tidy my room when the pressure’s off,” Ben replied dryly. He was pretty sure the pressure would never be off. That’s not how things worked.
“I’ll get your meeting set up, my lord,” Jag teased, walking off.
Before Ben could bury himself in logistics, he had one more task to perform. Poking around his father’s quarters felt like an intrusion, so Ben looked for his mother’s brush as quickly as possible. He found it in a little box, along with two rings, a datachip—family holos, Ben guessed—and a platinum locket. Inside the locket was a tiny, meticulously folded flimsi sheet; when he folded it out on his knee, it showed signs of having been crumpled. In his mother’s writing were the words Gone hunting for a few days. Don’t be mad at me, farmboy.
Ben stared at it for a moment, trying to figure it out, before taking the entire box back to his room. He teased out a hair from the brush with a pair of tweezers, then inserted it into a small slot on the droid. The droid flashed indicator lights and transmitted the results to his datapad. POSITIVE MATCH.
Ben let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It was over. He took the hair from Jacen’s ship out, wrapped it around his finger and then placed it carefully inside the locket. He’d tell Luke he had it when he returned from Fondor.
Dumb thing for a guy to carry around, but I want to, he thought, copying the data to another pad, then checking his encrypted messages. There was one from Shevu:
Ben, this might upset you, but you need to see it. I spoke to two Bith Senators. They witnessed an argument between your mother and JS shortly before she left Coruscant for Hapes.
Ben opened the file anyway, feeling immune to what would come. So…Mom had chewed out Jacen in front of witnesses. She’d accused him of being a Sith and threatened him. …It was all over me. Mom, I was never worth that… Seeing the cold evidence that she’d warned Jacen to stay away from him threatened to crumble his carefully erected serenity.
Then he tried to see the file through Shevu’s eyes. Could it look like Mara had attacked Jacen instead of the other way around? Mara’d been a trained assassin and he wanted to remember her as above dark emotions like lethal vengeance.
He didn’t know what to feel. Part of him was proud that his mom had faced down a Sith Lord in combat. Another part wondered how that worked against the prohibition against vengeance. But most of him was feeling guilty. He was the reason all of this had happened: if he’d said no to Jacen sooner, his mother might still be alive.
He bowed his head and clutched the locket tightly in his fingers--for one final moment a lost little boy—before straightening his shoulders and marching out to do his father’s work.