Shedu Maad [Tuesday night, Fandom time]

[momslilassassin]

Stars had finally come to Shedu Maad's black skies. Ben glanced up and saw a thousand of them chasing each other through the night, flinging slivers of light back and forth, exploding into brilliant orange flames. It would be beautiful if you didn't know what it was. Or who was up there.

Ben shook his head. Now wasn't the time to think back on the goodbyes as his cousin had gone up with her parents to kill her twin brother, or the rest of the Jedi had taken to the air to defend against a Sith Lord with a Star Destroyer, powerful new allies, and one hell of a temper. And right now it looked like all of the Jedi of Shedu Maad wasn't enough. Imperial Remnant drop ships tore through the blockade the Jedi had set up in orbit, making sweeping runs towards the mining complex the Jedi had chosen as a base, then began trading cannon fire with the Hapan guns hiding in the surrounding area. It didn't seem to matter to the Imperials that most of the buildings were empty, and had been before the Jedi arrived. They had been given an objective to capture it, and they would, no matter how worthless it was, or how many stormtroopers it cost them.

It was, Ben reflected, a deeply stupid strategy. "We're going to hold out," Ben said, assessing the battle from inside a thicket of cane. "They're not getting enough troops down to box us in."

"Well, that's a relief," Trista said, rolling her eyes. "Here I was worrying we might have to fight this thing out."

"Be nice, Trista," Taryn chided. "How's Ben supposed to know you're superstitious?"

"I'm not superstitious," Trista retorted. "I'm just saying it's better not to make predictions. Nothing ever goes the way you think it will."

But Taryn wasn't listening. Ben felt a jolt of shock and despair in Taryn's Force-sense as she pressed her finger to her comlink earpiece, asking questions like "Do we know if she survived?" and "Who's heard about this? Anyone moving yet?" She noticed Ben's gaze and motioned him closer. "There's been an attack about the Dragon Queen," she whispered. "Almost everyone aboard with royal blood is dead."

Ben's heart dropped so far he thought he'd have to pick it off the ground. "Tenel Ka?"

"Don't know yet."

"Allana?"

He just got a head shake in reply before Trista stalked away to deal with complicated Hapan politics. If the royal house was decimated, someone would be shifting to take advantage of the situation.

"What happened?" he asked Taryn quietly.

"It sounds like a nanokiller," she replied. "The Queen took some prisoners aboard. Half an hour later, puffs of silver mist came out of the ventilation system and started taking out anyone with royal blood."

"But everyone else is okay?" Ben replied.

She looked over at him. "There was a lot of royal blood on the Queen, Ben."

"I know," he said, "but someone's got to be alive. Tenel Ka would have sensed trouble coming and she's been keeping Allana very close to her." He knew that was probably ridiculously optimistic of him, but he wouldn’t check for them in the Force, mostly because he didn’t want to know the answer.

They set off towards the perimeter, a small troop of commandos trailing along behind them. "We've had reports of a Jedi with the stormtroopers," Trista said, blazing a blistering pace as they walked.

Ben's eyes went flat under his night-vision goggles. "That's not a Jedi." They reached the edge of the cane thicket and peered down into the forest below.

"There," he whispered, pointing at barely noticeable series of movements. They began angling down toward the point where they could intercept. Ben hid his presence in the Force. It was only a matter of time before Tahiri felt Taryn and the commandos. She didn't need to know they had a Jedi with them as well.

They snuck closer. Tahiri seemed to be concentrating on her stormtroopers, specifically what four of them were carrying: a litter with a metal cone resting in the center.

Ben held in a gasp. The colored lights blinked in a pattern he'd been trained to recognize as part of the counterterrorist training he'd received. It was a baradium warhead.

He touched Taryn's arm, then pointed and felt her tense. Even a small baradium warhead would be enough to blow the top off the entire ridge, and one that required four men to carry it wasn't small.

[OOC: Cut for length heh, violence, and off-screen character death. Dialogue taken from Troy "Yes, Their Lives *Can* Get Worse" Denning and his book Invincible. And this is the end of the spamming, I swear. NFI, NFB, OOC is love.]

	Tahiri moved into the center of a circular clearing and raised a hand, signaling the stormtrooper behind her to stop. "I think this is it. Bring up the penetration charges, but keep that warhead back," she said. "We don't want to detonate it just trying to get into the tunnels." All the troopers who weren't carrying the warhead moved forward. One started passing around a set of telescoping rods; Tahiri gave them orders to drive the rods into the soil every three meters or so, but was only half paying attention to them, more preoccupied with probing the area with the Force as she wandered the perimeter of the clearing.
	Ben was going to chalk Tahiri knowing where the tunnel access was to more skeevy Hapan political manuvering. He thought Jacen's need to rule the galaxy with an iron fist was insane, but he might be able to agree with his grandfather's disdain of all things politics. ...that thought should have scared him more than it did. Taryn watched for a few minutes, then raised her blaster rifle. Ben caught her arm and shook his head. Tahiri's danger sense would kick in before Taryn had a chance of getting a shot off and he didn't relish the odds of being outnumbered more than six to one.
	The stormtroopers had finished packing the armed penetration charges into the hollow rods by now, and Tahiri took the detonator from the demolitions man. She signaled for them to retreat and trailed behind them a few steps. When the last stormtrooper stepped out of the circle, Tahiri spun around -- not toward where Ben and Taryn were hiding, but toward the slope they'd come down a few minutes ago, and pointed in that direction. "There's someone there."
	Taryn was already rising to a knee and aiming her rifle. "Now can I blast her?" she whispered. Ben directed a mental apology towards Fandom. "Who's stopping you?" he replied. "Men," Taryn muttered, firing the weapon.
	About that danger sense? Tahiri was already diving into the trees when the blaster bolt screeched toward her. But she also had the detonator out, and pointed toward the penetration charges.
	Not good. Ben felt the stomach-punching shock wave of a too-close detonation, then his goggles went dark as the optics were overwhelmed. He hit the dirt behind a tree with Taryn as they were pelted with falling sand and brush. In the next instant the forest erupted with bolts of blasterfire. Ben poked his head up and saw a column of sand dropping back towards the ground, and then into it. Tahiri had just created a sinkhole over the tunnel. "Oh, that was smart," Ben muttered. "I'll take the troopers out," Taryn said, thrusting her blaster rifle into Ben's hands. "You keep the Jedi busy." "She's not a..." he let the sentence trail off as he realized Taryn was already busy tossing grenades. He propped the barrel against the tree and began firing shots at Tahiri, switching from one side of her body to the other so she'd have to keep moving her lightsaber.
	A younger Tahiri would have had more trouble with this, would have been wide-eyed and focused on trying to get a read on the incoming fire. But she was quicker now, more precise than she'd been at fifteen, and easily batted the first few bolts back into the tree that was Ben's hiding place. The next shots, she deflected toward the grenades -- and one of them struck dead on, creating a harmless detonation over the newly reopened mine shaft.
	Taryn glared at Ben. "I said keep the Jedi busy!" Ben stood up and began firing--not at Tahiri, but at the warhead behind her, forcing her to defend the bomb. Taryn sent two grenades flying towards the stormtroopers holding the bomb.
	She couldn't defend both at once -- Tahiri had to drop into a cartwheel to try and gain position, but the maneuver carried her too far, past the warhead . . . and out of position to defend her stormtroopers. And then the grenades detonated on either side of the litter. The stormtroopers almost didn't have time to scream before the explosions shredded their armor and flung their bodies aside. Tahiri herself was caught by the shock wave and went flying into the trees. The warhead fell to the ground, unharmed.
	Ben tried not to turn a little green at the carnage. "Good job," Taryn said, taking her rifle back and climbing out over the fallen tree. "Now let's go finish--"
	That was when Tahiri came charging back out of the trees. She was banged up and bleeding in a dozen places, but her lightsaber was out and blazing, ready to defend against blaster bolts as she came on at a dead run.
	Ben lit his own lightsaber, stepping forward to defend Taryn. He had a bad feeling about this.
	He probably should. Still at a run, Tahiri deflected several shots -- then shut down her lightsaber abruptly. She threw herself into a high Force-assisted leap, arcing toward the sinkhole, with one hand reaching out toward the warhead.
	"Blast!" Ben gasped, racing forward with one hand extended, reaching for the warhead with his mind--but it was floating toward the hole. "Ben, wait! No!" Ben ignored Taryn's cries and somersaulted after Tahiri, dropping down into the shaft above her.
	The warhead was plummeting down the shaft beneath them now. As they fell, Tahiri spun and brought her blade up in a vicious slash at his neck.
	He blocked it and countered with a snap-kick to her spine.
	Well, ouch. That hurt, and Tahiri went flying back into the wall, but she pushed off and came back at him in a controlled tumble with a double-slashing attack -- wilder and sloppier than her earlier technique might suggest -- at his midsection. She kicked out at him, too, with one heavy GAG-issue durasteel-toe-capped boot aimed directly at his ribs.
	The kick drove the wind right out of his lungs and pushed him straight into the rocky wall. Ben tumbled out of control for an instant, plunging through the darkness, before using the Force to bring him back under control. How deep was this hole?
	Deep enough that they were still falling, that was for sure. Tahiri redoubled her attack, swinging her lightsaber at him again. And again.
	He blocked, blocked again, and realized he'd left his stomach open...and still managed to get his blade down in time. His grandfather was ranting in his head at him. Ben pushed off of her hip and launched into the wall behind, then used the Force to stick to the wall behind him. It was a hot, painful way to slow his fall, but it was better than the alternative. He glanced up to see where Tahiri was.
	On the opposite side of the shaft and a couple of meters up she was doing the same thing, the fury in her eyes evident even in the darkness thanks to the glow of her lightsaber.
	Ben pressed harder, slowing his descent more so she wouldn't have altitude advantage, and heard a loud splash below as the warhead hit the bottom. Water. Great.
	As if that wasn't bad enough, Tahiri pushed away from the wall hard right about then and dropped toward him, all slashing blade and kicking boots in a chaotic flurry.
	It was a foolish attack. All Ben had to do was guard high, then take her legs off at the knees. He raised his lightsaber to exactly that--and finally realized what she was doing. He parried without countering, ignoring the feeling of relief that was beginning to grow.
	Tahiri dropped past Ben, further down into the shaft. There was no relief in her expression at the missed counterattack, just surprise and rage as she plummeted toward the bottom. There was a splash as she hit, and a scream, then silence.
	Ben hit the water a half second later, letting out his own scream as his knees were driven up to smack his chin. Cold water poured over his head and down his throat. He coughed into the water, sucked in more water, and finally remembered to shut his mouth. There was water in his ears, too, and he had no idea how far under he was. He looked up and saw steam rising just past the tip of his lightsaber. His grandfather's voice yelled in his mind about keeping his blade ignited while plummeting. He ignored it, noting instead that the steam indicated that he wasn't that deep. ...so why wasn't he rising to the surface? He tried to kick to the surface and immediately realized the problem. All the sand that had dropped into the hole had fallen into the water. Still fighting not to cough and gulp down more of this gunk, he grabbed the slick rock beside him (and didn't think about how a few inches to the right would've made this a one-way trip) and began dragging himself forward. After a few seconds, Ben managed to pull himself free and half scrambled, half floated to the surface, where it took him a few more seconds to realize that only half the gasping and coughing he heard was from him.
	Tahiri stood about three meters away, doing a good bit of gasping and coughing herself; her lightsaber was ignited and held out between them, but she wasn't attacking. Possibly of more concern, though, was the hand she had stretched out toward the baradium warhead and its distinctive pattern of blinking lights.
	"Tahiri, you don't want to do that." Ben tried to stand and immediately sank back into the muck. "I know you don't because you're no better suited to be a Sith apprentice than I was."
	"You know that? What makes you so sure? Stay out of it, Ben," Tahiri said sullenly. She spared him a quick glance, but didn't lower the hand reaching toward the warhead. "You don't have to get hurt."
	"See, that's what I mean." Ben gave up on trying to stand and knelt, using his shins to spread his weight across the wet pile of sand. "If you were Sith material, you wouldn't care whether I got hurt. You wouldn't have gotten so mad when you killed Shevu."
	"I don't like killing anyone, Ben," Tahiri retorted, shifting her free hand to her lightsaber. "That doesn't mean I ever hesitate." Vehement as the words might have been, they weren't all that convincing, either.
	Ben snorted. "You're not even a good liar." He started to walk on his knees toward the warhead. "I'd've thought Caedus--" still a stupid name, "--would have taught you that much."
	Well, she hadn't picked the name. "I'm not lying, Ben," Tahiri warned him, bringing her blade up in front of his chest.
	Ben looked straight into her eyes. "Then you'll have to prove it." He brought his own blade up and pressed it against Tahiri's. "I'm going to go over there to take the detonator charge out of the warhead. There's only one way to stop me--and you won't do it."
	For just a moment, her eyes widened, and she switched off her lightsaber -- and a split second later, ignited it again.
	Ben's head still stayed attached. "Close, I'll give you that," Ben said softly. His heart was hammering hard in his chest. He leaned around the blade and started knee-walking toward the warhead again. "But not close enough. When you come back to the Order, we'll get Uncle Han to teach you a few things about bluffing."
	Tahiri sighed and powered her lightsaber down again. "I'm not coming back to the Order, Ben," she answered quietly.
	The tension left Ben's body so fast he began to shake. She was thinking of giving up. There was a Tahiri in there that he still recognized. "No? Then what're you going to do? Become a bounty hunter?" Ben reached the warhead and began to dig it out. "You know Caedus isn't taking you back."
	"Yeah, but I'm done with him." Tahiri let out a bitter laugh. "I'm done with all Solos." She clipped her lightsaber back to her belt to pull out a glowrod and shine it up the tunnel. "Is anybody going to be looking for me down here?" she asked. "I'd rather not get killed trying to sneak away."
	"You won't, if you help me with this," Ben said, grunting as he tried to turn the warhead so he could reach the access panel. "They forgave me."
	"Yeah? Well, you were just a kid. And you still are," Tahiri said, but she knelt next to him in the water and used the Force to spin the warhead so the access panel was facing them. "It'll be different for me."
	"Probably," Ben agreed. "It'll take time, and you'll have to answer for your actions. But they will forgive you, I promise."
	Tahiri shook her head. "I'm not sure that promise is yours to make." She fell silent briefly, working at the access panel. "This other version of me . . . you weren't kidding about that, were you?"
	"No, I wasn't," Ben said. "Her loss is more recent, and she still knows how to smile." He gave her a hopeful look. "There's good in you. You've only forgotten."
	"What, because you believe it's there?" Tahiri asked, giving him a curious sidelong glance. It wasn't a mocking question or a skeptical one; more than anything, she sounded surprised. "She's lucky, I guess. It was half a lifetime ago, and I don't think I've known how to smile since."
	"Because I know it is," Ben said. "Jacen--" He stopped talking, his eyes focusing somewhere else. "Oh," he said in a small voice. He'd been around war his entire life. He knew what it felt like in the Force when someone died. Especially when they were family. His head swiveled toward Tahiri anyway, seeking confirmation of what he already knew was true.
	Tahiri met his gaze and nodded. The lingering effects of that battle-meld on Myrkr so many years ago made her a little more keenly aware of Jacen just . . . no longer being there. Except that no, Jacen hadn't been there in a long, long time and she'd been too stupid to see it. Her lips moved uncertainly, and finally she murmured, "I'm sorry." Just two words, but they encompassed a lot.
	Ben's jaw clenched. "He hadn't been Jacen for a while," he mumbled, running his hand across his eyes. It didn't mean that the new gaping hole in his life hurt any less.
	Tahiri reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but thought better of it and pulled back. Not after what she'd done to him. "It'll hurt," she said instead, "probably for a while. But you'll get past it, and you won't make the mistake I did. I don't know much for sure right now, but I know that."
	Ben shoved down a swell of misplaced anger. "It's fine," he insisted instead. "It's not like I didn't want to kill him myself along the way." Which just added to the mix of conflict bubbling inside him.
	"But you didn't," Tahiri said quietly; she didn't want to think about what a mess her Force-sense must be right now. "You know, you're really something, Ben."
	"Yeah, I'm a hell of a guy," he muttered, disarming the bomb.
	Tahiri watched the lights on the warhead blink out for the last time. "No, I mean it. You got some version of me to move on. You got away from Jacen while you still could."
	"The being tortured thing helped with that," he said dryly, shooting her a look.
	Tahiri stared down into the murky water, watching the reflection of the light from her glowrod. "With which?" It was a lame attempt at a joke, but it'd always been her favorite way to defuse an awkward situation.
	The corners of Ben's mouth twitched, but he had a feeling it'd be a while before he smiled again. "Both, I imagine. Pain makes things more clear. I decided Jacen caused too much of it and cut my losses." He was taking a page of Ender's book, being clinical and detached. For someone as empathic as Ben, it was no easy feat.
	Tahiri gave him a curious look. "Huh," was all she said. She almost wanted to ask, but the longer she stayed here, the less likely she was to make a clean getaway.
	Ben opened his mouth to say something else, but a loud splashed sounded nearby and he looked over to see a rope dangling down. Given how long they'd fallen, that was one hell of a rope. "If you're going to run, you better do it now," he said. "I'll tell them you drowned and floated away or something."
	"You'd lie for me?" Tahiri asked incredulously.
	"If you want me to," Ben replied. "Don't worry--I'm a lot better at it than you are. That's one thing he taught me that I haven't forgotten yet." And what a legacy to leave.
	Tahiri switched the glowrod off, hesitated briefly, and switched it back on. "I think it's time to leave the lies behind," she answered, looking at him again. "It's time to leave a lot of things behind." Some of them long, long overdue.
	For a moment, Ben wasn't sure if she meant to come back with him or go get herself killed. A bright light shone down on them and Taryn's voice echoed from above. "Move and you're a dead woman," she warned. "Ben, get away from her." He glanced over at Tahiri, then up at Taryn. "It's okay," he called back. "She's with us."