Corellian System, GFFA [afternoon into evening into early morning, Fandom time]
The ride towards Centerpoint Station was eventful in the way that only missions planned by Luke Skywalker and conducted by some of the most dangerous-and yes, a little bit crazy-people in the galaxy could be.
The plan was deceptively simple, and very Jedi: Let the enemy do the work. It was going to be tough to smuggle a team of infiltrators onto the Anakin Solo, so they borrowed (okay, stole) Tycho’s shuttle, which had valid authorization, and would fake a chase to get it aboard. It’d be equally tough to get saboteurs aboard Centerpoint Station, so their team was dressed as members of GAG and would board along with the Alliance’s real team. And as for the destruction of Centerpoint Station…with Seyah’s program, well, the technicians aboard Centerpoint Station would be doing the work on that, too.
Ben was in the back of Tycho’s shuttle (which Wedge had stolen from Tycho at, well, finger point. It was a long story) as Wedge and his handpicked squadron of pilots (including Jaina) fired shots at them, carefully orchestrated to look like they were under attack. Ben had been around pilots his entire life, and knew that shooting to miss and making it look good was almost harder to do than the perfect kill shot.
The shuttle landed with a thunk inside the Anakin Solo’s hanger bay and Ben blew out a breath as he glanced at the other Jedi with him: his father, Aunt Leia, and Master Saba Sebatayne. A small smile tugged the corners of his mouth up. Jacen wouldn’t have a shot: that wasn’t revenge, it was simple fact. And that wasn’t factoring in the considerable skills of Uncle Han. Or, for that matter, Artoo.
The shuttle bay door slid down and Luke pulled his breather mask over his face, tossed out a smoke bomb, and then nodded to the other Jedi.
Moving so fast they blurred, they emerged from the edges of the smoke cloud and took down the security team with fists, feet (and tail, in Saba’s case) before they’d managed to get more than a few shots off. Six security personnel fell in an instant, their fall barely audible over the alarms wailing through the ship.
Luke clapped his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Time to move out,” he said. “Artoo?” Artoo, tweedling his confirmation, moved away from Han and towards the nearest data jack.
Ben tilted his head, then swung towards the doorway into the corridor leading to the rest of the ship and launched a kick. A security officer, not visible before Ben began his move, caught the foot squarely in the jaw and staggered back into his men. The other Jedi leaped forward and took out the rest of the team.
Han smiled. “Nice to not have to do all the work myself for once,” he said. With a little wave, he and Leia broke off from the rest of the group, heading towards Allana.
---
Ben finished cutting yet another a circle out of the blast doors and, sweating, stepped back. The plug of metal stayed in place, the edges glowing. Ben reached toward it and pulled it out with the Force. It swung open like a hatch, then clattered to the deck plates.
A small object, round and metallic, flew through the hole after it. When it hit the deck, it stuck instead of rolling.
Sithspit, Ben thought to himself, already crouching to leap and knowing he might not get far enough in time. High-yield grenades had a blast radius more than able to get him as far as he could jump.
He was fast, but not as fast as Saba. The Jedi Master reached out and the plug Ben had cut from the door flipped over atop the detonator. Saba’s hand flattened as though she were holding something down.
As Ben leaped, the detonator blew, punching a charred hole in the floor. Ben hit the ground a dozen meters away, ears still ringing, as blaster fire began pouring through the hole he had made.
Luke, lightsaber up and lit, charged to the hole, batted away a flurry of bolts and dived through. Seconds later, the barrage became significantly less impressive. Saba was next, and soon the sounds of fire could be heard, but none made it through the hole.
Ben gulped, then somersaulted through the hole he’d made, warmed but not singed by the superheated metal he passed through. On the other side were four YVH combat droids: machines commissioned by Lando Calrissian years ago, created to resemble Yuuzhan Vong, distracting in their ugliness and absolutely lethal to everything they came in contact with. Ben chose not to be distracted.
One of the droids focused on Ben, and he got his lightsaber up to deflect the bolts, staggered by the strength in their blasts: much stronger than any pistol or rifle he’d ever encountered. He might be able to counter every shot, but doing so would exhaust him within seconds.
Don’t stop them. Just get rid of them, he told himself. He angled his blade so that the shots went up and to the right, pouring into the ceiling and walls, and putting much less pressure on his arms.
Yippee, he thought dryly. Now he could survive for another half a minute. He had a few options: be someone that Luke and Saba needed to protect, which would get them all killed; take care of himself, which so far wasn’t going so well and was making his assertion that he’d be an asset on this mission yet another misjudgment; or he could contribute.
“Let the enemy do the work,” he recited. He reached out into the Force, wrenching at the blaster cannon of one of the droids and directed it towards the YVH that Saba was combating. The cannon fire took the other droid in the side, cutting it in half at the pelvis. Ben’s droid, finally realizing what it had done, switched off its cannon and opened up its chest panel.
Luke waved a hand and the rocket that would’ve taken Ben’s head off broke the droid down into its component parts instead.
Two droids left, each facing a Master. A few seconds later, there were only Jedi standing.
Saba eyed Ben. “Good tacticz,” she said. “But warn this one next time. The stream of bolts crossed this one when the droid turned.”
Ben winced. “Sorry, Master.”
“Do not be sorry. Learn.” She turned and continued their advance towards the bridge.
Luke grinned at him. “What did she say first?”
“Good tacticz,” Ben repeated.
“Don’t lose track of the praise even in a stream of constructive criticism. Or vice-versa.”
---
Several floors later and they’d reached the bridge. Ben plunged his lightsaber into what felt like his hundreth set of blast doors only to have them open before them.
Saba and Luke stepped in front of him, lightsabers lit in, as Ben got his first look at the man who made all-too-frequent appearances in his nightmares. Jacen was surrounded by eight YVH droids. Ben’s jaw clenched. Four had been tough enough.
“Uncle Luke,” Jacen said with a smile that never reached his eyes. “Ben. Master Sabatayne. Care for some caf?”
Luke shook his head. “Care to surrender?”
“If I did, I’d never be able to have more fun with Ben, like the last time he was here.” Jacen fired the taunt like a blaster bolt. Neither Ben nor Luke reacted.
Jacen sighed and gestured a finger. “All right. Kill them.”
The eight droids began simultaneously firing on the Jedi.
Luke and Saba flanked Ben, their lightsabers diverting the fire around the bridge. Jacen’s command staff began diving for cover, and Jacen ignited his lightsaber, smirking, and casually batted any stray bolts away from him. While his father was providing cover, Ben closed down his lightsaber and reached into his belt pouch for a couple of thermal detonators. He tossed them towards two of the droids shooting up at them from the officers’ pits, and quirked a small smile as the grenades stuck to the droids’ chests and exploded, hurling them into and through the bulkhead at the stern of the bridge. Screams and alarms filled the air.
Ben ignored them, and repeated the move on two droids flanking the Jedi. With the kind of precision that made Jedi so rightfully feared, Luke and Saba kicked out at the droids’ chests, dropping them into the pits recently vacated by the first two droids.
Jacen wasn’t just going to stand there and let his baby cousin rip through his carefully constructed plan. He gestured with a finger and sent Saba flying starboard to land on top of one of the rigged droids. Her leap away was almost instantaneous, but she didn’t clear the blast radius in time: she was slammed into the port-side wall five meters above the floor and slid, flaming, down into the pit.
“One down,” Jacen said, flashing Luke and Ben a cold smile.
The four droids left kept firing.
Impossibly, Saba stood and moved her lightsaber into place to deflect the next wave of blaster bolts fired at her. Smoke rose from her back and legs, and bits of her were charred and bleeding, but she was on her feet.
Luke didn’t turn towards Ben, but pitched his voice so that he could hear anyway. “Get her out of here.”
“Remember why I’m here, Grand Master,” Ben replied, grateful he’d been spending time with the remotes as he continued deflecting fire and ignored the ache in his arms. Luke tightened his jaw, not pleased by the response, then raised his voice. “Master Sebatayne; extract.”
“This one iz still-“
“Leaving.” Luke’s voice left no room for argument. “Remember what we’re here for.”
Metal shutters slammed down on the viewport windows as the ship began to compensate for the explosions Ben had caused, but not before Ben caught sight of a huge number of new ships flying towards the Anakin Solo, lasers firing. The Corellians were not pleased about Jacen’s plans for Centerpoint Station.
Luke gestured at Jacen. Jacen reached for his lightsaber, but Luke’s gesture had been a diversion-he’d been hurling a droid at one of the faltering viewports.
The transparisteel buckled and the droid was lost to space. Air rushed past the Jedi and tried to tug them towards oblivion before the shutters finally slammed down, sealing the bridge.
Meanwhile, Ben caught the feeling of a pained Saba limping away from the battle.
Three YVH droids were left. And Jacen. Against Luke and Ben. Jacen was almost Luke’s match, Ben calculated, which left him to face off against three droids built to kill everything in sight.
…not good odds.
Then the odds changed. As Ben diverted blaster fire, he caught a surge of emotion in the Force: a little girl’s joy at going home.
Jacen visibly paled. “Allana.” He leaped, utterly ignoring the Jedi and flying towards one of the doors leading aft.
“Extract!” Luke snapped to Ben, deflecting new waves of blaster fire to give Ben some cover. “Warn Leia, Jacen’s coming!”
Keeping his father and the nearly impenetrable blaster shield that Luke represented between himself and the YVH combat droids, Ben backflipped through the blast doors and darted to the right, getting cover behind the door frame and slapping the “SHUT” control with his palm and then flipping his comlink open. “Aunt Leia, extract! Jacen’s coming!”
Leia’s voice came through calm and clear. “Already extracting.”
“Go fast.” Ben glanced over his shoulder as he father backed out of the blast doors as they closed. Ben drove his lightsaber into the control panel and kept shoving, burning a hole clear through to the other side.
“Time to go,” Luke said, starting to race down the hallway. Saba was already limping ahead of them toward the hanger bay.
---
They were in the cockpit of the Falcon speeding out of the system when something hammered into the back the freighter. “It’s not my fault,” Han muttered (mostly out of habit) as he flipped on the rear holocam to see the damage.
The blast wave that had hit them wasn’t something that was visible, but what caused it was impossible to ignore. Centerpoint Station was a glowing red ball behind them, a perfect sphere 500 kilometers in diameter. Someone had tried to fire the weapon, and this was the fallout. As Ben watched in horror, the sphere contracted almost instantly, leaving nothing behind in the space it had occupied. Everything that had been there-Corellian ships, Alliance ships, Centerpoint Station itself, and all the beings who’d been on them-was gone.
The massive loss of life slammed into Ben like an out-of-control landspeeder and doubled him over, heaving.
“You’re cleaning that up,” Han said, but his hand on Ben’s shoulder was comforting rather than scolding.
“The Anakin Solo?” Ben asked, wiping his hand across his mouth.
“Out of the blast radius,” Han said. “So were Jaina and the rest of the squadron.”
Ben nodded and tried to control his racing heartbeat. “I’ll go get a rag,” he said, rising shakily to his feet, “and check on Dad.”
“He’s back with Leia and Allana,” Han said with a small smile.
---
After cleaning the cockpit (Ben made a mental note to work on having a stronger stomach), he walked to the back of the Falcon where Leia was sitting, looking a little shaken, next to a red-headed girl.
“You’re Ben,” Allana said, smiling up at him.
Ben nodded. Something in her smile seemed very familiar.
“You’re Jacen’s cousin,” she said, holding onto Leia’s hand.
Ben nodded again.
“That makes you…” she looked to Leia for confirmation, “my cousin too?”
Ben stared.
“Jacen’s my daddy,” she explained patiently.
“Kriffing hells,” Ben breathed.
“Don’t say kriffing,” Allana lectured.
Ben stared some more. And he’d thought his personal life couldn’t get more complicated.
[OOC: Cut for ass-kicking, scenery chewing and more Skywalker family dysfunction. Dialogue adapted from Aaron Allston's Fury. NFB, NFI, void where prohibited, etc.]
The plan was deceptively simple, and very Jedi: Let the enemy do the work. It was going to be tough to smuggle a team of infiltrators onto the Anakin Solo, so they borrowed (okay, stole) Tycho’s shuttle, which had valid authorization, and would fake a chase to get it aboard. It’d be equally tough to get saboteurs aboard Centerpoint Station, so their team was dressed as members of GAG and would board along with the Alliance’s real team. And as for the destruction of Centerpoint Station…with Seyah’s program, well, the technicians aboard Centerpoint Station would be doing the work on that, too.
Ben was in the back of Tycho’s shuttle (which Wedge had stolen from Tycho at, well, finger point. It was a long story) as Wedge and his handpicked squadron of pilots (including Jaina) fired shots at them, carefully orchestrated to look like they were under attack. Ben had been around pilots his entire life, and knew that shooting to miss and making it look good was almost harder to do than the perfect kill shot.
The shuttle landed with a thunk inside the Anakin Solo’s hanger bay and Ben blew out a breath as he glanced at the other Jedi with him: his father, Aunt Leia, and Master Saba Sebatayne. A small smile tugged the corners of his mouth up. Jacen wouldn’t have a shot: that wasn’t revenge, it was simple fact. And that wasn’t factoring in the considerable skills of Uncle Han. Or, for that matter, Artoo.
The shuttle bay door slid down and Luke pulled his breather mask over his face, tossed out a smoke bomb, and then nodded to the other Jedi.
Moving so fast they blurred, they emerged from the edges of the smoke cloud and took down the security team with fists, feet (and tail, in Saba’s case) before they’d managed to get more than a few shots off. Six security personnel fell in an instant, their fall barely audible over the alarms wailing through the ship.
Luke clapped his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Time to move out,” he said. “Artoo?” Artoo, tweedling his confirmation, moved away from Han and towards the nearest data jack.
Ben tilted his head, then swung towards the doorway into the corridor leading to the rest of the ship and launched a kick. A security officer, not visible before Ben began his move, caught the foot squarely in the jaw and staggered back into his men. The other Jedi leaped forward and took out the rest of the team.
Han smiled. “Nice to not have to do all the work myself for once,” he said. With a little wave, he and Leia broke off from the rest of the group, heading towards Allana.
---
Ben finished cutting yet another a circle out of the blast doors and, sweating, stepped back. The plug of metal stayed in place, the edges glowing. Ben reached toward it and pulled it out with the Force. It swung open like a hatch, then clattered to the deck plates.
A small object, round and metallic, flew through the hole after it. When it hit the deck, it stuck instead of rolling.
Sithspit, Ben thought to himself, already crouching to leap and knowing he might not get far enough in time. High-yield grenades had a blast radius more than able to get him as far as he could jump.
He was fast, but not as fast as Saba. The Jedi Master reached out and the plug Ben had cut from the door flipped over atop the detonator. Saba’s hand flattened as though she were holding something down.
As Ben leaped, the detonator blew, punching a charred hole in the floor. Ben hit the ground a dozen meters away, ears still ringing, as blaster fire began pouring through the hole he had made.
Luke, lightsaber up and lit, charged to the hole, batted away a flurry of bolts and dived through. Seconds later, the barrage became significantly less impressive. Saba was next, and soon the sounds of fire could be heard, but none made it through the hole.
Ben gulped, then somersaulted through the hole he’d made, warmed but not singed by the superheated metal he passed through. On the other side were four YVH combat droids: machines commissioned by Lando Calrissian years ago, created to resemble Yuuzhan Vong, distracting in their ugliness and absolutely lethal to everything they came in contact with. Ben chose not to be distracted.
One of the droids focused on Ben, and he got his lightsaber up to deflect the bolts, staggered by the strength in their blasts: much stronger than any pistol or rifle he’d ever encountered. He might be able to counter every shot, but doing so would exhaust him within seconds.
Don’t stop them. Just get rid of them, he told himself. He angled his blade so that the shots went up and to the right, pouring into the ceiling and walls, and putting much less pressure on his arms.
Yippee, he thought dryly. Now he could survive for another half a minute. He had a few options: be someone that Luke and Saba needed to protect, which would get them all killed; take care of himself, which so far wasn’t going so well and was making his assertion that he’d be an asset on this mission yet another misjudgment; or he could contribute.
“Let the enemy do the work,” he recited. He reached out into the Force, wrenching at the blaster cannon of one of the droids and directed it towards the YVH that Saba was combating. The cannon fire took the other droid in the side, cutting it in half at the pelvis. Ben’s droid, finally realizing what it had done, switched off its cannon and opened up its chest panel.
Luke waved a hand and the rocket that would’ve taken Ben’s head off broke the droid down into its component parts instead.
Two droids left, each facing a Master. A few seconds later, there were only Jedi standing.
Saba eyed Ben. “Good tacticz,” she said. “But warn this one next time. The stream of bolts crossed this one when the droid turned.”
Ben winced. “Sorry, Master.”
“Do not be sorry. Learn.” She turned and continued their advance towards the bridge.
Luke grinned at him. “What did she say first?”
“Good tacticz,” Ben repeated.
“Don’t lose track of the praise even in a stream of constructive criticism. Or vice-versa.”
---
Several floors later and they’d reached the bridge. Ben plunged his lightsaber into what felt like his hundreth set of blast doors only to have them open before them.
Saba and Luke stepped in front of him, lightsabers lit in, as Ben got his first look at the man who made all-too-frequent appearances in his nightmares. Jacen was surrounded by eight YVH droids. Ben’s jaw clenched. Four had been tough enough.
“Uncle Luke,” Jacen said with a smile that never reached his eyes. “Ben. Master Sabatayne. Care for some caf?”
Luke shook his head. “Care to surrender?”
“If I did, I’d never be able to have more fun with Ben, like the last time he was here.” Jacen fired the taunt like a blaster bolt. Neither Ben nor Luke reacted.
Jacen sighed and gestured a finger. “All right. Kill them.”
The eight droids began simultaneously firing on the Jedi.
Luke and Saba flanked Ben, their lightsabers diverting the fire around the bridge. Jacen’s command staff began diving for cover, and Jacen ignited his lightsaber, smirking, and casually batted any stray bolts away from him. While his father was providing cover, Ben closed down his lightsaber and reached into his belt pouch for a couple of thermal detonators. He tossed them towards two of the droids shooting up at them from the officers’ pits, and quirked a small smile as the grenades stuck to the droids’ chests and exploded, hurling them into and through the bulkhead at the stern of the bridge. Screams and alarms filled the air.
Ben ignored them, and repeated the move on two droids flanking the Jedi. With the kind of precision that made Jedi so rightfully feared, Luke and Saba kicked out at the droids’ chests, dropping them into the pits recently vacated by the first two droids.
Jacen wasn’t just going to stand there and let his baby cousin rip through his carefully constructed plan. He gestured with a finger and sent Saba flying starboard to land on top of one of the rigged droids. Her leap away was almost instantaneous, but she didn’t clear the blast radius in time: she was slammed into the port-side wall five meters above the floor and slid, flaming, down into the pit.
“One down,” Jacen said, flashing Luke and Ben a cold smile.
The four droids left kept firing.
Impossibly, Saba stood and moved her lightsaber into place to deflect the next wave of blaster bolts fired at her. Smoke rose from her back and legs, and bits of her were charred and bleeding, but she was on her feet.
Luke didn’t turn towards Ben, but pitched his voice so that he could hear anyway. “Get her out of here.”
“Remember why I’m here, Grand Master,” Ben replied, grateful he’d been spending time with the remotes as he continued deflecting fire and ignored the ache in his arms. Luke tightened his jaw, not pleased by the response, then raised his voice. “Master Sebatayne; extract.”
“This one iz still-“
“Leaving.” Luke’s voice left no room for argument. “Remember what we’re here for.”
Metal shutters slammed down on the viewport windows as the ship began to compensate for the explosions Ben had caused, but not before Ben caught sight of a huge number of new ships flying towards the Anakin Solo, lasers firing. The Corellians were not pleased about Jacen’s plans for Centerpoint Station.
Luke gestured at Jacen. Jacen reached for his lightsaber, but Luke’s gesture had been a diversion-he’d been hurling a droid at one of the faltering viewports.
The transparisteel buckled and the droid was lost to space. Air rushed past the Jedi and tried to tug them towards oblivion before the shutters finally slammed down, sealing the bridge.
Meanwhile, Ben caught the feeling of a pained Saba limping away from the battle.
Three YVH droids were left. And Jacen. Against Luke and Ben. Jacen was almost Luke’s match, Ben calculated, which left him to face off against three droids built to kill everything in sight.
…not good odds.
Then the odds changed. As Ben diverted blaster fire, he caught a surge of emotion in the Force: a little girl’s joy at going home.
Jacen visibly paled. “Allana.” He leaped, utterly ignoring the Jedi and flying towards one of the doors leading aft.
“Extract!” Luke snapped to Ben, deflecting new waves of blaster fire to give Ben some cover. “Warn Leia, Jacen’s coming!”
Keeping his father and the nearly impenetrable blaster shield that Luke represented between himself and the YVH combat droids, Ben backflipped through the blast doors and darted to the right, getting cover behind the door frame and slapping the “SHUT” control with his palm and then flipping his comlink open. “Aunt Leia, extract! Jacen’s coming!”
Leia’s voice came through calm and clear. “Already extracting.”
“Go fast.” Ben glanced over his shoulder as he father backed out of the blast doors as they closed. Ben drove his lightsaber into the control panel and kept shoving, burning a hole clear through to the other side.
“Time to go,” Luke said, starting to race down the hallway. Saba was already limping ahead of them toward the hanger bay.
---
They were in the cockpit of the Falcon speeding out of the system when something hammered into the back the freighter. “It’s not my fault,” Han muttered (mostly out of habit) as he flipped on the rear holocam to see the damage.
The blast wave that had hit them wasn’t something that was visible, but what caused it was impossible to ignore. Centerpoint Station was a glowing red ball behind them, a perfect sphere 500 kilometers in diameter. Someone had tried to fire the weapon, and this was the fallout. As Ben watched in horror, the sphere contracted almost instantly, leaving nothing behind in the space it had occupied. Everything that had been there-Corellian ships, Alliance ships, Centerpoint Station itself, and all the beings who’d been on them-was gone.
The massive loss of life slammed into Ben like an out-of-control landspeeder and doubled him over, heaving.
“You’re cleaning that up,” Han said, but his hand on Ben’s shoulder was comforting rather than scolding.
“The Anakin Solo?” Ben asked, wiping his hand across his mouth.
“Out of the blast radius,” Han said. “So were Jaina and the rest of the squadron.”
Ben nodded and tried to control his racing heartbeat. “I’ll go get a rag,” he said, rising shakily to his feet, “and check on Dad.”
“He’s back with Leia and Allana,” Han said with a small smile.
---
After cleaning the cockpit (Ben made a mental note to work on having a stronger stomach), he walked to the back of the Falcon where Leia was sitting, looking a little shaken, next to a red-headed girl.
“You’re Ben,” Allana said, smiling up at him.
Ben nodded. Something in her smile seemed very familiar.
“You’re Jacen’s cousin,” she said, holding onto Leia’s hand.
Ben nodded again.
“That makes you…” she looked to Leia for confirmation, “my cousin too?”
Ben stared.
“Jacen’s my daddy,” she explained patiently.
“Kriffing hells,” Ben breathed.
“Don’t say kriffing,” Allana lectured.
Ben stared some more. And he’d thought his personal life couldn’t get more complicated.
[OOC: Cut for ass-kicking, scenery chewing and more Skywalker family dysfunction. Dialogue adapted from Aaron Allston's Fury. NFB, NFI, void where prohibited, etc.]