[oom] Centerpoint Station, Corellian System
Note: all dialogue from Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston, and all italicised narrative on the same lines also from Betrayal, because sometimes? There are just some things it would be a crime to paraphrase.
Twenty-two years ago, in the Corellian system, the secret of Centerpoint Station was revealed. Centerpoint's an elaborately-designed space station, bigger than both Death Stars and far more powerful. And, thousands upon thousands of years ago, long before the formation of the Old Republic, it was used to transport five inhabitable planets -- Drall, Selonia, Talus, Tralus and Corellia itself -- through hyperspace into orbit around the star Corell.
Twenty-two years ago, the station imprinted itself upon a seven-year-old Anakin Solo, who used his own natural intuition -- with a little help from the Force -- to change its programming and foil his second-cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo's plans to take over the system.
Fourteen years ago, the station was activated again -- once more with Anakin at the controls -- to be used as a weapon against the Yuuzhan Vong. Listening to his brother Jacen, however, Anakin stepped down -- and Thrackan fired the weapon without Anakin's innate control, killing friend and foe alike.
Just over twelve years ago, Anakin Solo died on a Yuuzhan Vong worldship in orbit around the planet Myrkr: one of the many events that led to his cousin Ben Skywalker's temporary withdrawal from the Force. With Anakin died the ability to activate Centerpoint, and though scientists would never stop studying it, its use as a hyperspace weapon and transporter was lost forever.
Forever is just twelve years to Thrackan Sal-Solo.
With illegally (and immorally) synthesised biometric data, the Corellian Diktat has contrived a way of activating the station again, to be used in achieving Corellian independence from the Galactic Alliance. Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker have been sent to prevent this, to damage or destroy Centerpoint Station for good.
Only Ben has reached the central control room.
And it's not like the simulations.
"Who are you?" asks the bizarre contraption in the middle of the room: a huge, roughly humanoid droid built haphazardly out of mismatching components.
It sounds a bit like Jacen -- or, says a thoughtful voice in Ben's head, maybe someone you met in Milliways.
"I'm Ben Skywalker."
"Wonderful. I'm so happy to meet you. I'm Anakin Solo."
Ben's head spins.
Oh, no. They didn't--
"No, you're not. Anakin Solo's dead. He died when I was little."
The Corellians have even hooked the droid-thing up to shrug.
"Yes, I did die. And I became a ghost, and I was eventually drawn here to inhabit this mutated clone body, where I could help my ancestors, the Corellians."
Does it really think it's a clone?
The interface Ben needs to deal with, to insert the programmed datacard into, is somewhere on the droid; since it can move, he can't get very close, and he argues ineffectually with it. After a moment, he realises that attacking is the only option when it won't listen, so he reaches out with the Force to--
--get a literal shock. It's an almost painless jolt through his body, but it certainly makes it impossible to concentrate on anything. When he can see clearly again, he's floating a metre above the ground.
The droid explains the device (anti-Jedi defensive feature), and when a second Force-use attempt -- to retrieve his lightsaber -- results in another shock, Ben has to admit it's a pretty effective feature.
So now he's stuck in the air, without his abilities or a weapon -- and he can hear the guards working just outside the control room on the other side of the door he fused shut.
This is it, isn't it? He can't do anything now; he's failed. The mission is over.
...No. Not yet.
"They tell you they're going to use the station's weapon to stay independent. And that would be fine if that's what it was all about. But it's not. They're lying to you. The first, big lie is that you're Anakin Solo, and that you're in a living body. You're not. You're a droid."
It doesn't believe him, of course. Ben explains further, explains how they used biometric data, but it's stubborn and insistent.
Just like Anakin.
The droid uses a magnet to retrieve Ben's lightsaber -- "proving" it can use the Force -- and something in Ben hurts. This thing really thinks it's Anakin Solo, and Ben's got to destroy it somehow.
Even the holocams in the control room are programmed to keep up the illusion, he learns, so he takes his own personal cam out of its makeshift pouch of robes. The droid takes this with its magnet too, examining it to make sure it's not a weapon.
"You sound like someone who's afraid to get killed."
"I am afraid to get killed."
"Anakin Solo wasn't. You're not him."
Ben's not sure why this makes him feel triumphant -- it's proof that the droid isn't Anakin, sure, but he knew that. Didn't he? And he knows it won't convince the droid itself. But it helps, a little, and maybe it makes it clearer in his head -- this isn't his cousin, this isn't the teenager he met at the end of the universe.
But when he records a message of the droid--
"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I'm working hard but having a good time. I hope I'll get to see you soon."
--oh, it hurts. No, it's not Anakin Solo, not really, it's just a droid -- but it hurts.
He lets the droid watch the recording, and at first it denies everything. But the camera has no extra programming: as advanced as it is, it's still just a personal holocam. The droid can't deny the truth.
Its programming is good -- oh, so good -- and as Ben watches, it turns to him and sags, as if it really is a teenage boy whose world has just been torn apart.
Ben wipes away the tears he couldn't fake earlier, and swallows hard.
"I'm so sorry. But it's true. You're a droid who's been programmed to think it's Anakin Solo. But if you were really Anakin, you'd help me destroy the station now, because the people who made you can use it as a weapon and they could destroy whole stars with it."
The droid asks how Ben was going to destroy him, and the boy explains the plan for the station, lets the not-Anakin examine the various datacards.
"Analysing."
So human but not, and it hurts.
"Oh, I know where that interface is. But I've been interpreting it as a candy dispenser."
"That's ... wrong."
Ben feels sick -- and as not-Anakin explains that he can't destroy the station and kill so many of the people on board, and he can't kill himself, the feeling doesn't go away.
"Except you wouldn't be dying. You're a droid. You're not really alive."
"If I do this, I'll end. Everything I am will just stop and never happen again. Tell me that's not dying. Go ahead, tell me again."
He can't, and it's shame he feels now as he leans away from the droid's threatening posture. "I'm sorry."
Then the droid gets caught up in searching and coding and slicing, sounding -- oh, sounding just like Anakin, just like the boy he's heard stories about and seen in old holos and met, once, obsessed with computers and problem-solving; and it hurts.
But security is almost here, the door's open just a centimetre, and--
"Time's kind of running out. What are you going to do, Anakin?"
"I'm not really Anakin, am I?"
"You're ... an Anakin. Not Anakin Solo."
"Anakin Sal-Solo." The droid [laughs], but [it's] a humourless noise. "Thrackan's offspring. That's what I am."
Maybe he is, Ben thinks. Maybe Thrackan did one thing that wasn't all bad; oh, wrong, certainly -- but not all bad.
The droid finally cancels out the anti-Jedi device, letting Ben go, and the boy looks up at not-Anakin from the floor.
"I'm not going to destroy this station. If you could feel it the way I do ... feel its life ... and there's so much knowledge here. But I'll keep my father and his friends from using it. I guess that means I have to die."
"I'm sorry." And he truly [is]. He [can't] quite accept the droid as his cousin, but he abruptly [realises he's] thinking of it as a him, a living thing ... a noble one.
Anakin (Sal-Solo) continues his interference with the station's computers, setting up procedures to scramble data and delete his own memory; when the door behind Ben opens a whole metre thanks to the guards, the droid slams it shut with a "hand" gesture, almost like a real Jedi.
Ben moves where he's told and catches his lightsaber when it's thrown to him, listens to Anakin's instructions about his escape route. He takes it all in, but he thinks he's working on reflex now, because even as he starts cutting into the floor with his lightsaber, it doesn't seem real. It can't be.
"I think I'll activate that evacuation alarm anyway. You know why?"
"Why?"
"'Cause it'll be funny to watch all the people run around." The droid [laughs] again, and this time [there's] real mirth in it. "Won't that be a good way to die? No pain, and watching people do silly things like in a holocomedy?"
"That's a good way, all right."
And Ben can't swallow his tears now, can't wipe them all away; they fall on his blade and send up little puffs of steam, make the lightsaber hiss louder through the noise and smell and smoke of burning metal.
His circle's done and he kicks the metal in, hearing it clang to the floor below. Ben looks up at the droid one last time and raises a hand in something between a wave and a salute. Then he takes a step, dropping through the hole -- and away.
Twenty-two years ago, in the Corellian system, the secret of Centerpoint Station was revealed. Centerpoint's an elaborately-designed space station, bigger than both Death Stars and far more powerful. And, thousands upon thousands of years ago, long before the formation of the Old Republic, it was used to transport five inhabitable planets -- Drall, Selonia, Talus, Tralus and Corellia itself -- through hyperspace into orbit around the star Corell.
Twenty-two years ago, the station imprinted itself upon a seven-year-old Anakin Solo, who used his own natural intuition -- with a little help from the Force -- to change its programming and foil his second-cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo's plans to take over the system.
Fourteen years ago, the station was activated again -- once more with Anakin at the controls -- to be used as a weapon against the Yuuzhan Vong. Listening to his brother Jacen, however, Anakin stepped down -- and Thrackan fired the weapon without Anakin's innate control, killing friend and foe alike.
Just over twelve years ago, Anakin Solo died on a Yuuzhan Vong worldship in orbit around the planet Myrkr: one of the many events that led to his cousin Ben Skywalker's temporary withdrawal from the Force. With Anakin died the ability to activate Centerpoint, and though scientists would never stop studying it, its use as a hyperspace weapon and transporter was lost forever.
Forever is just twelve years to Thrackan Sal-Solo.
With illegally (and immorally) synthesised biometric data, the Corellian Diktat has contrived a way of activating the station again, to be used in achieving Corellian independence from the Galactic Alliance. Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker have been sent to prevent this, to damage or destroy Centerpoint Station for good.
Only Ben has reached the central control room.
And it's not like the simulations.
"Who are you?" asks the bizarre contraption in the middle of the room: a huge, roughly humanoid droid built haphazardly out of mismatching components.
It sounds a bit like Jacen -- or, says a thoughtful voice in Ben's head, maybe someone you met in Milliways.
"I'm Ben Skywalker."
"Wonderful. I'm so happy to meet you. I'm Anakin Solo."
Ben's head spins.
Oh, no. They didn't--
"No, you're not. Anakin Solo's dead. He died when I was little."
The Corellians have even hooked the droid-thing up to shrug.
"Yes, I did die. And I became a ghost, and I was eventually drawn here to inhabit this mutated clone body, where I could help my ancestors, the Corellians."
Does it really think it's a clone?
The interface Ben needs to deal with, to insert the programmed datacard into, is somewhere on the droid; since it can move, he can't get very close, and he argues ineffectually with it. After a moment, he realises that attacking is the only option when it won't listen, so he reaches out with the Force to--
--get a literal shock. It's an almost painless jolt through his body, but it certainly makes it impossible to concentrate on anything. When he can see clearly again, he's floating a metre above the ground.
The droid explains the device (anti-Jedi defensive feature), and when a second Force-use attempt -- to retrieve his lightsaber -- results in another shock, Ben has to admit it's a pretty effective feature.
So now he's stuck in the air, without his abilities or a weapon -- and he can hear the guards working just outside the control room on the other side of the door he fused shut.
This is it, isn't it? He can't do anything now; he's failed. The mission is over.
...No. Not yet.
"They tell you they're going to use the station's weapon to stay independent. And that would be fine if that's what it was all about. But it's not. They're lying to you. The first, big lie is that you're Anakin Solo, and that you're in a living body. You're not. You're a droid."
It doesn't believe him, of course. Ben explains further, explains how they used biometric data, but it's stubborn and insistent.
Just like Anakin.
The droid uses a magnet to retrieve Ben's lightsaber -- "proving" it can use the Force -- and something in Ben hurts. This thing really thinks it's Anakin Solo, and Ben's got to destroy it somehow.
Even the holocams in the control room are programmed to keep up the illusion, he learns, so he takes his own personal cam out of its makeshift pouch of robes. The droid takes this with its magnet too, examining it to make sure it's not a weapon.
"You sound like someone who's afraid to get killed."
"I am afraid to get killed."
"Anakin Solo wasn't. You're not him."
Ben's not sure why this makes him feel triumphant -- it's proof that the droid isn't Anakin, sure, but he knew that. Didn't he? And he knows it won't convince the droid itself. But it helps, a little, and maybe it makes it clearer in his head -- this isn't his cousin, this isn't the teenager he met at the end of the universe.
But when he records a message of the droid--
"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I'm working hard but having a good time. I hope I'll get to see you soon."
--oh, it hurts. No, it's not Anakin Solo, not really, it's just a droid -- but it hurts.
He lets the droid watch the recording, and at first it denies everything. But the camera has no extra programming: as advanced as it is, it's still just a personal holocam. The droid can't deny the truth.
Its programming is good -- oh, so good -- and as Ben watches, it turns to him and sags, as if it really is a teenage boy whose world has just been torn apart.
Ben wipes away the tears he couldn't fake earlier, and swallows hard.
"I'm so sorry. But it's true. You're a droid who's been programmed to think it's Anakin Solo. But if you were really Anakin, you'd help me destroy the station now, because the people who made you can use it as a weapon and they could destroy whole stars with it."
The droid asks how Ben was going to destroy him, and the boy explains the plan for the station, lets the not-Anakin examine the various datacards.
"Analysing."
So human but not, and it hurts.
"Oh, I know where that interface is. But I've been interpreting it as a candy dispenser."
"That's ... wrong."
Ben feels sick -- and as not-Anakin explains that he can't destroy the station and kill so many of the people on board, and he can't kill himself, the feeling doesn't go away.
"Except you wouldn't be dying. You're a droid. You're not really alive."
"If I do this, I'll end. Everything I am will just stop and never happen again. Tell me that's not dying. Go ahead, tell me again."
He can't, and it's shame he feels now as he leans away from the droid's threatening posture. "I'm sorry."
Then the droid gets caught up in searching and coding and slicing, sounding -- oh, sounding just like Anakin, just like the boy he's heard stories about and seen in old holos and met, once, obsessed with computers and problem-solving; and it hurts.
But security is almost here, the door's open just a centimetre, and--
"Time's kind of running out. What are you going to do, Anakin?"
"I'm not really Anakin, am I?"
"You're ... an Anakin. Not Anakin Solo."
"Anakin Sal-Solo." The droid [laughs], but [it's] a humourless noise. "Thrackan's offspring. That's what I am."
Maybe he is, Ben thinks. Maybe Thrackan did one thing that wasn't all bad; oh, wrong, certainly -- but not all bad.
The droid finally cancels out the anti-Jedi device, letting Ben go, and the boy looks up at not-Anakin from the floor.
"I'm not going to destroy this station. If you could feel it the way I do ... feel its life ... and there's so much knowledge here. But I'll keep my father and his friends from using it. I guess that means I have to die."
"I'm sorry." And he truly [is]. He [can't] quite accept the droid as his cousin, but he abruptly [realises he's] thinking of it as a him, a living thing ... a noble one.
Anakin (Sal-Solo) continues his interference with the station's computers, setting up procedures to scramble data and delete his own memory; when the door behind Ben opens a whole metre thanks to the guards, the droid slams it shut with a "hand" gesture, almost like a real Jedi.
Ben moves where he's told and catches his lightsaber when it's thrown to him, listens to Anakin's instructions about his escape route. He takes it all in, but he thinks he's working on reflex now, because even as he starts cutting into the floor with his lightsaber, it doesn't seem real. It can't be.
"I think I'll activate that evacuation alarm anyway. You know why?"
"Why?"
"'Cause it'll be funny to watch all the people run around." The droid [laughs] again, and this time [there's] real mirth in it. "Won't that be a good way to die? No pain, and watching people do silly things like in a holocomedy?"
"That's a good way, all right."
And Ben can't swallow his tears now, can't wipe them all away; they fall on his blade and send up little puffs of steam, make the lightsaber hiss louder through the noise and smell and smoke of burning metal.
His circle's done and he kicks the metal in, hearing it clang to the floor below. Ben looks up at the droid one last time and raises a hand in something between a wave and a salute. Then he takes a step, dropping through the hole -- and away.