AU: Not Milliways continuity: The Foundry -Reprise

[last_kallig]

Ibani is at a corner booth in Milliways, examining a tactical map of the Kurost sector of the Mid-Rim, specifically the Nanth'ri system.

She's half in, half out of armor, a look worn by many commanders in many worlds and many times. A look that suggests that the Commander was either interrupted en route to sleep or has given up on it entirely.

She has a small stack of holopads set out on the table, listing various groups and their locations, most of them are crossed out. The two on top are for a Major Bessiker and the Sith Hiran Bessiker, his son.

She'd hoped she would never need to enter the Foundry again, but events have conspired against her.

Her stomach sinks as she recalls what she's fairly sure will be Major Bessiker's last message to her or to anyone, that a group of fanatical Jedi had taken the Foundry. She's checked again and again, and there is no one she can send, no one she can spare.

If she can't find an answer here, she'll be going alone into what the data tells her MUST be a trap.

(OOC: dialogue in italics is taken from/adapted from Ibani's canon.)

Comments

[last_kallig]

She closes her eyes as she drinks in the feel of him in the Force and the feeling of his hand on her face. "When I first met you, felt you in the Force, you reminded me of the first time I ever saw sunlight."

She smiles sweetly, eyes still shut. "You still do."

[acertainpov]

Ben makes a faint 'hmmm' sound of amusement.

"That's less of a compliment if you've lived as long as I have under twin suns," he remarks.

(But he's flattered somewhere under the humour. Flattered, and a bit concerned, because the last thing he needs or desires is to inspire feelings like that from another person after Satine and Asajj.)

He draws back from her head, but only to takee her hand in both of his and to relax into a more meditative pose on the chair, letting his eyes gently close as he invites Ibani's stress to flow into him, or at least away from her.

[last_kallig]

"I suppose it would be," Ibani replies, her tone warm and humorous. "I spent my childhood cold and mostly in the dark or artificial light, to give you some context on the compliment."

Would it be so bad, to be wanted like that, Ben? That it ended badly twice is no guarantee of future disaster, especially since the contexts have radically changed!

Ibani's stress flows away from her, revealing an undercurrent of pain. As close as he is, as good as he is with living things and with her defenses down, he might notice that not all the pain is proper physical pain. Her system is flush with life energy, flush nearly to bursting and straining to contain it within her flesh.

[acertainpov]

There's no reply other than a gentle sshhing, like a father putting a child to bed, with a gentle, loving smile.

One of the things Ben has been working on, in his hermitage, in his meditations with the living Force, is to better understand its flow through and in and between living things. And whereas once he might have just taken this stress and incorporated it into his own to be ignored, now he focuses on letting it flow through him, out into the wider Force, as he's had to do with so much of his guilt - or that which he could afford to let go.

It's still a work in progress.

And then, he finds the pain, and this is going to be harder to work with, so he stills further, and lets that come as well.

[last_kallig]

The pain comes, tied up with the extra life energy. Too much of it, too much for her body to take, but it flows eagerly into him, like water into dry ground. (Warm and sweet and it feels like Ibani in the Force, because it has become HERS.)

He can take the pain away, IF he takes the life energy into himself. (He's spent so much of his life energy over the years that he has 'room' for lack of a better term.)

[acertainpov]

He does, yes.

Years of being at the front line. Years of pushing himself to the very limits of what his body could do, of healing himself at the front lines just enough to stand when even his fellow Jedi were being pulled back to the basta tanks. Years of healing his men on the fly rather than lose a single man more than necessary. Years borrowed from his future life just so he can survive a few more hours.

There's room, but it's slow. If he opens up too much he'll overdo it, open the metaphorical floodgates, harm himself and Ibani.

So he takes it slow, calmly, a little more with each breath.

[last_kallig]

Slowly, so slowly it flows into him, life filling up the empty places inside of him. He's going to have to take quite a bit to make the pain stop, replenish a substantial portion of what he's spent over the years

When the pain is gone, Ibani's mind, edging toward sleep, is a muddle of relief and gratitude and affection in the Force.

And then she's asleep. Hopefully until morning.

[acertainpov]

Ben eventually sits back, her hand still in his, and lets his breathing slow, and deepen.

He doesn't sleep. But he lapses deeper into his meditation for the remainder of the night, existing for those few hours between the Force and his own body, reaching for the serenity he's only managed to glimpse after a decade's work.

But by the time the single Terran sun that shines over Millways is seeping into the room, he looks for all the world like he is asleep.

[last_kallig]

The sunlight seeping into the room wakes Ibani, and she's startled to feel no pain upon waking for the first time in months. (The last time she woke up with someone in close proximity like this, never mind in physical contact with her, she was a very small child.)

She takes the opportunity to gaze at his seemingly sleeping form, to study her friend without fear of being caught staring.

[acertainpov]

Eventually - long enough that he may have been asleep rather than just faking it, but also not long enough for that to be beyond doubt - and without anything else changing in his breathing or aspect, Ben opens one eye.

"Getting a good look?"

[last_kallig]

"Definitely enjoying the view," Ibani quips back, tone slightly teasing.

What, she thinks he's handsome!

She stretches, arches her back. "Any preferences for breakfast?"

She summons something that looks like a datapad over from her bureau with the Force. It's a device for ordering room service in Milliways.

"Thank you, by the way, for last night. I'd been pondering breaking my own bones and then fixing them to deal with that particular problem."

[acertainpov]

"That's never as fun as you think it's going to be when you get started," Ben remarks, having broken a leg or two in his time.

"As for breakfast," he chuckles, "anything that hasn't been rehydrated from a pack will do me just fine."

[last_kallig]

"Oh, I definitely believe you on that front," Ibani replies. "I've had most of mine broken at one point or another, particularly while I was in training on Korriban."

"Two Coruscanti Breakfasts, then. I don't think I've ever had anything from there."

She COULD get up and go and get the armor her Jedi Knight friend left in her keeping from the closet, but that would involve letting go of Ben's hand.

She opens the closet door with the Force and the armor comes floating out. It's not terribly dissimilar to what Ben wore during the Clone Wars, though this set is more tan in color than white. "No helmet, alas, we went around and around on that point more than once." Her tone at that last is one of fond exasperation.

[acertainpov]

"I can never see a thing with a helmet on," Ben says, eventually letting go of Ibani's hand to collect and inspect some of the pieces. It's not a bad set of armor, but he'll still wear someone else's reluctantly. He's been around enough clones to understand the personal nature of something like this.

"And it really messes with my hair."

[last_kallig]

Ibani laughs at that. "That was more or less exactly what he said," Ibani replies.

She reaches up to gently touch his hair. "I admit my helmet does a number on my hair, but the appearance it grants me is useful. It helps people see the monster they expect, after all."

Milliways room service is ridiculously fast, and she gets up to answer the door while Ben is examining the armor pieces.

"He left that armor with me when the Jedi Order kicked him out," she says, anger in her tone. "Kicked him out for doing the right thing, for working with me to keep the former Emperor from devouring all life in the galaxy." There is guilt there in the Force, at that. "Too many memories to keep and too many memories to throw away, I think. It can be hard to tell with you Jedi, keeping your emotions to yourselves as much as you do." She smiles at him, then places the tray on her bed.

Whatever a Coruscanti Breakfast is, it smells good!

[acertainpov]

"I would have felt the same way about my armor, I'm sure."

Except he left Coruscant with little more than the robes on his back and the babe in his arms. No time to worry about the sentiment attached to things.

...not that he has any sentiment attached to things.

"Now I haven't eaten this well in ten years," he says, as soon as the tray is set down.

There are eggs.

[last_kallig]

Ibani nods.

"I need to feed you more often, then," she teases when he says he hasn't eaten this well in ten years.

She eats slowly but methodically, appreciating the food.

Breakfast first, then time to get armored up and go get shot at by droids!

"Do you want a hand with getting the armor on?" Ibani can very nearly get hers on in her sleep, but she's been wearing it for twenty years!

[acertainpov]

"I think I can manage," Ben says almost on reflex, as reluctant to accept offered help as he is to ask for it. "It's similar enough to what I used to wear."

That wasn't for as long, but it felt like he'd never be free of it.

[last_kallig]

"All right," Ibani replies, smiling. "I'll go and armor up in the 'fresher."

He might be shy about changing in front of her, after all. Because there's no way those robes are fitting UNDER the armor. Over, yes, under, no.

When Ibani comes out of the fresher with her armor on, her body language has changed. A widening of stance, a change in the position of her shoulders. Temporal and Force power, authority, control, the faintest touch of arrogance. SITH. These are as much a part of the disguise as the armor, as much a mask as the one that hides her face.

[acertainpov]

That may be the difference between a lone warrior and a general in a thousand-strong army. Ben lost any inclinations towards physical modesty a long time ago. But he shanges while she's changing, his volumnous robes folded and set upon his chair, the armor - what there is of it because Jedi ahve always preferred freedom of movement to actual protection - still affording a few of brown and tan undergarments.

When she emerges, he's looking at himself in the mirror over the dresser, wondering his his beard is too unruly for a serious Jedi Master, but he decides it's fine.

If it hurts to see another friend in the armour of a sith, hiding themselves behind anger and power and dark, he doesn't show it when he turns back and smiles warmly at her.

"I think that makes you look taller."

[last_kallig]

"I actually am, a few centimeters," Ibani confesses. "It helped people take me seriously at first, being slightly taller. And not showing how young I was, at 20."

She laughs. "Definitely don't need THAT effect anymore."

"Thankfully I'd already commandeered a starfighter before I came to Milliways, less potential for awkward questions."

Once they go through the door to Ibani's universe, the starfighter waiting for them is closer in build to an X-Wing than a TIE fighter. "After you," Ibani says quietly. "I have a feeling I'll need to be in a near trance state to hold the cloak once we come out of hyperspace."

[acertainpov]

Closer, but different enough that when in the pilot's seat, Ben takes a good few seconds looking over all the controls. It's nice to have the opportunity to figure things out before taking off in a hurry.

"I should warn you I've not actually piltoed anything in years," he says, but without much concern, as he fires her up and points her out into space.

[last_kallig]

"I'm sure you still have much more experience than I do," Ibani replies.

The ship answers readily to his commands, no bizarre controls or peculiar systems here! (Any Sith Empire Engineer trying to pass off something like the TIE fighter, notoriously hard on its pilots, would have been executed for their incompetence.)

The hyperspace trip is calm, thankfully. "Shielding at the speed we'll be traveling at will be no small feat. Going to be like doing very advanced calculus in my head." She sends a feeling of warmth and amusement to him, since her helmet hides her grin. "So don't panic if I don't respond right away, unless I'm not breathing."

Ibani builds the Force cloak slowly as they approach their exit from hyperspace. It is a complicated tangle of energies, suppressing sensory information, distorting it, making what IS vanish into what ought to be.

When they emerge from hyperspace, the Foundry hangs in space like a moon, a moon armed with hundreds of enormous guns. Bits of debris and the odd chunk of rock show up on the starfighter's sensors. One piece, a chunk of debris larger than their starfighter, crosses paths with a sensor station and several guns swivel to target it. Ions glow around their barrels and streak out toward the piece of debris, turning it to vapor.

[acertainpov]

The shield masks them from outsiders not the other way around, but Ben still finds it easier as they approach to close his eyes and sense their way towards the Foundry, finding the dock and easing their way in among the existing star fighters and one crashed Republic shuttle.

It's strange, this complete lack of reaction to them - he has to be extra careful not to actually hit anything or anyone who would usually give them space - but eventually he does come to a satisfactory landing and shuts off their engines, before reaching a hand to Ibani's hip to let her know they're there.

[last_kallig]

There are at least two dozen droids in the hanger, some patrolling, others stationary.

Ibani smiles at Ben as he touches her hip and she opens her eyes. The smile turns to a frown suddenly as she senses two Jedi approaching. One of them, one of them she knows.

"Nomar Organa," she growls. "I let the karking bastard live twenty years ago, and now here we are." There is a small stab of guilt at the fact that she let him live. It might not have made any difference, of course, and there's no way of knowing what might have been, but even so...