by Troy Denning
Still, appearances could be deceiving, and Cal Omas had not held the Galactic Alliance together for so long by being naïve or principled. During the Dark Nest crisis, when the Jedi had angered him by insisting that the Chiss come to a fair settlement with the Killiks, he had been more than willing to use false bargains, political manipulation, and even unwarranted imprisonment to undermine the power of the Jedi Order. It wasn’t much of a stretch to think he had sanctioned the killing of Ben’s mother—or to expect Ben to believe he had.
Ben turned his attention to the big Tendrando Arms Guardian standing next to the Chief’s desk. With gray laminanium armor, thick weapons-packed arms, and a stern downturned vocabulator opening, it was basically a VIP version of the same Defender Droid that had served as Ben’s companion and protector during his childhood. Assuming this droid had the same internal design as his Nanna, he visualized the circuit breaker hidden beneath the neck armor and used the Force to trip it.
The Guardian’s photoreceptors dimmed for an instant; then there was a click as the breaker reset itself. The droid’s blocky head swiveled toward the entrance alcove where Ben stood watching.
“Blast!” Ben flipped the circuit breaker again—then heard another click. Clearly, that particular design flaw had been corrected. “Double blast!”
The Guardian raised an arm and swung it toward the entry alcove where Ben was lurking.
“Do not be alarmed!” the droid said. A stream of tiny flechettes began to fly from its fingertips. “Armed intruder. Take evasive action.”
It was speaking to Omas, but Ben was already diving. He landed in a forward roll and pulled a gauss ball—the equivalent of a stun grenade for droids—off his equipment harness and came up flinging. The ball splatted into the Guardian’s chest plate and flattened into a crackling mass of energy.
Instead of turning into the buzz-zombie Ben expected, the droid began to stagger about blindly, flailing its arms and spraying a line of energy bolts through the ceiling. Clearly, its mag-shielding had been upgraded beyond even military standards. Blast and double blast! So far everything was going wrong on this operation. Ben somersaulted toward the droid. It changed directions and crashed into a credenza along the adjacent wall, opposite Omas’s fancy desk.
Ben ignited his lightsaber then rolled to his feet, Force-sprang to the droid’s side, and swung at its cannon arm. The laminanium was so strong that his first strike cut only halfway through. The Guardian spun toward him, its other arm coming around like a club, its fingers spraying flechettes in random directions.
Ben stepped after the cannon arm and swung again, using the Force to guide his blow. He felt his lightsaber sink into the same cut as before and slice through, then turned toward the other arm and attacked the flechette-spraying hand at the wrist.
The hand clunked to the floor, but the forearm caught him in the head and knocked him into the wall. Ben slid to the floor with his skull ringing and ears spinning, but still conscious and alert—more or less. He deactivated the blade and grabbed the bottom edge of the droid’s chest plate, then pulled himself up and jammed the hilt of his weapon against its armpit.
Confused though it was by the gauss ball, the droid recognized its vulnerability and tried to pivot away. Ben held tight and reignited his lightsaber. The blade shot through the thick torso like a gamma ray, scrambling the processing core and burying Ben beneath an avalanche of armor as the ruined Guardian slumped down on top of him.
Was anything going to go right?
Ben used the Force to throw the Guardian off, then came up staring straight down the emitter nozzle of a MerrSonn Power 5 blaster pistol. To his great relief, the next thing he saw was not a flash of death-dealing energy, but Chief Omas’s puzzled face frowning over the barrel of the weapon.
“Ben?”
Ben flicked his hand and sent the blaster flying.
The chief watched it clatter into the wall, the confusion in his face changing to sorrow. Ben sensed no hint of comprehension or remorse in the Force to suggest that Omas felt any guilt over the death of his mother.
“Ah, Ben.” Omas stepped slowly back, holding his hands in plain view and sadly shaking his head. “I’m sorry it has to be you. This is a nasty business for someone so young.”
Taking care to keep his lightsaber between himself and Omas, Ben rose to his feet. “You know why I’m here?”
Omas dropped his head in acknowledgement. “I’m only surprised Jacen has taken this long.”
“Jacen didn’t send me,” Ben said. He was fairly certain that Omas didn’t understand why he was there—not really. “I came on my own.”
Omas looked doubtful. “What point is there in lying, Ben? I’m going to be dead in a few minutes.”
Ben didn’t deny it, couldn’t bring himself to give the man false hope. “Probably.” He pointed across Omas’s wroshyr-wood desk to a bank of control buttons near the far edge. “Which one of those lowers the interior blast doors?”
Omas cocked a graying brow, now growing curious. “So I have a few minutes longer?” Without awaiting permission, he leaned across the desk toward the buttons. “You’ll still have to be fast, Ben. For a Jedi, you haven’t been very stealthy.”
“Tell me about it.” Sensing no hint of deception in Omas’s Force aura, Ben didn’t stop the chief from pressing the buttons. “But only the interior doors. Leave the viewing wall open.”
Omas cast a knowing glance at his viewing wall—Ben’s best escape route, now that he had caused such a tumult—then touched a button. A pair of blast doors slid down to seal the study exits. He turned back toward Ben.
“Now, what can I do to make this easier?” Omas gestured toward a flechette-pocked cabinet, where a stream of sweet-smelling spirits was leaking from beneath closed doors. “Something to drink?”
Ben frowned. “You mean … intoxicants?”
Omas’s eyes brightened with amusement. “Worried that you’re too young, Ben? That it’s against the law?” He snorted in laughter, his tone brittle and close to hysterics. “Imagine that, me trying to corrupt my assassin. Perhaps Jacen can charge me with that, too.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ben didn’t know why he felt so much on the defensive here—perhaps because he was fairly certain that Omas did not deserve what was about to happen to him; that he was about to become collateral damage in a war so secret, even Jacen didn’t know about it. “But you go ahead. We’ve got a couple of minutes before Coruscant Security arrives.”
The look Omas shot Ben was more judgmental than shocked. “You mean you took out the whole detail guarding me?”
“Not dead.”
Considering what he was about to do to Omas—what he had to do—Ben didn’t know why he cared what his target thought of him, but he did. He deactivated his lightsaber, then pulled an empty cylinder off his equipment harness and tossed it to the Chief.
Omas was so badly shaken that he shied away from the cylinder. It bounced off the transparisteel wall and clanged to the floor without detonating or emitting anything noxious.
Ben rolled his eyes. “It’s an empty coma-gas canister.”
Omas exhaled in relief, then turned back to the cabinet. “That’s good, Ben. I thought you had become … well, like Jacen.” He selected an unshattered bottle, took down a single glass, and poured for himself. “But before you do this, there’s something you need to know.”
Omas opened his cloak and turned back to Ben, revealing a small scanner clipped to his tunic vest. Across the display ran a single line, rising and falling in the familiar pattern of a human heartbeat.
“You’re death-trapped?” Ben asked.
Omas nodded. “A venerable tradition for deposed Chiefs. You’ll have to make sure I die slowly, or …” He cast a meaningful glance at the ceiling, suggesting it would come crashing down amid a torrent of flame and shock wave. Then he nodded toward the transparisteel viewing wall beside him. “And you can’t go out that way, either. It’s rigged to a thermal detonator.”
“Great.” Ben sighed. This operation was getting more complicated every second—and not because he had to find a new escape route. That was easy, compared with killing someone who was being so kind to him. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Sorry, Ben. I had hoped it would be Jacen standing there.”
Ben shook his head. “Jacen’s too smart for that.”
Omas shrugged. “Everyone makes mistakes,” he said. “I certainly made my share.”
As Omas spoke, a pair of armored hovercars flew slowly past the viewing wall and began to circle back around. Omas watched them out of the corner of his eye, then pressed a button on his desk. A blast curtain descended over the transparisteel viewing wall, shielding the study from outside scrutiny.
“It looks like we’re running out of time,” Omas said. He tipped up his glass and drained the contents, then set it on his desk and stepped toward Ben, spreading his arms. “I’m sure you know better than I where to strike. Don’t worry if it’s painful—I’ve done enough to deserve that. Just give yourself plenty of time to escape. I don’t want to leave this life with your death on my conscience.”
Ben used the Force to stop Omas from approaching. The fear and sadness in the Chief’s presence suggested that he was telling the truth—he truly did want to make this easy—and that was what made it so difficult for Ben to follow through on his plan.
“Ben.” Omas was hanging in midstep, still caught in Ben’s Force grasp. “Coruscant Security has to be in the tower by now, and they won’t care who you are, only that someone attacked me.”
“I can’t do it,” Ben said. He pulled a recording rod from his tunic pocket. “Not until you know why.”
“Ben, I already know—”
“No, Chief,” Ben said. “You really don’t.”
Ben activated the recording rod, then watched Omas’s eyes widen as he heard his own voice speaking, saying they needed to redirect Luke Skywalker’s attention so his friends on the Jedi Council would be free to reinstate him—that he really didn’t need to know how some mysterious you planned to make it happen.
As the recording came to an end, any doubt lingering about the chief’s complicity in the death of his mother vanished. A politician as practiced as Omas might have been able to fake the expression of horror that came to his face, but he would not have been able to feign the shock he was pouring into the Force—or the outrage and despair.
The muffled thump of a door-breaking charge sounded from the front of the apartment, and Omas’s gaze finally shifted from the recording rod to Ben’s face.
“You think I had your mother killed?”
“Actually, I don’t.” Ben tucked the rod into his belt, then released his Force grasp on Omas. “And I never really did.”
Omas frowned. “But the recording. Surely, you must have—”
“I imagine it happened like this,” Ben said. “One of your guards started to become friendly when there was no one around, and eventually he confided that he was sympathetic to your cause.”
“She,” Omas corrected. “Lieutenant Jonat.”
Ben nodded. Jonat was actually a GAG sergeant, one of Captain Girdun’s favorite undercover operatives. “Then one day she lets you use her comlink—just so you can let your family know you’re alive and well.”
It was Omas’s turn to nod. “I was suspicious, of course, but I thought Jacen was only trying to see who I would call—and I was desperate to talk to my daughter one more time before—well, before Jacen sent someone like you.”
“So you accepted Jonat’s offer.”
“And used it for exactly the purpose it had been offered,” Omas said. “I did say some of the things you heard—”
“But not in that context,” Ben surmised.
“I was only trying to keep up Elya’s hopes,” Omas said. “But I never asked her or anyone else to distract your father—especially by killing Mara.”
“I know you didn’t,” Ben said. “Because I’m fairly certain the killer was Jacen.”
Omas’s jaw dropped. “Jacen?”
“He was close by when it happened,” Ben explained. “And Mom knew he was working with Lumiya.”
“The Sith Lumiya?” Omas staggered back, bracing his hand on his desk as though he might fall, and suddenly he began to look hopeful. “You have proof of this?”
“Not yet,” Ben said, shaking his head. “To tell the truth, that’s sort of the reason I’m here.”
Omas frowned. “I don’t see how I can help. I’m not aware of anything incriminating.”
“Of course not,” Ben said. “Jacen is too careful for that.”
Muffled bootsteps began to sound through the blast doors, growing louder as they drew nearer the study. A new plan was formulating inside Ben’s mind, but he knew he had no time to work out the details. He pointed to the health scanner on Omas’s chest.
“Can you take that off?”
Omas frowned, a hint of suspicion coming to his eyes. “Why would I want to?”
Ben sighed. “Jacen is the one who gave me the recording,” he explained. “And to find evidence, I need to get close to him again.”
Omas’s eyes lit in comprehension—then suddenly grew darker and more penetrating. “You’re not going after evidence, Ben.”
“Of course I am,” Ben said. Through the blast door, he could hear muffled voices shouting orders—through both blast doors. “But it’s not going to be easy—”
“You want to kill Jacen.” Omas made it a statement, not a question. “And to get close enough, you have to convince him you can be trusted.”
Ben nodded. “That’s right. So we have to fake your death.”
“That’s not why you came here.” Omas’s gaze remained dark and piercing, almost maniacal. “Jacen would see through that kind of deception in a heartbeat.”
“Not if we do it right. I can fool him.”
Ben couldn’t afford to lose Omas’s trust right now, not with Coruscant Security breathing down his neck—but even more importantly, Ben couldn’t bear admitting that he had become exactly what the chief had feared, a cold-blooded killer, a younger version of Jacen himself.
But Omas wasn’t buying. His gaze flashed to the blaster pistol that Ben had Force-hurled against the wall earlier, and just then a security officer’s voice began to rumble through the door, informing Chief Omas’s assailants that they were completely surrounded.
Omas’s eyes flashed to the blast door. “Hurry!” As he yelled, he threw himself to the floor and amazed Ben by coming up with the discarded blaster pistol. “He’s going to kill me!”
The Chief started to fire in Ben’s direction, his aim not quite true, but close enough that Ben had to ignite his lightsaber and deflect the bolts.
“Wait!” Ben yelled at Omas. “You don’t understand!”
The sonorous boom of a door-breaker charge thumped from the alcove through which Ben had entered the study. The detonation wasn’t powerful enough to blow the blast door off its hinges, but it did draw Ben’s gaze away from his attacker for just an instant.
And in that instant Omas was on his feet, charging and firing as he came, yelling for help. Ben retreated, using his lightsaber to bat the Chief’s bolts aside, and quickly found himself backed against the wall.
Another charge—this one louder—sounded from the other side of the blast door. Omas kept coming, charging right at Ben, firing not at chest height for a kill-shot, but at his abdomen.
Ben sidestepped, sliding along the wall and still yelling at the Chief to stop, and he didn’t understand what Omas was doing until a third boom—a huge one—shook the blast door. The Chief hurled himself forward—not at Ben, but at the wall beside him, where the blade of Ben’s lightsaber hung at gut level.
Ben thumbed off the blade and saw Omas crash into the wall beside him, then the awful stench of scorched meat filled his nostrils, and he knew he had been too slow. The Chief slid to the floor beside him, a terrible wound smoking just below his rib cage, stretching
from the midline of his torso to his flank. He tossed his blaster pistol aside, then looked up at Ben through eyes filled with pain.
“There was no other …” Omas stopped, coughing blood and smoke, then continued. “The only way to get to him.”
Another detonation—this one an earsplitting bang—sounded from the direction of the blast door, and wisps of smoke began to drift out of the alcove.
Omas looked toward the sound. “Go, Ben,” he said. “And forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” Ben dropped to his knees, glancing at Omas’s wound just long enough to know that the Chief had achieved exactly what he wished—a wound certain to be fatal, but not for thirty or forty seconds more. “I’m the one who—”
The rest of the sentence was lost to a thunderous crack that left Ben’s ears ringing, then the whole study shook as the blast door finally came apart and crashed against the wall and floor. Knowing what would come next, Ben rose and pressed himself to the wall next to the alcove. When the expected pair of hand-sized spheres came sailing through the smoke, he caught hold of them in the Force and sent them hurling back through the alcove into the hallway outside.
The silver-white flashes of detonating stun grenades lit the smoke near the alcove, and Ben felt the presences of perhaps a dozen security officers quake with shock, fear, and confusion. Keeping his lightsaber ignited, he stepped into the alcove and half ran, half leapt over the cockeyed blast door, past a dozen beings stumbling around the hallway outside, holding their helmets and groaning.
Stopping to help them was out of the question. Omas was only going to last another ten or fifteen seconds, and it would have taken Ben that long simply to make the dazed security officers understand that they were in danger. He raced down the hallway that led out of the apartment, feeling as guilty and ashamed as he had expected to at this point in the operation—though not quite for the reasons he had imagined.