Anakin Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
morally_cryptic) wrote2015-04-15 10:49 pm
morally_cryptic) wrote2015-04-15 10:49 pm
Entry tags:
[fic/rp] across the galaxy
[ooc: Just prompted by a little mental image of Anakin "stargazing" that popped to mind earlier.]
On Coruscant, it was impossible to see the stars, even if one was looking out from the Council room at the top of the Jedi Temple. An unfortunate side effect of so much light from so many buildings and various forms of transport speeding around the airways. Not to mention that there was simply so much starship traffic, one likely wouldn't be able to tell the lights of ships from the field of stars behind them anyway.
Anakin had discovered this unfortunate fact not long after he came to live at the Jedi temple. He'd thought that, surely, so close to the center of the galaxy, the sky would be full of stars to see that he'd never been able to see before on Tatooine. Instead it turned out that perhaps the only thing that was better about Tatooine than Coruscant was that the desert planet was so sparsely inhabited and that the skies were so clear. Even out on the Rim, the sky was full of stars and the spiral arm of the galaxy could be clearly seen arcing across it.
He didn't try to watch the night sky on Coruscant anymore, but he still kept up the habit of at least looking for a moment whenever he found himself on a new planet. At the center of the Republic, however, he has to content himself with substitutes.
Which is why he can be found in an empty classroom surrounded by a holographic rendering of the galaxy. He's been spending all afternoon, so far, carefully marking off different star systems in various designated colors. Technically the entire exercise could be done by a computer but that wasn't Anakin's purpose in doing it. It requires concentration, but it doesn't require him to spend much effort in actually thinking so the whole activity is almost meditative.
The first batch of colored systems is simple: yellow for those that Anakin has already been to. Naboo might possibly be a subtly brighter yellow than all the rest, as if he'd lingered on that one for a moment longer than the others. He'd once told Qui-Gon he was going to see them all and certainly he had a better start on most other inhabitants of the galaxy, but it was still extraordinarily minute compared to the sheer number of systems represented on the map.
The second batch are green, signifying systems where battles of the Clone War have been fought and the Republic retained (or gained) control. Another group are blue, for the Separatist-won battles.
And finally, there's a sprinkling of red dots across the galaxy, mostly concentrated Rimward, and these are for those systems where battles are currently raging. Places he should be where he could be doing some good and making a difference. Staring at those flashes of red, it was almost enough to have him just commandeering a starfighter and heading out somewhere...anywhere. After making sure orders somehow just happened to make it through the system so that Rex and the 501st would be meeting him, of course.
But it wasn't, quite, enough. Contrary to some people's beliefs, he did have enough self-awareness to recognize that any action along those lines would likely not end well. That didn't mean he didn't still feel the temptation and it's that thought that has him swiping a hand through the starfield and systematically clearing everything out again until only dots of yellow remain on the map. He stares at those longest before they're wiped clean as well.
On Coruscant, it was impossible to see the stars, even if one was looking out from the Council room at the top of the Jedi Temple. An unfortunate side effect of so much light from so many buildings and various forms of transport speeding around the airways. Not to mention that there was simply so much starship traffic, one likely wouldn't be able to tell the lights of ships from the field of stars behind them anyway.
Anakin had discovered this unfortunate fact not long after he came to live at the Jedi temple. He'd thought that, surely, so close to the center of the galaxy, the sky would be full of stars to see that he'd never been able to see before on Tatooine. Instead it turned out that perhaps the only thing that was better about Tatooine than Coruscant was that the desert planet was so sparsely inhabited and that the skies were so clear. Even out on the Rim, the sky was full of stars and the spiral arm of the galaxy could be clearly seen arcing across it.
He didn't try to watch the night sky on Coruscant anymore, but he still kept up the habit of at least looking for a moment whenever he found himself on a new planet. At the center of the Republic, however, he has to content himself with substitutes.
Which is why he can be found in an empty classroom surrounded by a holographic rendering of the galaxy. He's been spending all afternoon, so far, carefully marking off different star systems in various designated colors. Technically the entire exercise could be done by a computer but that wasn't Anakin's purpose in doing it. It requires concentration, but it doesn't require him to spend much effort in actually thinking so the whole activity is almost meditative.
The first batch of colored systems is simple: yellow for those that Anakin has already been to. Naboo might possibly be a subtly brighter yellow than all the rest, as if he'd lingered on that one for a moment longer than the others. He'd once told Qui-Gon he was going to see them all and certainly he had a better start on most other inhabitants of the galaxy, but it was still extraordinarily minute compared to the sheer number of systems represented on the map.
The second batch are green, signifying systems where battles of the Clone War have been fought and the Republic retained (or gained) control. Another group are blue, for the Separatist-won battles.
And finally, there's a sprinkling of red dots across the galaxy, mostly concentrated Rimward, and these are for those systems where battles are currently raging. Places he should be where he could be doing some good and making a difference. Staring at those flashes of red, it was almost enough to have him just commandeering a starfighter and heading out somewhere...anywhere. After making sure orders somehow just happened to make it through the system so that Rex and the 501st would be meeting him, of course.
But it wasn't, quite, enough. Contrary to some people's beliefs, he did have enough self-awareness to recognize that any action along those lines would likely not end well. That didn't mean he didn't still feel the temptation and it's that thought that has him swiping a hand through the starfield and systematically clearing everything out again until only dots of yellow remain on the map. He stares at those longest before they're wiped clean as well.
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So of course he can't help the smirk that curls on his lips.
"A lucky shot," Anakin interjects. "We were almost to hyperspace." Which, any self-respecting--and they're all self-respecting-- pilot would have had to interject there. Anakin's just sorry it couldn't have been him doing the shooting down.
That comment prompts a somewhat skeptical raise of the eyebrows from the man standing behind Jade. To all intents and purposes they had had the 'merchants' between their ship and the planet's gravity well. Or more to the point, nowhere near where they should have been able to make the jump into hyperspace.
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"Whatever you say, Ace," she says, a hint of laughter pulling at her words. "Point is, she caught you, and now you're here."
"For how long?" Obi-Wan asks.
Jade's only answer is her smile. "Boys, take these two to their quarters. Let them get settled before we give'em the tour."
wall o' texting you right back
There were no theatrics this time as he mentally gnawed on the problem. Their status as not-exactly-prisoners was oddly unsettling. Sure, they had guards but there were no chains, no cuffs. He wouldn't have had to be a Jedi to get away from their escort a dozen times over by now. All of the people they'd seen so far appeared to have the run of the place. Then again, there didn't appear to be any way anyone was walking out of here either, so maybe they just felt they didn't have to do anything more to keep people in. Then on the other hand, there'd been no real guard set on the ship when they'd landed that he'd seen and if one was keeping prisoners, one would certainly want to ensure said prisoners had no chance of getting to transport out of there.
It was a puzzle, for sure.
His guard, at least, it happy he's cooperating.
As they are herded to their new quarters, he looks about again outside but still it just doesn't feel like a prison. At this point, he's broken enough people out of them to feel like he's an authority on the sensation.
They walk several hundred feet before they get to an opening in the wall and are directed into a passageway inside. The hall feels like there is a gradual curve and slope upward, as if they are following the wall still just..inside. Periodically, there are doors, most the old-fashioned kind that must be opened by hand. At least, Anakin thinks, it's not lit by torches.
Inside, they pass no one else, not even a droid--come to think of it, had they seen any droids since landing? One wonders if there just aren't that many people or they were being actively kept away from any other inhabitants. At least until the tour, presumably.
Before the curiosity and urge to start asking questions completely overwhelms Anakin, they finally stop before a door that looks just like all the others they've passed. "In here," grunts one of the guards before other pushes it open.
Inside is...a room. Nothing fancy, two low cots and a small lamp. The walls are made of the same stone as the rest of the wall and there are no windows but Anakin is fairly certain they aren't right on the exterior at this point anyway, windows would be useless. One wall, at least, looks to have an arched opening that Anakin assumes leads to a 'fresher. But otherwise, that's it.
"What?" he finally asks, "no HoloNet?"
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Obi-Wan looks around at their set-up and he points at a cot. "I call that one," he declares, and promptly sits down with a heavy sigh. He tries to sense if a guard has been left for them, but he can't find any nearby presence except for Anakin.
"Why do I get the feeling that we're missing something here?" he says finally. He's not entirely sure they aren't being spied upon, but everything he's seen so far doesn't lend itself to surveillance of the population.
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Instead, he just flops down across from Obi-Wan. "Because we are?"
He'd complain about intel never giving all the important details, but they've both had plenty of experience with that phenomenon throughout the war.
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"Which means we go over the facts. What we know by first-hand observation. Then we can see what theories we can come up with."
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"They've either got help from someone on the inside or they're already inside the checkpoints themselves in order to stop traders the way they've been doing. Or both, probably." Since, according to reports, their victims didn't always go missing from the same place. That would've made them easier to track, of course.
"While they were shooting at us, they weren't shooting to kill. While they obviously wanted our cargo, they could've boarded the ship with lethal force but...they didn't." It would have been cleaner on their parts, he thinks, if they just killed their victims and then sent their bodies on a collision course to the nearest star. But instead they captured the whole package and brought their captives...here? Where they weren't exactly prisoners. "Or is that special just for us?"
It might take him a moment realize Obi-Wan hadn't been privy to the line of thought between those two comments, but he probably gets the gist anyway.
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Obi-Wan glances around the room again.
"And then this place looks like a staging area; not quite a spaceport, not quite a major military operation, if any. There's very little technology, in spite of the capabilities of our captors to use it."
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He stares at the door a moment. "You know, there's nothing actually keeping us from taking a look around, right?"
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He glances at the door. "I know," he says. "But where would we go? We have no idea how far the passage goes in the direction we were traveling, and going back to the spaceport," for lack of a better word, "would have us running back into the guards."
Another glance at the door, "Not to mention they may not trust us."
His tone as he speaks about Anakin's veiled suggestion that they go explore is one that is merely presenting facts; in fact, Anakin may have heard it a few times when Obi-Wan is actually agreeing with the plan but choosing to play Devil's Advocate for the sake of argument.
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Oh, Anakin's heard it a few times and he recognizes it well enough. And of course they're good points either way. "I'd be surprised if they did trust us, locks on the door or no." He wouldn't trust them if he were in these people's shoes. "The passage did feel like it was heading up though, I was wondering if we'd find ourselves a roof view, eventually."
The problem with a stone fortress or whatever it was they were in is that it didn't come with convenient air ducts or turbolifts to just skip the hallway-wandering and go straight to the climbing up to some place with better visibility.
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He falls silent, for a moment, and seems about to make up his mind on something when there's a knock at the door.
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Anakin looks over at the door, then back at Obi-Wan with a wry expression. How polite of them to knock. "It sounds like our dilemma just got solved."
He hops off the bed with something almost like a spring in his step. Finally something's happening. Hopefully. As he opens the door, "I hope this is for the tour we were promised..."
The Percentile Die I just rolled says that behind Door Number One is...
Obi-Wan doesn't bother to get up, really. There's no real need to at this point. "Come to gloat over our capture, then?" he replies, more curious than anything at this point.
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"I would," replies Kista, "if there were anything to gloat about. But we do," she smiles cooly, "thank you for your contribution. Trust me when I say your bacta will be in good hands."
Anakin raises his eyebrows, "after you sell it off to the highest bidder, you mean." He doesn't actually entirely believe that's what they're going to do with it, he's more just curious to see if it will draw something out of her.
Wall o'text, ahoy!
Obi-Wan manages not to twitch a muscle at the comment, though Anakin will surely sense a more keen alertness from him.
"We're listening," he says, prompting her to continue.
"The basics are these: we're Taris citizens that oppose the government's neutrality in this war. We've seen what a schism like this can do to a world, and as much as we disagree with the government, we love our world too much to put it through that. Shortly after Taris declared neutrality, we came to the decision to defect, for lack of a better term."
"And where would you go?"
"We were all unanimous on seeking sanctuary on a Republic world," Kista explained. "So we've been staging a slow exodus from Taris to where we are now. Of course, to preserve our safety, only those who are proven to be with us are told how to join us, and supplies...well, you've seen what we do."
"And the crews?"
"Are offered a contract. We've already taken their supplies, but we need transportation once we're ready to leave. They have ships that have room for passengers and cargo."
That explained why the Jedi were contacted; as representatives of the Republic they would have a vested interest in helping these people.
"You've hit some trouble, haven't you?" Obi-Wan guesses. "And in order for this exodus to work, and for you to make a clean break, the Republic can't be seen to offer you aid. It would look like we enticed you to leave."
"Very perceptive." Kist sounds a little impressed.
/boggles
Though he can't quite hide the smirk that appears in the corner of his mouth at the thought that they were their own kind of Separatists...just defecting to the Republic instead of from it. "He has his moments," Anakin finally chimes in, a bit dry. "So basically you want us to say we'll work for you and you'll give us back our ship so we can shuttle your people around?" He leans forward a little, looking skeptical. "What if we don't agree?"
He's not saying they won't. He's just wondering what they do about those who don't want to play along.
Kista stares at him steadily for a moment. "You know, I get the feeling that that won't be a problem with you two."
Ah. Whether it was accidental on Obi-Wan's part or not, and Anakin is leaning toward the other Jedi slipping that in there intentionally, apparently she picked up on it too. "Come again?"
Kista went back to smiling sweetly, "I get the feeling you got our invitation."
[ooc: and I just started wondering...what did they do with their lightsabers? I doubt they'd have wanted to leave them on the ship. I really doubt they left them on Coruscant. While the idea of Anakin's being incorporated into his arm right now is a little hilarious, that seems unlikely too. Then again, it really isn't like anyone searched them.]
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"Of course we did," he confirms. "I'm just not sure how you managed to keep your operation a secret while getting the message to the correct people. But it's not relevant right now. What is relevant, is what's troubling you."
"As I said, no one's told how to find us unless we can verify they're firmly with us. I suspect one of those people is a Separatist sympathizer."
This just got complicated again.
[ooc: Obi-Wan says he has his. He won't tell me where, but I suspect it's hidden very well.]
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This couldn't be easy after all.
"So how do you verify they're with you? Obviously it appears not to be as foolproof as you thought." And if they can figure out the hole in the plan, maybe it will point them to the mole.
That has her eyes narrowing, perhaps a little in thought and a little in offense at Anakin's phrasing, even if it's a sensible question. "Maybe I should start by confirming you're with us."
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Kista, still eying Anakin, shakes her head. "Not that I know of; to be honest it was luck that I found out. We have a routing sequence for sending messages back to our coordinators on Taris. I was performing a random security check on the systems to make sure nothing had been breached. Everything looked fine, and I was about to log off when I noticed a very small anomaly in the final string of commands. Normal variations in our code are what help us remain anonymous when we route our messages."
"But this one was different?"
"Not different, but misplaced. The marker was in the wrong spot, which means someone tried to cover up an unauthorized transmission and failed. I went digging, and it turns out that it wasn't the first time the logs were tampered with."
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Yes, the Separatists, he assumes, but there's seeing evidence of tampering and there's finding what the tampering actually did.
Kista spreads her hands a little, "some of it. A few of our communications about the number of those we were going to move off Taris were re-routed. Unfortunately, they seem to have bounced the signal around enough that it was impossible to trace. Especially since we don't really have that sort of equipment here." Unlike, say, the Republic. "Some of the others I found I just know something had been sent that wasn't supposed to be."
Anakin frowns slightly, "did those messages you did find include information about where you were taking them?"
Like, did they have to worry about the Separatists showing up at any minute.
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Obi-Wan strokes his beard thoughtfully. "Which means that our first priority will be discovering the entire deception. There's no sense in acting on partial information."
Kista nods. "Right. I'll see what I can do to get you close to the comm center. In the meantime, Jade will be here soon to take you on that tour."
"What can we expect from it?"
"Absolutely nothing. She's going to take you back to your ship to assure you that it's okay, and then make you the offer to help. Not that you really have a choice in the matter, but she likes the pretense."
"How sure of you of Jade's loyalty to your cause?"
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Kista's spine straightens, "of her I have no doubt. We wouldn't be here if not for Jade."
Unless, Anakin thinks, this whole thing is yet another pretense and she plans on throwing them all in with the Seps. Probably not the time to bring that up.
"Does she know you're here or are we supposed to pretend we've just been sitting here staring at each other?"
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Obi-Wan flashes Anakin a wry smile. "And you try so hard to keep it a secret, most days."
Clearly one of the clone troops has caught a glimpse of the mechanical arm and stories have spread.
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Anakin flexes his mechanical fingers and makes a face, "what kind of rumors?" He wasn't the only person in the Grand Army or even among the Jedi to have a prosthetic, after all. Granted most of them didn't actually look much like his. Maybe he hadn't considered that part when he'd chosen to go without gloves.
Kista can't help but look a little amused, "one rumor says you built your lightsaber into it and the blade comes out of your hand. It might actually be the most believable one."
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