Here’s Jacen, Dad. Here’s Jacen telling my buddy how he killed Mom, and why he had to do it, and why he isn’t a bad guy.
Ben willed himself to move. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, not like some weird psychiatric paralysis, but he knew that the moment he shifted his weight and began walking, the short journey would end with showing his family - his poor dad - that awful, awful conversation between Jacen and Shevu. The image wasn’t good, because Shevu had been forced to use a holocam with an aperture like a pin-head, just so it would sit on his tunic unnoticed. The sound was perfect, though. Shevu risked wearing the wire, as he called it, because Jacen was so used to GAG officers carrying surveillance kits that nothing like that struck him as unusual.
Ironic: the Jedi danger senses that Jacen had, the ability to sense weapons and threats, had proved pretty useless to him in the end, because he was constantly surrounded by war and deceit, saturated in it. He’d grown too used to it all as background noise to be filtered out.
Do I wish I’d killed him now?
He wouldn’t have been able to spew out this garbage to Lon about his duty, and how much he cares about the galaxy. So fust as well I didn’t.
Ben checked himself. When he had thoughts like that, and bile literally rose in his throat, he concentrated on his father and asked if he thought ugly thoughts. It did the trick, usually. Ben forced himself to pass beyond impotent, furious grief.
Move. Now.
Ben walked. He went to find his father first.
On the lower floors, the local Ewok tribe had hauled in temporary furniture so the Jedi and their support staff could have some creature comforts while they waited for the final preparations to be completed. Ben found Jag and Zekk in the former briefing room, with their boots up on a rough plank table about knee-high, chatting in dejected tones.
“Hi, Ben.” Jag gestured to the seat next to him. “You coming in, or what? Are you all right?”
“No, he’s not all right, “Zekk said. “I could feel him seething two floors up.”
Ben needed to take a run at it if he was going to do it at all. “No offense, guys, but can you leave? Please?”
“Yeah, but are you sure we can’t help?” Zekk sat up straight and shuffled himself to the edge of the seat. “Whatever it is?”
“Actually, you could go find Dad, Uncle Han, and Aunt Leia for me. Tell them I’ve got stuff to show them, and they all need to see it together.” He thought of Jaina, a little later than he should have done. “And Jag-can you try to get hold of Jaina? I need to set up a comm so she can hear and see what I show everyone else.”
Both men shut up right away. There was no more gentle ribbing for Ben these last few days, no attempt to play older brother when he looked so ground down by events. They responded to his officer voice, as Jori Lekauf had called it, and knew he was serious.
Jori didn’t have to die, either. He didn’t, Jacen. You made me carry out the Gejjen assassination to make me just like you, and Jori was only some detail, one of the small people. Ben didn’t want anyone else dying for him. All this, all over me?
He set up a table so he could lay out evidence on it and stand the comlink where it could best transmit the session to Jaina. He simply couldn’t face having to repeat it to her. Everyone would think he was doing things by the book, and presenting the same case to everyone like a professional would; but the real reason was that he could only hold it together long enough to do this once.
He could hear Leia’s voice getting closer outside, saying how it would be handy for seeing more of Allana, which he took to mean the new location for the base. When she walked through the door, she stopped in her tracks for a second. Han nearly piled into the back of her.
“Hey, sweetheart, “she said. “Whatever it is, we’re all here. And we’re going to listen to you carefully, okay?”
“It’s not me talking, “Ben said. “The evidence can do that.”
Han, hands on hips, blew out a breath, then walked up and hugged Ben with one arm in that half-embarrassed male way. Luke came in a few minutes later with his hair disheveled as if he’d been running.
Ben shunted the datapads around the tabletop. “Plenty of time, Dad, “he said quietly. “Just waiting for Jag to track down Jaina and get a stable comm connection, then we’ll start.” It struck Ben that he’d just pointed Jag at the Jaina issue, and never thought what Zekk might feel about it. “Take a seat.”
He couldn’t turn and face them all yet, so he must have shuffled those ‘pads and charts a dozen pointless times be-fore Jag came back brandishing a live comlink. He set it down where Ben showed him.