WHAT A DAY

[dousing]

DARING RESCUE MEME You're in a predicament. That predicament is either: you need to be rescued. Bad. Even if you're technically safe you need to get out of whatever situation you're in. And if you're not safe, well... it's just more important then, isn't it? Your other option of course is that you need to rescue someone. You have to find them, get them out, get them to where they really belong. Or you're like, picking them up from a bad date. WHATEVER. No matter the severity of the situation, be careful how you go about it, huh? We wouldn't want to have any accidents. • Top level your character. Include any details you might think are relevant. Or don't. As always, we're not the cops. • Reply to other people's top levels! • Have fun!

Comments

[jedi_librettist]

Ben was waiting to be allowed to learn to create sense memories. It was his only hope of protecting his mind. Assuming Snoke ever allowed it. His expressions, however, were already becoming more of a mask for all the good it did when his mind was an open book.

He recovered quickly from the push. He used the Force to grab the other man and pull him out of the wreckage. "You can find a dark room on the shuttle. Let's go."

[empires_heir]

It was a tactic that would have worked if Hux hadn't still been strapped into his safety restraints, and all Ben really succeeded in doing was yanking him forward against them, eliciting another snarl and another, more-focused Force-push aimed at his midsection.

"I can walk, I'm not some invalid." He snarled, finally unfastening that crash webbing, levering himself up out of the seat only to sway briefly once he'd done so, leaning against the now-open hatch and blinking away the spots in his vision.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben doubled over, clutching his abdomen and trying to regain his breath. He straightened quickly, unwilling to show more weakness than he could avoid.

"Then walk." He turned and started walking back to the shuttle. If Hux could walk, Ben had no intention of coddling him. "And don't forget I have to be able to fly us out of here."

[empires_heir]

"I'm well aware, it's why I didn't do any damage to your hands." That dangerous, irritated edge was back in his voice, the one that usually preceded his lashing out in earnest, the kind of thing that Ben had seen for himself at least once, that left the other Knights pleading and promising whatever he wanted as long as he just made it stop.

Granted, given the way he wasn't quite steady on his feet and kept squinting against the light, there was a possibility that he wouldn't be able to maintain that kind of focus, but it was up to Ben if that was a risk he was willing to take.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben resisted the urge to flinch at the other Knight's tone. He'd both witnessed and been on the receiving end of Hux's temper. It wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat.

"I suppose you don't need help getting to the shuttle?" He kept his tone neutral. The offer was veiled and reluctant but hopefully it would appease the man without implying he was weak.

[empires_heir]

He knew that he was being coddled, or something close to it, but the way the pain behind his eye had started to radiate down the back of his neck wasn't a good sign and he knew it, so he was willing to accept that reluctant appeasement at face value.

"How far away?" He asked, scraping the tip of his tongue along the edges of his teeth. He doubted it was far, given how quickly Ben had arrived after his last communication, but he couldn't be sure.

[jedi_librettist]

He stopped walking, giving the other man a chance to catch up. He shrugged. "Not far. A few yards."

He really wanted to leave this moon, to get back. The instinct to run, to steal back his freedom was so strong it almost overwhelmed him despite knowing it was futile. This was perhaps the cruelest test he'd been given yet and he was eager for it to be over.

[empires_heir]

"You wouldn't get far." He commented mildly, just closing his right eye as if that would alleviate some of the dizziness, "Farther, perhaps, if you left me for dead, but still not far."

Voicing someone else's thoughts was a habit of his, and particularly amusing when it came to Ben who had no defense against his picking up on anything and everything.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben stiffened, resentment stirring once again. The longer he spent with the Knights of Ren, the more he found himself hating their Supreme Leader and what the tyrant had already done to him.

"I may not be what you want me to be but I'm not a complete fool. I know exactly where I am and exactly what that means."

He also suspected there was a tracker on the shuttle somewhere. Even if he did make it back to Republic space, he doubted it would be for long. No, he wouldn't risk it no matter how much he wanted to.

[empires_heir]

"Good." That was, apparently, all he had to say on the matter at least until they arrived at the shuttle, where he misjudged the distance slightly, ending up glancing his shoulder against the doorway hard enough to make him wince which was just the most recent in a long list of reasons he was starting to suspect the knock to the head he'd taken was worse than he thought.

He did manage to find a seat all the same, jaw tight for a moment before he managed to find his voice again, "Check the fuel conversion line for the hyperdrive, that's what sent me down in the first place and I wouldn't put it past them to have rigged yours as well."

[jedi_librettist]

Ben frowned. He had been unaware until now that Hux's ship had been rigged. He couldn't quite hide his surprise. It hardly seemed worthwhile unless one of the other Knights was trying to create an opening for... something.

"In that case, I'll run a full diagnostic. There's a med kit in the fresher."

An astromech would be extremely helpful but he could manage on his own. He silently thanked his father for all the trips on the Falcon and the lessons in how to keep her running.

[empires_heir]

Once in a while the other Knights received orders from Snoke that superseded Hux's own orders, and he had a feeling this was one of those times.

Truthfully he didn't know whether they would have done the same to Ben's shuttle as they'd done to Hux's fighter, but that was why he'd mentioned it, because he couldn't be sure.

He did, however, push himself up out of the seat to retrieve the medkit, a painkiller would help considerably, though he knew the handheld scanner in the kit wouldn't be strong enough to tell if he had any actual brain damae.

[jedi_librettist]

About a half hour later, Ben passed Hux on the way to the cockpit, visibly angry. "Strap in, we're leaving. Now that we can be sure we won't fly through a star."

The shuttle had also been sabotaged but it was distinctly different from the damage Hux described. The navicomputer had been tampered with. It was sheer chance that Ben had arrived safely on the moon.

[empires_heir]

Chances were that whoever had done it had wanted him to get there, but not be able to leave, as had happened with Hux.

"So they did get yours too." He shook his head slowly before settling back into the seat, managing to get his seat restraints fastened, sweeping everything back into the medkit with one hand and setting it aside. The painkiller patch on his wrist was helping with the actual pain, but none of the light halos or the nausea, but he could only worry about one thing at a time, "As soon as I find out which one of them did it, they're going to wish they were dead."

A wry little flicker of a smile followed, "You can help, if you like."

[jedi_librettist]

Ben's lips twisted bitterly. "Of course, they will."

He continued to the cockpit. Not all the Knights were like Hux. They were all jaded, even he was growing jaded. But a few of them had resisted becoming cruel. He knew he couldn't stop Hux if it turned out to be one of them. He powered the ship on and took off.

[empires_heir]

It wouldn't take him long to find the guilty party, it never did because most of them knew better than to lie to him at all, let alone about something that had ultimately done him harm even if it was upon Snoke's order.

As far as he was concerned it wasn't cruelty but survival, and the ones who couldn't handle that didn't tend to last long, they had unfortunate accidents -as had been attempted on Hux and now on Ben- that were fatal as often as not.

Just the change in pressure from takeoff was enough to have Hux's nausea rising again, color draining further from his face even as he closed his eyes, jaw tight as he forced himself to breathe slow and even.

Dammit, I should have had Ben being the one to have sabotaged Hux's fighter...

[jedi_librettist]

Ben steered them into a wide orbit around the gas planet while he calculated the jump back to Arkanis. Once they were in hyperspace, he went to his pack and rummaged until he found the extra medical supplies he'd brought just in case. He found the hospital-grade scanner and went to sit next to Hux. He frowned at the reading. The older man had a severe concussion. Ben was pretty sure he was only conscious because of the Force.

He sighed. He'd always been good with the subtle uses of the Force, including Force healing. He really wanted to leave Hux to suffer but that would just backfire. It wasn't worth it. He placed a hand on the back of Hux's head. "Let me..."

He probably knows who did, maybe told them how, it's why he brought the high-end medical supplies

[empires_heir]

[And probably also why the damage to his ship was different than to Hux's.]

One eye peeled open just at the scan, but he regarded Ben coolly at the touch, his own hand shifting just a little, enough that the point of the knife hidden in his sleeve tugged at the fabric of Ben's shirt.

His voice was level when he spoke, though a little softer than usual, as if even just talking hurt, "I would be very careful about what you do next, if I were you." Which was to say he would probably accept the attempt at healing, but wouldn't hesitate to ram that poisoned blade home if Ben so much as twitched in a way he didn't like.

Although he didn't know Hux's fighter was rigged so it was in a supposedly theoretical discussion

[jedi_librettist]

[And will be much more cautious about what he says the next time someone brings up the workings of a spaceship.]

"I'll do my best to keep it from hurting." He didn't want to be killed simply because medical care could be painful.

Ben closed his eyes and felt for the bruising and damaged neurons. He carefully coaxed the cells back to their original states. It was more detailed and intense than anything else he'd done before and he had to go slowly or risk doing more damage instead. He finally pulled his hand away, closing his eyes wearily.

Ah, yeah, good point. But now he knows it's never theoretical anyway!

[empires_heir]

Generally speaking, Hux didn't mind the pain, it was something he could use as a focus, but the disorientation and jumbled senses that came of it being a concussion -and even perhaps a fractured skull- that were the issue.

He could fight his way through, eventually, he'd done it before, but it wasn't often, if ever, that he let someone else use abilities on him, and if Ben had turned that healing into any sort of attempt to control him, Hux would have ended him.

But then he didn't have to, because Ben only healed him, which was strange to him in that it wasn't something any of the others would have done without also trying to take him out. It also made him suspicious, studying Ben intently for a long moment before asking: "How did you know you'd need the scanner?"

And not always weaponized against an enemy...

[jedi_librettist]

Ben looked away before standing to return the scanner to his pack. "I didn't. I didn't know what I'd need. I was told you had crashed. That can mean a lot of things."

He looked back at the Knight. "Is there anything important left in your fighter?"

well I wouldn't say that, I'm pretty sure they all consider each other enemies

[empires_heir]

He didn't quite believe that answer, but he weasn't going to go digging, not just yet, especially when he felt the attempted diversion of the question was an obvious one.

He shook his head all the same, "No, I wouldn't have allowed us to leave without it if that were the case."

True but they all fight the Republic

[jedi_librettist]

Ben felt his doubt and sighed. "I didn't know. I thought it was just a normal crash, not an orchestrated one. I didn't know if you would still be alive when I landed."

He nodded. "Then I won't have anyone come and salvage the wreckage."

That makes them a loosely-affiliated cotillion, not a cohesive unit

[empires_heir]

"I will admit to being surprised that you prepared for 'alive', I doubt any of the others would have." He knew for a fact, actually, that they wouldn't have, and would have done the bare minimum to find him, unlike Ben who hadn't given up.

He still wasn't sure what he thought about that, because that was definitely the kind of thing any of the others -and Hux himself- would hold over his head, a life saved now in return for a life spared later.

A cotillion?

[jedi_librettist]

Ben shrugged almost listlessly. "My orders were to find you and bring you back. I doubt I'd like the price of deliberately bringing you back dead when I could have brought you back alive."

The younger man knew exactly how vulnerable he was. Unlike the others, he didn't have the option of merely pretending to get along. The minute he tried to stab someone in the back, everyone would know.