Empire's Lost Children

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen nodded sagely. "The holes shouldn't be too hard to plug," he said, mostly to himself.

He reached up and grabbed a datapad from his "desk", and waved it towards Navaria. "I've been checking the Ambassador's schedule. There aren't many opportunities for an open assassination attempt, but there is..." he selected something on the 'pad, and passed it to Navaria, "...a public address coming up. In three days time, he'll be standing at a podium, surrounded by officials and news reporters, live to the galaxy. If I was the assassin, that's when I'd hit." He tapped the bridge of his nose. "Sniper Rifle. Between the eyes."

Off-handedly, he glanced at the time. "We should head over to the main compound...fancy stopping off for a bite to eat on the way?"

[Navaria Tarkin]

There was a saying that to defeat the enemy, you had to think like the enemy. Was Jacen doing that or were her suspicions being confirmed?

"Lunch sounds lovely," Navaria handed back the datapad, "The Ambassador is not expecting us for another hour."

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen nodded, and smiled. "There's a cute little bistro I found earlier. Its about two minutes away. Its on Spaceport Road."

He closed his eyes and sighed, remembering. "It might not be the best food in the galaxy, but the setting is perfect. Kinda reminds me of home."

[Navaria Tarkin]

"You mentioned that you once worked for the Empire." Navaria began to grow distant, remembering her childhood during the height of the Empire's power. "Did you call Imperial Center home at one point as I had?"

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen shook his head. "I only went there twice...and only once it was Imperial Center." He shuddered. "I'm a Corellian," he explained. "At least, my family was. I was apparently concieved in the cockpit of a Lambda shuttle, and born in the medical facility aboard a Star Destroyer. My mother and I were thrown off the ship at the next availiable planet...I grew up under Imperial rule. Hell, I was an Imp. I believed their Sithspit, and I went along with it."

His blue-grey eyes, no longer covered by his visor, began glisten with uncried tears. "I never believed all of the reports about the use of the Death Star at Alderaan, and the death of the Emperor...I thought the Rebels...the New Republic...I thought they were the bad guys. I signed up to serve them."

He balled his hands into fists. "If I ever got the chance, I'd destroy every single Imperial out there, one by one. They've got a lot to answer for." More than you know. Jacen longed to tell someone of his pain, but this Navaria...she wasn't the right person. She couldn't know...not yet.

He sighed. "I'm hungry."

[Navaria Tarkin]

For the first time since meeting Delso, he unequivocally did not get the sense of any dishonesty from him. Navaria understood his frustration and anger about the Empire intimately. She had lived through it herself had she not? The Tarkin family had done no wrong in her eyes as a child growing up, but as with Delso, age made you wiser to the truth. The Empire was a tyrannical government that pushed its rules upon everyone that was different from their version of the norm, and it was her family that was responsible for billions of deaths to further the name of that cause.

Looking into the eyes of Delso, the Jedi knew that he felt much the same as she did and as much as she wanted to continue this discussion, it wasn't fair to him.

"Me too." She walked the few feet necessary to get to the door and stopped just outside, "Let's go eat."

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen sighed as his lungs filled with the sweet aroma of exotic pastries, as he stepped through the door. He had no idea what was in them, nor did he care. They tasted pretty good, and smelt glorious. "What can I get you?" he asked his female companion, standing before the cabinet. "I'm going to have a Huffle Puff."

As Navaria contemplated her choice, Jacen looked around the bistro. A man was staring, open-mouthed. Jacen stared back, his visor hooked onto his belt. The man looked away. Jacen chuckled to himself. The man was jealous. Jacen looked at Navaria again. Man's got a point, he thought.

[Navaria Tarkin]

Huffle Puffs were incredibly sweet, a bit too sweet for Navaria's liking. Her eyes went back and forth through the incredible amount of choices within the sample refrigerator. Three layer cakes with ample frosting, assortment of fruit filled pies from various planets, and other sweet looking items that she wasn't sure where they originated.

Nothing looked good until her eyes rested on a fruit tart. She spied at least four different kinds of fruit used that were glazed to perfection. The Knight smiled and looked up at the clerk, "I'll take the Andelrian fruit tart please."

She looked back at Delso as the clerk was getting their orders ready. He looked so much more relaxed and at ease with the visor off, "I must say, I like you without the visor."

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen looked away. He could already feel his cheeks beginning to boil. "Thanks..." he muttered, handing over a handful of credits to the clerk, and taking the tray he proffered. He tried not to blush, but as he led Navaria towards the table, he could feel his ears burning.

You go, slick, his mind jeered at him. Girl offers you a compliment, and you try to run and hide. Just like the gradiation ball from Imp training. No wonder you never hit it off with the Admiral's daughter...

Jacen forced the anger that the voice in his head propogated in him, and let his blushing take over. Anything was better than getting enraged...despite who he was, he didn't really want to end up killing a room full of people again.

He held back a sigh, and set the tray down on the table, pulling out a chair for Navaria, the first genuine nervous smile he'd smiled in a long time gracing his lips.

[Navaria Tarkin]

Navaria smiled at his politeness and sat down, "Thank you." Yet, that concern for him was ever present.

She didn't mean to, but Navaria was looking at him with worry while they were eating. He was so volatile in his emotions whether they were embarrassment or anger. It bled out of him as if he was suffering from a fatal wound. Perhaps the metaphor would hold true if Delso didn't find a way to conquer whatever demons were haunting him.

Granted, he was enjoying himself now. This was a pleasant distraction for him, and she had to admit for her as well. "This was a good choice. The bakery here is wonderful."

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen nodded, the pastry of his Huffle Puff crunching as he bit into it, the sweet, fruity filling oozing out gently into his mouth. He placed it down gently on the table, and let the filling rest against his tongue for a little while before he swallowed it. "I have no idea what they put in that," he said with a slight smile, "But its almost as nice as the Fugooberry Pie mum used to make."

He frowned a little, noticing the thoughts manifesting behind Navaria's eyes. He didn't know what she was thinking about, but the amount of thinking it entailed made him nervous. "Is everything ok?" he asked, pressing his finger onto the plate, and popping a shard of pastry into his mouth.

[Navaria Tarkin]

"Hm," Navaria must have gone into old bad habits. She used to be famous for zoning out into an almost trance like state while thinking. This time it was for a specific reason but before it could have been to figure out the correct combination of blue and brown pigments that gave Delso his eye color.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Navaria wiped some of the gelatin off the side of her mouth with the napkin, "I was just thinking about how we can protect the Ambassador. His safety concerns me." Not an outright lie, but close enough to the truth to hopefully satisfy her companion.

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen wasn't convinced, but but shrugged. "Answer seems pretty simple to me," he said off-handedly. "We work out what they're going to do, and we prevent them from doing it."

Jacen's eyes met Navaria's, but they were not the same as before. They were cool, calm, and collected. They were the eyes of the sniper Jacen used to be; the professional killer who had been burried under his anger and rage for so long. Inwardly, he afforded himself a smile. Soon he'd get to become that killer again. Soon, in one explosive act, the galaxy would remember why it was better off without him around.

[Navaria Tarkin]

The change in Delso's demeanor didn't go unnoticed just as he had seen the same shift in her own eyes. What the Knight saw troubled her greatly. "Quid pro quo. My turn to ask what's on your mind."

[(Alex) Jacen]

Jacen blinked. That was a question he wasn't prepared for...one that he didn't have a ready-made answer for. He was a soldier, not an actor. So give her the tactical answer, nerf-brain.

"Thinking," Jacen replied. "Thinking about what I've got to do." He moved his eyes to meet hers, and smiled slightly. "I'm trying to work out what the killer is going to do. I've been surveying the area...I've spotted a few potential sniper positions." He shrugged again. "A sniper would be the least of our worries. They could be planning a bomb, or an airstrike, or an abduction, for all we know." He sighed. "Some days, I wish I'd taken a nice, comfy desk job."

[Navaria Tarkin]

"I can understand. Thinking like the enemy is something I'd rather not do either. I avoid it as much as possible." Navaria didn't have to go far to find such violent thoughts. The Jedi had an entire lifetimes worth to file through which were perfect in color and memory.

Delso mentioned sniper positions and that it probably wasn't a concern. Something there made her gut wrench as if she was forgetting something. "Well, unfortunately everything is a possibility. I do not want to discard a possible sniper as well as everything you mentioned. What spots did you find and where is the Ambassador most vulnerable?"

[(Alex) Jacen]

An idea popped into Jacen's head almost instantly. "We're gonna walk through the plaza on the way to the Ambassador's offices, right?" He smiled. "Eat up your pastry thing, and I'll show you."

He picked up his puff, and bit into it, hoping against hope that his deception was working.

[Navaria Tarkin]

She pouted down at her dessert. "It's a tart. Not a pastry. Mostly," but the Jedi managed to gobble it up quickly.

The two of them left the establishment, Jacen leading the way through town. Navaria knew of the location of where the Ambassador was going to give his speech but she had yet to visit the site herself.

[(Alex) Jacen]

He stood atop the duracrete tower, the wind blowing waves into his hair. The optical shield of his visor shimmered red, and beneath it, his eyes roamed the plaza.

The speach was in two days. Two days to plan the assassination of an Ambassador. And right now, Jacen was backing himself into a corner.

"This is probably the best observation point around," he informed Navaria, who stood a few paces behind. He patted the side of the wall, the castillian crenolations shielding most of him from the wind, and from view. "Its out of sight from just about anywhere else. I can see every potential sniper position around...and I can see everything that goes on down there." He turned to her, and shrugged. "Stick me up here with my visor and my radio, and I can co-ordinate all of the efforts on the ground."

He smiled slightly. "You'd be far better suited as a bodyguard for the Ambassador...if the people see that a Jedi has come, it'll help strengthen the idea that Coruscant is behind them." He paused, and for a few minutes he stared. How can something so beautiful be descended from something so evil?

He caught himself staring, and looked away, a little too quickly. Trying to cover it up, he reached up and zoomed in on something in the distance. Finding nothing, as he knew he would, he sighed. "Thought I heard a noise," he explained, lying.