A/N: Time for some more Ben/Vix and some more mystery!
Ch. 7 The Price of Passion
Ben caressed Vix passionately as she did the same to him. They had spent the past hour or so doing this. He smiled lovingly at her. He sure wouldn't mind being with her forever. Suddenly, Ben's comlink beeped. Ben sighed as he picked it up and answered it. "Yeah?" he asked. His expression was dull for a second until his eyes suddenly widened in shock. After a minute of conversing with someone, he hung up. "What is it?" asked Vix, back to her serious self. Ben swallowed a lump in his throat and replied, "That was Master Zekk. He had bad news. There's been an attack on the Senate, Vix. And my Master's been injured" Vix immediately sat up and said, "We'd better turn on our Holonet receiver and look at the full coverage. They marched aboard the Jade Shadow, sat down in the pilot and copilot seats, and activated the ship's Holonet receiver. They clicked into the live news coverage section and watched as a live video of the Grand Convocation Chamber appeared on the screen. It was littered with bodies of dead and injured Senators. A window of a female Bothan reporter was in the corner of the screen saying, "…Chamber was attacked by an army of unknown origins, interrupting a major meeting that was going on at the time. As with the previous attacks that have gone on in the past few days, the Chief of State's spokesperson in the Imperial Palace refused to comment on the weapons used. Several Senators have died in the attack, more have died at Imperial City Hospital, and even more have been injured. We managed to obtain a tape of the incident which will now be played." The live feed from the Grand Convocation Chamber immediately changed to a holo taken during the insurgence. The screen showed a holo of attackers dressed in black cloaks armed with amphistaffs, thud bugs, and razor bugs. Then the holo focused on Jacen getting up from kneeling over one of the attackers and begin deflecting more projectiles and attacking more of the intruders. Then it zoomed in on the face of the unmasked and unarmed (quite literally) attacker that Jacen had been kneeling over. Ben and Vix stared wide-eyed at the strange being blinking up at the floating holocam that had taken this holo.
She seemed to be a Twi'lek but she was scarified and tattooed like a Vong. She grinned maliciously up at the viewers and sneered, "Hello to all you fools in the Galactic Alliance. Just to let you know, this is only the beginning. Your government is doomed to failure." Then the strange being gagged and lost consciousness. The holo continued with footage of a grutchin attacking the Senators, only to be killed by Wedge Antilles and his assistants. The footage focused on Jacen as he was injured by a thud bug and lost consciousness. Finally, after a few more minutes of fighting, the attackers were chased out of the Grand Convocation Chamber by the Defense Force and the Jedi. But before they did, the one who appeared to be their leader turned around and tossed one more thud bug before turning and leaving. The holocam followed the leader outside into the entrance hall, where a large hole had been molten into the floor. The leader dived into the hole and disappeared. At this point, the footage stopped and the female Bothan reappeared on the screen. "Jedi Masters Lowbacca and Saba Sebatyne dived into the hole shortly after the apparent ringleader of this attack dived into that hole. Also entering the hole was Lowbacca's Padawan Silacheen. No word yet on what has happened to them since."
Vix looked grimly at Ben. "I guess…if we'd been…working instead of, you know, making out, we could've found clues." Ben looked at her in shock. "It wasn't our fault!" he protested. "Even if we'd found clues, that wouldn't have prevented this attack. It was obviously going into motion too quickly. " Vix sighed and replied, "I think I love you, Ben. I really mean it. But for now, we have work to do." Ben lowered his head and nodded.
***
Lania Xarti smiled as she walked gracefully through the darkened hall. The leader of the strike team had contacted her from the sewers of New Coruscant. The attack on the Senate had been highly successful. Several Senators had died in the attack and the citizens of the Galactic Alliance had been terrified. Her bodyguards walked down beside and slightly behind her. One had once been a Rodian, the other used to be a Ssi-ruuk. But now they were both something better than they had ever been before. Another small smile reached her lips at this thought. She finally entered the vault: the vault where her most valuable asset had lived for more than a decade. The doors of Mandalorian iron, reinforced by cortosis beams, slid open after she allowed the security panel to perform a retinal scan on her and after she'd entered a code. She then entered the darkened room. It was crawling with ysalamiri. She motioned to her bodyguards with her hand and cooed, "Leave us,". The guards bowed and backed out of the room. The Mandalorian iron door then slid shut again. Lania thrived on the darkness that engulfed her. She strode toward the silhouette that she knew was her captive. "Hello there. I assume you are as miserable today as you always are when I visit.'
The woman, bound to the wall with shackles of yet more lightsaber-resistant cortosis, groaned groggily and inclined her head towards Lania. "Why…why am I here?" she asked in a strained voice. Lania smirked and smoothly replied, "How many times have you asked me that same question? You already know the answer. " Lania leaned closer to the woman's face and said in a barely audible whisper, "Your loved ones will come for you one day and they will fail to free you…and then they will die." The prisoner, who had once lived a happy life with her husband on the capital world, suddenly struggled against her bonds, drawing a derisive laugh from her captor. The prisoner stopped struggling and instead settled for spitting in Lania's face. Her captor didn't even flinch. Lania drew even closer and whispered, "Don't worry. That day will come soon. Very soon."
