Jangobi Darth Revan AU
His head hurt again.
“Sir?”
Ben looked up from where he was massaging his temples to a concerned-looking Republic pilot. Everyone else in the room was staring at him with varying levels of confusion and annoyance, with the exception of the Jedi general; he never seemed to look at Ben at all.
“My apologies. Please continue, Knight Skywalker.”
His jaw visibly clenched, and Ben sighed. Every word he said just put his assigned Jedi further on edge. He had no idea what he’d done to gain his animosity. It had started before Ben had ever even spoken to the man.
After the meeting, Ben stayed behind to iron out logistics with his pilots and officers. Skywalker was a brilliant tactician, but he rarely went slowly enough for anyone else to catch up. Ben had become something of a translator for the lower ranks due to the ease with which he could decipher Skywalker’s plans.
“Vice Admiral Jinn!” someone chirped, and Ben smiled despite himself.
“Padawan Tano! A pleasure to see you, as always. How may I assist you?”
Tano rolled her eyes with her typical brand of charming teenage insolence. “You don’t have to be so formal, Vice Admiral, Ahsoka’s just fine.”
“Then you should call me Ben, my dear.”
She made a face that made Ben rub his beard to hide his grin. “Ew, no, that’s weird, you’re old. Besides, my master got mad at me when I called you that that one time.”
Ben’s smile faltered. “Perhaps your master wants to impress the importance of formality and diplomacy upon you.”
Tano’s eyes flicked to the side, and she graciously didn’t mention that Skywalker was informal with everyone but Ben. And his treatment of Ben could more accurately be described as distant, or even hostile, than formal. “Yeeeeeaaaah, maybe. Anyway, Master Skywalker said to make sure you get checked out by the medics before we engage the enemy tomorrow! Your headaches are getting bad again, huh?”
“Ah... perhaps a little bit,” Ben admitted. “I’ll make sure to do that.”
“Great!” Tano said. “Stay safe, Jinn, and good luck tomorrow!”
“Thank you, padawan. May the Force be with you.” He started towards the medical bay, but not before catching the surprised expression that crossed her face, as if he’d done something odd. His head throbbed sharply, and he struggled to conceal his flinch. Perhaps Jedi took offense when Force nulls used their sayings? Pity. They just rolled so smoothly off the tongue.
-
Ben absolutely despised the medbay, not least because the medics always found an excuse to knock him out and inject various mystery substances into him. But he wouldn’t complain; these treatments had saved his life, after all.
A year or so ago, Ben had suffered a battlefield injury that resulted in acute retrograde amnesia. He had no memory of his life before, though apparently there wasn’t much to remember. He had no friends and no family, and barely any personal effects besides his scars, which at least confirmed that he spent a lot of time on the battlefield. A search on the holonet for his name turned up nothing but a few reports of a Jedi master with his surname that had died in battle over a decade ago. But Jedi were notoriously secretive; the only reason any public records of him existed was because he’d been given his funerary rites on Naboo instead of in the Temple itself. So that was a dead end, despite the connection Ben had wanted there to be.
They always put him under in order to improve his cognitive function before high-stress situations, particularly in battle. Too much mental strain gave him debilitating migraines and, as one of the few officers in the Republic besides the Jedi that fought alongside the rank and file soldiers, he needed his wits about him.
He definitely needed them now.
“FALL BACK,” Ben bellowed, picking off Sith soldiers from behind a collapsed wall. He might have greatly disliked blasters, but he had an almost preternatural accuracy when he put his mind to it.
Skywalker and Tano were whirlwinds on the front lines, engaging the Sith Acolytes while Ben and his soldiers fought their blaster-wielding meat shields. They were quickly being overwhelmed, despite Ben’s best efforts. Anakin had gotten too cocky, and Ben wanted to grab the boy and shake him because he knew Anakin knew better than this.
“Uh, sir, they have reinforcements,” a lieutenant muttered, and around him Republic soldiers let out a chorus of curses.
Some very familiar cruisers had warped into orbit, so close that they were visible through the gaseous atmosphere lit up by full starlight.
“Osik, not Mandalorians,” Ben groaned.
They weren’t anywhere near the Mandalorian sector! Sith were Ben’s specialty; the brass kept him on the Sith front and he never took part in campaigns against them. It could be inconvenient at times, but only the Jedi had the combat versatility to be deployed anywhere, and Ben was no Jedi.
But the Mandalorians were behaving very strangely.
From what little he knew of them, Mandalorians’ approach to warfare was vicious, enthusiastic, and extremely destructive. He wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to attack the Republic soldiers and the Sith forces in one fell swoop.
But that wasn’t what happened.
His soldiers were still pinned behind their cover, and Ben refused to leave the battlefield while Skywalker and Tano were still in the thick of it. (Tano was a child, and Skywalker... he felt oddly responsible for Skywalker.)
What descended from the ship wasn’t an invasion force but a jetpack strike team of ten or so Mandalorians in full armor, weaving expertly through the aerial assaults of both sides. Most of his soldiers were dead before they even touched down.
Skywalker had finally noticed what was going on and was trying to cut back through the battle towards him, but the Acolytes took advantage of his distraction to surround him and Tano. Ben was on his own.
He took a few potshots at their jetpacks, knowing that firing directly at beskar armor was useless, but a Mandalorian in shining blue and silver armor took careful aim and actually shot the blaster out of his hand in an incredible show of marksmanship. Then they were touching down and lunging for him.
Ben did his best to fight back, but the sight of starlight glinting off his assailant’s T visor made something in his head shatter and the pain left him weak and fumbling. The Mandalorians had him subdued in no time and then someone was pressing a hypospray into his neck while the Mandalorian who’d reached him first touched his cheek with trembling gloved fingers.
“Kar’ta ner,” they breathed, voice cracking audibly even through their vocoder. “Cyare.”
“What...?” Ben gasped, because he’d never learned Mando’a, why did he understand them-- “Who?”
But the drugs were already working. The Mandalorian caught him when his knees buckled. He was cradled in arms that were astoundingly gentle despite being clad in armor, and his stomach swooped when they took off into the air. Blaster bolts were still whistling around them and people were screaming but Ben, in the only year of his life that he could remember, had never felt so safe before.
“OBI-WAN,” someone screamed, raw with rage and anguish, and Ben didn’t recognize the voice until he looked down and saw Skywalker--Anakin-- sprinting uselessly towards the takeoff point, tears carving through the soot on his face. Tano was close behind, confused and worried and he could feel her fear for him. He could feel Anakin’s fear.
“Sleep, Obi-Wan. We’ll be home soon,” his Mandalorian said, so gently, and the galaxy spun away from him.