fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, February 14]

Today the class was meeting in the Danger Room.

It was Valentine's Day and Anakin couldn't leave for Connecticut until class was over. So it wasn't a coincidence that today's class could get most of the students fake killed in nasty ways.

"Welcome to your midterm," Anakin said, pacing across the flight deck of a ship. Behind him, thousands of pricks of lights showed that a space battle had been paused for him to talk. "Today, you will get to be Jedi."

His eyes went flat. "Or try, anyway. Your mission," he said, striding over to a three-dimensional schematic of the ship, "is to rescue the Chancellor of the Republic, who has been kidnapped by a General Grievous, the leader of a Separatist movement. There's also another fearsome warrior aboard, a Lord of the Sith named Count Dooku. He is not to be underestimated. He took my arm off when I was 20."

He shrugged it off.

"Regardless. You will be paired up and rescue the Chancellor. Alive, please. Your mission is to fight past the droids, and the Sith Lord, get back on a different ship and the hell off of this one as quickly as possible."

He waved his hand towards the control panel. The students would now find themselves in brown robes and holding unlit lightsaber hilts. They would work like the real things, but only in the Danger Room.

Their reflexes, regrettably, were what they had come in with.

"Try not to die," Anakin said, "and for the love of the Force, don't do stupid things with your lightsabers like try to skewer your classmates or write your name in the floor." He then listed off the pairings:

Harvelle, Jo & Hammond, Evey
Anemone & Wells, Andrew
Atkins, Amber & Sato, Hoshi
Austreben, Karal & Emmagan, Teyla
Dresden, Harry & Montague, Romeo
Fray, Melaka & Rikku
Lang, Lana & Halliwell, Wyatt
Levine, Eve & Levine, Savannah
Park, Adam & Roberts, Summer
Reno & Sparks, Jenny
Price, Adah & Skywalker, Anakin

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"I do appreciate that," he said, then his eyes went wide. "Behind you!"

Hoshi dropped the light saber (which apparently had an auto shut-off switch for such an occasion, thank goodness) and turned around to see what was there.

While she did that, Amber worked more on the ropes securing the Chancellor. She just might have been saying a few choice words under her breath while doing it. "Aaaa! My heart's thumpin' mighty hard!"

"I can stop that problem permanently," a silky voice told her as Dooku strode towards them.

"This is not good," muttered Hoshi, picking up her light saber and getting between Dooku and the others. "Let's try to reason here. How about you let us untie the gentleman and we'll get out of here without you finding out how much this thing hurts?"

"Oh my gosh," Amber whispered near the Chancellor's side. "He's talkin' about my heart, right? Stoppin' it permanently. Oh my gosh. My ma would truly hate that." She tugged hard on those ropes, working them free finally.

Count Dooku lit his lightsaber. It glowed red and menacing. "Oh, I know how much they hurt," he said, an evil smile crossing his face.

Hoshi said something in German that wasn't very polite at all. "Amber, I think we have a problem over here," she said, keeping her eyes firmly on Dooku.

She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, gathering her courage, and then she jumped up by Hoshi and lit her lightsaber. "Hi! I'm Amber Atkins. Prepare to die!"

Count Dooku was far too dignified to snort, but he did raise an eyebrow. "Really. I've never even seen you before. You can hardly be the cream of the Jedi."

"Amber, what are you doing?" shouted Hoshi, somewhat in shock. "There's not going to be any dying, just a lot of running away."

"I'm bluffing," Amber said under her breath to Hoshi. "You know, to try and scare him off."

To Count Dooku, she said, "I'm not really the cream of anythin', thank you kindly, but seriously, you're kinda goin' to need to back off here, okay?" Amber moved to stand in front of the Chancellor, in a protective stance.

The Chancellor carefully hid a smirk.

Dooku made sure not to roll his eyes. "I had him kidnapped, foolish child. Why would I possibly let him just wander off with you?"

"Because..." stammered Hoshi, trying to come up with a response. She took a deep breath and gave Dooku her best poker face. "Because Commander Jonathon Archer of the USS Enterprise is going to leading a whole legion of Military Assault Command Ops personnel in here in a moment. You're surrounded. There's no way you can win."

Amber had her head cocked, even while Hoshi spouted off with who knows what that was. Then she turned around slowly to look at the Chancellor, then back at Dooku.

"Uh..." Reason. Reason was the best possible solution here, right? "Why did you kidnap him and what do you plan on doing with him?"

This time Dooku did roll his eyes. "Don't be stupid. Most of the ships out there are ours and there is no such thing as a Military Assault Command Ops. And I'm hardly telling you my plans."

"Do you really know that your ships out there haven't been defeated?" asked Hoshi. "There's been some changes in the galaxy while you were hiding in here with your prize. Now, what good is your chancellor when there's a new power out there to deal with?"

Amber was slowly becoming lost here in all this galaxy talk. For all she knew there was just a bunch of stars and satellites out there.

She sighed. "Can we exchange the Chancellor for anythin'?"

Edited 2008-02-15 01:24 (UTC)

"No," Dooku said shortly. "He's the head of the galaxy. It's not like I can get three more like him out of a machine."

He pointed his lightsaber at Hoshi. "And bluffing a Lord of the Sith is beyond stupid. Especially for a Jedi. I can tell what's going outside. And it's Separatists and the Republic forces, same it has been."

Ethics [Thursday, February 14]

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

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Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!

Re: Save the <s>Emperor</s> Chancellor!