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Part 23 of Febuwhump 2024 , Part 4 of Sometimes-related Fox & Bail Organa oneshots
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2024-02-26
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It's treason, then.

Summary:

“Senator Organa, I was not expecting you," the Chancellor said.

Yes, well, Bail wasn’t expecting to have to murder him, but, such was the situation they found themselves in.

 

Or: R2-D2 and Bail Organa realise that their only option is to kill the Chancellor. R2 might be slightly more enthusiastic about this than Bail is, but Bail isn't going to let the man harm another Corrie ever again.

Notes:

This can be read with no context, however it is technically a direct follow-on from 'Re-calibration'. I decided to post them as separate fics because they both stand alone, and also this is far more lighthearted in tone than its predecessor, in which Bail finds Fox wandering the corridors in a post-blackout mission haze (Bail assumes he is drugged), and quickly grows very concerned.
However, if you enjoy angst, I would recommend the former!

My undying thanks to here_be_bec (who also writes brilliant stuff for febuwhump, check it out if you haven't!) for beta'ing this because I was very sleepy when writing this!

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

Bail Organa couldn’t say that his knowledge of binary was anything better than very rusty, but he was fairly certain that in the middle of the alarmed beeps and whistles that came from R2-D2, he made out the words ‘kill him’.

 

Now, while he could admit that this had been one of his first thoughts upon watching the footage of Fox entering the chancellor’s office, only to leave several hours later badly beaten and clearly drugged, he forced himself to take a calming breath.

 

“We can’t kill the Chancellor of the Republic,” he hissed from the cupboard in which they were hidden, having successfully gained (illegal) access to the footage that would tell them who in the senate had attacked Fox earlier that day. “It’s treason. Also murder. Which is worse than torture… apparently…”

 

R2 let out several disparaging beeps, and a new programme overlaid itself on top of the security holo. Aurebesh now displayed on the holo clearly stated, Organics and your stupid ideas of morality. Come back to me when you’ve spent the last two years in a warzone.

 

Bail blinked.

 

“R2, I’ll be arrested. You’ll be scrapped. ”

 

Only if they catch us. Which they won’t.

 

He sighed, rubbing a jittery hand across his tired eyes. Three hours prior to this he’d been having a nice meal with Padme and Mon. How was this happening?

 

“I am certain that we’ll be able to resolve this within the confines of the law,” Bail responded primly. “Let’s just go through the footage and see if we can get anything else.”

 

Suit yourself, appeared on the screen.

 

Bail sat, focused on breathing steadily as he pinched the bridge of his nose while he waited for R2 to trawl through the security footage. He couldn’t get the image of Fox out of his mind, blank and compliant, badly injured, barely able to hide his fear once he’d woken up from his drugged state. Now, murder was not an acceptable and legal option (and, as an upstanding senator, Bail had to make sure he was always in compliance with the law - it was there for a reason), but he could admit, in the privacy of his head, that there wasn’t much Bail wouldn’t do to protect the young man from that bastard.

 

R2 beeped to get his attention, and he looked back up at the projection, eyes widening in horror as the same scene as earlier played itself out time and time again. Fox’s - or any of the other Corries’ - armour was usually fully on, hiding any damage, but that didn’t conceal limping, arms drawn protectively against bodies, the fact that other Corries might need to come collect them, the times where Palpatine’s Red Guard tossed them out of the door to collapse in a heap on the floor, and they had to pick themselves up on shaking limbs and get themselves back home.

 

He stared, aghast, as the footage kept going, up until almost the beginning of the war.

 

“How has no one noticed this?” he breathed. It was appalling, surely, surely, someone was monitoring the cameras, someone who should have brought this to someone’s attention.

 

R2-D2 pulled up another image on screen, showing Mas Amedda laughing to his aide while he kicked a mousedroid across the hall.

 

You think organics care about beings they consider less than them? he demanded, binary emerging as a bitter whine.

 

He folded his arms, grimaced, stared up at the ceiling as if it could offer him any answers. “You’re not wrong.”

 

R2 didn’t reply, but hummed as he went back to scanning through the databanks. 

 

As he did so, Bail was left with his thoughts, and he found them forming conclusions that he wasn’t quite comfortable with. The clones were legally a grey area, a grey area that his faction had been trying to resolve without success. And hadn’t he, just several hours earlier, been discussing how wide-ranging and nigh-unstoppable the chancellor’s powers were?

 

There was no legal grounding that could help them here. Public outrage wouldn’t do a thing either - he wasn’t blind to the anti-clone protests on the street. Sith hells, if he released this footage it would probably make the chancellor more popular, not less.

 

There were not a lot of options here.

 

There were no options here.

 

Could he do what R2 had suggested? Could he kill a man in cold blood?

 

As he thought back to Fox’s blank eyes, he wondered if he could live with himself if he didn’t.

 

Apart from R2D2 there would be no backup, no one to support him. He was likely to be arrested for this - no, executed for treason in this time of war - he couldn’t bring anyone else down with him, he couldn’t ask that of them. No matter that he thought Padme might actually be better at the job than he would be.

 

He looked back down at R2-D2.

 

“So,” he asked. “What’s the plan?”





Dawn had just started to break over the skies of Coruscant, bathing the senate corridors in a pale red glow. Bail Organa stood outside the Chancellor’s office, R2-D2 by his side. He tapped the side of his leg nervously, jittery from his fourth cup of caff (and the murder he was about to commit).

 

R2 beeped at him in irritation. Although Bail could no longer easily understand him without the aurebesh, he could guess that R2 was telling him to get a grip.

 

He did so. He was Bail Organa. His shielding was some of the best Obi Wan Kenobi had ever seen, and he couldn’t let it fall, couldn’t let there be breaks in his armour. He would have to project absolute confidence to fool someone of this political calibre (in order to kill him).

 

Why was he doing this?

 

He knew why.

 

Abruptly, the two Red Guards on either side of the door turned to each other, before heading off in opposite directions. He allowed himself a moment of calm - R2 had clearly succeeded in hacking their comms and sending an emergency message then. Step One of the plan had at least gone off without a hitch.

 

Finally, after an eternity had passed, the doors swooshed apart and the chancellor stood before him, looking politely irritated.

 

“Senator Organa, I was not expecting you.” Yes, well, Bail wasn’t expecting to have to murder him, but, such was the situation they found themselves in. “What seems to be the matter at this hour?”

 

“I’ve discovered a conspiracy at the heart of the Republic,” Bail told him gravely.

 

The chancellor, seemingly alarmed, ushered them both inside, waiting until the doors closed before turning round and looking at Bail with some concern.

 

“Conspiracy?” he asked.

 

“Right here,” Bail replied, pulling out his blaster as R2 began the first attack, screaming forwards with his electroprod.

 

Only, the chancellor wasn’t where he’d been a second ago, and Bail’s shot passed through empty space. He barely had time to register a searing light heading his way, ducking in a way he knew would be fruitless.

 

Then, somehow, the arc of light changed trajectory, crackling upwards and away from him. In the rush of adrenaline, Bail Organa saw Chancellor Palpatine tumbling backwards as if in slow motion. He didn’t waste a second.

 

His second, panic-fueled shot went straight into the chancellor’s head.

 

Breaths shaky, head spinning, he hauled himself into a standing position, stumbling over to where the chancellor lay, eyes open, staring unseeing at the ceiling.

 

Beneath Palpatine’s ankles, a mouse droid beeped indignantly, extracting itself, before whizzing away and furiously slamming itself again and again into Palpatine’s head.

 

Bail stared, unblinking, at the scene before him as he listened to R2D2 complaining in the background. He looked over at the droid, who had plugged himself into one of the terminals, and was currently displaying the message, So, are you gonna help me dispose of the evidence, or are you just gonna karking stand there?

 

Bail stood there.

 

The mouse droid trundled over, beeping cheerily at him. He looked back at R2D2.

 

It says thanks for killing him, it was getting tired of being zapped by the slimy organic bastard. It won’t say shit to CFS.

 

Bail looked at the droid.

 

Bail looked at the body.

 

Bail looked at his comm unit.

 

Breha Organa picked up on the first ring.

 

“Darling, my dear, my love of my life,” he began. “How do I dispose of a body?”

 

 



Morning had fully broken by the time Bail reached the Coruscant Guard HQ.

 

The Corries in the entrance hall affected a wary demeanour as he entered, but who could blame them? He was on his fifth cup of caff, and he had just finished disposing of a body. He shivered. He was not thinking of that right now. Thankfully, they led him through to Commander Fox’s office all the same.

 

“Is everything alright sir?” Fox asked, looking serious and intent, gesturing at him to take the seat opposite. The cuts and bruises on his face shone lividly under the cheap fluorescent lighting, and this, more than anything, allowed him the feeling of harsh satisfaction - whatever happened next, killing the Chancellor had been entirely justified.

 

And that was even without R2 informing him that the Chancellor was probably a sith - apparently darksiders liked to shoot lightning out of their fingers.

 

“Absolutely fine, Commander,” Bail told him. Fox looked slightly doubtful. “I came here to check you were alright after last night.”

 

“Of course, sir. The medic said I was fine to return to duty, but thank you for your concern.” Bail was certain his expression was coming across as more than slightly doubtful. He studied Fox carefully, before trying to calculate how the maximum number of hours sleep the young man could possibly have had, despite how his brain felt like it was swimming through fog. He didn’t think it could have been more than six. 

 

“Are you sure this can’t wait for you to get more sleep?” he asked.

 

Fox went blank in a way that Bail found his hazy brain didn’t much like. “I assure you I am fully functional, sir. I must make sure I have these datapads ready for the chancellor before my meeting with him today.”

 

“Hmmm,” Bail said. “I think you’ll find you can probably scrap them.”

 

Then he passed out on Fox’s desk.





Mace frowned as they went through the chancellor’s private footage of his office, the headache that had been debilitating this morning, now down to more manageable levels through the help of some serious painkillers.

 

The footage showed unequivocally that the Chancellor had been a Sith. The Sith that they’d all been looking for.

 

It also showed many of the heinous deeds that he’d committed whilst in this office, although Mace had no idea why he would have kept it. Who knew, maybe he liked looking back at his memories of manipulating his political opponents and torturing those who he considered ‘lesser beings’?

 

The scenes of him communicating with Count Dooku were useful though.

 

He watched, once again, as Bail Organa shot the Chancellor through the head.

 

“We’re deleting this part, right?” he asked.

 

Beside him, Obi Wan Kenobi, a thoughtful hand placed in his beard, nodded sagely.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you thought :D

There is a sequel to this, called 'When you already have 536 children, what's one more?' which is very fluffy, set in a time after the war in which Bail has adopted Fox (and the rest of the Corries). Please give it a read if you would like!