Author's Note: Another chapter and the end of this story draws near. It won't be long now.

Justice Be Done

The darkness—that's all there was—the great, swallowing darkness that crawled down your throat and suffocated you. But she kept breathing. A flame in the dark—she was not alone. They circled her: the three men without faces or names. They breathed without mouths, saw without eyes, heard without ears…heard her heart beating.

"I hope and hoping feeds my pain." Their voices rose from the grave and fell from the sky and came out her open mouth. "I weep and weeping feeds my failing heart." They stepped closer, the three faceless men. "I laugh but the laughter does not pass within." Their hands reached out, fingers aflame, ringing her in fire. "I burn but the burning makes no mark outside."

Closer—the fire brushed her arms like barbed wire—closer. There was no escape, but she was free. A shadow—a light enfolded her, and the men without names burned away, disappearing in a cloud of ash and flame. The light and the shadow held her, and she was safe, but she could not see the face of her savior though she knew him. The man's grip became strangling. It was not Jonathan. And it was. It was not Dr. Rave. And it was.

The three hovered just beyond her vision, waiting. The shadow and the light protected her but killed her as well. The blood rushing in her ears was singing:

"Is the light that casts shadow evil?

Is the shadow that casts light good?

Where is virtue broken?

Where are the damned understood?"

The light loosened and fell away, but burned all the brighter—like a sun over her shoulder. The shadow held fast, holding like a noose and a cage and an iron bar.

Amara ripped herself from him, tripping back into darkness and the sun. The three were there, speaking: "Where is justice if not in a gun? In that moment when you decide another's fate? Can you end it—the horrible, terrible blasphemy? Pick up your gun. Shoot."

And Amara held a blaster in her hand. Dr. Rave stood before her, but she could not fire.

"I could kill him," Amara whispered to the empty room, as she lay awake; the dream hanging in the air above her like the ghost of a scream. Pale morning light, sifted through a web of metal and glass, crept across her bed. The slatted blinds created skeletons of dawn on her floor. Amara rolled out of bed and began to get ready for the day, mechanically going through the motions of dressing. Outside her window, Coruscant had never gone to sleep—the rising sun barely acknowledged. The world didn't know today was different. The change would be little more than a blip in their lives; a flip of the channel and it was gone. He will die today or he will live. What then? A blank rose in her mind. What happens next?

There was a knock on her door, and Amara hurried out to meet Jonathan in the hall.

Jonathan was silent the entire ride to the courthouse. His greeting outside her room had been cold and formal, but Amara could see the tension in his body and didn't take it personally. The quiet allowed her time to sort through her thoughts and prepare for another day in court—she didn't think about the impending decision. But as they took their usual seats behind the prosecution's table and Jonathan continued to be distant and forbidding, Amara felt a twinge of annoyance and worry.

The courtroom was empty—they'd been the first to arrive—and she reached up and brushed her fingers against his clean-shaven cheek, the movement so natural she barely realized she was going to do it. Jonathan started and looked down at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. Amara didn't remove her hand. "Jonathan, what's wrong?" she said softly, searching his eyes for answers.

The doors slid open, and Dr. Rave entered, gripped on either side by New Republic guards. He stopped dead when he saw them: Amara's hand pressed lovingly against Jonathan's face as he gazed down at her, enraptured. As if they felt his angry glare, both turned and saw him. Amara's hand fell into her lap—her dream welled up inside her. I could kill him. Jonathan's expression was closed. The guards forced Rave forward and into his seat, but he never removed his eyes from the couple. Rave was followed closely by his lawyer; who passed down the isle without looking left or right, lost in his own thoughts. He sat beside his client but did not speak to Rave except to tell him to face forward. The Officer of Prosecution came in mumbling under his breath and continued to recite his final argument until the court officer solemnly commanded, "All rise." The judges took their places on the High Seat, as unreadable as ever. And then the circus started.

Amara had always liked Chicago and about halfway through Mr. Reynolds' closing she wanted to burst out singing "Razzle Dazzle" (Instead she contented herself with humming the song under her breath. Jonathan raised an eyebrow at her.), but now she was beginning to see Billy Flynn in a less-than-favorable light.

"…My client, in direct of the Empire that enslaved him, eased the suffering of his patients and even saved the life the prosecution's key witness who dares to testify against him—the man who risked everything for her…" Now would be the time to discover that I have latent Force abilities so I can strangle him. "…Now, I understand that the emotional and physical trauma Ms. Richards experienced was extensive and obviously made her confuse my client's intentions, but we, as upholders of justice, cannot allow her distorted view of Dr. Rave to cloud our vision as well. In her current mental state, her testimony is barely legal, hardly credible…" Then again, I could just bash him with a chair "using the power of my mind." Beside her, Jonathan seemed to be thinking something along the same line.

And so it went for almost two hours. Mr. Reynolds expounded upon Dr. Rave's selflessness, his virtue, and called Amara every kind of crazy until she really considered chopping off his head and shoving it up his butt. And then I will happily see a shrink. When he finally sat down, all the judges looked numb (except for Pealen, who nodded his head approvingly).

Then the Officer of Prosecution stood and approached the bench. He was a thin, forgettable man with shoulder length, honey-colored hair tied at the nape of his neck. His voice was his one virtue; soft and fervent, it commanded attention. Moments after meeting him, people could not remember his name, but they remembered his voice.

"Sometimes the duty of the law is to speak for those whose voices have been silenced, for those who cannot stand and point out their torturer, their murderer. Lucius Rave's actions did not destroy only one girl but ended hundreds upon hundreds of lives with a callous disregard that has only been attributed to those in highest echelons of the Empire. The New Republic troops that invaded the Imperial Alien Research Facility for bodies piled on top of each other, rotting in their cells. The lucky ones starved to death. The others were dismembered, tortured, pushed to the brink of madness before they died—not the work of stormtroopers, who would have simply shot or beaten their victims to death, no, the murder of those prisoners was carried out with the precision of a doctor: Dr. Rave. The medical staff that examined the corpses affirmed that the condition of the bodies confirms disgusting experiments the like of which we have not seen since Murthe. From the few reports found aboard the facility, we know that Lucius Rave was the head medical examiner, highly decorated for his service and loyalty to the ideals of the Empire. If, as the defense claims, it was all an act, then it was an extraordinarily good one. Rave had the ability and the motive to perform the experiments, and he did. He was no innocent victim, caught between fear for his life and morality. He didn't hesitate to let the prisoners in his care to die slowly over hours and days—all for the sake of science. We know all this from the medical examiners. This man, sitting before you, had no qualms slicing holes in the lungs of a Wookie, chopping off pieces of a Twilek's lekku, and no qualms raping the girl the defense claims he saved. And if, in this one instance, he did show mercy to a girl he was obsessed with. He did so not out of kindness or pity, but because he had to satisfy his sick need. And one act of depraved kindness cannot atone for a lifetime of cruelty. Look at this man, your honors; there is no remorse in his eyes. He deserves no pity, no mercy for he never showed any himself. What he deserves is to be tortured as his victims were, tortured until death is more desired than life. But the law does not allow what he deserves. All I can ask is that you hold him accountable for what he has done and bring down the full weight of justice upon him. He deserves nothing less." Drawing a weary breath, the Officer of Prosecution bowed to the judges and returned to his seat, pale and drained.

Amara stared, stunned, at the Officer's slumped shoulders. He had never impressed her until now. He didn't press hard enough during questioning, he was reserved, unorganized. Before today his argument had consisted of a hundred loose threads that he'd never woven together—she only hoped his closing wasn't too little too late.

Slowly, Chief Justice Sakkar stood. "We have heard each side. Now, the judges will deliberate and return when we have reached a decision." And so saying, he left without a backward glance followed by the other judges.

An awkward silence descended on the room. The Officer of Prosecution left, mumbling something about a glass of water. Dr. Rave and Mr. Reynolds conferred quietly together, their head bent. The enormity of the situation struck Amara like a blow to the stomach, her chest tightened and fluttered with nervous butterflies. This is the end.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" Jonathan asked, turning toward Amara who had begun to fidget with the hem of her skirt.

"Yes," she practically gasped.

With a small smile, he took her hand, and they both stood. As they walked down the aisle towards the doors, Amara could feel the doctor's eyes on her back, scorching the skin of her neck. She was glad when the courtroom doors hissed shut behind her. "You looked like you needed to get out of there," Jonathan said, guiding her around a corner and into the enormous five-story lobby.

"Really? What tipped you off?"

"Well there was that half-mad look that crossed your face—and what with Mr. Reynolds' very convincing speech about your volatile mental health—I decided to save the general public from your explosive craziness," he replied with a grin.

Amara punched him in the arm. Hard. But he laughed, and they continued their walk, staying inside the GCC so as to avoid the press. They didn't talk—they didn't need too. And basking in the comfortable silence, Amara was almost able to forget that somewhere in the building three judges were deciding her fate. She leaned her head on Jonathan's shoulder. Everything was all right…and then it wasn't. A guard approached them.

"Sir," he said, saluting Jonathan, "the judges have reached their decision."

The judges filed in: Pealen, Kre'fey, Sakkar. They sat and looked at everything and nothing. Time stretched. The Chief Justice looked down at Dr. Rave, his face as empty as a corpse's. He looked very, very old and tired. "The defendant will rise," he said solemnly. "By a two to one vote, we of the Galactic Criminal Court find the defendant, Dr. Lucius Rave, not guilty."

"I hope and hoping…the burning makes no mark outside." Niccolo Machiavelli "Machiavelli's Poem"