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Folks who have played the Knights of the Old Republic games may feel I don't know very much about the Jedi's feelings towards attachment thousands of years before the movies. I have to disagree as the original Knights of the Old Republic was actually the comic series that launched the Tales of the Jedi story arc and is known as both Tales of the Jedi and Knights of the Old Republic. In that particular arc it's pretty clear that the Jedi had different feelings towards attachment and when one should begin their training. I prefer those feelings myself and that's one reason their seen in this chapter.

The Trial of Darth Vader

Chapter 6

"The prosecution calls Imperial Admiral Winstel Greelanx."

Admiral Greelanx entered the room as if he owned it. Greelanx gave Anikin a menacing smile as he took the witness stand. Dia swore him in and the man took his seat.

Gareth approached the man as if he expected just being close to the him would require a bath afterwards. "Tell me, Admiral Greelanx, did you know the defendant?"

"Not personally, no. But I knew of him, his reputation."

"And what was that reputation?"

"He was the Emperor's right hand, his enforcer. Everyone in the Imperial Navy knew to fear him because we knew what he did to those who failed him. Or the Emperor."

"And how did he reward failure?"

"Objection, the prosecution is leading the witness," Tristain said.

"You're honor, if I am leading the witness, it is only because the witness is leading me. He mentioned that the defendant did something to those who failed him without telling us what it was he would do. I should think it important to this trial that we hear what that was."

"Objection overruled," Ulic said without a moments hesitation.

"Gareth could have said go on or continue instead of asking the question the way he did," Tristain whispered under her breath. She realized she'd said it just barely loud enough to be heard when she saw Anakin chuckling out of the corner of her eye.

"Don't worry about it," Anakin whispered to her. "You'll deal with any trouble Greelanx gives us when the time comes."

Tristain nodded as she focused her attention on Greelanx. He'd already revealed that as Darth Vader, Anakin had rewarded failure with death. She'd known that would have to come up at some point during the trial, yet to have it appear so soon was something she hadn't been prepared for. She tried to go over what she knew about Greelanx, something that could hurt his testimony. The only thing she could come up with was the fact that he'd been bought out by the smugglers he'd been charged with defeating. Maybe that could help.

"Could you tell us, Admiral Greelanx, what it was you failed to do?"

"I didn't fail to do anything. I had been ordered to execute a Base Delta Zero upon Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon..."

"Forgive me," Ulic interupted, "but what's a Base Delta Zero?"

"The order to decimate a planet," Anakin spoke up before Greelanx could. He was visibly shaking as he continued, beads of sweat forming at his brow. It was as if he knew that he'd sealed his own fate but knew he couldn't stop now. "All life on a planet is to be either rounded up or killed. Everything is to be destroyed utterly. As if the planet never existed."

"Forget I asked," Ulic said under his breath as he motioned to Greelanx to continue.

"As I was saying, I'd been issued a Base Delta Zero against the Smuggler's Moon. Just before I could carry out my orders, I received orders from Excomm that I was to loose the battle, suffer a strategic defeat. Excomm is highly placed in Imperial Intelligence, it is the Imperial security branch of our intel corps which answered only to two people. And those two were the Emperor himself and the defendant."

Tristain's head came up at the mention of Excomm. That had been what she'd been looking for. He'd followed orders. But at the same time he'd received those orders there had been a traitor to the Empire who had managed to infiltrate one of their own agents into Excomm. It had been feared that anyone who failed to carry out their orders had been in league with the traitor.

She listened to Gareth ask about what had happened after the battle. Greelanx explained how Vader had arrived to kill him, how he figured that he'd been sent to keep Greelanx from revealing his Excomm orders. But what he said now no longer mattered. She had her way of harming his testimony. Even if Imperial laws weren't something so many in the lands of the light side could agree with, she knew that this was one instance that they would work in her favor.

"Thank you, Admiral," Gareth said as he turned and looked at Tristain, a challenging smile on his face. "Your witness, counsellor."

"Your honor, the defense requests a five minute recess to prepare it's line of questioning for the witness."

Ulic seemed to mull over the request before he responded. His silence worried Tristain more than she let on. Though she knew she could shatter Greelanx's testimony by using Imperial law, it would all be worthless if she lost the chance to get the last piece of the puzzle. "In light of all that this court has been through in the past few hours, I feel that the request for a recess is one that we all could use. However, the time asked for that recess is too short a time to allow this court time to relax before it continues. Therefore, I adjourn this court for a thirty minute recess."

Tristain breathed a sigh of relief, not caring who might hear her. She followed the lead of everyone else in the courtroom as she rose from the table, motioning Anakin to follow her. Obi-Wan and Yoda fell in behind them as they left the courtroom.

"The question is whether or not Anakin Skywalker's redemption outweighs his life as a minion of the dark side," Torr Snapit said as soon as the door to the jury room was closed. "If we were forced to make a vote right now, I'd have to place an undecided vote before this jury. Gareth Zurkian makes excellent work of convincing me that Skywalker does indeed deserve to be found guilty in the way he questions the witnesses. In fact, what the prosecution's witnesses have been saying so far makes me believe that Skywalker was an evil man and deserves to be treated as such. Yet Tristain Ahtze does an even better job of harming Zurkian's work. She's caused his witnesses to cast doubt on their own testimony."

"That's her job," Jori Daragon reminded everyone. "Just as it will be his job to attempt to get her witnesses to cast doubt on their testimony."

"Right now, if we were to cast a vote, then mine would have to be guilty," Darsha Assant remarked without realizing she'd said so out loud. When she caught the expectant stares of those around her, she felt her cheeks get a bit warmer.

"Any particular reason you say that?" Torr asked.

"He was a padawan and I would have gotten to know him had I not died just before he was accepted into the order. What gets me is that with all the training, all the discipline he received at the temple, he turned against the order and helped to bring about it's destruction. We've heard from numerous witnesses already how he helped to hunt the Jedi down and kill them. And we've heard about so many others he's killed. The most noticeable being that Tusken tribe on Tatooine. He knew it was wrong to do these things, and yet he still did them. And Zurkian has shown time and again that he didn't care."

"In your opinion," Jedi Master Arca Jeth told her. "But Gareth Zurkian has been focusing heavily on Darth Vader being a monster. Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader, and Darth Vader was indeed a monster. There can be no doubt about that. Even Skywalker has acknowledged that fact.

"But this is a trial to determine whether or not the evil Skywalker committed outweighs his redemption as well as all the good he did. I feel that Jedi Zurkian has done his case a great injustice by focusing on Skywalker as a monster. We need to believe him to be an evil man.

"A childhood bully will be seen as a monster by those he picks on, but is he evil? Does he pick on them through some deep seeded nature to cause them harm and force them to live their lives in terror or does he pick on them because he is made to be a bully? Usually, it is because they are made to be a bully. And that seems be what Ms. Ahtze is trying to focus on.

"Skywalker was certainly open to corruption, there is no doubt about that. But he is perhaps the ultimate childhood bully. He began life as he knew it as a slave, receiving the treatment of a slave. Treatment that caused resentment and anger. The Jedi Council no doubt knew this, but what did they do to get him to release his anger and resentment? How often did he get to visit with his mother?"

"When one joins the order, we are to cut all ties with our family. The order becomes our family. Such links were considered unwise for us as they could open us to the dark side," Jude Rozess responded.

"Exactly," Master Arca agreed. "I have been saying for ages how wrong it was for the Jedi order to begin doing that. The Jedi lost touch who it was they were to protect. And they lost touch with who they were. By knowing your family, by being able to love and raise a family, then the Jedi were reminded of all that.

"Naturally one runs the risks of falling prey to the dark side when they are allowed to love, allowed to know their family. But cutting such links, abolishing the ability to love did not remove such potential. For some such a lifestyle would certainly work. Yet how many Jedi of your time were likely to resent the fact that the choice had been made for them?"

Jude remained silent, acknowledging what she'd heard so often since her death. What she herself had begun to wonder about. Her silence allowed Master Arca to continue addressing the jury.

"Allowing Skywalker to visit with his mother from time to time would probably have better helped him come to grips with his becoming a Jedi. And it would have possibly acted as a valve to release some of his anger and resentment. This anger and resentment being directed at his not getting to share his life with her. Yet all of this continued to build, and it was that which would allow Palpatine to turn him.

"We have been shown, so far, in the cross examination of the prosecution witnesses that Skywalker was acting as one would expect a childhood bully to act. Granted it has been on a much greater scale compared with the action of a bully. But we have not yet been shown that Skywalker was a truly evil man as Darth Vader. And I expect that unless Jedi Zurkian begins to do so soon, we won't see so."

"During my life I have seen many examples of what the dark side can do, as well as examples of people fully giving themselves over to the dark side and allowing it's evil into their hearts," Nomi Sunrider said. "And I have seen Ulic's redemption. Along with the horror on his face when he killed his own brother. Skywalker's shakes and shudders, his looks of remorse and disgust at his own actions are not merely his acting to make us believe he truly regrets the life he lived. At least I believe this to be the case."

"The trial is far from over," Jedi Master Micah Giiett said. "The prosecution has yet to call their final witness, and the defense still has to take the stand. All our opinions at this point may yet change."

"So, any idea how you're going to defeat Admiral Greelanx's plan?" Obi-Wan asked.

"All I need is one last bit of information," Tristain told him with a grin.

"Hmmm, information," Yoda mummered knowingly. "A plan you have. Against young Skywalker Greelanx's testimony no longer so damning. From Skywalker information shall come."

"From me?" Anakin asked, puzzled.

"Yes Anakin. Around the time of the Battle of Nar Shadaa, what were Excomm's orders regarding ordered failure?"

"At that time we suspected a traitor in our midst. All field commanders were given orders, coded Sigma Alpha-001-Nu-020, which said that if they received orders from Excomm concerning loosing a battle that they were to either immediately confirm their orders or immediately after the battle tell us they had done as ordered. Failure to do so would suggest that they were in league with the traitors. Only a direct order from myself to them canceling that order would allow them to ignore the previous orders."

"That's just what I was hoping to hear."