"Please state your name for the Senate," Mon Mothma was presiding over the trial as the Executor of Justice.
It had been a long wait, and now, Obi-Wan would get his satisfaction, he thought grimly. He had little faith in politicians, but the democratic process moved slowly, surely, and was difficult to confound unless one sat at the center of the web itself.
Palpatine had been a monster of a spider, but once the military had seized his comm unit, it had been possible, but not easy to track down his puppets and put them on trial for treason. If his wretched Hands didn't reach beyond the grave and execute them themselves. Obi-Wan himself had put them both down, one after the other.
After Anakin's betrayal, he had no mercy left for the Sith. Where once he might've spared someone who was faltering, now he cut them down—and recovered the bodies as well. He would not make the same mistake twice.
Now, the Senate had a thousand new faces, some former Confederacy leaders, some new representatives of liberated colonies.
"My name is Anakin Skywalker," Anakin stood tall and proud in the center of the well.
"Anakin Skywalker, you stand accused of crimes against sentients, murder in the first degree for the unlawful execution of Count Dooku of Serenno, Viceroy Nute Gunray, Chairman San Hill, Foreman Wat Tambor, Shu Mai, Passel Argente. The prosecution requests that these crimes be enhanced to war crimes, due to the fact that these alleged victims were prisoners of war, and you violated parole by executing them after lawful surrender. You stand accused of conspiracy to commit genocide. How do you plead?"
"Not guilty, Your Honor," Anakin stood alone, defending himself. Oh, there had been counsellors galore across the galaxy salivating to represent the Hero with No Fear, but he had turned them all down.
They wouldn't even have to go through this farce if it weren't for Padme, he thought bitterly. The Jedi Order would have had his head two years ago.
At least the Senate had allowed the Jedi to imprison him. No penal colony could hold Anakin Skywalker against his will.
They had argued, and fought, and screamed, but Padme had not budged— justice had been perverted once when Ahsoka was on trial, and it was only due process that had saved her life. She would not allow her husband of six years to submit to being tried by the Order.
"You're not impartial," she had bit out, finally losing her temper, "Only four concil members survived. It wouldn't be justice, it would be revenge, and I am so sick of revenge. I compromised my morals once, and look what happened. I won't help you kill him. Republic justice, Kenobi, or you can hold him until he escapes, and he will escape."
"Because you'll help him?" He seethed.
"Because you can't hold him forever. And I can make sure he submits to Republic justice."
"Why should I believe you?" He gestured at her neck, "I'm sure you've seen how well Anakin listens to you."
Her face blanked, the statuesque facade of the Queen of Naboo that had never fooled him. "I don't have anything else to say to you, Kenobi. Trust me, or don't, but the Jedi won't keep him to kill him."
Padme and Anakin had been a well matched set; the two of them always got their way. She pulled all the strings she had left to pull to get Anakin's trial shifted from the Jedi Council to the Republic. The worst thing about it all was that Padme was sincere. She genuinely believed that Anakin Skywalker, the Hero with No Fear, would be found guilty of war crimes by a Grand Council.
The days of the trial dragged on and on. Obi-Wan had to testify; he and the Jedi Council had bound together and forced their way into Anakin's mind to witness his slaughter of the Confederacy leaders, the first task given to him by his wretched Sith master. They surrendered, and begged for their lives, but Anakin had cut them down anyway, the power of the Dark Side coursing through him.
But hatred had blinded him, he realized, as the trial went on. He had forgotten; Anakin was merciful at the wrong times and a terrible judge of character, but he was as brilliant as he was powerful. He had charisma, and he was handsome, and for five years he had been the hero of the Republic for all the Jedi had detested him. He had liberated as many Confederate holdings from the Banking, Trading, and Commerce unions as he had Republic planets from the droids. He spoke well, and when he told the story, nothing was his fault.
And the worst thing was, he truly believed it. The Force made it so no one could lie to Anakin but himself. When Anakin believed something, it was easy to agree with him, so fervent was the power of his passion.
Obi-Wan invited himself to Padme's room at her rehab, face as red as his hair with anger. Though his expression was serene, as was his measured stride, his displeasure was evident.
Padme was on the bar, walking slowly, a mirialan orderly beside her. Her waist length hair hung down her back in a heavy braid. She startled when she noticed Obi-Wan quietly seething (trying and failing to release his anger into the Force).
"Master...Jedi," she said, using the title to carefully distance them. The aid pulled her down into the wheeled chair behind her. "Thank you Anata."
"Would you like to take this to your suite, Senator Amidala?" the now named Anata offeredm desperate to spare herself the tension between the two of them.
When she looked at him, he nodded, and she hummed in approval. The orderly led them to Padme's room, then wheeled in a small cart with a carafe of chai and a plate full of berries, then quickly made herself scarce. Buying time to search for words, Padme poured him tea.
"What brings you here, Master Jedi?" Padme said, each word careful, her voice as mellifluous as ever.
"Anakin, of course," he sighed bitterly, "Are you proud, Amidala? That you saved your own would-be murderer? He would have killed you Padme. Did you believe his attachment to you would make him do the right thing? When has it ever stopped him from acting on evil?" Obi-Wan pinched his nose, immediately feeling guilty. He was frustrated with the situation...and also with Padme, since it was her fault this was a problem in the first place. The Jedi could have cut off his head two years ago and been done with it all.
She stirred her tea, her dark eyes gazing calmly into his own. "I don't have to explain myself to you," she said. "Anakin always told me the Jedi distrusted him, you know. He thought you all hated him. When we first married, how he would despair...I told him to have faith, and he did. And then, there came a point where he stopped talking to me about it." She sipped, never once looking away from his pale eyes. "He was right, if even you can turn on him so quickly."
" He planned to kill us all."
"Palpatine planned to kill the Jedi."
"Anakin was an accomplice!"
"Did he put those chips in the clone's brains? Did he march on the Temple? No. He was driven by selfish fear and despair. He thought he had no place among the people who raised him any longer. To him, the Jedi had no principles anymore— a Temple full of hypocrites and deceivers."
She stood, a fire in her dark eyes all on the Senate floor knew to fear. "But Anakin was wrong. The Jedi are good. Misled, and corrupted by war and fatigue and tragedy, just like Anakin was—" she held up a hand to stop Obi-Wan's angry retort. "What you must do, Master Jedi, if you dream of having any place in this new Republic, is trust the process. Put the power back in the hands of the people, disenfranchised by the Sith. Stay true to yourself, and the values of the organization you dedicated your life to—"
"You cannot talk circles around me, Amidala," Obi-Wan raised his chin. "Save that for the fools in the Senate. You know what is right—"
"Who am I to pass judgement on any one man? Or do you agree with Annie, the boy you raised, who you now claim you despise? A victim of circumstance as much as I?"
"What—"
"He hated the idea of a trial by jury," she smiled sadly, and Obi-Wan could understand, just a little, why Anakin had fallen so deeply for this woman. She had the wisdom of a Master. "He was a totalitarian at heart, and believed that such a thing as a benevolent dictator could ever exist."
"And who better than himself as the head?" Obi-Wan scoffed.
"No, he admired Palpatine. He spoke often of you as well. Once, he asked me what I would do with absolute power," her wistful smile twisted into a grimace, "I said I'd establish a democracy before the power corrupted me. He could never think in the big picture."
"Unless it suited him."
"But I'm not here to discuss his flaws or his virtues, Master Jedi," she said cooly, "I know them all, and evidently better than you do. I need to speak to him."
"So you can plan to run away together?"
"If you want Anakin to die in prison," she ignored him, "You will let me speak to him before closing statements tomorrow morning. Go arrange what you must, but I need an hour of visitation."
"Not happening," he bit out, "You've arranged his exoneration. The Council won't find him guilty. Reap the rewards of your actions."
Her jaw worked, and Obi-Wan relished in her cold anger in the Force. She was ashamed. For all her growing lack of faith in the Senate, she'd truly thought that they would find the Hero With No Fear guilty of the obvious crimes he'd committed.
"Then tell him this, while you torment him, as I know you do," she chewed her lip, "Tell him I know what bones lie in the desert...and that was a crime he can't spin to his favor, the penalty for which is execution. And if he won't take a plea, I'll take him to trial for that, and I will prosecute him myself."
Feeble, thinned out and weaker than she had ever been before, Padme sat in her low settee like a queen, her hands trembling so badly tea splashed out of her cup onto the plate.
Obi-Wan could feel her dull horror and pure sorrow in the Force, and for the first time in two years, he could look beyond his own pain. The Jedi Order had lost so much, but they had prevailed. Many were able to escape the clones, and they were no longer pressed into service in the Republic Army and Navy. The children still lived, and another generation of Jedi would flourish, though Obi-Wan knew in his heart he would never take another padawan again.
What did Padme have? No husband, no children, no career...and she had strength enough to stick to the principles of democracy she had fought for her entire life, only for it to fail her when she most needed it.
"Please leave, Master Jedi," her voice was wan, "I'm afraid I'm very tired."
Without even a goodbye, Obi-Wan left her sitting there, head bowed. She looked like a broken woman.
When Obi-Wan told Anakin what Padme had said, he'd paled, looking like a sickly bleached skeleton, and refused to speak another word. He was silent all through transport.
The next morning, before the Senate and sundry, Anakin Skywalker pled guilty to the homicides. As part of his plea, the enhanced sentence for war crimes was dismissed, and he was allowed to serve each of the twenty-five year sentences concurrently— eligible for parole after ten years.
The charges for conspiracy to commit genocide were dropped, and for that reason alone, Obi-Wan could not let go of his bitterness. Even as Anakin slowly went mad in the belly of Coruscant, he hated him, and wished that he would burn.
Artoo-Detoo was a treasure trove of information— when Luke was apt enough at slicing to find it. Though the old navigation unit was long out of commission, supplanted by fancier and newer models decades ahead of him, it was still functional, and in fact acted as the navigational unit for Mother's private cruiser.
Sometime in the past, Artoo had taken some heavy hits that had dislodged its processors from internal memory storage. Luke knew that Artoo was capable of storing new memories, but was unable to retrieve them— but, oddly enough, it remembered the process of storing. So, Artoo was continuously storing, could remember that it'd stored things, but couldn't recall what it had stored. As a result, unlike most droids that were designed to interact with sentients, like Threepio, Artoo wasn't periodically wiped.
Not that Mother ever wiped Threepio. When Leia asked if it would make him any less annoying, Padme had laughed and said that his personality was a quirk built into the very foundations of his code. Six-year old Leia had taken that as a challenge to try to teach the droid to be less intrusively oblivious. She'd failed, much to her chagrin.
Artoo was much cleverer than whatever knucklehead had written up the code for Threepio, and tricked out like a classic speeder to boot. Luke's binary was still rough, but it was better than Leia's, which was nonexistent. Threepio was so easy to trick that it wasn't worth bargaining with him, but Artoo was smart enough to bribe, and versus the two of them, utterly helpless. Leia had the smooth tongue, and Luke the skill to back up whatever offer his twin made.
The two of them snuck out to the hangar where the Naboo cruiser that took them on their monthly visits to their sperm donor was docked. Luke was excited, and completely unafraid. Leia wasn't nervous, exactly, but she felt unsettled, and shaken.
That was the sensation. Shaken, like someone had quickly spun her around, put her down, and she just hadn't gotten her bearings yet.
Leia hadn't known that Master Kenobi had tried to take away her brother. Mother had always been incredibly cool towards him, emitting not exactly dislike, but the careful distance a woman adopts around a strange man, even though it was clear that she knew him very well. Lots of people were afraid of the Jedi, even in their much reduced state, so Leia hadn't thought too much about it at the time, but now that she knew that she could've lost her twin, her other half, to that strange, ascetic religion, Leia couldn't fight off the anxiety that welled in her. There were stories of how the Jedi led the Republic to victory over the Separatists, how the Great Negotiator himself had bargained the current peace agreements.
She wouldn't know. An overwhelming majority of Jedi now were fully cloistered. Force sensitive children were taken up until the age of 6, and most never left the Temple on Coruscant again.
Even though Master Kenobi was a fairly regular visitor, every visit he was mostly preoccupied with Luke. Leia was always busy, at her school clubs or young diplomats meetings, or spending time with Mama or traveling with her coterie. It was as if her schedule was organized around making sure she never ran into the old Jedi, lest he be intrigued by her too. Even when other Jedi visited for diplomatic purposes, Leia never saw them.
Luke was excited, struggling to decipher Artoo's rapidfire whirs and beeps.
"Leia," Luke grinned, and Leia's heart raced with anticipation, because she knew what that look meant. "Artoo says he can do us one better than just a holocall."
"What's better than a holocall?" Leia asked, "It's not as if Master Kenobi's going to fly over here from Galactic City just for a chat."
"He can get us into the Temple," Luke patted his scored dome, "He says he used to navigate Jedi Y-Wings!"
Leia's eyebrows raised nearly into her hairline. "I don't mean to disparage Artoo, but breaking into the Jedi Temple is a lot different than hacking a commline."
Sneaking off to Coruscant was an easy, if pricy commute; there was even a direct hyperlane shuttle linking the Alderaan system to the Galactic City interim port. But the Temple was an ancient bastion, and a famous landmark that could be easily identified from orbit, along with the Senate and the 500 Republica.
"Luke," Leia asked, "Did he really say he could break us into the Jedi Temple?"
Artoo was fresh, if Threepio's scandalized remarks meant anything. His long-term memory was shot. Would he even be able to devise such a clever break-in? Leia was all up for a little bit of fun— she'd traveled the Core worlds extensively with her coterie, more than Luke had, and that was why she was so hesitant. Coruscant was dangerous.
"Well, not exactly," Luke rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But, when I mentioned Master Kenobi, he let me search his databanks and a route got pulled up from his hub. Look, it's a space and planetary navigation route!"
Artoo whirred something loudly, angrily and Luke and Leia met each other's eyes over its head and winced. Luke bit his lip in thought.
"Look at this Leia," he muttered, "I think...it goes below the upper levels."
"Of Coruscant?" she gaped, and sure enough, there before them lay a secret route into the Jedi Temple through the depths of the underbelly of the capital.
"We can do this," Luke's eyes raced across the plans, "All we need is a small enough ship— Lady's Tears will be perfect! And it's old enough to be fitted with a retro astronavigator- ow!"
Artoo buzzed smugly and pulled back the mini taser that had popped out of a small hatch on the bottom.
"Don't worry." Leia grinned at Luke, " I don't think you're retro, Artoo. Luke's head is full of bolts, not brains."
A pleased beep, and Luke's chagrined look of annoyance only deepened Leia's smirk.
A tendril of fear curled in her belly. Not at the flight; it wasn't the furthest Leia had gone, nor the most dangerous, and it certainly wasn't the first time she'd traveled on her own or with just Luke. No, what scared her was the fact that they were going to Coruscant to visit the Jedi.
Ever since they were young, they 'd had an interest in her brother. She had vague memories of Master Kenobi, but she could remember the feeling he awoke in her, the things that sixth sense of hers said. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a warrior, and in his eyes, there was a hungry desire for Luke. Desire, and something else— not quite fear, not quite love.
Luke obviously admired him, and Leia didn't know enough about him to persuade him otherwise. He had so few friends on Alderaan; when he wasn't with Leia, he was often off on his own, in the hangar with the mechanics or flying out to Mother's estate in the countryside.
He could sense her unease, and his pale eyes shined with concern. They were the same color as his , but the eyes of her twin were comforting; a gaze she knew better than the lines on her palms, an open book she'd read front to back and loved so well she knew all the words. Anakin Skywalker's eyes were the eyes of a man on the edge. That pale gaze pierced, seeing all, but inscrutable.
"We don't have to do this," he said, "I'm sure we could do a call too, if you don't want to go to Coruscant. Could you find a holocomm number, Artoo?"
But her feelings told her going to Coruscant wasn't wrong. All her apprehension was about meeting the enigma, Master Kenobi.
"I want to go," she said, voice short with anxiety. "But are you sure Master Kenobi would know anything?"
"Father was his padawan," Luke said, "And he's never lied to me before?"
"Don't be silly," Leia couldn't stop herself from pacing, her hands drifting up to caress her waist-long braids, "Everyone lies."
"Not Master Kenobi," Luke sighed, "Even if he can be really confusing sometimes. He used to talk about him, you know."
"Talk about who?"
"Father. He'd tell me stories about Father, and talk about how I was just like him. He'd tell me about the things they did as Jedi together."
Leia wrinkled her nose in distaste. Luke wasn't anything like that man. Luke was sweet and softhearted, a little reclusive and sometimes impulsive.
"You're not anything like that murderer," she hissed, "You're too good for him, Luke, and I wish I could talk sense into you about this."
"You have your Dad, Leia," he bit back, unusually sharp, "I want mine."
And then, Leia knew he wouldn't say anything more on that. She had promised she would try.
"I'm sorry," she grabbed his hand and held it tightly in hers. "I'm just afraid."
"Leia? Afraid? Two words that never go together," Luke rewarded her with a small smile.
"If I lost you, I'd be afraid," the words wrenched themselves from her throat, "Being the son of a former Jedi won't make you one. I don't want you to talk to Master Kenobi thinking he can make you a Jedi, or something."
"Don't be silly," he smiled warmly, and pulled her into a tight hug. His cheeks warmed hers, his breath by her ear. "I already said no, didn't I? I just want to know the truth…"
"And what makes you think that Master Kenobi would give it to you?" Leia pulled him down, and they sat side by side by Artoo, who whirred loudly and spun him dome.
"Actually," Luke gulped, "I don't think we should use this map...like that."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you mean?"
"If it goes under Coruscant… do you think we could get into the prison part of the Temple?" Luke held his hands up, palm open to stave off Leia's sharp retort. "No, seriously! Think about it— Father will never tell us the truth during the supervised visits. There's not enough time."
"I wasn't going to say no," Leia sniffed, though that had been her gut reaction. They had been on three supervised visits so far. They were always in public places. Leia had had to muster up all of her stubbornness after the first one. If she was forced to go, well, she wasn't forced to talk. But Skywalker had a way of provoking her, drawing out her words while juggling a vibrantly involved conversation with Luke, about anything at all. The man had a broad, if somewhat outdated and cynical knowledge of just about everything, and it was infuriating.
They had not yet discussed his crimes.
"Of course he wouldn't admit to anything in front of the guards," Leia realized, "Maybe they'll revoke his parole; throw him right back in jail with an even longer sentence he can't dodge. Maybe...they'll even execute him."
"Do they still do that?" Luke's pale eyes were wide.
"Not for years, and he'd have to be convicted by a Grand Council…"
"Even more reason," Luke said, "We'll sneak in at night, and while he's in his cell, he'll have to tell us the truth."
"Yes," Leia murmured.
They sat in a heavy silence while Luke got up and extracted the route from Artoo's databasen onto a flimsiplast. He chattered reassurances at the droid, who warbled, beeped, and whirred a litany of censure. When he finished, he called her name and she looked up, startled. He felt bright, but anxious, and Leia was sure she felt like a storm; she felt so many things she wasn't even sure what she was feeling. It was anger and fear all twisted up, and frustration, because at the heart of it all, Leia didn't want to know. She didn't want to be the daughter of a convict. She didn't care, and inside, she even hated Padme a little for forcing her to have to know this man that she said she loved, this man who tried to kill her.
It was sick, and Padme's hopeless devotion made Leia hate her, even though she had only ever been kind, and never lied, except by omission.
Obviously she didn't care for them, if she was content to defend her would-be murderer and give up her children, only to change her mind and forcefully insert herself back into their lives. She'd ruined everything.
Much to her horror, tears welled up in her eyes and she sniffled, trying to hurriedly rub them away before Luke noticed, but it was too late.
"LEIA!" he dropped to his knees beside her and gathered her up, "Don't cry! We don't have to do this if you don't want to, really. We can call Master Kenobi instead. I know you don't care for Father…"
But I do, was unsaid between them.
"He's not my father," Leia bit out. Luke kept calling him that in front of her, as if that would suddenly sway her into caring about the man who had tried to kill Padme, who was locked up for murder, who was evil.
"But do you care for me?" he ignored her mutter, "Because I'm scared, Leia. I think I could do it alone, but I don't want to. I want you with me."
"I don't know why she had to do this to us," Leia was crying now, and she couldn't stop herself even if she tried, "I was happy before, even when I knew what he'd done. I thought he was just going to stay away, and die in jail, and I would never have to think about it because even though Padme got hurt there was some justice! But there's not, and, and she still loves him even though he tried to kill her, and—" she gasped, a wretched, snotty sound.
"It's all right," Luke whispered, "Forget it."
"But—"
"Forget it," he pressed her face into his chest. "I can wait." He heaved a sigh, "I can wait until you're ready to do this with me."
Even if it's never, the thought brushed hers so gently Leia wondered if she even heard the words, but it didn't matter, because she could see the sincerity of the promise written on his face. Though she knew she was right, the guilt crept up her throat anyway.
"Let's at least call Master Kenobi," she cleared her throat. "And then, we could go from there."
New Chapter! This story is written completely out of order by the way. Leave a comment if you like.
YellowWomanontheBrink
February 25, 2021
9:05 PM
