Chapter XII: I Want The Truth (13 BBY)
In all these years, I've never really known the truth about what happened six years ago. I guess I didn't want to know what happened, remain blissfully ignorant. I guess I changed my mind when I finally figured out that I had to know the reasons why before I could ever put the events behind me. Even though I'd like to wish it all away, I will always be a Jedi.
The red bedspread on Jorec's bed was covered with several gray datapads. The two separate piles lay haphazardly upon the bed, divided between texts read and those Jorec still needed to look through. Near the head of the bed, head propped up by several pillows was Jorec.
"The Betrayal of the Jedi… Finally!"
Jorec scanned the text, and soon threw the datapad onto the pile of read pads. In all of the texts Jorec had read, no matter what publishing company and what planet the author had come from, the information was the same.
It was always the same thing. In the final days of the Clone Wars, the Jedi generals of the Clone Wars turned against the Republic, and a group of Jedi Masters attempted the assassination of Chancellor Palpatine. It was always the same lies, and no mention of the real way the Jedi had been wiped out. All it had said was that the traitorous cult had been hunted down by troops of the Empire.
Jorec shook his head at the pile of propaganda disguised as history that littered his bed. Despite the variety of sources; former Separatist, Republic, even neutral parties all had the same story about the end of the massive war. According to "history" the Jedi were traitors to the Republic, and had been wiped out along with the Separatist leadership by someone called Darth Vader. The few pictures of this slaughterer, filled Jorec with a sense of fear. The figure appeared to be over two meters tall, and was clad in black armor. A demonic looking helmet rested upon the figure's head, dark lenses covered where eyes should be, and only a small grate appeared where the mouth of a humanoid was supposed to be.
Jorec set the unsettling image on the far side of his bed, and looked at the top of his ceiling. The monster in the history texts exuded a sense of evil, an evil that saturated the book. It was the same type of feeling he got when he saw the Emperor on the holonews, the near nausea and the overwhelming feeling of dread that seemed to accompany the cloaked figure.
Palpatine had something to do with it, Jorec thought. Ever since I first saw that he had become the Emperor, I knew he had something to do with it. Why though? He was one of biggest supporters of the Jedi, him and Bail Organa.
Jorec closed his eyes as he tried to put all of the pieces of the puzzle that he had together.
"OK, so according to all of the texts, the 'Jedi Betrayal' happened soon after General Grievous was killed. That seems to go quite well with my own experiences… A group of Jedi Masters then entered Palpatine's office and attempted to assassinate the Chancellor."
Jorec was perplexed at this statement. A group of Jedi Masters…attempted to assassinate the Chancellor. He analyzed it again, and found two major things wrong about it.
"Why would four members of the Jedi Council want to assassinate the Chancellor? Certainly not for rule of the Republic as the books say. And, even if they did, how could Palpatine survive such an attempt?"
A partial explanation came to Jorec's mind, an explanation derived from barely remembered rumors whispered among the other younglings at the Jedi Temple. There was another Sith Lord out there besides Dooku, and he or she had controlled the Senate. He had heard that the Jedi Masters had put this off as an attempt to create a rift between the Jedi and the Senate, but in hindsight it seemed so obvious.
All of the information swirled and connected inside of Jorec's head, and with a startled gasp the solution finally came into being.
"He's a kriffing Sith! But how could they miss it? How could they stand right next to him and not sense it?"
Anger turned to fear as the meaning of this revelation dawned on Jorec. The galaxy was once again under the command of a Sith, and now it seemed that almost all hope was lost for the galaxy. Jorec knew that the Jedi had been hunted down, and a list of names of those slain went through his head.
Windu, Fisto, Kenobi, Skywalker, Yoda, Vos, Drallig, they're all dead… They have to be. Wait a minute, didn't that old news report mention some survivors?
Jorec quickly sat up and rifled through the datapads until he found a dented pad. He activated the pad containing Holonet News: 16 Archive. The deformed face of the Emperor appeared before him, glowing a translucent blue and emitting from the datapad. He gestured towards the senators and continued speaking.
"The New Order of peace has triumphed over the shadowy secrecy of shameful magicians. The direction of our course is clear. I will lead the Empire to glories beyo…"
The Emperor stopped mid-word, silenced by the miracle of the "Back To Menu" button on the pad. The menu quickly surfaced on the screen, showing most of the articles that appeared six years ago. A long list of wanted posters appeared on the screen of the datapad, a few of the faces looked vaguely familiar to Jorec but the faces and the names didn't matter. It was the proof that really mattered, the proof that several other Jedi had survived the betrayal, final concrete proof that Jorec wasn't the only survivor. He had had his suspicions for years that others had survived, yet he finally had proof.
Kai Justiss, Qu Rahn, Ranik Solusar… Those names sound vaguely familiar, don't recognize the other names though… At least they were alive six years ago, surely if I have survived they must have as well.
Jorec looked at the article again, and despite the hope that the names brought him, the lack of council members on the "Wanted" list disturbed him. Their absence seemed to indicate their death, or worse. He had heard stories of Jedi betraying the Order, indeed the Separatist leader Count Dooku had done just that several years before the start of the Clone Wars.
Jorec turned the datapad off and gathered the rest into a pile that he set upon a bookcase. Three weeks of research and he was barely above where he had started, yet the information he had was significant. The so-called "attempted assassination" of Palpatine by four members of the Jedi Council, the follow-up attempt on Palpatine's life in the Senate Chambers, the conclusion that Palpatine may be a Sith, the fact that there were others that survived the betrayal of the clones, and the near destruction of the Jedi Temple were all great findings for Jorec, yet he couldn't help but still ask why.