Note: Nothing really to add. Not that happy with this chapter, but then again, I'm not that happy with the Selkath as a whole.

Episode 13 - The Innocent Part 2/3

Anakin pressed the button again, and again received nothing. "Come on!" He mumbled to himself. He opened the panel and checked the wiring. It was all correct. The reception was working. The Masters were just not answering!

"Jedi." The Ambassador said from behind cautiously. "They are not allowing any calls out while we are involved in the case of your Padawan. Please st-"

Anakin growled and threw the console against the wall with the Force before he could stop himself. He flinched at the impact. "Sorry… I can pay for that."

"I… it's fine. Just please wait."

"How can I? You don't understand, Ambassador. Varus has already been exposed to mental attacks numerous times. First a concussion giving him amnesia, then a Sith Holocron implanting a life-time worth of stuff in his head, illusions of the Dark Side, and that doesn't include his raging insanity we all like to call 'imagination'. If they stick their hands in his head… it may very well be the same as execution. He could die!"

The man stepped forward to take the concerned Knight's shoulder. "I will speak to them and see if there is another way to do the process."

"Thank you."

I raise my head as the door opens. A fish-head stood in the frame and a number of soldiers barred the way. He gestured for me to follow, and I stood up. "From this point on, you may not speak." He tells me. I grit my teeth, but none of the less nod. This will be a very difficult session.

I follow them and after a short walk enter a large room. There is a table where three fish-heads sit, and three stands. On the rim of the room are two more tables. Tree-Hugger and Girly sit at one with the Republic Ambassador, and I see a couple Fish-heads at the other on the opposite side.

Tree-Hugger looks like a pent up ball of energy being squashed into submission. I can understand that feeling. A part of me wants to bang out and take my chances, but if I do that, I don't like my odds. My odds are much better trusting them, and so far they have done me right, and their my team. Yeah, I'll be fine. I got this.

Tree-Hugger takes me gaze firmly, and I see his commitment to this, and its touching. Girly smiles reassuringly and I wink and smirk. She just raises an eyebrow like I'm being stupid, Tree-Hugger rolls his eyes, and the Ambassador is confused. The Fish-heads whisper amongst each other, and why do I get the feeling I just gave them a weird impression that they might use into a 'conflict of interest' crap or me just being arrogant.

Probably not a good idea to mess around under the circumstances. I'm sabotaging my own trial.

-Varus.- Anakin says to my mind. -Don't fool around.-

-Got it. Over.- I respond.

-You don't need to say 'over'.-

-How else would I be able to tell the difference between the thoughts I give you and the ones I don't? Or for that matter, how can you? Over.-

-I just can. Now stop that.-

-My head must be a madhouse for you. Does it really look like a wheel and hamster like on pictures?-

-Focus.-

Right, focusing. Where's HK? No, wait, better yet, HK better not be here. Having 'master' be chained and surrounded by 'hostiles' in a foreign planet under trial is probably not the best situation to have an assassination droid with a one-liner complex be involved with. That would be about as subtle as… as… something very unsubtle. Yeah.

Let's just forget how limited my imagination is right now.

"Jedi Padawan Varus Wynn." A Fish-head begins at the front desk. He -let's say they're all 'he' for the sake of it, since I can't tell- stands up speaks. "You stand before this gathering deemed under suspicion of murder, destruction of government property, and trespassing."

-Trespassing? I don't recall-

-You left the designated area you were assigned to while fleeing from the hostile.-

Well, crap. The Fish-head continues, "This court will be to deem you innocent or guilty."

-I take it I can't just come out and say 'guilty' right?-

-Don't you dare!- Anakin slams into my head. The force of his will gives me vertigo briefly and I lose track of where I am… Oh wait, they're still talking! Now it's another Fish-Head on the same podium as me. It's a lot of long complicated words, but basically my -horrible- layer is letting them know what happened. Except. I don't recall telling him anything.

"-he left his pilot to die, choosing to flee himself." My lawyer says. JUST WHO'S SIDE IS THIS GUY ON?!

"Hey!" I bark at my so called ally. "He already had a cleaver in his-"

"You will be quiet!" The judges come down on me all at once. They emphasis this with hitting a button somehow pushes me down to my knees painfully. It's not the kind of pain that makes me yell, I'm fine if I just grit my teeth, but whatever it is it's making my legs numb.

"Its rigged." Anakin muttered heatedly. He gripped the armrests of his chair so tightly his knuckles turned white, and it took every bit of willpower he had not to get up and bang his apprentice out of there. The 'lawyer' was continuing on with a very highly edited, and almost fantasy, version of what happened. All the while Varus is not allowed to say a word to the court, nor to his own lawyer. Varus tried whispering to the 'ally' once, only to be shoved flat on his face by the field suppresser.

"This is unlike them… Something deeper must be going on."

"Well, figure it out before this is over. He won't survive the third phase. Speaking of which…"

The Ambassador flinched. "I'm sorry. I talked to them, and they are still going through with it. The only way to prevent it now is to have them do an early call. And an early call requires the vote to be anonymous, whereas otherwise it would be a popular vote."

"So his only hope is to have all of them agree with him on the second phase?" Ahsoka whispered. "During his opponents turn?" With the way the 'defender' was laying it out, Varus didn't need an opponent. She looked to Anakin. He did not look optimistic.

With the first phase concluded, Varus was returned to his cell, and his team returned to the Republic Embassy. Ahsoka tagged along slowly from behind as the other two sped along, whispering between themselves heavily entrenched in the present scenario. They didn't involve her, and she didn't know what to think of that. On one hand, she was just the Padawan, on the other hand, she wanted to do something for her partner, and again on the first hand, she didn't know how, which led around to the second hand, she was just a Padawan. She didn't have the power or authority necessary to do anything. This place was lead entirely by rules and regulations. Very few of them, but there was no loop holing through them because they were fanatical about them.

Ahsoka, hearing a sound, turned to it, but saw nothing. Figuring it to be her imagination, she pressed on, until she heard it again. This time she noticed a small native beckoning to her from a hidden place. "Guys, I'm going to be a minute. Think I'll take a walk, clear my head." She let them know.

"Be back before curfew, Snips. Last thing I want is another of my Padawans on death row." Anakin responded.

"I'll be careful." She assured him. She bowed to him briefly with her fist in her palm, before dashing off.

She walked to the corner. Ahsoka whispered, "You wanted me?"

The young native looked around anxiously, fear clear in her eyes. "Mother say she help Jedi. Jedi in trouble."

"Yes, he is. What can you do?"

"I don't know. Mother say she help. This way." The child checked the clearing and moved into the alley. Ahsoka wasn't sure why the child was so fearful, but for extra measure, she moved invisible. The native looked behind his -or her- back and jumped frightfully when the Padawan wasn't in sight, but Ahsoka reassured her she was there. Unsure what was going on, the native made her way down the street.

After a time they came to a door and entered it. Inside were dozens of beds and the floor was submerged in several feet of water after a short flight of stairs. Dozens of bed mats lied under the water (interesting to see beds without coverings of any kind) and around the room were a ton of natives. In another room linked to the first was a public cafeteria run by this small group, and another room for other commodities. Everyone in this sector shared the rooms, the commodities, and had no sense of privacy it seemed.

Ahsoka descended the stairs behind the child and entered the water. She may be invisible, but sticking an invisible person inside water still presented something to see in the form of an absence of water. People stopped to stare. Even Ahsoka stopped for a moment to look at herself. As fascinatingly beautiful as it was to see, in an almost artistic way, she stopped using the technique. The water was warm and comfortable.

"Mother this way."

Ahsoka followed the little guide through a series of community rooms until they came to a smaller one that ascended up to a dry floor. There was a small table and a few chairs. It seemed so odd with the rest of the surroundings. "What is this for?"

"It is for alien visitors, specifically." Another native swam up the stairs from another entrance. "There have been a number of changes since Manaan opened up relations to your Republic. Changes few are comfortable with."

The child said something in their own tongue, and ran into the arms of the taller one, clearing the mother. The mother didn't seem all that different, although the head was thinner and a lighter shade of blue.

"You said you can help Varus?" Ahsoka asked her.

"I can't, not directly. The government has too large a hold on him. We are already in danger just talking to you."

"We?"

"We are born by the hundreds in eggs in a single nest on the bottom of our oceans. Each nest stays together for most of their life, acts and decides as a single unit, and has their own individual 'governmental' structure."

That explained the mass public groups.

The mother raised herself up to her full height above the water and made an effort of sitting down. It looked clumsy, a woman that was largely fish sitting, but she seemed reasonably practiced at it. "I stand as the voice of my nest, and for a time I was a presiding judge. This will take some explanation, but hopefully you will understand better what is going on."

I raise my head as footsteps approach. The door opens to reveal a bunch of the armed fish-heads. What? Time for my therapy session?

"Howdy." I greet.

Not bothering a response, they reach in and grab me by my arms. They haul me out and stick a black bag on my head. "You know, your bed side manners could use some work."

They drag me down to… somewhere. We take lefts, we take rights, we walk and walk. There is a flight of stairs. There is a few flowery scents that I walk by, and while I cannot say how long it was, it was a lot longer than fifteen minutes.

They stop me briefly and I hear them opening a door. "You know, I thought it was my job to be silent, not yours." I tease them.

And they don't say anything. Instead they shove me forward, pull me down, and lo and behold there's a chair just waiting for my behind. They take my hands and tie them together around a part of the chair. I shift around but it doesn't budge. Its rooted to the floor. "Guys, if this is some kind of new trial method, I'm not sold."

"I assure you, Jedi, this is not." A voice says.

The guards lift the mask off my head and there's another one of those fish freaks in front of me. Only. He's alone. And he's holding a glass of wine and is wearing some kind of silvery suit that works well with his body structure.

Ok, this is different. "Who are you?" I ask.

"You are a talkative one."

"Untie my hands and you get to see how little talking I can do." I growl. I'm sorry, but I've been stuck in a dark room with little food, all the water I can throw up, and no sense of time. I'm a little ticked off. "You stuck me in a dark room for two days! I am not a happy customer!"

"It was four hours, Jedi."

"Bull."

"Jedi, you are not here to discuss your lacking a sense of time. You are here for a matter far more… important."

"Oh?"

"Indeed." The fish presents me with a glass of wine. "Drink?"

My hands are tied, I'm held hostage, I'm under trial currently held in recess, and I'm stuck to a chair. Did I mention my hands are tied behind my back. "Really?" I ask in disbelief.

"You must consider yourself a 'funny man'." He leaves the glass on his desk.

Really? I'm not the one giving a glass of wine to a guy tied to a chair!

"Jedi, I wish to pay my apologies to you." What? "You are set up in a process that is already rigged on all sides. I am sorry about that."

Great! Does that mean they are going to give me a formal apology and let me loose? I smile to him. "So you going to untie me?"

"No." Okay, I'm confused. "I am sorry about what is happening, but your sacrifice is necessary."

"Oh. Oh! I do not think so! You cannot just do this crap and expect me to just keep my mouth shut."

"Jedi, if you will be quiet, I will explain."

"DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE FOR AN EXPLANATION?" I yell. I wriggle around my chair angrily. I keep Tree-Huggers teachings in the back of my mind while overwhelming anger surges through me. Thankfully I am not going to be levitating him and throwing him around and only making this worse, but I am not above tugging and jerking around.

The guy sighs in a way that only ticks me off more, as though I am just overreacting. I'm just the little Miraluka who is overwhelmed by my emotions like a child and needs to calm down. Yeah, right! He presses a button on his desk. Electricity shoots through my limbs, and it hurts, but not near as much as I expect. I just growl and glare at him.

"Interesting." He flips the switch again and this time my arms and legs get tingly, but I continue to thrash around and glare at him. A third time he flips it, and my limbs go numb.

"You appear to not be susceptible to lightning. The first jolt is enough to knock out most people but you have endured three doses. Now, are you going to listen?" Tongues numb. Arms numb. Legs numb. Yeah, might as well.

"Good. It begins long ago. Back to our earliest writings, it depicts us as slaves to a powerful Empire. The Builders enslaved many races." Builders? Great. Them again. "They included people of the sand, people of the trees, and us, the Selkath." Oh, they're called Selkath. Fair enough. But sounds like the same people who enslaved the Ghorfa had a think for Selkath and these tree-people.

"The Hutts were also enslaved, but brought up to a high rank and turned to slave masters. But, regardless, we built for the Empire. The Empire endured a plague. We rebelled, many slave planets rebelled together. We succeeded, but the Empire returned to destroy. They sunk our continents. They boiled our seas. We died to Great Boil till there were few left. Firaxa survive. Firaxa teach us where to live and avoid Great Boil. Great Firaxa became sacred."

Right. They got their butts handed to them. Sounds a lot like the Ghorfa crap. Rebel, get butts kicked, barely survive. Gotcha.

"But we survived. Great Boil produce gel for your… 'medigel'. Outsiders come for gel. We open relations to all. We open trade. We begin to revive as a planet again. But some… sympathetic to Republic. Some teach Republic how the gel made. Republic then breaks our trust. They build facility under water at sacred site of Great Firaxa. They build and produce gel. Gel produced by ocean boil, so they make Small Boil. It angers Firaxa, they kill the Firaxa."

"Sorry to hear that." I say. Hey! I can talk again!

"Firaxa destroyed the facility. One before you, Revan-"

I groan. "It has to come back to him, doesn't it?"

"Revan go down. Revan returns. All in facility were dead. None were punishable. Revan found innocent, but we found a problem. We found no one to punish. All were already dead, but Republic not care. They claim to be innocent. They not deny, but claim it was for good reasons. They nearly start another Great Boil, nearly wipe us all out, and think it justifies? No."

He pauses. "You went down, Jedi. You saw the facility. People are very angry that any be allowed back there. It revives an old wound. You stand, Jedi, innocent of your own crimes. But you stand for those who sent you, because they are not, and they cannot see that."

I look at him and… Yeah. I got nothing. "You are not surprised?" He asks.

"Oh, I am." I assure him. "I just think I've hit my quota of 'surprised expressions' this year. I'm surprised, but I really shouldn't be."

"Ah. Well, there is a reason I tell you all of this. I talked with your ambassador today. He informed me you were important to the Republic for your knowledge of Revan and his weapons."

"I guess. Why?"

"That makes this very important. You stand trial for Republic and Revan both, Revan who should have been punished for going to sacred ground without approval. But… also an opportunity."

I sigh. "Okay, I get it. You want something. What you want?"

"Ten percent."

"Excuse me?"

"Revan produced armies with ease. We don't know how, we don't know when, but we do know he could, and that you can to."

"Uh, you are expecting a lot more out of me than I do myself, actually."

"If you agree to provide us with ships and troops, to never be enslaved again, or a fair share to knowledge of Revan's method, we will allow your freedom. The law exists to safeguard the people and ensure order, but this is one case where it is more beneficial for our order to have what we need to survive. However, if you do not, then you will be judged accordingly and be an example to your Republic."

I burst out in laughter. Really, this guy's funny. I'm not surprised, I really am not, but it's just ridicules. How do I get myself in these situations. "I can't do that! I don't even know how! All I'm doing is getting coordinates."

"You do know how, you are Revan's heir."

"Bull! I would rather slap the man than be his 'heir'! I have his memories in my skull. Big difference! I will not give you anything because I have nothing to give! That is why we came! We are searching just as much as everyone else in this stupid… Okay, I swear! I have got to be in a stupid reality TV show or something." I look around. "Where's the camera?"

The Selkath sighs to himself, again, and mutters, "I had hoped you would agree to help us to help yourself, but if you will not. Then we have no choice but to do what we must."

"You mean to tell me, Varus is setting an example?" Ahsoka said slowly.

"Yes. Manaan is very weak in comparison to other worlds. Our economy only just started again. We intend to show strength in resolve now, but if Varus will give what we want, then we can show strength in mercy and gain strength in defense power." The female explains.

"I can understand that, but this is an innocent person we are talking about! And it's not like we can provide it! We are here looking for the Builder's artifact. We don't actually have it yet, or have the whole puzzle together."

"They will not listen if you tell them that… They have made up their minds. I tell you this, so that you may know, and decide what to do yourselves. I argued for him, but I am overruled by a vast majority." She apologized. "You better leave, curfew is nearly up."

Windu stood to the side of a hall in the midst of the Senate Building. Senators walked by him, and while they knew him and acknowledged him with a formal hand-shake or nod or small-talk about the never-changing weather, they left him to his own business. It was painfully obvious there was much on his mind. Every step he took towards his destination was harder to trudge through and only left him wondering if it was the right course of action. He stopped again to repeat to himself everything he knew, and what he would have to explain if people were suspicious.

But he wasn't doing anything wrong. Why should he worry? Why should he feel it is a bad decision? Checks are actually good practice and understandable.

He blinked to find himself standing already before the Supreme Chancellor's chambers. He knew Palpatine was gone. He had been called away to a meeting only a few minutes… make that two hours ago. The Master greeted the secretary, Alfred, and placed his hand on the panel to enter. The doors parted and he entered in.

There was the wooden book shelf, sitting to the side innocently. He closed the doors and made sure the lights were off. He made his way to the book shelf and checked its contents. Normal books to be sure. Windu, against what many believed, did read a bit in his spare time. No, actually it wasn't the idea of him having a hobby that people didn't believe, it was the idea that he had the time for hobbies.

But back to the problem at hand. It wasn't as though the Jedi Master actually believed what the Revanchist was saying, but then… he couldn't argue against it either, not after seriously thinking about it.

Something was going on. No matter how he tried to argue against it, the strings all lead to Chancellor Palpatine, and began with the Ravager's crash. A part of him felt it was related to Varus Wynn in some way, as the assassin was apprentice to the Ravager's former pilot. And not to mention there were so many things going on lately that was just pecular, all happening at once. A Sith woman, tied to a string of deaths by insanity and disease, dieing in Palpatines office seemingly from something as mundane as a pistol shot. The Sith themselves ending their aggression and disappearing back into their space. The experiment the 'Manager' was doing. This mask that followed the chain of deaths. Palpatine's odd behavior. Everything was linked. Everything was related in some way, but for the life of him, he couldn't see it.

The only clue was a possible lead the Revanchist were so inclined as to give him about this bookshelf, and a mask.

It was rather simple when it came down to it. Take the mask away, stick it somewhere under quarantine, get Palpatine some major physicals, and check the bookshelf out while he's in the neighborhood just for giggles. Not that Windu giggled.

Ever.

He ran his hands along the sides and felt nothing. There was no special panels. The books were high-class material, and the lightsaber shaped book-ends were in good taste. He pulled out a few books and inspected them inside, but found nothing. Just to be sure, he pulled out all of the books simultaneously with the Force and shook them. Nothing came out of any of them. Not even any secret papers that would be expected of a man who undoubtedly had the responsibility of dealing with situations that left others with a bad taste in their mouth.

With the books still hovering in the air, Windu pulled the bookshelf away and checked behind it. There was nothing there either. He knocked on the walls of it. It was indeed hollow, but after spending five minutes tapping every inch of it, there was nothing inside. He could confiscate the whole thing and have it analyzed just to be sure, but that would be over doing it.

Mildly aggravated with being lead on a wild goose chase, probably a practical joke by the Revanchist to get a good laugh out of it (haha, we're all very amused), he put the books back. He shoved them back a bit clumsily and accidentally knocked the book ends off the shelf. The four book ends fell to the floor and three of them cracked.

"Crap!" He hissed to himself. Checking around to be sure no one was going to barge in at this very embarrassing scene, he stooped down to pick them up. He would apologize formally later and explain, but for now it was better to put everything back in order. He took hold of a book-end and winced at the damage. He placed the cold marble back on the shelf and moved to the others. The second one wasn't as bad, but it would need to be replaced. The third was just bad.

The fourth made him stop. It wasn't cold like the others. No, if anything, the book end was warm. It didn't feel like marble either in his hands. It felt like a real lightsaber attached to a book end. The warmth it gave off was also reminiscent of a true lightsaber.

Odd… and not in a good way. A chill went down the man's spine, and he felt he recognized the hilt. But where?

Carefully, he inspected it, and found it detached. With a gentle pull, the book end came free of the lightsaber and he held it firmly in his hands. Every second he spent looking at it, the coldness in his spine dropped down another ten degrees, and every moment the stone in his stomach grew larger.

Whether lead by instinct or the Force, he flipped it on. The blade shined a brilliant red.

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