Trigger Warning: This chapter describes the execution of a criminal. Nothing too descriptive, but may be a trigger.
Chapter 94 - How to Kill a Sith
Anakin looked up from his desk and pressed a few buttons to dial a comm. "Youlao here. Greetings Master Skywalker, how is your family?"
"They are well, Master Youlao, and yours?" Anakin bowed his head towards the holo in greeting. In the old days it would have been very unusual to greet a Jedi in this way, but lately it was becoming almost taboo not to.
"All are well, Master Skywalker. My youngest is taking the trials in a few months." Master Youlao responded.
"She will do well, I'm sure." Anakin nodded. "And how is your task going?"
"It's go-ing," she said. "Look, at this point we have had very minor breakthroughs. She said two words to me today. 'Get stuffed.' Which normally doesn't sound like a breakthrough, but when the alternative is complete silence." She shrugged.
"Would it help if I sent Ahsoka to you? I understand she was a bit more talkative in her initial interrogation." Anakin offered.
"No, I'm afraid she would be just as stubborn, no matter who was asking her the questions. If you could, ask Master Tano if she knows what methods they used to precipitate Barris Offee's fall."
"Methods, does that matter?" Anakin scribbled a note to himself.
"Oh, it matters quite a lot," Youlao responded.
Anakin looked surprised at her. He was used to the Jedi treating everything as either Dark or Light, and Yoda's philosophy of how a foot in the dark side is a foot lost to you. He was expecting the healers he brought in to share that mindset.
"It matters how we treat the patient. If it was torture, for instance, there will be triggers we'll need to avoid. And if the Force was used, we'd need to replicate the opposite technique if there is any hope to bring her back…"
"Wait. Bring her back. You really think it might be possible?"
Youlao winced. "Probably not in any way you are thinking. We might be able to get her to stabilize briefly to allow for the healing. Usually such methods are used when the Jedi wanted to interrogate a subject. Otherwise we'll have to use an intense flood of light, and it's rather like a drug at that level."
Anakin nodded. "At the end of the war, Ex Knight Offee was being held in a republic prison for her deeds. The bombing-" Anakin looked up and saw the Master nod. He didn't want to go into what had happened, and when she recognized it he moved on. "I don't believe she had fallen completely at that point. I mean, she was teetering, but she didn't actively use the dark side. She said a lot about the War being un-jedi like and how we were all becoming killers. She was angry and unstable, I don't think it would take a lot to push her over the edge." Anakin summarized. He himself never saw any but the first interrogations. Obi-Wan had been worried Anakin was too unstable to witness it, after Ahsoka left. And the Master was probably right. But that didn't stop him from getting summaries from those knights who did talk to her.
Youlao tapped the sides of her datapad. "I think it probably took more effort than you'd assume. Reading the Rebellion's records, initially inquisitors were less trained and more sloppy. It took nearly four years for them to get to the terrors they are now."
"Four years of torture, you mean?"
"It's certainly possible."
Anakin nodded serenely.
"I'll keep you updated on our progress." Master Youlao bowed again.
"Yes, please do." Anakin returned. "I'll ask Ahsoka about Barris and tell you if she has any ideas." He hoped they did have some luck. It would be great to be able to shut up a couple of Force Ghosts with some good news for once, but he didn't say so out loud.
Han helped Chewy carry the last of his belongings into the Wookiee's quarters on Beskarn. "You're worse than a tourist." Han muttered. "Three weeks and you've got almost a whole ship's worth of knicknacks."
Chewy stopped to help him move the last box into a smaller room inside of his quarters. "Grooooooghr."
"Oh, don't use fatherhood as an excuse." Han rolled his eyes. "When are Malla and the kids coming?"
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrooooooo."
"Next week. It'll be nice seeing them again. I'm sure they'll like it here." Han patted his friend's side.
"Chewy, do you need help unpacking this?" Luke asked from the doorway. He was carrying another three boxes with the Force.
Han held in a comment about him being a show off, and looked past him to Leia who was doing the same. After she set down the boxes, she looked at Han and smiled.
Luke looked between the two and asked, "Does Dad know about any of this?"
"NO! And you will not tell him," Leia shouted.
Luke smiled coyly.
She turned to follow her brother out of the room. "I mean it. If you tell him anything, I'll spill all about Mara and your little trips."
"Our joint missions for the rebellion. He already knows about those."
"Really, he knows where you stayed on Harridan?" Leia asked, and Luke went red.
"It was the only place not asking for imperial papers." Luke muttered. "Oh alright. I wasn't going to tell him anyway," he huffed and sighed.
"Good. Just making sure you know how essential your silence is." Leia stalked away.
Han smiled as he walked up to Luke. He always found the Twins especially amusing. "So, the Lullaby Motel in Harridan?" He whispered. It wasn't hard to guess where Leia was referring to. The place had a reputation.
"We had two beds." Luke protested.
"How many did you use?" Han whispered back, causing the twenty two year old to blush again.
"Bail, how are you?" Obi-Wan stood up from a work session and greeted the newcomer.
"I don't mean to interrupt you. It isn't that important." Bail gestured down with his hands, and Obi-Wan sat down again next to Anakin.
"Are you here to see Mara?" Anakin asked.
"Yeah, but I also have a teensy tiny little favor to ask the Jedi for." Bail took a deep breath.
Anakin motioned him to continue.
"As you know, three weeks ago we took the prisoner Vader you sent us to one of our offsite facilities. After interrogating him, the courts declared him guilty of several wartime offenses. Execution was their verdict."
"Yes, we are aware of this. As you know, the Jedi do not deem him a member anymore. The council officially stripped him of rank and cast him out when he raided Melren." Obi-Wan said.
"In other words, go ahead and kill the sucker." Anakin elaborated.
"Yes, well. It seems doing so is more complicated than it sounds." Bail placed a datastick on the table between the two men.
Anakin furrowed his brow, then inserted the chip into his computer port. It began to play a holo-video instantly.
The camera was an ordinary security camera in the prison. It showed the prisoner, Vader, pacing in his cell. Since he'd arrived in their custody he'd been given several Bacta treatments, and a new breathing mask. His face still had severe burns on it, but they could all recognize Tel-Mac, now that that horrid mask was removed.
In the recording, Tel-Mac stopped pacing when officers came to his cell. They strapped him to a bed/cart thing and rolled him out. The video cut to another room, where he was lying down on the bed, and a vial of liquid was hooked up to him via an IV. One of the men pushed a button, and the liquid drained into the IV. Another machine beside the bed, which showed the prisoner's pulse ticked. Then it ticked again… And again…
After several minutes, when anyone watching would expect the drug to have taken its effects by then, the patient opened his eyes. They were glowing yellow. Glass around the room shattered as the man growled in frustration, but he did not die…
Another clip came up and Vader was again standing in the prison. Instead of a cell, this time he was in a larger space. A bell rang and a line of men walked in armed with blasters and thick armor. They all stopped and aimed their weapons at Vader. When a whistle let out, they fired. Vader moved his hands and the blaster shots were deflected away from him.
Bail reached out to pause the video. "It goes on from here, but basically we cannot kill him. We've tried lethalI injection, firing squad, hanging. He survives it all. He's secured in our prison, but we'd prefer not to wait for old age. It takes three times the manpower to keep him in his cell."
"Yes, I can see why you'd want to execute him." Obi-Wan scratched his chin in thought. "I wonder what feats the Sith did to keep him alive in the first place. He survived a blast of the ship's exhaust fumes when he left to join the Sith."
"Yeah, just breathing those fumes would be lethal, not to mention the heat." Anakin added.
Anakin and Obi-Wan looked up to the empty chair at their table. Bail thought he could see a faint blue sparkle in his peripheral vision, but when he looked closer to it he saw nothing.
"Well, do you have any idea how Vader is surviving?" Anakin asked.
"Uh huh… Oh..." Obi-Wan seemed to hum along.
"Yes, that explains it." Anakin responded.
"I'm not getting any of this." Bail protested. "Who are you talking to?"
Obi-Wan opened his eyes in surprise. "It's Yoda's Force Ghost." A hand went out to wave over the empty chair.
Bail thought about questioning the sanity of the other two, then decided just to add another check to his tally of unexplainable Force stuff, and leave it be. He'd rather they not try to explain it. After raising a Force Sensitive, and working with Ahsoka for so many years, his tally was quite high. "And what does Yoda have to say about this?"
"During the old Sith wars, Sith were rarely captured. Most of the time it was Jedi who slayed them. The few times it wasn't, force nulls like yourselves needed to take extreme measures to cut off the prisoners' connection to the Force." Anakin nodded at 'Yoda' again. "Yes, the Mandalorians had a few ways that could do it."
"I've already talked to the Mandalorians. The last cell they had that could do that was lost transporting one Darth Maul to Coruscant," Bail shared.
"Hmm?" Obi-Wan hummed in thought.
"We could do it," Anakin offered.
Obi-Wan seemed to look conflicted, but said nothing.
"He'll still be vulnerable to a lightsaber strike, no matter what he tries. Arrange to transfer him to Dagobah, where we are holding Barris Offee, the Inquisitor's Seventh Sister."
"Would that be necessary?" Bail asked. "I know your healers won't want the juj of Force Energy upset by anything. That's why they requested a separate site." Bail knew his words were not exactly scientific, but he hoped they'd be understood anyway.
"The healers will have to take it into account. Besides we Jedi have a code for this sort of thing. If a sith were to be slain in battle, that was one thing. But an execution requires a couple of steps first. A trial, of sorts. When we are ready we will carry out the execution." Anakin explained.
He paused for a couple seconds, eyes glancing towards the empty seat.
Anakin turned suddenly and yelled, "Yes we could!" He put a hand up to block the ghost. "I don't want to hear it. No. You know what, maybe I will keep him alive for longer. Master Youlao is asking questions on the methods used to turn the inquisitors. Perhaps she could learn something from Vader."
"We'll get back to you on this." Obi-Wan said, and Bail ducked his head and turned to leave.
"Yeah, I thought that'd shut you up." Anakin yelled again.
Obi-Wan audibly sighed.
'Force mumbo jumbo,' Bail shook his head and thanked the Universe that he did not have to deal with this, and that his Mara was not talking to any invisible entities. Not yet, anyway!
Hello Again,
Now, I know a lot of stuff here is not from Canon. I think, in canon, a human Sith is just as vulnerable as another human-non Sith to things like poison, and blaster fire. But I am taking canon and stretching it for my purposes. Sideous did some Force stuff to keep Tel-Mac alive after the incident in chapter twenty four. Some of that is still having an effect. And the Blaster fire, Kylo Ren stopped a blaster shot with the Force. I know he's got skywalker blood, but all Tel-Mac did was deflect the shots. Since the Rebellion is not cutting his connection to the Force, he'd have no trouble doing this, I'd imagine.
Anyways, now naturally Yoda has a problem with them bringing a Sith into the Jedi camps. Even just a prison-camp, as they have on Dagobah. Yes, we're back there again. You'll have to wait and see if stubborn Yoda will have any sway against a Stubborn Skywalker.
And I don't think we've ever had a non-Force Sensitive witness to a Force Ghost chat, but I imagine it's like what I've got here. Poor Bail is shaking his head saying "They've lost it. They've finally lost it."
