EPILOGUE I
24 ABY
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Jann Tosh, male human, aged fifty-nine, former pilot and galactic adventurer, Royal Friend of the king of Tammuz-An, vanquisher of the dread space pirate Kybo Ren, proprietor of Gundarian Mining Company out of Tyne's Horky before it went bankrupt, and one-week graduate of the Imperial Space Academy before being shot in the spine and confined to a hoverchair, sucked in a deep breath and took a hefty gulp of Zairona ale from the varium tumbler on his desk. The walls of the studio surrounding him were veiled by curtains of deep, ocean-blue shimmersilk. A ribbon of white smoke made a twisting ascent from the cigarra in his free hand, mingling about the ceiling with the clouds puffed by Jann's guest.
Seconds passed, and the voice of his producer buzzed softly from the audio nub in his ear. "Okay, they liked it. Transmission approved—we are live."
Jann set the tumbler down, then gave a thumbs up and a wink to the dark-tinted window across the room. He'd been skeptical about taking on a producer so young and so inexperienced, to say nothing of his family history. On the other hand, only a crazy man would ignore an endorsement that came completely out of nowhere from Luke Fraggin' Skywalker. Sure enough, it had been the right decision. Ken knew his stuff, and he was a good kid.
Having duly appeased his corporate handlers, Jann began to speak, his eyes darting between his microphone, the holocams, and other pieces of equipment. His fingers threatened to break the cigarra in two, but he couldn't help himself. He was so excited for this show that he would be bouncing off the walls, if he weren't paralyzed from the waist down.
"All right, people. Here at Tosh Talks we've had the pleasure of having many, many beloved guests on the show, but this one, I promise, takes the quinberry cake." With a silent tap, he pulled up the introductory notes on his datapad. "A humble farmboy from the moon of Sulon, he graduated with honors from the Imperial Academy at Carida before the barbaric murder of his father moved him to defect to the cause of freedom and join the Rebel Alliance. As a Rebel agent, he's credited with acquiring the Death Star plans, setting the stage for a historic victory at the Battle of Yavin, and destroying the Empire's dark trooper project—and those are only the beginning of his exploits. To be perfectly honest, though, today's guest has no need of an introduction. His achievements and his reputation precede him." Jann Tosh's smile went from ear to ear as he finally let his eyes settle on the guest in question. "So I welcome... Jedi Master Kyle Katarn. And since he made me promise not to call him that again after the intro, I'll just say, Kyle, welcome to Tosh Talks. How are you doing?"
"I'm good, Tosh. It's great to be here," said Kyle Katarn, stroking his rich beard. To Jann's delight, he had accepted the offered cigarra—one of a premium brand exported by Procopia in the Tapani sector—and was exuding effusive amounts smoke into the studio, often in clouds but occasionally fashioning rings as well.
They spent a couple minutes on what people in the datacast business referred to as "soft talk." Katarn turned out to be an avid follower of Coruscanti shockball, and he had caught the game on Primeday. Jann Tosh always preferred to start the show with soft talk rather than diving into the main topic—assuming there was a main topic.
Not only did today's show have a main topic, but it was very far from being appropriate for beings of all ages and temperaments. Beginning with soft talk, then, was especially important.
Jann Tosh opened his mouth to wrap it up when he sensed it was time, but his guest beat him to it. "Yeah, well, we'll see how it goes for Waru's Warriors. Right now, though..." Kyle wedged the cigarra in the corner of his mouth at a sharp angle, and white smoke mushroomed from his face. "...there's something a lot more important for us to talk about."
Jann Tosh nodded pensively. "Yeah, you've come to set a story straight."
"Or two—and I'd like to thank you, again, for letting me use your show as a platform for this. I've picked up a lot of skills over the years, but HoloNet stuff, putting out a datacast episode, that's not one of 'em."
"Well, absolutely, Kyle. It's a great honor to have you on."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm here—"
"Okay, yeah. Yeah. We may as well get into it. We're here to talk about the late Crix Madine."
"Mm-hmm." The Jedi Master took another drag. "But it's really not about Madine so much as this kid Jek Torvis."
The laugh that Jann let out was more than little nervous. Despite having interviewed many exotic beings and discussed many far-out topics on his show, there were still things that seasoned datacasters were wary of even mentioning, and Jek Torvis was one of them. "Yeah, he's a... real piece of work, huh?"
"To put it generously, yeah." The cigarra in Kyle's mouth dipped partway. "Uh, how much does your audience know about this? 'Cause I don't wanna confuse any..."
Rapidly, Jann nodded and pushed aside his misgivings. It was impossible to stay uneasy. If Kyle Katarn was right there with him, he felt like he could take on the whole galaxy. "Mm, yeah, you're right. I know this is a main-hyperlane topic now, I mean it's even in the top five stories on NR Prime Newsgrid, but— Yeah, we'll start at the beginning, catch everybody up. This Torvis guy, he's a... well, a political commentator out of Bestine IV. Sort of a provocateur, really big on shock value, spinnin' up people's turbines."
"And he's an open, unapologetic Imperial sympathizer," Kyle put in. "To be clear, he's not one of those Pellaeon Imperials, that's one thing. This kid's old-school, wants the Old Order back, full-force—Galactic Emperor, Death Stars, World Devastators, you name it, and he's not shy about it."
"He's not shy about it at all. Y'know, uh, in case any listeners don't know, we mentioned he lives on Bestine, which is a New Republic world—"
"It's been Republic for fifteen standard years."
"—right, it has. Pretty barvy when you think about it. The way this guy talks, I mean, if you hate free speech and liberty and nonhumans so much, why wouldn't you go and live in the Remnant?"
"Hmph, you'd think that, but true Imperial patriots like this guy aren't really known for standing on principle," snorted Kyle Katarn. "Go figure."
"Well, we know there were Imperials with principles," Jann hastened to add, "and because of that they joined the right side, like you did."
Again his compliments bounced off of the honored guest like a low-power laser off a neutronium blast door. "Mm-hm. Speaking of sides, I'm not even convinced Jek Torvis has one. I'll bet he is genuinely an Imperial loyalist of some kind, but what you've got to keep in mind is that this guy's got an audience that he's catering to. Sentients love a spectacle, they love to be shocked, especially if life's not as glamorous for them as they want it to be. So when they find a personality on the HoloNet who aligns with them politically..."
"Hold on, hold on there, Kyle. You're saying Jek doesn't believe his own propaganda?"
Twin jets of smoke blew from the Jedi Master's nostrils, and Jann Tosh winced. He shouldn't have interrupted. His excitement had gotten the better of him.
"Look, I don't know. I may be a Jedi, but even if I was in the same room as him, it might not be so easy to sense what's really in his mind... though I guess I'll get a chance in the near future. What I'm trying to say is, he's got billions of people watching his show. Tens of billions. That's income, and unless he has a change of heart, decides to go make an honest living as a, I dunno, a shuttle attendant or something, he'll adjust his message to keep people interested. Keep those credits flowing into his account."
"He's gonna need those credits real soon," Jann couldn't help but add.
"Yeah, he is. Big time."
The Jedi Master paused for a few formidable puffs, and Jann Tosh took the opportunity for another big swig of Zairona ale. He needed to keep his nerves steady.
"To be clear, Kyle, right up front: I'm on your side, I fully support what you're doing, but as a matter of integrity I need to play Palpatine's advocate somewhat."
"Yeah, I get it."
"So, considering Jek is a New Republic citizen, and we are living under the Galactic Constitution and all that... Um, how do you defend your decision to sue this man, to take him to court? Because you've got to know, some beings—some of them Jek's supporters, yeah, but also plenty of regular people—they, they're saying that what you're doing is an attack on free speech. So how do you defend on that?"
The sight of the Jedi Master rolling his eyes almost made Jann's words stumble, but he stayed on target. Or so he thought.
Kyle leaned forward and said, "Well, we're gettin' ahead of ourselves again, Tosh. The fact is—"
"You're right, you're right. I'm sorry. How about, start with this: what did this guy do to make a Jedi Master file a lawsuit against him in a New Republic court?"
"Okay, look. This guy— I don't particularly care about him, one way or another. I don't know him, I didn't even know he existed until a month or two ago. I don't care if he's got some HoloNet show where he spends all day ranting about New Republic corruption and Jedi mind control and extragalactic invaders and Force-knows what else... Or fantasizing about the Emperor and Thrawn coming back to exterminate us all and bring order to the galaxy again." Kyle's bushy eyebrows knitted, his face hardening like crystalizing meltmassif. "I've actually met the people that Jek Torvis and his listeners idolize. Warlords and Dark Jedi, real Imperial hardliners, and compared to them... At the end of the day this guy is just playacting. As long as he doesn't break the law, he can do whatever he wants. I don't care if his HoloNet show makes him ten million credits so he can buy a luxury star yacht. Good for him."
"You've got him going now, boss," said Ken quietly. Jann could hear the smile on the kid's face. The same expression had captured his own.
Kyle Katarn leaned forward again. The intensity in his eyes matched the glow at the end of his cigarra. "But he crossed a line when he started producing this... this ridiculous docudrama series."
"Enemy Within: A True Story of the Rebellion," Jann said. "For the... For the benefit of the audience, this is a series Jek Torvis wrote and produced, and he claims it's a true story, by the way, it's not fiction, where he claims that Crix Madine was, was a serial pedophile."
He left off, wincing, almost cringing in his hoverchair, his earlier excitement largely deflated. After years of running a more than modestly succesful HoloNet datacast show, he'd finally gotten a Jedi Master into the studio, and not just any Jedi, but Kyle Katarn... only to have to talk about such a revolting topic. Even knowing this episode was sure to launch Tosh Talks's view count into deep space, it was a crying shame.
Kyle's voice tightened. "Yep. Not only that, but he says the entire Rebel hierarchy from the beginning was infested with people like that, and of course that it's the same thing with the Republic today. The whole system's run by predators, all conspiring together and covering for each other, and occasionally picking a fall guy to throw to the akk dogs, to keep the truth from getting out. That's what he said Crix Madine was: that a year or two after Yavin, High Command arrested him for sex crimes, then had him strangled in his cell so it'd look like he hung himself.
"And finally, he claims in this show that yours truly—me—that I stumbled across this conspiracy and tried to stop it. Along with my friend Jan Ors."
"No relation," Jann murmured.
"No relation."
"So— So he makes you the protagonist in this." It wasn't a question. Ahead of this interview, Jann had been obliged to watch the first few episodes of Enemy Within: A True Story of the Rebellion. Committed though he was to doing prep work and being prepared for his shows, it hadn't been easy. Even setting aside the inherently disturbing subject matter, Enemy Within was easily the hokiest, trashiest, most nakedly biased, and overall worst-written holodrama Jann had ever seen in his life—and he had sat through Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge. Even the dialogue and the acting was terrible: exaggerated beyond belief, impossible to take seriously. If he didn't know better, if it wasn't for Jek Torvis audaciously promoting it on his own show, Jann would have sworn it had to be a parody.
"Yeah, I'm the protagonist," said Kyle Katarn.
"But, but why would he do that? Why make you the hero? You're the man who made Yavin possible—"
"It wasn't just me."
"Okay, still, you helped save the Alliance and the New Republic multiple times. You defected from the Empire and everything. So why would he— I mean, I had to watch this skrag, at least some of it, so I could get the context for this interview, and this was bugging me, one of the things that was bugging me the whole time. What did he see in you, that he would try to use you as the hero for his anti-Rebel propaganda fantasy?"
Kyle leaned back in his chair. "Tosh, listen: if I had a decicred for every question I couldn't answer..." Both men chuckled. "If I had to guess, it's probably something to do with that, how I used to be an Imperial. Maybe also the fact that I was a merc, not quite in with the Rebel chain of command, if you know what I mean. Made me darker, more mysterious..." He waved a hand. "I dunno. I'm not a writer, and I was never much into holodramas. But you don't have to be a genius to see that the whole point of this dreckload is to make the Rebel leadership look bad. To make like everyone was secretly a bunch of predators and faggots..."
Jann Tosh's eyes widened, his face stricken, but his guest did not seem to notice. "Bleeped that out, don't worry about it," Ken assured soothingly. "He needs to watch it, though."
The kid was good, quick on the draw, but that was cold comfort. Jann had a bad feeling that this moment would come back to bite him in the exhaust port in the near future, as soon as somebody sliced it out of context and hosted it elsewhere on the HoloNet. Would he have to make some kind of a statement?
"...so it didn't really matter who he picked. That is, from his perspective."
Jann shook his head and decided it was a good thing to worry about later. "But it matters to you. To the... To the real people affected by this," he said, reaching for his tumbler again. "Because it does affect people, it affects real people negatively, even if it is obviously bolshit."
"It is bolshit, but you're right: people lap it up anyway. That's why Jek Torvis has got the following that he does. There's a market out there for extremism, and for crazy stories like this—folks who'll believe anything you tell 'em, so long as it lines up with whatever they already think, and so long as it's entertaining."
"But that's the thing: who'd find this entertaining? Like, even if this was totally made-up—if all the names were changed, and it wasn't set in a real historical period, if it was presented as fiction—why would anyone even write this? I mean, this is a million-credit production. It's garbage, but it's expensive, and these things take time to produce, you've got to hire actors and everything, and it... It's this horrible story about sex crimes and child abuse, conspiracies and cover-ups, it's just so depressing. You said about entertainment, but you— You've got to have something wrong with you to want to spend your time thinking about stuff like this."
Jann huffed out a breath, then brought the cigarra to his lips. He'd been neglecting it for a few minutes. It pleased him that Kyle had been nodding at him the whole time he'd been talking.
"Yep. Yeah, you're absolutely right," said the Jedi Master. "Let me tell you something: I've flown from one end of this galaxy to the other. There are a lot of dark forces out there, and... I mean, you don't need me to tell you that, and neither do your viewers. All of us lived through it. Thrawn and Palpatine's clones, Shadowspawn, Galak Fyyar, the Ragnos cultists, the other Imperial warlords. The Ssi-ruuk and the Black Fleet, all those guys, and the Shadow Academy threat last year... Dark forces are out there, all right, and by now I think we've just about seen the worst of it. Us Jedi, guys like me and especially Skywalker, I know people look up to us like we're some kinda higher species or something, but the truth is we don't stay alive and healthy by fixating on that dark stuff all the time, day in and day out. It's the same for Force-users as anyone else. Those things affect you, so yeah: anyone who'd be entertained by the kind of stuff in this so-called documentary, there is something messed up about them, for sure."
"Maybe tractor it back in," Ken suggested in the lull that followed.
Jann nodded and took another drink. "Right, for sure, but back to the lawsuit. This is basically about defamation, right? Because he's saying a ton of skrag about you that's not true, that's got no basis in history at all."
"Practically none," Kyle said with a reluctant air. "The thing about propagandists and grapple hook-spinners like this Torvis guy is, they always include some truth in with their lies to disguise it, so that when other people take a look at the facts, it will seem on the surface like they support the propaganda. So the facts are, Crix Madine and I did work together at Vergesso, setting up an Alliance SpecForce training unit there before the Empire destroyed it after Hoth. Crix was stationed on Kolaador for a while too, but that's basically it. All the records about those facilities were declassified years ago. Anyone can read them, and anyone who bothers to isn't gonna find one kriffing shred of evidence incriminating him—"
"Not that that matters to anyone who wants to believe that all the Rebels were sex predators," Jann interjected.
"Right, exactly. If you want a lesson in futility, just log onto the HoloNet and spend a couple hours arguing with these people. Try to show them the facts. Nothing you say will matter. They'll just claim all the evidence against Madine and the rest of them was scrubbed and is hidden away somewhere, so the declassified data doesn't count."
"So their claims are unfalsifiable."
"Yep, unfalsifiable. Like everything else. You can't prove this bantha crap didn't happen, therefore it did. Just like you can't prove the Rebels had no access to Spaarti cloning cylinders twenty years ago, so it's reasonable to believe that they did."
"Wait, Spaarti cylinders? What's that all about?"
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "How much of the holo did you watch?"
"Only a couple episodes," Jann admitted. "I wasn't gonna sit through twenty standard hours of that crap. Are you kidding me?"
"Well, then you missed out on all the big plot twists and reveals," said the Jedi Master, deadpan. "You see, after Madine was 'suicided,' the Rebellion waited a year until everyone forgot about the controversy, and replaced him with a clone in time for Endor... and that's the Crix Madine who was killed by Durga the Hutt."
Jann stared at him.
"Yes, really. That's in there. As for my story, I came this close to exposing the conspiracy, but the Rebels had me killed and replaced with a clone too." At long last the Jedi Master smiled, and even looked aside into one of the holocams. "So I've got bad news for you, Tosh. You didn't land an interview with Kyle Katarn. We'll have to apologize to your listeners!"
Ken's hysterical laughter carried through his booth's window as well as blasting full-force into Jann Tosh's ear, but even he had to laugh through the pain. "Oh, Flandon's Teeth," he wheezed when their hilarity had subsided.
"Yeah, it's Kyyle Katarn," added Ken, giggling.
The Jedi Master's seriousness returned. "So to get back on course again, this is about defamation, but it's way bigger than that. Like I said, I never knew about Jek Torvis, and I couldn't care less if he talks skrag about me on the HoloNet. I've gotten worse from real Imperials than he could ever dish out. I'm not doing this for me."
Jann fought down his enthusiasm enough to take another perfunctory shot from the other side. "I understand that, Kyle, and... Uh, well, this is just me being Palpatine's advocate again, but Torvis's supporters and, and more importantly even a few actual Republic journalists have questioned that. You've already said on the public record that you want to financially annihilate this person—your exact words, annihilate. You've got to understand, that's kind of confusing to the casual viewer: for a Jedi, you know, to sue somebody and to use that kinda language about it and all. I mean, especially the fixation on credits and making him pay and all that..."
Kyle held up a hand. His cigarra was down to a quarter length by now, and the room had grown a bit hazy. "Yeah, okay, I was a little angry when I made that statement. You're right, I am a Jedi, and maybe it doesn't look all nice and clean. But the fact is, I'm not doing this for revenge, and it's sure as hell not to get rich."
"Mm-hm. Before you go on, I want the listeners to know, everything you get from this guy—"
"Every last credit is going straight to the Rimward Refugee Foundation, for resettling species that were displaced by the Empire."
"Yeah, it's a great cause. Not a sponsor, but I highly encourage my viewers to support them."
"Yeah, it's good, it's good. So I'm not doing this because I want this guy's credits. I don't need them." Kyle Katarn set his jaw, and in that moment Jann Tosh knew down to his bones that this was a man he would follow into battle—hoverchair be damned.
"I'm doing this," declared the Jedi Master, "for Crix. He was a hero for the galaxy, and he gave his life to help destroy the Darksaber and stop Durga the Hutt, and it's disgusting that he's being dragged through the mud like this, when he's not even alive to defend himself. Same thing with Mon Mothma..."
"Passed away just this year."
"...Mon Mothma, and a lot of other Rebel leaders that are defamed in this holo-garbage. They gave everything to stop the Empire and restore the Republic, and now this... This playacting punk, this cultist, is using the very same freedom and protection that they won back for the galaxy to slander them and try to destroy their reputations? Frack no, I'm not gonna stand for that." Decisively, Kyle Katarn ground the nub that remained of his cigarra into the little tray on the desk. "You mess with them, you mess with me."
Through the tinted window off to the side, Jann could just barely see Ken clapping in his booth.
"And as for freedom of speech," Kyle went on, "lots of beings don't actually know what that means. What it doesn't mean is that you get to spread lies about innocent people and try to ruin them, and rewrite history according to your deluded fantasies. It's not like I'm trying to have this guy arrested, or hunting him down and threatening him with my lightsaber, for kriff's sake."
"Right, right. I get you."
"Besides... What does free speech even mean to a guy like this? Just watch this holo-series, or pick any episode of his show, listen for ten standard minutes about the stuff he claims to believe in." Kyle snorted, crossing his arms. "Shadowy Rebel conspiracies. Hidden invaders poised on the edge of the galaxy, and no one can stop them except Palpatine's and Thrawn's clones, who'll come back any day now to take charge of the Empire and save us all, like they wanted to from the very beginning... Give me a break."
"Yeah, no kidding."