Power and Betrayal: Chapter 24

"The Advocate for the Accused has made his defense." Gwyniss said, formally. "The Tribunal Council will take the remainder of the day to review the collective evidence and testimony, and we will re-convene tomorrow morning to begin the Council's Examination and render a verdict. Until then, the rest of you are dismissed."

As everyone began filing out of the room, Kinnan breathed a sigh of relief . . . but of relief that was only for the moment. He'd prepared his case well and presented it expertly, but didn't count on Dianiss' own father being allowed to act as his opponent. The worry that he couldn't shake came from the knowledge that bringing him here for this trial was obviously Galadina's doing--it neatly explained why she hired the Twi'lek pilot's ship for a "classified" job immediately after their return from Malachor.

He'd defended her just as expertly, leaving his case more uncertain than he'd thought possible when he began and not at all the air-tight, open-and-shut affair he'd expected it to be.

To make matters worse, the Master Justice had promised to give Galadina a chance to make a final plea before making her decision. If Galadina had gone to all of that trouble to make sure Dianiss would have the kind of vigorous defense that she got, she obviously would be using that plea opportunity to sway the Justices towards an acquittal.

That was simply unacceptable.

He had plans for Dianiss, after all.

But at least now, amidst all of this worry, he could take a small solace in the fact that his job was now finished as the Advocate for the Accuser, and that he could finally get back to studying the mystery of the shattered holocron. Whatever happened in the trial from here on was probably beyond his control, depending on how much questioning the Justices would direct at him.

As he finished gathering his things, he heard Gwyniss speak up.

"Miss Kariharra, before you leave, I'd like a word."

"Am I in trouble?" Kari asked in response.

"Let's say for the moment that you ARE in trouble," Gwyniss answered, "...but there is a delicate matter that I need to address, and I believe you are uniquely in a position to assist--in which case all will be forgiven if you do." She looked up to both Kinnan and Zarvell. "I would like both Advocates to remain as well. You both should be aware."

As the three of them approached her, Kari was the first to speak up. "So what is this delicate matter that you need my help with, and how much does the job pay?"

"As you would probably expect," Gwyniss began, ignoring Kari's comment about pay. "Sith who are pronounced guilty rarely take the verdict lying down, particularly if a capital sentence is handed down. The more powerful ones can make it quite difficult to safely carry out the sentence. Of course, we do have measures in place to assist, but given the evidence and testimony that have been presented, I fear those measures may not be enough."

"So what is it you are suggesting?" Zarvell asked.

"The Accused's evidence submission included medical log data confirming that the Accused was being held in a medical coma at the time the charges were filed, and remained so up until very shortly before she surrendered herself into custody. I presume this is why you did not make an issue of her alleged fugitive status, Master Sig-lapp...?"

Kinnan nodded his head in agreement.

"So my request for Miss Kariharra here, is this: How did you do that, and can you--purely as a precautionary measure--do that again until after the verdict is rendered? The . . . ahem, PAY . . . associated with this request is that I will not be filing any contempt charges and you will not have to spend any time incarcerated in a Republic detention center."

The next morning, things convened much like they had the two days prior, with the notable exception that there was no holo-projection of Dianiss hovering above the center of the room like there had been before.

Gwyniss explained to all present that the Accused had been sedated as a precautionary measure, in light of the testimony that had been given about her extraordinary power--and in particular her extraordinary ability to resist most forms of biological attack thanks to the survival instincts of her Sith ancestor.

With that, Gwyniss formally reconvened the proceeding and began the Council's Examinations.

Master Annanya went first, asking a few clarifying questions to both Advocates, but their answers didn't reveal anything new or controversial. She also recalled Master Casei for questioning, primarily to put a few pertinent facts on the record about the progression of Dianiss' training from youngling to Initiate, to Padawan Consular, and eventually to a full Jedi Sage assigned to the Jedi Medical Corp's Hazardous Duty & Combat Division. Anya finished up her questions by turning to the subject of Dianiss' capture on Ilum.

"Casei, when Dianiss's mind had been taken over by Darth Nox's influence, you and I--and Dina--were part of the task force sent to intercept her and bring her back. That's on record."

"Yes we were." Casei replied.

"And when we arrived on Ilum at the site of her crashed ship, you pronounced her dead on the scene, is that right?"

"Yes I did. She was not breathing, had no pulse, and I couldn't feel her presence in the Force, even when physically touching her. I tried to revive her, but it didn't work."

"But you were able to revive her then, weren't you?"

"Yes. She was definitely dead, but there was something . . . wrong about it. There was still a life force present, one that was not HER and that was not fading away. After Major Kendsel told us about his vision where I would revive her, I went in search of a way . . . and . . . found one."

"You did revive her, but you also spent a few weeks in recovery as a result of what you did--and almost lost your own life in the process. Why did you do that? You could have just left her the way she was, and that would have accomplished the objective of preventing the Empire from capturing her."

"Well, I guess Ken's vision gave me some confidence. Plus, Dianiss was my Padawan. It just didn't seem right not to even TRY. She's a handful at times--most of the time, actually--but she's still a credit to the Order."

"Thank you, Casei. I have no more questions."

Master Satele went next, and added a few more clarifying questions of her own. She also probed Kinnan on the reasons for the expedition to Malachor, and what he hoped to gain. He explained his theories about Darths Nihilus, Traya, and Scion; and the similarities between Nihilus and the current Sith Emperor. Malachor V was originally their base of operations, and there were records showing that after Traya had trained the Jedi Meetra Surik to defeat Nihilus, she returned there. It stood to reason--and in fact it was confirmed because they saw and heard it--that Darth Traya would have preserved this knowledge in a holocron at the place she studied and trained.

But Satele's final questions were for Lord Zarvell. "Lord Zarvell, I am asking you these questions as the Accused's father now rather than her Advocate. When Dianiss was eight years old, you arranged to have her and her brother Zedemm defect to the Republic and come to the Jedi Order. Why exactly did you do that?"

"I am an expert in Sith behaviour." he responded. "I should think that I can assert, without fear of any objection, that among all of the people in this room that I am THE foremost expert on the Sith."

Kinnan made a contemptuous face but remained silent.

"Among the Sith, there is a continuous struggle for power. The challenge is in accumulating and maintaining a support structure that is as powerful as possible, but not so much so that one's underlings are in a position to overthrow the master. So when someone like young Annie comes along who promises to be absolutely extraordinary, the Sith do not . . . CANNOT . . . train her normally. Instead, the 'training' . . . if you can call it that . . . of someone more powerful than the master is focused entirely on asserting dominance by establishing and maintaining the tightest possible control over her. Rather than being allowed to experience life and the freedom that being a Sith promises, the very powerful ones are--at the earliest age possible--enslaved, destroyed, turned into mindless weapons, sacrificed in order to power ancient devices of destruction, . . . or much, much worse."

"So you believed that this was the life that was in store for her if she remained in the Empire?"

"I more than believed it, I had uncovered evidence that her mother explicitly planned to destroy her in order to fuel her own lust for increased power. Indeed, it was Sianid's sole reason for conceiving and giving birth to her. Annie would never have grown up at all had I not intervened."

"The Accuser has made the claim that she could be in league with the Emperor, or some Imperial faction. Do you think this is the case?"

"Of course not. Set aside, for the moment, that I am both her father and her legal advocate. For her to be in league with any Sith faction--the Starlight Sith excepted, of course--is completely incompatible with how the Sith deal with the extremely powerful. The unusually-powerful young Sith have three choices. They can assert their dominance immediately, which the training system proactively does not allow. They can attempt to hide their abilities, which the screening system is quite efficient at preventing. The third and by far the most common path is to be trampled under foot. Annie is among the rarest of the rare for having successfully realized a fourth option: escape. NONE of these options allow such a person to thrive within the Empire nor rise to a level of prominence that would attract the attention of the Dark Council--let alone the Emperor."

"Thank you, Lord Zarvell." Satele said. "I have no other questions."

When it was Gwyniss' turn, she spent the majority of her time on procedural questions, questions about the relevance of any evidence submissions that had not been covered in the trial, and confirmation of what each Advocate recommended be done after the trial. Zarvell, of course, had reiterated his call for a full acquittal and restoration of all rank and responsibilities. Kinnan recommended incarceration until a method could be found that permanently separated the Force apparition of Aloysius Kallig from Dianiss.

"Master Sig-lapp, you DO understand that this is highly irregular? The Republic is in a state of war right now, so a conviction for being a Sith would normally carry a sentence of either Force Severance or capital punishment. Why is it, for the record, that you are not seeking either of these?" she asked.

"Master Justice, as you said, this is highly irregular." Kinnan responded. "The danger that the Accused poses to the Jedi Order and to the Republic is not because of her actions per se--it is the magnitude of her power and the risk of that power being abused. Being at war aside, she is not guilty of any Republic crime--as the Grand Master was once quick to point out--so an execution serves no purpose at all. Severance, on the other hand, is a tricky proposition. It's unclear without further research whether or not such a thing is possible without doing more harm than good. There is ample evidence already that suppressing HER connection to the Force will only make her LESS capable of controlling the Sith spirit. Instead, the Force Severance must be directed at the Sith. The problem is: right now, we don't know for sure HOW to do that . . . but given time and research we will. Until then, we DO have ONE facility capable of containing Sith Lords this powerful--like the Dread Masters--but the Republic would require a conviction for us to be able to use a place like Vault 914. That's the reason I'm calling for a verdict of guilty and recommending this particular sentence."

"I understand." Gwyniss replied, and turned to Galadina. "Jedi Galadina, before this trial began, I made a commitment to allow you the opportunity to speak at this time. As I said then, I will give your opinion here a great deal of weight--provided that it is based on reason and not bias. So . . . you have the floor. If you were serving as a Justice in this case, how would you rule, and why?"

Kinnan tried his best to suppress a smile, and didn't quite succeed.

"Thank you, Master Justice." Galadina said as she stood up to address the Council.

"Since this trial began, I've been struggling with what exactly to say at this point, and how I would decide this case impartially if I served as a Justice. I want to do the right thing, both for Dianiss and for the Jedi Order, and no matter how many different ways I consider it, I keep circling back to this essential truth: Master Justice, you were right. I am not capable of being impartial here.

"The truth is that for almost a year now I've been connected to Dianiss in a way that I never imagined was possible. We've heard testimony from both sides about how powerful she is, and about her ability to keep her power under control. We've even heard a little about what kind of person she is. But to me, none of that matters.

"What we have NOT heard in this hearing is anything about WHAT she is, and I'm sure that's because no one really knows. I doubt that even SHE could describe it very well herself--if the rules permitted her to testify.

"But I know. I know because I can feel her. The intimacy of this connection we have is like nothing that I've never experienced. My gosh, EVEN NOW, I can feel her. She's not even on-planet, there's hundreds of thousands of kilometers of space separating us, and she's unconscious--but I can STILL feel her. And when she's awake and in the same room with me, it's like it doesn't really matter who else is there. I actually have to concentrate to block her out because when she's there she just outshines everyone else. You ALL know what I'm talking about--she has this . . . charisma about her that goes beyond personality. And because of this connection I have with her, I'm a thousand times more sensitive to it than any of you here are. Her every thought, her every desire, her every hope and dream; it's all there continuously bombarding me.

"But that doesn't matter either.

"What matters is that I can feel HIM too, Lord Kallig. He's always there, an endlessly erupting volcano of rage and spite and malice and he is always . . . ALWAYS pounding and clawing at the edges of that girl who is his prison trying to find a way to break free--and he can't. It fuels his rage even more. And because of that, I can feel him constantly pounding and clawing at me too, because *I* am one of the things found at the edges of his prison. He can't get to me--I don't have the right DNA, after all, not even close--but that doesn't stop him from trying because . . . he has nothing better to do and no reason at all not to try.

"...and so I find myself wondering: Will he always be contained? Will he eventually figure out a way to get loose, either by breaking that connection between him and her or by taking control of her . . . again?

"I do know that he'll try. He'll try every moment of every day and every night until he succeeds, and that's a risk. It's a risk that only grows as time goes on. We already know that the risk is NOT zero. He DID succeed once and we only barely got her back. I also know that he DOES affect her. He DOES influence her. I can feel that too.

"She should never have been burdened with this curse. But we can't go back and change that. All we can do is deal with the here and now. If she's a Sith, then the choice is obvious. If she's a Jedi--TRULY a Jedi--then she should fully understand the sacrifice that's needed to put others before herself.

"So that is why, in this case, I have to recommend a verdict of guilty and..."

The gasps all around the room would have been audible had they not been drowned out by Kari's voice screaming out "WHAT?!?"

"...and a sentence of lifetime imprisonment."

"Dina!" Zarvell said, the surprise evident in his voice.

Kari's blue skin turned pale and the black stripes on her lekku darkened. The look in her eyes was pure, wild, hatred. "E CHU TA!!!" she yelled out and lunged at Galadina faster than anyone could react.

She didn't have any weapons, but managed to get close enough to land a hard kick to Dina's right thigh, causing her to wince in pain, and follow up with a hard punch to Dina's gut, knocking the wind out of her.

Gwyniss was already igniting her lightsaber and shouting to the Jedi Guard to intervene as Kari used the brief moment of Dina being stunned to get both hands around Dina's neck and simultaneously kick at Dina's other leg which now had all her weight on it, trying to knock her down onto the floor.

But Dina was already reacting and was able to spin around, swinging Kari around at the same time and using the motion to add to her attacker's momentum so that Kari was the one who lost her balance and fell past the spot where Dina had been, losing her grip on Dina's neck. This gave Dina the opening she needed to catch Kari's right arm at the elbow and wrench it behind her back.

Kari fell to the floor, face-first, and Dina allowed herself to fall at the same time in a way that she landed on Kari's back with Kari's right arm pinned under her knee. Dina followed up by grabbing Kari's lekku--one in each hand--and yanking back hard in a way that forced Kari's head into an awkward angle that prevented her from easily rolling over or seeing what was going on around her.

"LET GO OF ME YOU FRANGING HUTT-SPAWN!!!" Kari yelled out, suddenly aware that she couldn't move. When she did try to move, Dina's grip on her lekku got tighter and VERY painful. Evidently Dina had found the right area to grab where the lekku were fairly sensitive.

That's when Kari saw the bright blue light of someone's lightsaber (she couldn't quite see whose) suddenly appear right in front of her eyes. It was so close that it blocked out her already limited view of the floor immediately in front of her, and bright enough that she had to close her eyes.

A second later she felt another hand (not Dina's, it was definitely bigger) grab her left forearm to hold her wrist still, followed by the cold metal of a set of cuffs being clamped around it. Big-hands then pulled her left arm up and behind her back, at which point Dina softened the hold she was using to pin Kari to the floor just enough that Big-hands could cuff her right wrist too.

"Take her out of here." Gwyniss instructed in an authoritative tone. "I want her in a cell down in the Hole until I call for her."

Once Kari had been taken out of the room, Dina stood and dusted herself off. "I'm sorry about that, Master Justice."

"Don't apologize." Gwyniss replied. "You handled the situation expertly."

"Thank you. But as I was saying, I recommend a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, because Dianiss IS a danger to both herself and others around her, and it's the most merciful option open to us. The only real problem is actually containing her, and as Master Sig-lapp mentioned, there's only one facility in the Republic capable of doing that: Belsavis Vault 914, the place that until recently held the Dread Masters. There, she can remain unconscious and unaware, and she won't be putting anyone else at risk."

There was a long, tense silence before anyone else spoke, and Zarvell was staring daggers at Galadina for the duration of it.

"Well, then..." Gwyniss said. "I thank you for your candor, Master Galadina, and I see that my worries were misplaced. I believe you will make an excellent member of the High Council, and I will be voting accordingly."

The knock on the door was unexpected, especially considering the late hour.

What was even MORE unexpected, though, was who was waiting on the other side.

"Master Galadina." Kinnan said, sounding almost like he was asking a question.

"Master Sig-lapp. I hope I'm not disturbing you. I know it's late, but I promise I won't be long."

"Well, no, it's fine." he answered, still not sure what was happening. "But I'm not sure that we should be meeting in private, considering that the trial isn't over yet."

"Actually, I checked with Master Jethos, and she told me that now that the evidence phase is completed it's permitted."

"Um . . . okay." he answered as she entered the room and closed the door behind herself. "So . . . what brings you here?" he asked.

"Well, I'd like to offer you a deal. After what happened on Malachor, I think we can help each other."

"Did Zarvell send you? I'm not going to drop the charges."

"No. I am most definitely NOT here to help Dianiss, and the LAST thing I'd want you to do right now is drop the charges."

"Then why ARE you here?"

"Suppose I had a way of recovering the data from the holocron that we lost on Malachor. What would that information be worth to you?"

Kinnan just stood unable to answer, and having trouble figuring out what was even happening.

"Maybe we should sit down." he finally said.

"I know you've been studying the fragments. I'm sure by now you've discovered that something is . . . off about them. I know the reason why, and I'm willing to share that information with you . . . in good time . . . but I want something in return. So I'll ask you again: What would that information be worth to you?"

"I think you already know. It's my life's work to find a way to permanently defeat the Emperor. Three hundred years ago, Darth Traya posed as a Jedi so that she could train Meetra Surik--the so-called 'Exile'--to defeat Darth Nihilus when he'd become so powerful that he could destroy all life on an entire planet."

"Katarr." she said, interrupting.

"What?"

"It wasn't just a planet. It was Katarr. My people lived there and my entire race was almost wiped out by Darth Nihilus . . . as collateral damage."

"Yes . . . of course." he said, finally understanding why there was such steel in her voice just then. "I'm sorry. I meant no disrespect." he added.

"Thank you." she responded. "But go on."

"Well...our best intelligence about the Emperor indicates that he, too, is willing and able to do the same thing somewhere else, and right now we have no idea how to stop him. If you're saying that there's another holocron...?"

"That's not what I'm saying."

"Then . . . ?"

"Then here's what I'm going to do: I will help you get Dianiss convicted, but ONLY if you insist that she be imprisoned on Belsavis, where the Dread Masters were held. Once she's safely contained there, THEN . . . I will tell you what I know and help you recover the data from the holocron. I can promise you that you WILL have it, ALL of it, at the proper time.  Do we have a deal?"

"I don't understand. Why are you doing this? I thought the two of you were friends."

"Oh, no." Dina replied, shaking her head. "Dianiss and I are NOT friends. We never were. But I'm attached to her against my will in this very weird way and I want it to stop. I NEED it to stop. It's killing me. Putting her there in that over-engineered stasis chamber is the only way."

"Okay, so how are we going to recover the holocron?"

"I'll explain all of that when the time comes. Do we have a deal?"

"Well, it does sound like a win-win to me--which forces me to ask: What's the catch?"

"There's no catch." Dina answered. "There WILL be a price to be paid to recover the prize, but as you said: this is your life's work we're talking about . . . and I'm pretty sure that the actual method was your idea in the first place. Do we have a deal?"

Kinnan was still a little confused, but his hesitation was brief. "I think we do."

Continue to Chapter 25 . . . .