Hero of Naboo Chapter 18 Preview

NOTE: Well, this is long overdue. All apologies for the day, but to celebrate the "Force of July," allow me to give you a taste of the near future. Full chapter will be done and posted in about a week. And may I say, its great to be truly back at this?

Yoda could feel it. The cacophony of emotions around him, his fellow Jedi Masters internally reacting to Vader's declaration: They needed to "clean house," both the Jedi and the Sith. What that entailed, few could deduce yet. The greatest feeling was confusion, often mixed in with outrage or dismissal. But there was curiousity. It was obvious to most that this moment, this meeting had been a goal of Vader's. The point of it was beyond them though. Was he here to attempting sow discord and doubt amongst their ranks? To sway Jedi to the Dark Side? Was he diverting their attention away from something else, a large scale slight of hand to obtain his true objective?

Yoda wondered if, ironically, the Sith wasn't simply telling the truth.

The Grandmaster would be the last to believe a Sith at face value, but he was old and experienced. There were certain things that were near impossible to fake, to pretend to feel, least of all to someone who truly felt as such. And if nothing else, he believe one claim Vader had made.

That the Sith Lord was tired.

While Yoda did think the Sith were wrong in their how they used the Force, among other things, he did accept the idea that they fully believed in their own twisted ideals. If he had a sympathy for one type of individual, it was those that tired after steadfast years of commiment to an ideal or goal. Vader would be hard pressed to change anyone's minds, but Yoda would hear his peace. One tired soul to another.

"How shall we begin, Jedi?" Vader prompted patently.

There was a tense pause before Ki-Mundi sat forward. "You stated you were tired, of being our excuse. Elaborate on that claim," he requested, stern yet curious.

Vader's shoulders almost seemed to sag at that. "Well, I shall ignore the truly ancient history, as none will ever be too sure of which side truly started this eternal feud of the Light and Dark sides. So I shall only tred back to one of your greatest hypocrisies: The Genocide of the Sith."

"Five thousand years isn't ancient?" Yarael asked in honest surprise.

"I can venture futher back if you truly desire," Vader offered in warning. "Tell me, Jedi. Can you claim for an instance that slaughtering the entire race of your  newly defeated enemy, down to the very children in their cribs is anything short of an act of extreme and paranoid fear?" Vader asked coldly, even as his own hated memories returned to him. Of the sand people, of the Jedi Younglings, and so many others.

"We did NOT kill children," Ki-Mundi retorted with a scowl. "If you're going to critize us, at least be factual."

"Do not bring up semantics, Jedi," Vader retorted coldly. "I would honestly not condemn the Jedi of the past for that action, if not for the fact that they and the Republic invaded as a joint force. The first Sith Empire was defeated, thoroughly, to the point of mass-suicide in its ranks. Yet, the Chancellor of the time decided that this was not enough, that victory was not enough. You may not have commited the worst of the autrocities of the Sith Holocaust, but you did stand by and worse, enabled it to occur."

"Unless you're claiming our own records are false, the Jedi of the time did every effort to capture the Sith alive," Yarael retorted, his head cocked slightly on his long neck.

"Jedi," Vader addressed him with something approching dryness. "Do not sit there and pretend that it is some how less paranoid, less cruel that this order spared Sith solely for the intent of severing their very connection to the force. Be it physically or culturally, the entire point of that campaign was to destroy the very existence of the Sith."

"Are you honestly say that wasn't your predecessor's goal?" Eeth Koth retorted. "That, if the Sith of Old had claimed victory, that the Republic and this order would not be destroyed?

"While genocide wasn't exactly one of the main goals of the Sith, I will not refute the spirit of your point," Vader admitted bluntly. "I just find it interesting that, where the two thrived in isolation and ignorance of one another, the first response between the Sith Empire and your Republic was quite telling: They gave war and yet, in return, who was it that gave unto them extinction?"

"The end of the Dark Side's corruption, to be accomplished, great measures were needed," Yoda point out gravely.

"Tell me something, Grand Master? Whom do you think think that justification, "liberating" the commonborn Sith from the Dark Side, was conjured up by? By the Supreme Chancellor Pultimo to justify to your predecssor why that counterinvasion was necessary? Or perhaps the reverse is true? That they gave it to him, allowing you the chance to wipe out everything that the Sith had built?" Vader pondered pointedly.

"Either way, its not exactly untrue."

Every head turned to the speaker, Qui-Gon giving his student a curious look as Obi-Wan shrugged under Vader's scruttiny.

"From a certain point of view, no matter how unthinkable it might be to consider in current times," the padawan added on, even if he felt a bit warry speaking amonst so many Master's. But this was the Jedi Order itself Vader was scutinizing, not just the master.

"How many Sith do you believe have tempted Jedi away with promise of "liberating them" from your beliefs and instituions, Padawan?" Vader rebutted without effort, Obi-wan wincing at the technically correct-comparison. "Regardless of if you believe it was justified or not, it is a fact that the Sith as a spieces and society were believed to be essentially extinct for many ages after that. Any notion of even non-hostility between the two sides was doomed with that single act."

"The Sith Empire conquered and enslaved entire planets, and would have done so again if left unchecked to reform," Windu countered with a stoney expression. "You cannot sit in judgement of our past, and ignore that such travesties were being commited in yours."

"And yet, your double standards are rather plain here, Master of the Order," Vader pushed on. "You claim it was for the benefit of saving and liberating others? A fine defense. There is just one, minute flaw in its design."

"What flaw can there be in saving the innocent?" Plo Koon asked skeptically.

Vader paused, his gaze shifting over the closest thing to allies he had in this room.

Qui-Gon felt a chill up his spine as he felt Vader's stare, realizing that Vader was excluding no one from this conversation.

"Jedi do not normally go around freeing slave."