• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“True.”

“Or to the Sith. The Force talks to the Sith, too, doesn't it?”

Luke blinked. “The dark side of the Force, yes.”

“You didn't say your Jedi was only listening to the bright side—”

“Light side.”

“Yes, thank you. You just said the Force. But let's stipulate that the good Force is the only one our hypothetical Jedi listens to. It still suggests maiming an awful lot of the time.”

“Hardly a life sentence of disfigurement and handicap. Modern prosthetics are indistinguishable from flesh and bone.” He held up his own prosthetic hand, waggling its fingers at her, as evidence.

“Though they have to be paid for by someone—often the state, when the amputee is of the lower classes—and then maintained, at a cost in credits and technical skill in excess of the upkeep of an ordinary flesh-and-blood arm.”

“Granted.” Luke suppressed an impatient sigh. “Is that what the suit is about, then? A perception that arms are being cut off at a higher rate than the government recommends?”

“No, it's about the Jedi giving a cursory statement to law enforcement and then leaving. Or dashing off without giving one at all. Or just refusing to answer one crucial question the investigating officer asks. And, in every case, getting away with it.”

“I still don't understand, then.”

“I'll walk you through it. The officers show up and ask questions, the Jedi gives a fifty-word statement, the officers say, ‘Thanks, now we need to go back to the neighborhood station for a full statement,’ the Jedi says, ‘Sorry, I have places to be,’ and he's gone. Did the Jedi respond with appropriate force? You think so, but at the government level we never learn, because a short while later he's on Commenor dealing with an organized crime family, then in the Hapes Cluster …”

“Usually the Jedi does make a full statement. Does cooperate to whatever degree the local authorities require.”

“Usually, yes. I have a report here of a Jedi Knight named Seff Hellin who assaulted law officers just a few weeks ago. Whatever he needed to rush off to do, he never came back to offer full cooperation to the authorities. Did he?”

Luke suppressed the urge to fidget. He found himself wishing that Nawara Ven were here, though Daala was herself not being backed up by an advocate. “I can see how incomplete reports and investigations would be frustrating to the government. But you have to trust that we made the right choice at the right time. It's what we're trained to do.”

The smile she turned on him was as frosty as anything Luke had seen in the snowy outback of Hoth. “I do, do I? We'll get back to that. Grand Master, the hypothetical incident I described shows at a very minor, very frequent level that the Jedi are above the law.”

“Not true. Anyone in the bar situation you described could have intervened with lethal force to save the victim from his beating.”

“And then would have been obliged to make a full report, and stay in contact until the investigation was resolved. The Jedi don't respect that law, or any law they find inconvenient. And the choice to sever the arms comes dangerously close to a judicial sentence being enacted at the time of the intervention. Judge, jury, executioner: Jedi.”

“I'm sorry you have that impression.” Luke frowned. “I'd come here hoping that I could persuade you to drop the case. But now I'm wondering whether I should go through the whole trial just to demonstrate to the public that we do cooperate with the authorities. That we don't consider ourselves above the law.”

Daala nodded, her expression agreeable. “Let's talk about Kyp Durron.”

“Master Durron is a fine, responsible Jedi.”

“I'm not talking about the Jedi he is now. I'm talking about the teenager who destroyed most of the life in the Carida system all those years ago.”

Luke, his composure no longer entirely intact, shifted uncomfortably. “He was under the influence of the dark side of the Force at that time, affected by the mental sendings of a long-dead Sith Lord. And in the years since, he has proven himself to be courageous, a defender of