The Weaving Force: Chapter 82 (Patreon)

Chapter 82:

Taylor:

“Alright…” I took a deep, slow breath, gathering myself, staring out at the twenty High Council members gathered here now to… judge me.. “Let’s talk then.”

“As I said…” There was a note of hesitation in Master Billaba’s voice, as though she might wonder if I misunderstood. “You’ve been accused, by Master Rancisis, of wielding the dark side of the Force during the battle of Ilum… his account has been partially corroborated by several others who sensed this disturbance in the Force during the battle. How do you respond to these accusations.”

“I understood,” I said, not quite snapping, though my voice certainly edged on the wrong side of curt, “but this is already starting out in a very bad way because there’s only three ways to respond: He says I did. I say, ‘No, I didn’t,’ and as you said you already have partial corroboration, so I’m boxed into the outcomes of ‘I’m wrong’  or ‘I’m lying’ with that version. Or, I say, ‘I did,’ in which case I pretty much admit to the accusation and this is all just theater from here on out. So, like I said: Let’s talk.”

I felt Vicky sitting next to me. She was quiet, but she was growing nervous, worried. I didn’t blame her. This probably wasn’t the way to ‘win people over’, but I usually had just one instinct when I was feeling cornered. Attack.

And right now… I was feeling pretty damned cornered.

“This is not one of your crecherooms, Hebert,” Master Sora Bulq sneered. One of the latest members, appointed when the Council found the need to expand its number from the traditional twelve to twenty, given the needs of the war.

The Weequay’s already wrinkly features became even more pronounced with that unflattering expression on his face. “You will address this Council with the respect we are due.”

I offered a shrug. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what happened to me on Ilum.”

“Master Hebert, do not feign ignorance. You were perfectly cognizant and aware during the entire event.” Master Mundi argued, frowning where he sat.

“I’m not,” I said, turning to Rancisis. “You say I fell to the dark side. I don’t know. I’ve never fallen to the dark side before, so I’ve hardly got first hand experience in telling you what it’s like.”

The serpentine Master met my gaze. “But answer me this; you were angry, were you not?”

“I was. Are you gonna say you weren’t?” I bit back. “Six kids nearly beaten to death! Are you seriously gonna sit there and tell me you felt nothing? That no one should feel anything!”

Another new Master on the Council, a Nikto named Auset, snorted. “The Jedi Code calls for releasing those emotions into the Force for a reason. You’d know this if you ever bothered to properly learn it,” he said with pointed accusation.

“I do find it hard to believe any Jedi would find it so easy to detach themselves so thoroughly and impeccably as you suggest she should have, Master Auset,” Obi-Wan cut in, seated with one leg crossed over the other, fingers forming a loose cage over his chest. He kept his eyes closed, not looking at anyone in the room. “In fact, if I recall from Master Rancisis’ report, part of the reason he was unable to defeat the fallen Knight Cirvan was due to his own inability to focus, given his worry for the Padawans that he, himself, held.”

Auset’s lip curled, but it was Master Piell who picked up the argument for him.

“Don’t give false equivocations,” the smaller master glared at Obi-Wan. “Worry and concern is one thing, yes. But rage - moreover, losing yourself to it - is entirely another.”

I’ll admit, it surprised me when Vicky chimed up beside me. “Is it?” she asked, and just by the tone in her voice I could recognize a trap she was laying. “I thought all emotion was supposed to be released into the Force. That is what some of you preach, isn’t it?”

Piell turned his glare onto her. “It is not some. It is the Code. The bedrock of the entire Order. And both Hebert and yourself, Master Dallon, have flaunted and dismissed those teachings long enough that we can finally see in your example why they were placed there in the first place.”

“Perhaps,” Master Gallia called, trying to bring order back to a rapidly escalating argument, “we should refocus-”

“No!” Piell barked. “The reality is that this has been a long time coming, and it’s something that many members of this Council have been warning about ever since both of them have been allowed special privileges and treatment!”

“Their circumstances were exceptional,” Master Poof tried to reason, but it only seemed to make the situation worse.

Master Piell’s features flushed, not quite angry, but agitated, and suddenly, in the heat of that glare I could see the trap Vicky had laid playing out as he turned his baleful eye across the room as he roared out his answer. “The circumstances of two girls do not supercede the practices of this Orde-”

Vicky knew what she had sensed… she knew it looked bad for me.

So she wanted to just grind things to a stop with gridlock.

It wouldn’t be hard.

It’d be downright easy in fact. 

There was a war going on. 

Twelve of the twenty Masters on the Council were on active war fronts, overseeing battles and  dying soldiers. They were agitated, tired, clinging to a sense of ‘normalcy’ by overseeing their duties…

But they couldn’t sit here forever. They couldn’t argue and debate like they probably wanted.

They couldn’t fix the Order, like they wanted.

So get them riled up. Get them angry.

Keep them arguing.

It had clearly worked with Piell already. I could see it in him; his voice, his dress, the sag of his shoulders, the bags under his eyes.

Where was he fighting now? What sky did he see when he looked up now? Something choked in smog and smoke? The star lit void? Streaked with vulture droids and turbolaser fire? How many men were dying for him to attend this meeting? How many lives could he sense being snuffed out right now?

He was angry. He probably had a right to be. The fact that I wanted to debate, to drag this out, It had probably pushed the last of his buttons, which is why he was lashing out now.

Especially since they needed me. They needed us.

And he knew it.

Vicky and I were some of the few they could trust to handle a whole open theater of war practically on our own.

With the Order stretched thin… that was invaluable.

I saw her plan, I understood her plan.

I just disagreed with it.

I’d learned long ago that, if you left something dangling over your head, it would eventually drop.

I reached over to grip her hand in mine, and caught her curious look out of the corner of my eye. I offered her a wave of reassurance through our bond in place of a comforting smile.

She hesitated, but eventually answered with cautious acceptance.

She’d follow my lead on this. 

The arguing in the room was rising in volume. Some still hadn’t joined in, but many were leaping into the debates. The compromises they’d made for us. The grievances that had grown over the years. The frustrations, the concerns, the fears, the resentments. All of it seemingly boiling over. A flashpoint, here and now.

I made the bugs in the walls hiss.

The droning of wingbeats, chittering claws and skittering legs grew louder and louder, until the Council members couldn’t hear themselves over the deafening sound of my swarm hidden from sight.

As the room grew quiet again, I passed my eyes over the Council members. 

Yoda was silent, eyes closed, features grim. Mace stared directly ahead, his features carved from granite as I felt Master Plo’s eyes on me.

“Jedi…” I finally said as the last of the buzzing died away. “Aren’t free from anger. Or are you going to lie to each other and say that you are?”

Once again, it was Obi-Wan who spoke up, now turning his debating and negotiating skills towards me.

“I would never claim that we do not feel it,” he declared. “To actually practice releasing our emotions into the Force, that requires the prerequisite of actually having those emotions to release. Forgive the metaphor, but the cure cannot exist without a disease. Otherwise, it simply becomes a poison in and of itself.”

“Emotions aren’t a disease,” Vicky chimed in.

“A metaphor, like I said.” Obi-Wan shrugged. “The point I was making, however, is that while we do feel it, Master Hebert, we cannot allow it to control us, to rule us. To lose ourselves to emotion - sorrow, fear, pain, and yes, especially anger - is to fall to the dark side. And, as we are taught, once that line is crossed… you are lost.”

“And so the question becomes: did you cross it?” Depa Billaba asked. “Speak truthfully, please. Can you say, accurately, that you did or did not lose control of yourself to your anger on Ilum?”

I felt not only their eyes, but their touch on me.

In the Force, across the surface of my mind. Searching. Prodding. Scrutinizing. 

Not all. Not Yoda, or Yaddle, or Windu, or Plo, or Vicky, or Obi-Wan.

But many. Too many. 

They’d leave unsatisfied.

“I don’t know.”

Frustration grew. I saw Piell grinding his teeth, Tiin’s hands clenching together. Master Rancisis’ features became crestfallen. 

“When I was there,” I continued, my voice as cold as Ilum’s glaciers, “in that room, seeing them all, seeing them hurt, I wanted nothing more than to have a swarm of my bugs eat that man alive from his feet up.”

I shrugged. “Is that losing control?”

The Council watched me now, listening, unmoving. 

I kept talking. “Keep him alive through every moment of that, only to burn him alive for another eternity?” 

Still they were quiet.

“Use my saber to burn out his eyes, and his tongue, and his hands, and leave him squirming around in the ice until he froze to death in the cold.”

Now I glared at them. “And none of it mattered.”

I let them feel the truth of that statement, if nothing else, watching some of the Masters, like Tsui Choi and Halcyon, share a confused look between each other as they heard it.

“When I saw her there, with that gun…” I shrugged. “I didn’t care about him anymore. I didn’t care about my anger.”

I passed my eyes over the room “So… did I lose myself to the dark side? To my anger? You tell me.” I demanded with a shrug. “‘Cause I can’t quite figure it out.”

‘And honestly - I don’t quite care, either,’ I didn’t say.

Because I did care…

It was the one thing I still feared deep within my soul.

The loss of myself.

Be it to my passenger, or to Khepri, or to this nebulous, abstract thing the Jedi called the dark side…

I never wanted to lose the person I am… Not to any of it.

So, I did care.

That didn’t mean I had an answer for them. 

The Council room was so still even one of my insects couldn’t have moved without sounding like a klaxon. The silence was sepulchral, and the tension between the Masters was second only to the tension between them and me. 

Finally, it was all broken by someone sighing.

All eyes turned to Master Windu.

The dark skinned Master leaned back in his seat, his brow furrowed, his expression severe. 

“This Council will not decide this matter today.”

“Master Windu-” Tiin began to protest.

“The Council will not decide this today,” Windu’s eyes snapped open, glaring at a spot along the wall near the ceiling, the look on his face daring anyone to interrupt him again, “because we are all missing a vital piece of information.”

“Surely you are not just taking this… this noncommittal of hers as an answer!” Ausar barked. “It’s little more than an arbiter’s dodge of the question!”

Master Windu closed his eyes again, seemingly counting back from ten. 

“Have we all forgotten… that Miss Hebert is, strictly speaking, not the Force-sensitive here?”

I was fairly certain a heart might have stopped beating.

And it might have possibly been my own.

The leader of the Council rubbed at the center of his forehead. “We cannot determine whether or not Master Hebert fell to the dark side… because it might not exactly be her fall that we are searching for.”

“You think the Queen Administrator might…” Vicky squirmed where she sat, looking almost pale at the sudden realization. 

“It’s a possibility I cannot discount,” he answered almost blithely. “As such… before this Council decides… we must examine the Queen Administrator.”

“I must object.” Ki-Adi-Mundi shook his head. “She, herself, admitted to her hatred for Cirvan when she saw the younglings; that alone tells us what we need to know about her state of mind at the time. Judge her now, the Queen Administrator is a separate issue.”

“There is no ignorance,” Master Yaddle cut in. “There is knowledge. Act without knowledge, within ignorance, we must not do. Concur with Master Windu, I do.”

“As do I,” Gallia agreed.

“Likewise.” Plo Koon nodded.

The Cerean frowned, staring at the three that had just sided with… a delay.

His thoughts were writ large across his face, though he dared not voice them.

‘You are shielding her,’ he did not say.

“And what of the rest of it?” Tiin demanded. “The lack of respect for the rules of the Jedi Order? For the Code itself. For the education she’s giving the crechelings and her Padawan-”

“That has nothing to do with this proceeding,” Vicky protested beside me, some lessons from Brandish no doubt leaking through. 

Tiin sneered. “They’re not exclusive to one another, either!” he protested, rising from his seat. “But I suppose you would like for us to just ignore all of it when it’s convenient.”

Never one to back down from any fight, Vicky stood up, too. If Tiin was physically here, I have no doubt she’d be nose to nose, right in his face.

“You said it, not me.”

He scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“That all of you vultures find it real easy to look away when it’s time to go take a planet, or turn an army of droids into a slag heap, or rip a tank column a new asshole. But suddenly the big battle’s over, and now it’s time for pearl clutching and bullshit outrage.”

Tiin’s lip curled. “Yes… you’re useful. A fact that you both have exploited to place yourself above the rules. Brazenly. Look at you!” He gestured to the two of us, particularly our held hands, barely hidden amidst the voluminous Jedi robes/sleeves. “I dread to think of how your students will grow to view the teachings of our Order, or the chaos that will follow after them!”

Master Billaba cleared her throat, quietly but firmly cutting into the conversation. “I’m afraid Master Dallon is correct. This Council meeting pertains to -  and only to - the events of Ilum, not any… indiscretions or discrepancies between Masters Dallon and Hebert with the Code.”

Tiin’s expression could have melted through starship hull, and his words dripped with venomous resentment. “Convenient.” He spat pointedly before turning and taking his seat.

For the first time, another human on the Council - a man named Halcyon - cleared his throat. “And how, exactly, are we to examine the… creature?” he asked. “The Queen Administrator?”

I didn’t know him well. Not enough to tell what camp he fell in regarding me and Vicky, at least.

Yoda answered him. “Commune with the Queen Administrator, possible, we know it to be. Capable of such, Master Hebert is. Follow her, we Masters can. Examine her, we will there.”

“And how long will that take!?” Piell sneered. “We’re all hundreds of lightyears apart. We have an active war being waged right this second. How many months before we’re all back on Coruscant to conduct this communion!? Three? Five? Will we even be able to?”

“No.” Yoda shook his head. “Foolish it would be, for all to go. If tainted, dangerous the Queen Administrator will be. Place all of us at risk, within her reach, we must not. Only five will go. No more.”

“Five,” Sora Bulq drawled, the muscles in his jaw working. “Forgive me, Master Yoda… but I can’t help but note only you, Master Kenobi, Master Yaddle, Master Plo, Master Rancisis, Master Ti and Master Gallia are present on Coruscant at the moment… It would be unusual for the accuser to be so active in the investigation, therefore Rancisis would be discouraged from participating, and Master Ti will soon be heading towards Kamino to oversee the latest Clone legion deployments. Ergo… does that mean you will be conducting this communion with just the five available to you and no one else?”

I think everyone heard what he wasn’t saying clear as day.

The five on Coruscant, were my five strongest supporters on the Council.

He was all but accusing Yoda of rigging this in my favor.

The Grand Master paused where he sat, blinking, almost in dumbfounded stupefaction.

Then he raised a brow towards Bulq. “Delay we might for nearby Masters to convene. On Kashyyyk the communion will be. But politely wait, I doubt the Separatists will.”

The Weequay held a stony silence for a moment.

Then he bowed.

“Very well… I will patiently wait for your findings.”

Then, he shut off his holo.

As far as Jedi decorum went, he all but spat in Yoda’s face.

Shortly thereafter, Mundi, Piell, Tiin, and Ausar did the same

A solid fourth of the Council.

Yoda sighed, shaking his head mournfully.

Master Windu, too, looked troubled. “I’m afraid my duties to the war are calling me already, Masters,” he said. “I must take my leave. Please excuse me.”

Many Masters offered their own nods and expressed similar regrets. A half dozen more plinths flickered off.

And so we were left, the room emptier, darker, but still suffocating. 

I looked at Yoda, and the little green man looked every one of his near nine-hundred-year lifespan as he shook his head. 

I almost wanted to apologize.

I wasn’t the cause, not really. The fault lines had already existed. They’d just been covered up. Concealed by complacency and peace.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t making it worse. 

And I couldn’t even say if it would ultimately be for the better.

Next to me, Vicky cleared her throat, moving to break the tense, awkward silence. 

“So… Kashyyyk then?” She ventured, almost squirming now.

Still, Yoda nodded, hopping off his chair and beginning to hobble out of the room. “Yes. Far from the Temple it must be. Fear, strengthen the dark side it will. To proceed in the Temple, much fear it will cause.”

I wanted to ask what, if anything, he might do with the fracturing Council. How he wanted to try and… fix things. But I felt as though I was the last person who should try.

Still, it seemed my concerns were shared.

“Master Yoda.” Shaak Ti began. “The Council, it-”

“Much… this war has cost us.” The old Grand Master said. “Deep, it has carved its wounds. Deeper still, before this war is over, they will be.”

He shook his head. “Meditate on this… we must… tired I am.” 

He kept walking.

I saw Vicky start to move, to lean down as if ready to pick him up before Yoda held up his hand, asking without words to be left alone. 

I could feel the sting of her hurt, and her worry. 

But he had the right to ask for that too.

The others began to file out, though Master Plo Koon marched up to stand next to us.

“Master.” I mumbled towards our old teacher, half bowing.

Plo Koon offered a nod back, turning towards Vicky. “Master Yoda… it pains him to see many of his fellow Masters and students so divided. Do not take it personally.”

“I’m not.” Vicky shook her head. “I’m worried.”

The Kel Dor sighed, nodding. “I am too.”

He turned to me. “Taylor, if I ask, will you speak to me honestly as your teacher?”

I nodded. It hurt that he had to ask… but I suppose I understood why he felt the need to. 

“Whatever happened to you… whatever you felt.” He hesitated. “If you had a choice to tap into it again… would you?”

That was… a fair question.

I knew what the ‘right’ answer was…

I also knew I promised to be honest.


So I took a moment, a window of time to think... and consider.

Would I use it again?

The memory filtered through my mind, the echoes of a past long dead now.

“No, I know I should say yes. That I’d do it all again. But somewhere along the way… the answer became a no.”

“I know where this road leads.” I said. “I’ve walked it before…” I stared up into his eye lenses, speaking with all the conviction and honesty I could.

“No.”

He stared at me for a long time… then, I felt his relief in the Force, tension uncoiling around his heart. 

He nodded once, and in the gesture, I felt his trust and his confidence. 

“Go. Get some rest, both of you.” He pleaded. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re to meet with the Chancellor tomorrow with the others that participated in Ilum.”

Vicky nodded. “Yeah,” she sighed. “Feels like we haven’t been able to just sit the hell down.”

I understood the sentiment and agreed. I wanted to reassure her, maybe tell her after tomorrow everything would calm down again and we could actually unwind a bit…

But somehow, I felt like I’d just be jinxing it.

(X)(X)(X)

And so the Trial is... given an stay... for now.

And yes, next chapter is the promised meeting between everyone and Papa Palpatine :D

Tell me what you all thought of it; if you think the Jedi Council is right, wrong; lacking in priorities or what have you.