Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo

Chapter 18

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 curiosity. 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 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 believed one claim Vader had made.

That this Sith Lord was tired.

While Yoda did think the Sith were wrong in 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 grew wary after steadfast years of commitment to an ideal or goal. Vader would be hard pressed to change anyone's minds, but Yoda would hear him out.

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 which side truly started this eternal feud of the Light and Dark sides. So I shall only tread 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 further back if you truly desire," Vader offered in warning. "Tell me, Jedi. Can you claim for an instance that slaughtering the 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 criticize 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 atrocity, 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 at the time decided that this was not enough, that victory was not enough. You may not have committed the worst of the atrocities 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 took every effort to capture the Sith alive," Yarael retorted, his head cocked slightly on his long neck.

"Jedi," Vader addressed him with something approaching 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 saying that wasn't the goal of your predecessors?" Eeth Koth retorted. "That, if the Sith of Old had claimed victory, that the Republic and this order would not be destroyed?