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The lunch break was very uncomfortable. Han and Leia were normally talkative, but neither said much. They did not blame Luke for what was happening to their son. They understood the evidence in the case very well and knew Luke was doing all he could to fight against it, but the jury would rule based on that evidence and not what each person at the lunch table believed.
No one was hungry, but they all ate to fill the silence. Jaina began to wonder what life would be like without her brother. It was a nasty idea to even think about, and it only showed how much faith she had lost. The people sitting at the table, Tionne excluded, had been through very difficult times and they had always pulled through. In each case they had not only survived, but also succeeded in turning the tables against their enemies.
Now there did not seem to be an enemy. If anything, the government they had each struggled so hard to assemble and stabilize was the enemy. How could they fight against that?
Jaina tried not to think about defeat. She knew Jacen had not killed the senator. This meant that someone else had. Unless this someone else understood everything about forensic science and how to plant evidence, he was very similar to Jacen. Someone like that should not be hard to find, if they had hung around, that is. If Jaina had killed the senator, she would have left the planet within an hour after the deed.
This idea did not sit well with her. She decided there was only one possibility: the killer was still on Coruscant and still in the area. This seemed like a stretch at first, but since the alternative was that Jacen would be executed within three days, the idea was very real to Jaina. She would watch the testimony this afternoon, and then she would find this killer.
***
"The prosecution would like to call Martin Keld to the stand."
Jaina watched as the man walked slowly to the podium, his shoulders slumped in the perfect picture of sorrow. Jaina did not like him. She could sense his emotions and feelings as clearly as if he were broadcasting them on purpose. He did not like Jedi, and he would do anything in his power to strike back at them.
As Martin was being sworn in, he stared toward the defense table, but as Jaina met his glare, she got the uncomfortable feeling that he was really looking at her. The fear that he knew she had posed as the reporter resurfaced, but she pushed it aside or at least tried to.
"Martin," Loran started, "first let me express how sorry I am about your father's passing. He was a good man, and he will be missed."
Luke was not happy about this, but objecting would only paint him, and in effect Jacen, as uncaring and heartless. But by letting it go, the jury began to feel sorry for Martin and was excited about being given the opportunity to right the wrong that was done against him. Luke wanted to catch the killer too but feared the jury would just attach this wish for retribution onto the evidence against Jacen, making his battle much more difficult.
After a generous pause to let the grief affect everyone in the jury, Loran continued. "Can you please explain to the court the details of the last conversation you had with your father."
"Certainly." Martin's voice was strong and sure, with only a hint of sorrow. "We spoke the night before he was killed, at least it was night on Coruscant. I was back home on Krakus. He sounded very concerned and felt he was in danger. He said he had just had a very disturbing meeting with someone."
"Did he say who it was?"
Martin shook his head. "No. He described the man as a cloaked stranger. The visitor had confronted him in his private lab and kept the lights low. My father said he never got a good look at his face. The only description he offered me was that he was wearing a long, hooded, black cloak."
At this description Jaina perked up. It was well known that Jacen wore a green cloak. It was a small thing, but Jaina needed everything she could get.
"And what was the topic of this meeting?" Loran continued his questioning.
"Jedi," Martin replied flatly. "Father said the stranger was very interested in his views on Jedi and if he held any hatred toward them. My father said he professed that he held no animosity toward the Jedi and only reiterated his views that Jedi should be protectors of the people and not rulers over them. He said the visitor did not believe his response and proceeded to make threats against him."
"What kinds of threats?" Loran pushed.
"The visitor said that if my father did not end his campaign against the Jedi he would end it for him. The stranger left, and my Father called me shortly afterwards. I suggested that he increase security and try and get some sleep. My father had been under a lot of stress, and I feared he was probably just over-reacting. I guess he was right."
"At about what time did this conversation take place?" Loran asked.
"I can't be exactly sure with the time difference between Krakus and here, but I believe it was around midnight local time, give or take a half hour."
"And that was the last time you spoke to your father, correct?"
"Yes. We usually spoke about twice a week. I got the news he had been killed a day later and came directly to Coruscant."
Loran nodded. "No further questions."
Luke knew something was up. He had walked into too many traps already not to recognize this one. Martin was a very valuable witness, but Loran had barely spent five minutes on him. Luke almost declined to cross-examine the witness, knowing there was a trap out there somewhere. He could feel Martin's hate just as clearly as Jaina and, glancing at Kattie siting beside the witness stand, wondered if he could get Martin to set it off with a few well-placed questions. Knowing there was a trap was the first step in avoiding it.
"You said that you came to Coruscant directly after you heard of your father's death," Luke began. "When, then, were you appointed as your father's replacement in the senate?"
"I had planned on taking over for my father in two years when he retired," Martin answered. "The ruling council on Krakus had already approved me for the position, and upon his death, they appointed me to it rapidly so I wouldn't be bogged down with protocol or hearings."
Luke froze. The answer seemed harmless enough, but the Jedi Master could tell that it was a blatant lie. He was not sure exactly which part was a lie or if the whole thing was a fabrication, but it did not really matter. Martin had lied on purpose for no reason. Of course, the most important part of this was that Kattie had remained quiet and unlit beside him. Martin had just told Luke in no uncertain terms that he could lie without detection.
Luke thought it through before he made his decision on whether to continue. The lie he had just told was a very simple one. It was something he had obviously thought of before and since it was not concerning a topic he was emotionally attached to, it had been easy to fool the lie detection droid. He might not fare so well once Luke started asking more poignant questions.
On the other hand, Luke knew that if he was on the witness stand, he would be able to trick Kattie with very little difficulty, even if he had no Force ability at all. He had been through so many meditations and mind exercises that he could avoid any type of lie detector imaginable. If Martin was so prepared, the answers he gave to Luke's questions would only hurt Jacen.
If Martin could lie without being detected, why had he done so early on? He had just tipped his hand to Luke, and now the Jedi Master knew what was up. Luke decided that the new senator had underestimated Luke's ability to detect lies with the Force and was just testing Kattie.
"No further questions your honor," Luke said, startling almost everyone in the room. Jaina had felt the lie too, but Tionne, Leia, and Han looked at Luke with concern. Besides Han, the other two Force users had not been paying enough attention to Martin to catch the lie. Jaina looked over at Loran as Luke took a seat and could see a noticeable frown on his face.
Jaina smiled. Not only had Luke avoided the trap, but he had severely disrupted the prosecution's time table. Loran shuffled a few datapads around his desk before rising. "The prosecution would like to call Luke Skywalker to the stand."
"Objection!" Luke cried. "How am I supposed to testify in this case? Who's going to cross-examine me?"
Judge Icktar looked at Tionne. "You have another counselor present who can conduct the cross-examination. There is no Coruscant law against calling the opposing counselor to the stand. You may call Counselor Fritchie at any time during your two days. Objection overruled. Now take the stand."
Luke walked slowly toward the witness box as Martin vacated it. Once seated, sworn in, and hooked up to Kattie, Loran walked up to Luke with a huge grin on his face. "Your honor, I would like to present Master Skywalker as an expert on the subject of lightsabers."
Icktar nodded and looked at Tionne to see if she wanted to cross-examine the witness. The idea was laughable, and Tionne shook her head without rising.
"Master Skywalker," Loran began in grand fashion, "how long have you been Master of the Yavin Academy?"
Luke paused in thought. "I started the Academy fifteen years ago." Beside him, Kattie gave off a buzz, and the red light on her dome lit up. "I'm sorry," Luke apologized, "I guess it was fourteen years ago." Kattie shut-up.
A few members of the jury laughed at this, thinking the Jedi Master had just made a harmless mistake. Loran knew better.
Like Luke had guessed, he was going to press the Jedi Master on the fact that he could lie at will without detection. Now that seemed foolish after Luke had proved to the entire court that the droid could detect his lies. Of course, the jury did not see it as a lie, just a mistake. Kattie did not catch mistakes, though. If you put a five-year-old child on the stand, and they said two plus two equaled five, Kattie would not go off. Kattie did not detect mistakes or guesses; it only caught lies. Luke had consciously lied to let Loran know he knew part of the prosecutor's game plan.
"Do you know of anyone alive with more knowledge about lightsabers than yourself?" Loran asked, getting to the point.
"No," Luke answered. There was only one person that even came close to him, and he was presently locked away in a very dark cell waiting eagerly for the results of this trial.
Loran then went into detail on the construction and function of a lightsaber. They talked about how one learns to fight with one and just how uncommon they are in the universe. Luke had no intention of lying, but when answering the questions on how deadly and rare the Jedi's weapon was, he began to fear his testimony would not help Jacen at all.
Luke knew that he would be one of the last witnesses, if not the very last one, and Loran still had not fingered Jacen as the killer. He had presented a lot of evidence that made Jacen the most likely candidate, but nothing that said it had to be Jacen. Luke had a bad feeling that Loran was going to make his testimony the clincher. So far, though, Luke had only reiterated what had already been said.
"Have you ever seen two lightsabers that are alike?" Loran asked after his lengthy foray into the history of the lightsaber.
"Define 'alike?'" Luke responded.
"Have you ever seen any two that are identical?"
Luke paused dramatically before answering. "No two weapons are identical."
Loran smiled. He turned away from the witness stand and walked over to the table where all the physical evidence was kept. He came back holding two lightsaber handles. Loran walked over to the jury and stood each lightsaber on end on the wooden wall that boxed the jury in. "Do you recognize these?"
"Yes," Luke responded.
"What are they?"
"They are Jacen Solo's lightsabers," Luke said.
"Are they identical?"
The jury was eager to hear the answer because the twin weapons did indeed look to be exactly the same. "Yes," Luke said.
Loran spun about at this. "But didn't you just say that no two lightsabers were identical?"
"No."
Loran looked at the silent Kattie and then to the judge. "Your honor," he pleaded, "the witness is clearly lying and is using his Force ability to trick the Kattie."
Icktar was not smiling when he looked at Luke. "I'm not lying," Luke responded sincerely.
Loran knew how to settle this. He strode over to the recorder droid who sat directly in front of the judge. "Did the witness proclaim earlier that no two lightsabers are identical?" Loran asked the squat droid. He smiled at Luke as the recorder processed the request.
"No," the droid responded. The smile quickly disappeared from Loran's face, and it looked like he might be ready to accuse Luke of tampering with this droid as well.
"What did he say?"
The droid replayed Luke's previous comment perfectly: "No two weapons are identical."
Loran turned on Luke as if to say, "See!"
Luke was shaking his head, though. "I said weapons, not lightsabers."
"A technicality," Loran replied.
"No it isn't," Luke insisted. "In Jacen's Solo's hands, those two lightsabers," he motioned to where they stood, "are one weapon. And no other Jedi has an identical weapon. A Jedi's weapon goes beyond the physical lightsaber. It includes his mind-set, his temperament, and his Force ability. The entire package makes up a Jedi's weapon and no two are identical."
"That is a very interesting point of view."
Luke smiled. "You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
Loran did not want to get into Jedi philosophy. "I wish to speak only of the mechanical portion of that weapon - the lightsaber. Are those two lightsabers identical?" Loran was looking very annoyed.
"In every way," Luke responded.
"Can I take that answer to be a 'Yes?'"
"Yes," Luke nodded.
Loran turned to his table of fellow prosecutors and nodded at one of them. The lackey got up from his seat and raced out of one of the side doors. "Your honor," Loran said to the judge, "I would like to bring in a wavelength calibrated optimeter."
The lackey was now reentering the courtroom pushing a heavy piece of equipment mounted on a repuslar pad. "This device is capable of determining the wavelength of any light source. It has been modified by the optilogical department at the Coruscant University to accept the hard light of a lightsaber. I would like to test these two lightsabers."
Icktar looked curiously at the bulky machine as it was moved into position in the middle of the courtroom. "I have no objection," Icktar said and looked at Tionne. "Counselor?" There really were not any grounds for an objection, and the judge would have overruled anything Tionne could have thought of anyway. The female Jedi Master shook her head. "You may proceed," Icktar said.
Loran was not allowed to ignite the lightsabers and called the bailiff over to handle the weapons. As the other prosecutor showed the bailiff how to use the machine, Loran explained a little about the machine. "This optimeter has been calibrate to measure the visible light within the electromagnetic spectrum. It is capable of measuring the wavelength of these light rays to within on tenth of a nanometer. The visible light we see every day ranges between 700 and 400 nanometers in wave length."
The bailiff was ready now, and Loran stopped his speech. The first of the two weapons was ignited, and the glowing blade was inserted into a specially designed cylinder. The optimeter gave its reading after a few seconds.
"This weapon has a wavelength of 502.7 nanometers," Loran announced. The bailiff turned off the first lightsaber and proceeded to test the second one. After a few moments the machine gave its result. "The second weapon has a wavelength of 500.2 nanometers."
Loran took the two deactivated weapons from the bailiff and turned to look at Luke. "Now would you say that these two lightsabers are identical?"
"No," Luke replied. He really wanted to know where Loran planned to go with this. No one in the jury looked very concerned about the 2.5 nanometers that separated Jacen's lightsabers. They had all seen them both activated and thought the colors looked identical to them. None of them expected Luke to be able to tell the difference between them.
"What do you think the chances are that any two lightsabers in existence are identical?"
"One in three thousand," Luke responded.
Loran did not expect that exact of an answer but he quickly saw where it had come from. If the range of visible light spanned 300 nanometers, and the best machine could only measure light to one tenth of a nanometer, then there was exactly 3000 available wavelengths for lightsabers.
"Not very good odds," Loran said, though he had been hoping for a more vague answer. Loran walked over the to court's holoviewer and turned it on. "I would now like to show you the Krakun Hematological Research Center security film from the night of the senator's murder."
Luke sat up at this.
"Have you looked at it?" Loran asked.
"I have," Luke replied.
"And did you find anything of interest?"
"No, I did not."
"We did," Loran smiled. "I would like to skip to 9:48 on the night of the murder." The holovid flipped to that time with a digital clock in the lower left corner of the projection. The view was that of one of the many hallways in the KHRC. On either side of the hall were two labs with a bank of windows looking in. The camera rotated back and forth, panning the long, empty hallway.
Loran let it play for several seconds and then stopped it suddenly. "Did you see it?" he asked Luke.
"See what?"
"I'll show you again." The projection rewound over the past few seconds and then resumed play. As the camera pointed toward one of the bank of windows looking into the dimly lit lab, Loran zoomed in and slowed the playback. Across one of the shinny, metal cabinets in the lab, Luke thought he saw a brief blue flash.
Without asking if Luke had seen it, Loran rewound, enlarged, and played back again. He also slowed it down by a factor of five, and Luke could clearly see the reflection of a blue blade cross the metal cabinet. Loran paused the image and zoomed in even further. Now everyone in the courtroom could clearly see the blue blade.
"What does that look like to you?" Loran asked Luke.
The Jedi Master was honest. "A lightsaber."
The attorney who had brought the optimeter in was now hooking the machine up to the holoviewer. "Before you ask," Loran turned to Luke, "the optimeter has the ability to filter out the color of the cabinet and give the true color of the blade."
"I object." Tionne stood behind her table. "The integrity of the security recording is in question. There are several things that can affect the projection's quality, and I would like some proof that this process will be accurate."
"Do you have proof?" Icktar asked as he turned to Loran.
"I do, your honor." Loran walked back to his table and picked up a color plaque. "This color plaque comes from the interior decorating department in charge of all of the Center's facilities. The walls in the hallway of this security recording were painted less than two weeks ago. The exact color is fernmist green."
Loran walked over to the optimeter and slid the color plaque into the appropriate slot on the machine. He then used a holopointer to select one of the walls of the hallway in the security film. The optimeter reported a few moments later that the two colors were the same.
Icktar nodded his approval and allowed Loran to continue with his presentation. The head prosecutor returned the holoimage to that of the zoomed-in lightsaber. He selected the center of the blade's reflection and then waited for the optimeter to give its response.
The entire courtroom was silent as the machine took its time before responding. "It says the blade in the security film has a wavelength of 502.7 nanometers," Loran said, breaking the silence in the courtroom. Instead of an uproar, everyone in the room was shocked into even deeper silence. The trial had up to this point presented no new evidence, only showing everyone what had already been discovered.
Loran took the opportunity to explain a few things. "The lab seen in this film borders a second hallway that runs along the back of the research center, connecting the basement with the upper exit. There are no security cameras in this hallway, and this reflection is the only indication of movement through that hallway. If others passed through the hallway, they did so without carrying a light source."
Loran turned to look at Luke. The prosecutor thoroughly enjoyed the look he saw on the Jedi Master's face. "No further questions, Your Honor."
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