Chapter 138: Debates and Changes

Chapter 138: Debates and Changes

- Clone Wars Day 10: Coruscant – Chancellor’s Office –

Bail Organa nursed his third cup of caf this morning with a grimace. Not at the taste, it was his favorite premium roast from home, but at the fact he needed it to function at all right now. He’d never been one to rely on the stimulant any more than absolutely necessary, generally limiting himself to a single cup to help wake up and get his brain in gear in the morning. At this point, unfortunately, he was fairly certain his doctor was going to have strong words with him over the intake of the substance he’d been indulging in over the last 10 days.

In a way, yesterday had been the absolute worst since the first. Something made painfully ironic because they were finally getting some vague semblance of control over the situation. In fact, it was specifically that increasing control, over both the local and general Republic problems, that had caused the day before to be so exhausting. It had been the ability to properly come to grips with their situation at last, or at least start to, that had resulted in the meeting of the combined leadership. Such as it was, at least. That meeting, in turn, had attempted to wrangle their collective way out of emergency mode and hammer out the foundation of a way forward. They had made progress. A lot of it, in fact. But in a lot of very painful ways the progress they’d made had only highlighted the vast mountain of intimidating work still ahead of them.

Just as a single example, they had managed to hammer out a rough ‘Higher Command’ structure for the new military. A handful of Jedi, all of those the Order could spare with any relevant experience, a handful of the Judicial Forces who’d at least held Sector Commands, three experienced Planetary Security Force Admirals from different navies, two Clones from an early batch that had never been chipped, and a pair of advisors from the League of Free Stars. That and support staff for the group was nearly all they’d managed to agree on after hours of debate. But it was a start.

Bail had invested the new ‘High Command of the Republic Armed Forces’ with as much authority as he could manage from his interim position, then set them loose. As dire as the military situation was, he had to delegate, as there were still other major fires to deal with. The recovery efforts here on Coruscant were one, the weakened and rather panicked Senate was another, and the horrifically complex task of trying to unravel just how utterly karked the rest of the government apparatus was made up a third. That last one was slowing down the others, as even with the help of Jedi Investigators, they were still trying to discover just how much of Palpatine’s influence remained.

Republic Intelligence had been practically gutted, and the courts weren’t much better, both having been major focuses of the bastard’s ‘anti-corruption’ campaign. A campaign that had covered up the former Chancellor replacing many of the previously corrupt officials with new corrupt officials loyal to him. They were practically going to have to rebuild Republic Intelligence, in particular, from scratch. Which, of course, could only properly happen once Bail was confirmed as the new Chancellor…though at least there was some good news on that. In the form of the meeting he was about to have.

Setting down his caf as his secretary sent his new meeting through, Bail forced a smile for Padmé Amadila. She had long been a close ally, and what she was here for now was…somewhat painful. Even if it was going to virtually guarantee him the Chancellorship for real, instead of just the interim position. Not that he was sure he wanted it, so much as he wasn’t confiden in any of the other possible front runners not screwing things up worse.

“Good morning, Padmé. I’m afraid I don’t have much time for pleasantries. So let’s get right down to the unpleasantness, instead. You said you’ve gotten the agreements from over two thirds of your former bloc to at least temporarily join with mine. Please give me the highlights?”

As Padmé began to speak, Bail lamented that she’d already confirmed she was going to need to withdraw from the Senate. At least she’d gotten on top of the situation fast enough that most her supporters were going to join his faction, which should secure him at large enough power base to do what needed to be done. Even if it promised to be anything but stable…

… … …

- Clone Wars Day 11: Onderon -

Mina Bonteri paced in agitation.

She’d been a fool. An idiotic, short-sighted idiot that had let herself be blinkered and scammed by a gifted orator. She’d known it the instant she’d reconciled the fact that the holofeed from the Senate had been real. She had been one of the few Senators not at the meeting, having specifically chosen a moment when everyone else would be looking elsewhere to make…certain arrangements. Ones she’d intended to use to force the King’s hand so they could declare for the Confederacy.

Now she knew she’d been had.

Onderon was one of the few places in the galaxy that vividly understood the dangers of the Dark Side of the Force. Dxun, the thrice-accursed moon of their own planet, was so heavy with the Dark Side that they’d been under siege since time immemorial by creatures infused with it. Though technically a moon, Dxun was nearly a sister planet in reality, actually coming close enough to Onderon that their atmosphere’s connected during the summer months. Something that led vicious drexls, tainted by the moon, to invade yearly.

Their planet remembered the Sith. They had, in fact, been ruled by a Sith in the past. Freedon Naad had been the first King of the planet, for kriff’s sake! There had been a constant parade of Sith and Dark Jedi assholes over the centuries that came and caused trouble because of Nadd and Dxun, making Onderon one of the very few worlds that had never forgotten the dangers. They knew the Sith were bad news. She knew the Sith were bad news.

Yet, she’d already set gears in motion. Now, she desperately tried to figure out how to stop them, before they drug her world into the path of the trouble rampaging through the galaxy…

… … …

- Clone Wars Day 12: Coruscant – Jedi High Council Chambers –

“What are we going to do about Midoriya?”

The terse question was asked by Agen Kolar. The Zabrak Jedi Master was blunt and, unfortunately, one of the remaining staunch traditionalists on the High Council. With Masters Oppo Rancisis and Eeth Koth off acting as part of the new Republic High Command, those of the Council who were in a position to gather right now thankfully leaned neutral or progress. Yet even some of those who were nominally progressive, such as Ki-Adi-Mundi, looked like that was a reasonable question. Whereas Mace knew it very much was not. Thankfully, Master Gallia, present only via holocomm as she was still on Brighthome, cut him off at the knees before Mace had too.

“Do? What are you expecting to do? Sovereign Midoriya is the head of the third largest interstellar power in the galaxy. One the Republic desperately needs as an ally right now. The only thing to do is to figure out the best way to be friendly with him.”

Master Kolar was visibly discontented with that response, and Mace winced at the tone in his voice as he spoke up again.

“Nerf shit. He’s an incredibly dangerous, incredibly powerful Force user who is outside the control of the Jedi Order. One who caused this entire war to ignite in the first place.”

That comment earned Kolar glares from multiple sources. There had been some Jedi, Senators, and Media Shills pushing that narrative, claiming that the Sovereign was responsible for the chaotic situation due to outing Palpatine. The angle was pure nonsense, though, and most people knew it. It had been Padawan Barriss that truly outed the Chancellor when she’d thrown that Force Light, and even she shouldn’t be blamed for any of the bad.

While it was true that taking Palpatine quietly might have been better…that was only a might. A might that was very much in doubt. The truth was that any other way of outing the Sith might well have led to revolts against the Jedi Order for attempting to arrest the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. They hadn’t had any sort of proof to use against the man, after all. In reality, they hadn’t even suspected him. If the Sovereign had kept silent, they might have struggled for years to get enough evidence to properly pin the man down in a way that he couldn’t have squirmed out of. The open reveal, broadcast as it had been to the Republic as a whole, and the violence Palpatine had committed, might legitimately have been the least damaging way to out him.

“Ours to manage, he is not. Not ours alone, is the Force. Powerful he is. Dark he is not.”

Mace breathed a sight of relief as Yoda put his opinion forward firmly. Then he groaned as Master Mundi leaned forward to say his own piece, already able to guess he would complicate things.

“While I fully understand Master Gallia and Master Yoda’s points, I also point out there are still three concerns that we should discuss. One, of course, is the man’s raw power. I doubt any save Master Yoda could have come close to replicating his feat of holding up the Senate Dome, even if it put him in a coma afterward. That is…concerning. Even more concerning is that he is the leader of a major military power, just like Dooku is. Power corrupts and he has a great deal of multiple kinds of power, a poor position for a Force Sensitive. Thirdly, of course, is his academy on Ossus, which-“

In a very uncharacteristic display for the Grand Master, Yoda actually cut his former student off.

“No. Not his, is Ossus Academy. By Master Ood Bnar, it was founded. Legitimacy is has, more even than we.”

Even Mace blinked at that, processing what Yoda had just said. That detail had not been in the information provided to them previously. This time, it was Mace himself that spoke.

“Wait. Ood Bnar, as in the Neti Jedi Master from the Exar-Kun period?”

Yoda nodded, causing more than a few expressions of shock to form.

“Survived, Master Bnar did. In hibernation, he was. Awoken by Master Fay and Izuku Midoriya, he was.”

There was stunned silence in the Council chamber before, in a display unfitting for the High Council, all hell broke loose. Though at least, Mace reflected, this had distracted everyone from any delusion that they were in a position to dictate literally anything to the head of the League of Free Stars…

… … …

- Clone Wars Day 13: Raxus Secundus–

Darth Sidious stewed. His rage had petered out, to a degree. Never entirely, he swore it would never be banked entirely until Izuku Midoriya was dead and he’d broken that insipid little girl that had thrown Force Light at him so thoroughly she’d beg for death. Not that he would grant it, of course. No, that little bitch was going to be kept sane as his personal torture project until she died of old age, then he’d bind her soul in eternal screaming torment for GOOD MEASURE!

Catching himself, Sidious pulled back on his rage again. He needed to keep it under control so that the physical signs faded. Contacts had done for the holocalls he’d been making to insure his rapidly increasing hold on the CIS political leaders continued to grow. To the vast majority of the worlds in the Outer Rim, Sith and Jedi might as well be the same thing. Pitching the already-much-hated in the Rim Jedi as violent lunatics who had tried to assassinate him, due to discovering he was aiding the CIS, was laughably easy.

After all, he controlled the CIS media to an extent that he never could have in the Core.

Add in the occasional Force Dominate on the particularly problematic moralizers, and it hadn’t been hard to take his new position as the head of the Separatist Parliament. That had always been a fallback option built into their plans, the position intentionally left open by his and his apprentice’s meddling, just in case. Now, between his control of the media, political skills, and the Force, he had taken over the position quite easily. He was, as of the day before, the Separatist Congress Leader, having displaced the interim head of Bec Lawise. A fool who was, himself, one of Sidious’s pawns.

The takeover had been pathetically simple.

Which didn’t change the fact that he’d needed to activate the contingency at all utterly galling. Centuries of preparation and plotting, the creation of the Veil of the Dark Side, the careful positioning to take the Republic over from the inside. All of it gone in a flash because of a pair of non-entities like that upstart from Tythe and a Jedi Padawan. Even his contingencies had been half-defeated because that upstart proved to be far more powerful than any Jedi. Not even Yoda could have prevented the Senate Dome collapse, and Palpatine had no idea why his sources hadn’t discovered the backups the Jedi had to preserve their own precious temple.

The Republic was still doomed. He had his fingers in far too deeply, and the fools had taken in the Clones to use as their military. With the advantage that the CIS had, and his own efforts to cripple the Republic from inside with the many tools he still had access to, the Republic would fall. He would still become the Immortal Emperor of the Galaxy. He had foreseen it.

As Darth Sidious continued to stew in his rage, attempting to regain enough control for the signs of Dark Side corruption to fade from his yellowed eyes, he did his best it ignore the whisper in the back of his mind. After all, he hadn’t foreseen what had happened, either. Even if he’d planned for the worst. How could he know for sure that his visions of the far future, where he would be Emperor were as true as he had once believed?

… … …

- Clone Wars Day 14: Coruscant Orbit -

Izuku sighed in relief as the Miruko broke orbit. The Flagship of the entire League Navy had been sent to retrieve him, with an escort of two Paladin’s, almost as soon as he properly woke from his coma. Doing so had been something of a risk, both given that the ship was a strategic asset and moving such a powerful warship through Republic space could have driven someone on edge from the new war to do something foolish. That hadn’t stopped Rana Lin from sending the ship anyway, firmly telling him he needed to get back and deal with the League’s mounting disasters, not the Republic’s.

He’d delayed, rightfully, for a few days despite that.

Agreements had needed to be hammered out with the Republic, if they didn’t want this to turn into a three-way war. Something that would have, frankly, benefitted only the Sith. Not to mention that they’d needed to figure out how many former Senators, such as Padmé, were effectively returning with him, as their worlds or sectors were now effectively part of the League, not the Republic. His being present on the capital and having some serious bargaining chips to work with had smoothed sorting some of that out, even if no one in the Republic was at all happy with the concessions they’d given.

Still, they hadn’t had much choice. After all, one of those concessions was the fact that Sovereign of Tythe and both of the escort Paladin’s that had come with the Miruko were staying here. It would take years, even if it had been peacetime, to fully rebuild the hypercomm relays of Coruscant. Which meant that the capital planet needed those Paladins to establish a relay with the rest of the galaxy. Even three of them wouldn’t fully reestablish communications for the planet, but it would provide enough.

There had legitimately been talk in the first days after the attack of at least temporarily moving the Republic’s capital elsewhere, somewhere with a working hypernet relay. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you asked, even a quick and dirty feasibility study had proven it just flat out wasn’t possible. Too many of the mechanisms that made the government work at all, even if poorly, were embedded on Coruscant. There were still some discussions that military High Command might be moved to Anaxes or Corellia. That was something that was still being debated, however.

For now, the three Paladins acting as relays would allow Coruscant to at least run the core functions of the Republic, as well as keep news and such flowing for the general public. With three of them in place, rather than just Sovereign of Tythe, they could even manage to handle most of the economic traffic as well. Though individual citizens were still largely without access to the holonet and such would be the case indefinitely. Even if the League had been willing to spare more Paladins, or even a Miruko-class, the truth was the Quantum Comm network itself was straining just with what they were relaying already. It was being rapidly expanded by stealing some time from the IES units away from military needs, but expanding it enough to cover for trillions of individual connections would be a bit much.

Shaking off thoughts of the strong-arming he’d done to get agreements about systems willingly joining the League force through, Izuku turned to Padmé. While he was relieved, he could tell that she was nearly depressed. Sabé didn’t seem to share that depression, clearly not having been nearly so attached to the idea of the Republic as Padmé had been. But Padmé herself…

“You know you’ll still be able to do a lot of good for the galaxy, love. Besides, Chancellor Organa seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and you helped solidify his hold on the Senate on your way out.”

Padmé stirred, offering him a wan smile at that, though it didn’t entirely reach her eyes.

“I know, I know. Come to that, the League even offers something closer to my ideals in a lot of ways than the Republic ever has, with the exception of you being a non-democratic head. But…”

Aayla had sensed their mutual lover’s distress even more clearly than he had, and closed in behind Padmé, pulling her into a hug.

“But you still wish you could be there, helping them through this crisis? You know Izuku isn’t wrong. You can still help even the Republic itself from the outside, by advocating all sorts of things to the League. A lot of League worlds aren’t going to be eager to get involved in this war. They are still recovering from the Crusade, and the Republic had never been a friend to most of them anyway.”

Padmé had relaxed a little into Aayla’s embrace. Though Izuku knew much of the reason for that was Aayla sending gentle waves of soothing reassurance to her in the Force, rather than bowing to the logic.

“I know…I really do know, I promise. There are a lot of former Republic worlds that will be needing to adjust to the League. Something I’m uniquely suited to help them with. Not just Naboo, but the entire Abrion Sector and others. Yet, I still feel as if I’m a bit of a traitor, running out on Bail in particular, and the Republic as a whole.”

There wasn’t much either of them could say to that. Feelings were feelings, and logic didn’t always have the power to change them. If it did, the Jedi wouldn’t fear feelings and attachments half so much. So, instead of trying to pointlessly reassure her again, Izuku slid into the hug, Aayla making room for him happily. They would spend what time they could comforting their lover, before the chaos of the galaxy sucked them back in…

... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Not sure I mentioned this, but canonically Bail's predecessor was the only serious competition Palpatine had in his bid for Chancellorship. So, with him surviving and Padmé throwing her weight behind him before being forced out by circumstances, he's the most likely result as an emergency election. Thankfully, as he's actually decently competent.

A/N 2: I actually originally wasn't going to show the Council and Sidious's reactions, as I didn't consider either all that important. But a LOT of people were asking about them/seemed to be expecting them. So they got added to this chapter.

A/N 3: Having the only way to keep Capital in touch with the rest of the galaxy gave Izuku a LOT of ability to strong arm some concessions out of the Republic. Though that won't endear many of them to him in the long run.