Chapter 152: Summit

Warning! Chapters 151 and 152 were posted back to back! Returning readers, make sure you pick up where you left off!

Chapter 152: Summit

- Kashyyyk – 72 Days into the Clone Wars-

It was remarkable both how slowly and quickly the galaxy could move when it was on fire.

That was a thought that had stuck with Izuku over the days between the Battle of Kashyyyk and the start of the agreed upon Summit of Kashyyyk, where the League and Republic were meeting up in an attempt to formalize an alliance. For such a comparatively complex political event, for which there was essentially no existing precedent due to a lack of other major powers for the Republic to interact with, just eleven days was remarkably swift. Not even the League’s political machine was prone to such rapid movement, and the less said about the Republic in that regard, the better.

At the same time, eleven days in the middle of a very hot war, was a fantastic amount of time for things to shift and change. While the League had managed to hold steady in its own positions, the Republic had come under major pressure as the CIS shifted back to a full offensive in the wake of their recent defeat. Kidriff 5 had fallen, the battered Republic fleet that had been holding it forced all the way back to Drearia. That system was something of a fortress world, as well as home to the Drearian Defense Conglomerate and several other arms manufacturers, forcing the CIS to pause short of trying to take it. At least until they could repair, repair, and reinforce. Which, in turn, gave the Republic the time to attempt the same.

Unfortunately, the loss of Kidriff had exposed a number of important worlds, including Shili, which resulted in the total withdrawal of the Shili Royal Fleet to shield their own homeworld. Something which, combined with old defensive installations that had once let the world hold off even the Republic for a time, would likely protect the Togrutan homeworld. The same could not be said for a number of worlds like Mindor, which had been a fairly important argiworld supplying the Core. It and a number of other newly-vulnerable worlds were now in the process of being occupied, though GAR sabotage squads had been left behind to bleed the CIS some while they did so.

Nor, equally unfortunately, was the loss at Kidriff 5 and subsequent fall of other worlds the only bad news for the Republic, even if it was technically the worst of it.

In addition to the renewed assault that had punched through Kidriff, similar assaults had punched out at Lantillies and Ord Mantell. The Lantillies battle had gone to the Republic, mostly due to Jedi efforts to reinforce that system as a launching off point for deep strike raids against the CIS. Raids that had, in fact, already begun and had proven moderately successful in at least inconveniencing CIS North. Damage to Admiral Trench’s supply chain had, as far as anyone could determine, been another major part of why the Lantillies assault had come up short of victory. Though a considerable amount of damage had still been done to the Republic assets in system, with some unfortunate damage to the Lantillies shipyards being suffered as well.

Ord Mantell fell somewhere in the middle of the other two, the Republic/Jedi fleet having failed to prevent a massive CIS droid army from landing on the world. Yet, that particular fleet hadn’t been defeated outright. Instead, both the GAR fleet and its CIS counterpart were still fighting over the system, while a major ground campaign between them was fought by the droids and clones. A similar situation had erupted after a renewed attack on Foless to the South. Commadore Pellaeon had managed not to cede the system against an even heavier assault than the first attempt on that world, but had been forced into a protracted series of engagement and counter engagement that had allowed the CIS to land ground forces on Foless. That droid army, interestingly enough, was losing rather badly against a large army of Alion Nova Guard, which the Republic had apparently hired as a massive mercenary force.

Admittedly, the fact that the Nova Guard were running roughshod over forces the GAR was struggling against elsewhere wasn’t a great look for the Clones. To be fair, however, the Alion Nova Guard were supposedly historically on par with the Mandalorians. Making it more a case of superior institutional organization and a far greater depth of experienced officers to call on that was making the difference. The GAR wasn’t doing badly, the Nova Guard were just that good. At least, such was the case so far as Izuku could tell from the reports, anyway.

The point, in the end, was that even a ‘fast’ political Summit had still been far too slow to prevent the already on-fire galaxy from burning down a bit farther. Which, in turn, honestly landed the League in a better bargaining position. Though Izuku would have preferred the Republic be doing better and his position be slightly weaker as a result, given the sentient lives and mounting difficulty of victory the Republics losses entailed.

Still, the Summit was about to get properly underway in just a few hours, and he had Padmé, Sabé, and Ambassador Rotsino on hand for a final briefing. Aayla and Shaak Ti were there as well, with the former no longer really bothering to conceal her relationship with Izuku meaningfully and the latter being the League’s official contact with the Jedi Order. Said Order had, somewhat surprisingly, managed to get its own seat at the table for the talks, albeit mostly as a mediator. Another sign that Bail Organa was taking different and hopefully promising approaches.

“Alright, let’s hear what everyone had managed to glean before the talks officially start. Padmé, why don’t you start us off?”

As someone who had quite recently been a member of the Republic Senate herself, and whose old allies were now part of the current Chancellor’s power bloc, Padmé obviously had the best connections of any of them for information gathering. Doubly so since at least one of her old allies, Senator Zo Howler, had been added to the negotiators for the Republic’s side. A bit of a double-edged maneuver on the Chancellor’s part, truth be told. It gave him significant benefits in welding Padmé’s former bloc more firmly to him with a show of trust, while also presenting someone who would be a ‘friendly face.’ On the flip side, he had to be aware that either Senator Howler or his staff would likely leak information to either Padmé or Sabé.

Of course, even that might have been intentional, if he wanted them to know what he was thinking ‘behind closed doors.’ It was the sort of triple think that made Izuku hate politics. Merely absorbing a lot of skills related to it via telepathy over the years, from a wide array of donors, didn’t fully make him good at politics. He was too straightforward by half to really master the twisty, often byzantine and backstabbing, layers of political intrigue. Which is also why he’d made sure to recruit his own loyal minions who were good at it, such as Esa. For now, he also trusted his lover to give him the best advice she could. If, admittedly, probably tainted by a bit too much optimism.

“The Senator didn’t say anything directly, of course. But Sabé got enough from his aides that he’d clearly told them to pass on what he knew. The short version is that things are about as we expected. Bail is enough of a realist that he’s pushing hard for the alliance with the League, but he’s getting pushback from both staunch Republic loyalists and those most affected by the worlds leaving the Republic for the League. Even with you making sure that trade keeps flowing, a lot of that trade is suddenly more expensive for Republic worlds, as they no longer have the…leverage to force unequal trade arrangements.”

Padmé looked like she was sucking on a lemon as she got that last part out, knowing full well that it proved key points about the Republic that she didn’t like. Izuku had leaned hard on his own influence to make sure that the Republic was still getting fair deals from agriworlds and mining operations, but the Core wasn’t used to ‘fair.’ They were used to squeezing Mid and Outer Rim worlds for unfair deals that kept their food and construction materials cheap. Being abruptly forced to pay fair market value, right when the Republic was brutally ramping up industrial production to meet war needs, was likely outright destroying the economies of some worlds that had been abusing the Rim. Understandably, they were pissed, even if they didn’t exactly have the moral high ground.

“On the flip side, the Battle of Kashyyyk in particular earned the League a lot of general good will, as have the relief programs you and Chairman Vy put together. Quite a few Senators from worlds that would have been left in the lurch by the Republic being forced to prioritize the war are being very vocal about the help those programs are providing to keep them afloat. For those more completely read into the war efforts, the costs paid at Geonosis and the serious blow it was for CIS South not to get the massive reinforcements from the factories there are also weighing in the League’s favor. As are the thousands of experts we’ve loaned their effort to bootstrap their new military into something resembling cohesion. Though just as many that understand that last one also resent the fact they needed outside experts so badly.”

Izuku nodded as Padmé wound down her brief summary. It was honestly about what he’d expected. There was always going to be backlash for accepting so many Republic worlds converting to the League of Free Stars, particularly when the war with the CIS had essentially started over the exact same topic. At the same time, the Republic knew they currently needed the League badly. Even now, two months into the war, they were reliant on League QEC relays to even communicate off Coruscant. Absolutely no one had the production capacity or massive amounts of money right now to replace the massive Hypercomm Relays that Palpatine had destroyed on his way out.

Worse for any attempt to rally the entire Republic against them, he and Chairman Vy had started sending escorted medical cruisers and convoys of food surplus, paid for by ex-Hutt wealth, to worlds left in bad spots by the impact of the war. Hundreds of worlds were being given emergency aid on the League’s credit by this point, and were being very vocal about anything that might endanger that aid. Add in the fact that the League had legitimately done far more damage to the CIS than the Republic so far, and the pragmatists and realists of the Republic were trying their best to sit on the idiots that wanted to declare the League just another enemy.

“Esa? What’s your feeling on the overall delegation the Republic sent?”

They’d left Esa on Coruscant as the League’s official representative, along with a considerable staff…including quite a few LIS agents. Meaning she had a good feel for where each of the delegates fell on the spectrum.

“Mixed, but leaning towards trying to strike a deal with the League. Organa played his choices smart, stacking as many who he’s already convinced to see his point of view as he could get away with into the team…then stacking most of the rest with corporate interests that have obvious reasons to strike a deal with the League. LIS has a high-ranking agent I only know by the codename ‘Vixen’ inside KDY, for example, and they’ve passed on just how badly Kuat wants some of the League’s ship technology. So long as they can squeeze something out of us, likely either weapons or the way we’ve managed to automate ships to reduce crew requirements a great deal? That would be enough to bring them and several other systems down on the side of striking an alliance. All the better if they can keep their gains off the books and just for themselves.”

Izuku was the one to grimace this time at the all-too-predictable nature of greedy businessmen. Even with the galaxy burning down around their ears, they were still looking for ways to make the most profit, rather than put out the largest number of fires. Still, it was useful to them. They could let some of their lesser developments, like cruder versions of the particle beam weapons systems or ship automation methods go in bits and pieces to different groups. It would help stiffen the Republic war machine in the short term, and in the long-term their own technology was still better and constantly improving.

The Omni-cannon wasn’t ready for prime time yet, its single firing having slagged it and damaged the Knight Errant enough it needed yard time. The design would be a new major force multiplier with enough effort, though, and the Silencers weren’t something they’d give away either. So long as they kept moving with their own R & D, there wasn’t much risk of the Republic getting the tech edge over them anytime soon. Not even if they gave their neighbors a few useful legs up.

“So, bribery and extortion as usual, to grease the wheels and get a deal that we can live with. Anyone get a feel for how they are treating the Sith issue?”

Padmé and Esa both shrugged, but Shaak cleared her throat and spoke up.

“I can shed a little light on that part. Unfortunately, as predicted, most don’t care much about the Sith reveal. They see Palpatine more as a regular traitor than for the larger threat he represents. Thankfully, however, most isn’t all. Enough Republic worlds have nasty history with the Sith that there’s a sizable undercurrent building of those who want them specifically dealt with. Corellia is the most notable of those, but hardly the only one. Many such worlds are quietly sending extra support in the form of credits and resources to the Jedi and the Army of Light, beyond what they are providing to the Republic war effort in general.”

That was legitimately a pleasant surprise, and something that even his LIS reports hadn’t picked up on. Which, Izuku reflected, was probably a good thing. It meant that the Republic itself likely wasn’t aware of that flow of support, and thus wasn’t aware the Jedi Order might not really need them any longer. Thus far, the backlash against the Jedi was pretty minimal. They were being seen as having possessed great foresight to prepare for the violence of the CIS. The fact that they’d protected the largest galactic source of bacta, in particular, had won them a lot of good will.

“The Jedi Order itself, meanwhile, is…taking a neutral stance on the League/Republic matter. The reveal that the Chancellor of the Republic was a Sith Lord has caused a great deal of turbulence with those of the Order who were already unhappy with Republic corruption. Only the fact that the Order has been actively taking a stand against that corruption for a few years now, and both Sith are now part of the CIS, had kept the Order from fracturing or breaking with the Republic. As it is, Chancellor Organa is on a clock. If he doesn’t manage to wrangle some changes to the Republic before the Sith are dealt with, the Jedi Order might end up breaking away from the Republic rather than continuing to pursue the war past that point.”

That observation got stares from more than just Izuku. Padmé and Sabé looked genuinely shocked and dismayed, while even Esa and Aayla looked pretty damn surprised. Despite not really being a huge fan of the Republic these days, it was Aayla who spoke up in reply, after gathering herself.

“Damn. That’s…that could be ugly. The Jedi Order has arguably been the backbone that kept the Republic together since it was created. If it breaks with the Republic completely…”

She trailed off, but they all understood. No one knew what that would mean, exactly. For 20,000 years the Jedi Order had worked to keep the often-fractious Republic glued together. Not always directly part of the Republic, but always at least allied with it. Given how often they’d prevent disasters, negotiated peace, fought everyone from the Sith to the Hutts to the Mandalorians? Even outright taking over at times, such as during the ugly New Sith Wars, to provide guidance that had kept the shambling corpse of the Republic going until it could be revived? The Jedi Order breaking away might well spell the end of the Republic in general. If not immediately, then at least eventually.

Frankly, Izuku himself was unsure if he hoped that did or didn’t come to pass. The Republic centralized running the galaxy in a way that made peace vaguely possible. At the same time, he wasn’t sure it could even be salvaged in its current form.

“Well, we’ll just have to hope for the best and keep an eye out for the worst. For now, we need to focus on making sure this Summit goes well, and let distant tomorrows worry about themselves.”

His words to the others weren’t the most inspired, but they were true, and everyone quickly got back to work on breaking down what they could expect from the Summit. Starting with working through what each of the different Republic Representatives were likely to want, and on which topics each of them individually were likely willing to give ground…

… … …

- Kashyyyk – 73 Days into the Clone Wars-

“You understand our position, I’m sure, Sovereign. Your…absorption…of certain sectors has caused considerable economic problems for worlds even as a war is ongoing. Food, in particular, has skyrocketed in price since your absorption of the Abrion Sector in particular. You can, I think, see why we can’t just allow that to happen.”

The entirely reasonable voice, even reasonable feeling in the Force, of Zo Howler, was no doubt the reason the Republic delegation had picked him to push this particular angle. Unfortunately for him, it was an exceptionally poor angle to attempt to push from, as Izuku had come armed with facts…independently verified facts.

“You might have a case, Senator, if not for the fact that more food is available for purchase then ever, from the same sources. The only difference in price has been caused by the fact that the worlds now crying foul were manifestly cheating the agriworlds in question. They were forcing unequal trade agreements and paying far below market value. Something I asked both the Jedi Order and a committee of our hosts to verify prior to this Summit. Master Shaak Ti, if you would please produce the Jedi report on the matter?”

Shaak Ti was not the type that would cook the books for anyone, not even her mate. Which thankfully didn’t matter one bit as she hadn’t even been the one to investigate. While much of the Jedi Order had been pulled into the war, not all of it had. The Jedi had learned from reports both during and after the Hutt Crusade, covering what the Jedi involved had experience, and had carefully selected who served were as a result. Not everyone was suited for the crush of frontline combat, and there were plenty of other places the Force was useful. Likewise, those Jedi with Padawans under the age of sixteen (or species equivalent) had been explicitly forbidden to take part. Something made possible by the Jedi having raised a small army with the help of the Rangers, as well as recruiting heavily from their Service Corps for numerous roles.

Instead, Jedi unsuited for the direct war effort had been given other duties that still needed handling. Such as investigating accusations of corruption and massive free trade and commerce regulation violations. Some of which had been pending for decades, even centuries, but which had taken on a much more urgent nature when it was a major foreign power asking for the verification.

A team of Jedi, mostly from the Jedi AgriCorps, had been dispatched quickly to investigate a mountain of formal complaints made to both the Jedi Order and the Republic Judiciary in the past. All made by now-former Republic worlds. The results were preliminary, but the were also backed up by a second team of Wookiees who’d agreed to investigate the same thing. Now, Shaak Ti calmly pulled up the results of the Jedi side of things, sent it to the holoscreen projected between everyone, and went over the results.

“So far, fourteen planets have been surveyed by the Jedi Order. We’ve gone over historical market data, holotape of negotiations, and the books of the planets in question. In every single case we’ve found numerous complaints to the Judiciary and Galactic Senate having been ignored entirely, despite clear violations of a number of laws and treaty regulations regarding galactic Free Trade. While groups like the Trade Federation were the worst offenders, numerous Core Worlds were almost as bad. You can see here that Abrion Minor alone had…”

Izuku leaned back in satisfaction as the Republic Delegation looked increasingly browbeaten by the truth. It would only get worse half an hour later, when a similar but admittedly more narrow report from the Wookiees would be given. The Wookiees were far more blunt about the amount of ‘dishonorable conduct’ they had discovered, after all…

… … …

- Kashyyyk – 74 Days into the Clone Wars-

“NO! You will return the stolen worlds you have illegally seized, or you will face the wrath of the Republic!”

Izuku refused to rise to the angry shouting of the sole member of the Republic delegation that had held his hardline stance. Senator Dai Karuk of Druckenwell’s position wasn’t that hard to understand. His was a Trade Federation world that had fairly obviously been poised to join the CIS…only to find itself practically enveloped by League Space instead. Now, the world’s Senator had taken to being loudly and belligerently pro-Republic. All in an effort to seem loyal enough that no one would come down on his planet for the numerous corporate interests there belonging to CIS affiliates. The fact that the planet had been the target of several anti-slavery campaigns by the Shattered Shackles was just the icing on a many-layered cake of why it hated the League.

Actually, since Druckenwell was a horrifyingly corrupt industrial world, calling it a cake was too nice. Maybe a rotting onion would be the better analogue? Yes, if Kashyyyk’s natural layers of danger were like an exotically spicy parfait, clearly Druckenwell was some sort of rotting, poisonous swamp onion. Something that was, thankfully, known to the members of the Republic delegation as well. It had been another appointment that was clearly chosen carefully by Chancellor Organa.

No one would be able to claim he hadn’t allowed a ‘staunchly loyal’ voice of the hardliners into the negotiation. Yet the way that voice was conducting themselves, combined with the distain many of the other delegates held for his world and its weak current position, meant that Senator Karuk wasn’t having much of an actual impact. Not beyond pissing off both the Wookiees, who disliked his violent opposition to their saviors, and the rest of the Republic delegation, who understood he was undermining their ability to cut an advantageous deal. An irritation made clear by Senator Seitaron of Cardia leaning forward from his own position a few seats down from his fellow Senator and speaking in a hard, cold voice.

“Shut your fool mouth, Dai Karuk. The Republic will do no such thing while we are busy fighting for our lives against the Confederacy. We are here to strike a deal for The League of Free Stars aid. Perhaps we should give them Drukenwell as part of the deal? The gods know they’d be doing us a favor to take you off our hands, and perhaps they could put those confederate factories of yours to better use.”

Dai Karuk turned purple in rage, something not helped by the Wookiee mediators for this particular round of debates chuffing in laughter. Izuku, reading the way pretty much the entire Republic delegation was just done with the loudmouth at this point, calculated his own comment carefully.

“I can’t say that we’d want them, to be honest. Save, of course, that they are a known haven for slavery. I supposed we’d suffer the rest of their personality for the chance to clean that up.”

The shot certainly landed. Better yet, the meeting got considerably easier when a Wookiee guard casually removed the half-frothing-at-the-mouth Senator from the room by throwing him over one shoulder and walking out of the chamber…

… … …

- Kashyyyk – 75 Days into the Clone Wars-

“As such, I point out that your anti-slaver and anti-pirate operations are a violation of Republic Space. Yes, you may have dealt with a few ner-do-wells, but you did so by flying warships through Republic Space, without a request from any local system. Worse, you did not turn these individuals over to the local authorities or Republic for trial, but took them back to your own space to try them under laws that did not apply to the space they were captured in.”

It was Izuku’s turn to be sheepish as some…overreach by the League was brought up by the Republic Delegation. Not apologetic, given the topic at hand, but certainly sheepish. The truth was that the League Navy had originally been founded by Captains and crews trained in the Shattered Shackles. While that obviously wasn’t true now, despite that group technically still existing, the original core of senior officers cutting their teeth in that group had caused side effects. Specifically, that there was a tendency for their better Captains to act more like half-renegade Heroes than traditional military commanders.

It was a completely natural result of how the League had come to be in the first place, and where it had trained its original ‘military personnel.’ A result Izuku himself wasn’t overly concerned with or apologetic about, despite knowing full well that it was a little bit problematic in the political sense. He’d rather his Navy be Heroically inclined, including the tendency to stick their nose into other people’s business to fix things unasked for, than to have legions of yes men who’d gun down civilians on orders ‘because orders.’

Unfortunately, it really was a bit of a problem, as it was now giving the Republic ammo to fire back with. When his Navy saw slavers, they took them down, regardless of where they were, and the standard policy was to drag all of them back to the League for trial, as Republic justice was unreliable at actually keeping them locked up. There were exceptions, such as if a patrol could easily reach Kashyyyk, where slavers would reliably get a bowcaster bolt after a very short trial. But, for the most part, his people were technically dragging foreign citizens, albeit criminals, off to try for crimes in League courts.

“As to that matter, Senator, as much as I hate to give the man credit for anything, the Betrayer had a legitimately positive initiative going with the Interpol between the League and the Judicial Forces. Obviously, he must have had more nefarious purposes for it, and we have accounted for several spies he placed within the Interpol. Yet, perhaps a similar measure, carefully gone over by multiple groups and perhaps monitored by the Jedi Order as a neutral party, could…”

… … …

- Kashyyyk – 76 Days into the Clone Wars-

“So, you’re willing to provide your particle beam weapons systems then? You can manufacture enough of them to supply KDY along with your own building programs?”

Izuku nodded to the sharp-eyed Kuati noble across from him. Ursula Kuat’s presence here made it very clear how seriously KDY wanted some of the League’s tech. House Kuat was, as one might guess from the name, the most powerful of the ten noble houses that ruled the planet. Every single member of House Kuat was fantastically powerful and wealthy, and only very rarely stepped outside high-ranking positions. Ursula herself was, in fact, the Principal Director for the entirety of the KDY main yards. With her were dedicated lawyers and negotiators, though so far she hadn’t really seemed to need them.

“Yes. As I’m sure you of all people are aware, it’s far easier to build component parts than entire ships, and we’ve already converted a number of manufacturing plants on new worlds we’ve absorbed to build the bulk of components for such weapons. There are a few pieces with too specific tolerances for such converted factories to make, but we wisely keep a substantial surplus of those specific components. Even for an order the size you’re talking about, we will have no issue meeting your immediate demands and can easily spin up the additional manufacturing capacity to sustain future orders of similar size.”

What he’d just said had the benefit of being almost entirely true. The only part that wasn’t was the source of the initial stockpile. While they did maintain a strategic reserve of the parts in question, it normally wasn’t large enough to meet the numbers Kuat was asking for. Only the Paladins, Mirukos, and Plus/Ultra Stations used the League’s particle beam cannons, after all, due to space and powers requirements of the potent weapons. There were only so many of those classes they could build, even with the IES yards. Kuat, on the other hand, could and was laying down hulls for literally hundreds of new Battlecruisers that were large enough to retrofit with the weapons.

The actual truth was that Izuku had realized the possibility that the Kuati would want the weapons systems over two weeks ago now and had promptly ordered capacity from a couple of the IES systems set aside. That had rapidly produced the numbers he was offering up now, with the ‘stockpile’ as just an excuse. Given the war needs and the fact even KDY was now building at genuinely full capacity for their yards for the first time in a millennia, he’d also realized they might be willing to settle for buying them, rather than buying/licensing the design to produce themselves.

Oh, he was certain they would take some of them apart for reverse engineering, but he was equally certain it would take them months at minimum to replicate the design. Better to make them work for it, rather than just handing them the methods. Particularly since it wouldn’t hurt the war effort, with the League supplying them. Supplying them at cost even, as it happened. Which, of course, was basically a bribe for their political support.

“In that case, Sovereign, I do believe that you’ll find Senator Danu more than happy to agree to the current terms of the Summit. After all, it’s for the best for the war effort, is it not?”

Cheerfully smiling his agreement, even as he internally cried out for a shower to get the ‘greedy bitch’ taint off of him, Izuku closed out one of the final agreements he would need to get the favorable terms he desired…

… … …

- Kashyyyk – 80 Days into the Clone Wars-

Izuku’s signature scrawled across the digital document with great gravatas, and to immediate cheers. The formal handshake a moment later caused the cheers, including roars from quite a few attending Wookiees, to escalate, drowning out the celebratory music. Personally, Izuku thought it was all a little overblown, even if he intellectually understood that a near-miracle had been accomplished with the ‘speed’ of this Summit. Eight days was half of forever in terms of the military situation elsewhere in the galaxy, but genuinely an eyeblink for how long something like this should have taken.

Proof that even politics could be made to move faster, if someone influential enough on both sides was using big enough levers to get things into motion.

In truth, it had been Chancellor Organa who had done the bulk of the setup, creating a delegation that was open to being manipulated in the right ways. Yet, it had remained to Izuku and the League to follow through on exploiting those openings to make the whole thing happen. Something that was only possible when, in reality, the highest levels of both sides wanted the end result and wanted it to happen swiftly.

In the end, it was honestly a good deal for both sides, but one that neither was entirely happy with. Which Izuku had been told was generally the correct result of political compromise in general. Ugh. He preferred business, if he had to do anything other than punching people in face to solve problems at all, at least. Sure, that sort of thing still happened in business too, but generally the more honest a businessman you were, the less it happened.

In business, unhappy deals were the result of one side trying to squeeze every deci-cred, instead of offering a fair partnership. Which was usually when Izuku just backed out…and often arranged to buy their company out from underneath whoever scumbag had tried it, in order to fix and improve the company. Usually to much rejoicing from the employees, since those sorts of owners were typically shitty to their own too. Still, that was that and this was this. Dirty as the politics might feel, it should all work out.

On the League’s side, they’d gotten acknowledgement for any worlds that had already joined them. In addition, they’d managed an agreement that any additional systems that voted to join them could do so, as long as it already bordered one of their worlds. It was building on the precedent that the Hutts had created with their soft border, being ironically something that both the Republic and League had been planning to do away with before the war. It would restrict the League’s growth mostly to within their own currently controlled space for the most part, without the impracticality of enforcing a hard border in the current situation.

Lastly for the League were some post-war security agreements that were mostly so much flimsiplast right now. However, Izuku and a few others already had a good idea how to give those agreements real teeth, starting with…ugh…taking a page from the Hutt’s playbook and using proxies to invest heavily in certain worlds and companies. They had the money, the Republic was hungry for the money to fight the war right now, and individually those worlds and companies weren’t likely to ask too many questions about where the infusions of cash were coming from. By the time they did so, post-war, they’d find it very difficult to put together the political will to take on the League.

As for the Republic, aside from individual deals with groups like KDY that would bolster their war effort, they’d secured a promise from the League to begin taking offensive actions against the CIS. The League would be committing to heavy raiding along the pseudo-border it shared with CIS North…and a more serious offensive against CIS South. The Republic was badly stretched trying to deal with both, but felt they could handle holding the line against CIS North if someone else could get the pressure from the CIS South fleets off of them.

The Republic were rightfully worried about the CIS Fleet that had been repairing and rearming at Loronar, which had too good of a shot into the Core. Given every recent push had been an attempt to get at the Core Worlds from one route or another, their worries were extremely pertinent to the current galactic situation. That fleet, however, would find itself hard pressed to continue acting as a potential dagger into the Republic’s heart if the League pushed out from Enarc and Naboo in a serious thrust right into the critical worlds of CIS South. Taking Sanrafsix and Darkknell would allow the retaking of Eriadu, which had fought hard against CIS occupation. From there it would be farther possible to threaten Sullust, which was a major shipyard and manufacturing world for CIS South.

A campaign of that nature would virtually force the recall of the Loranar fleet, or at least significant portions of it. In turn, that would give the Republic breathing room to position most of their new post-start-of-war construction against CIS North. Given the rate Corellia and Kuat were producing ships, and the frantic fast track programs worlds like Cardia were pushing recruits through to man those ships, that would hopefully stem the tide against the CIS until the Republic truly hit its stride.

Overall, both sides got something they needed, even if both felt it cost too much. The art of political comprise at its finest. Now, if Izuku could just escape the ‘celebrations’ so he could take four or five showers to get the ick of politics off of him. Preferably showers with one or more of his lovers involved to help him forget the last eight days of stress…

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A/N 1: So, my biggest goal for the Summit was to show that the League isn't Inherently on the same page as the Republic. Even Izuku isn't, as he doesn't really LIKE the Republic. He just understands that the Sith are dangerous. Also, even he doesn't have TOTAL control over the League, by his own design, so there has to be something genuinely 'in it' for the League to pay the cost in money and lives to help with the war.

A/N 2: I also wanted to show that the League isn't ENTIRELY in the right. With the Republic having it's own points about the League not exactly being completely innocent of stomping on Republic Sovereignty, in some ways. The price of your head honcho being more Hero than politician, and encouraging his people to stick their noses in places they maybe don't quite have the right to.

A/N 3: Once per set of chapters released, I mention that I have a P-atreon! My fanfiction content is never permanently paywalled, but I do maintain Early Access chapters for each fic. In the case of Displaced Hero, chapters 153-156, amounting to roughly 21,000 additional words, are currently in Early Access. That said, while support is deeply appreciated, the previous chapters are always put up here as new chapters are released into early access. So you can always just be patient ;-). For those that do wish to support me, you can find a link to my P-atreon in my profile, or simply search the web for 'Novus's Fanfiction Works.' I update four stories a month, 20k words each, plus at least one extra 10k monthly, so you're getting 90,000 words in Early Access content across my works if you join up!