The Believer
Chapter 1
Finally! Woanosa Dayseeker thought as she listened to the HNS anchor deliver the stunning news that the Jedi had captured and killed the son of Darth Angral, Sith Lord and Dark Council member, in the old Jedi Temple.
"Early reports suggest that the Sith, tentatively Id'd as Lord Tarnis, had been on planet for some time as a member of a highly secretive Republic Defense Command weapons project. We don't have confirmation but it appears Lord Tarnis was attempting to escape Coruscant with information vital to the continued security of the Republic…we will of course be here throughout the day to bring you updates as they unfold".
She clenched her fist and turned from the screen. "Cetus?"
"Yes Ma'am?" her assistant, Cetus Sunrider stepped up, always at her beckon call.
"I want you to get on the comm with Senator Kilbune from Khomm, and Erspera, and tell them to meet me at my office. Let them know I am on my way there and that it is imperative we get out in front of this before the appeasement caucus can figure out a way to turn this into the Jedi's fault", she rattled off the instructions while wrapping the black and gold shimmersil cloak around her back.
"Right away ma'am", the young man turned on his heels and was off.
Good boy she thought. Cetus was an orphan from their home planet of Hypori in the Far Rim. His parents and sister were all killed when the Empire invaded twenty-five years ago. He was smart, dutiful, and a constant reminder of what they were fighting for.
Hypori had been occupied while Woaneso was on a bolo-ball scholarship at the University of Anaxes in the Core. By the time she graduated the Senate had decreed senators of occupied planets would retain their post in exile. So when the senior senator from the sector retired, she ran…and won by a landslide of sixty thousand exiled votes. Hypori had only two million residents before the war, and only eighty thousand now lived under refugee status in the core. It was a testament to her political acumen that she had reached her current position in just under two decades.
Her personal air car landed at the members balcony of the Senate. She gave the shoulder of her Gotal driver Glott a squeeze before her Ortolan security guard opened her door with one of his four arms. The Far Rim was renowned for its diversity, and Woanosa made it a point to carry on that tradition by hiring non-humans for her most visible positions. She smiled at Ryx as she got out and he returned one that bisected his scaly face, before replacing it with his professional mask as he turned around to walk a pace behind her.
She loved this building. Constructed just two centuries ago to replace the old senate with its fixed roof and rostrums, this building had room for expansion the other did not as well as detachable hover-rostrums which lent a louder voice to the Rim delegations in the "nosebleeds." As new systems were discovered all the time, and most applied for inclusion in the Republic, the Senate was almost always growing.
But it wasn't just the building Woanosa loved, but what it represented; a galaxy of diverse life woven together through ideals rather than force. For all their high-minded talk of unity, security, and the failure of democracy, one thing above all drove the Imperials, human supremacy. More than anything, they want to take the Republic to the time before the Great Hyperspace War, when humans enjoyed a de facto primacy over the alien races of the still mostly unexplored galaxy. Woanosa knew this in her heart for her two reasons; her father had been an Imperial supporter and his collaboration ensured her family's rise under Sith control. And two, because all of the problems the Empire claimed plagued the Republic had been fixed centuries before through diplomatic cooperation. Unity? The Republic was as unified as a civilization of many disparate free people could be. Security? The Republic had a standing army and navy that turned away hundreds of thousands of unneeded applicants each year. As for democracy, that may have been true at one time. But after the ratification of the 7th and 8th Ameliorations which forbade private campaign contributions and allowed only anonymous private appointments, which ensured no citizen would be given undue influence in seeing their representative, democracy was no longer a commodity to be bought and sold.
She was coming to the end of the colonnade as Ryx broke her train of thought by jumping in front of her to call the lift.
The lift opened to a Geonosian hive of activity; pages and assistants hustled back and forth while senators huddled in conversations on either side of the wide hallway. She immediately saw Isthand Sculpatta break away from his group and her skin crawled. There had been a time when being from a different caucus meant you ate together once a week rather than the two or three times a week you ate with like-minded senators, but those days were long past. Now, there was a simmering hatred that existed between the two main factions of politicians. War would do that she mused as the senior senator from the Socorro system, and one of the three leaders of the "Peace and Reconciliation" Caucus approached.
"Senator Dayrider" he spat her quintessentially Outer Rim name as he would a sour grape.
"Isthand" she replied, the indignity of using his first name evident on his well-fed face. A seasoned politician he brushed away her slight with a tight smile.
"I don't suppose you won't see this act by the Jedi as the blatant provocation it is, and work with us to ensure peace continues unabated". He uttered the line as if she could hardly disagree.
Woanosa did come to a full stop now. "You can't be serious?"
"How could I not be? Where is the balance Woanosa?! A spy, no different than the spies you know we have in their territory!" he said prempting her, "is beheaded trying to escape? How can that be the actions of-"
"-Nice Senator. You admit he's a spy so I might think you are viewing this objectively, but leave out the part where that same spy was absconding with information vital to our security." She waved him away like she would a sunfly and started to move again. But she couldn't shake this insect as he matched her pace.
"What information Woanosa?! How come we cannot get an answer as to just what was stolen?" he said smacking the back of one hand into the palm of another.
"Because it's classified information. Which is well within the purview of the RDC and the SIS. I'm sorry you trust the Empire more than your own government and the Jedi who have served for millennia without once executing a fleeing spy, but that is your problem, and one that shouldn't be imposed upon the citizens you purport to serve. Now if you please, I have work to do on behalf of all the Republic's citizens," she sped up.
"Yes, yes, may the Force be with your warmongering", he mocked her faith from behind her. She thought briefly about calling him a coward but she had no doubt that word weighed heavy on him every night he looked in the mirror.
