Author's Note: Apparently I cannot indent paragraphs via Fanfiction's editor, and uploading the file with indentations has it's formatting cleared.
His hands were clasped behind his back, his brow scrunched slightly in thought as he stood before the holo-table, listening to the quiet hum of activity around him. Though his head was tilted down and slightly to the side, his posture was straight though relaxed, a man in his element with a bit of mildly interesting news to consider. In reality, he had a problem, a big one that he was staring at on the table- a full sized armada, and more ships were entering the system as he considered just what to do with so many ships.
With his original fleet he could have easily held onto the local systems and provided security until the Republic could stand up again, with several fleets he could extend that protection against privation and chaos, but now he had nearly twelve thousand ships under his direct command, and another three thousand under his indirect command. Coruscant was gone, and so was the council, and numerous others. The Chancellor himself and nearly the entirety of the Senate, gone. The last transmission had made it quite abundantly clear that landing on the surface of that planet was suicide.
There were so many others looking to him for direction, for orders, for stability, it was difficult to take it all in, but he was trying. Few other Jedi had survived and most of them were coming to him, and the CIS seemed to be breaking down as well. The first Separatist Squadron had arrived several days ago, it's organic commanders offering humanitarian aide and passing along a message that the separatist leadership was ordering all vessels to cease hostilities until the situation could be ascertained. Wisely, they also placed themselves under his command until such time as hostilities would force them to fight or flee. The next day another Squadron had arrived with several message packets- the CIS was breaking up into several factions, General Grievous and Count Dooku were leading their respective factions against each other as well as a third faction lead by Nute Gunray and the Separatist council. All three wanted control and all three were trying to take it by force.
Rather than join either group, some Separatist groups had broken off, a few joining the groups already with him. Now he represented the single strongest remnant of the Republic and it looked as if he would also represent the remaining Jedi as well, though a number of other Jedi Masters had arrived as well.
Seventeen times Alsakan had tried to usurp Coruscant's preeminence within the Republic resulting in conflict and discord, it was also a core founder of the replublic along side Coruscant and other planets such as Corellia, Alderaan and Kuat. Now it was home to thousands of ships, and one Haven Class Medical Station, which Garth currently occupied in favor of his own flagship. With the military force at his finger-tips, he was defacto leader of the Republic, though what the Republic was now, leaderless, without guidance and broken, he didn't have much of.
Six weeks was all it took. The Republic had broken up into little squabling pieces, the CIS was in tatters, and the Hutts remained passive, although possibly the strongest current polity in power, unless Garth could get the Republic back on track, but that was proving increasingly unlikely despite his considerable military power.
"Jayne, how is the council settling in?" He turned from the display to look at his chestnut haired chief of staff. She was short, stocky and meticulous with blue eye, a woman of the Navy through and through.
"They're nearly ready sir, though the atmosphere is tense, they're not comfortable with how we're progressing," she reported.
"Good, that'll keep them off balance and unable to form solid blocs for the time being, lets get going." Jayne gave a curt nod, turned on her heel and lead him from the room, one of the secondary central command rooms given over to him by the station commander while he stayed aboard. They walked in silence through the corridor for several minutes until they reached a door with a number of guards, representing the various, distrustful groups coming together. Clone troopers, Battle Droids, and several planetary defense force soldiers stood at attention, a single Jedi Knight standing in their midst. Garth acknowledges various salutes then entered the door, followed by Jayne, within the room beyond was a mixed group, his 'small council' he had thrown together to quickly mitigate any power struggles and to solidify his own hold on the already fractious Armada.
It consisted of the primary essentials, a Senior Clone Commander, several Senators, a Neimoidian representing the ex-Separatist elements, and several non-clone military leaders representing non-clone military assets, such as the Army and Navy, and last but not least, two other Jedi Masters. It was an unbalanced council, and it was filled with mistrust, ambition and enough intrigue to fill the galaxy had it not had more than enough in recent years.
"As the local senior Republic and Jedi Representative, I find myself filling the role of chancellor more with each passing moment, though I don't want the post I'll accept the responsibility for now, however, I move I do so as Sub-Chancellor until such time as a new one is elected or the government changed format and focus, all in favor?" Garth opened quickly, straight to business, getting the messy, gritty issues out of the way, and was answered with affirmatives around the table.
"My first act as Sub-Chancellor is reorganizing the fleet structure, our current structures are outdated, causing logistical nightmares, My chief of Staff has already forwarded the necessary documents to those essential to making it happen as my last act as commander of the fleet. We will also be reorganizing our troop compliments aboard each vessel as needed. Kuat, Corellia, Duro, Alderaan, Axum and Tepasi have all so so far pledged their support for the continued existence of the Republic, the remaining Core Founding systems have so far been unable to communicate one way or the other- likely suffering from the fall of Coruscant, as a show of good faith, I'd like to dispatch several vessels to each to check on their status and query their response, and a fleet to each supporting Core Founder to aide in any defense movements necessary." Garth pushed forward to head nodding and soft words of ascent.
"I am currently at a loss as to how we should deal with a number of problems and I'd like your input on them in our next meeting, currently we're only getting by with what we have and the local system won't be able to sustain us," he admitted. "I'd like to see our ground forces working more closely together, to achieve that I'm pulling every head-quarters and High Command survivor I can find in on this one, Clones and Droids may have been the dominant troops in the war, and may still be for quite some time, but we have non-clone, non-droid soldiers as well, and incorporating all three into one army could potentially strengthen our boots on the ground, however I don't plan to make that happen for some time yet- we'll start small, and we'll do it here, where we're most secure and able to over-see the integration process first-hand." Garth pauses, letting his words sink in, the other Jedi were eying him quizzically, the Senators were various states of nonplussed and the military leaders were looking at him in concern.
"I believe that's everything for the agenda today, we'll meet again tomorrow. All necessary files will be found on your personal devices," Garth finished, turned and walked from the room. It was more flashy and arrogant than he would prefer, but he had to act quickly before any true political opposition could form, before his sector of stability turned into the chaos of losing the Republic.