Day 2 of Chancellor Kestee's Term
After wasting most of his first day in office attending pointless balls, dinners and other celebrations, the new Chancellor and his government could finally get to work. The first item of his first real day in office, was a war cabinet meeting, followed then by a meeting of his whole cabinet.
Then the rest of his day would be meeting individually with certain cabinet members or interviewing potential members for some of the posts that he had yet to fill, and other officials. The war cabinet meeting would take place in his office, because there were only a few members of this cabinet.
The various members were gathered around his desk. Present was his deputy, Padme Amidala, Minister of State, Mon Monthma, Minister of War, Gial Ackbar, Minister of Justice, Onaconda Farr, Minister of Security Sal Karrus, Director of Republic Intelligence, Bail Organa, Chief of the Military Staff, Fleet Admiral Tyson Wertz and whatever Jedi Council members could attend, there was always at least one, today it was Master Windu.
Most of them were former Senators in his voting bloc, except for the Admiral who was a career naval officer in the Judicial Fleet before the Clone Wars. One of his first actions was to replace Palpatine's people with his own. Even the Admiral was new, having served as the deputy to the previous Chief of Staff.
While he still had hundreds of posts to fill in his government, so many of Palpatine's people remained, he was very quick to kick them out from the more important posts. "Thank you everyone for coming, although I hope we can very quickly put an end to these meetings. First order of business,"
The Chancellor looked down at his data pad. "The Nexus Route, Master Windu, I believe we should have heard back from them."
"Master Koon's forces recovered the Jedi strike team and the survivors they were able to rescued. Unfortunately, Master Piell was killed in the process. He and a Captain Tarkin had both memorized half of the nexus route. Fortunately, Master Piell's death was not in vain, he was able to tell one of Padawans, Ashoka Tano, his half of the route."
"We need to debrief them very quickly, it is dangerous for only those two people to have that knowledge, should something to one of them." Gial Ackbar said.
"Yes, but unfortunately, we can't do it over the holo, we don't want the enemy to intercept our communications. It will be several more days before they arrive here. They have to drop off some critically wounded troopers at a medical station. But also, Captain Tarkin refuses to share his half of the Nexus Route, he has informed Master Koon that he has orders to share them with the Supreme Chancellor only." Master Windu informed them.
Many eyes turned to looked at the Chancellor, "Don't look at me, that was Palpatine. Send Captain Tarkin and Miss Ashoka to me when they arrive, Gial, and Admiral Wertz, you will need to be here for that also.
"If we have the Nexus Route covered can we move to the Geonosis campaign, by moving it, I want to cancel the whole thing or postpone it." Ackbar said to the group.
"Did you say cancel it Minister. We have spent many months scouting and planning for the invasion." Master Windu asked.
"Here me out first. We do not have many troops to spare. Many ships and lives would be lost on the campaign. We did lose it once already in the war, and we never did figure out the real reason as to why that happened. The target that I have in mind would amount to the same strategic value with a lot less of a struggle."
"What target is that." Bail Organa asked..
"The Trade Federation. I have never understood why Palpatine continued to let them roam around the halls of the Senate and continue to trade all the while the Republic is fighting against droids that were originally designed and produced by them. We all know that they have publicly disavowed the separatists, but we are not stupid, we all know what they are really doing." Ackbar continued on, looking at Admiral Wertz.
"The four Neimoidian purse worlds, Neimoidia, Cato, Koru and Deko Neimoidia are all located in the inner rim. Far from the fighting in the outer-rim but they are shielded from attack because technically they are still part of the Republic, its actually very smart of them." Admiral Wertz said, taking over from Ackbar.
"They are protected by the Neimoidian Home Defense Legions, poorly trained conscripts, with limited battle droid support. The hardest challenge in taking the worlds would be their space defenses, their Lucrehulk-class battleship, and the star-fighters inside present the biggest challenge. Taking those down will not be easy, but it is possible." Wertz continued.
"As the military does their end of the bargain, my security forces will seize Trade Federation offices, trade ships, a certain Senator, we'll also work with the army when they get to ground on the planet, we will seize their vaults on their purse worlds. Onaconda will put a freeze on all bank accounts. As we would consider them enemies of the state, all of their assets would be ours. We're talking tens of billions of credits." The Minister of Security added.
Cleary some of them had already gotten together to discuss this. "It would severely damage the separatists funding, while giving a huge boost to our own."
"An excellent idea of course, but more then a quarter of Republic trade goes through the trade federation. I despite them as much as everyone here, probably more so because of my history with them, but that is the reason Palpatine never committed to going after them." The Vice Chancellor added.
"If the Chancellor approves the operation. We would freeze their assets, judicial and customs vessels will seize their trade ships, their warehouses, everything. As they would be declared enemies, all their assets would be ours. We would of course keep their credits, sell their valuables in the vaults. But as far as their physical assets, there are plenty of other trading companies out their who would love to receive or purchase trade federation assets. The Judicial Department can auction off seized assets."
"We are still working out the exact roles our ministries will have, but we will have all that worked out before we carry out the plan." Onaconda Farr said.
"Padme does that answer your concerns." The Chancellor asked.
"Yes, it does, I would say go for it Chancellor."
"We'll have to work on the exact plans, but I am all for it. Let's get a plan together as soon as possible."
"I will inform Master Mundi and have his forces stand down. If we are moving on, next on the agenda is Ryloth, the separatists broke through Admiral," Master Windu started. It was going to be a long meeting.
The meeting went on for another hour before they had to adjourn. They would break for an hour before attending the whole cabinet meeting, although that wouldn't take place in the Chancellor's office, there was too many people.
As they filed out, Master Windu stayed behind. "One more thing Chancellor. We ran tests on the lightsaber you found, the only prints on it were yours and Palpatine's. Now he hadn't touched it in a while as they were dated, yours of course were fresh. Our archivists and historians are pulling out old archive footage of any picture or video taken of Palpatine's office to find other artifacts that he might have had."
"Ok, but where does that leave us. Yes, all of this would be highly suspicious but it doesn't exactly prove he is a Sith Lord. To me it does, to you it would. But not to the Senate or the public. If and when you go and arrest him," the Chancellor started.
"We'll try to arrest him but I doubt he would go quietly, he would fight us to the death or fight to get away." Master Windu interrupted.
"Well then if he fights you then that would be all the evidence needed."
"Me and Master Yoda discussed this, we would like to wait for the whole Jedi council to be assembled first, then all twelve of us can go and confront him."
"Is that wise to have all of you go."
"He's manage to keep himself hidden for all these years, who knows what he is really capable of."
"Just keep me updated on what you do before you do it. Let me walk you out."
As the two men were walking out of the Chancellor's office, the droid expeditionary forces on Kashyyk that were being held at bay by Quinlan Vos, his clone troopers and the Wookies were unloading a new shipment of supplies. The new shipment would see the planet burn.
On Ryloth where the droid forces under Wat Tambor were occupying the service after having driven the Republic forces under Master Ima-Gun Di out into the harsh Ryloth landscape. But the Republic forces with the help of local citizens were fighting back using hit and run tactics. A separatist General Lok Durd was sent to Ryloth to test his new weapon, the Defoliator.
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Coming Up Next
"I don't know what happened Syndulla, one second they were in contact and were ambushing the droid convoy, the next we lost all contact with them. I'm here now, the whole area is, it's like something killed everything organic, every tree and every blade of grass. We found my men, at least their armor, their bodies are gone, same for your people, clothing but no people." General Ima-Gun Di