Well, I did the writing thing, HundredSunsets did the beta-ing thing, and now here's a chapter. The trial run with weekly updates is off to a good start. Enjoy!
Chapter 26: The Politics of Treachery
Ahsoka had expected an uproar amongst the opposition after Palpatine's Sector Governance Decree. However, what she was seeing was pretty much the reverse. In Riyo's suite, the leaders of the old Anti-Governance coalition had gathered again: Amidala, Organa, Mothma, Iblis, and so on. It was all business. Instead of chaos, everyone spoke in quiet, measured tones. Every movement seemed to have an express purpose behind it. The Force was also quiet, but a palpable undercurrent of tension ran beneath it. Nobody could afford to waste any energy on panicking.
Ahsoka's job for once was easier, thanks to most of the Senate Guards assigned to every other Senator also being present at the meeting. Since there was basically an entire garrison milling about outside the suite, there' wasn't much she needed to do. She stayed mostly out of the way of everyone, but that wasn't stopping her from eavesdropping. Snippets of conversations passed through her ears:
"—can cite the Calling Acts of 654—"
"—any word from Kuat? Senator Danu should—"
"—less than the attempt made by Chancellor Tonkin in—"
"—documentation of what happened with the Froeeoeion uprising in the Outer Rim—"
"—Taneel has those papers with the signatures—"
"—wish we could know more about Felucia—"
As soon as the word "Felucia" crossed her montrals, Ahsoka stopped short. She turned toward the conversation to see Riyo conferring with Amidala and three other senators she didn't recognize. She would kill for any word about Anakin these days. Sidling over, she listened more closely.
"The holonet is utterly unreliable these days," Riyo was saying. "And you've heard nothing from your contact there?" she asked to Amidala.
"Almost nothing worth noting," Amidala said gloomily. "He's been bogged down without much luck for more than a week. All he's been able to say is that they're still at an impasse."
"Come on," one of the other senators said. "Surely we can trust what the holonet's saying. Amidala, I'm sorry, but I'd put more faith in the Republic's news feed than an anonymous contact. Even if you believe he's trustworthy, he's only one person."
Hang on a minute. Ahsoka looked carefully at Amidala, who almost looked insulted. A few different things had just fallen into place in her mind, and she decided to speak up.
"No," she said to the senator who'd just spoken.
The senators turned to look at her.
"I'm sorry?" the other one said. "I didn't quite get that."
"You're wrong. You can't trust what the holonet's saying. At all."
"I don't mean to be rude, but what exactly makes you think so?" the senator asked.
"Because," Ahsoka said, removing her helmet, "I've been there. I'm Ahsoka Tano. You might've heard of me."
They certainly had heard of her, because as soon as she removed her helmet, their expressions changed from skepticism to startled recognition.
"When I was in the Outer Rim, we barely ever looked at the Holonet," Ahsoka continued. "If we did, it was to laugh at it. Because what they were saying was so different from what we were seeing. The Republic loved to overestimate their chances everywhere. Losses didn't get mentioned unless they were so big that they couldn't go unnoticed."
The senators exchanged glances.
"Ever heard of the Battle of Quell?" she asked.
The only answer to her question was confused silence.
"Exactly," she said. "This is confidential information. You can't tell anyone this came from me. Anyway. General Secura's entire fleet—all three capital ships—was completely destroyed over Quell by a Separatist fleet that sustained almost no losses. And then my legion had to rescue her. We couldn't save any soldiers from her legion. They all went down with the ships. It was a devastating defeat. And Anakin was hurt badly during the battle, and our ship made an accidental hyperspace jump after that, stranding us on a remote backwater planet." She paused. "How much of that did you see on the holonet?"
Again, silence.
She nodded. "That's what I thought. You might've heard a little bit about me and Anakin destroying a secret Separatist superweapon called the Defoliator, but they couldn't say too much about that because then people would start asking how they managed to do that, and it wouldn't be good press to say that The Hero Of The Republic nearly died on a backwater planet after a botched rescue mission and we found the superweapon by accident."
Judging by the looks on their faces, they hadn't heard anything like this ever before, even Riyo—but Padmé had. And that was all Ahsoka needed to confirm what she'd just figured out. Anakin was Padmé's contact in the Outer Rim. Of course, she'd had her suspicions, them being such good… friends… after all. She couldn't count how many times Anakin had ran off during the night to use his starfighter's, and the few times she'd dared to ask who he was calling, he'd either brushed it off or said something about how Padawans shouldn't be snooping around in their masters' business.
Ahsoka glanced over at Padmé. "Your contact told you about this, didn't he, Senator Amidala?"
"Indeed he did," Padmé said, looking like she knew all too well what Ahsoka was thinking.
"I—I had no idea," the senator said, gaping. "I'm sorry. I would've thought that—"
"Don't dwell on it, Senator Antilles," Riyo said. "I'm glad we could convince you of our information problems, but that doesn't solve anything. We still don't have a concrete way of knowing what's really happening in the war. As long as Amidala's contact is pinned down, we have nothing. As of now, the only ones who know the truth are the Jedi and the Chancellor's office."
Padmé sighed. "If only we had someone in the Chancellor's circle that we could trust."
Suddenly, Ahsoka remembered what the Chancellor had said to her as she left his office with Riyo the day before.
"I—I might be able to get an audience with the Chancellor," she blurted out.
For the second time, the group turned to look at her with surprise.
"How exactly would you do that?" Riyo asked.
"He asked me to meet him. He wants to ask me some questions. It was as we were leaving his office yesterday. You'd already left the room, but he stopped me and asked me." Ahsoka gave Riyo, who now looked slightly put off, an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I should've said something."
"Did he say anything about what he wanted?" Riyo asked.
"Not really," Ahsoka said. "Just about our recent mission," she said, giving Riyo a meaningful look. Corellia was still a top-secret matter. "I could try and get some information out of him about the war for you guys."
The senators looked at each other. A silent conversation seemed to take course before Riyo spoke.
"Take his offer, Ahsoka," Riyo said. "But do not push him for anything."
"See what he wants first. Then use that as leverage to try and get something out of him," Amidala added. "We'll take anything we can get right now—the situation in the Outer Rim, what he's planning to do after the war, his true intentions with the Sector Governance Decree, what the Jedi are saying, what he thinks of his opposition—really, anything. Let him think you're on his side. He might let something slip if he thinks he can confide in you."
"Do you know what he wants?" Riyo asked.
Ahsoka shrugged. "No idea." She remembered quite well what Palpatine had said about having more questions about the mission to Corellia, but she wasn't going to mention that in a room full of people who would have no idea what she was talking about and ask too many questions.
Riyo nodded. "Tread carefully, then. He might try something similar to what we're doing. Don't tell him anything, no matter how inconsequential you think it is."
Padmé reached out, grasping Ahsoka's arm. "Truly, you have to be careful. The Chancellor is a deadly creature. What we're asking you to do could be taken as sedition. Are you sure you're comfortable with this?"
Ahsoka nodded fiercely. "You bet I am. Come on, I've fought General Grievous twice. This will be nothing." At that statement, several of the other senators looked positively ill.
Ahsoka flopped down into a chair opposite Riyo. "So how's it looking?"
Riyo shook her head. "Not good. Not good." She was lying on one of the suite's couches, watching the ceiling with a vacant expression. "The good news is that we're building a delegation of senators to sign a petition demanding the Chancellor's relinquish his emergency powers."
Ahsoka had learned from experience that if the words "the good news" were spoken, there was a one hundred percent chance that they would be followed with "and the bad news" at some point. Which would usually be worse. So she waited for Riyo to finish.
"And the bad news is," Riyo said, confirming Ahsoka's prediction, "Is that we won't have enough signatories."
"How many?"
"Eighteen hundred, two thousand, perhaps a bit more." Riyo groaned. "We're vastly outnumbered. The majority either sides with Palpatine or does not wish to disrupt the war so close to its conclusion. Which is exactly the effect he wanted. I hate to admit it, but the war has made sector governance appear plausible to most of the population. The Outer Rim Sieges have worn us all down. And Corellia had its intended effect."
Corellia. Ahsoka's mind went back to Sangos. Those last words of hers.
"No. It goes deeper than Dooku. The real one, he's going to rule the galaxy, you see?"
She sat up straighter in a sudden burst of understanding. Sangos had been power-hungry and corrupted by the Dark Side, but she wasn't insane. She knew how close defeat was for the Separatists. So that "real one," that mysterious Sith Lord above Dooku that Sangos spoke of… He had to be somewhere in the Republic. Someone with too much power in the Republic.
Could it be the Chancellor…? No. She dismissed the thought at once. If there was anything at worthwhile that she'd learned in her lessons on the history of the Jedi Order as a youngling, it was that no self-respecting Sith would be brazen enough to make such an obvious power grab like the Chancellor just had. The Sith operated from the shadows. The people who appeared to be in charge were almost always puppets, figureheads. Behind the scenes, the real darkness would be lurking. The position of the Chancellor was too visible, and surely the Jedi would notice a Sith in such a position. No, if there was a Sith Lord at the head of the Republic, it wouldn't be the Chancellor—it would be controlling the Chancellor.
Riyo's lamenting voice pulled her out of her musings.
"There's too much public support for the decree right now, as we're discovering."
"So… nothing's going to happen?"
"For now," Riyo said grimly. "Let's hope that, once the fog of war has fallen, the people will see Palpatine's machinations for what they are."
She rolled onto her side, turning her back to Ahsoka and burying her face into the couch. Ahsoka waited, sensing something else with much more feeling was coming.
"And let's hope," Riyo began slowly, her voice muffled by the couch, "It doesn't take a decade like Chi Cho's aberration of a regime for them to understand how terribly wrong it all is." Despair began to roil the Force around her.
"Is that what it will take?" she asked. "Is that what it will take? Is that what it will take?"
Each time she said it, her voice rose in pitch and the tension in the Force ratcheted up a notch, until Ahsoka was feeling Riyo's desperation as if it were her own.
"Does everyone need to live in evil to understand what it is?" Riyo burst out. And then her body began to shake, her shoulders heaving.
Riyo was crying. Ahsoka wanted to murder Palpatine. And Tebathia. And any other senator who'd ever contributed to Riyo feeling this way.
Gradually, Riyo's sobbing slowed and came to a stop. But she didn't move from her position against the couch, even when Ahsoka sat down next to her and began rubbing slow circles in her back.
"I'm going to live through Chi Cho all over again," Riyo said. "Once wasn't enough. Apparently, the Moon Goddess has decided that I need another trial."
Ahsoka paused her rubbing. She knew that Pantorans had their own belief system; Riyo had mentioned it briefly a few times before. But this was the first time she'd ever heard Riyo make a direct, personal reference of any kind to them. Which showed just how bad this was.
"Riyo. I promise you that I'm going to do everything I can to help you stop him," she said. "When I meet him tomorrow, I'll—I'll—"
Suddenly, Riyo rolled over and grabbed Ahsoka's hand, holding it in a frighteningly tight grip. "Please be careful with Palpatine, Ahsoka. I don't trust him," she said, her eyes boring into Ahsoka.
"I—I will," Ahsoka said. The intensity of Riyo's stare unsettled her. If Palpatine was in the clutches of the hidden Sith Lord, she had every right to be worried. Anything she said to Palpatine could find its way into the hands of the Sith Lord.
"Thank you," Riyo said. She rolled back over. "I'm going to sleep now."
She had every right to be tired, too. She hadn't slept since the announcement of the Sector Governance Decree the day before yesterday. That was thirty-six standard hours ago. And Ahsoka… had also not slept once since then. So, it was far too tempting for her to drift off along with Riyo. Good thing the couch was just deep enough for two of them. She laid herself down between Riyo's body and the edge of the couch—she could thank the Clone Wars for teaching her how to sleep in the most awkward positions possible—and laid an arm around Riyo.
At the contact, Riyo let out a deep, contented sigh and snuggled into Ahsoka's embrace. Ahsoka reached out to the Force and brought it in around her, letting its presence wrap around her and Riyo, and slowly began to slip into sleep. The Force resembled no existing music, but all the same, it acted as a gentle song drifting through Ahsoka's montrals.
The surest sign of how tired they both were was that neither of them even considered getting up to change out of their clothes before falling asleep, and a politician's formal outfit and Senate Guard armor were not by any means hallmarks of comfort. And yet, both Ahsoka and Riyo were both soon asleep on the couch. Together.
Well, this chapter was actually much shorter than I intended. I was originally going to include two more scenes in here, but then I got to the end of the scene with Ahsoka and Riyo and I realized, "oh my god, it would be CRIMINAL to not end on this line" so here we are. Short chapter. The dramatic irony with Ahsoka is off the fucking charts here. Possibly even more than with Riyo in the last chapter, and Riyo spent half of last chapter (quite reasonably) telling off Palpatine about how he's an evil criminal who's about to take over the galaxy. Ahsoka is… Well, she doesn't know what she's getting into. So get ready for Chapter 27, a previously unplanned chapter, which will be the rest of what was supposed to be in Chapter 26. Leave a review if you can, I love those things. Hope everyone has a great day!