Magic of the Force

by Vimesenthusiast

Harry's always wondered why the Dursleys hated him. After a nasty beating breaks loose some memories, he starts to experiment only to find he really may be different. After a few a few setbacks he starts to gain control of his powers, only to receive another beating. Pleading with his magic to get him away, he soon discovers he has a great destiny and the family he always wanted.

14. Chapter 14

Ain't Disney nor do I have the initials JKR.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This story won the large story poll for December, although it isn't as large as I had hoped. Getting the Senate meeting right was horrible, and just about drowned my muse. I hope it works and seems logical for the world it is occurring in, but

This has been edited by me using Grammarly and a new editor named MB. Hopefully, that means there won't be enough small mistakes to reduce your enjoyment of the chapter.

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Chapter 14: The Winds of Change Blow Many Ways

Staring out at the thousands of senators in front of and all around him, Harry could only smile. This was going to be very interesting. Master Fay's style of diplomacy don't fail me now, he thought to himself.

Or as to himself as Harry could ever do anything. "You've got this Harry," said Aayla's voice in his head. "You've got this. This might not be what you're best at, but you are damn good at it. You've got friends here too as well as enemies, and you've got me in your corner."

"And with that, what more do I need, my love," Harry quipped, his mental voice sardonic. But the reality of his feelings on that subject came through and deep in the catacombs, Aayla blushed, thinking wickedly that she was going to pay that moment back to him later tonight. At the same time back in the Senate Hall, with his mind centered in the Force and soul brimming with his love and connection to Aayla, Harry stepped into the unknown.

Once standing within the guest speaker's hoverchair, Harry quickly used the controls of the hoverchair to rise into the center of the hall. The Senate members were shouting, roaring and clamoring, while others shouted at one another and more than a few attempted to just quiet everyone else down. Others were shouting that they should have been told about his addressing the Senate, more were shouting he should be arrested as a troublemaker, and more than one voice was shouting out questions about why a Jedi was being allowed to lead another divisive group when they were already having trouble with C'baoth and his leading the Separatist movement.

At first, it seemed as if only a few members of the Senate, the Chancellor among them, were not raising their voices, although Harry could tell that actually, at least about a third of the Senate were not shouting, rather they were hunkering down against the storm. Padme was among those, but Harry knew she was not normally the quiet sort. No, it was the rest of those Senators - the ones who kept their own council, who went along with things, unwilling to make waves but also wary - that were his real targets today. Careful Harry. Foundation first, then we shall see if there can be anything more afterward.

With that thought and a single breath to prepare himself further, Harry reached out to the Force and let loose a thunderclap, a blast of force so strong and sudden that it sounded as if the hall meeting hall had been the site of a lightning strike.

Nearly every Senator flinched back into silence or cries of shock and then fell still as the communications devices showed Harry's face. That was the face of the Jedi, whose serenity was most noticeably marked by a bit of irritation. For Padme and others who were still young enough to remember being students, and not altogether with the fondness that was only felt upon putting such a state behind one, it was likened to the face of a teacher coming in after recess to find the students had been particularly rowdy and was now glaring around the room demanding silence, demanding that the rules of the classroom be obeyed. And it worked here too, although after that image came to her mind Padme had to hold back a completely inappropriate burst of the giggles.

"Ladies, gentlemen, gentle beings all, surely my being here is not enough to forget the proprieties and decorum demanded by your office," Harry said smoothly. His gaze glared out around him, a teacher in full angry disapproval mode, and more than one Senator actually shifted uncomfortably in their seats, exactly like a student who a teacher had called onto the carpet. It would've been hilarious in other circumstances, in these, it was merely amusing for those in the right frame to see it.

Harry now looked around, and suddenly he was simply smiling, the stern schoolmaster look disappearing to be replaced by simply a charismatic young man, staring out into their faces, his emerald eyes brimming with good humor and seriousness in equal measure. "Yet, perhaps I can forgive you for your surprise. After all, the Galactic Defense League is now officially about a year old and was making waves before that. Yet I have never appeared here before this, despite the Senate being termed the center of the Republic for a reason.

"But as you all should also be aware, the demands of a leader's time is never so easily controlled. But I am here now, to make a statement, to answer questions, and perhaps, to hopefully help this august body in its decision-making when it is faced with the greatest question it has faced since the New Sith Wars ended. That being: should the Republic demand to rule alone, allowing no other Galactic government to exist. Should they create a military? To defend themselves some say, to enforce their rule others say. The rule of law, perhaps. The rule of a centralized government for certain.

"And yet, before we get to that, undoubtedly you all have questions about the Galactic Defense League and me. I will cover my own history quickly, in order to get it over with before we get down to the meat of my being here. If you have specific questions about my past, I pray that you save them for after, unless they impact directly on the debate that we are all here to take part in."

No one spoke. Not even the most vituperative and argumentative Senator was immune to Harry's charisma and his mastery of the hall at that moment.

But then the Chancellor spoke up, his voice dusty and dryly sardonic, yet instantly grabbing attention, as he said, "Indeed Count Potter, that sounds perfectly understandable. I am certain I speak for everyone that we would indeed like to hear more about the man who has come to lead the second of what some would call insurrectionist elements." He paused then, before going on, giving that term both added weight and a twist, making them seem serious but also distancing himself from them then moving on. "But before that, I would personally like to thank you for two actions that can be laid at your feet. First, saving the life of Senator Amidala the evening before. And second, for helping to cure the plague on Chellak. For the first, I, as a man, thank you. For the second, I as Chancellor and this body as a whole, thank you. On the same vein, I hope that the investigation on the attacks on our fellow Senators continues to make headway in bringing those behind them to justice."

Even as he nodded his head lightly to acknowledge that and the rumble of agreement, no one in their right mind liked the idea of plagues after all, not even the Separatists who had nominally controlled the planet before the plague hit, Harry frowned internally. That had been rather smooth. The Chancellor had acknowledged Harry's accomplishments and then taken credit subtly for one such while at the same time bringing attention to what was going to be a majorly divisive point of Harry's own history: that he was Jedi as well as a political leader. Something that, by the laws set down in the Ruusan Reformation, was not allowed. And, Harry realized suddenly, something that he had in common with C'baoth. Kriff me, he is good, isn't he? Still, I'm not an amateur at this either. Time to grab the Rancor by the horns.

"Thank you for your words, Chancellor. But they highlight what no doubt is a question on everyone's lips: How is it that a Jedi Knight finds himself a political leader? Is that not against the law as put down on the Ruusan Reformation? So let me put this to rest: it is unlawful, but only in connection to the Republic Senate and navy. I was not elected to office, nor did I create a military through my own means prior to becoming Count. My position of Count was left to me in Count Dooku's will."

From there, Harry launched into a brief description of the lie they had created to cover up his origins. He explained the same things he had done before to the smaller group of Senators while waiting his turn to enter the Senate Hall and soon had most of those Senators there simply nodding along to his words which created more nods all around. When laid out as Harry did, the idea of Master Fay taking him on as a padawan didn't seem all that unusual, even to those who knew her history and knew for a fact she had never done so before. After all, the Padawan-Master bond was one of the most, not quite sacred, but important facets of the Jedi Order.

Harry then explained how he had come to be at Count on Serenno, how he had gone to Master Dooku to be trained in the art of the lightsaber. He had a few more Senators chuckling at the way he described how "a Guardian by preference had become a political leader by necessity. Honestly, no sooner was I knighted, along with my fellow Aaylas'secura and Alecto than a lawyer pops up and tells me that Counts Dooku had left his position as Count to me. It was a bit of a shock, and not something I had personally trained for. But, when it was thrust upon me, I could do no less than my best."

By this point, much of the Senate had gotten over their initial shock at his entrance and the Chancellor's words. So there were a few shouted questions at that point, questioning the legality of that, but Harry simply asked the representative of the Jedi Order to speak about this.

Master Barbara stood up, her hoverchair moving into the center of the room where her features could be caught by the viewing recorders and relayed throughout the hall then began her own speech on how it had indeed been allowed but through a loophole which had since been closed. That took but a few moments, and then she was back moving towards where her hoverchair had been previously.

Letting no one else speak, Harry took center stage again. "After that, I spent several weeks in meditation, researching what had been going on in the Republic while I was out past the Hypercom's reach, and of course both discovered and researched heavily the greatest question of our time, the question between the Centrists and the Separatists." He gestured at first towards the Chancellor, bowing his head, to him before gesturing down towards the Senator for Neimoidia, who of course was one of many Senators who toed the Separatist party line.

"In so doing, it should come as no surprise to any individual with an open mind that I found both faults and positives on both sides. Both truth and lies, facts and obfuscations in equal measure. But some of those facts stood out from everything else. Fact one. The Separatists were being led by the Trade Federation, the Techno Union, and the Commerce Guild. Entities that have become synonymous with corruption, special interest groups, oppression, strong-arm tactics, and tyranny."

Harry hurled those words against the Separatist Senators like so many daggers without a single attempt to soften the blow. And when they started to shout, tried to roar how he was impugning them, he simply began to list incidents, his voice rising with each one, "The invasion of Naboo and a Neimodian captain selling its people into slavery. The conflict with the Wookies over Alaris Prime in which hundreds of Wookies were gunned down by your droids, and little done to punish you other than forcing you to halt operations there. The treatment of Chellak, which Chancellor Palpatine mentioned. Malo 4, which is a member of the Techno Union, yet was left to literally rot."

Here Harry gave the floor over to the Senators from the Galactic Defense League, who once more aired their various grievances against both the Separatists and the Republic Senate. He had asked them to keep it short, not denunciatory any longer, simply factual, and all of them were able to do so to a certain degree. This gave their few moments of true emotion even greater weight, and Harry could tell, thanks to his Force powers, they were having an impact.

He then took up the thread of the discussion, looking at a few Centrist Senators followed by several Separatists. "By its very nature as a government-created to lead its constituents, a planetary government has the right to see to its own people first, its own defense first. That is the very reason for government, to serve the people, not be served by them. If the planets, systems or whole sectors who make up the Republic cannot look for aid from this body, why then should they not look to their own devices?"

"You are misinterpreting things!" said a female voice, as someone finally got over their shock at his hard, unyielding words. The Senator of Uyter, Lexi Dio spoke up, her hoverchair moving into the center area to face Harry directly. Both of their voices now could be heard by everyone. "Yes, the Senate has occasionally dropped the ball, but do not see spite and self-aggrandizement in that sad state of affairs. You must instead see it as what it is: mistakes. Yes, they were harsh, painful mistakes, but they were mistakes rather than deliberate acts like those of the Separatists."

From there she went on the attack if in a very odd way. "For every time the Senate has missed a problem or made a mistake, we have done good work elsewhere. You yourself said that a government must look out for its people, and we have done so. The All Planets Relief Fund has streamlined the laws that allow for the releases of funds to at-risk planets. The Resettlement Act helped relieve the population crunch on more than a thousand Core Worlds and opened up new planets, making them into highly industrialized, independent worlds." From there she continued to list the ways the Republic had helped individual planets or systems through these acts and others for several long minutes, ending with, "Count Potter, if you really feel that you and yours are called on to protect your people, you should be helping us from within, to make certain the disparate problems the members of the GDL have faced do not happen again, not make more trouble."

But if she had thought Harry would be dismayed by this deluge of positive facts about the Senate's past actions she was disappointed. "Those acts, Senator, might have been put on the books for the greatest, most moral of reasons. However, just because the intent behind them was good, does not mean that the reality matches that intent. Or can you look me in the eye and say that rule of law is equal for everyone within the corporate sector, which was colonized almost entirely thanks to the Resettlement Act?" Harry replied calmly. "Where they have taken indentured servitude to the companies that control it into the realm of slavery? Can you tell me, Senator Dio, who decides on which planets get that aid?"

"Either the Senate as a whole or the Financial Crisis Review Board or the Natural Disaster Relief Committee," Lexi Dio replied frowning. That was public knowledge after all, along with who was serving on them.

"And are any of those boards or committees run by the representatives of similar planets? Are they run by Outer Rim or Mid Rim representatives? No, they are not. They are run by representatives of the Core Worlds. If you wish to create a committee to decide who gets aid, then shouldn't at least one person on that committee actually represent a similar planet? Instead, the committee members are all Centrist, Core World Senators. They decide what aid is sent, what planets provide it, what planets don't, and what the payment will be down the line for that aid. All of those things have been used to line the pockets of bureaucrats Senators and workers. This is not hyperbole, this is fact. A fact that the Chancellor, for all his desire to root out corruption, has not stopped."

Dio's teeth clenched, but Harry simply pointed to a Senator from an Outer Rim sector who had joined the GDL. "Senator Teas Nomar could tell you all about that. His entire sector is still paying a higher tax rate than they should be in order to pay for the relief they were given two years ago in dealing with a pirate incursion."

He turned back to address the Senate as a whole. "And so we came to the great decision. The decision that both the Separatists and the Centrists were equally in the right and equally in the wrong. The bureaucracy of the Republic is broken ladies and gentlemen. I do not say it cannot be fixed, though I do say that doing so would take a monumental effort, one that this body has patently refused to try to take on. And yet we could not join the Separatists, for all that they were right about the Republic being moribund and calcified, their chosen champions are champions of corruption at the same time. No, if we wanted to look after our own affairs, to be, worthy of being the leaders our people need, we needed to act. We needed to act on our own, to build something new. And so we came to the Galactic Defense League."

Harry's lips quirked, interjecting a tone of humor in what had otherwise been a fiery denunciation of every side equally. "Or as it was known at the time, the Galactic Alliance for Peace. A bit of an error in naming there, I feel. Yet the Galactic Defense League, ladies and gentlemen, is just that, over two thousand planets and nine sectors which have decided that they will not report to either the Senate or the Separatists any longer. That if war comes, we will close our borders, and defend them against both sides. Because neither side is clean, neither side is worth our loyalties any longer. Neither side is worth dying for, worth giving our money, material, and precious lives to serve."

This served to open the floodgates. One voice rose from the Senate to reply, Mas Ameeda, the Senator for the Changria Sector of the Inner Rim, shouted out over Harry's words. "And so how are you different from the Separatists!"

At that, the spell of Harry's words and presence broke. It was so fast that Harry became rather dismayed and the tumult grew, shouted questions coming from every direction while the chaos grew.

Harry was about to speak up and use the Force again to garner silence, but the Chancellor acted before he could, using his override button to shut everyone off raising his own voice very slightly. "We will have order here!" In the ensuing angry silence the Chancellor continued. "Ladies and gentlemen, no matter how impassioned our debates may become, this is still a center of government. I have put up with your violent outbursts for a long while, but it is the time for measured minds and thoughts, not shouted diatribes and invective, or insults to one's parentage..." he finished, glaring at one senator in particular, "to be heard. You will all, gentle beings, remember who and what you represent from this point on, and not let your emotions get the better of you, or I will permanently silence your hoverchairs and let wiser minds continue the debate."

Watching as the previously vituperative Senators were cowed, Harry had to nod to himself. The Chancellor was indeed ringmaster here, calling so many disparate animals to follow the act. And above his skill with words and rhetoric, it's good to be reminded of that fact, as well as the fact that the Chancellorship has a lot to gain from the Military Creation Act. Palpatine might not personally have come up with the military creation act, it was his Centrist party which did that, but while the Chancellor has been acting to stave off the war and talk on that front, he didn't stop his Centrist party from putting that motion into the books. It doesn't seem to be something he wants even now, but the centralized government that the Centrists envision would very obviously give him more power. Something to remember.

With the Senate once more acting like intelligent adults rather than whining children, the Chancellor addressed them once more. "Nonetheless, there are severe questions to be asked here about the Galactic Defense League, and I will open the floor to those questions now."

The Chancellor didn't even look his way, but Harry didn't argue the point, simply leaning back in his chair and resting his hands in his lap. I knew going in that half the battle would be defending the GDL. Let's get to it then. "I stand ready to answer any question put to me. So long as they are thoughtful, and not questions blinded by the passions of those asking them."

The attacks began immediately. First came the attacks comparing Harry and the GDL to the Separatists, led by Ask Aak, the Gran Senator for Malastare, which Harry felt ironic. The home planet of the Dugs was a hotbed for violence between the native Dug and the Gran colonists. The Gran were on top there because they were better represented in the Republic as a whole, and had been able to bring in aid for their side of the conflict, bringing it to a halt in their favor. But that was 'ancient history' and wouldn't win Harry any points now, more's the pity.

"We can't solve every wrong in the galaxy Harry," Aayla's voice soothed in his mind. She had reached the temple by this point and was preparing to head back down with two Jedi who specialized in forensics and tracking, hoping to find more clues as to where the shape-changer had come from. Anakin had been left behind to guard the shape-shifter's ship and that of the mercs, while Chewie had gone to have a bath, a fact that made Harry smile. Anakin would, once Aayla arrived back, head off to help Master Windu with his internal investigations.

With Aayla there in his head, Harry allowed the attacks to come, then fired back, defending the GDL, destroying any attempt to compare the GDL to the Separatists easily. "We have never advocated the idea of using violence to separate ourselves from the Republic. Anything or anyone saying differently lies. Our actions speak of our thoughts on that. The Defense league is based on defense, not offense. Name me one terrorist group based out of the GDL territory which has caused problems elsewhere. Name me one Senator who has suggested we break away from the republic by fire and blaster. We have not. We are conscientious objectors, not insurrectionists who all too often espouse their point of view via violence."

Needless to say, this caused a backlash from many of the Separatist Senators, but here the Chancellor took command once more, silencing everyone once more. As many of the Senate fumed, Palpatine then used the video software in the Hall to show various news agencies covering terrorist attacks the Republic over. "We can safely say ladies and gentlemen, that the GDL has homegrown terrorists, but has also dealt with them in house. We can also say that the Separatist Party have done so… if not as efficiently. Please note that I have not accused anyone here about backing such activity. Perhaps we should move on?"

After the Chancellor once more showed his strength and very subtly pointed out that the Centrists didn't have any terrorists and hadn't for nearly eight months now since he and the Jedi Order had begun a massive campaign against them, Ask Aak began again to attack the very point that Harry had said was the purpose of the GDL: to defend themselves. He argued that the GDL had been too aggressive in dealing with physical threats against the peace of those worlds. He cited many different times where GDL forces had left their space to go after pirates elsewhere without permission and ended with "A blaster in the hands of an independent defense force can threaten just as easily as one in the hands of a pirate."

Harry had to soothe many ruffled feathers at that point from Senators who represented planets who's local defense forces had been proven to be not up to stopping the pirate activity in their territory and resented it when the GDL came in and did so. He then ended by throwing the Gran's words back in his face. "I agree that a blaster is a blaster. Yet shouldn't a government then make certain the blaster is being used by those prepared to defend it?"

From there, Harry had to deal with threats on his person alone. More than a few Senators from worlds which had suffered terribly in the New Sith Wars spoke out against any Jedi being in a position to lead a military. The Ruusan Reformations were written for a reason after all!"

Harry nodded gravely. "While I do not agree with all the precepts the Reformation forced onto the Jedi Order, I do agree there is a reason why that particular proviso, the law stating that the Jedi are not allowed to raise private armies, was written. Most Jedi are not warriors per se, not soldiers, trained to lead in battle. Indeed, even Guardians such as myself are not. We could be more likened to commandoes if we are talking a purely military role. But while I am the head of the GDL, I am not in charge of its military. That role has been given to another, not a Jedi, but a trained and experienced General. While I will be the first to say I captain the Tyrant's Bane, it's primary mission is not combat but humanitarian in nature."

This defense did not stop this attack on Harry as an individual, but he defended himself well. Essentially it came down to fears on the one side, and the reality of Harry's actions on the other. The first was powerful, dangerous and steeped in ancient history that garnered deep emotional responses. The second was newer, but also brighter, and based on the reality of the day, so to speak. So that attack went nowhere. Enough Senators were willing to approve of Harry's actions to ignore the idea that his position might well be illegal and thus this attack came to a close in favor of another, slightly different personal attack.

This attack was much like the others that had been launched at Harry in that they came from individuals he could not ignore or attack in turn for jumping at shadows or their own corruption, even if the person launching them were different from the first round of personal attacks. The first Senator who launched an attack on Harry on this front was a Senator who had represented a sector where Jedi had fallen to the Dark Side four hundred years or so ago, and where they had done quite a lot of damage. Yet when he spoke he was actually quite calm, following the Chancellor's stern injunction on keeping everything civil with an initial nod in Palpatine's direction after being acknowledged.

Harry was idly wondering how long that would last when the man began to speak. "We have talked about your quasi-legal usurpation of military forces," the man began, his voice mellow if not his word choice, "Yet we have not talked about the other elephant in the room when it comes to you personally Jedi Knight Potter," he emphasized. "You have a relationship, with Knight Secura."

The man went on before Harry could say anything although he actually hadn't been about to do so. Rather, Harry was gaging the reactions of the Senate as a whole and was both amused and dismayed to note how this information seemed new to more than two-thirds of the Senate. "Is that because they just didn't care to look, or because news travels so slowly?" he mused to Aayla.

At her mental nudge though he turned back in as the man began to wrap up his verbal assault. "We know, my planet knows that Jedi cannot be allowed to love! The Jedi who fell to the Dark Side, who did so much damage to my sector, fell because she had first fallen into love. Because that love turned to jealousy, and jealousy to anger, and anger into the Dark Side. Jedi, for whatever reason, cannot seem to stop that slide from occurring at what other people would call the normal ups and downs of a relationship. Why have you been allowed to pursue this relationship!?"

Inwardly the Chancellor rejoiced. Yes, this was an attack that he had a lot of interest in. He needed to find out more about Potter, about Potter and this Twi'lek he was involved with. Far more, given how well she had fought Darth Charon on Rendili. But perhaps more importantly, I need to find out why the Jedi Order allowed their connection in the first place. Is it something I can turn to my advantage? Or is it something that makes Potter even more of a threat than he already is? Considering that threat level was rising throughout this discussion, that was not a welcome thought.

"As strange as it might seem to those of us without the Force, my fellow Senator does have a point," another senator said, his own force even calmer than the first, adding more weight to them once the Chancellor acknowledged him, speaking even as his hoverchair rose into the central position. "The Reformation was not just put in place to stop the Jedi from being able to hold military rank or raise their own armies. It was about the very nature of the connection to this mystical thing called the Force and an attempt to make certain that no Force War could ever occur again between the so-called Force and the Dark Side."

The man - one Willas Donarun of the Mizra Sector, another Inner Rim Senator - paused then for emphasis before going on. "All of us here know the Force exists even if we cannot use it, and we know it's effect, how the Jedi use it to aid in their duties as guards, diplomats investigators, troubleshooters. And even though again it might seem very strange to us, we know that even such positive emotions as love, affection, and attachment can be twisted and can turn a Jedi to the Dark Side in what my colleague called the normal ups and downs of life and relationships."

Willas smiled slightly, shaking his head before looking directly at Harry where he rode his hoverchair across from him for the first time. "I'm not saying it has happened in your case, Jedi Potter. Despite your divisive political stance and maneuvers, I have seen enough of your career since coming on to the galactic stage to know that that is most unlikely. And yet, there are still questions that have to be asked. Why are you allowed to get away with flouting the Ruusan Reformation's main injunction against the Jedi? Why are you still allowed to call yourself a Jedi if you are able to do that?"

Harry nodded formally towards the man but then let his eyes stray to the senators he had already talked to in the waiting area as he quoted the line he had used with them. "A Count is what I do, a Jedi is what I am."

This elicited some chuckles from that quarter, which eased some of the tension from the giant hall before Harry went on. "It is at its bottom as easy as that. Yet as to my and Aayla's relationship, that story goes back a very long time. And it is basically the story of two children pushed into a situation that they should never have been faced with. I am not going to go into all the details of a youngling's training, most of it is esoteric at best, and it would divert attention but suffice it to say that while we were on that training frigate I mentioned before, the frigate was attacked by a large force of the Bando Gora cult. I don't suppose anyone here remembers them?" He asked, hoping to have someone else give the explanation of what they were.

Considering that at least half of the Senate had changed over in that time it was not a rhetorical question. But a bit under half of the Senate hadn't changed and the Chancellor took the moment to describe that group, before going into detail on how they were ended. "After reports of their being led by someone who could use the Dark Side, Count Dooku and master Tiin led a force of twenty-five to forty Jedi against them in a series of campaigns. The Bando Gora are no more, but there was a time when they were extremely dangerous, and vile, with their homegrown drugs fueling their madness. It does not surprise me that they attacked a Jedi training frigate like that, I suppose. If they could've gotten their hands on younglings, that would've been a disaster."

Done playing the benevolent man, Sidious leaned back, his mind furiously going over that time, trying to pin down the time frame, and finally remembered that mission, which Plagueis had ordered launched. It was the mission that led directly to Count Dooku's apprentice being discovered, saved, and then rehabilitated. It was that mission that had begun Count Dooku's moving away from his interest in the Sith.

Dark Side take their souls! The Jedi have been deliberately hiding Potter all this time?! Sidious knew intellectually they hadn't been able to do much, but even so, that just meant that Potter was, even more, their chosen weapon. And one who I cannot turn to the Dark Side, as occurred in the new Sith wars. At least, I don't believe I can at the moment... Perhaps there is a way though, and ironically again it will occur through Amidala. We shall see. I will have to be cautious and slow there… and I do not know if I can afford to be with the threat Potter poses.

Setting that thought aside the Chancellor turned back his attention back onto Harry just as he finished describing how Aayla, in her childish desire to help Harry and his Force Shield technique, which he had learned from master Fay, had combined their Force powers together. "But due to her inexperience, Aayla went to deep, pushed too far. Afterward, our minds were connected, our souls combined by the Force into one. With that, we could not be separated."

"I don't understand," said another senator shouting out the words before anyone else could. "What do you mean you could not be separated?"

"If I may answer that?" asked Master Plo Koon, speaking up for the first time. The Senate turned its attention to the Kel Dor Jedi, and he bowed respectfully from the waist before beginning to speak. "As all of you may know, the master-padawan bond is one of the most important aspects of the Jedi Order. But that is a bond between two individuals whose position in the bond is unequal, with certain checks on how the bond can grow. Thus it can be broken later in life without undue trauma to either Jedi. A bond between two children, especially one that went even deeper and farther than the padawan bond, would cause severe repercussions in their Force signatures. It could possibly result in turning both into vegetables, or large Force explosives, as the Force of the broken bond reverberated back through them and caused a cascade effect."

He paused there as a susurration of horrified whispers spread throughout the Senate before going on, his words still clinical, almost detached as he intoned, "The effect on the physical world would no doubt be extreme, although it would be next to nothing in comparison to the damage done to the individuals."

Harry felt Aayla shudder through their link and pulled her avatar into their mental plane where they hugged one another for a few moments while Harry barely heard the reactions of the Senate around them. The very idea of living without one another, without their bond, was possibly the most disturbing thing that either of them had ever contemplated.

One of the senators, however, the same one who had first broached the subject muttered, "Better that than to allow them to flaunt the Reformations like this!"

"Better to kill two young children or to turn them into living bombs!?" barked another senator.

"That is what would have happened then, but would it even happen now?" counted the other man before either could be silenced for speaking out of turn.

"Our bond has deepened over time," Harry said gently, although his tone had nothing to do with trying to appear peaceable. Rather, his voice was gentle because of how much attention he was mentally giving Aayla, and Aayla was giving him in turn. "While we were young we were able to survive being separated although even then if the bond had been broken it is doubtful that he would have been mentally whole afterward. Now, that would probably not be the case."

"I've heard all the theories," Harry said, shaking his head, yet with that still tender smile on his face which was causing more than one woman in the Senate to blush and look away as Padme grinned at her friend, a rush of affection and baser emotions rising as she looked at the expression on his face, even if she knew it wasn't directed at her at present. "It matters not. Our bond began our lives together, we simply did not fight the process and have come to love one another because of it. I realize that our attachment is not legal, but since it is either that or dying, I think I prefer to be both alive and happy, thank you."

"…I withdraw my objections then," Willas replied bowing his head. "And for what it is worth Count Potter, I wish you well in your personal life." He smiled wryly, "If not in your political career."

"Indeed," the Chancellor said with a nod. "And on that note, let us move this conversation on once more gentlemen."

Inwardly he was not feeling very happy at the moment. While Sidious had learned a lot more about Potter and the Twi'lek's connection, it sounded more like something that made them stronger, rather than a weakness he could exploit. Moreover, Potter had dealt with all the personal attacks on his position and person as a Jedi as well as anyone could have. He had not made many converts among the Senate, the Chancellor could tell that just by looking around the room, gauging their reactions, and hearing the mutters of this or that conversation, but he had also not yet gotten to the meat of his speech.

No one else could truly understand the feel of the Senate as the Chancellor could because he had a very good computer drone hooked into the audio systems of the Senate Hall that could bring any conversation occurring between senators to his attention at need. It was an excellent tool and one that he had emplaced during his time as Chancellor.

Regardless, Potter was making too much headway here, not so much in defending the GDL, but in making himself appear as if he was a leader that could be respected and worked with. He sent a discrete signal to a few of his fellows and had them begin their own attacks on the GDL. This time, however, it would come from more secure avenues than Potter's Jedi origins, rather they would be attacking the bedrock of the GDL.

"Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila is recognized by the chair," the Chancellor said in a nod, before turning over controls of the Halls sound system to that worthy.

"Thank you, Chancellor. Count Potter, given the words of Master Koon, I cannot find legal or moral grounds for you to have not taken up that title when asked by Count Dooku to do so in his last words. Further, your personal attachment to this Twi'lek Jedi seems to be aboveboard. Certainly, I am in no position to judge the vagaries of the Force.

"So I will leave those by the wayside. And yet, the Galactic Defense League is a dangerous precedent as my fellow Senator, Dio, hinted at. I am certain that the Peace Party Senators will question you deeply on your proliferation of arms, and other such concerns in due course. But my main concerns are with taxation and trade. I cannot argue that in many ways, there are aspects of the bureaucracy of the Republic that are indeed broken, but you cannot simply toss out the whole bushel just because one apple is worm-ridden. We have attempted to make our rule a rule of law and order for everyone. Are you honestly going to blame the Senate for the fact that some planets are more developed than others? That the universe itself is unequal? Furthermore, withholding funds as many of your group's planets have done is patently illegal. Taxes must always be paid, and withholding funds like that is just as dangerous in the long run as terrorist attacks."

This comment roused a shout of support from hundreds, perhaps a little over a thousand throats around the room. Most of those shouting were Core World systems who suddenly found themselves faced with more taxation, while others were from Mid Worlds and others who also had seen their taxes being raised since more than a few GDL planets had indeed started to withhold their taxes from the Republic.

Smirking grimly in his mental plane, Harry hugged Aayla one last time, then turned his full attention back onto the material plane, but instead of defending the GDL, he went on the attack. "I rather think Senator that the victims of terrorist attacks would disagree with you. Or rather, the survivors of such attacks would. However, let me say that it is not yet the GDL's policy to withhold our tax revenue as a unit from the Republic. Senator Amidala reached out to me about a few that were doing so right off the bat, and I met with their leaders. Those planets who did not have reasons have since sent their just due on, while others have not for their own, very understandable reasons."

He listed them off one by one, giving those reasons. They ranged from natural disasters that the planets had to deal with and thus needed funding for, to needing to regain control of their economy due to sudden reversals, and other, perfectly understandable reasons. Mon Mothma shot back that those reasons would have had those planets gain aid from the Republic as a whole, but Harry then repeated the name of a few planets who had been waiting for several months for that aid to arrive. "And Senator, can you say you had even heard of those planets before this? While it is true that the universe is not a fair place, the basic need of a government to look after their own people does not change."

"Furthermore, look around you Senator," Harry said calmly gesturing around. "Thanks to the Chancellor's reforms, there are over one thousand, seven hundred sectors, each of which is meant to have a single voice here and speak for between thirty and fifty planets of varying population levels. How can anyone say that a single voice is enough for numbers like that? Further, I see more than fourteen thousand different Senators here. I see a direct representative for the Trade Federation, for the Commerce Guild, for the Techno Union, for more than seven hundred Core World planets. All of those have their own voice because they are deemed 'important', a very flexible term that can mean whatever this body wishes it to or is paid to think it does."

He looked directly at several non-GDL Senators who represented sectors in the Outer Rim. "Whereas the planets out in the Outer Rim, or even the Inner Rim and Mid Rim are rarely represented by a single Senator per planet. For there to be equality in the eyes of the law, there must be equality in the representation, and the moment the Republic started to allow special interest groups and planets to buy their way into this body was the moment that the system began to break."

"And so you say that you would instill a proper representative government? Is that what the Galactic Defense League is? Have you in fact already seceded, and created your own government?" said another Senator as the Chancellor recognized him while Mon Mothma frowned, gathering her own thoughts before she would once more join the fray.

This young man is good at this, I am going to have to step up my game here, the young woman, daughter of a family that had been involved in the government of the Republic for generations, thought. Blast it, the fact Amidala actually got him to repudiate some of the planet's withholding of funds took the wind out of my sails there. As for the rest, his information on the ground so to speak is too darn good to argue facts with. No, I need to discover another means of attack. The GDL is just as dangerous as a concept as the Separatist movement is, if not as violent right now. The republic must remain the sole galactic governmental body, or all the galaxy will fall into chaos.

"No," Harry said, shaking his head to that question while keeping his eyes on Mon Mothma. She would be his first, perhaps even his primary opponent on the question on the basic legality of the GDL, their actions and so forth. "We have not imposed any new form of government on the members of the Galactic Defense League, Senator. We are a league: various nations and planets joined together in a common defense. The only things we have done is institute a one percent flat tax rate across the board, firmer trade laws, and created a single defense force. In times of war that might change, the logistics of war might force it to. But I am not standing in front of you declaring that I am head of a true galactic government. I'm the head of a league, that is all I am."

With that Senator dealt with, Mon Mothma again took center stage. She was a highly respected Senator across the board not because of the power of her belief in the Centrist cause, or her family's history in serving the Republic, but because she backed that cause having come to that position over time. She also had not at first been a proponent of the Military Creation Act. But again, she had slowly changed her tune over time, showing mental flexibility that many of her fellow Senators respected even if most did not possess it themselves.

She attacked the idea of imposing a tax like that, likening it to the first move that transformed the Trade Federation from a trade league, emphasizing the word, to a federation, "One that now is a primary backed the Secessionist movement."

Harry replied easily, by stating that the tax was in payment for the creation of the GDL navy, and for certain trade goods going the other way. "Starfighters, defense installations and of course, medical equipment and food do not grow on trees."

"Nor does Tibanna gas!" shouted someone from the Commerce Guild. "Your patented break of our lawful monopoly on that good is the basis for the GDL, and therefore means the whole League is thus unlawful."

"While I think the very idea of a monopoly is unlawful myself, the exact law you are talking about, ma'am, is written to state that any Tibanna gas sold from sources within the Republic needs to pay the Commerce Guild's toll," Harry said, deliberately using the word toll, getting shouts and laughs because of the implications inherent in the word. "Our Tibanna gas comes from a source not touched by that law. And no, I am under no obligation to tell you more," he said thinly.

Mon Mothma then grabbed his attention, demanding a response to her own point in more detail. The two of them traded attacks like fencers from that point on, respectfully but persistently.

Yet their argument went nowhere. Mon Mothma looked at all of the problems facing the Republic and thought that more bureaucracy or a more streamlined bureaucracy was the way forward, the rule of one law for all something almost sacrosanct to her. Harry felt that was part of the problem and that a more metered response was necessary. He further hammered the issue of representation in the Senate. This was a sore point for practically every planet and sector beyond the Expanse regions, who loudly shouted that every planet should have equal representation which was patently impossible of course.

Indeed, as the argument went on, more Senators were nodding along to Harry's words, his appeal of equal parts self-interest, the interest of their people, and logic cutting through the momentum engendered by simply sticking with the system that was in place, i.e. the Republic. Realizing this, Palpatine knew he could not let this argument continue. I must change tactics.

Before Sidious could choose out his next tool however, Senator Amidala had asked to be recognized. Deciding this could perhaps open up the GDL for further attacks, Palpatine recognized her request to speak.

Padme waited until her hoverchair had risen to take Mon Mothma's former position, nodding at the other woman, before turning her attention on Harry. "While you might have the best of intentions and have indeed pointed out your reasons for creating the GDL, you are still flouting one of the most important laws of the Republic. Oh, perhaps the legality of those laws could be debated, but you are still spreading the weapons of war Count Potter. This cannot be denied."

"Those weapons of war are in the form of starfighters, in the form of defense stations. Starfighters can project force it is true, but they cannot claim territory. And the goal in defense stations, are just that, defensive installations," Harry replied. He said nothing about the proliferation of planetary shields. The number of those he had spread around was very much an unknown to anyone bar the crew of the Bane, and he meant to keep it that way.

Here, one of the other Senators started slamming his hand down demanding to be heard, and the Chancellor acceded to his request hoping to interject some more vitriol into the proceedings. I need to keep the pot boiling, Potter's control of the pace of this discussion is having its own impact. That cannot be allowed.

And so the Separatist Senator for Brentaal shouted "And how did you get the plans for those space stations! They are a patented design, you cannot be reproducing them without paying for the rights! That means you stole them from Sluis Van and are therefore guilty of corruption as anyone else!"

"I am not. I was given the right to build those designs by the government of Malo 4 which is a Sluissi planet. So long as they are involved in the building process, I can lawfully redistribute those defensive installations. You should know Chancellor, Senators, that one of the reasons why those defensive platforms are so good, is that they can be built in place so swiftly by pre-made parts. I am not involved in building those systems, I simply organized their transportation."

"A defensive insulation is all well and good, so long as it doesn't fall into the hands of a corrupt government which then uses the threat from on high as it were to cow their people. Can you say that that will not occur?" A Core World Senators said, further interrupting the discussion.

This kind of interjection occurred several more times and the main debate between Padme and Harry went on for more than an hour, with both sides scoring points, and other Senators for the Galactic Defense League and the Peace Party taking part. Bail Organa of Alderaan, in particular, took the fight to Harry on several operations the GDL had run, and between them, they forced Harry to admit that more communication between GDL systems and their neighbors needed to be attempted before further 'unilateral military action, no matter the provocation'.

But after the last few interjections, Sidious realized that they were both still too much in control of themselves and the flow. The last thing he wanted to do was to let the two of them look as if they were models of understanding and flexibility. Damn it, Potter is starting to look far too good to far too many people, including the cursed Peace Party and the moderates on the Separatist side!

Harry seemed to realize they weren't getting anywhere either and started to bring their clash to a close as well. "I realize that this is no longer a debate upon laws or government. We are now arguing about ideologies. And that, unfortunately, is not what I'm here for. Prove that the Galactic Defense League is doing wrong and I will either argue against it or agree and make changes or reparations as I have proven both today and in prior interactions. But I will not, and the GDL will not, say we are in the wrong to defend ourselves, or to spread the weapons. As I have said before, I would personally love to see nonaggression spread, but as long as there are those will not abide by it, there must be those warriors prepared to defend freedom, not just decry those who would take away others freedoms."

"We have a saying in the Galactic Defense League that has begun to be bruited about," the Senator from Corellia said, interjecting his words smoothly now that the Chancellor was no longer enforcing his rule about everyone staying silent at all times. "We are the home of the free, because of the brave!"

This won a cheer from thousands of throats, and Palpatine realized that Potter was having an even greater impact than he thought. Damn it, I must bring the attention back onto the separatist question. At that thought, Sidious released one of his more controlled attack dogs, a Centrist senator who was vociferous in his defense of the Centrist position, but who could do so eloquently, and who had a modicum amount of respectability with the rest of the Senate regardless of their own positions.

"This chair recognizes the senator for Kuat," the Chancellor said, a wry smile on his face even as his eyes stayed neutral as he looked around them. His abstaining from the ongoing debate/interrogation of Potter had been noted, and once more he was winning points for both his neutrality and his control of the senate. Indeed, many were hoping that would continue in the future, never realizing that allowing Palpatine to control who could be heard was the most insidious type of control of all.

"Thank you, Chancellor. I believe that at this point, we have belabored the issue about the Galactic Defense League, its actions and pasts into the ground and Count Potter is perfectly correct. There can be no guilt without evidence of a true crime, and while we can debate the legality of his Galactic Defense League's conscientious objection, there is a greater question in front of us. The Galactic Defense League is one symptom of that problem: the concept of separatism. You said before Count Potter, that the Galactic Defense League's leaders, yourself and your fellows had debated on 'the greatest question of our time', an appellation that I fully agree with. However, we have not brought up one major point."

With that, he flipped a switch, taking control of the Senate Hall's holographic projectors, projecting a newsreel once more just as the Chancellor had earlier. But whereas the Chancellor's choice of visual aids had been analytical after-action reports about activities already finished, this was showing a live video recording within the newsreel. A recording of Harry dueling with the Dark Side user on Rendili.

"Here it comes," Aayla murmured, once more watching through Harry's eyes as she had returned to the Bane by this point in order to rest. "How are you we going to handle this one?"

"I'll tell them as much of the truth is we're able too," Harry replied mentally. "It's time that people realize there might be Sith out there after all. But, I'm going to try to not point a finger at Master C'baoth. We'll see how well I can get away with that," he finished dryly.

The answer was not very well at all. Once Harry explained what happened, and many of the senators got over their continued ire at Rendili Shipyards joining the GDL, one of the more honest and well-liked senators stood up, asking to be recognized by the Chancellor. The Chancellor allowed it, inwardly gleeful and beginning to run it rubbed his hands mentally. The pre-battle probing was done, now it was time for the real fight to begin.

"And you say this Dark Side user was a true Sith? What is the difference between a dark Jedi and the Sith? Educate us please."

"Control and the depth of his connection the Dark Side," Harry replied promptly. "A Jedi can fall to the Dark Side, but that fall is very rarely a controlled descent, and while the Dark Side can empower them, there is a limit still to what they can do as the Dark Side also impacts their ability to think. Often they don't know how to control their powers, their new abilities. But Sith are different. A Sith lives off the Dark Side. A Sith is encapsulated in the Dark Side. He feeds off hate, anger, rage and they can empower him without taking him over."

"Why are these Sith appearing now?" shouted another Senator, while more than two-thirds of the Senate devolved into shouts of fear, histrionics, and imprecations sent at the Jedi Order. The Chancellor had to shut down the vocal recorders on their hoverchairs again for more than twenty minutes before they could make any headway, but Harry waited before replying.

That reply was however not to the liking of anyone: that he didn't know why it was happening now but that the Sith had to think they could take advantage of the conflict already starting. "The Sith have hidden themselves for a thousand years. If they are showing themselves at all, we, the Jedi Order, feel as if they are doing so because it will serve their purpose: to reclaim dominion of the Force and the galaxy."

For more than two hours the debate ended at this point, while thousands of Senators shouted for more information, for more protection for their planets, for more action from the Jedi order. The Chancellor worked his magic once more to slowly regain control, Yet the air of the Senate was now tense, the boogeyman fully out of the bottle as fear rode through the hall on hooves of an ancient terror. Moreover, the battle lines were now even more clear as everyone could see the writing on the wall: that C'baoth, the leader of the Separatist cause, could be a Sith as well.

In any other situation, there would have been more disbelief in the idea of the Sith returning after so long. But the video of Harry's fight on Rendili had been recorded and disseminated practically the same day it had occurred. While there had been no sightings since the Jedi were open now about how they had lost several prominent members over the years to other Sith Assassins. They did not share those Assassin's odd origins, however. The implications of cloned Force users were too disturbing to make public. But still, there was enough evidence of something unusual going on that the idea of the Sith's return was somewhat believable.

However as the debate continued, Harry's calm, ordered response soothed some of the Senate's worries as he very deliberately stopped from accusing C'baoth of being a Sith. "Do I think that he should control his extremists more? Yes. Do I think he is personally a Sith? I do not have enough evidence to say that. I will say that those who knew him as a Jedi say he would not have been involved in the attack on my person. So perhaps the Sith are simply trying to stir the pot, to make us become more suspicious of C'baoth then we already are. That would serve their aims of more violence and more conflict after all. And from such conflict can come opportunity."

Again Harry's stance frustrated Palpatine, but he had been prepared for this, knowing the Jedi would refuse to be forced to say such. He would use it later against them, pointing out the hubris and arrogance of that stance to think that a Jedi Master could not be the Sith without their knowing before this. He would further point out that there could be more Sith out there, further undermining the Order. Yet that would do nothing to Potter personally.

He allowed further questions on this point for a time, forcing Harry to state plainly his opinion on the Separatists, further pushing them into a corner and away from the GDL. This didn't work as well as he hoped, and he could see Harry's points having more impact among the moderates on both sides and scowled inwardly. It appeared as if he would have to take center stage here once more.

As the last speaker fell silent, the Chancellor's own hoverchair, larger and more ornate than most rose from the central spire to face Harry directly. "I cannot speak to your belief on Master C'baoth's innocence in terms of his Force leanings. I can say that I too believe he should be doing more to rein in those who are calling for a violent uprising to break away from the Republic. I can say that the drums of war have been beating for some time, and my own concerns on the GDL are based on that point."

"First, communication. it is in fact patently illegal for planets to break off from the Republic. That has been the law for more than 4,000 years. We might not have always been in a position to enforce it, but it is the law. A law for very good reason: that being the Hypercom Network. That edifice is not nearly as solid or as durable as many people believe. It would only take one crack, and the whole structure would come crashing down."

"I believe that is an oversimplification. Yes, if one Hypercom Relay Center was destroyed, the area it served would no longer be able to communicate with the rest of the Republic. But those segments can be repaired," Harry interjected, frowning. He knew this was a major point of concern, a fully legitimate one too that he could only mitigate, not argue against.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, there are many of those 'areas' within the realm of the Galactic Defense League. The Separatists too represent more than a few Hypercom relays. What would happen to those planets that are outside your purview? What will happen when war breaks out, can you guarantee that those planets will not be involved or effected, that communication will flow freely? Communication is the basis of galactic society and must be maintained in some fashion regardless of events."

"I can pledge to protect them," Harry said deflecting slightly, while not promising they could actually keep them intact. "Plans are in place in many of those sectors to defend those relay generators as much as we can. Furthermore, the Galactic Defense League will not censor news. We will not enforce news blackouts, regardless of who says what. The flow of free news and communication is as important to us as it is to you Chancellor."

"Yet what happens if you cannot? Will the GDL carry the burden of replacing and repairing them?" Palpatine said sternly. "After all, if you are so clear about standing apart from the Republic, then the Republic cannot be held to pay for what happens in your territory."

"Yes," Harry said again, nodding his head in such a way that it was obvious he was actually making a promise rather than a simple statement, "we will."

There were gasps of shock and astonishment at that and well there should have been, Palpatine reflected as he fought back a snarl of victory, believing Harry had made another mistake and one that would come back to bite him harder than the other small mistakes. Hypercom relay stations were not simple things to build, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they were the single largest, most expensive, most time-consuming creations of the Republic, true superstructures. Building them, maintaining them, and generally seeing to their upkeep and everything else, was one of the major reasons the Republic existed in the first place.

No single system, not even Coruscant or Corellia or any of the other systems in the Republic who were on that level of GDP production, could build a Hypercom relay station on their own, it was simply too expensive, too work and material intensive. Even whole sectors couldn't, not quickly for certain, and not without negatively impacting their economy to a tremendous degree. Repairing one was doable for a system like Corellia. Replacing one, building one from scratch? Never. Replacing even one such system would probably bankrupt the GDL. Replacing two? Replacing two would break their economy like an overripe melon being smashed by a blaster bolt.

However, the surprises were not done for the Senate as a whole or Palpatine, and inside Sidious bit back a curse as Amidala asked to be recognized. When she was, she stood up, her hoverchair having joined those of the Chancellor and Harry. "On this point, I believe that the Peace Party will agree with the Galactic Defense League. Communication is key ladies and gentlemen. Even should the worst occur and war begin, I feel that so long as we are able to talk to one another in a free and clear manner, that peace will return and the madness fade. I would put it to a vote right now, that the Hypercom communications network will remain free of any conflict, political or military, and that there will be no attempt to censor or otherwise control the news. That it will be unlawful for the Republic to do so unless lives are literally on the line."

Sidious howled internally at that, knowing that one of the first acts he had wanted to put forth once the war began was a Centralized Communication Control Act: the governmental takeover of the Hypercom Network. Without that, the reality of the war, the 'humanitarian' side of the war would obviously gain viewers, and the war would become more important to the common man on the streets across the Republic and more facts about it known. When it came to the Core Worlds that was the last thing he wanted, and elsewhere the plan had called for information on the war to be sharply controlled and disseminated, both what was really going on and in terms of propaganda.

Still, Sidious could use this. Yes, Potter and his GDL can be humiliated, the Separatists vilified and the Peace Party discredited with one blow. I will have to allow this free communication act to stand for a time, but not overlong. One successful attack on an HRC center and that will be that.

The motion was seconded and voted on, with many of the Separatist Senators abstaining or voting yay along with the rest, showing that everyone understood the importance of the Hypercom Network. The motion thus carried and would go to a subcommittee for proper wording before being made into law. A process that Palpatine controlled, so he would be able to really turn the screws on the GDL if one of their Hypercom Relay Centers took too much damage.

The thought brought him a kind of vicious glee he hadn't felt for many years. But after watching Potter in the Senate acting as he had, undoing minor plans here, and doing his best to delay the Great Plan's next stage? Sidious could not stop himself from reveling in the feeling even as he spoke. His voice was composed, controlled, nothing in his body language or voice to indicate his inner feelings as was usual, of course.

"Very well Count Potter. But we will hold you to that. My second concern about the GDL is military action and the law which is no doubt the reason you are here at this time: Where does the GDL stand on the Military Creation Act? Surely, as you have so vociferously defended your own right to defend yourselves, you cannot turn around and say we do not have the right to do the same," he said, his voice echoing across the hall, stern, but compassionate and understanding. Palpatine's voice was his ultimate non-Force related weapon, and he could use it to great effect.

"That depends on what you mean by 'defend yourself', Chancellor. We have spent the last four and a half hours debating the GDL's creation and you all have been forced to admit that the GDL is not an offensive force. That we are intended to defend our borders, nothing more nothing less. What will the Republic's military be used for? Will it be used to defend the Republic, or will it be used to enforce Republic rule on the Separatists, force them not to secede from the Republic?" Harry replied.

"That's the same thing!" shouted more than one Senator, with Ask Aak's voice out of the hundreds of other voices suddenly raising around them. "That would be the point in fact. It is the Separatists that have been shouting about violent secession, surely that means that we need an army to defend against it."

"Exactly, what about the attacks on us!?" Shouted one of the Centrist Senators. "They were surely done by the Separatists! We have a right to retaliate, not just protect ourselves! That's the difference between hunkering down behind a shield and taking out the pirate attacking your ship!"

"How dare you!?" retorted another Senator, shouting even as his hoverchair stayed in place just like the other shouting Senator, since they had not been recognized by the Chancellor. He was a Separatist Senator who was not attached to one of the Big Three (Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, and Techno Union). Rather, he was part of the Outer Rim Banking Clan that had become part of the Separatist movement. "How dare you, we were attacked too! Those attacks were carried out by anarchist terrorists, attacking everyone equally."

"Cyberwarfare and one attack on one Separatist Senator in comparison to ten physical attacks, including three assassination attempts that nearly succeeded is not an equal exchange!" shouted another Centrist Senator. "Curb your dogs, or we will do it for you!"

"You have no evidence to back them up that claim, and besides which, every Separatist Senator has their own security teams. Perhaps we should be looking to the Chancellor for the holes in the Senate security forces!" shouted the Trade Federation Senator.

"Those holes have been patched, thanks to Master Windu and Padawan Skywalker ferreting out those among the Senate security force that had taken bribes," the Chancellor said slowly, shaking his head and addressing their concerns rather than shutting them down for their break from decorum. "I have already written up a new screening process for the security forces, as well as a new set of checks and balances on their time and it will not happen again."

"The fact that it happened once is enough to call your competence into question!" shouted a Separatist Senator as Palpatine's control of the Senate seemed to slip.

That proved to be too much, and even the Peace Party, and indeed a few of the GDL centers joined in the shouting that that brought about. Once more, it was clear that the Chancellor had built a very decent backing across the board, save for the Separatist faction. And even there his words were respected, even if his policies were not. Soon that man was cowed back into silence, and the Chancellor turned to Harry Potter. "I don't suppose the Jedi have any news on the investigation?" he asked wryly, admitting without words that they had gone off-topic.

"I am afraid not," Harry replied, while internally Aayla sniggered as he outright lied for the first time in this meeting rather than simply prevaricating or dodging a question. "Knight Secura and Padawan Skywalker were on the trail of one of the assassins earlier today, but I have not heard anything more since entering the Senate buildings. I am certain that they will report their findings as soon as possible."

There were grumbled about that, but the Chancellor simply nodded and moved on. "You were saying?"

"I was saying that a government no matter how large, must remember that it is in place to serve the people, not be served by them. The moment this Republic says it can keep its members by force, the moment it says those members can no longer vote to not be a part of it, it loses the right to be called a Republic in the first place!" Harry said sternly, frowning and looking around at the others. "I said, Senators, that I admitted and knew that the Republic had issues, and that is one of the biggest. That corruption is inbuilt."

At that, Palpatine knew Harry had lost at least half the respect he had gained, but Harry wasn't done, and before the Chancellor could pounce, he went on. "Furthermore," Harry said, his voice now assisted by a force power that enlarged his voice. "I have several more issues with this military creation act. One, it does not say how the Republic will organize this military. Who will lead this military? The Republic has no real organization for such. And believe me, building such isn't nearly as easy as you might think. I see no allowance for the training and education of a leadership cadre. Indeed, I don't see any mention of how the monies to be used to create this military will be distributed. Given my own experience with the GDL that is worrisome."

"On a similar note, the wording of the Military Act says, and I quote, that 'this act will see a fifteen percent tax increase across the board, in order to enable the creation of and recruitment for a Navy and Grand Army'. That tax, Senators, can destroy the economy of planets that are already suffering under their taxes to the Republic. And has this recruitment actually begun? What are the logistics for this? I repeat, where will this money be spent? We do not have enough information to tell us what this military is going to be composed of, how it will be used, organized or anything along those lines."

The Chancellor sighed, but argued back on those points, winning some fights: that indeed there was already a training cadre of officers, and that some recruitment had already begun in several Core Worlds which had felt the lash of Separatist terrorism. He further mentioned that work had begun on the warships needed, not going into any details at all.

He did not outright state however that the Jedi Order would be called upon to lead their military. He hinted at it but didn't outright state it. Instead, he said that they would ask "Such worthies as Master Yoda and Master Piell as well as Master Windu and others to aid in leading our military. This will be especially necessary if… Master C'baoth is leading the other side."

His words were mild, but they still implied what Harry and the others had danced around: that C'baoth might be a Sith Master and head of a sect of Sith. Harry winced but didn't argue the point knowing he couldn't since it was the truth: if the Sith had enough members to be a true military force, it would take the Jedi to offset them. He did repeat however that the Jedi were not warriors first, they were at best commandoes, very few of them could be war leaders.

After that, Palpatine shifted on to the next points Harry had raised. "And as for the taxation, that tax can be broken down to as low as the one percent the GDL apparently uses due to the Fair Share taxation clause. However you are correct, there does need to be more work on the wording of where that money will be spent. Still, those are not, as you would term it philosophical differences that cannot be overcome. Again, I ask you, Count Potter, where does the GDL stand on this score." he said, his voice now stern, commanding.

Harry grimaced, realizing that he was being pushed into stating his position her once more, which would no doubt lose him some favor among the Peace Party and Separatists. However, he had a defense for that too. "While I would be the last to say that a society should be free to defend itself, doesn't the Republic already have access to several, albeit smaller, navies?"

That caused the shouts to die down as many of the senators frowned, while Palpatine very carefully hid a wince. He knew where this was going and did not like it one bit. He watched as Potter quickly inputted a few commands, letting a few graphs along with various other bits of information and a hologram of the Republic appear in the air of the Senate Hall. The Hall's computer made it so the image shifted to face every Senator in such a way that they all saw the same aspect as Harry continued.

"Here are the numbers of warships that members of the Republic already have. Why can't they be seconded to the Republic Navy if more ships are needed?" The graphs shifted, showing other bits of military strength, and Harry repeated his question numerous times ending with "Why does the central government of the Republic need more power than it already has? Why can it not instead rally its disparate defense fleets as the GDL has?"

At that point, the Senate once more devolved into shouting and histrionics as the Chancellor lost control of everything. The Centrists were shouting that those numbers were wrong or were based on old data or about ships that hadn't been upgraded or maintained. Others, such as planets from around Coruscant were shouting it wasn't enough, citing the numbers of the Trade Federation and saying they had to be able to project enough force to defend themselves, which in turn got shouted down by the TF Senator and their puppets shouting that was all lies, that their fleets were as defensive in nature as the GDL, only less reliant on starfighters. This, of course, went very poorly with the GDL members who had previously been part of the Separatist factions.

The shouting match continued as the Peace Party tried to calm everyone down. The Chancellor very visibly sighed, looking older and wearier than he had prior to this moment. But there were other voices interspersed among the shouts and the cries. Those voices shouted that it was indeed a good point. That there were indeed enough forces already available to at least defend their territories. And so long as they could do that, wasn't that enough? Unless the Separatists indeed wanted to conquer rather than merely secede, in which case this discussion could be redone

Those voices were why Sidious was silent instead of instantly quieting everyone down. And he was dismayed to hear so many. Nor were they all from one party or another. The only political party that didn't seem to have members murmuring words along those lines was the Peace Party, who as a whole had begun to send messages back and forth.

Damn it all. I will have to work with this won't I? Unless the Separatist attack is allowed to be far more devastating… hmm… The Republic starting the war as the underdog would be annoying, but survivable certainly. Yes, I can work with that, and make certain that many of the planets who are suddenly finding their spines and willing to fight for themselves suffer accordingly.

"I do not believe, Count Potter, that you and the GDL are entirely neutral in this matter," the Chancellor said once he had restored order. "However you have raised a few points about expenditures, infrastructure, and preexisting force levels. We will go over those and amend the bill to account for them. But," he said sternly, "by your own admission, you acknowledge and respect the right to defend yourselves correct?"

"That is correct Chancellor," Harry replied, scowling at how easily his earlier point about the various navies had been tossed aside by the man. Yet from the shouts of the crowd he knew it had gone home among the rest of the Senate, and that was good enough. "Then if we solve those issues, will you and the GDL vote in favor of it?"

"It depends on how you solve those issues, how transparent your spending is, and whether the question about its command structure makes sense to me. Which at the moment it does not," Harry said with a shrug. "Beyond that, I will promise to ask the GDL Senators to vote as their conscience dictates. As I have said before, in the main the GDL is just that, a league not a government. I am certainly no president, Chancellor, King, or Emperor, able to dictate to my Senators. If they do not agree, they may go their own way, in all areas except for strategic defense."

The meeting quickly went downhill from there, but through it all, Harry and the Chancellor were calm and contained, fencing through the tumult trying to control it, but it was a lost cause. Eventually, the meeting of the Senate had devolved as it always did these days into simply so many people shouting at one another, and getting nothing whatsoever done until the Chancellor ordered an end to it for the day.

"But I remind you, Chancellor: the GDL will not support either side in this war unless there is a clear aggressor. And in that case, we will stand with the faction being attacked, And regardless, we will stand apart, relying on our own logistics, fleets, and command structure," Harry finished his own voice like steel.

Younger that voice was, like the man who owned it, but just as certain, just as charismatic. Perhaps, Sidious reflected, just as dangerous given time. Yes, I will have to push forward several of my plans, curse it.

The debate continued from there, but Palpatine knew he had lost this fight: the Military Creation Act would be postponed, if not wholly dismissed for a time until it could not only prove that it was the best way forward, but that all of the concerns Potter had raised on its makeup was able to pass approval. But that was alright. I can adapt. The Sith will adapt. The Great Plan will still go forward in my time. And Potter will learn there is no Light that cannot be snuffed out by the Dark.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Padme could not walk out of the Senate together, that wasn't how the Senate worked. And after about another hour of hobnobbing in the foyer they had entered from, they were able to meet up outside, and then walked out of the Senate building together heading to Padme's quarters, where Harry would leave her. He had another meeting to get to with the High Council, alas.

"So," Harry asked, "How do you think that went?"

Padme paused before replying, thinking. "Your openness on the Sith issue is a major draw to your position and you yourself as a Jedi who fought and killed a Sith one on one. But it will probably backfire in the future, pushing more towards the Military Creation Act. Your points on the forces already available were well taken but not enough. We will see that blasted Act up in front of us soon enough. You won supporters, and a lot of them, more than I expected. But I think the Sith issue will force that act through in the future, regardless of your attempts to not pin them on C'baoth. If there is one motivating factor every Senator in those walls share it is fear, and the Sith are a threat to their personal safety just as much as the Separatist terrorists and assassins are."

"A cynic, and at so young an age," Harry said with a chuckle reaching out to poke at her shoulder gently with a finger.

"Oh no, that was a simple observation," Padme said with a sigh. "One irritating factor of all of us having to leave separately is that unless you already have connections, you can't really see if anything has sunk in once the Senate has broken up for the day. Unless the Force can tell you that?"

"The Force allows me to tell if my words were heard rather than passing through one ear and out the other. I would say my words, as you said, were heard, but whether they will retain them is something I cannot say. Not with all of them. Some of them…broadcasted you could say, the fact they were now listening, others the opposite. But with more than fourteen thousand people, I couldn't tell more than that," Harry said with a shrug. "And with that number, I couldn't do even that much without my connection to Aayla."

Aayla basked in his appreciation at that and said she was heading back down to the surface with a group of Verpine techs. Two of them would help Harry in meeting with the Council, while the others would join the Jedi computer and engineering techs to take apart the shape-shifter's ship. Aayla herself would be going with them back into the under-levels, while Zule took up protecting Padme. As long as the Bane was in orbit, Padme would have a Jedi guard at all times.

Unaware of Harry's attention turning inwards, Padme turned and held up a data slate. "Copy what's on there to yours," she instructed, which Harry did so while she continued to speak. "While you have forced the Senate to hopefully look at the budget for this new military, as well as if it is needed, both issues will go to committee soon enough. And it will be on the committees that things are actually done. And unfortunately, as you are not actually part of the Senate, you won't be able to actually be a part of that discussion."

"And only one senator from the Galactic Defense League is on any committee. Committee membership is voted either by the pre-existing committee, to replace members as they leave or our fall out of favor with the others, or it is a vote in the Senate. And again, I'm not a part of the Senate," Harry said nodding. "So while I might've changed some minds, the bureaucracy will slow things down enough for my initial impact to subside. That's annoying."

"In the main, I think that will prove correct when it comes to the Military Creation Act. I think, the fact that you comported yourself so respectfully will have an impact. And I think that the fact that the outbursts of anger and vitriol were so short and controlled during the session is a good sign that perhaps civility can return to the Senate. It's been a while since I could say that honestly," Padme said with a shrug. "As for greater impact…"

Padme paused again, and Harry took the opportunity to nod to the two Jedi observers, Master Bilaba and Master Koon, as they joined them in the corridor leading towards Padme's suite. They too waited politely for Padme to finish speaking, while she barely acknowledged their presence as she said softly "I think that the GDL will grow, my own peace party will grow over the next few days. People will need to communicate home and get orders or give them as the case may be. But the larger the GDL grows, the more it puts a target on its back. And you did not win any converts on the Separatist side of things. They saw the implications of the Sith as just another ploy and will paint you as just another Jedi doing the Centrist's orders, if in a different manner than normal. I hope your navy really is as strong as you think."

"Strong? Perhaps not the right word. Flexible, yes," Harry replied with a nod, thinking about how much that dovetailed with what he had felt through the Force. He had not been using the Force to actually influence people of course. That would have been disastrous if he'd tried it with that many people. Rather he had used it augment his words and his ability to get through their preset modes of thought, as it were. Before he had started, everyone in the Senate, even Padme, had their set points of view, and very few of them were open to having those positions challenged. It was a level of bipartisanship that was frankly disturbing. Now, most of those minds were at least thinking once more rather than just reacting. "We rely on flexibility rather than brute strength. Beyond that though I won't say in public."

"That's fine but, I think we can make even more of an impact going forward. Reaching across party lines is still a very good idea Harry, one that could have a big impact now that you've started the process. And with that in mind, would you like to join me and a few friends for a night out?" Padme asked.

"A night out," Harry said slowly with a long drawn out sigh. "In public, where many senators of many different factions can be seen conversing pleasantly in public? With very discreet security rather than obvious as well?"

"Exactly," Padme said with a grin and a wink. While Harry was feeling somewhat tired from using the Force for so long, Padme was feeling buoyed by what she saw as an exceptionally good workday. "You're learning."

"This wasn't my first time around the sun, Padme," Harry said with a chuckle, shaking his head. "I have played the political games before, just not on this scale, and not with this number of players."

"And that is an idea that you need to leave behind Harry. Most of the people in that room, they're not players, they're played. Oh, and that was cynicism, but the best kind of cynicism because it is also accurate," Padme said, lips twitching into a wan smile. "But where is Aayla?"

"At the moment, she's trying to analyze the equipment she found on the shape changer who was apparently behind the assassination attempt on you we ruined." From there Harry quickly relayed what Aayla had told him, and Padme bit her thumb until Harry gently reached out and took her hand away from her mouth.

She scowled at him, then laughed, shaking her head. "I have no idea where that investigation is going to go, or even if it will do any good politically. I want justice, of course. Many people died that night. But in many ways, I can see that investigation being the light that ignites the powder keg, regardless of our attempts to calm things down."

"You and me both," Harry said with a sigh. "Regardless, we can only do the best we can. Force or no, that doesn't change."

She stopped looking at him thoughtfully then hugged him, gently but firmly. The two Jedi Masters both blinked in surprise, but that faded as Padme went on. "Oddly enough when you say it, Harry, I somehow feel that our best will somehow indeed be enough."

She held the hug for a second then pulled back before turning away to key the lock to her door. She blinked seeing Zule there but exchanged a smile with her nonetheless, and one with Chewbacca and his wife before turning back to Harry, winking at him. "I'll see you tonight. And I expect Aayla at least to dress in something other than Jedi robes for this."

"I have no idea why you would expect that," Harry replied honestly, his eyes gleaming at her causing Padme to laugh even as her door slid shut. With a faint smile, Harry turned away, moving to join the two Jedi Masters.

The three Jedi remained silent, walking together through the senate building to the long bridge leading across from it to the Jedi Temple. Halfway across Harry paused staring up at the temple, then back over his shoulder at the Senate buildings. Strange. I would have thought faced with this, the visible sign of the Order's closeness to the halls of power would make me think thoughts of hubris or disconnection. But standing here, on this bridge between the two seats of power, I can only wonder what the shadows are hiding. My eyes stray to them even here in the sun.

Of course, Aayla heard those thoughts and replied to them. "I think that's because of how much can be hidden beneath the surface here Harry. But we can't let the shadows divert us from the threats in front of us."

"True love, but the shadows can be just as dangerous. We need to prepare for both. And if a single lamp, so to speak, can't scare away the shadows, then perhaps we need more Light."

Aayla's mental laughter was as invigorating to Harry as a breath of fresh air, which, he thought ruefully, he wasn't going to get on Coruscant. The ecumenopolis had no natural green anywhere, and Harry felt that lack just then. Regardless he started moving again with Master Koon and Master Bilaba having waited politely for him.

"And has that meditative pause given you any more insights into the numerous troubles assailing the Order or the galaxy my young friend?" Plo Koon asked through the gas mask all Kel Dor had to wear away from their homeworld.

"I'm afraid not, Master Koon. Rather, it has only made more aware of the dangers we all face," Harry said with a sigh.

As they entered the temple, Harry reflected that this was only the second time he had ever been in the temple at all. The home of the Jedi it's called, the bedrock of our Order. But the problem with bedrock is that it cannot change unless by exterior pressure. It cannot bend with the times and perhaps worse, it cannot grow. And I have to wonder, with the winds rising so to speak, is a bedrock what we need at the time, or would it better to become the tree? By the Force but I'm in an introspective mood. Eesh.

Shaking his head at that, Harry attempted to come out of his odd funk. At the entrance, they were met by Master Yoda, who nodded towards Harry, as Harry bowed to him. "Master Yoda."

"Some time it has been since able to talk in person we were able," Yoda said, poking the tall human in the lower leg with his gimer stick. "Waves you are still causing. Some good, some bad. Change the galaxy, all of them do."

"And yet you yourself just said it, Master Yoda, not all change is bad," Harry said with a smile, remembering his earlier thoughts.

Yoda harrumphed, shaking his head. "Change part of life is, yet change, the old will never embrace. Old I am Harry Potter. Oldest living Jedi by a wide margin, I am," he added dryly. "Yet, energy I still have. Come," he said to all three Jedi. "The High Council, meet it now you will."

"You don't want to wait until Aayla is free?" Harry asked one eyebrow rising as he reached out mentally to Aayla. He might need her for this meeting too if it was going to turn into a confrontation. "And it well might love, I mean to press forward with our plan to move the younglings, ram it through if need be. A lot of them won't like that."

"Bah, with Master Yoda on our side, sort of, the council isn't the group who is going to bother you, Harry. That will be the teachers," Aayla sent, her mental tone definite. "I know Master Rancisis wanted to push a full revamp of the teaching cadre in the temple, but there is only so much he can have accomplished in that time."

"Perhaps. I'd still rather have you here," Harry replied, to which Aayla sent back a surge of agreement and rueful commiseration.

"No need," Master Yoda replied, pulling him back to the physical plane around him. "Dropped off several Verpine she did, making the temple secure they now are. Further, important work she is doing, attempting to hunt down the assassin's resources, the assassin's source. A preliminary report, Master Windu has already submitted." He nodded at Harry. "Good work the dual investigations were, an interesting mix of styles and abilities."

"I think the Order could benefit by putting Anakin in a teaching position actually," Harry said with a smile. "According to Aayla, he has a positive gift for computers and electronics, even if he isn't the best when it comes to general forensics."

"Anakin!? I'm sorry but Anakin in a teaching position," Depa said incredulously, shaking her head. "Was that a joke, or were you serious just now? For one thing, he still a padawan, several years away from his knighthood if you ask me. His connection to the Force is profound, anyone can sense that. But his control and his comportment are both well below what I would like to see in a Knight."

"Really?" Harry said mildly, looking at her in question, but there was a bit of challenge in his gaze. "I didn't think he comported himself all that badly. Perhaps a bit more calm would be helpful, but I'm certain that Master Windu has been belaboring that point for many years. Perhaps putting the show on the other boot, so to speak, would be a good idea."

Yoda chuckled. 'Hrhrhrhm, Teach patience, teaching can," he allowed. "Or annoyance. The mentality, there it must be, before teaching, one can embrace."

Harry chuckled at that, raising a finger to indicate that Yoda had scored a point, and the diminutive Jedi Master chuckled back.

The two Jedi observers simply shook their heads that there are antics, but by that point, they had ascended to the High Council's chamber. As they did, two Verpine nodded to them and one spoke, gesturing to a small box set against the frame above the door. "With these, we have created something called a faraday cage Masters Jedi. No signals can go in or out. Any discussion within this room will be protected from any attempt at overhearing it or recording. Further, we have installed a system that will automatically delete any information stored in the hologram projector a minute after its last use."

There, Harry looked around at the assembled High Council, nodding his head respectfully. "Masters, it has been a very long time since I last stood here. And there are three new faces, of whom I know only Master Trebor by reputation and his work on the public relations side of things. I'm sorry to ask but might I ask for introductions?"

The two new faces introduce themselves as Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Agen Kolar. Both brought new insight, although the fact Giiett had not been re-elevated to his position as a Council member after his return was a surprise. He had been moved to take control of revamping the temple's physical defenses, an ongoing if secret project. Still, he had been replaced by a Guardian in the form of Agen Kolar, so that at least was a good thing.

Master Poof had died saving Coruscant from some kind of ancient Dark Side weapon that had somehow been found and almost activated by an art collector or someone. The story was vague, and Harry got the impression that it would be a very long story if told fully.

"Knight Potter, you said yourself that it has been some time since you last stood in front of this council. And that is true and it is also true to say that much has changed in that time. We need to talk about the GDL and its readiness for war, but first I would like to hear about the effects of your meeting with the Senate," Master Rancisis said. "Both from you and Masters Koon and Bilaba please."

Plo and Harry deferred to Depa since she had been the assigned liaison to the Senate for far longer than Harry had been a Knight, and Plo's position as one of the two observers was a rotational one. There was some shock at how open Harry had been about the Sith threat, but in the main, everyone was pleased with the fact the Military Creation Act had been postponed.

Despite that success, however, Harry warned that the gains might not last, and the Sith threat could be turned against them given time. "We didn't make the connection, but enough of the Senators will see C'baoth as a Sith that the damage will be done regardless. But being forthright with the threat was the best of many bad choices. The problem is, I have meditated on this point many times, but even with my and Aayla's Force technique to push away the Veil of the Dark Side we have not been able to discover whether or not he is the Master or the apprentice.

"You mentioned in your initial contact with the council when the Bane reached orbit that the Force had told you this was the proper time to come to Coruscant," Rancisis said. "What is this Force technique?"

"The technique is based on Force Light and what my mother called a Patronus. Essentially it creates a light construct, which pushes against the Veil within the Force. They also have a physical presence, but their main benefit is pushing the Veil away from the individual. This allows those within its area of influence to interact with the Force as a whole for short amounts of time without the Veil clouding our vision. I and my fellow Knights, Zule, Aayla, Kas, and Mac were able to see visions of our futures, hints as to what the Force wanted from us," Harry replied. "At the time, one such vision said it was time I came to Coruscant."

Yoda leaned forward interestedly. "Force construct, you created when first we met. A giant guardian it was, yes? But this technique, make use of it others can?"

"Yes," Harry said with a nod, smiling tenderly as he remembered how Aayla had bound them together for the second time that day. "Thanks to Master Fay and her training, I no longer have to brute force the technique. Between us, Aayla and I can create several Light Constructs at one time which creates what is essentially a solar flare in the Force that pushes away the Veil."

"And you would be willing to use that technique to allow us to reach out to the Force without the Veil's interference?" Rancisis asked.

Here, Harry paused. "Masters, we have kept our Force Light constructs a secret before this. They represent a way to defeat even the strongest Sith. And I would prefer that we keep it that way until we can use them on the individual we have discovered is the Sith Master for certain. But I would prefer to keep this technique as much of a secret as possible."

The Jedi Masters around Harry exchanged glances, while Yoda simply stared back at Harry. "Told you before Rendili, I did. Time for hiding, over it would be."

"Yes Master, and because of that, we were ready for the Sith assassin. We were also ready to show some of our more advanced techniques, my short-range teleportation and a few of our purely offensive techniques. But the Force Light Construct is one that we haven't used before. As far as we are aware the Sith have no idea about it. If you order me to do so I can attempt to teach you while we are here, but I am worried about the Sith knowing about this ability before we can use it to greatest effect."

Yoda glanced around at the others, and finally, Rancisis sighed. "We will not use this technique here on Coruscant then. But I still believe we should know more about the technique."

Harry nodded agreement at that, relieved. Transfiguration, conjuration and his Force constructs were the three secrets he was most mindful of never letting the opposition learn about. "First of all, it is not a Force construct per se, it is a Force Light construct. Unlike the original Force Light though, you must feel emotions when you create it, love, happiness, joy, a desire to protect. Having a specific memory that brings you those emotions helps immensely. And then you just push those feelings into a pre-created image in your mind before pushing the entirety out into the physical world, like you were using a Force Push or other technique."

The Masters questioned Harry closely on this point. How much power did it take, did you really have to feel love of all things, or could one of the other emotions do just as well. If a person was uncomfortable with the idea of using emotions in conjunction with the Force, could they brute force the technique?

Harry answered them all, and there was some chagrin about the fact that yes, emotions were key to creating the physical representation. Force Light alone wasn't enough. Though it could have an effect on Dark Side users, it wasn't up to the level of being able to affect the Veil of the Dark Side, and if a Sith was of sufficient control or power they could overcome it. Harry's Light Constructs were something different, and far more powerful. "And no, they can't be brute-forced Master. without the memories and love I feel for Aayla and my friends, I would never be able to create even one Force Light Construct.

Unfortunately, many of the High Council ruefully acknowledged they probably would be unable to use it. Plo Koon was an exception, and he was eager to attempt the technique when he last next left Coruscant and could get away for some quiet contemplation unobserved. Master Rancisis bluntly stated he wouldn't even attempt it. His people were not like the snakes their lower bodies resembled. Instead, they were beings of conflict and passion, which, once loosed, was insanely hard to rein in. As the Master of the Order he could not afford that.

Surprisingly Yoda could use Force Light but flatly said that the construct was beyond him. "Hrhrhrhm, emotions, feel them I do. Alive, am I not? But muted they are, lay upon my mind lightly they do. Old am I, Harry Potter. Strong emotions, for the young they are." He turned a gimlet gaze on Harry then frowning. "But, wishful to take part in this, I am. Come with you, for a time, I will, when leaving Coruscant the Bane does."

Harry nodded, and seeing that as a good enough opening asked, "Speaking of the Bane, have you had any thoughts about our proposals Masters?"

Yoda harrumphed. "Acting on it, for two months we have been," he confided. "Jedi among the agricultural core culture corps, been questioned they have. Added back into the Order, many younglings have been. Many not so younglings, too, brought back into the Order have been" he chuckled at his little quip, shaking his head. "Others, preparing to leave they will be."

"Not the youngling's in the temple?"

"The temple is easier to evacuate than the agriculture corpse planets," said Master Rancisis, speaking up only for the third time meeting. Mostly he had simply sat, his eyes closed in meditation, but now he opened them to look at Harry sternly. "I have not been on your magnificent vessel, and many of its secrets are known only to a few of us here. We do not even talk about them here, which is why I am happy that your Verpine allies have cleared our meeting hall of hearing bugs and created that faraday cage defense."

"However we are not only consigning children to you, Harry Potter. That would be dangerous enough. What we are asking you to do is to protect the future of the Order in its entirety. Our information, copies of our histories, many of the holocrons, several dozen teachers, and the children who would be our future. So there has been a lot of debate about it."

"I still disagree with this, I think we are jumping at shadows. Removing the children like that, it isn't something that we will be able to do without the Senate, and indeed the public as a whole, learning about it. Are we prepared to deal with the fallout from that? That the Jedi are preparing to run rather than stand for the Republic in its time of need?" Eeth Koth said, shaking his head.

"I disagree," Depa said shaking her head. "I feel that we need to prepare for the worst. The Separatists and Master C'baoth have been very cagey about how much strength they have."

"Further there is the fact of the shadows, Masters," Harry said quietly, before repeating the words he and Aayla had shared outside on the bridge to the temple. "While we must take action against the threat in front of us, we must also be aware of the threat still in the shadows. We know, even if we cannot concretely prove, that C'baoth is a Sith, but is he the Master or the apprentice? That is beyond my understanding. And in the great scheme of things, what is one more apprentice to the Sith?"

"The Sith, a hidden dagger they are. Yet forget we must not, the back they will be targeting. The Republic, nothing it is to the Sith. Revenge they will want, only one target they will seek. The Jedi Order. Harsh it is, yet face the distrust and disdain of the Senate for this we will. Yet, a true move it is, and the necessary one," Yoda intoned.

And with that, the debate ended. Rancisis nodded his entire body towards Harry as was the way of his people. "Very well, we are agreed. Harry Potter, before the Tyrant's Bane leaves orbit we will send up to it every youngling below the age of thirteen within the halls of this temple, their teachers, their teaching equipment, as well as our most priceless holocrons."

"And let us hope that we are prepared to weather the political and public storm this will create once it is discovered," said Master Trebor. Yet the Vurk did not look as if he was against the decision any longer. In that unusual way of Jedi, all of them had come to a consensus and the Order would, as always, move together.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, as in his mind Aayla gave out a loud whoop and began to dance a furious jig in their combined mental plane. He couldn't help a grin spreading across his face at that, as he looked at the assembled High Council. "Masters, I promise the younglings will be as safe within the Bane for the journey to Ruusan. After that, no power in the universe will be able to threaten them without first overcoming Master Fay."

"Now," Master Rancisis said, "tell us everything you can about your Galactic Defense League that we have not seen through the Hypercom. What is your defensive structure like?"

"You were quite aggressive in the Senate," said Piell leaning forward. "How exactly do you intend to face up against the manufacturing juggernaut of the Separatists, and were you serious about retaining your own command even if the Republic is attacked?" His tone indicated he felt any other conclusion but that the Separatists would be the aggressors was foolish if not impossible.

"I was, but I was actually understating it. Many probably thought it was bravado, but in reality, the GDL is far stronger than any outside our military's upper echelons know." So saying, Harry looked down at the holographic projector saying dryly. "But this part of the conversation I feel needs some visual aids. With your permission Masters?"

At their nod, he began to input commands into the holographic projector as he hooked it up to his data slate. "We call our defensive scheme Operation Hydra," he began. "Garm Bel Iblis and I came up with most of it, although I'll warn you that a vast majority of our activity will be on the small scale, with local commanders in overall command of each front. Garm and I agree that we cannot micromanage at a distance, even with Hypercom's that would lead to disaster. So while the overall operation is outlined by the two of us, the actual battles will be under the control of local commanders. In essence…"

That conversation went on for several hours, during which Aayla interjected several points that Harry shared with the Masters. Aayla had not had much to do on the strategic side of things, but she had been one of the main individuals pushing for more logistics efforts and had been instrumental in many of the diplomatic agreements which had allowed for the local commanders to include the Mon Calamari and the Dorneans.

That was new information even transmitted over the Hypercom, and many of the Jedi Masters sat up and took notice. One of them went so far as to ask, "But how important is the Mon Calamari really? We don't have much of an understanding of their economic or strategic abilities here in the Core."

"Masters, I can give you some information, but I have to say that we had no idea about the true strength of their military either until we met with them in person," Harry said respectfully. "The Mon Calamari district is insular, not because they don't like strangers or anything like that. The Mon Calamari I have dealt with were quite friendly, very logical and artistic. But, their society is entirely self-sufficient. The only area that we could find that they needed help with was starfighter designs. And admittedly, their numbers are not much in terms of the Core Worlds and the pace of their ship construction is very slow, with each ship a work of art as much as simple engineering. But those ships are amazing. The overlapping shield structure, the multiple generators, their ships are extremely tough for their size."

"And that size is?" Piell asked.

"They have a few true battleship-sized ships that act as system defense in Dac and their other colonies. Most of the rest are converted merchant ships, but we would call them Heavy Cruisers. They are larger than they the Dreadnaught class which makes up the majority of the active Ord fleets. Those should really have been called light cruisers really. And the Mon Calamari ships rely more on energy weapons than most. Proton torpedo and concussion missile production in the Mon Calamari sector is slow. I predict they will come as a nasty surprise to anyone who thinks they can be brushed aside."

"Light and heavy cruisers? What do those designations mean?" The Master who had replaced Giiett, Ki-Adi-Mundi, asked quizzically.

"Master Yaddle and Garm devised an entirely new terminology of rating ships classes specifically based on armament rather than size or crew complement. For example, the Dreadnaught class ships are called heavy cruisers on the Republic's order of battle, but that is based more on the crew complement. Their armaments, while powerful, aren't actually all that good for their size. Their defenses are not much either."

"The GDL have designated destroyers, the smallest type of capital ship which are basically slightly larger versions of system patrol craft. We have frigates, like the Archer class. The Mon Calamari ships and others of that size are the cruisers, light to heavy. My own Bane would be termed a battleship." Harry finished.

"So how many Lucre Hulks, which I assume would also be called battleships, is your one Tyrant's Bane worth?" Tiin asked interestedly. He hadn't spoken up about anything else, but this was a combat-related discussion, and thus interested him. "Give me an idea of its firepower Potter, I understand it's defensive abilities well enough."

"Offensively, we have our own starfighters, the missile frigates that we have on board, and several other little surprises," Harry said with a grim smile. "While in size my ship is a battleship, I would term it more akin to a true star dreadnaught. It can dominate any battlefield, although I admit it would take us longer to destroy our opponents then it will probably take them to realize they can't do the same to us."

"If push comes to shove we might have to see that in action," Piell said shaking his head.

"Do we have any idea how Master C'baoth will command this war?" Harry asked wishing to push the discussion along. "It disturbs me how much trouble he has caused the universe, how he set himself up as the enemy of the Republic so easily, without my being able to find out enough about the man to gauge his abilities as a commander. In fact, while I'm here I want to look for any information I can about him."

"We've already looked, but sadly considering how large the archives are, any information on even a Jedi Master is not going to be much. Still, you are welcome to investigate if you wish," Rancisis said with another full-body nod.

"Arrogant he is," Yoda said softly. "Yet prideful he is not. Willing to cut his losses he would be, willing to admit a lack of knowledge he would. But controlling he is, an odd dichotomy he is."

"Will he try to micromanage the war as I said I wouldn't? If so, the idea of multiple fronts and operation Hydra seems even better," Harry mused.

From there the discussion shifted entirely onto C'baoth for a time, giving Harry a slightly better idea of the man than he had before. Yet even among the High Council, the knowledge they could give him about the possible Sith was scarce. That was worrisome, and what had been a way to pass the time, while the kids were moved to the Bane and he waited for his next hearing with the Senate, became a goal. To defeat someone you had to know them. And whatever else he could be, C'baoth was an enemy.

Master Windu bowed to them all with a droll sense of amusement flashing across his face, somewhat at odds with his normal dour personality, yet not quite. "Fellow Masters. The investigation on the physical side of things is still ongoing, but I am prepared to report on our initial findings. Essentially, four officers at the lieutenants' level, control room supervisors and watch officers, were on the take. Three of them thought they were being paid by mere criminals."

"Then they are not only guilty of corruption but gross stupidity," Piell grumped, shaking his head, his long ears flopping around. "And the last?"

"Truly. And as for the last supervisor, he was being blackmailed by a cabal of Centrist Senators. He is apparently a…sexual offender many times over. They knew this, helped him get the job, and have been holding it over his head ever since. They've used him to cover their own clandestine moves before this, although the evidence against him this time is more circumstantial than against his fellows. Despite that, I request that the Senators named in his interrogation by me be further investigated," Mace said grimly. "If they were willing to use a creature like him, who knows what else they have been doing themselves?"

"Agreed," Rancisis said instantly. "But the others? Who were they working for?"

"They were being paid through several dummy companies, and not a one knew about the other. There was no political affiliation involved on their part…" he said slowly. "However Master Prcyne, one of the Order's best computer slicers, and Anakin have found that at least three of the dummy corporations were clandestinely owned by separatist leaning companies or worlds. They are still working through the layers of five more to find out where the money from those dummy corporations was really coming from, but it is not looking good."

Anakin, according to Aayla, had not actually been helping on that end so much other than physically going to the places on Coruscant where the first three companies were supposed to have office space when she and the two forensic specialists had arrived back at the ship. "He found a Twi'lek and Trandoshan at one 'renting' out the space to forty different companies for various reasons, none of which actually exist. At the other two places, he found fistfights with groups of squatters. Thank the Force he didn't draw his lightsaber. No physical evidence of the companies there ever existed. I'm heading there now, maybe my empathy can give us more information from the first two at the very least."

"From my perspective, all this does is muddy the waters further while also pointing slightly more to the Separatist side of things," Harry said with a sigh, commenting on both Aayla's words and Mace's information. "And Aayla says, Master Windu, you are to be commended on teaching Anakin some restraint. He… apparently ran into groups of squatters who attacked him?"

"Ah, yes," the bald Jedi looked pained. "He, well at least he didn't draw his lightsaber." He finished somewhat lamely, eliciting a chuckle from the councilmembers who had met his headstrong padawan in person. "Ahem, anyway, essentially, all this tells anyone is that there is more corruption then they thought in the Senate Security Forces. The Chancellor will move to take care of that in the future and make certain that such does not happen again, but that is all that we can do at this moment. Unless we can connect the physical evidence of the assaults to the same Separatists companies or planets that paid the way through the security cordon. If we do that, then we will have evidence to bring before the Senate."

"Which may or may not be a good idea at that point, depending on if we have decided we need to push for war or not," Depa said with a scowl.

"I actually think we need to have more defenses as well," Harry said slowly looking around the others.

"You think we should accede to the request made by many that the Senators should have a private military force like your Galactic Defense League does?" Master Kolar said scornfully.

"The Corellian Special Operations men here on Coruscant can hardly be called military force," Harry said drolly. "There's only what, thirty-six of them on the whole planet?"

"Thirty-eight actually," Master Rancisis said with a nod.

"How many of the targeted senators were from the Peace Faction, or were thought of as moderates from the Separatist and Centrist parties?" Harry asked.

Master Windu frowned, pulling up the names of the attacked senators in his mind. "From what I know of Senate politics, all but one of them," he said at last. "The Senator of Barbatus, a Core World, was also targeted."

"And he is most definitely not a moderate in any shape or form no," Master Bilaba said slowly. "But he is a known ally of the Chancellor's tax reforms. Send me the information on the assassination attempt on him, and I will follow up on that aspect, as it might have been an entirely different issue."

"I would ask that the Jedi assigned guards to the Peace Party faction and any and all known moderates on both sides of the political divide. This move will serve two purposes. One, it will show that the Jedi Order will still respond to direct threats on the Senate despite all the work it is already doing throughout the Republic, and that it will do so in a way that crosses party lines. And two, they will defend the Peace Party and those willing to still talk about solving the galaxy's problems rather than fight about them. Going into the future senators, Masters, that party might well be the only group pulling us back from war."

There was a murmur of agreement among the Jedi, but Yoda narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Protect Senator Amidala too, this will. Worried about your friend, you are? Letting that affect your thinking, you should not."

"I'm actually not Master since I've already seen to her defense. As long as the Bane remains in orbit, myself, Aayla, or Zule will always be with her.

"And when we leave, we might leave one of the green Jedi here to guard her. Do you think any of them would go for that?" he sent to Aayla.

"Or we could take her with us Harry," Aayla sent back with a sigh. "If the worst does occur, she'll be targeted by everyone as will the rest of the peace party." She was on her way to Amidala's quarters even now. They had discovered some more of the poison the shape-shifter had on her darts, enough to analyze, and had found the remains of food and other things that could hint at where her ship had stopped before coming to Coruscant. That was about all they could do at the moment. The rest of the physical side of the investigation would rely on lab work and computer work, which were not Aayla's strength.

"True. Creating some kind of Senate in absentia could be a very good idea if the Republic is the aggressor," Harry replied.

"Agree to this we will," Yoda said looking over at the Master of the Order who nodded his head in his people's fashion once more.

The Thisspiasian thought for a moment, then spoke, looking over at Depa Bilaba. "Yes, I think that we will hand this task to you Master Bilaba. You can choose your teams, and the Jedi to aid you, but I think we want one Jedi assigned to every six or seven peace party senators, and one master for every ten Knights. Make certain that Senator Organa is protected as well. He is as much an ally to the Jedi Order as Senator Amidala, and is in a position to help in the future thanks to his place on the Jedi Senatorial Oversight Committee."

Mace was dismissed at that point and went off to find his padawan to congratulate him on his self-control. Harry remained with the council for a time, discussing the logistics of the GDL, how the Jedi would help them and be helped in turn, and other items. At the same time, Aayla spent time with Padme, answering several calls from various Senators in Harry's name at the same time.

Eventually what work they could do was done for now, and Harry left the council members to their mediations having promised Yoda that he, Master Koon and Master Piell, would be leaving with them when the Tyrant's Bane Left Coruscant.

Yet while his day was slowly ending, the Dark Side was never still…

OOOOOOO

Hidden in his secret throne room under the Chancellor's office, Sidious basked in the Dark Side of the Force, his mind almost but not quite shutting down in simple unadulterated pleasure as his hate and rage once more empowered him. The need to cut himself off from the Force had been beyond painful but had also obviously been the right one, something he had been able to tell the moment the meeting began. Even after that first trick to gain attention Sidious had been easily able to discern what was going on, despite not actually being connected to the Force at the time.

Thousands of people who should have been mentally stuck into their positions suddenly starting to think that perhaps other people who had differing points of view might actually have something to contribute? Ironically most of those minds had never been influenced before through the Force, simply by Sidious's manipulations and the corruption inherent in their positions. And in a single meeting, Potter had undone a lot of that work, and set back the Military Creation Act for weeks, unless something could be done to reverse it.

But, as Sidious had told himself during the meeting, he could adapt. With the Dark Side once more filling him, giving him power, renewing his strength and purpose, Sidious knew that for a fact. Yes, I can do this, we can adapt. The Jedi are still caught in a trap of their own making, and soon they will be between a rock and a hard place. But I must step up the time frame for many things.

First, he would have to set into motion the final acts which would push the Separatists to attack the Republic and do so in such a way that the Separatists could at least tell themselves they were being provoked. If no one else believed it, who cared? The first shots would have been fired, and after that first battle, they would have all the reasons in the galaxy to keep fighting.

With a flick of a finger, he summoned up his arachnid-like droid, and a few seconds typing sent out a brief, extremely coded message to a group of Centrist-leaning pirates, telling them of a secret cargo on a Trade Federation ship. It was a deliberately vague message, the fools on the other side of that message were not exactly chosen for their intelligence, and of course, like everything else in the galaxy outside of Sidious himself, they were expendable, extremely so in this case. They would die, but an attack on a Trade Federation ship, which was actually carrying an envoy to a Separatists trade conference was going to be more than enough Sidious his purposes. After all, only the Republic Senate should know about that meeting going on in the first place, not any of their fringe groups or Centrist terrorists. That the Chancellor would then have the nearest Ord system's fleet step in to flatten the 'terrorists' would be immaterial to the Separatists but would make a good copy in the news.

The news he brooded thoughtfully yes, that is another thing I must do. Potter had tied a tremendously large weakness onto the Galactic Defense League by agreeing to pay for any damages done to the Galactic Defense League's Hypercom relays. And it was a target Sidious was gleeful to make use of. Beyond that, I must also both weaken the Jedi Order, and cast further questions on Master C'baoth's being a Sith. He must become the threat I need to seize further power, above and beyond the Military Creation Act. Once the war starts, my available tools will multiply and grow.

He frowned, thinking further. That will do to spark the war and put the Jedi Order back into the crosshairs. The attack on the GDL will, it is hoped, break them. But the Sith did not survive a thousand years of hiding and planning for the future by making only one plan. On another layer, I will continue to stoke concerns, subtle digs at Harry Potter, and his lack of neutrality and his belief in libertarianism, whatever that is, which will not go over well with anyone in the Centrist side of things, while his staunch anti-corruption stance will set him eternally against the Separatists.

But, even with that, he needed someone to set against Potter directly. Both in the eyes of the public an individual I can use to offset him in the media, and someone who can match him.

Judging from the effect that Sidious had seen in the Senate, he knew that his apprentice's concerns about Potter's strength were justified. To accomplish what he had marked Potter as easily one of the most powerful Jedi that Sidious had ever met, and since he had been in the presence of Yoda, Dooku, and many others that was saying something. No, there is only one Jedi alive who could possibly match him in raw power, and that is Anakin Skywalker.

Sidious would need to start laying the foundations of Anakin's eventual turn to the Dark Side, and that meant reaching out to his dreams tonight. He thought to himself a wicked smirk suddenly appearing on his face. Perhaps on top of his mother having been 'abandoned' by the Jedi, I can try to force a full break between them. Windu is one of the Jedi most against forming emotional attachments. He has allowed the two of them time before, but if Anakin insists on following a 'vision' while they are here following up on the issues they have discovered via Windu's investigations into the holes in the Senate Security Forces… well, we would have to see.

Yet one more worrisome thing has occurred today. I know now more about Potter, about his odd mental link to this Twi'lek Jedi, and I know that she is an extremely competent investigator. And, Potter was very quick to shift blame away from Dominus. That, coupled with how long Potter's been hidden before this means they know. They're not going to assume that C'baoth is the only Sith. The Jedi Order knows that I am out here somewhere. And it will occur to them to look to Coruscant itself, regardless of their Temple being here. Eventually, they will be that paranoid. Or, Potter will think about it himself. That one was searching the shadows today during the meeting as if it was natural. Whatever else happens, I cannot let them find me.

It is annoying to be so cut off, but once the Jedi start looking over the Hypercom Relay center's security, they will find the extra link Tenebrous set up, which could lead to our secret temple. That cannot happen.

With that in mind, Sidious stood up, and began to move over to a series of controls along one would have to start rerouting his communications through other planets, start using only drop-box type communications to Alaris Prime, as well as perhaps find another scapegoat, someone who could be the other Sith behind Master C'baoth. His current apprentice wouldn't fit that mold, but he wasn't without resources there.

"Regardless, the Great Plan will continue. I will be Emperor. The Force itself is on my side," he said to himself, the Dark Side coiling within and without in the interior of the room, the shadows moving twisting at his command.

Yet even as he thought that a small ribbon of doubt was infesting his mind. After all, he now had evidence that the Jedi had known for quite a while that the Sith were still around. So, what else have they been able to hide?

The new orders he relayed to Master C'baoth were brusque and efficient. "I have given you your Casus Belli, prepare to launch the war. Hit the predetermined targets in the Republic, but shift targets within the GDL. I want one of the Hypercom relay stations in their territory destroyed utterly. Make it look as if it was part of a larger operation, but that is a necessity. Use the Bound, besmirch the Jedi's names and kill as many of them as you can. The Great Plan must move onto its next phase now."

Sidious then turned his attention onto orders for his own apprentice. If the Ysalamiri had been able to cut Sidious off from the Force, they might do the same to Potter and his Rutian under other circumstances. And without their connection, who knew what would happen to them?

With that last order sent out, Sidious settled into his throne, alone in the Dark as he reached out to the Veil. There was still work to be done.

OOOOOOO

The restaurant that Senator Sestali had chosen advertised itself as a genuine Alderaan experience and was one of 'the' places to be seen by the Senators and other high-class people on Coruscant. But Benjamin had taken one look at the menu the last time they had gone there and declared it 'about as Alderaanian as Coruscant itself could be'. It was still good though and was most definitely a place most people would dress up to go to. But Harry and Aayla were not most people. They dressed up occasionally for themselves, but as Jedi, they refused to do so just because of their positions.

"I still don't understand why I can't get you to dress up," Padme said teasingly to Aayla as they walked to the restaurant, which was on hub spire's roof at the edge of what was called the Senatorial District. "With that chest and waist, you could probably make a lot of women die of envy, and just think of how much easier their replacements would be to work with."

"What, like you do with your legs? Or how you move? Aayla asked, grinning wickedly and elbowing Padme in the side lightly. "You move almost as much of a dancer as I do."

Padme smirked back, shrugging her shoulders. While Harry and Aayla wore their Jedi robes, Padme had dressed up for the occasion. Instead of her normal, almost severe business suit, she wore a long pale white dress, done up with several different colored sashes along her midriff. She was also wearing earrings, the necklace that they had given her of course, and a long bracelet that corkscrewed up one arm from her forearm to just below her shoulder.

The other ladies who were part of their party were also dressed up, some of them quite provocatively. Including Sestali, the middle-aged Falleen Senator who had set up this meal. But Harry didn't have any eyes for them, simply switching his attention from Padme to Aayla and back, shaking his head internally.

"So you would be Knight Secura then," Mon Mothma said, frowning at the very young-looking Twi'lek. But then again, Harry looks young to be a Knight, let alone a Count. And there was something about their eyes. Something that spoke very eloquently of experience.

"May I introduce my friends," Mon Mothma went on introducing Sestali, the woman who had sat and was another Centrist senator. Both of these senators however instead of being simple representatives of planetary bureaucracies that were basically extensions of the Republic, also were rulers of their planets. They were also Centrists who, Harry sensed, were not about to change their position. But they also had questions.

The other two were both Separatist senators. Moderates, and those who still believed that peace was the answer, but they too had questions, and one of them in particular, the Senator for Mirial, was almost overflowing with them to the point that Harry and Aayla could pick up his actual thoughts rather than just his outer emotions in Aayla's case.

Harry was amused to see that for some reason, he and Aayla were not seated together. Instead, he was seated between the Mirialan man and the hostess. Aayla was seated well down the table next to Padme and Mon Mothma.

Padme leaned forward whispering to Aayla. "I'm sorry about this, I wasn't the one that made the reservations here, nor was I the first one to arrive as you know. The rule of thumb is the person who makes the reservation sets the seating, and so long as they don't entirely disagree with the person who made the reservation, it stands. You can shift if you want."

Aayla laughed, thumping her shoulder against Padme's, ignoring for a moment Mon Mothma's watching them from across the table. "Why, are you unhappy with my company?"

"No, but you should know, Sestali? She's going to try to seduce Harry," Padme said with an eye-roll. "She might not be completely typical of her race in looking down at everyone else, but when it comes to her libido she seems to have gotten a double helping."

Aayla's guffaw was stifled quickly and she shook her head. "She is welcome to try," she said gaily. "It will be amusing to see how she bounces. Especially if she thinks her pheromones will have any effect. Not only would a Jedi be able to ignore such, but Zule is a half-Falleen, and we've been around her for years, getting used to her pheromones.

"But, why exactly are they trying to seduce him?" Aayla asked quietly a few minutes later, as they worked through the menu together. The plates at this place were supposedly quite large, so every two people were sharing a meal.

"Well, for one thing, she and several other Senators want to test this connection between the two of you and Harry to see if you're still a danger in terms of falling to the Dark Side," she said tartly. "For another, well he's very handsome and he's a Jedi. That's one selling point and two forbidden fruits wrapped in one for a woman like Senator Sestali," she said with a grin for her friend.

The two of them looked at one another then giggled like schoolgirls, leaning against one another in a display of friendship and youthfulness that raised many an eyebrow around them. In response Harry, for no reason that had anything to do with anything Sestali was saying to him, looked their way, as he sent back an image of himself spanking both Aayla and Padme for being naughty little girls. That caused Aayla to shiver in delight at the idea of being spanked for some reason, cutting off her giggles as her cheeks darkened in a blush.

Before he could continue the mental flirtation, Harry's attention was dragged back to the here and now for a moment. "You released several Rancors into the glass shop today, Count Potter," Bail said, sitting down and Harry's other side, looking at him shrewdly. "And I, unlike many of my fellows will never believe a Jedi could lie, especially not about something like this. So, how dangerous is this Sith threat you brought to our attention?"

Harry frowned. "Senators, they have been hiding for a thousand years. Regardless of their goals, that speaks of a dangerous kind of mentality. It speaks of plans, influence and reach. None of that is good."

"And you do not think that Master C'baoth is a Sith? Answer the question plainly please," said one of the other senators of the table. The Senator of Mirial was a separatist connected to the Commerce Guild, but he wasn't a vociferous one. Rather he was sort of the equivalent of Mon Mothma on the other side the political divide. He was a bureaucrat who thought that the system was broken and needed to be replaced entirely rather than piece by piece.

Harry sighed. "Senators, Jorus C'baoth was a Jedi Master. Whatever his actions since he left the Order I cannot throw that accusation around without concrete evidence."

"Your dancing around the issue, but the way you're doing it seems to imply that you do believe that," Said Bail, frowning. "My talks with the High Council have basically also hinted at that. There is no hard evidence, but there is a star's worth of circumstantial evidence. And where there's that much smoke…"

"If that's the case…the Fates help those who help themselves …" The man muttered before going on his tone turning formal as he said abruptly. "I will l be pulling my vote from the Senate's separatist party, and I formally ask for protection for me, and that my planet is allowed to join the GDL. While I still firmly believe in the Separatist cause, I was already leery of Master C'baoth. The influence he has had on many of our leaders is strange. I wish to change the fate of my planet I can see coming all too soon."

"Strange how?" Harry said, pouncing on the words, completely ignoring the attempt of another female senator to try and change the discussion to something softer. At the other end of the table, Aayla too looked up in interest, while Padme paused in her own discussion.

"Nothing concrete I can put my feet on, but he's a very strange fellow, occasionally. Sometimes very wild and almost emotional, beyond what most Jedi are for certain. And at others, he is very controlled. Very dictatorial… very cold almost."

"That matches what I've discovered about the man in a lot of particulars. Do you know of any senator who worked with him, anyone outside the Order?" Aayla asked.

"No but that's not exactly unusual," said the oldest senator there. He was a very old human male, older by a wide margin from Senator Sestali and Bail, who was the next oldest. "I remember him. Twice I was part of the Senate when he announced the solution to a diplomatic issue, and though these solutions were fair and just, the way he said it? He wasn't asking us to accept his choices, he was simply telling us what had happened as if we had no say whatsoever."

Harry nodded again at that since it once again dovetailed with what he'd heard. "My time in the library tomorrow is no doubt going to be incredibly dull and boring, but it is looking more and more necessary," Harry sent to Aayla who replied with a feeling of rueful agreement.

They needed to understand the man behind these descriptions, needed to understand his motivations, or at least his motivations until he quit the Order. Since then, well the saying was that actions spoke louder than words, and that was certainly true here.

"Can we talk about something else?" Sestali cut in, her voice not the seductive whisper it had been but a deeper and sharper timbre. "The more we talk about Master C'baoth, the more this Sith issue comes up, and the more concerned I become. I don't want to be concerned at the moment, I was concerned enough earlier. Right now, this just a simple dinner out with friends and acquaintances, to show the public that the Senate is still talking."

"Agreed, let us leave the serious talk until after the wine at least," Padme said her smile turning wry as she saw Harry's annoyance as Sestali instantly reverting to flirtatious vamp by 'accidentally' rubbing up against his arm, her large breasts practically overflowing from her dress as she reached for a spice dispenser. Honestly, does she think a Jedi will be interested in someone wearing an outfit that looks more like it should belong in bordello than on a senator?

Indeed Harry looked rather pained to be there, and he was keeping his eyes on the center of the table whenever someone wasn't speaking. When he had to look at Sestali directly, he concentrated his eyes on the middle-aged senator's own, looking no lower than her nose.

The dinner went on from there, with many words exchanged, but little actual information beyond the Mirialan's bombshell. Harry repeated many of the things he'd said earlier about the Sith, about the GDL and about the Republic, trading barbs and cuts with Mon Mothma and others. Despite that, everyone went away feeling that there was still room for negotiation and settlement and that real progress had been made today of pulling the fangs of the Warhawks on both sides.

Well, everyone but the frustrated Sestali, whose best efforts had just bounced off Harry, as if he didn't even notice them, much to the amusement of her fellows. Still, the Falleen woman took it in good stride, seemingly.

As they escorted Padme back to her room, Aayla shared that impression, although she didn't say aloud how many Senators had contacted her via the Tyrant's Bane to talk about joining the GDL. Before this, the GDL had consisted of two thousand planets including seven full sectors and two almost full sectors like the D'Astan Sector where all but one or two planets had come over to their side. After today, that number would grow by another four hundred or more.

"You'll see that the words you spoke at that dinner will flash around the senate at a speed to make hyperspace look slow," Padme said in reply. Meals like that, they bind the Senate together more than any speech to the entire Hall can, and more can be done over them. And it is through meals and meetings at that scale that we find out the true opinions of our fellows and when they changed. I know the Peace Party has gained a few, and don't tell me you haven't been getting offers either Aayla. I might not have the Force, but I know my fellows and I noticed how many calls you were getting when you came by this evening."

"Sorry Padme, I just thought you'd be upset about so many joining the 'warmongers'," Aayla replied.

"I am. Sort of. While your members aren't voting for full war, joining your position shows that they fundamentally believe that the time for talk has ended. Yet at the same time, I know about the real threat out there, so I can see the merit in that position. But my job, my passion is to attempt to stop that slide into madness from occurring. So while on the one hand, I applaud your position and their new desire to fight to defend themselves, I cannot say I'm happy about the necessity."

She smirked then. "Still, you're not the only group gaining new members. Thanks to your punching holes in the logic behind the Military Creation Act, the Peace Party has gained more members today than we have in months. I think I'll only need twenty-five more votes, to be able to kill the Act entirely."

"You have them," Aayla and Harry said as one, before laughing as Padme broke out into giggles. But then Harry went on. "I won't order them to vote one way or another, but I can tell our Senators my own opinion on the Military Creation Act: that there is no need for it, and that it is rather like attempting to put out a fire by adding fuel to it. With that, more should vote against it than otherwise."

"Thank you," Padme said with a sigh of relief. "While I know the Chancellor and others I respect think it a necessary step to stop Separatist aggression, I feel that regardless of why we create a military, eventually, it will be a source of further conflict in the future." She then shook her head sighing faintly. "But this Sith… that is still the issue. If evidence is found to directly link Master C'baoth to the Sith who attacked you, or even any of the other terrorist attacks, all bets are off. The Separatists will scream it's a libelous lie, and the Centrists and, unfortunately, a large portion of my own party will demand the Military Creation Act in an effort to nip a nascent Sith War in the bud."

"Agreed. And they might have a point. But before that, I would like to see us take apart the Military Creation Act's provisos and make certain that the military it creates is the type we want, and answers to the Senate, rather than to any high command that could be created later, and abused thusly," Aayla said softly. "And like Harry, I feel there is still a large percentage of forces already in place, centralizing them first should be the priority, rather than raising new flotillas."

Padme looked pained but then nodded. "Agreed. The Sith are the true threat. I am going to see if I can sneak in some additions to the bill to create an intelligence division to look for the Sith specifically. We'll have to see about that.

By this time they had reached the door to Padme's suite. Harry looked at it, then down at Padme, allowing his eyes to take in her frame from top to bottom, in a way he hadn't earlier. Padme flushed under his gaze, and the feel of Aayla's eyes on her from the other side, feeling Aayla's hands settle onto her hips.

"So, are you going to invite us in?" Aayla whispered, letting her tongue out to tease along the shell of the brunette's ear.

"I would sooo love to," Padme said with a sigh. "But unfortunately, I have an early meeting tomorrow. That means we can't do anything too… strenuous tonight."

"Well then, how about a rubdown, a bath, with towels on obviously, and then to bed? We can cuddle without any…what was that word my mother used once Aayla?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer of course, but more to make a joke than anything else.

"Hanky-panky I think is the term you're looking for," Aayla quipped, her arms going around Padme's waist.

Padme worked that out, then grinned. "Shouldn't that be Hanky, Panky and more Panky in this case then?"

Harry blinked, then guffawed, and Padme turned, not moving out of Aayla's arms as she flashed her wrist ID at the door's controls. A second later the door opened for them and she left Aayla's loose hug. Instead, she took one hand from each of her newfound lovers and led them inside. After the day they'd had, she felt they all deserved some pampering, even if they weren't going to go all the way as it were.

Once standing within the suite's bathroom, Harry looked at the small, one person porcelain bath, and shook his head mournfully. "Now this won't do."

He thought about it, then decided against just teleporting the three of them up to the Tyrant's Bane. If it had just been himself and Aayla, he knew he could've made it, although only to their room. But Padme, despite the almost alluring nature of her presence in the Force, was not a Jedi, she didn't have that intuitive connection to the Force which would allow her to take some of the burden of the teleportation. They would arrive, but she would certainly be in no fit state to have any kind of fun.

So instead, Harry raised his hands, looking around at the area, before gesturing forward. As Padme watched, the porcelain tub slowly grew until it was twice the size it had been a moment ago. Thankfully, there was room for it, even if Padme thought the Wookies wouldn't have enough room to stand in front of the sink any longer. Not at least without sticking one foot in the bathtub anyway.

Chuckling at that image Padme shook her head. "I'm never going to get used to that, am I?"

"I haven't," Aayla said with a wide smile, moving forward to start the water running. "Harry is the only one that can transfigure anything larger than this tub basically, and he doesn't do it much."

"I try not to, no," Harry said with a chuckle of his own as he began to strip off his Jedi robe. He felt Aayla's desire rising, as well as the appreciation from Padme and he smiled somewhat self-consciously, unused to anyone but Aayla seeing him without a shirt on. Then he paused, looking at both ladies who were still in the bathroom, asking solicitously, "Would you ladies like to go first?"

Both girls looked at him in confusion. "Of course, I thought that wasn't even a question," Padme said honestly confused at the very idea that Harry, or indeed any man who wasn't actually stinking, would think he would be taking a bath in front of the woman in the relationship.

Harry laughed outright at that, and both girls realized instantly that he had been having them on. A towel flew off a wrack propelled by the Force and wrapped around Harry's head, allowing her to push him out of the bathroom.

Still chuckling, Harry left them to it and went into the other room, Padme's bedroom where he created a massage bed, it's top the same kind of ergonomic soft gel that would be found in a massage parlor. Then he thought about whether or not he could figure out a way to create some massage oils or something like that. After a few moments, he decided against even trying. While he knew what they felt like and looked like, he didn't know the ingredients, of what made a massage gel. Then the thought occurred to him, and he looked around quizzically before asking Aayla to pass on the question of, "Where's Sabe tonight?"

In the bath, Padme was leaning back, soaking her hair as she watched through half-lidded eyes as Aayla entered the bathroom across from her. Both women were wearing towels under their lower halves and chest, but that still left a lot to be admired, Padme reflected, taking in the Rutian Twi'lek's blue-skinned form. It'd been a long while since that time they'd gone swimming, and what had been a beautiful girl had transformed into a truly beautiful woman. And her skin, that blue color is so vibrant! Was it so, so alluring back then, or have my perceptions of it changed with my affections? Padme thought.

Padme just had to reach out and touch it, almost startling Aayla into falling backward as she did, running a finger along the outer edge of the other woman's leg. "Yes just as soft as it looks," she said aloud. She continued to stroke up Aayla's leg up to just next to the knee, causing her to shy away and Padme blinked in surprise. "Are you ticklish?"

"Yes," Aayla said repressively. "And I appreciate you not tickling me while I'm poised between getting in and out of the bath."

"Certainly, I'll wait for when we're out of the bath entirely," Padme said mock-seriously, before ruining it utterly by winking at the other girl.

"Don't make me try to find if your ticklish or not," Aayla warned. "Oh and Harry asks where Sabe is tonight."

"Sabe routinely stays with one of the young men in the Alderaanian delegation. It isn't serious, but Sabe likes to experiment," Padme confided. Although if Eirtae would just notice the poor girl I believe that Sabe's wayward ways would change instantly. Good grief but my successor is blind.

Of course, Aayla, who was now in the water sitting across from the other girl, just could not let that opening slide. "And have you ever experimented?"

Padme chuckled, winking at the other girl. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

A moment later, the two had dunked their heads, and now they were lying back in the enlarged bath, sighing faintly. "I don't suppose I could get Harry to make this transfiguration permanent?"

A moment passed before Aayla replied. "He says the change to the tub is permanent. On something that small, which is more of a change of shape rather than a change of type, making it permanent was actually kind of easy. His words, not mine," Aayla replied ruefully.

Padme chuckled, then looked at Padme's Aayla's lekku. "Would you mind if I…"

Aayla smiled, twitching one of her lekku. "Of course not."

With a smile Padme reached out once more and slowly ran a finger up and down the length of Aayla's lekku, then began to play with the edge with her fingers, causing the girl to shudder as she lay back in the bath. "Are they really that sensitive?"

"Very," Aayla said, rising slightly out of the water.

This caused Padme's eyes to dip down to her chest and she realized with a start how exactly how sensitive Aayla's lekku were. Despite the warmth of the water and the towel around her chest, Aayla's nipples were obviously hard, sticking out from her breasts like tiny points. Looking at that, Padme decided, well if I'm going to experiment…

With that, she let her fingers move from Aayla's lekku to her towel-clad nipple, causing the girl's eyes to widen, and for her to gently push Padme's hand away. "Not right now."

"I'm sorry, did I jump…" Padme began.

"No, no nothing like that, it felt quite good actually," Aayla said with a chuckle, before pointing to her head. "I was trying to talk Harry through what kind of composition goes into massage oil."

Padme blinked, and then asked, "Why ever would you do that?" She pointed to the medicine cabinet set against the inside wall of the bath. "I have some in there. Sabe and I need massages after every exercise session Chewie runs us through."

Aayla blinked relayed that and then with manifest reluctance got out of the tub peering inside the medicine cabinet before grabbing the small bottle Padme indicated. Shaking it she asked, "Is there enough for three sessions in there?"

Padme nodded, and Aayla handed it through the door to Harry, who had cracked the door open just enough for his arm to be thrust through it.

"That was quite nice of him," Padme said with a chuckle. She wasn't against Harry seeing her in the towels she was currently wearing, but given the way they were now hugging her wet figure, that might have proven to be a bit much.

"Hmm, I like to think he's learned to always be considerate about things like that, although I can't take all the credit. His mother and Master should probably be given just as much credit as Harry's own personality," Aayla replied with a chuckle then she stared as Padme cocked her head to the side, her hair falling in a brown cascade as she ran fingers through it getting out some tangles.

"Um, would you mind, that is can I touch your hair?" Aayla said shyly, pointing at Padme's hair.

She smiled, and motioned her head to a bottle beside the bath. "That's shampoo, and there is also some skincare soap as well. Shall we trade?"

By the time the two girls left the bathroom wearing dried towels, Harry was looking a little dyspeptic. "You two are Evil," He said firmly as they joined him, giggling and holding arms. "Wickedness incarnate."

Padme blinked, for the moment blanking on why he was saying that, then looked between him and Aayla, and understood as Aayla grinned back at him. Deciding to get in on the teasing she asked coquettishly, "Did you like the show?" Just because she didn't want to go all the way tonight, didn't mean that she was against having some fun.

He growled a little, shaking his head. "My vengeance will be swift and painful."

"I look forward to it," Aayla sent images of being spanked again going through their shared mental plane. Whatever the reason, that idea had never occurred to them before, but now that it had, she was kind of eager to see how it felt.

Harry chuckled at that, and replied with "but if you enjoy it, how is that punishment? Perhaps I should withhold the spankings."

Aayla guffawed at that, and Padme looked between the two of them with a wry chuckle. "I'm going to have to get used to that aren't I, much more than the whole Force powers thing," she said aloud. The fact that you can have these discussions without me I mean."

"Sorry," they both said as one, causing her to laugh, and point peremptorily at Harry to answer. "But it is kind of difficult for us to get used to well, sharing our more intimate conversations with other people. But we do want to. We won't ever deliberately exclude you like that." He then smirked. "And in the interest of sharing, yes, Aayla let me see through her eyes, which was very, very nice. And Aayla is now wondering what spankings might feel if we add them to our play."

"Thank you, and in answer to your question, not as good as you might think. I had a boyfriend who really liked that kind of thing, but it really doesn't have much to offer the spanked in question unless you like a bit of pain in your lovemaking. I didn't like it at the time," Padme said with a shrug. Then she looked at the massage table, the oils and then Harry, who had yet to take a shower.

"We'll finish setting up here I think, but I think Harry, for being left out of our fun and the tub should be the first one to get a massage. Does that sound fair?"

Harry had never changed or showered faster in his life without the use of the Force. He was in and out of the tub so quickly, that Aayla teased "Did you actually use soap at all, or did you just dip your legs in the water?"

"Toe actually, and I did my hair at least," Harry said dryly, as he stood before them with a towel around his waist, stuck there not only by the knot to one side but also by the Force. He didn't want to embarrass himself or Padme after all. And after the show Aayla had shared with him of the two girls it was taking all he had to not let his lightsaber stand at attention.

He looked at Padme and asked, "So, front or back?"

"Back. Back is traditional for massages," she said with a smile.

Lime Start:

The two girls looked at one another as Harry laid down, discussing with eye-flick and head gestures where each of them would begin, as Aayla poured some of the massage oil out into her hands, working it into her fingers and palms. Padme moved over to her, and the two of them poured more massage oil onto their hands, working with their fingers together in a sensual dance, exchanging chaste kisses all the while.

They then moved over to Harry, with Aayla taking his feet, and Padme his arms. They worked in from his hands and feet, rubbing, eating, always working the oil into his skin, until it was little glossy looking almost. Harry grunted and groaned under their ministrations, and Padme knew that it had he been lying on his back, his erection would've been obvious despite the towel.

The thought was distinctly arousing she felt, and her own body began to respond to the sexual energy in the room and the feel of Harry's muscles under her fingers. It had been a very, very long time since her last boyfriend, and she was now finding herself eager to move on with the physical side of things in this new relationship of theirs. But calmly, calmly Padme. There's no need to rush.

Nor was she the only one who thought going slow tonight was best. Every time Harry tried to move, or say that it was enough, Aayla would push him back down. "You're the one that worked the hardest today Harry, just enjoy it."

It was an odd experience Harry thought. The appreciation and desire he normally felt from Aayla were there. He knew that she fully enjoyed looking at him occasionally just like vice-versa. But Padme's feelings were almost entirely new and feeling them through Aayla's empathic senses gave them added depth.

Their hands started to work his back and shoulder muscles, everything that hurt from sitting down or standing up for so long today, working out the tension in his body in no uncertain terms. It was magnificent. Utterly magnificent.

He felt Aayla's laughter in his head, felt her leaning over, giving his now oiled neck a kiss, then a little nip with her sharp, Twi'lek teeth. Harry grunted, knowing she just left the hickey there, but fully accepting it and the amount of pleasant possessiveness in that act.

Aayla then looked over at Padme, winking at her, then gesturing down, and Padme leaned down too. But instead of kissing the back of Harry's neck, she instead kissed him behind the ear, then nibbled at it causing him to groan. "You told her!" he asked, his voice a low, almost primal sound.

"Of course I did! Did you honestly think I would keep where you were most sensitive to myself? That's too good a secret to not share with our new lover, Harry," Aayla teased.

But Harry was unwilling to be an entirely passive participant in all this. After they asked him to turn his hands moved like lightning. Feeling his intention Aayla backed away with a throaty laugh, but Padme couldn't and was pulled down into an oily hug, her lips being thoroughly kissed by Harry. Harry took his time about it too, tenderly bussing her lips, gently changing the way he kissed her over a few seconds and then nipping at her lower lip, catching it between teeth lightly, before flicking his tongue into her mouth. There their tongues stayed for a time as Padme whimpered.

Her whimpering got worse as Aayla reached across and began to gently work her fingers through Padme's hair murmuring "Marvelous! I can't convince Harry to grow his out, but there is just something about long hair."

"And you think that your lekku don't have the same effect on us, Aayla?" Harry said pulling back slightly to lick along Padme's neck. He was tempted to leave a hickey of his own but decided that would cause complications they didn't need if spotted by anyone else.

"Oh I know they do," she said with a smirk, before pushing at his chest. "Now sit back Harry we're not done yet."

Padme too weakly pulled out of Harry's hands, and the two girls went to work again, as Harry shook his head. "You know you didn't have to do this? I was fully prepared to pamper you."

"We know," Aayla said with a laugh. And you will most certainly get a turn to do just that. But you get to go first."

"Far be it for me to arguUUE" Harry said, his voice cracking off into a groan of pleasure as Padme found a particularly sore spot on his side, something about the chair he'd been sitting in had for the Senate debate had not been pleasant. "I wonder, are those speaker chairs supposed to be uncomfortable after time? To subtly put the speaker on the back foot."

"Could be, I certainly wouldn't put it past anyone who designed the Senate hall to put that in," Padme said, before pausing as she looked up at the ceiling in sudden confusion. "Who did design the Senate Hall that way anyway? It surely cannot be the most efficient way of…"

"Enough," Aayla said reaching over to flick her nose from where she was again working Harry's legs and feet. "Ponder the mysteries of the universe later. Right now, this is me time. Us time I mean."

Padme chuckled at that, then moved her hands up and down Harry's side, then started on his stomach, trying not to stare at the certain sign of his appreciation of what the two girls were doing that was now straining against his towel. She left the table for a moment, moving over to grab some more oil, and when she returned, the two Jedi making out, with Aayla letting out low whimpers under Harry's ministrations, her rear actually twitching from side to side. When they pulled back from the kiss tongues were still visible, licking and writhing around one another in midair. "By the Force, but that is hot!"

Aayla chuckled, then turned and pulled Padme into a kiss. Harry, in turn, leaned up and began to work the area around her neck and shoulders, smirking slightly as he could feel Aayla slowly starting to lose control of her body.

"Oh no you don't," Aayla muttered, pulling back From Padme. She then somehow slipped away from between them, twisting around Padme and pulling Padme into her arms, kissing Padme ardently.

Padme was more than willing to go along with this, kissing back just as hard, their bodies moving against one another as Harry watched dazedly. However, when he tried to rise, he felt a gentle pressure on him from the Force. "No, you don't! I told you this part is all about you Harry. You've been doing the work today, that means you get the rewards," Aayla muttered, pulling back to whisper those words against Padme's lips before leaning in again. The human girl's softer lips were immensely alluring, and she rather liked the feel of the shorter woman's body against her own too.

"And you don't think that pampering you isn't a reward?" Harry asked wryly shaking his head.

At that, the two girls finished their make-out session, moving away from one another with manifest reluctance, before Aayla gestured back down at Harry. "We can't just leave him hanging."

"No, that would be quite cruel of us wouldn't it," Padme said with a chuckle.

The two of them moved back to Harry. Standing on either side of the massage table they took turns moving their hands up and down his chest, kneading his muscles there and in his legs while the other kissed him. Harry responded enthusiastically each time, and Padme found herself torn between being intensely turned on by all this, and simply giggling at the sheer, sensual nature of it all, so far removed from anything she had ever experienced. Even her most romantic lovers before this hadn't taken the time to set something like this up. And they did it on the fly! Good grief.

"Is, is it always this way with you two?" She asked, pulling back from Harry, her breathing ragged, and she knew that Harry could see her nipples even through her own towels. The fact she saw his eyes flick down to them, saw his eyes almost gleam with desire, gave her a thrill.

"If we can take the time," Harry said with a nod. "Making love should be… well, an occasion every time you do it. The type of location can change, but not the enjoyment."

"I like that nod. That was quite eloquent," Padme said with a nod even as her breathing returned to normal.

Harry chuckled, winking at her. "Comes from all that Jedi training."

"Along with so much more," she muttered, looking down at his body in frank appreciation. Then she blinked as Aayla started to work her hands along the towel, grabbing at the towel-clad shaft sticking up from Harry's crotch with both hands, slowly working it up and down. "Oh my." She wasn't removing the towel, and Harry was making no move to urge her to do so, but even so, the sight of those blue hands moving along the towel-clad shaft was quite erotic.

it only got better, when Harry gently tugged her down to him into another kiss. As their lips slowly moved against one another the hand that he had used to do so moved from where he had pulled at her arm up to her neck, holding her still there for a moment, before gently moving down her body, hopping over the top towel covering her chest, making no move to undo it. He traced circles on her back, as he continued to kiss her, and she shuddered against him, wondering in an almost incoherent daze if the two of them knew how to well do all this because they'd been together for so long and had experimented so much, or if making love was something that the Force could help them with somehow. Regardless, she was certainly going to enjoy it, wherever their skills came from.

She made no protest as Harry's hand moved down to caress her towel-clad rear. She made no move to protest as he gently moved his hand around her hip, coming to rest lightly there, before moving up to Padme's taut stomach. And then, she shuddered when his hand pulled away before moving down, a single finger tracing her slit through the towel.

Padme had been riding the ragged edge for a while. She had been so keyed up after such a mentally tiring day before the bath, then had slowly begun to wash away that tension in the bath, only for it to be replaced by arousal in almost equal measure. The kisses, the atmosphere, the touches, all of it had her poised to cum even harder than she had that morning. Harry's gentle touch along her slit, stopping over the hard nub of her clit finished it. With a low, throaty groan she came, shuddering against Harry's chest where she had fallen, so much so that the hand that had just caused it quickly moved around her, and she felt the Force reaching out to steady her lest she collapse to the floor.

The concentration Harry was utilizing on that however quickly faded under Aayla's ministrations through the towel. A few seconds after Padme reached her own finish Harry came with a cry, the towel becoming wet with his seed.

For a moment he simply lay there, all of his muscles so loosened by the massage and the orgasm that he felt more like a puddle than a person. Then he remembered that Aayla hadn't had a chance to cum yet, and gently released his hold on Padme via the Force putting both his arms around her as he sat up, twisting his legs off the side of the bench.

He then scooped her up in his arms before depositing her on the bed for a moment. With that down, he looked back at his other lady, his eyes glinting eagerly. "Your turn."

She laughed, shaking her head slightly even as she moved forward's, and laid out on the bed, cracking her neck one way than the other as she lay on her back. "I'm in your hands my love," she said, with both her mental and physical voice, desire and love thrumming through their link. Needing no further invitation, Harry eagerly leaned forward and began on her shoulders.

Padme was still out of it for a few seconds and lay there watching the two of them as Aayla began to shake and quiver, having been worked up herself during the flirting and the kissing and touching. Then Padme pushed herself off her for her bed and moved to join them, biting her lip as she felt her arousal rising again.

End Lime

OOOOOOO

The next morning, Padme hummed happily as she woke up to find her head on Harry's shoulder, both of them cuddling her and each other, her bed having been enlarged slightly via the Force. One of Harry's hands was cradling her pajama-clad breast, not possessively or tightly, just holding it gently, while his other hand was on Aayla's hip. Aayla was flung halfway across both of them face down into Padme's own shoulder. She could also feel one of Aayla's lekku was squeezed between the two of them. It lay almost like a third arm between their breasts, twitching occasionally as Aayla slept.

Last night had been magnificent. Her own time on the massage table had been the most sensual experience of her life, and every inch of skin and muscle in her body felt magnificent. All of Padme's tension, not just of that day, but of the past years of sparring in the Senate, of fighting every step of the way to try and stop a war that was unfortunately still inevitable while not even understanding the true enemy that was out there, all of it had just disappeared, replaced with a languid, hazy feeling through her body.

Groaning quietly at the need to get up, Padme opened her eyes to find herself caught in Harry's Emerald eyed gaze as he too opened his eyes. He smiled tenderly at her, shaking his head, before leaning the other way to gently kiss Aayla's jaw, sending an urge to wake up through their link. "She tosses and turns something fierce the night, but somehow, she doesn't wake me up while doing it. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't notice, frankly."

Padme smiled. Her own arms were around both of them, and she found her hand on Aayla's rear, while the other one was on Harry's hip. She used this serendipitous placement to hug Harry and squeeze Aayla's soft, pliable rear as she chuckled. "Well, it is an experience, I'll admit, but one I would dearly love to experience again. Still, we all have other things to do today other than laze about in bed, sadly."

Getting up was an experience, with the two of them having to wake Aayla up and get her moving before either of them could stand up in turn. Yet even that was fun, and Padme found herself smiling for more reasons than just last night as she dressed to face her day.

Outside in the sitting room, they found Sabe had returned. Padme's maid and confidant blinked in surprise at seeing not only Aayla but Harry coming out of her room and her lips quirked into a wry smile. "Questions abound," she murmured, "but I suppose as a proper maid I should wait. Unless something juicy happened. In that case…" she leaned forward, "All bets are off. Anything you want to share with your loving, special friend, Padme?"

"Nothing like that happened, Sabe," Padme said, as Harry ducked back inside the room, making the massage table disappear, and otherwise cleaning up quickly. "Aayla just shared my bed, while Harry slept on the chair. All of us were rather too tired for me to want to put the two of them out last night," Padme continued.

"That's no fun. Still, keep your secrets, my lady," she said, bowing formally towards Padme. "With what they shared with us up in the Tyrant's Bane, I imagine that doing so is simply a good idea."

"So what is on your agenda today Padme?" Harry said, looking at his own data slate.

Aayla had been very busy yesterday while Harry was meeting with the Council, and he had around two dozen meetings that morning between himself and various senators who may or may not be thinking about joining the GDL or at least wanted to ask him some more questions in a less formal environment. Aayla too would be busy with that, considering that the investigation had been handed over to other Jedi.

"I have a meeting this morning, with a group of Peace Party senators, and then after that, I have a hearing with the judicial committee which will be handling the redesign of the Military Creation Act. I want to see if I or someone else from my party will be acceptable to become part of that committee. After all, what better person to make certain there are no issues which can bite the Republic later on something like that than a pacifist?"

"If you were a warmonger you could think of several," Harry said with a wry smile before his eyes narrowed. "But you will be taking Chewie along, won't you?"

"No," Padme said slowly, her own eyes narrowing. "The meetings are all happening in the main hub of the Senate. I don't need my bodyguard with me there."

"Yes, you do!" Chewie, Mala, Sabe, Harry, and Aayla all said as one.

The young senator for the blue planet sector crossed her arms, glaring back at them defiantly. "All right, let me rephrase that," she said dangerously. "I am an adult, I can look after myself. I do not need minders with me twenty-four seven."

"No, but you do need eyes in the back of your head," Harry said dryly. "We're not trying to control your movements or restrict you in any way Padme, we're only trying to give you more ways to protect yourself."

At the almost loving, gently teasing tone in Harry's voice, Padme's defenses, built up after years of fighting to make herself heard despite her age and seeming naivety, shattered like glass, and she sighed. "Fine, but no offense to Chewbacca, I can't take him into this meeting. Not only will there be a lot of other senators there, but two of them have antagonized him before. They are representatives of a Core World humanocentric group, who think that all aliens are less than human, and the Wookies and anyone else that isn't near-human are non-sentients."

"Hate and bigotry are prevalent in many societies," Aayla said with a sigh. "It would be nice to think that that they were not nearly as universal as they sometimes seem. Still, if your meeting is later this afternoon, we can get Zule down here instead."

"That will work perfectly," Padme said with a nod. She and Padme had spent several nice hours together yesterday, after the meeting with the Senate broke up, and there was no way anyone could protest her having a Jedi guard, save along the lines of 'why don't I rate one?' "I'm not trying to be difficult my friends, but appearance and more importantly my own visible level of independence are important."

"With that in mind," Harry said. "I passed on an idea to the High Council, and you may see more Jedi guards following you and your other Peace Party members around in the coming days. Master Piell is in charge of that."

The Nabooan native blinked, then slowly nodded. "Okay, that actually makes some sense in the long term. And it will certainly be a boost to the Peace Party's morale, which is rather riding a high at the moment regardless thanks to you Harry. A lot of us Peace Party members had gotten used to being seen as almost traitors until yesterday to one group or another."

Aayla frowned at that and reached over taking Padme's hands in her own, squeezing them gently. "How dangerous is that kind of threat? If, that is when war breaks out, will you be safe here?"

Stopping herself from wincing at the idea that war was inevitable took only a bit of concentration from Padme at this point. The knowledge that the Sith were out there was now almost always at the back of her mind, in a way she supposed it must be her friends and the Jedi Order. But she forced herself to think through Aayla's question logically.

"The Chancellor is able to keep a lid on actual outright violence between senators, and I like to think that thanks to these latest attempts on my life and the lives of my fellow senators, the holes in the Senate security force will be plugged swiftly. Nonetheless, I have to say that I would much prefer to not have my life threatened," Padme said dryly.

Harry and Aayla looked at one another, then looked back at Padme, who caught that look and shook her head, preemptively replying to that look before they could voice the thoughts behind it. "No. Whatever you're thinking, I am not leaving. Would you leave your duty as a Jedi or as a Count?" Both of them shook their heads, and she nodded firmly. "Well then, don't expect me to leave my duty as a senator behind. I might be willing to back away for a few days if I could find someone to act in my stead, but not until then and not for very long if so."

Realizing through her empathic abilities that Padme was not going to bend on this point, Aayla sighed theatrically. "In that case, I think before we leave we are going to have to do something about your personal protection. I'm not talking about leaving Zule behind or anything like that. Given their visions via the Force none of our friends would be willing to remain here. Although we might ask one of the green Jedi if they would stay. They could even do so undercover, adding themselves into the Corellian Special Forces already here."

"Those people are good," Chewbacca said in his own language, nodding his hairy head for emphasis. "My people's history with Corellia isn't really the best considering how they manipulated us in our first trade agreement with them. But, as soldiers that lot are good."

Harry nodded, having gotten the same impression. Garm had a fireteam of Special Forces operatives with him on Serenno, and at one point both himself and Aayla had worked out with them. Of course, they lacked the Force, but they were still strong, tough, and thoroughgoing professionals soldiers despite the fact that they were actually part of the Corellian Security Forces, the system's equivalent of a police organization. After all, in this day and age, there is a very thin line between police and soldier.

"Regardless, I was actually thinking about armor," Aayla said looking over at Harry.

Harry frowned, stroking his lightning scar thoughtfully. "Maybe. But remember it can't be cloth, so we'll have to figure out some way for her to wear it either over her clothing openly, or under them for preference. How do you feel about wearing a metal or stone undershirt, Padme?"

While Padme rolled her eyes at that, Aayla giggled and the conversation moved on quickly.

Over the next four days, the two Jedi and Padme's household continued to have breakfast together. Sometimes they were joined by Anakin and Master Windu, Zule, Bail, a few of Padme's other acquaintances and others occasionally. These became almost business meetings at times, but the good, if sometimes exotic, food Harry and Aayla provided was a major draw to many who had tasted it once.

Although nothing as sensual as that first night occurred, Padme also spent her nights with her new lovers. They kissed, they hugged, touched and fell asleep together, and it was easily the best time in her life since she had become a Senator. It helped refresh her for her day's work, and she knew it did the same for them. But those days' work was frankly packed to the gills. Harry and Aayla had meetings, Padme had meetings and hearings, and the Jedi all had their own work. Most of her meetings dealt with welcoming new Senators into the Peace Party or trying to get onto the committee working on rewording the Military Creation Act, alas with scant success.

For Harry and Aayla, their meetings were about one of two things. One type was discussing with the senators who were interested in joining the Galactic Defense League. Those conversations were extremely interesting and mostly tailored to the needs of the system or sector in question. Harry was pleased to come out of more than a few of them knowing that he had convinced that Senator that yes, joining the GDL was a viable option for their people, that both sides had something to offer one another. After five days, Harry had indeed added more than a hundred more Senators to the GDL's previous thirty, although the balance of military power did not rise nearly as much as that indicated. The GDL had targeted worlds and systems before this which had not been represented in the Senate after all. These worlds were powerful, with decent local militaries if no ability to project military power, good defenses, and economies.

None of those were Core Worlds. Indeed, Harry's schedule was very much lacking in Core World senators entirely. None of them were willing to meet with him, none of them were willing to even consider the GDL as an option. Many still thought of the GDL as an illegal organization despite there being no laws curtailing its creation, much like the Separatists in their eyes. That so many senators were again unwilling to admit others might have differing points of view without being traitors was distressing to Harry, but he was alas used to it, and he couldn't keep using Master Fay's signature 'flexible minds' technique all the time.

The second variety of meetings was based on the threat of the Sith and those Senators whose planets or governments were terrified of the idea of the Sith being out there. Many wanted to disbelieve his words and talked to him in an effort to try and find some lie within Harry's words. Others questioned him closely on the facts and clues pointing to the Sith being out there, not to find some lie or other, but to try to figure out the extent of the danger. Others wished to pressure him, and the Order as a whole, for more protection for themselves or their planets.

The two lovers found themselves repeating a few facts ad nauseum. One: yes, he had been attacked by a Sith. Two, yes, the Jedi had known there were Dark Side users out there but had only recently begun to be aware of the larger threat. Three, yes there was a larger threat out there. Four, no, they didn't know how large the threat was. And finally five, no, he wasn't willing to state unequivocally that master C'baoth was a Sith.

Harry and Aayla both refused to be drawn on that point. "If only," he said more than once, "because master C'baoth had done some good as a diplomat and advisor for the Republic before he left the Jedi Order. And, because the attack on me most decidedly does not match what would be his way of doing things. It was too chancy, he lost too many pieces, and even if he had succeeded, he did not look to gain enough for the risk. If he is a Sith, all of that would've been remarkably foolish of him don't you think?"

He had said that in one meeting with the Chancellor and several others in his office. At the time, the Chancellor had nodded his head in agreement, although the others had been dubious about it.

Over those four days, Harry got to know Palpatine via meetings like that, which always happened in the Chancellor's office. Indeed, the man seemed to rarely leave them, and his working hours were incredible. Harry came away with a great deal of respect for Palpatine as a diplomat and politician, but they found themselves at very different ends of the spectrum because of their personal beliefs. Palpatine was, as Padme had told him, a legislaturist, while Harry was very much an independent. So while he respected the man, Harry didn't see them becoming friends anytime soon.

Palpatine also believed firmly that a centralized military was going to be necessary against a Sith threat, wherever it came from. This, and the ongoing debates on the rewriting of the Military Creation Act, meant that tensions remained high between Palpatine's Centrist faction, the Peace Party, and the Separatists. The Separatists, save for a few like the Mirialan Senator who was willing to see they might have been duped, were now attacking anyone and any mention of the Sith that connected them to C'baoth, believing it an elaborate smear campaign from the Jedi Order.

So despite Harry's best efforts to meet them halfway he and Aayla both became just another enemy to too many on that side of the political divide. The two of them only convinced six formerly Separatist Senators to quit the movement over those days. And of those, five joined the Peace Party, which he was happy to see. Given their new members, Harry knew that the GDL would be stretched to the breaking point as is. Any attempt to defend planets like those, who often were surrounded by other Separatist holdings, would have been impossible. It was harsh perhaps, but true.

His days were so busy that it wasn't until the morning of the fifth day of their time on Coruscant that Harry finally had time to visit the Jedi Archives.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Aayla left early that morning to head to the temple while Padme was still going over her notes for a meeting that afternoon. She sat on the sofa with Sabe, who was also going over her itinerary, switching things around, making certain she could get from one area of the Senate to the other and so forth while they waited for Zule to arrive, the remains of a hasty breakfast still laid out in front of them.

When the door chimed, Chewbacca made to answer it, and Padme looked up with a smile thinking that it would be Zule. But instead, it was Anakin, looking somewhat harried. He had been looking worse over the past few days whenever he stopped in and now Padme could see bags under his eyes and a twist to his lips indicating some deep ill humor or worry.

"Anakin," she said with a nod, having gotten used over the past few days that the younger man didn't like to be called Ani. Nor, if I'm being honest does he honestly look like an Ani any longer. The young boy had grown up over the years. "If you were here for breakfast I'm afraid we ate earlier than normal today. There's still some leftovers though if you think the menu at the Temple's commissary won't be to your liking," she teased gently while Sabe simply waved, not looking up from her own work. "Or were you here to talk to Aayla or Harry?"

"Um, no, not really. I was hoping to talk to you and Chewie actually. I had a few ideas of how to add more security to your suite here, and well… I wanted to check in with you before I leave Coruscant," Anakin said, moving towards her so that he stood directly in front of where Padme sat on the sofa.

"Are you all right?" Padme asked solicitously. "You don't look as if you've been getting enough sleep."

Anakin looked shifty for a second then sighed. "I suppose it won't matter if I tell you I've been having nightmares for the past five days. I, I think they are visions, visions about my mother and a danger coming closer to her. My Master and I have been arguing about it. He's finally willing to give it the benefit of the doubt though, and the Chancellor doesn't have any further need of us here thanks to Master Piell and the others taking over our investigation. He even gave us his blessings, which I was happy to see. So we will be leaving later today."

"Truly?" Padme thought, whatever these visions were, they were messing with Anakin's head something fierce, even she could sense that. "All right, I understand that. I'll be sorry to see you go, we haven't had much time to talk outside breakfast, after all, and I really would have liked to know how that little boy I once knew has gotten on as a Jedi."

"Well, for one thing, I'm not that little boy any longer," Anakin said firmly, smiling down at her. The move emphasized his height, and that he would stand taller than her even if she too was on her feet.

Padme though just rolled her eyes at his joke, saying, "I would wait until after I see a group of near-wolves take on a Rancor before I got so enamored of my size if I were you, large one."

"Point," Anakin said with a weary grin. "But you cannot imagine how good it felt to finally start looking Master Windu almost in the eyes without having to crane my neck." The older man still had several inches on him, as did Harry but it was close enough now that he enjoyed the shift in perspective.

"Men, even being a Jedi can't get rid of all of that machismo can it?" she quipped.

That caused Anakin to laugh before he sobered. "I'm sorry I'm leaving. I would've liked to get to know you again too. I, I realize that you are not the 'angel' I once called you, yet even so I would dearly have liked to get to know you again. Whatever anyone else says, I still think that you coming into my life was the catalyst for all the changes that occurred, and I wanted to thank you for it."

The older brunette shook her head and replied that he didn't have to thank you for anything, but Anakin went on. "I'd also like to know you just for your own sake."

Padme's eyes narrowed at that, and she tried to figure out what he meant. "So long as you understand Anakin that friendship is all that it will be, I will be more than happy to make you to renew our acquaintance."

He smiled and nodded at that. "Thank you." He then looked at the food and picked up some bread, smearing it through a kind of heavy, meaty sauce. "And thank you for this too," he said, more life in his eyes than there had been when he arrived.

Anakin stayed there for a time, speaking about what his master and he had been doing over the past few days, investigating a group of Centrist senators who had been manipulating one of the four corrupt Security officers. They were very, very bad men, but four days had allowed the two Jedi to find enough evidence to turn over to the Chancellor so formal charges could be laid against them. He would then work with Senate Security and their home planets to investigate them more then remove them from office.

He also talked about the Military Creation Act and his own thoughts on it, on the Sith and everything else. He was still annoyed that Harry and the Order hadn't outright accused C'baoth of being a Sith, but Padme chuckled and called the younger boy far too straightforward for politics. She also commented on her own hopes on that score, and why Harry and Aayla and the Order hadn't, though she didn't tell him anything she knew about the GDL or Harry's ongoing hopes to hold off the war until the GDL was truly ready. She concentrated more on Aayla and their meetings with various Senators.

As she talked about Harry and Aayla, Anakin watched her and more than once fought back a frown despite exulting in the feeling of her presence in the Force, so warm and scintillating to his senses. He was becoming convinced there was indeed something going on between Harry and Padme, but couldn't sense enough to act on, which itself was weird. I wonder what that is about? A part of him thought about reaching out with his Force powers but decided against it. It would be a severe abuse of power. Still, there was just something about the way she talked about both of the other Jedi that set Anakin's teeth on edge.

Eventually, Anakin was done eating the leftovers, and left to help the Chancellor's investigators one last time along with his master before heading to the temple for lunch and leaving right after. He smiled at Padme as he left, his mind still in turmoil about Padme, what was going on there, and what he wanted from her, clouded further by the feeling of being near her through the Force as well as everything else he was worried about at the moment thanks to his possibly prophetic dreams.

Yet for all of Anakin's confusion, the whole conversation barely registered to Padme. She cocked her head to one side, thinking he was growing up to be a fine young man, before putting it out of her mind and preparing herself for the rest of the day.

OOOOOOO

The Jedi Archives dominated seven floors of the temple complex. The center of the floors were open bar a few pillars here and there. Each level held a balcony, the outer walls of which were lined with data slates, books, scrolls and even more esoteric record-keeping devices and tools. In the air were several large glowing crystals, their blue light soothing and bathing the entire area. On the first floor were several tables, while the other floors contained more private nooks for mediation between the bookshelves.

Within those pillars were holocrons held behind clear plastic containers, along with other items of historical significance. In a few places their lightsabers were displayed, minus the necessary batteries of course. Here and there were busts of famous Jedi, including Dooku. Seeing that Harry paused, staring at the face of his Swordmaster, then around, feeling the weight of ancient knowledge in this place almost like a presence all on its own in the Force. Amazing… but… I still think I would prefer to be back in the Tyrant's Bane and our little training area there.

In the center of the room on the first floor of the archives was a circular desk, inside which sat an old human woman. She had looked up before Harry had even entered the library, and as he approached, one eyebrow rose on her harsh, austere face. The silver hair tied up in a severe bun added an even sterner cast than otherwise. She looked for all the world like the most severe, unforgiving librarian anyone could imagine. This was, as Harry was about to find out, somewhat accurate.

"Ah the anomaly. A Jedi completely trained elsewhere," she said, shaking her head in censure. "I do not know what Master Yoda was thinking to allow that. "But, I am merely the archivist and one of the Council of Knowledge, not a High Council member, let alone the Grand Master of the Order."

Harry simply bowed, ignoring her rather condescending tone and words with ease. There would always be Jedi who looked down on him for how he was trained, for what he was allowed to become and do. Harry had long since reconciled himself to that, and frankly, couldn't bring himself to care any longer. "Master Nu, greetings. My name is Harry Potter, and yes, this is my first time in the library. I have learned from Master Fay and Master Dooku before this, however, and both of them spoke of your skills and organization highly. Yet because of that, I have to ask, why is it that there is so little information about Master C'baoth and his movements as a Jedi?"

The woman twitched. She very visibly twitched, which was astonishing in a Jedi. "You and every other Jedi Master interested in all this garbage about the Sith being out there again have asked me that same question," she said, her tone somewhere between querulous and a Jedi's normal sense of calm. "I will tell you the same thing I told them. There is information here, but Master C'baoth was frankly completely unremarkable as a Jedi."

"Define unremarkable," Harry replied, pulling out a chair to sit across from her.

"I mean unremarkable. Oh, his rise to Master was interesting, fraught with, well, scandal I suppose you could say."

"His assuming the title of Master you mean rather than being granted it."

"Exactly," she said with a nod, shaking her head. "His opinions about Jedi's place in the world are also well-known no doubt. He felt that Force users were uniquely suited to lead, like shepherds to a flock. But other than that, and seven or eight diplomatic missions of high repute, which I'll warn you have been examined from end to end, his history as a Jedi was nothing special. We don't hold the records of every minor mission that a Jedi comes upon while out in the Galaxy young man," she said tartly. "I'd have had to expand the library twice over in my own lifetime for that."

"But there has to be something here beyond that," Harry mused half to her, half to himself. "Did he have any close acquaintances in the Order."

"No he didn't," the woman, replied, her tone still astringent. Perhaps even more so since Harry had come perilously close to asking if C'baoth had friends, and she was one of the Jedi who was most against forming attachments like that. "He was a most solitary individual, only talking with a few others.

"Then perhaps…" Harry said slowly "We need to start at the other end."

Jocasta cocked her head to one side, making an inquisitive noise indicating that Harry should go on, but he shook his head. "There is something niggling at me, but I need time for it to come to the fore. Could I ask you to see what information there is here? Perhaps going over that data, no matter how well-tread, will give my mind the impetus it needs."

Jocasta frowned at that but eventually nodded. "All searches need a starting point I suppose."

Yet it turned out, that Jocasta's words about Master C'baoth having little to no information about him in the Archives was accurate. However, the holes in that information were themselves telling. But at one point Harry did find something that startled him.

"So," Harry said to himself leaning back as he stared at the screen in front of him. On it was an image of a party occurring somewhere on Coruscant perhaps, showing several prominent Senators of that age, a few powerful businessmen, and several Jedi. Two of those faces were faces he knew if only one personally. The other, he knew only from having looked him up after he was linked to the death of the first. "This means he might have been involved in Master Sifo-Dyas's disappearance and might have made contact with the old Sith Master the same time as Master Dooku."

"I wonder," he mused to himself, frowning. "I wonder how far back his duplicity goes. There is no note of his padawan in here," he said aloud.

"Young Jinzler, yes. She has not been seen in many years. Those who knew the pair and believe the tales of his possibly being a Sith, which I should warn you is still not a popular idea within the Order, think she is either dead or suborned," Jocasta said shaking her head. "I remember her. Utterly unremarkable in every way except her slavish devotion to following orders. She had almost no ego of her own."

"Still, this was enough to spark my idea," Harry said triumphantly. "We've been looking for C'baoth alone. What we need to do is look at what connections he had to other Jedi. Not serious ones, not ones that have already been looked at like his connection to his padawan, just Jedi who met him at some point in their lives. You would know Master Nu if he ever taught here in the temple, so that avenue is closed, but what about just running into him on a mission? That kind of meeting should be in their own reports correct?"

Jocasta blinked, then she nodded thoughtfully. "That's an excellent thought actually," she said, nodding her head. "Whenever one Jedi meets another while they are on separate missions they have to make a note of it, and that note would be here in the archive. If it was a Knight instead of another more senior Master he wouldn't even have to introduce himself, but we have his description, and we can use that to search the archives. It's a small clue, but a clue we can use."

Harry nodded equally enthusiastic, and asked eagerly, "How can I help?"

She smiled at that and gestured to the computer in front of him as she stood up and moved to a set of bookshelves. "Sit, and we shall see what we shall see."

For the next two hours, Harry and Jocasta used C'baoth's physical description – which they had thanks to how many speeches he had given in his position as head of the Separatist Movement - through each different Mission C Archives. C missions were the small scale missions that were not important enough to have more than single-page reports made on their successful completion to the archive. They were the small scale kidnappings, the hunt for local murderers, the times Jedi were called to act as justiciars while on other missions in the area. There were literally billions of these every year, and each data slate in this section of the Archives contained a hundred thousand or so.

They came up with more than a dozen instances where Master C'baoth had met other Jedi while on different missions on planets where he had not been assigned to in the last year of his time as a Jedi before he quit the Order alone. That number grew in the year before that, and when Harry looked ahead of that time, the number jumped even more.

"In many ways, this is disturbing," Harry said as he looked at the list of names in front of him. There were thirty-two of them pulled from two years' worth of reports of the C variety and they painted an odd picture to his mind. But what was really worrisome was that there was a pattern here, one Harry could barely discern, but it was there.

Jocasta made an inquisitive noise and he shrugged his shoulders. "C'baoth was going out of his way to meet these Jedi. Four of them reported meeting him several times, yet only mentioned him by name the last few times. Why?"

Frowning, Jocasta moved over and read the names over his shoulder, her eyes going far away for a moment as she searched her own, archive-like memory. "Two of these asked to join Master C'baoth in defying the council and the Senate and were rejected. These five… they are missing entirely," she thought as she copied the names out. "I do not know of anyone having seen them in more than a year. But they met with C'baoth before he left the Order?"

"Three times at least for Sev'rance Taan, Saato, Tol Skorr, Artel Darc, and Kadrian Sey. Maybe more. I've shifted the names into two lists. One list contains the names that, so far have met with another Jedi Master of C'baoth's appearance once. The other list, which you just pulled half the names off of," Harry mused, his voice now very concerned, "mention meeting him twice or more. That's not good. How many Jedi have gone missing without any sign of violence?"

"fourteen in the last two and a half years. Four are accounted for, they quit the Order and have actually… started families," Jocasta said the word like it tasted vile in her mouth. "Master Yoda found them on Kashyyyk, having apparently moved there after being found before that by Wookies. Another retired to a life of hermitage out in the Outer Rim." She frowned. "That makes nine Jedi in that time who might have gone over to C'baoth."

"Or more, we haven't finished going through these archives. The true number will depend on how far back his depredations went."

"Why didn't this occur to me before?" Jocasta growled.

Harry didn't answer, feeling it's safer that way. After all, it wouldn't do to say that he thought maybe she was getting a little on in years, or didn't have the right type of flexible mentality to come at this information in a different way than she was used to as they had been forced to. That, and like every other Jedi, she relies on the Force to give her some direction even in something like this, and the Veil makes that reliance impossible. "Let's continue."

They were still working through those archives when the doors to the Archives opened thirty minutes later. Jocasta had looked up before the doors to the Archives opened, her Force senses highly attuned here in her own sanctum to any movement. She nodded her head to the three Jedi who had come in together, talking amongst themselves. One nodded back and they moved through the Archives towards her.

The rest of the Archives was empty at the moment, and she whispered, "I'll leave you to this Harry," she said patting him on the shoulder. Her earlier antagonism had disappeared during their search for the most part, and Harry was happy to see it.

Harry would later never be able to tell what warned him of the danger, whether it was the Force or some movement out of the corner of his eye. But regardless, he was already looking up as one of the Jedi walking toward Jocasta reached down to his lightsaber, activated it, and sliced it up towards the old woman. Whatever it was, Jocasta was caught completely by surprise and had no time to react.

But before the lightsaber could cut her in half Harry reached out with the Force. There was no time for subtlety, no time to let his Force powers merge with hers peacefully, to convince her Force presence his intentions were benign. His own touch overwhelmed the old woman's Force presence and tore her from where she had been standing to land next to Harry, a piece of forced teleportation that took at least ten times more out of Harry than teleporting himself and another Jedi would have.

The effect on Jocasta was worse. She collapsed, regurgitating whatever she had eaten as she moaned on the floor, all her Jedi control gone in an instant. Her Force presence actually flickered to Harry's senses, but the woman was alive. That was all he could ask for at the moment.

Moving forward slowly, Harry pulled out his own lightsaber activating it. "What are you doing here?" he asked, even as he regathered his Force powers, wondering what the hell this was about, and hoping his Force sense could tell him something about the Jedi in front of him.

The three Jedi didn't respond or rather not verbally. They simply attacked, moving forward in tandem, spreading out to give their lightsabers room to move. Scowling, Harry moved to meet them, his lightsaber flashing this way and that, as he probed each of their styles. One instantly began to move into a Makashi stance, the other two flashed forward faster, leaping up and over Harry only for Harry to intercept them in midair, a blast of Force Push pushing against one while his lightsaber smashed into the other one, then down at the Makashi user, who parried and then went on the attack while the other two wheeled and turned, moving to attack Harry now. So Harry knew he was facing two Ataru users along with the Makashi user.

Yet even as he danced and cut, trading blows with all three, shifting from Shien to Djem So between one second and the next, he was still probing them with the Force. And what he found horrified him. Because beneath the thin veneer of a personality, was… nothing. It was as if someone had come along and sucked the personality, the individuality out of the Jedi in front of him, leaving them husks. There was no mind there beyond the simple thoughts of attack, anger, and hate which had subsumed what little husk of their personality that had existed before this attack began.

And beyond that, beneath their Force presence, was something else. Someone else was looking through their minds. Someone else was controlling them, through the Force in a way like someone had programmed them almost like they were droids, leaving just enough of the Force behind to power themselves, to act like Jedi, but without any sense of their individuality, the personality that had been there before.

It was one of the most horrifying things Harry had ever felt, and he stumbled back from it as if from a physical blow, shaken far more than the sudden attack and facing three Jedi would have allowed for. This allowed the three of them to form a triangle around him, but Harry regained himself in time to meet them.

Yet whatever had been done to these three Jedi, while they still retained their individual skills, it hadn't added anything to them. And Harry was, if not one of the best-known duelists known throughout the Order, certainly one of their deadliest.

His lightsaber flashed this way and that easily parrying, concentrating on smashing the Makashi user back onto the defensive before twisting around, pinning an Ataru user in place underneath one of the upper decks so he couldn't jump around so easily. At the same time, one hand thrust backward, a stun bolt on his fist, ricocheting into the last of the three who backed away to block it with his lightsaber.

When the Ataru user in front of him tried to still leap over him, Harry deftly grabbed the man out of the air with his Force powers, overwhelming the other man's attempt to break free easily, and tossing him to the side to land against the far wall with enough impetus to stun him and break bones. He was not stunned though, his blanked mind seemingly immune to the impact. But it took him out of play enough for Harry to quickly disarm the Makashi user, quite literally taking the hands of the other man, a Gand, off at the wrist as he thrust at Harry. He then used his other hand to create a Force Shield to block the third attacker.

By this point, Jocasta was back on her feet, her robes stained with the contents of her stomach. Yet that didn't stop her from wanting to get involved. "Attacking me, you would attack another Jedi here, in this most hallowed of places? How dare you!" She reached forward for the third attacker with her own Force powers, gripping him by the throat with a Force Grab that was just this side of a Sith move called Force Choke, slamming his head against the wall.

As Harry moved to deal with the last, somewhat disabled Jedi, the door opened and two more Jedi appeared there, lightsabers drawn as they raced forward. Their faces too were slack, blank and almost emotionless. Seeing it, Harry knew they too had been emptied somehow of their personalities, subsumed by someone else.

"What is going on here?" Jocasta shouted, tossing the person she had been attempting to knock out into his two fellows.

They grabbed him, and tossed him aside with their own Force powers, acting with a unison of purpose that seemed a dark parody of the kind of Force Gestalt Jedi could achieve. Then she gasped and pointed at one of the newcomers, a female Zilastrian, a lizard-like species Harry had heard about but not seen before. "Potter, that one, she is one of the ones that C'baoth met with!"

Harry scowled, grimacing as he rushed forward. But the two newcomers didn't advance to meet him as one. Instead, the one he'd been about to disable lurched forward to engage him, while one of them moved towards Jocasta. The tossed man she had attempted to use as a long-range weapon and the Zilastrian turned aside. They began to hack at the Jedi archives to either side of them.

Realizing that he couldn't let them destroy the history that might point to others of their blank-mined ilk, Harry charged to meet them, then teleported himself past the man who had attempted to intercept him. The next, a wide stunning bolt crashed into the two people who had been attempting to hack into the controls. Harry then grabbed them out of the air, and tossed them to their fellows, quickly reaching out at the same time with Force Grabs, pulling their lightsabers out of their hands, then thrusting them down into the ground and holding them there.

"Impressive," Jocasta said dryly, shaking her head and staring at the four piled Jedi. They attempted to break free, but their will, and their connection to the Force, was nothing to Harry's who kept them with a grim concentration. She watched as a blasé of red stunning light like a small nova slammed into them, and finally, they all stilled.

As they did, he quickly moved forward, tossing their lightsabers behind him, tearing off strips to tie the Jedi together. "What damage did they do?" he asked hurriedly, looking over at the damaged sections of the wall as he worked.

She hissed, also staring at it. "That would be the mission archives from the last two years which we've been working through," she said pointing to one section, and "four years ago over there," she said.

"Two years ago I can understand," Harry said "if C'baoth has seeded people like this through the Order…

"Yes, what was happened to them, to make Jedi attack their own so fiercely?" Jocasta said, kneeling in front of them, trusting Harry to keep them still as she reached out with her power.

"Be careful," Harry warned. "They do not have their own minds."

Frowning at the odd term, Jocasta reached out, her mental touch like a rapier in comparison to Harry's earlier auger, stabbing through what mental defenses most Jedi had these days, which was minimal at best considering that all of their training was geared to reaching out to the Force. She then pulled back, shuddering. "I, I can understand why you said that Harry. What did he do to them?" she said sickly

Harry what didn't reply, instead, he was riding Aayla mind's, as she too had found herself in combat.

OOOOOOO

In the commissary, Aayla and Anakin were sitting with a group of younglings who had their mealtime at the moment. When she and Harry had arrived at the temple she had broken off to see if any of the extended Clan Saa were here. They hadn't been able to take the time to do that before today other than just calling over, which had not amounted to anything before this.

Instead, Aayla had run into one of her old teachers from her time as a youngling and the man had grabbed on to Aayla as a teaching aid and convinced her to join a teaching clan for the day in order to show them Clan Saa techniques as they were still being called, the teacher herself not being all that good with them save for the stun bolt.

She had then joined them for lunch, finding Anakin there with Master Windu, talking quietly among themselves. The young padawan had nodded in her direction before turning back to his Master, nodding his head gravely at some point the older Jedi was making. Yet there seemed to be a certain darkness in his eyes, an eagerness in his movements, almost frenetic. And her empathic powers told him he was deeply worried about something, as well as slightly relieved.

She had been about to make her excuses to the kids and go over to see what that was about when the attack on Harry started. That caused her to turn toward the door to the commissary about to race out. However, she halted when eight Jedi stood up from their different places in the crowd, grabbed their lightsabers and activated them, and began to hack down at their fellow Jedi. It was so quick even Aayla, poised to run to Harry's aid as she had been couldn't stop the first deaths from occurring, even as Jedi stumbled and pushed to their feet all around. Many of whom were not even wearing their lightsabers here, in the Jedi Temple.

"Khalif, wha…!?" Shouted one man, getting a light green lightsaber up to block a blue one. But the defending lightsaber was knocked aside by a single blow and the returning blow cut the speaker in two.

Three other Jedi died from these sudden attacks, despite the Force actually screaming a warning to several. Anakin was already on his feet and turning, smashing aside the lightsaber blade that was coming to him, as Mace hopped to his feet, moving faster than most Jedi could dream of. One second he was talking with Anakin, the next he was halfway to where Aayla had been sitting, shouting "protect the younglings!"

As Anakin attacked furiously Aayla leaped back to help defend the children. The children all squawked but found themselves covered by a Force shield as Aayla reached them, covering them and the table they had been sitting at with her strongest Force Shield.

The first suddenly mad Jedi stepped forward, parrying the one who attacked her with ease, then smashing him aside with an air push of such magnitude that she felt his ribs go as he cartwheeled away. Mace too hacked another to pieces, taking the man out with all the controlled, near Dark Side aggression that marked out Vaapad, turning the man's own sudden fall into the Dark to his advantage with an ease that seemed to startle even Mace. Then another fallen Jedi was on him, only to be cut down in turn.

Anakin leaped forward exchanging blows with two other Jedi, as Aayla cartwheeled up and over the back of the shield she had created, her lightsabers in her hand.

Three of the blank-minded Jedi engaged her. But her connection to the Force and her own Force Precognition allowed her to batter them aside easily, disarming two, and cutting the head off one, as she shook her head own head angrily. "What in the world is this all about?" she muttered, staring down at the two crippled Jedi in front of her while Anakin and the other Jedi in the commissary of whom there had been five others who had eventually joined the fight, dealt with the maddened remainder.

"I think Harry," Aayla said into Harry's mind, her mental tone rueful. "we're going to have to tell Padme we might be late to that meeting with the Senate this afternoon."

OOOOOOO

The Council came together again not in the council room, but in the medical wing of the temple, with the best mind healers, in front of them. Aayla and Harry, were also there. They were looking on as the best Healers in the Temple, including Yoda, looked over those of the attackers who had been taken alive, if not entirely whole.

Mace and Anakin were not there. For whatever reason, Mace had decided the two of them would be leaving Coruscant soon, and had decided to spend his time on meditation, while Anakin saw to the maintenance of their starfighters.

There were seven of those survivors, and four of them were missing limbs. Of the seven two were human women, known by the names of Knight Vera Noll and her padawan, Isabella Chucin. The others were mixed races, with only one other human male, one of the ones who had attacked Harry. The two crippled Jedi Aayla had taken custody of were a Falleen male, and a dark-skinned Quarren Knight. The Zilastrian was another, a Vor, and the Gand who again Harry had captured and whose arm he had taken off. Vera Noll was also missing an arm, but in that she got off lightly. Such was the effect of fighting with lightsabers after all.

There had been two other groups of the blank-minded Jedi in the temple, and their targets had been chosen with malice aforethought.

One group had gone for the meditation rooms, where Jedi would be most vulnerable, few Jedi meditating in the temple with their lightsabers near to hand. Unfortunately for them, Plo Koon had been meditating there at the time, hoping to come up with a memory he could use to create a Force construct as Harry had described. Even without his lightsaber, Plo Koon was one of the deadliest fighters in the Order. They had still killed nine Jedi before he had stopped the two women and their companions.

The others had gone for the younglings. There, Yoda was there with Master Giiett and the other teachers, going over preparations to move the younglings up to the Tyrant's Bane. It ended… poorly for them. As Harry had found out, whatever had been done to these people had not done them any favors in the skill department. The children were, however, understandably distraught, and many of the Jedi in the temple were down there with them still, helping to calm them down.

The cafeteria had also been somewhat bad. There the Jedi had lost as many as they had had captured or killed among the blank-minded attackers.

Piell was speaking as they entered the rooms to find Biar Nar, a Mirialan as she turned her covered eyes towards them. Master Fay had mentioned her once as being one of the best psychologists she had met in centuries. "…A virus of some kind stuck on the consoles in the Archives. Whenever C'baoth's name or physical description was entered into a search, the virus would inform Jedi S'kari. He then gathered the others and attacked the Archives. After that, it is presumed the others just attacked whatever part of the temple they had been ordered to target if someone started to discover C'baoth's duplicity."

"Yes, but why? What could possibly have happened to our brethren to make them attack us so suddenly, and in such a, a berserk manner?" Depa dithered, shock bubbling just beneath the veneer of her Jedi calm. She had been saved by Plo Koon during the attack on the meditation chambers and had seen the blank, dull faces of their attackers. It had unnerved her something fierce.

"That is what we are here to discover," Rancisis said, cutting in smoothly turning to look at Biar Nar.

"This is something none of us have ever seen Masters," said Biar Nar, before turning to the Grandmaster who had arrived here before the rest of the High Council. "Master Yoda?"

"There, but not they are. Gone they are in mind, in thought, in self," Yoda said mournfully, shaking his head as he raised a hand from one of the mind-controlled Jedi. Even now many of them were struggling with the Force and with their bodies to break out of their bindings despite their amputations. "Heard of the soup have you? The Anzati, feed on it they do. Drives them mad, the craving for it does."

Harry frowned cocking his head to one side but Aayla replied promptly, and the memory of a discussion she'd had with her Master flooded Harry's mind. "Yes Master, I've heard of it. There is a connection between ancient Jedi who succumb to the urge to drink and the Dark Side. Is that what we're dealing with here, some ancient Anzati figuring out a way to take the soup and then leave their victims alive to do their bidding?"

"No. Two parts there were to this. Mental domination, the first aspect it was. Yet deeper this was, longer-lasting than any Force trick." Biar stared at the Blanked Jedi, the name Harry had come up with having been picked up by everyone by this point. Then he leaned forward, touching his forehead against the one he had been studying. The Jedi stilled and then fell silent, collapsing backward as if all the manic energy within had been snuffed out all at once. "Drinking of the 'Force soup', the second part it was. Drained of the Force, they were. Drained of everything they were, nearly to death."

"You mean, that someone has figured out a way to, I don't know, siphon his or her Force powers away from Jedi? How is that even possible? Surely a Jedi renews his force essence when every minute of every day," Aayla objected.

"They would if they were still technically alive in the Force," said the mind healer tartly shaking her head wearily and with a growing sense of horror. "I agree with Master Yoda's prognosis. These individuals, they were almost dead in the Force, and then some of their essence was then returned to their husks, a thin veneer to hide the nothing within."

"Yes," Yoda said with a sigh. "Dead already they were. Drained of the Force they were. Stolen it was. Stolen too, their minds, their selves."

"Their souls?" Harry asked softly.

Jedi were not religious. They didn't worship the Force, they simply served it. But even so, this sounded like the closest thing to sacrilege any of the listening Jedi could even think of. It was horrible. And evil. Evil on a personal level that made rape look small.

"I think I've heard of something along these lines before from my mother," Harry said softly, "Not the Force drain effect or its overall impact on their minds. But she mentioned a spell that could create mental domination along the same lines: long-term, extremely inhibiting but not obvious."

He shrugged his shoulders as more than one of the High Council rolled their eyes at that one. Yoda did not, instead gesturing Harry to go on. "She called it the Imperio spell. It acts like a whisper in your head that you can't ignore or don't want to. Apparently, it was a special favorite of a few of my people's local Dark Lords."

"I remember that. But didn't she also say that technique had to be renewed?" Aayla asked.

"Remember that C'baoth met with some of these people several times," Jocasta said shaking her head. "Perhaps at first this technique of his did need to be redone several times. But the effect was cumulative, debilitating, and eventually…" she sighed, looking ill. "Eventually fatal for everything but their physical bodies."

"No doubt there is that this was Master C'baoth," Yoda said, more to have the words stated plainly than anything else.

"Agreed master," Harry said sadly. "Which means he is most decidedly a Sith. And that means we have to tell the Senate about this."

There were some protests from the High Council at that, but Rancisis simply looked at them and they fell silent while Yoda pointed his gimmer stick at Harry again. "Reasoning?"

Harry shrugged. "Master, we won't be able to discover who else among the Jedi Order might have been subsumed like this. They can't be that large number, but if it's even, say fifty Jedi, that still leaves more than half unaccounted for after today. Where are they? If they were in the temple they would've joined this attack. But the attack did destroy the archives which could've pointed out who they were. That points to more being out there, waiting to strike. And that is a nasty long term issue, one both we and the Republic will need to grapple with. And we need to deal with the threat in front of us," he finished, deliberately using words to force the Jedi around him to recall the discussion yesterday.

Bilaba winced, while Coleman Trebor was also looking pained. This was going to hammer their efforts in the Senate and in public relations. And worse, they could see no clear solution. So long as they couldn't identify the Jedi C'baoth could have influenced, they would still be out there. Depa breathed in then nodded. "We will inform them of it. The Jedi will inform them that the Sith have returned, and all right-thinking people must stand against them."

"If only I thought there were so many right-thinking people," Harry said drolly, before nodding to Depa.

"That attack destroyed something else as well," Jocasta said scowling angrily. "Ten years ago I said, all of the archives from ten years ago were destroyed in this attack. Perhaps one of our data analysts can get something back from the records but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Yet that time frame being targeted could mean something important happened at that point."

"Something that he was involved in?" Master Piell asked thoughtfully.

"Or something that would have pointed to why he turned at the very least," Depa said with a nod.

"Exactly. Which means, there is something there to be found. I will figure that out part out," Jocasta said, frowning like a matron who had just seen a child of high nobility messing around with the muck. "I am not a Guardian. But even a Consular like myself who has never fought in her life must do what they can in this war."

Yoda sighed as the word 'war' left Jocasta's mouth but nodded. "Undoubted it is now. War it must be."

Then he looked over at master Rancisis, who nodded. "The Jedi Order as a whole will prepare for this war," the old Jedi said sternly. "But that is neither here nor there for you, Knight Potter. By today's end, all of the younglings's within the temple will be on board the Tyrant's Bane. After that, I, as Master of the Order, do order you to go to each of the Agri-corps worlds in turn, pick up every Jedi and youngling so designated aboard the ship and then escort them into the Ruusan Sector. The future of the Order will be protected, whatever happens."

Harry nodded slowly even as he looked at the Blanked Jedi. Aayla had moved over to the two female Jedi and was slowly patting the head of the padawan and shaking her head, sad to have seen something like this happen to someone so young. He knew though the Order's new plan was going to be hard to pull off in secret. They had hoped to sneak them up over the weeks or however long Harry could continue to stall the start of outright war. The need to maintain secrecy was such that they hadn't moved any of the kids yet, only transporting up a few teaching aids and materials by this point. But keeping that a secret was a pipe dream now, just like the idea of further stalling the war.

"But that is not all," Master Rancisis said, his beard twitching. "You will also undertake a personal mission, Knight Potter."

Harry frowned. "I'm not certain I can take another job given my position as head of the GDL Masters. Even taking the younglings away personally is going to take me and the Bane out of play for a time too long."

"This mission won't take away your time from anything else, it will merely add to it. I think it is time that you will be assigned a padawan of your own," the Thisspiasian said with a faint smile.

"Wait, what?" Harry blinked as Aayla stared in surprise and growing delight. Unlike Harry, she had no doubt that the two of them could teach a padawan quite well together even with all the other demands on their time. "Erm, is this really the time to talk about that kind of thing?"

Master Rancisis actually smiled at that, while Yoda cackled, and Master Koon smiled, his gas mask moving most noticeably.

However, before Rancisis one of the other Jedi rushed into the room, a young Knight. "Masters, I'm sorry for my haste," he said hurriedly, knowing that kind of loss of control was certain to bring down some ire from Yoda and the other more learned Masters. "But something has occurred you need to know about. There seems to be a virus of some kind in the Hypercom Relay Network here on Coruscant which has basically shorted it out. We're cut off from the rest of the Hypercom Network. The Senate has called, demanding answers from the Order for it."

For a moment, all of the Jedi fell silent. Then Harry scowled angrily, thumping one fist into his other palm. "I think that the Blanked were not the only attack launched today. The attack in the Archives might have been a reaction to our poking around, but this speaks of pre-planning."

"Yes. The Sith, ahead of us they have been. Stolen a march on us they have. Whether their first blows, we must, before strike back we can," Yoda said, his face grim, but not daunted. Never daunted. "The Order, to war we will go."

End Chapter

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Thank god most of the political talk is done for now. Next comes the opening salvoes of the war, but where will they land? You will have to wait to find out. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this and as always please leave a review.