Entry Thirty – Days after Geonosis, One Hundred Seventy-Three
Senator Bana Breemu at least remembered me, so I suppose my presence in the delegation counted for something. The rest of the subcommittee seemed blithely disinterested in paying serious attention to our requests. I suspect none among them have ever even visited the Bucket, or spent any significant time in the underworld at all, save perhaps the more expensive class of brothels. They were wholly incapable of imagining the true scope of the struggle, and their eyes glazed over when presented with actual statistics.
Except, hideously, Senator Lott Dod. The Trade Federation representative – I remain distinctly confused as to why he is in the Senate at all and not languishing in some miserable cell – has a very good grasp of numbers. His goals are unclear to me, but I can state quite definitely that holding on to every last credit he can is among them. Senator Breemu, perhaps out of recognition that at least one Jedi was witness to this, proposed that funds earmarked for eminent domain compensation that were not spent due to the rioting be repurposed for relief efforts instead. Though the amount in question could not possibly have met the needs of the displaced, I will admit that this was at least a good faith proposal and with the funds already appropriated could have been used to bring real and significant relief to the most hard pressed.
Lott Dod countered by arguing that the contractors had been forced to spend all of those appropriations to hire mercenaries instead, and therefore the funds had already been used. He then spun out some long and complicated economic fiction I could not follow but that many Senators apparently found convincing. Senator Breemu's motion was voted down overwhelmingly.
It is strange. While in recent struggles with YH-lifeforms or battling disease on the streets I have often felt terrible fear and great anger, but not once have I felt the spike of contemptuous rage I did then. I wanted nothing more than to cave in Lott Dod's skull during that moment. Even now, hours stale, the echo of that cold fury, and the dark tendrils it summoned, remains close.
I have never much struggled with the temptations of the dark side in the past. My master told me I was born a healer, not a warrior, and called it a blessing, for the dark cannot truly restore. I believe that, but it did not save me from a step toward that forbidden path today. I did not act on it, the hideous stupidity attached to striking at the Senator of the Trade Federation during open debate was more than enough to dissuade any rashness, but it scares me how far the corruption of just one person could push me. Maybe the neutrality of the Trade Federation is true and not simply legal fiction, though I do not believe that. Even so, the merciless rejection of the least charitable impulse surely ought to be turpitude worthy of removal all on its own.
In the end we walked away from the Senate almost empty-handed. The committee did approve a one-time outlay to recoup the expenses incurred by the underworld police in order to contain the rioting, and I managed to secure an equally pitiable donation of medical supplies from Galactic City stockpiles to treat conflagration victims. All just enough to let the Senators claim they took action.
Unexpectedly the hardest moment of all came when we left the Senate and were promptly surrounded by the press. All of the other delegates from the Bucket gave fairly bland statements expressing their disappointments. What I should have expected, but somehow caught me completely by surprise, were the unceasing attempts to interview me. HoloNet News itself shoved a holocam in my face.
Jedi do not express political opinions, do not take sides in Senate debates, and members of the Service Corps certainly do not speak their minds on non-technical matters. During the session I restricted all testimony to purely factual information; answered questions of need, scale, and scope. The offer to speak out, to address the entire galaxy, was a sandstorm to the face.
To say nothing, to refuse all comment, that might well be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was so much easier to jump into a pool of toxic metals. I managed only to whisper "no comment." Then I turned to stone. It hurts. It still hurts so much. Was it right? Was it really?
There was nothing dark and cold about my desire to excoriate Lott Dod's greed. No whispers of the dark side told me to plead with the luxurious grandeur of Galactic City for some small kindness for those below. The words I swallow up might have been impolite, inopportune, and naïve, but they were righteous. If I were just a doctor I could have spoken them.
But if I were just a doctor I would not have been there.
Is that enough to mandate silence? Maybe when I run out of tears I will know.