Chapter 28: Mas Amedda

Coruscant

Upon his return to Coruscant, Palpatine seemed to want nothing more than to get to the bottom of the Bothan question. For the first order of business, Palpatine gathered the Vice Chancellor, Sly Moore, and Clone Captain Kagi together in his war room, and had them describe the events of the previous evening in vivid detail—with the air of Holofootage, of course. Then, Palpatine went over Jazal's report from Krant and played Mas Amedda and Sly Moore holorecordings of Itoll Oc'skar and Lir Sey'les's statements, as well as a statement from Wilhuff Tarkin describing Buzz's ghoulish behaviour.

Normally, an operation the scale Palpatine clearly wanted would warrant the coordination of hundreds of beings out of the Strategic Advisory Cell. However, grateful that the Jedi were ignoring Jazal's claims, Palpatine seemed to be absolutely obsessed with keeping the Jedi out of the loop on this one. The operations was now being conducted entirely out of his private war room in the Republic Executive building, with other agencies given as little information as practicable.

To the three of them, Kagi, Moore, and Mas Amedda, Palptatine stressed the importance of keeping any mention of Essence Transfer or Consciousness Transfer away from the other to "compartmentalise" that information and keep it away from the Parwan, Dr Gubacher, especially.

Mas Amedda and Sly Moore had exchanged knowing looks at that, both aware of Dr Gubacher's employment at the Jedi Temple.

After forty-seven minutes, when Palaptine was satisfied with the timeline he had leading up to Senator Polo Se'lab's shooting, he summoned the tier II members of this counter-Bothan taskforce: Dr Gubacher, and his Iktochi assistant Dagio Belcoze, a human male from the Senate Bureau of Intelligence with vibrant red hair and a bushy red mustache, Captain Yale, and finally—to Mas Amedda's astonishment, a tiny being so short he made Bothans look like giants: Colonel Meebur Gascon, a Zilkin droid specialist from the Corps of Engineers.

Despite his humorously diminutive height, Meebur Gascon had a deep voice.

If Mas Amedda closed his eyes, he could take the Zilkin seriously.

"My team has tracked down the Bothan ship to the Both system," Meebur explained in a deep voice.

With his eyes closed, Mas Amedda could see nothing. He nodded serenely, showing the room he was indeed paying attention.

"Excellent work Colonel," Palpatine hissed. "How long until they are—Mas?"

"Uh yes Chancellor," Mas Amedda stammered, opening his eyes. Everyone was staring at him. "I am listening."

On the overhead screen, HoloNet footage was streaming in from one of Colonel Meebur Gascon's Arakyds that had been waiting in the Both system.

"Do you need to lie down?" Sly Moore asked the Chagrian.

"No, not at all," Mas Amedda coughed, clearing his throat. His face flushed hot with embarrassment.

"Good," Palpatine smiled, then turned back to Meebur Gascon, standing in front of—no actually very much underneath—the overhead screen at the front of the room. "Colonel, how long until the Bothan vessel reaches Bothawui? Which moon is it travelling to?"

"It doesn't seem to be heading for Bothawui at all!" Gascon gasped.

"Do you think we've been discovered sir?" Captain Yale asked worriedly.

Nervous murmurs began all across the room.

"No—No," Dagio Belcoze stammered, his polished downward turning horns glimmering with the red reflection of the terminal in front of him. "Sir, the Bothans they're… They're headed to some minor world."

"Minor world?" Captain Yale asked sternly. "What in the Galaxy is a 'Minor World' if I may ask?"

"Bo… tha… A… Hir," Dagio said slowly, reading the name of the planet.

"Botha'ahir, ah," Palpatine gasped. "So these Bothans then are Spacers… Curious…"

"Itoll Oc'skar hails from there, doesn't he?" Mas Amedda asked. The Chagrian had read that Bothan's personnel file, but asked rhetorically to reassure everyone he had.

"Uh yes," Yale answered, "I believe so, Vice Chancellor."

"Botha'ahir?" Sly Moore asked, her grey eyes wide in innocent curiosity for once.

"An impoverished, heavily militarised and heavily ideological world," Palpatine explained to the bald Umbaran. "They were independent from Bothawui for ten generations, slowly building a socialist planned economy which eventually collapsed. Recently, they rejoined the Galactic community and… Curious." The Supreme Chancellor slowly approached the main viewer, standing alongside Meebur Gascon.

As the Arakyd neared Botha'ahir, the planet's crimson surface began to dominate the screen. In the dim light, everything and everyone in Palpatine's war room was now standing in an ominous red light.

Up ahead on the screen, the Bothan vessel, a rectangular black and white one, began descending into the thin atmosphere. Flames shimmered against its shields.

"I believe this is the closest a Republic military probe has ever gotten to Botha'ahir," Palpatine said in a satisfied voice. "Make sure you send this telemetry to the SBI. The Spacers seem to have let their guard down. This is—Oh, alas."

A yellow glow slowly rose from somewhere over the curvature of the planet, drawing shocked gasps from everyone in the room except Palpatine and Sly Moore. Ten seconds nearer, the glow was close enough to see that it was not one object, but many.

Are they torpedoes? Mas Amedda wondered to himself for a moment, but only a moment.

Next second, the objects were finally close enough to identify—Random bits of metal. A chunk flew right past the camera. A smaller piece impacted the Arakyd's camera directly, cracking the lens.

"They are reflective aluminum sir!" Yale gasped in shock. "Their density is distorting the telemetry!"

"Fascinating," Palpatine chuckled to himself as the projection on the screen grew increasingly distorted, covered in staticky white blobs. Soon it was completely impossible to make anything out.

"L2!" Meebur gasped, yelling in a panic towards the screen. "L2, can you hear me! Pull out!"

"I… I lost contact," Yale croaked sadly. "I am sorry sir."

"It is always regretful to lose a droid," Palpatine sighed sadly. "But Colonel, there are always more probe droids where that one came from."

"Thank you, Chancellor," Meebur croaked. "Belcoze, Dr Gubacher, did you intercept any signals?"

"We did," Dr Gubacher said, adjusting one of his huge eccentric lenses. "But it will take a while to decrypt them, if it is even possible."

Belcoze spoke in a more optimistic tone. "It is not a complete loss, we have the geographic locations of where all of those transmissions to the ship came from!"

"Really?" Mas Amedda asked excitedly, leaning over the Iktochi's chair. On Belcoze's terminal display were dozens of red marks, all over Botha'ahir's Eastern Hemisphere.

"Where they were re-routed from, more likely," Palpatine cautioned. "We are dealing with a very secretive and treacherous species."

Mas Amedda frowned. "So it really was all for nothing?"

"No, my friend," Palpatine said, putting a hand on the Chagrian's shoulder. "We now know it was Botha'ahir who either attacked Itoll Oc'skar, or saved him. Polo Se'lab's involvement is… More mysterious."

Mas Amedda smiled at that. "Why don't we just ask him?"

"And expect an honest answer?" Palpatine cackled. "No, we will uncover the mysteries of the other factions… I sense… From Lir Sey'les."