The next day inched by with grueling agony. Luke, Kess, and Nik returned to the Senate Dome looking about as ragged as everyone else. Nik was a little more alert, but he remained untrusting and quiet. The coliseum lobby was a fucking zoo. Politicians of every race rushed them as soon as the Jedi were in sight. Reporters were everywhere. Seeker-cam buzzed them like a swarm of bees.
When Threepio came out of the crowd, Kess wanted to hug the droid. Threepio gave them a proper bow and publically presented Mon Mothma's invitation to discuss the next step.
Luke nodded to it and asked the crowd around him, "Will someone please inform the Imperial High Command we will visit them next?"
An Ongree political aide stepped up, nodded a sharp chin, and rushed away.
Per an invitation from Clarissa, Mon Mothma and dozens of Alliance command and Senators gathered in the Helmba Senate offices. As soon as they entered, the discussion halted and Mon Mothma threaded the group to greet Nik directly with the first bow. "Emperor Tovecus, Mister Lendra, it is an honor."
"Please don't call me that," Nik whispered.
Mon Mothma gave him a sympathetic grin. "It is my hope that you will be relieved of that title very soon." She gestured them to a meeting room. "Will you hear my proposal?"
The discussion was not private. The room crowded with people, with more standing in the office lobby to listen in, and more people listened than spoke. Kess recognized many of the people here, but didn't get the chance to inventory who wasn't with them. Overwhelmed with gratefulness for the faster-than-expected cease fire, politicians and assistants offered help of all kinds to the Jedi. A Senator gladly fetched hot cups of java and served it to them himself. Another ordered a tray of healthy snack food so they could get something on their stomachs. Someone even ordered a new set of similar clothes for Luke.
While all this was going on, Mon Mothma explained her plan, but she pressed Nik to recognize that it was only a suggestion. It was up to him whether and how to implement it during the proceedings today.
Not being a politician, Kess would have never thought this plan up, but recognized instantly what Mon Mothma had in mind. It was a solid idea, and she focused her mind on figuring out how to help Nik make it happen despite all the pressure they would get to the contrary. Mon Mothma gave them a datapad with references and bullet points, and ended the discussion by strongly reminding the three of them to visit the Imperial offices as well for their ideas on what should happen next.
"I don't want to go back there," Nik said instantly.
"Luke and I will be there with you. We won't let them do anything more to you."
The Imperial High Command had confiscated offices down in the Chancellor's chambers and dozens of Red Guard were now protecting them instead anyone else in the building. Jakobi sat in the Chancellor's desk surrounded by a dozen other gray uniforms of old white men. All of them were terribly displeased, but the disruption of their power structure was already clear.
As Jakobi worked to insult and demand Nik and the two Jedi, three other Grand Moffs interrupted to insist that Jakobi had no right to take command in the Emperor's absence. Tovecus was now working for the Jedi, that made him a traitor, and now the Imperials fought over which of them should be in charge instead.
But the loudest argument in the room wasn't about who was in charge; it was about the cease fire. "We could've pushed them off Coruscant and sent the rebels running with their tails between their legs if you hadn't agreed to the cease fire so quickly. Let us resume actions so we can end this war once and for all!"
"The cease fire is the end of the war." Luke angled his chin. "If you let it."
A dozen Imperial officers grimaced at Luke like he was insane, and their voices erupted in the room with a new wave of shouting arguments.
Luke sizzled in stress until he snapped, and silenced the room by igniting his lightsaber.
Eyes widened. Mouths stunned shut. Red Guard shifted and armed their staves in warning.
But Luke only did it to get them all to shut up. He disengaged again as soon as they quieted.
Luke shouted at them, "We've been doing this for thirty years!" His rage bristled. "The more you fight, the more people volunteer for the rebellion. If you walk away from their offer of talks, you'll lose even more systems to them. You're not going to wipe them out by force. And their actions yesterday prove that they don't want to wipe you out either!"
Jakobi spoke to Luke like he was bug. "We will not consort with traitors."
Luke pushed passed Nik to lean over the desk at Jakobi. "Traitors of what?! Palpatine is dead!" He looked the General in the eyes. "Vader is dead. . . . Your Empire is over."
"We will sort it out ourselves who will ascend to the throne—
Luke spread his hands and hiked his voice. "What do you want? You want a Kenobi? Here's two of 'em! You want a Skywalker? Here's one, the other's down the hall!" He let that sink in and shouted again to send the point home. "You want to make this about bloodline, go ahead. We'll beat you at your own game and still do what we've been trying to do all along."
The gray men shut up. Jakobi's voice was tight. "And what would that be?"
"Stop the fighting."
The Admirals and Generals and Moffs remained silent, and Luke stood hard to stare them all down.
After a moment, he calmed himself and concluded. "We have the power to ascend to your 'Emperor's throne', and if we do, we could probably convince everyone in that chamber throw all of you out an airlock. But we aren't going to do that. Because none of us want it. The three of us are here as a courtesy because we extended the same courtesy to the Alliance. Our goal, as Jedi, is to maintain the cease fire so that all sides can debate, discuss, and decide together what to do next. You are hereby formally invited to join that discussion."
With that, Luke stepped back, eyeing each as he turned around, and motioned Nik and Kess to follow him to the Chancellor's spire in the other room.
Jakobi shot to his feet with a deep inhale to shout, but Luke's palm lifted in the air and stopped the man in his tracks. Jakobi gagged and reached for his throat, but the Force Choke ended nearly as soon as it began.
Luke relaxed his hand. Jakobi breathed in shock.
It was a warning, further pressed by the expression on Luke's angry face.
His still-hovering palm pointed a threatening finger. "Don't piss me off today."
Nervous, Kess followed his path back to the Chancellor's spire. When the door closed, she timidly touched the edge of Luke's hand. "Find you peace, please?" There was enough going on to cause these kinds of fractured nerves in anyone, but Luke seemed to be suffering it worse than his usual, even at a time like this.
Luke licked tight lips and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath to decide what to say and how to say it, then met her eyes with tight sincerity. "Kess, we got hit hard yesterday. And I—
His eyes closed again, trying to keep himself together, but he looked at her in weakness, begging her for help. "I need you. I need your help to get through this."
Kess's brows knitted over her nose with amplified fear of the unknown. Nik's brows knitted over his nose with striking similarity to his sister. The only good part about this moment was that Nik seemed to be stronger and more alert to these happenings than he was yesterday.
Luke's eyes pleaded at Kess, and his eyes nearly welled up with new tears. "I need you to be the Living Legend today."
Kess bit her lips shut and nodded, holding his hand briefly with a silent promise. She knew what was wrong now. She knew it in her soul. Someone had died, probably many, but at least one that was very close. And Luke knew who it was.
As the spire shot into the throat of the Senate chambers, Kess closed her eyes and forced her mind to meditate on the memory of Kayla's helpful strength during a battle years before. Cry later.
Before the spire had even reached its peak, it was clear this was going to be a bureaucratic nightmare. A thousand passionate opinions stood from their stations to yell over muted mikes, waving fists and pressing palms together in pleas. The giant building felt like an echo chamber of the dark side. Kess used every Jedi trick in the book to find some thread of peace and help Nik to start unraveling this mess.
"Good morning. Thank you for coming. Um." Nik looked at his datapad for some ideas of wording it, but managed to put it in his own words anyway. "Please take your seats. I have you all muted and locked in your bays, but I intend everyone to get a chance to have the floor."
The room began to calm. Many took their seats, but hardly all.
"Meanwhile, I command all forces to maintain the cease fire so we can proceed with this discussion."
The Imperial High Command arrived at a mid-level to confiscate several Senate seats for their own use and stood ready to shout as soon as their mikes controls lifted.
When the room quieted sufficiently, Nik began a speech of his own drafting. "I am not a politician." He grinned, "And I think you all know that." He paused again, gathering his wits and glancing at the datapad again before facing them down. "I don't know how to fix this. . . All I know is that it has to be fixed. This war has got to stop. And I think thirty years has proved that it won't stop by firepower.
"The Empire put me up here. The Alliance asked me to stay a little while longer. But all I'm going to do is find a way to get out of the way . . . so that all of you, who are already educated in legal debate and understand the nuances between system cultures, can organize a new provisional government.
Murmurs rolled through the crowd, but Nik only raised his voice to shout over it. "Through democracy, a new Senate is going to decide on what's going to happen next. So what we need first is someone who is trained in this kind of thing to manage that discussion. As Emperor, I hereby create the position of a Senate Chamberlain."
He looked at his list.
"The Chamberlain will remain neutral in all things, with no financial ties to any interest group or corporation, will hold no political office or royal status with any system in the Galaxy, will be permitted no vote on any issue on the floor. The Chamberlain's one and only job is to control the conversation in order to grant all sides an equal opportunity to speak. The Chamberlain's duty is to mediate towards mutually-beneficial solutions, to facilitate the voting process, and to manage the representatives of this Senate."
Nik put down the datapad and faced them down again. "I hereby call for nominees."
The audience launched to their feet, shouting, complaining, demanding he address the occupying forces of the Rebels, insisting the Alliance be allowed to boot the Empire entirely off the planet, pleading for resources to quell the fires, help the wounded, and halt the looting and riots outside. There were arguments how this would only create continuing chaos, that democracy was entirely too messy and untrustworthy to build a strong government. There were further arguments that this was a waste of time, for 'if you don't want the throne, just step down and give it to someone who does!'
But Nik shook his head at it all and looked over the console to figure out the controls. Kess stepped up beside him so they could figure out together how to open the text channel, allowing nominee names to come through from the seat stations, and then figured out how to display the whole thing back as a publically-published list.
There were dozens of names already. Politicians shouted at them through the air with worry about whose vote was legitimate and whose wasn't. The Alliance shouldn't have the right to vote. The Imperials shouldn't have the right to vote. Non-humans shouldn't have the right to vote. Occupied planets shouldn't have the right to vote. Space stations shouldn't have the right to vote. Corporations shouldn't have the right to vote. There were arguments about votes reflecting population count, arguments about votes reflecting the number of solar systems, arguments about organizations trying to vote twice, arguments about non-planet-based guilds having the right to vote, arguments about non-tax-payers voting, arguments about slave traders voting, arguments whether systems currently in civil war should be permitted one vote or two. . . .
Nik looked overwhelmed with all this while he was trying to sort it out on the console, so Kess stepped up to the mike with a patting palm. "Guys! Guys. Calm down. Right now, we're just voting for a Chamberlain. The Chamberlain will mediate for new rules of voting. And we have to do that before we can even get to the part of a provisional government."
As she said this, Kess noted Mon Mothma and team were out there as one of the few groups not standing or trying to interrupt all this. In the distance, Mon Mothma nodded that they were on the right track.
The room began to quiet and murmur, during which someone shouted audibly. "You cannot call a vote until all systems are represented!"
That was another good point. Not everyone was here. Because the Empire had no collection of representatives already. Those that filled this building today either came with the Alliance forces, were here as sycophants for the new Emperor's coronation, or just happened to be in town.
But that's where the Newnets came into play. With confidence that this was being fed live throughout the galaxy by now, Luke stepped up to the mike. "All system governments not already present are welcome to send communication of their nominees and votes for the position of Chamberlain." Then he added with warning, "But I hope you're on your way because the new Chamberlain might not extend the same offer for the next decision all of you need to make."
It was already afternoon when the three of them enlisted the help of several droids (Artoo included) to join them on the spire and tally everyone present. Then they began to filter out the systems that tried to sneak in more than one representative. Then worked to include the communiqués of representatives rushing to the Capital to join all this.
And finally brought it to each other's attention as their own names popped up on the list of nominees.
With their heads together in silence, Luke considered at length how to handle this. Kess and Nik already knew what their answers would be, they just didn't know how to word it. The simpler the better. An explanation shouldn't be necessary.
Luke moved his mouth to the mike and said it succinctly. "I remove my name as nominee."
With that, Nik repeated the phrase into the mike, then stepped out of the way so Kess could say it too.
By the end of this first day, the only thing the new Senate agreed upon was to continue the madness tomorrow.
But the cease fire held. . . .