I've been looking forward to this one for a while. It's fun to get to speak in the voices of such recognizable characters and hear their dialogue in my head. But you can tell me if you think i've got it right. (in other words: review!)
The door swished open and Soniee entered the High Council chamber. The round room had windows all around that let in the light of the setting sun. She stepped forward and though Barris had instructed her to address herself foremost to the small green being who was Grand Master Yoda, she first acknowledged all the other attending Masters.
She wished she'd had more experience dealing with exotic species. Her Mandalorian upbringing left her very unfamiliar with non-humans. She was not speciesest. She'd gotten along fine with Barris. Her green skinned hands had been very gentle as she had braided Soniee's hair, and the Mirialan's lips had been very soft against her cheek. It made her wonder... But that was neither here nor there and certainly wasn't helping her get back to her people, back to Korkie.
Still Soniee was unsure what sort of expression the thick beard of the Thisspiasian master might conceal. The Nautolan Master in contrast had a smile that lit up the room and the Togruta female who was only present in holographic form appeared warm and welcoming. She nodded to each of them in turn, "Good afternoon, Masters. I thank you for allowing me to bring forward my case."
Master Kenobi gave her an encouraging wink. She was glad he was sitting just one seat to Master Yoda's right, though she hadn't sensed anything but polite interest from any of the others.
It wasn't Yoda who spoke to her first, however, it was the dark skinned human sitting at the Grand Master's left. "Welcome, Miss Ordo. I am Master Windu. Master Obi-wan has just been telling us about the unfortunate passing of your Duchess Satine. May we offer our condolences."
Though she didn't think 'unfortunate passing' quite expressed the brutal murder Obi-wan had witnessed, she nodded her thanks for the words.
"We understand that you and a few of your fellow Academy cadets were very close to the Duchess?" Master Windu asked.
"Yes." Soniee nodded. "The Duchess's nephew is a ... friend of mine. He and I and a couple of others once before helped to rescue Her Grace from a threat under the leadership of Padawan Tano."
The Kel Dorian Master, with his unreadable mask, leaned over to Master Windu and whispered something to him.
Windu nodded and continued. "Will you please fill us in on what has been happening in Sundari in the past few weeks?"
"Yes, Master Windu." She glanced at Master Kenobi and held up her display visor. "I have a few holos recorded here that would help me to illustrate the events."
Finally the diminutive Grand Master spoke and though she had been warned of his curious grammatical structure it still took her off guard for a moment. "Well prepared, you are, Miss Ordo." His approval of her was clear and comforting. "The technology you seek, in the arm of that seat you will find."
"Thank you." She smiled at the praise and then turned to the empty chair behind her and opened the panel on the arm.
"Would you like any help making the connection?" The Kel Dorian's muffled voice asked.
Soniee looked up at him and remembered Ahsoka saying something about the kind Master who had found her and brought her to the temple as a child. "No thank you, Master Plo Koon." Despite the mask she thought he might have been smiling at her.
There was thankfully a cable that was compatible with her display unit and she made short work of hooking it up and making it ready for the first holo she would show them. Then she turned again to face them with a smile of relief at her success so far. She addressed them all more confidently now, though her hands still twisted agitatedly in front of her. "It was a few weeks ago when we first started hearing about the attacks throughout the city from various crime factions. The Royal Academy was put on lockdown to protect the students and all of our incoming and outgoing communications were blocked. It was maddening not to know what was going on." She blushed thinking the turn of phrase must have made her appear less professional but she didn't get any sense that the assembled Masters thought any worse of her.
"I was able to splice into our common room holo projector so we could get the news. I'll just..." She stepped back to the chair and pushed a button on her visor. The image of the Duchess of Mandalore rose in the center of the floor for them all to see and an almost imperceptible intake of breath caused Soniee to turn her gaze to Master Kenobi. The others were too busy watching as Satine tried to calm her people and confront the arrival of Pre Viszla and his Deathwatch fighters who promised to defend Mandalore from the gangsters.
Soniee hadn't anticipated Obi-wan's reaction to seeing his love, alive and well in the holo and she wanted to kick herself for it now. But she had a job to do so when Viszla's form flew out of the image she stopped he vid and picked up her tale. "We weren't convinced that Viszla had suddenly become the hero and I believed I could sense that the timing of the criminal activity and the arrival of the Deathwatch was a little too convenient."
"You say you sensed this?" Master Windu asked.
"Yes." Soniee said a little more timidly than before. "I assume Master Kenobi informed you all that I... am sensitive to ... the Force?"
"Informed us, he did." Master Yoda assured her.
"But you remain untrained?"
"Yes, Master Windu. I believed I could sense something." She shook her head frowning at the memory. "I think it was from the point when the crime families first arrived. Something just felt wrong." She shivered.
Master Windu leaned forward in his chair to address Obi-wan. "You said it was Darth Maul who was leading these gangsters?"
"Yes." Master Kenobi stroked his beard. "I believe he and his brother were trying to stay behind the scenes in the beginning but even so Miss Ordo seems to have been able to sense the darkness that had arrived on her planet."
"Go on." Windu gestured toward Soniee for her to continue.
She nodded. "Most of the holos we were able to see after that were of the Deathwatch arresting various crime lords. Again it all seemed very contrived like we were only seeing what Viszla wanted us to see. And then the Night Owls were sent to liberate the Academy."
"Night Owls?" the tall headed Cerean who was seated between Obi-wan and Master Yoda asked.
"They were a division of the Deathwatch. That or another group that was allied with the Deathwatch. I'm not completely sure of the association." Soniee explained. "They came to the Academy to send everyone home. All the staff... and then they lined up all the cadets and checked off our names from the Academy records. We were all supposed to go home and become useful members of our clans."
"But not you," Master Windu observed.
"No. The four of us, Korkie and I and Lagos Jerec and Amis Lok, asked if we could stay. We wanted to stay together and be close by in case we found a way that we could be helpful to the Duchess. But we told the leader of the Night Owls, Bo-Katan, that..."
"Bo-Katan? The Duchess's sister? She was working with the Deathwatch?" asked the Togruta Master.
"Y-yes." The question caught Soniee by surprise and she looked at Master Kenobi who gave her a nod that he had already explained about Bo-Katan. "We had no idea at the time of her connection to the Duchess. We told her that the four of us were about to graduate anyway and that... Korkie and I's clans might not want us to be together if I was sent home..." She blushed but hurried on with her story. "We weren't sure at the time why she let us stay. We were afraid she might even be planning on turning Korkie over to Viszla because of his connection to the Duchess. There was a time, when we were working with Ahsoka that Prime Minister Almec put a shock collar on Korkie to try to get the Duchess to sign a false confession." A tear slipped down Soniee's cheek and she hastily dashed it away with the back of her hand.
"You worry about your friend now that Almec is back in power." The Togruta observed.
Soniee nodded.
"Your compassion does you credit," Master Plo Koon said.
She felt a gentle nudge of the Force from several directions at once, the Masters helping to calm her worried mind. They gave her a moment and she took a deep breath before she continued. "Whatever the reason, she did allow us to stay. The Night Owls left us alone at the Academy and we saw this later that evening."
Soniee pressed the button on her visor to play another holo. This one showed Bo-Katan pacing in front of a group of shackled prisoners on the steps of the palace.
"Duchess Satine and the new Mandalorian leaders have fled in cowardice, while the Deathwatch brought these criminals to justice." Bo-Katan smiled proudly. "Your new prime minister Pre Viszla, leader of Deathwatch, exiled governor of Concordia, true son of Mandalore presents you with the lords of the most feared crime families in the galaxy."
Then the holo image showed, Viszla. He just stood there silently smiling, surveying his new domain.
Soniee ended the holo and picked up the story. "We didn't think the Duchess would have fled. We didn't know where she would have gone but we still didn't know what we could do to help. And then we knew things were getting more serious when we saw this." She started another holo.
Pre Viszla was standing on the steps of the palace with Maul at his mercy. "The violence is over." He told the crowd. "The last of the parasites infecting Mandalore has been caught. The duchess has abandoned her duty to protect Mandalore. Her political dream only encourages aggression against our planet. We have learned from this beast the consequences of pacifist principals. It's now time to restore the traditions of Mandalore! No one will ever threaten us again!"
Soniee glanced again at Master Kenobi who seemed to be clenching his jaw tightly. She swallowed and then went on, "It was the next day that I remembered that the Jedi had sent protectors to guard the Duchess when she was young, during our Civil War." She smiled sadly at Obi-wan. "Korkie and I thought if we could get in touch with the Council that maybe you could send someone to help her again."
She looked around at the Masters not to accuse them but disappointed all the same. "We tried to use the comm unit in our common room but the signal seemed to be jammed. So we tried another unit inside the Academy and that didn't work either and neither did the portable when we went outside. We were about to take one of the Academy speeder bikes out to see if we could get a signal somewhere else when Bo-Katan showed up again.
"She told us that Maul had challenged Viszla to single combat and won, that most of the Deathwatch warriors had sworn loyalty to Maul, but a few of her Night Owls wouldn't accept an offworlder as leader so they had fled. And that was when she revealed that Satine was her sister and we decided to work together to help free the Duchess.
"Then we found out about Almec." Soniee pressed the button on her visor to play one last holo.
Almec rose into the image, "Silence! Please! Silence! Hear me now! Duchess Satine, the so-called pacifist who could not protect you when your lives were at stake, has murdered Pre Viszla, the true hero of Mandalore. Satine is now under arrest, and it was Pre Viszla's last command that I be reinstated as Prime Minister. I know my past is checkered, but I promise you I take full responsibility for my people. And my heart now bleeds for your pain. However, from this point on, Mandalore will be strong, and we will be known as the warriors we were always meant to be!"
Soniee was about to start speaking again when Master Kenobi interrupted her. "Maul is using Almec as a puppet. I saw that for myself." His voice was measured with a practiced calm. "A Sith is the power behind the throne of Mandalore now."
First one voice answered denying the claim. Then another voice certain that it must be true. It wasn't long before the peaceful debate had become a passioned argument.
Soniee stumbled back into the empty chair. She was thinking of the next part of the narrative that she had planned on sharing with them. She remembered the last time she had seen Amis alive, how excited he had been for their next adventure. She remembered the last time she had seen the Duchess alive, still so beautiful and confident and in charge of the situation. She remembered the fight in the hanger and the fear and anger she had drawn on in that moment to shove the Shadow Collective soldiers away from her friends.
It was here too. She could feel that fear and anger now. She wondered if it was the war that had brought it or if it had always been here. Soniee pressed the heals of her hands to her temples and her gaze crossed the room to Master Yoda as if begging him to make it stop.
He had not participated with the rest of them in the confrontation. He was watching her. Then he held up his small hand.
Soniee didn't see how the other Masters would even notice the gesture as distracted as they were with their own words but gradually the room quieted.
"Wait, this conversation shall, until our young guest, left us she has." Yoda held her gaze and beaconed to her. "Come child."
She did as she was told, crossed the room, and knelt before the Grand Master.
"Sensitive indeed, are you, to the Force. Over sensitive, you feel sometimes, hmm?"
Soniee nodded.
"Trained, you wish to be, to control your feelings?"
"Aren't I too old to begin the journey as a padawan?"
Yoda sighed as if he truly regretted the situation. "Too old, you are, as an initiate, to join this temple. Your training, too long neglected, has been. But guidance, still you need."
His words were kind but confusing. How could she receive guidance if she wasn't allowed to join the temple and did she even want training from this body whom she had just witnessed descending into the same chaos that had plagued her own mind?
She brought her thoughts back to the reason she was here in the first place. "What of my people, Master Yoda? Will the Council send help to Mandalore?"
Master Windu spoke softly, "Perhaps we should allow Miss Ordo to wait outside while we consider her case?"
"Yes. Yes. Wait outside, you shall." Yoda nodded and he squeezed her hand that she had not even realized he had been holding.
"Yes, Master." Soniee rose and without looking to the left or right at the other Council members, walked out of the chamber.
I may have fudged a bit on which Masters were in attendance in the council on the day before the bombing but these are the ones I wanted Soniee to come in contact with so we'll just say that some left and other's arrived at the temple before the bombing occurred.
and OMG look there it is! the elusive REVIEW button! hurry! catch it before it gets away! please let me know how you think i'm doing!