there's a time difference between Sundari, Mandalore and Galactic City, Coruscant so "another long boring debate" takes place in the middle of the night but at least Korkie can see that Soniee is alive and well.
Korkie knew he'd never get back to sleep but he didn't want to wake the others. He didn't want to worry them, or maybe he didn't want to let them know how worried he was. He wanted the holonotebook he had brought with him from the academy but he had left it in the other room when he was trying to escape Gran. Now Bo and Lagos were sleeping in there and he'd have to wait for it until morning.
Maybe there was another device in this room that he could use to hit the net. He began to search around on shelves and in drawers and then he looked under the bed and saw a box. He pulled it out and opened it and found an old academy uniform, something made of feathers and an old datapad. Kandosii!
Now to search for a holonet feed of the senate. If Soniee was here, she'd know exactly what to look for. Korkie had never given a second thought to the Republic Senate except maybe for the times that his mother had gone before them to plead the case of Mandalore's neutrality, but now if his dream could be believed, Soniee was there asking for the opposite.
Korkie switched on the datapad and began his search. Without intending to he activated an old recording, the sound came up before the video with the loud giggling of two young girls.
"Oh, osik!" he swore quietly trying to turn down the volume before it woke someone.
Too late, Lagos, stumbled into the room yawning, "What are you doing?"
"I found this," He held up the still playing datapad. "I was just trying to turn it back off."
Lagos took it from him and was about to turn it off for him when the video caught up with the audio and there was the image of a very pregnant twi'lek who spoke with Satine's voice.
"Bo, no we can't. No one can know it's me." She giggled again.
Another voice, Bo-Katan's only younger, then said from outside of the image. "The Duchess is on a shuttle on the way to Serreno. No one will ever know. Besides this is your best role ever and it must be recorded."
"Oh fine." Satine grinned and then posed, pushing one false blue lekku over her shoulder and then putting her hands on her large stomach. "No Duchesses here, just a humble servant on the way to find a safe, comfortable place to bear her child."
Lagos stared at the image of the young duchess in disguise. "That's you." She said to Korkie pointing at Satine's rounded stomach. "I don't know if I quite believed it before but... wow!"
Korkie laughed. "Pretty amazing, isn't it? I guess that's how they sneaked her out of the palace so I could... be born."
The duchess in the recording regained her composure. "Now come on we really should be going while everyone is paying attention to my shuttle. Gran would want us to reach her place before dark."
"Alright," said Bo's voice and then the vid ended.
"Where did you find this thing?" Lagos asked holding up the datapad.
Korkie pointed to the box he had found underneath the bed. "These must have been my mother's things."
"They were mine actually," came the contemporary voice of Bo from behind them.
"I'm sorry," Korkie apologized immediately. "I didn't mean to pry. I only meant to... It's going to sound stupid."
"No surprise there," said Lagos and Korkie rolled his eyes at her.
"What's up?" Bo asked.
"I - I had a dream about Soniee. She said she had to speak before the senate."
"Like the Galactic Republic Senate?"
"Yeah." Korkie continued, more determined. "I know she said in that comm that she had to speak before the Jedi council maybe they sent her on to take her case before the senate."
Lagos crossed her arms over her chest, a little miffed at being woken up in the middle of the night. "But you said it was a dream."
"It - it was but ... it was so real." Korkie blushed remembering the first part of the dream. Then he cleared his throat. "I thought maybe there was some kind of holonet channel that would carry the Senate hearings. I thought maybe we could see if she was actually there."
"Worth a try." Bo shrugged. "You don't think it'll wait till morning?"
Korkie frowned. "It seemed like, in the dream, like she might be in danger."
"Alright." Bo conceded and held her hand out for the datapad. "Osik I haven't seen this thing in years." Before she started her search on the net she scrolled through some old stills. There were some drawings of dress designs that looked like gowns that Korkie had seen his mother wear.
"I thought Gran designed mother's things."
"Well a lot of them but I was just learning at the time. Gran did most of the construction but I did these initial drawings. Your mom thought I might want to pursue it as a career but uh... I chose a different direction."
She scrolled through to another still and stopped and smiled. "There you are." She turned the datapad for Korkie and Lagos to see. There frozen in time was the image of young Satine cradling a tiny bundle in her arms, gazing lovingly down at her son.
"Then," Korkie felt as if he might choke up. "Then she didn't send me right away?"
"I think that was probably the happiest month of her life." Bo said softly.
Lagos squeezed his shoulder and he sniffed back the threatening tears. He wanted to look at the picture forever but he also wanted to find out if his dream of Soniee was correct.
"Thank you for showing me."
Bo nodded. "There are more you can look at them later if you wish. But now..." She activated the holonet function and entered in the search for the Galactic Senate.
"Well I don't know what I expected but... look for yourself." Bo-Katan passed the data pad to Korkie and he tried to process what he was looking at. It was the schedule for the topics that were going before the Senators that day and there at the beginning of the list was, 'Representative Soniee Ordo from the Neutral system of Mandalore.'
Lagos whistled, looking at the list over his shoulder. "And she told you about this in a dream?"
He nodded. "That's right." He looked back at Bo. "When is this supposed to happen?"
It was still the dark of the night in Sundari but in Galactic City it might be nearing midday.
"Well, let's see." Bo fiddled with the datapad a little more and brought up a real-time holo of the senate rotunda.
"Is this what's happening there right now?" Lagos asked.
"Yes, I think so." Bo answered.
Korkie just watched, glued to the image. He might at any minute see Soniee again and know that she was okay. There seemed to be nothing much happening at the moment. Beings were talking amongst themselves almost as if they were waiting for something. And then the Chancellor spoke, "And here they are..."
The image moved to a repulsorpod high in the circle of identical pods. And there she was, looking dignified in a simple but elegant blue dress. Korkie was so relieved to see her that nothing else seemed to matter.
"Why's she sitting with the delegation from Onderon?" Lagos asked.
"K'uur." Bo-Katan waved at her to be quiet.
The Chancellor was speaking again. "May I introduce Miss Soniee Ordo of the Neutral system of Mandalore. You may have seen on our schedule of events for today that Miss Ordo was prepared to give us a presentation on the need for a Republic Military presence to protect her planet from an insurgency that had arisen in the capitol city of Sundari."
Korkie wasn't really listening. He was thinking about what Lagos had said and he now noticed the text running along the bottom of the image informing the viewer that the youngman standing behind Soniee was the Senator from Onderon, one Mr. Lux Bonteri. He was looking at Soniee also with a slight smirk on his face. Korkie's jaw clenched with jealousy.
"It is my great pleasure to inform you all that the crisis has past and the system of Mandalore shall be allowed to continue in it's neutrality," The Chancelor was saying.
"What a load of osik! Where's he getting that from?" Lagos asked and Bo hushed her again as the Chancellor continued.
"It is a further pleasure that although Miss Ordo's prepared speech will be unnecessary in today's session we may very well have the opportunity to hear from her in the future as she has agreed to act as the Mandalorian Prime Minister's representative in the Senate."
Lagos shook her head. "Soniee would never agree to work with Almec, not after she saw him order a shock collar to be put on Korkie."
Soniee was making a valiant effort to keep her smile in place but anyone who really knew her would see that it was an act.
"I tend to agree." Bo-Katan frowned. She started to deactivate the holofeed but Korkie stopped her.
"I just want to watch a little longer." He said.
Bo shrugged. "I think they're moving on to other things, but if you want, I'm going back to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning."
Bo left but Lagos stayed for another minute. "You gonna be okay?" She asked Korkie.
"Hmm? Yeah I'm fine."
"She's alive and well." Lagos placed a hand on his arm.
"Yeah. She is." He smiled and then gave his full attention back to the holo. He didn't notice Lagos leaving the room.
Soniee wasn't the focus of the Senate proceedings anymore. They had moved on to other things but the holocams still seemed to find her fairly often as they circulated to gage the response of those in attendance. It wasn't nearly often enough for Korkie, but still when he saw her chatting with that Bonteri, jealousy clawed at his insides.