Chapter Sixty

It had been several days since the events on Naboo had reached their conclusion, and the new Chancellor of the Republic was still stuck on the planet. There were a few political reasons for this, though admittedly most of them he could have handed off to other people. However Sidious had wished to make certain that Maul's ship was taken off-world with no one the wiser. That ship represented a lot of technology that he did not want to see falling into the Jedi's hands even discounting the fact that its construction might well have pointed them to some of the Sith's secret bases.

He also wanted to plant a few spies in the royal palace. Sidious hadn't had to do so before: Captain Panaka had been his creature even if he didn't know it, which of course meant "Palpatine" would need to find a suitable replacement to watch the child queen. Such are the dangers of compartmentalization. Still, one tool is much like another.

That, of course, was a minor detail in comparison to the large one Sidious continued to think about at the back of his head, that of coming up with a replacement for Maul. His next choice was not ready to fall into his lap just yet, so instead Sidious decided to take some time to think long term, sneaking some genetic material from Maul's corpse just in case. It never hurts to play the long game, Palpatine thought, before returning to the here and now, watching Padme and the fat amphibian Boss Nass work over the wording of their pact.

Padme had surprised Sidious in a few ways over the past two days. She had used the crisis to remove power from her so-called advisors, the ones who had insisted on her surrendering the planet and then had done nothing for her people under occupation after she was forced to flee. After a public referendum on their conduct, they had all been removed from power, placing the reins of the government in Padme's small, feminine hands. It had been a shrewd political move, and her alliance with the amphibian Gungans had shown that she was flexible as well as giving Naboo an extra bit of military strength. Not in the conventional sense, but the filthy amphibians' victory against the droid army had given them quite a bit of fame in local space.

In the long term this gambit will fail. She is too idealistic and inexperienced, and will no doubt trip up, yet even so it shows a distinct level of promise. If only she was not such a peacenik she would be a much more useful tool. Still, when she trips up Padme knows she will always have me, her old senator, as an ally…

Seeing that the fat oaf of an overgrown frog had finished speaking, "Palpatine" stood up, smiling and putting his signature down on the paper between them with a fanciful overdone twirl of his pen. As one of Padme's maids began to transcribe the treaty, "Palpatine" looked across the table at Padme.

"Now we come to the matter of the four Lucrehulk ships that remain in Naboo's possession. Handing them over to the Republic would be a sign of good faith between yourself and the Senate. After all, you already have all of the weapons from the droids, and no one is gainsaying your desire to keep the starfighters or the droid parts. Those will gain Naboo quite a lot of money, and that plus the reparations we have already forced down the Trade Federation's throats will make certain that they will never repeat this adventure. On the other side of the river, the idea of letting those four ships in the hands of any regional power is a worrisome one from the Senate's perspective. I am certain that the Republic Senate will authorize payment of what, is it called prize money?"

"I will release them to your care, Chancellor, when all of my people are accounted for." Padme grimly handed a large sheaf of papers across the table to the Chancellor. Her grim appearance was aided by her white makeup. Since she was working as queen at present, Padme was dressed in her formal robe. I wonder if the reason we keep these stuffy robes around is as incentive to get our work done. The faster we get meetings like this done, the faster we can change out of them, after all.

Palpatine glanced through the papers, all of which looked like hospital and obituary reports, followed up by citywide missing people reports. As he did so Padme explained, her voice serious despite whimsical thought. "There is a large difference between the number of missing people being reported both in my capital and in other cities in comparison to the ones that are known to have died during the occupation. What happened to them? Where did they go? Are we looking at some kind of long-term hostage situation, or have they merely been misplaced elsewhere? None of the Lucrehulks left the planet, so we have no worries of them having been taken away en masse. Yet even so, that begs the question of where they are."

Putting the papers down one after another, Sidious frowned. "I…do not have any idea where they could be," he said honestly. "Is this disparity accurate? Naboo is currently missing upwards of 11,000 people?"

"It's accurate," said Master Piell. He had heretofore been silent, speaking up for the first time during the discussion. He had allowed the Chancellor to be the mediator for this meeting between the two principal leaders of the planet, only speaking up when asked details about the battle, what he thought about the distribution of the weapons, and whether Naboo should invest in a planetary shield generator. "I talked to the police chiefs of the various cities myself this morning, and they've been very thorough about keeping records of who went missing. I have Obi-Wan looking for video footage from any of the cities that might show anything unusual at the moment. I imagine he will have something for us later today."

"I can understand your concerns, however I fail to see how holding the four Lucrehulks will help. I am already dealing with a backlash from the Senate about our high-handed nature in ramming through reparations from the Trade Federation, as well as my push to limit their military power before the trials of Gunray and his fellows finish. If you keep those ships, you're just going to look petty, I'm afraid," Chancellor Palpatine said sadly. "They really should return to the trade routes they were assigned to before this. There are dozens of systems that need their goods."

"I can deal with looking petty, so long as I hold a very effective hammer over the Trade Federation," Padme said dryly. "I've already spoken to the representative they sent here to speak on their behalf as their Gunray languishes in my jail, and he knows nothing about this. But he is just as dismayed as you are that those ships remain under our control. Not that Naboo could actually do much with them. We lack the industrial base to make best use of ships of that size."

"Hmm…" Palpatine mused, leaning back, frowning. He let the Lannik Jedi and the fat amphibian discuss possible hiding places for that large a group of hostages for a moment as he thought. The four ships weren't really that important to Sidious in the long term, but they represented a tremendous amount of capital and investment from the Trade Federation. Easily able to hold an entire army of droids each or literally trillions of credits worth of merchandise, those ships, and their ability to build hundreds of them, had, along with their knowledge of the hyperspace trade routes, been the reason the Trade Federation had become so powerful.

Yet despite their massive size, they had proven to be vulnerable in this, their combat debut. They had good armor and shielding, but their anti-fighter defenses were a major weakness in their design, as was the fact that the control type's signal output marked it out as the flagship. Then, of course, was the fact that once inside the energy shield, the central control sphere was horribly vulnerable to attack.

Sidious had wanted to remove those ships from Naboo ostensibly to have them destroyed, or handed over to the Republic for humanitarian aid missions that would net "Palpatine" a major boost in public relations. Then, of course, once they were out of the public eye, the Lucrehulks could be used to start building up the Trade Federation's real military strength hidden away from any prying eyes out in the Outer Rim. The Trade Federation had all the infrastructure and industrial nodes ready to go, but they still needed to be transported, and at this point all of the Trade Federation ships were being watched too closely for any of them to do that. Yet it would be some time before that lack will truly matter in the long term…

"I will agree to this," Palpatine said, interrupting the discussion going on and addressing Padme. "And I will inform the Senate of these missing individuals. We will put as much pressure on the Trade Federation as possible in the court of public opinion both here and throughout the Republic. We can contact several intergalactic news agencies to run the story. This might not work, but…"

Just then someone knocked on the door, and the queen turned, holding up a hand to stall the Chancellor's words. "Come in?"

Obi-Wan came in then, leaning heavily on his crutches and moving forward slowly, his movements a mockery of the speed and quickness he had shown before his injuries. He had been cleared to leave the bacta tank, but his legs were still very wobbly underneath him, and even with bacta gut injuries took weeks to heal.

"I have a video recording I think you should all look at," Obi-Wan said without preamble, moving towards the table and holding out a data-chip to the queen.

Padme took it, then slid it into the data-reader, and a moment later the video began to play in the holographic screen set into the center of the table. It showed what looked like a common street way, leading into what looked like one of the smaller landing areas, which none of the watchers recognized offhand.

Obi-Wan explained. "This came from Jan-gwa. This particular video is from about seven hours before the liberation of the planet."

"Odd timing," said Piell, frowning thoughtfully. "Isn't that when your insertion occurred?"

Both Obi-Wan and Padme nodded, and the group continued to watch.

The scene shifted to a video from another camera set into the landing area on a kind of tripod from a nearby rooftop. "This is from a security camera which was turned around by police to cover the landing areas to help in a black market sting."

Padme scowled at that, unhappy that her planet had any kind of criminal underground, and "Palpatine" carefully stopped himself from rolling his eyes. The girl is just too naïve for words at times.

The ship on the screen was not one of the large Lucrehulks. It was a somewhat smaller medium-sized freighter, which the Trade Federation used on their shorter and less important routes when they knew they weren't going to run into any violence. Around it stood seven droid soldiers, all standing idly as the video began.

Fast forwarding the video showed the arrival of a Neimoidian on one of their hover chairs, who flew up into the ship, followed by several hundred more droids. These stood in a long line, and soon from the outer edge of the video recording came a mass of humanity. It was hard to make out individual faces through the video recording, of course, but there were a lot of them.

"I counted over 450 faces on this one trip alone. And there were nine other trips just like this," Obi-Wan said grimly. "Worse, I stopped in and looked over the flight data from the few space sensors and the Lucrehulks we captured. That same ship was recorded by a few of the Lucrehulks as coming and going from the Naboo system dozens of times during the occupation."

"Damn those Trade Federation bastards!" Padme shouted suddenly, storming to her feet her hands slamming down on the table as she marched around hurling out invective like a sailor, moving so fast she nearly tripped a few times over her robes in her anger. Boss Nass was also growling, though he was much less emotionally connected to this issue than the Queen was.

The two Jedi simply watched, switching their attention between the Queen and the Chancellor as the Queen wound down. Sitting down once more she glared at all of them and even a few of her maids in the room, demanding their input. "They've sold my people into slavery. How can we get them back?"

"Now I wish I could stay longer," Palpatine said sadly. "Surely my added weight to your investigation would help matters along."

"I doubt it, Chancellor" said Obi-Wan, sighing faintly. "Unless we can get a close-up of that particular Trade Federation captain, we have no leads just yet."

Padme growled, but nodded agreement. "I will, however, hold the Lucrehulks and start questioning our prisoners. You may still take Gunray as has already been discussed, but I will not release either the Lucrehulks or most of our prisoners to the Republic or anyone else until my people are returned."

"A perfectly understandable position given the severity of this incident," Palpatine said gravely, while inwardly amused with the amount of vitriol the young girl had been able to put into her voice as well as her mastery of invective. My word, I don't think she repeated herself even once in that rant.

"Obi-Wan, stay with Padme. Help her is much as you can to get this investigation started. I will walk the Chancellor to his quarters and then start questioning the prisoners," Piell said, standing up.

Boss Nass also stood up, making for the door. The three of them exited the room silently as Padme and Obi-Wan bent to their work, getting in touch with various police forces and starting the ball rolling on widening the search for more video evidence of the abductions, as well as going through the databases they had captured from the Lucrehulks to see if they could figure out who owned that ship.

After bidding Boss Nass farewell, the Jedi Master and chancellor were silent for a time as they walked, and then Palpatine sighed faintly. "A new Queen, yet she has handled more turmoil than anything her predecessor ever faced with a poise and vigor that would surprise me in someone twice her experience."

"I did not ever meet the old king of this planet. Was he a competent ruler?" Piell asked.

"No, not overmuch, though I never got along with him. I do not know how he was when he first began his reign, but when I knew him he was a very corrupt individual, and almost but not quite a despot. Indeed, he would have been a despot if the position of king were powerful enough to allow it. He did, however, do away with one of the main blocks to that assumption of power, making his position for life rather than one where you had to be elected to it every five years. I was quite pleased that the Queen put that law back in place the moment she took office. But was there something specific you wanted to speak to be about, Master Piell?"

"I will continue to try to get Padme to release those ships to the Republic. You are correct in that it sets a bad precedent for a single system polity to have such a powerful mobile military. However, I wanted to ask about Nute Gunray's trial, and that of his fellows."

"They proceed apace. Both sides have begun to present their cases in front of the judge already. I picked Judge Laofey personally. He's a good man who will not be swayed by money." Palpatine coughed delicately, looking away. "Unlike so many judges who are forced to rule on senators or other powerful individuals."

The man in question was in Sidious's pocket already, of course. That was why he wouldn't be swayed by money, and he would hand out precisely the penalties and restrictions that Palpatine demanded of him with the proper amount of anger and sadness at how the trials would turn out. It would be the start of what Sidious would publicly claim was a campaign to do away with corruption, which would, of course, run into lots and lots of problems. With that he could begin the work of slowly shifting public opinion in the Core Worlds to a more authoritarian, centralized government, giving his position as Chancellor more power while removing it from the Senate in a very subtle manner.

"Good," Piell nodded firmly. "In that case I will have Gunray released to my purview tomorrow, and he and I will travel to Coruscant that same day. I realize he would normally travel with you, but this way we provide defense on his journey and prevent rumors of collusion or bribery. He will stand in that courtroom and face the crimes he is accused of."

Palpatine nodded. "Indeed, a good idea. I should have thought of that before this. I also have to offer my condolences once again to you and the Order as a whole for your losses here on Naboo. Who would've thought the Trade Federation could ever have come up with a military force dangerous enough to defeat two Jedi?"

"Indeed," the Jedi Master said coolly. "Who would've thought it?"

"Yet surely there were other mitigating circumstances that stayed Master Jinn from performing to his full abilities," Palpatine blithely went on, watching the Lannik Jedi Master's expression and body language closely behind his veneer of sympathy.

The Jedi Master, however, gave nothing away then or during their walk to Palpatine's temporary quarters. So, the Jedi plan to play their cards closely, the fools. They are so predictable! The longer they keep it a secret, the more their actions will seem simply paranoid to the rest of the galaxy, and I can use that backlash against them in the court of public opinion. Yes, all is going to plan. Now I just need to head back to Coruscant and start to influence Anakin, find out who he has been assigned to if anyone and…perhaps perform a personal task…