Chapter Eighty Five

Yoda looked across the now dead hologram projector towards Master Ranicisis, while around them the rest of the High Council currently present on Coruscant either waited for them to speak or worked on their dataslates, looking up what they could about the head of the Banking Clan, his ship, and where it was at present. This was a sharp contrast to how the High Council usually ran their meetings, but many things had changed since Ranicisis had taken over and the threat of the Dark Side had showed itself.

Waiting for the others to discern what they could, Ranicisis began by talking about the rest of what Komari mentioned. "The training center: yes, I fully agree with allowing Komari to act as head of the training center. While she might be a Knight, there are few Masters who could face her in a lightsaber duel, and she has some knowledge of the new techniques as well. But as head of the Dooku house? That sets a bad precedent. Not even Dooku did much on the business side of things, though he had retired formally from the Order."

"How?" Yoda asked, knowing the other was merely playing the devil's advocate. "Precedent there has been for Jedi to act…"

"The Green Jedi are one thing, the Order as a whole is another, and you well know it, Master Yoda," Master Ranicisis interrupted him brusquely, concern on his ancient face even as the discourtesy made some of the other council members frown. "This will be seen as both favoritism within the Order and as a dangerous precedent for the Order to be going back to the old ways of the Jedi Lords if it gets out to the Senate as a whole. We will need to head that concern off."

"Make a new rule, perhaps?" Yoda asked, showing no reaction to the other Master's rudeness. The Thisspassian species became more brusque and abrupt in conversation when they became concerned about something. "Only Jedi can leave things to other Jedi?"

"Exactly. Admit that this, the idea of one Jedi leaving another property, is a hole in the no attachments rule we had not anticipated. It will make us look reasonable and proactive within the Order and without once this gets out to the Republic Senate at large, if it does. How likely is that?" Ranicisis asked, looking over at the political specialists.

"Not very actually," Master Gallia replied, shaking her head. "Serenno has always gone its own way as much as it could possibly get away with, and the Senate really doesn't have much business or political interest there. There might be some questions from people who realize that Master Dooku has been missing for too long in the future, but if we can keep that quiet for a while, we can keep Komari acting in his stead quiet as well. As for the long term…"

"Let us leave that for now," Ranicisis ordered, steepling his long fingers in a triangle in front of him as he looked from face to face. "The issue with who Master Dooku has named as heir is one we will need to address, but only once it has actually occurred, which could be years in the future. We need to concentrate on the real meat of the matter. Master Dooku is dead, and we are agreed that he probably took this Dark Side user with him?"

"A possible Sith," Yoda said, shaking his head with a sigh. "Felt a shift, I did, but the Veil, still in place it is."

"Dissipating slightly, perhaps," said Yaddle. "But the future, still clouded it is. Hope for balance returned, but not certain. Not yet…"

"Why?" asked Master Tiin, his voice gruff. He was never one for sneaking around the issue. "If this Sith or this leader of a new Brotherhood of the Sith is dead, then surely the Veil will dissipate if we wait."

"Common misconception there is. Dark Side always there is, just like the Light. The Veil, retain its power it does, even if its creator, dead he is," Yoda replied.

"Agreed," Ranicisis he said firmly. "This Sith Lord Dooku fought might have been the main problem, but his structure is still out there, whether it has other Force users within it or not, such as the Brotherhood we have been trying to find since the Naboo Conflict, is immaterial at this point. How do we go about dismantling it?"

"And do we do this alone?" asked Master Bilaba slowly. "Should we show the Chancellor, at the least, this information, that there might have been a Sith operating behind the scenes for so long?"

"No. Open about this we cannot be," Yoda said firmly. "Studied this in depth I have since this shift felt I did. Knowledge that we are looking must be kept close, lest we feed the Dark Side."

"Can we instigate an investigation into the Banking Clan?" asked Master Poof.

All eyes shifted to the newest member of the Council. Coleman Trebor was a public relations specialist and had several friends and connections with the intergalactic news networks. "We can if we're careful about it. The Banking Clan isn't very well thought of, and if their head is out of communication for a long period of time we can use that as a pretext to investigate his personal holdings. We have to be somewhat open about that aspect, however. How that will mesh with our desire to keep our concerns about this Sith Lord's organization secret I leave to older and wiser minds."

There were some dry chuckles about that around the room. He wasn't the youngest there, but even if you included Yaddle in the equation Master Yoda had the rest of the Council beat in that area.

Plo Koon had been silent up to this point, his personal datapad opened as he skimmed through some information. A gentle tap on his chair's armrest brought the rest of the council's attention to him, and he held up his datapad. "I wanted to see if I could find out what I could about the ship this Hego Damask used. It was reported in Coruscant space, but then it jumped out two days ago. The odd point is, it didn't contact Coruscant space command before it hypered out. And it did so in a direction where it was certain to run into a gravity well. I would recommend we try to follow that route before it gets too old."

"Agreed. Master Tiin, Master Koon, would the two of you please follow up on that the moment our meeting is done?"

The two of them were two of the best starfighter pilots in the Order. They had also been given special dispensation recently to aid in the construction of new starfighters for the Order. They both nodded agreement, though Tiin looked rather dubious that this hunt would equate to anything.