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Hound tossed a pile of tea bags down onto Fox’s desk.
“The fuck is this?” he asked, brushing them aside to get to the datapad below.
“You know those drugs that were popping up everywhere?” Hound grinned, crossing his arms and looking like the loth cat that got the canary and the cream.
Fox stared blankly at him for several moments, hoping he was going to elaborate. When he didn’t, he sighed and closed his eyes. “Hound, I have been up for forty-eight hours straight. I have no idea what the fuck tea bags have to do with drug dealers.”
Hound had the decency to look a little sheepish at Fox’s statement and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Commander. Forgot. We figured out how they were smuggling them into the city. In the tea bags.”
“Tea bags?” Fox said, picking up one to examine it. It looked just like any ordinary tea bag. “How did the sniffer hounds or detection droids miss that?”
“It’s actually pretty interesting. I asked General Kenobi about it since he likes tea so much. Apparently, some of the spices can throw off an animal’s sense of smell. A few compounds in tea are technically controlled substances, but they're in such low amounts in the tea that it’s legal. So you can get a false positive. The detector droids are designed to disregard anything with the drug amounts below a certain threshold. The dealers put just enough in so that it was triggered—”
“But not so much to warrant further investigation thus marking the entire batch as not being drugs,” Fox finished. “Huh, I have to hand it to them, that’s pretty crafty.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t have caught them only we got a call from some kid who said his grandma was acting weird. Turns out, she accidentally bought these from a shop whose order got mixed up. Apparently, when steeped in hot water, they get even more potent. Something about breaking down the cell walls or something. Anyways, the kid said his grandma was acting fucking weird and that’s how we managed to track them down.”
“Weird? Weird how?” Fox asked.
“From what we can gather, there are three basic stages of the drug, and the more you ingest, the further you get pushed down the line. We call them ‘horny, hungry, and blob” he explained, ticking them off on his fingers.
Fox looked at him, unimpressed. “Horny, hungry, and blob? You seriously couldn’t have come up with another ‘h’ word?”
“Hey, I’m a soldier, not a poet.” Hound scoffed.
“And how did you come up with this truly descriptive set of symptoms?” Fox asked, leaning back in his chair and glaring at Hound. “You and the boys tested this out?”
“No!” Hound said, pressing a hand over his heart and trying his best to look as innocent as possible. “No, sir! We would never!”
Fox did not take his eyes off of Hound. Didn’t even blink. Just stared at him. And stared. And stared. And stared.
“Alright, maybe a little,” Hound said, once more rubbing the back of his neck. They always broke in the end. “But it was harmless fun and most of the tea bags are in Guard custody now and I promise we’re not going to take any more out of what we’ve gathered.”
“Did you send one to the medics to see if they could recreate the compound?”
“Maybe.”
Fox rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to scold Hound or admonish him. There were worse things that he could be doing than getting a little high. “Keep it to after hours and monitor for dependence,” he warned.
“Of course, sir. I’ll go put the rest into Evidence so it can get cataloged.”
There was a knock at the door. “Sir, you need to get to the Senate Building. Chancellor Palpatine is requesting you.”
“Shit,” Fox said, scooping up the tea bags and shoving them in his pocket. “Keep going on the drug case. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, sir,” he said, saluting as Fox brushed past him.
Maybe taking a tea bag or two would help him get through the day.
*****
Fox hated working for Palpatine. True, he was an abusive asshole who treated the Corries like they were his own personal property and not like actual people with hopes and dreams and feelings, and he was horrifically abusive, and there was the fact that sometimes Fox woke up in his bunk not sure how he got there but also covered in blood. But those weren’t the reasons Fox didn’t like working for Palpatine. He could handle all of that. What he couldn’t handle, was being treated not as a soldier, but as a maid.
“Where’s my tea?” Palpatine demanded as soon as Fox stepped into the room.
Right. Tea. Always the tea.
“I’ll get that for you right away, sir,” Fox said, bowing (ugh) before leaving the room.
He started boiling the water. “Fucking asshole, treats me like a servant and not like a soldier. I’m on security duty! Not tea-making duty!”
Sadly, his day was not going to get better or easier. It was at that moment that Thorn popped his head into the room.
“Commander, we have a situation,” he said.
“Can it wait?” Fox asked, waiting for the water to boil.
“No, sir. Thire caught someone trying to assassinate one of the senators.”
Fox groaned and did not bang his head on the counter. He thought about it real hard, though. “Which senator?” he grumbled.
Thorn looked away, hesitantly.
“Thorn. What senator was almost assassinated? Was it Amidala?”
“Um, no sir. It was Burtoni.”
Fox let out a truly impressive groan. “Is she alive?”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, come on! You couldn’t have waited until the assassin had finished the job?”
“To be fair, we thought he was aiming for Mothma.”
Alright, that was fair. Fox liked Mothma. She actually used his name and asked how he was doing. He didn’t think she actually cared, but it was nice all the same.”
“Fuck,” Fox groaned. “The chancellor wants his tea. You’re going to have to bring it out to him.”
Thorn’s eyes widened. “Um, I don’t know how to make tea, sir.”
Fox once again thought real hard about smashing his face into the counter. “It’s not fucking rocket science. When the water is boiling. Pour some into the cup and then stick the tea bag in and bring it out to him. The fuck you mean you don’t know how to make tea?”
“I am waiting for my tea, clone!” Palpatine called from the other room.
Fox took off his tea-carrying pouch and shoved it at Thorn. “Go. I’ll deal with Burtoni’s assassin.”
Thorn let out a squeak but Fox paid no mind. At least the assassin would be more pleasant to deal with.
*****
“Okay, Thorn, you can do just. Just put the tea in the hot water,” Thorn muttered to himself. His hands shook as he held a tea bag up. “Come on. You went through training on Kamino. You’re a karking Corrie. You work for Commander Fox. You can do this. You can do this.”
“What is taking so long, clone!” Palpatine shouted from the room.
Thorn let out a yelp, cut open the tea bag, and dumped the contents into the pot.
“How long do I let it steep for? That’s a thing you do with tea, right?” Thorn hissed, stirring the pot. The water had turned a glowing, neon green color and did not look like it was tea. It looked more like it was a cocktail or something. That could not be right. Wasn’t tea supposed to be brownish in color?
“Clone!” Palpatine shouted in a way that suggested he was very close to start hitting.
“Coming, sir!” Thorn decided tea was tea, poured a cup, and rushed out to the Chancellor. “Here you go, sir.”
He placed the tea in front of the chancellor. Palpatine’s face grimaced when he saw the color. “What sort of tea is this?”
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Thorn didn’t know. He just put a random tea bag in it.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Palpatine was looking at him.
Scowling at him.
Glaring at him.
He wanted an answer to the question.
He brought the tea to his lips and took a sip.
“General Kenobi suggested it,” he blurted out. Sure, that seemed reasonable. He hoped.
“General Kenobi?” Palpatine said, quirking a brow and taking another sip. “I suppose that man is a fine piece of ass. He’d know good tea when he sees it.”
Thorn choked upon hearing Palpatine’s words. What was he supposed to say to that? Was he supposed to say something to him?
“Don’t just stand there, idiot. Go bring me the pot. You barely filled this thing half full.” Palpatine snarled.
“Right away, sir.” Thorn rushed back to where the pot was and grabbed it. He took a deep breath before bringing it back out. He was surprised to see that Palpatine had already finished his cup and nearly lunged at Thorn to grab the pot so he could pour another.
“That shit is good,” Palpatine said. “Make me another pot. And make this one stronger. The flavor is too subtle.”
“Right, sir. Of course, sir,” Thorn said, bowing again and scurrying out of the room.
Make the tea stronger? How was he supposed to do that? He looked down at the pile of tea bags. He supposed putting more in might make the flavor stronger.
“Screw it. If he wants strong tea, I’m going to give him strong tea.” He picked up a bag, cut it open, and poured it into the pot. Then another. Then another. Then another.
He was about to leave the rest of the tea alone, but he wasn’t sure if it was strong enough. He certainly was not about to drink from Palpatine’s personal teapot. So, deciding to throw caution to the wind, he dumped all ten bags into the pot, filled it with water, popped it in the microwave until it was hot, and brought it back to Palpatine.
“That’s better,” Palpatine said as he poured another cup. Shit, he had already finished the first pot? That was… that was surprising. He’d need to go to the bathroom soon with all that tea he was chugging.
“Right, sir. I’ll let you get back to work, sir,” Thorn said, anxious to get out of Palpatine’s way. The less he was around, the less of a target he was.
“Now hold on just a minute,” Palpatine said.
Thorn winced and turned back around. “Yes, sir?”
Please don’t ask me to kill someone. Please don’t ask me to massage your feet. Please don’t ask me to scratch your back. Please don’t ask me to be your footstool again.
Palpatine did none of those. Instead, he pulled up a picture of General Kenobi mid-battle.
“Aren’t his thighs just… the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.”
What?
“What?”
“Force, I could just…” He grunted. “What I wouldn’t do to have those thighs wrapped around my face.”
What?
“What?”
“Force Kenobi is hot. Really hot. I keep trying to invite him back home with me. I could show him a good time if you know what I mean?” Palpatine winked (WINKED!) at him.
What?
“What?”
“The man keeps saying no, though. Ugh, what I wouldn’t do to rip off those Jedi robes, throw him down onto my bed, and—”
It is at this point that we will cut back to Commander Fox, mindful of the teen rating.
No one wants to hear about Sheev Palpatine’s sexual fantasies involving Obi-Wan Kenobi anyway.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Burtoni said, pacing, ranting, and roaring as Fox tried to direct his men to secure the area and scrape the dead would-be-assassin off the floor.
“I understand, sir,” Fox said.
“I mean, really. All that training on Kamino and you let the assassin get through! I was almost killed. Killed!” she shouted.
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Fox said. Really, if she would just let him do his job, he might have a better time protecting her and the rest of the senators.
He understood where she was coming from. It was sloppy of his men to let the assassin through. But really, could anyone blame him? He was working with a staff that was overworked. There weren’t enough Corries to keep track of every single nook and cranny in this force-forsaken building. Not to mention all the senators sneaking in sex workers and mistresses. The number of times Fox was commanded to look the other way so a senator could get laid was astounding. Something was bound to slip through eventually. And they were lucky there were no casualties.
“Senator,” Organa said, coming up to Burtoni. “I understand that you are shaken from your experience, but I do need to speak with Commander Fox about something.”
What? He did not remember seeing a meeting with Organa on his schedule.
“Come, Commander, we must keep our schedule,” Organa said, gesturing for Fox to follow him.
Burtoni opened and closed her mouth like a fish. She couldn’t force Fox to stay and listen to her yelling if another Senator requested him. So she was stuck sitting there and watching him leave, her full complaints not heard.
Fox decided to throw one last metaphorical punch. He turned back to her. “Senator, if you feel like your complaints must be heard, please fill out Form 3.20d91.e930285710e-88887.” He bowed to her and followed Organa through the halls.
That form was nearly impossible to fill out because of all the conflicting directions and information. As such, senators rarely filed formal complaints against the Corries. He had Organa, Mothma, and Amidala to thank for that one.
They stepped into Organa’s office.
Fox removed his bucket. “I’m sorry, senator. I don’t know what this meeting was supposed to be about. Can you debrief me?”
Organa was one of the only senators he felt safe enough admitting fault. Organa was unlikely to decommission him for something as small as forgetting a meeting.
He waved a dismissive hand. “No meeting. I just thought you’d like an excuse to get away from Burtoni. She can be a lot to handle.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Fox said, relaxing and preening under the thoughtfulness.
Organa chuckled. “I also know you work too hard. In the adjoining room, my wife sent over some fruit tarts. Please, sit and enjoy yourself. I’ve blocked off an hour for you to relax. You need it.”
He did need it. Even if he didn’t feel like he deserved it. And he was about to argue as such, but as always, Organa beat him to the punch.
“Commander, please. An hour won’t change the fate of the galaxy. Your men are well trained. They’ll keep Coruscant running.”
“Right, sir. Thank you, sir,” Fox said. He bowed to Senator Organa and stepped into the small attached room that most senators passed out when they were working hard. Or had sex in when they weren’t. Organa tended to be the former.
There, on the table, was an assortment of small fruit tarts. Fox smiled, sat down, and started eating.
Organa was right. His men could handle whatever happened in the next hour.
*****
“And if I could just get Fisto to join in,” Palpatine said as he downed another cup of tea. “Have you seen that man with his shirt off? Oh! Barrel-chested with thick arms. He’d be great in bed. Don’t you agree? Could really pin you down and—”
Thorn let out a groan. Palpatine had been talking about sex with various people for the past thirty minutes. In great detail! Thorn was never going to mentally recover from this. When his front-line brothers talked about PTSD, he was finally going to have stories to share. All because he was learning more about what Palpatine liked in the bedroom than he ever wanted to know.
And he wanted to know nothing. He wanted to live his life believing that Palpatine was a wholly un-sexual being.
But now he couldn’t.
Because of what he had been forced to listen to for the past thirty minutes.
Palpatine finished off another cup. He had finished the pot but there was still some gunk left in the bottom so Thorn filled it up, microwaved it, and set it back down in front of him. It was still the same neon-green from before so he assumed it was still just as potent.
“Dex’s!” Palpatine shouted, slumping over his desk.
Oh, oh no. No more sex talk. Thorn did not want to know what sorts of sex acts Palpatine wanted to engage in with Dex of all people.
“I need you,” Palpatine pushed himself up to look at Thorn. “I need you to go to Dex’s and get me one of everything on the menu. Including the pie. I need every pie.”
“Sir?”
At least that was better than sex.
“Pie! Dammit! I need pie!” Palpatine smashed his fists on the table.
“Like a slice of each or the whole pie?”
Palpatine made some high-pitched squeaking sounds in the back of his throat. “What kind of question is that? The whole pie! Get me one of every pie and food item he has on there! Now! Look at me, I’m wasting away to nothing! I’m starving! Go, clone, go!”
Thorn nodded and scrambled out of the room. He wasn’t going to go all the way to Dex’s, but he knew some brothers who were stationed in the area. He called them up and told them about Palpatine’s request.
They did not believe him.
It took him several minutes to convince them that, yes, he was being serious. And no, this was not a joke. Maybe he looked a bit traumatized from all the sex talk and that was what convinced them.
Either way, they said they’d be there in ten with one of everything.
Thorn hoped that was enough.
*****
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Palpatine moaned as he grabbed a fistful of some sort of fruit pie and shoved it into his mouth. Red juice from the berries smeared around his lips and chin, making it seem like he was covered in blood.
Thorn winced and tried to subtly shuffle his way to the door. “Right, if that’s all you need. I think I’ll just go.”
“Oh, this pie is orgasmic!”
“Please quit talking about orgasms, sir.”
“Fucking Dex, he knows what he’s doing.” Palpatine shoved another fistful of pie into his mouth before turning to the burger and scarfing it down. “I am so fucking hungry. It’s like I’ve never eaten anything before. Oh!”
Thorn winced and hoped his moans weren’t being heard outside this office. The last thing he wanted was for his brothers to hear that and think he was fucking the chancellor.
“Right. Well, enjoy your food. You have a meeting in thirty minutes. Goodbye.”
Palpatine waved a dismissive hand at him and downed the rest of the teapot. Thorn had to fill it up six more times. The neon color was now much duller and dimmer. He wondered if that meant there was no more tea. He hoped not. Fox still wasn’t back and he didn’t have access to any more tea.
“Right. Thank you, sir.” Before Palpatine could start talking about General Kenobi’s thighs, or General Fisto’s chest, or General Windu’s ass, or ask him to deliver more food from random restaurants around Coruscant, he slipped out the door and back into the little attached room.
He put his hands on the counter, still littered with cut-up tea bags, and took a few deep breaths. If this was what Fox had to deal with on a daily basis, it was no wonder the man acted the way he did. Thorn was also shocked that Palpatine managed to keep up the charade of a loving, benevolent, and sophisticated ruler when he ate pie with his hands. Thorn heard about this thing called the duality of man. He wondered if that was what it was referring to.
He looked at his schedule for the day and was pleased to see he didn’t have anything for another few hours. Technically, he was supposed to be off duty. But, when you were a Corrie, there was no such thing as off-duty.
“Fuck it, I’ll take a nap,” he said. He was in desperate need of recovery after that disaster of a morning. He was certain Fox wouldn’t mind him kipping on the couch for an hour or so. And it would take Palpatine a while to get through all that food.
He laid down on the couch and promptly passed out.
“Wake the fuck up!” Someone hissed in his ear.
Being the well-trained soldier he was, Thorn was up in an instant. He was up so fast, in fact, that he smacked his head into Fox’s helmet.
“Ow!” He jolted back to rub the sore spot. “Sir? I’m sorry. I haven’t had a break yet. I was just going to sleep for an hour or so. I don’t have anything else on my schedule—”
“What did you do?” Fox asked, holding up a fistful of torn tea bags. His eyes looked wild and desperate.
“What do you mean what did I do? I made tea for him like you asked.”
Fox let out a squeak. He pulled off his helmet and Thorn gasped. His face was pale. White as a ghost.
“This isn’t tea. These are drugs!” He hissed again.
Now it was Thorn’s turn to pale. “Drugs? What do you mean by drugs? Why do you have drugs on your person?”
Fox dropped the tea bags and gripped his hair in his hands. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Hound gave them to me earlier because of that investigation he was working on. I forgot about them when I handed them to you. Fuck! We drugged the chancellor!”
He straightened up to look at Thorn. “Did you give him all the tea?”
Thorn winced and nodded. “He just kept drinking it.”
“Fuck!” Fox collapsed onto the floor. “The more you ingest, the higher you get!”
“That’s how most drugs work.”
He slapped him. “We have just drugged the chancellor up to his eyeballs. He has meetings with people! Important meetings! He’s got a fucking war to run! And now he’s out there, covered in pie, sitting like a blob!”
“So he’s done with the food and sex stuff then, is he?”
Fox slapped him again. “We need to do something. If this gets out that we drugged the chancellor, we’ll all be decommissioned.”
Thorn stood up and wrung his hands. He paced across the floor, trying to think of some excuse to get them out of this mess. An idea came to him.
“We’ll say he’s sick. He’s old as fuck, old people get sick all the time. Then we transfer him to his apartments and wait for the drugs to wear off. We’ll tell him he got sick when he sobers up. The headache will probably be enough to convince him.”
Fox nodded. “Right. Right. I can get the medics to draft up a fake report or something. We’ll say he got the flu or something. 24-hour stomach bug maybe.”
“Yeah! Yeah, that’ll work.”
“And he’ll be in blob phase now so he should be pretty easy to move.”
“Blob phase?”
Fox nodded. “That’s what Hound calls it. ‘Horny, Hungry, and Blob’. The three phases of the drug.”
Thorn thought about it for a second. “Huh, yeah. Now that you mention it, those were very distinct phases. The horny one was the worse. The things that man wants to do to General Kenobi.” He shuddered and thought about maybe reaching out to the Jedi Mind Healers for therapy. He was going to need it after today.
“Right, let’s go get him.” Fox put on his helmet and nodded to Thorn.
Thorn copied his movements, ready to undertake this dangerous mission. “And, um, you can’t overdose on these drugs, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have the medic meet us at the apartments, just to be sure,” Fox said, creeping towards the door.
He put his hand on the handle, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.
“What the fuck?”
Thorn’s jaw dropped. Everything in the room was floating.
“What the fuck!”
Palpatine’s head was lolled back so he was staring in their direction. His eyes were yellow.
“Have you ever heard the legend of Darth Plagueis the wise?” he slurred.
“What! The! Fuck!” Fox cried.
Thorn let out a whimper. “Oh fuck. We got the Chancellor so high he turned into a sith lord! That’s what he is, right? With the yellow eyes and all that?”
Fox stood there, staring at the scene in front of him. “I… what? What do we do?”
“Why are you asking me that? Is this a side effect?”
“Hound’s three phases were Horny, Hungry, and Blob! There was nothing about Sith in there!”
“Maybe no one got high enough to turn into a sith? Can you turn into a Sith if you get high enough?”
Fox took off his helmet once more and inched towards Palpatine. “Um, Chancellor, are you feeling okay?”
“Darth Plagueis the wise. Famous sith. Could create life from nothing. Can’t learn that from a Jedi,” he mumbled.
“Shit.” Fox inched back towards Thorn.
“What do we do, sir? We can’t take him out like this. Not when he’s making everything all floaty and shit. Stomach bugs don’t do that no matter how old you are!”
“I know that!” Fox snapped. “This is all your fault.”
“My fault! You’re the one who gave me drugs instead of tea!”
“Let’s not throw around blame and figure out what the fuck to do about this,” Fox said. “Maybe we should just wait until he comes down from his high.”
Thorn looked back at the chancellor. “What if he stays all sithy, though? Like, what if this is permanent? He’s a permanent sith?”
Fox cursed and paced some more. “We have to call a Jedi. They’re the only ones who know how to deal with Force osik.”
“Right.” That seemed like a good idea. “Right. Which one?”
“What?”
“There are a lot of Jedi out there. Which one do we call? Kenobi?”
Fox shook his head. “Off planet.”
“Windu?”
“Off planet.”
“Yoda?”
“He’ll launch into some stupid diatribe about do or do not. I do not feel like listening to his inane riddles.”
“Unduli.”
“She scares me.”
Thorn thought about it some more. “What about Nu?”
“Nu?”
“Yeah. She’s nice. She helps us with the book club suggestions and she knows a lot about Force osik. We should call her.”
Fox thought his suggestion over and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we can ask her about this and see what she says. Yeah, good suggestion.”
“The rule of two! Imperative to the Sith!” Palpatine moaned from his chair.
“The fuck is he on about?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Fox said. He pulled out his comm and dialed General Nu.
One of her assistants picked up. “How may I assist you today, gentlebeing,” they said in a serene, almost dreamy voice.
“Right, this is Commander Fox, is General Nu around? We require her assistance with something.”
“Of course, Commander,” the assistant said. “I’ll get her right away for you. Please hold.” They clicked a button and soft music started floating from the comm speakers.
Thorn nodded his head along to the beat.
Fox glared at him.
“What? It’s a catchy song.”
Fox glared at him harder.
The song ended. “Madam Nu here, what can I do for you, Commander? Do you require more book recommendations?”
“Right, no. I have a theoretical question,” Fox said.
Nu’s eyes narrowed. “I might have a theoretical answer. What is your question?”
Fox cleared his throat. “Right. Well. Theoretically, if a non-force-using person were to get very, very, very high. Could they, theoretically, develop Force powers? And more specifically, theoretically, could they develop Sith Force powers? And, how could you get them to return to their non-Force using ways? Theoretically.”
Nu’s eyes narrowed even further. “Theoretically, where are you right now?”
Fox winced. “Theoretically? The Chancellor’s Office.”
“I will be there in five minutes. Do not move,” Nu said before hanging up the device and leaving Thorn and Fox in silence.
“I don’t know if that went well or not,” Thorn said.
Fox buried his head in his hands and groaned.
It did not take General Nu five minutes to get to the Senate building. It took her two and a half minutes. Thorn did not want to know how many traffic laws she had to break to get here so fast. He did, however, want to know how she managed to do so without so much as a hair out of place. Seriously, the woman walked in as if she had gone on a leisurely afternoon stroll.
She stepped into the office. Her eyes went wide. She let out a gasp.
“Yeah, so, he’s super high right now and we don’t know how to stop the floaty bits.” Fox winced.
“Peace is a lie, there is only passion!” Palpatine wheezed. “Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me!” His voice cracked on the last line and his speech was very slurred.
A vase floated by them. General Nu let out another shocked gasp. And another. And another. It was like every bit of ugly decoration in this room was offending her personally.
Thorn patted her back. “I know he’s terrible at interior design, but not everyone can be good at it.”
General Nu closed her mouth and turned to them. Her eyes were hard. “Gentlemen, how much do you like the Chancellor? Please, be honest.”
“Honestly?” Thorn asked.
She nodded.
“He’s a bit of a dick.” He said.
“I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him,” Fox added.
“Terrible human being. Like, just the worst.”
“He used me as a footstool once.”
Sometimes he’ll throw those ugly decorations at us.”
“Calls us ‘clone’. Doesn’t use our names, ranks, or even numbers.”
“Unless other people are around.”
“He’s a creepy old man.”
“I don’t see how anyone likes him.”
“The war would probably end in an afternoon if he weren’t running it.”
General Nu nodded. “As I thought.”
Thorn blinked. Nu ignited her lightsaber and stabbed Palpatine through the heart.
The ugly, floating decorations dropped to the ground.
“Um…”
“Do we have to arrest you, sir?” Fox asked.
General Nu turned back towards them. “Gentlemen, I know you aren’t entirely knowledgeable on how the Force works. But believe me when I say, that no amount of drugs can turn a non-Force user into a sith lord. The amount of Sith artifacts in this room alone tells me that this is the Sith Count Dooku spoke of as running our government. He needed to be dealt with.”
“Erm, that’s great, sir. But he’s got a meeting in like five minutes with Mas Amedda and a karking lightsaber hole in his chest,” Fox said. “What are we going to do?”
General Nu’s brow furrowed and then she pulled out a comm device to dial someone. “Quinlan, your skills at covering up murders and hiding bodies, are those still sharp?”
“What the fuck?” Fox whispered.
Vos grinned. “Oh hell yeah. I’ll be over in a bit. Who’s the lucky bastard?”
“The chancellor of the republic,” General Nu said as if they weren’t talking about the assassination of one of the most powerful people in the galaxy.
“Right on. That man’s a dick.”
“He’s got a meeting in five minutes with Mas Amedda. We’ll need to stall him.”
Vos yawned and nodded. “Alright, give me a second. I’ll see who’s available to kidnap him.”
“Wait, what?” Fox cried.
“Don’t worry about it, Fox. He’s not going to get hurt. We’re just going to take him to a warehouse or something and keep him there for an hour or so while I figure out how to cover up a murder.”
“You sound way too casual about this for this to be your first time doing something like this,” Thorn pointed out.
Vos simply grinned at him. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to. Five minutes. I’ll be there. And then we can work on changing the Republic for good.”
“Who’s going to be the new Chancellor, though?” Fox asked.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I know a guy.”
*****
Bail Organa stepped up to the podium wearing black. All around him, the other senators were wearing colors of mourning from their planets. All looked sad and somber.
“Gentlebeings,” Organa started out. The cameras clicked to take pictures and record his speech.
Organa breathed in deeply. By his side was Queen Breha, who put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Gentlebeings, it is with great sadness that I announce our beloved Chancellor has passed. As you know, Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda was kidnapped last week by a group of terrorists. At the time, we suspected he was the main target. He was not. These terrorists were in fact targeting Chancellor—” He choked up a bit, and an errant tear slid down his cheek. “Chancellor Palpatine. A very dear friend of mine. A man who fought for the rights of all people. A man who fought for peace. A man whose legacy of love and light will outshine and outlast all of us.”
Another tear rolled down his cheek. “We are still seeking these terrorists. However, we have reason to believe they are connected to the increase in cartel activities that have popped up in tea houses all over the galaxy. There was evidence of these drugs left behind in the chancellor’s office. He died by poisoning. It was slipped into his food. In quantities and configurations that were designed not to be caught by detector droids. Furthermore, we have evidence to believe the trade federation is the one backing these drug dealers and the creation of new drugs that can slip into our societies without us even knowing. I want everyone to know Chancellor Palpatine personally assigned Marshall Commander Fox to look into this so we can protect and serve our citizens.”
Another tear rolled down his cheek. “Ah, sorry.” He wiped them away and stood up straight. “The Chancellor and I, we were very good friends. It’s true we did not see eye to eye on everything. But good friends, true friends, rarely do.” He gave a small smile to the crowd.
“To know that he is gone, it’s… it reminds me, and should remind all of us, how precious and fleeting life is.”
He sniffed and wiped another tear from his cheek. “I am honored to have been named the emergency acting chancellor per my good friend’s orders. I told him such a thing was unnecessary. I said he’d outlive us all.” He chuckled. “I suppose Sheeve always did know better than anyone how necessary a plan B was.”
Organa looked lovingly over to the portrait of Palpatine, draped with black flowers as people mourned.
He turned back to the crowd. “I may only be the emergency acting chancellor, but I will still do my best to honor my late friend’s wishes for this Republic. For that, I will be putting forth two acts, penned by Sheeve himself, for immediate consideration of the Senate. The first, is the Clone Rights Act. Sheeve and I spent many nights frustrated that these brave men,” he gestured to Commander Fox, who had been standing stone face next to him, “have no rights in the Republic despite the sacrifices they made. I intend to honor his wishes. He even got so far as to sign the bill for consideration.”
He took a deep breath. “Next, I will be starting talks with the Separatists tomorrow for peace.”
The crowd gasped.
“This war has shed enough blood.” Organa kissed his fingers and then brought them to Palpatine’s portrait. “My friend, you can rest now. I will achieve all you wanted to.”
The crowd went wild. The emotions were high. A mix of happy and sad. But through it all, there was hope.
“Sir,” Thorn said through the comm device in Fox’s ear. “General Unduli and Nu have finished emptying the Chancellor’s office of all Sith artifacts.”
Fox nodded and put his bucket on. “Good. I’ll walk the new chancellor there, then.”
“Yes, sir. Doesn’t anyone suspect a thing?”
He looked up to see Quinlan Vos sitting on a light post. He grinned and gave him two thumbs up.
“Not a goddamn thing.”
“Should we be worried about the fact that Vos apparently knows how to forge the Chancellor’s signature?”
Probably.
“Let’s deal with one issue at a time.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And Thorn?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Hound to slip all those tea bags into the Senators' offices. I want to make sure no other Sith are hiding in plain sight.”