I was impressed that Yaddle had seen right to the heart of Ventress's makeup under such difficult and dangerous conditions.
Which only demonstrated that I'd probably do well not to dismiss out of hand anything said by Jedi who measured their service to the Order in centuries rather than decades.
...
There was an uncomfortable shift by more than one Councilor after Yaddle confirmed my assertion.
Something which had me resisting the urge to roll my eyes, because I was beginning to believe was going to take the entire Council collectively catching Bulq in the act of deep-frying a newborn sentient for his own immediate consumption, before they'd be willing to entertain the idea he'd gone over to Palpatine.
Master Piell was the one to break the ensuing silence.
"Speaking of your latest clash with this Dark Jedi. In your opinion, would it be accurate to say her loss of self-control and apparent disregard for her safety represented a missed opportunity, Jedi Skywalker? Asajj Ventress is a mass-murderer and Jedi-killer, after all." His tone making it perfectly clear what kind of opportunity he thought it had been.
I considered several possible responses, then chose the simplest and most direct explanation. "I wasn't the only one recording everything that happened. The data-goggles of the officers leading the contingents of Neimoidian legionnaires were uploading everything the officers saw to a mainframe somewhere on Cato Neimoidia.
Killing Ventress on camera would have made it easy for an agent of the Trade Federation or the IG.BC to pick up one of her lightsabers, then murder Clovis and Dod with it.
Once that was done, both organizations could claim I was a Jedi assassin, and the proof of treason we recovered nothing but a smoke screen we concocted to divert attention from my villainous actions.
By the time they were done, Senators who were liabilities alive, would have been heroically deceased assets used to damage the Order's reputation further."
The unexpected nature of my reply seemed to catch the Lannik out for a moment. I guessed that he'd been prepared for a moral argument, or a plea of inability due to the constraints of our escape.
My cynical (and all too likely) supposition demonstrated a far better grasp of the political realities than Piell had been ready to believe a recently Knighted twenty year old possessed.
He opened his mouth as if to refute my reasoning, then seemed to think better of it. His one bright blue eye glittered like a chip of glacial ice as he fixed me with a balefure stare I refused to react to.
No one else seemed prepared to dispute the point either, so I pressed onward with "Masters, I told Senator Amidala I would convey her request for Jedi protection. Master Jinn recommended that I be the one to pass on her request, because he agreed with me as to the likelihood of the assassins making another attempt prior to the upcoming Senate session."
The uncomfortable silence had seemed like the perfect opportunity to move the discussion onward from Cato Neimoidia, and into a more relevant discourse concerning what had happened this evening right here on Coruscant.
Yet if I'd thought shifting the discussion to something more actionable would diminish the ill-defined tension which had been building for some time throughout the chamber, I was sadly mistaken.
Master Fisto actually leaned forward in his chair to crane his head and take in the view of his fellows as they'd stilled and fallen silent. When no one else seemed inclined to break that silence, he took a deep breath, looked directly at me, then explained.
"The reason Master Jinn agrees with you concerning the probability of another attempt on Senator Amidala's life is simple.
The head of the Senate's Pacifist Faction, Senator Kin Robb of Taris was killed in an aircar crash a few hours ago. The police are still investigating, but they believe it was a remotely detonated ion charge."
I was still absorbing this news, when Yoda broke his silence "Upon Senator Iblis's life, an attempt was made. A deadly spider, bit him many times, it did. Native to Naboo, it is."
My mind spun as I tried to determine why the C.I.S would want to kill the man championing the idea of Corellia sitting out the imminent conflict. Let alone doing so with a spider from Palpatine's homeworld on the same night they tried to kill Padme.
It didn't make sense, but I asked the relevant question instead of stating that obvious fact. "Is Senator Iblis expected to recover?"
"One bite from a nightspider is generally considered fatal for a man or Gungan weighing a hundred kilos. Senator Iblis was bitten six times, and two of the bites were immediately adjacent to major blood vessels.
The only reason he isn't already dead is a cybernetic implant designed to isolate and flush poisons from his system. He's in a stasis-pod, but his prognosis is bleak." Master Windu responded after a glance Yoda's way I couldn't glean the reason for.
There was a big part of me that wanted to roll up my sleeves and get to work unraveling a mystery which could have an enormous impact on the fate of the galaxy. Against that, I weighed the likelihood of Padme getting assassinated if I didn't see to her safety personally.
"I'm a Guardian, not a Sentinel. I might be able to figure out what's going on, but do I trust anyone else to keep Padme among the living?" It was a question I silently asked myself more than once, but I wasn't any more thrilled with the tenth answer than I had been with the first.
"Did anyone think to send a messenger to the Brotherhood of Cognizance on Naboo? The monks have been gathering knowledge concerning their planet for centuries, but they're not exactly modernists.
I doubt that any part of what they've collected is on the planetary holo-net, but if anyone in the galaxy has recorded a cure for the venom of the nightspider, it's probably them" I responded after a few seconds to consider the problem.
The glances several of the assembled Jedi Masters shared told me no, no one here had any idea what I was talking about. It was Master Mundi who asked the obvious question of me, however.
"I don't believe any of us were aware such an organization existed, Jedi Skywalker. Would you care to explain how you learned of them? I was given to understand you devoted most of your time to the honing of Force-techniques, and your knowledge of the lightsaber."
It was a reasonable question, and I had just the bit of half-truth to answer with. "Master Dark Woman and I have been all over the Chommell Sector on various missions. Most of the inhabited planets are pleasant locales, whose peoples are generally uninfected by the social ills so common to 'civilized' societies.
I wouldn't mind becoming the Sector's Watchman in a few decades, so I do a fair bit of reading before bed the two nights of the week I actually sleep."
Which was sort of true, as far as it went. I was a capable speed-reader, so I often requested information from the Archives which had nothing to do with my core interests.
Just in case someone was prevailing upon Master Nu to keep watch on what I was reading since the recent expansion of my access.
The thought of Master Piell trying to find a sinister connection between the writings of Master Arca Jeth concerning the Great Droid Rebellion, and centuries old accounts of Explorer Corps missions into Wild Space was enough to warm my heart.
Not all that engaged with the current discussion, I wasn't surprised to see it was Master Tiin who rose and glided from the chamber to set someone to seeing whether or not the monks of Naboo might know how to save Corellia's Senator.
I was rather hoping we could pull him through, because Garm Bel Iblis wasn't the kind of man to shrug off an assassination attempt. He was going to want blood, and with luck, we might be able to persuade him to settle for C.I.S vitae.
The thought of the fruits of Corellian industry being added to what Kuat and the Kamino affiliates were cooking up filled me with the tiniest bit of hope I wouldn't end up having to watch everyone in this building murdered by Anzat-trained Morgukai clones, or cortosis sheathed battle-droids.
"Talking Padme out of opposing the Military Creation Act is going to be a nightmare. She's not going to just take my word for the fact the C.I.S parliament has absolutely no authority over Bulq and the mega-corporation reps spoiling for this war."
My silent musing illustrated multiple problems, but did nothing to provide any actual solutions.
No one was proffering any additional questions, so before they could simply dismiss me, I decided to ask "Master Windu, who was the Anzat responsible for the murder of the Senate Guards, the attempt upon Senator Amidala's life, and the attack upon myself?"
Instantly, everyone except Yoda and Yaddle adopted an impassively detached demeanor.
The Grandmaster and his countrywoman's ears were laid back flat, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought what I just felt was the briefest flash of honest to Ashla anger flicker through the ancient Jedi Master's eyes.
One glance from Yoda, and I knew that Mace wasn't going to be answering anything.
The room was so quiet, I could hear individual Councilors breathing as everyone waited to take their cue from Yoda. I did everything I could to remain calm and composed myself, but it was exactly this sort of secretive control-freak behavior which had bitten the Order in the ass the first time around, and I didn't have much patience with it.
Eventually, Yoda decided to go for the deflection. "Willing to safeguard the Senator, you are?" His tone, as usual, giving nothing of his thinking away.
Looking the venerable Jedi in the eye, I answered his question with a question in true Jedi fashion. "It's the same assassin responsible for the murder of Senator Greyshade, isn't it, Master Yoda?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the minute widening of Master Mundi's eyes in response to my question. That was really all the confirmation I needed, but I remained silent in the hopes that Yoda would give me something more.
For once, I could actually tell what the wise and canny old Jedi was thinking. "He's trying to work out whether I'm just making an assumption because both incidents involve extreme mind-control, or if I have insider foreknowledge in this case."
Eventually, the wizened Jedi Master hrrmmph'd, then answered "Misled by Sith lies, he was. The spread of these lies, tried to prevent it, we did."
I knew there was worse to come, because I'd begun using the Force to sharpen my senses just as he began speaking, so I heard the otherwise nearly silent yet irregular hitch in Windu's breathing.
Literally everyone aside from Yoda and Windu were straining to hear every syllable. Which was all the confirmation I needed to know some sort of operation had spiraled out of control.
Rising from his seat suddenly, the Grandmaster made a negating motion to the gathered Council, then began hobbling toward the door. He was nearly even with my own position, before he looked up at me, then pointed to the door leading from the chamber with the tip of his gimmer-stick.
I really had no idea what the ancient Jedi Master was playing at, but apparently I wasn't going to find out anything more here, so I did the only thing I could, and followed.
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