Ask Coruscant To Whom the Dark Beckons

[Emil Ro]

Night on Coruscant.

The Office of the Supreme Chancellor had a weight to it now that Emil Ro had not felt when he first claimed it. He returned to the familiar chamber with the wide view of Coruscant's sky lanes and the Jedi Temple after almost forty-eight standard hours of around the clock monitoring of the situations on Denon and Firrerre. Senator Jin Vaisra was heading the New Republic's relief efforts on the latter world, while the fleet maintained the Iron Blockade above Denon undisturbed. And yet the cold he had felt the day he initiated it had not left him. If anything, it had grown even stronger.

Coruscant was balmy at this point in the planet's cycle. So Emil knew the chill he felt didn't come from the weather, he hadn't felt a breeze in over a month that had chilled him. Joost had suggested it was guilt — "It's normal," he had said. "Everyone in your position would feel guilt over the loss of civilian lives, even if the action was necessary." — but Emil knew it wasn't that. It was his anger. Somehow he knew it.

He had a lot to be angry at. The Sith had forced the New Republic's hand. Firrerre could not be met with no response. So, he responded and in a way that would ensure the New Republic was not subject to immediate invasion. First, the press attacked him for his inaction, then they attacked him for his action. And to make matters worse, the whole bloody Galactic Senate was involved now. He had expected a harsh response. Such was the nature of politics, after all. Then why was he so angry?

A light on his desk beeped. Communication from one his aids downstairs. He stormed over to it and punched the button with a jab of his finger. "Sir, Jedi Master Voran to see you. She's quite insistent."

Yes—she'd be insistent for two days. Two days Emil had refused to reply to her request for a meeting. After all, he had a situation to oversee. But now he found he could not keep away from her any longer. Besides, he had as many questions for her as she had for him. "Send her in," Emil barked.

There was a click as the aid closed the line. Emil clenched his fist and immediately the surrounding furniture slid away from him as if repelled by a powerful magnet. For a moment, he gawked at what he'd done. Then, suddenly, he was glad the Jedi Master was coming. Glad for the first time in days. @Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex was many things to many people. A friend, a teacher, a confidant. She stood at the head of the Order, and she strove to set an example for her family. That meant often setting her personal feelings aside for the good of the Jedi. She was a practice hand at shifting to what the situation required. She was the master of her emotions. Unfortunately, the frustration she felt was very real. Alex had spent two days arriving at the Senate Building, two days waiting, and two days being sent home. The Chancellor would see her…until he could not. The Morellian Councilor could have forced her way in but that would be a mistake.

Her goal to seal an alliance with the New Republic would not be well served by shoving her way into the Chancellor’s office. A piece of her wondered if she still sought that alliance. The actions on Denon were easy to understand but difficult to reckon. A political firestorm raged in the wake of the blockage. Alex could not concern herself with that part of the puzzle. Emil would fight his own political battles. Ones the Jedi were not prepared to wage. Her concerns were of a more spiritual nature.

She tapped her foot as she waited to be seen again. Finally, the aid returned to inform her Supreme Chancellor Ro would see her now. “Thank you.” Her voice was tightly controlled. The Force burned brightly in the Jedi Councilor. The doors slid open, and she walked into the dark room of the Chancellor. Her eyes swept across the office. There was no mistaking the pushed furniture…the chill in the air. Alex had been a Jedi for eighty years, she knew the signs of untrained hands. What had she done? She believed telling Emil of the Force would bring him closer to the Jedi not farther away. She could feel the anger in him, the guilt, the disappointment. He did not take his actions on Denon lightly, but he felt them justified. The violence of the Sith must be met with equal force.

The teacher it was then.

“Two days?” Alex smiled. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome.” She pulled her eyes to him. “I’m not here to yell or scream, ask you why you did it, rail against the political implications, or give you some speech on morality.” She stepped farther into the room. “I’m here to listen, if you’d like to talk. Not Jedi Councilor to Supreme Chancellor but Alex to Emil.” There was no mistaking the truth in her voice. She meant each word fully.

@Mockingjay

 

[Emil Ro]

She greeted him like an old friend though they had ever met once in their lives—and recently, at that. Emil wasn't sure how to process it. From youth, he had only ever been a politician. He didn't know where the job stopped and Emil Ro began. How much of him really was the mask, and how much of him was something else entirely? He couldn't answer that question now. Not when there were more important ones afoot.

He was silent for a long moment, allowing Alex's own question to linger in the air. It wasn't that he wanted to ignore her. He simply didn't know how to phrase what was on his mind. Everything inside of him was tumultuous, a storm of thoughts and emotions that were tangled together in a web of senselessness that had been woven in the wake of the Sith attack on Firrerre.

"The Sith had to be punished," Emil said at last. "The Free Worlds Alliance refuses to forge a military to defend themselves collectively, the Consortium is convinced the Sith threat is a product of our imaginations, and all the while they continue to plunder, pillage, and destroy. If this incursion on Firrerre went unanswered, they would think—rightly, I might add—that they can waltz onto whatever world they choose and the members of the Galactic Senate will do nothing but make a bunch of toothless statements in reply."

He thought specifically of the blitzkrieg of senseless babble coming out of the Senator of Lothal's office the past two days. Hot air, blown into the void, and yet what could Starros claim to have done except annoy the intergalactic community? Emil knew his actions would inspire rage, they were controversial, but something had to be done. And he was the only one with the willpower strong enough to do what was necessary.

"They will not stop with Firrerre," he continued. "When they've burned enough Alliance worlds, the New Republic will be next. And the Consortium isn't safe either. But I can do nothing for either of them. I can protect the Republic. Denon will be used as a staging ground for that invasion. I just plugged a leak that otherwise would have been exploited."

He'd said his part, but it was not the full truth. The full truth was that he had always expected to go to war with the Sith. Now or in the future, the Sith always went to war. Emil had accepted the job as Chancellor in large part because he was the only senator that believed this. Now, he would have to see where that premonition got him. @Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex stayed silent until Emil began to speak. She was in no rush, the Jedi Councilor had patience in spades. The Chancellor would speak when he was ready and eventually, he did. Her face remained a carefully composed mask while she listened. Alex meant what she said. There would be no harsh condemnation, no rush to judgment. The dead was done. Emil would deal with the repercussion and being dragged by the Jedi changed nothing. The lives they had chosen were lonely. Sometimes, you just needed a friendly ear.

“You’re right.” She let the words hang in the air. “The Sith will never stop. War would have come for the Republic whether it was sought or not. We have reached this tipping point because the Free Worlds failed to act, and your predecessor failed to act.” The Jedi had fought this war alone, on individual worlds, for too long. “We will be drowned in press releases as the Sith win victory after victory. No matter what they say, the Sith are of the Darkness and they will strangle freedom from the galaxy.” She left unsaid the Jedi would be exterminated again.

“War is filled with terrible choices. The loss of civilian lives breaks my heart, and it is a choice I could never make, but that is why I don’t lead an army. I cannot make those choices you will be forced to make.” Alex could feel the spiral of emotions in the Chancellor. The Force feeding his confusion. “I can feel your pain...I must warn you that pain can be used against you. The Force is a gift weighted with an equally great burden. If the Sith were to discover your Force sensitivity, if they were to feel what I feel now, they would seek to turn you. They would shove you down a path of suffering to twist the Light from you.” Emil could not become a Jedi. The Republic would collapse at the thought, but she could not allow Darkness to take root in the Chancellor. She could help him.

@Mockingjay

 

[Emil Ro]

When it came to subjects like the Force, Emil didn't understand a word Alex said. He had of course studied his fair share of galactic history over the years—he had to in order to be an effective politician—but he couldn't pretend to understand the intricacies of the Jedi or Sith religions. All he knew was that the Sith were conquerers. That made them an easy enemy to pit the public against.

"I don't know what to do with this power," he said after a moment. "You told me I had it and never told me what to do with it." At the inflection in his voice, the glass paneling of the nearby data-screens splintered, a long crack running up them like a fault. "I hate the Sith. I don't think that's a secret. How could they 'turn' me if I don't want anything to do with them?"

There was the real conundrum. He had power. Perhaps the first Chancellor in a century to have such power. The first to be able to apply it in a way that could heal the galaxy, or at the very least shield the New Republic from the inaction of its neighbors. But he couldn't do that the way he was now. Not when every stray thought crushed a mug or cracked transparisteel.

"There must be a way I can learn to control this," he said, grasping at the air is if the very idea of it escaped him. "Whatever this is. Couldn't I learn to be more like you? In control, instead of flinching every time I sneeze?" @Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

She owned her mistakes. Of all that made Alex, that one single trait ran through all she did. She faced the reality that perfection did not exist. She faced the mirror of her actions. Alex never pretended to be flawless and she any error head on. Telling Emil of his abilities without preamble had been a mistake. She saw that now. The Morellian Councilor had believed the Chancellor unshakeable. He had seemed rock steady…confident. This had shaken him beyond what she anticipated. Clean up your mess.

Her eyes were drawn to the data-screen as it cracked. Hate boiling in the Force, reaching for the Chancellor. “The galaxy can never know the truth of your gifts…they can never know I helped you. It would ruin anything we’ve built.” Alex sunk deeper into the Force. She had always been a teacher.

“I will teach you control, but you must understand the delicate balance we walk.” She slowly lowered her mental walls. He needed to see emotion was possible without losing control. “Jedi do not fear emotion, we do not hide from our fear, hurt, and anger. To do so would be to deny who we are but there is a difference between feeling an emotion and letting it rule you.” The pain of Max’s death rang in her heart. That pain was real…a part of her…but it was not all of her.

“Sith are not masters of their emotions but mastered by them. That anger you feel, that hate. It would so easily fuel powerful displays of the Force. The Darkness would feed and feed until it consumed you…the man you wish to be …gone. The Chancellor who sought to free the galaxy would no longer exist.” Alex was in control. She was always in control. Ever since Taris she maintained an iron grip on her mind. “The Darkside corrupts absolutely. There is no middle ground.” It was a harsh but undeniable truth. The Darkness always won.

@Mockingjay