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The Invisible Hand crashes into Coruscant at 13:42.
Technically, it lands.
That is the word the Republic Navy uses in its preliminary statement, because Supreme Chancellor survives after Jedi pilots fling burning Separatist flagship at the capital lacks the desired tone of military control.
Palpatine stands beneath the emergency awning outside the ruined cruiser and watches fire crews drown the wreckage in suppressant foam.
Smoke stains the sky. Broken hull plating litters the industrial landing strip. The remains of the command tower lean toward the city, still hot enough to distort the air around them.
Anakin Skywalker stands several meters away, speaking urgently with a medical officer. His face is streaked with soot. His robes are torn. Dooku’s lightsaber hangs from his belt beside his own.
Count Dooku is dead.
Darth Tyranus is dead.
Anakin had obeyed.
Palpatine should feel satisfaction.
Instead, all he can see is the sky.
Republic fighters cut across it in disciplined formations, hunting the last Separatist stragglers away from the planetary defense perimeter. Damaged cruisers limp toward repair stations while rescue craft sweep through fields of debris.
The battle is still happening.
The outcome is no longer in question.
The Confederacy came to Coruscant with the largest invasion fleet ever assembled.
It's leaving in pieces.
“Chancellor.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi approaches with his usual infuriating composure, though blood runs from a cut along his forehead and one arm is held close to his ribs. Not that Palpatine cares. He'd rather this particular Jedi die right now.
“The medical personnel insist on examining you.”
“I am unharmed, Master Kenobi.”
“You were kidnapped, restrained aboard a hostile flagship, and present during its uncontrolled descent through Coruscant’s atmosphere.”
“Controlled descent,” Anakin calls from several meters away.
Kenobi looks at the burning ship.
“Of course.”
Palpatine smiles.
It is the correct smile. Tired, relieved, warm with gratitude. The grandfather restored safely to the Republic by two heroic Jedi Knights.
Around them, cameras begin gathering behind the Guard perimeter.
He can practically hear the official story forming.
A daring rescue.
A glorious victory.
A failed Separatist assault repelled by the courage of the Republic.
Not a catastrophe barely prevented by planning Palpatine never authorized.
Not a defense network operating too quickly for him to interfere.
Not Fox.
A Guard officer approaches through the security cordon carrying a black datapad. The stylized vulptex of the Office of the Chief of Defense glows across its back, sharp red lines forming a narrow-faced fox curled around the Republic star.
Palpatine’s attention catches on the sigil.
It appears everywhere now.
Military orders.
Fleet deployments.
Strategic assessments.
Emergency appropriations.
Every document issued from the Sentinel bears the vulptex, watching from the corner with geometric eyes.
The officer salutes.
“Chancellor. Chief Fox requests confirmation that you are medically stable before relocation.”
Palpatine keeps his smile in place.
“Please inform the Chief that I am well, thanks to the bravery of Generals Kenobi and Skywalker.”
The officer does not move.
“He requires confirmation from a medic.”
Anakin glances over, visibly amused.
Palpatine’s smile tightens by an amount no camera will detect.
“I will submit to an examination.”
“Yes, Chancellor.”
The officer steps aside and begins speaking into his comm.
No hesitation.
No deference beyond regulation.
Fox’s officers have become confident in the authority attached to the vulptex.
That confidence will become a problem.
No.
It is already a problem.
The emergency press conference begins 43 minutes later.
Palpatine stands before the ruined skyline with Anakin and Obi-Wan positioned behind him. The image is deliberate. The Chancellor rescued. The Jedi victorious. The Republic unbroken.
Dozens of microphones angle toward him.
“My fellow citizens,” Palpatine begins, “today, the Confederacy attempted to strike at the heart of our democracy.”
His voice carries across the landing platform and into trillions of homes.
“They believed Coruscant unprepared. They believed our people frightened. They believed our defenders incapable of meeting such an assault.”
Behind the cameras, Guard transports move through the smoke.
“They were mistaken.”
Reporters murmur.
Palpatine allows pride to enter his expression.
“This glorious Republic victory belongs to every pilot, soldier, emergency worker, and civilian who refused to yield. It belongs to Generals Kenobi and Skywalker, whose extraordinary courage secured my rescue and ended the threat posed by Count Dooku.”
Anakin shifts slightly at the name.
Palpatine notices.
He continues.
“It also belongs to Chief of Defense Fox, whose defensive planning allowed Coruscant’s batteries and fleets to respond with unmatched speed.”
There.
The necessary praise.
Public recognition costs nothing aside from a rancid taste in his mouth.
For now.
“The Chief’s foresight saved countless lives. The Republic owes him and the brave men and women of the Coruscant Guard its profound gratitude.”
The words taste bitter.
Palpatine smiles through them.
Questions erupt as soon as he finishes.
“Chancellor, did the Confederacy intend to occupy Coruscant?”
“How did Grievous penetrate the defensive perimeter?”
“Can you confirm Dooku is dead?”
“Will the amendment vote in two days be postponed?”
Palpatine turns toward the final reporter.
“The Senate has endured a direct assault. Surely our first responsibility must be recovery and security.”
The reporter checks her datapad.
“Speaker Tovaan’s office says emergency continuity procedures are active and the vote will proceed at its previously scheduled time.”
Of course it will.
Palpatine keeps his expression calm.
“The Senate must determine its own schedule.”
“Do you support proceeding with the Clone Rights Amendment vote this week?”
Cameras tighten on him.
He spent months obstructing the amendment through committees, private threats, procedural delays, and carefully encouraged opposition.
Chuchi and her little posse kept dragging it back.
Now the invasion should have provided the perfect reason to suspend the session. Damaged infrastructure. Missing senators. Military emergency. The kidnapping of the Chancellor.
Fox planned for that too.
The Senate’s emergency chamber is operational beneath the Dome.
Guard transports have already collected displaced senators.
Medical accommodations are prepared.
Secure remote voting has been authorized under a continuity statute Palpatine had forgotten existed.
The amendment vote remains scheduled in stone.
“I have always supported a thoughtful examination of the legal status of those who defend our Republic,” Palpatine says.
It answers nothing.
The reporters know it.
Before they can press him, the Guard officer announces the end of the briefing and directs Palpatine toward the waiting transport.
The vulptex flashes on every security display as the route locks around him.
Palpatine dismisses his aides the moment the doors to his private office close.
The Senate building trembles faintly beneath another distant impact. Coruscant’s batteries are still eliminating disabled Separatist ships before they can fall into inhabited districts.
Mas Amedda stands near the windows, reviewing preliminary losses.
“How severe?” Palpatine asks.
“The Republic fleet suffered significant damage.”
“The Confederacy.”
Amedda hesitates.
Palpatine turns toward him.
“71 percent of committed capital vessels are destroyed, captured, disabled, or unaccounted for.”
For a moment, Palpatine believes he has misheard.
“71.”
“Yes, Chancellor.”
“And the landing forces?”
“84 percent losses.”
The number is absurd.
The invasion was meant to terrify the capital, shatter public confidence, and produce a dramatic rescue that would lift Anakin higher while demonstrating that the Republic remained dependent upon Palpatine’s leadership.
Grievous was supposed to withdraw with most of his fleet intact.
Instead, the Confederacy lost enough ships to cripple several sectors.
“Republic losses?”
“Currently estimated at 16 percent of defensive vessels. Civilian casualties remain below projections.”
“Whose projections?”
Amedda sends the report to Palpatine’s desk.
The first page appears.
The red vulptex sits in the upper corner.
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF DEFENSE
CORUSCANT INVASION RESPONSE
PRELIMINARY AFTER-ACTION ASSESSMENT
Palpatine does not touch it.
“CC-1010’s.”
“Yes.”
Amedda enlarges the summary.
The Chief of Defense anticipated 12 likely invasion corridors. It prepositioned ammunition and reserve pilots around nine. It placed Guard officers in direct control of the planetary grid to prevent conflicting naval orders. Civil defense cells had been quietly supplied with emergency communications and evacuation plans.
Even the armed civilian response had been anticipated.
Not the illegal weapons specifically, though the thing’s report includes an irritating note stating that enforcement against unregistered civilian arms should be delayed until the invasion ends.
Every page bears the vulptex.
Every successful defense points back toward it.
Dooku warned him.
Fox is reorganizing the war.
Fox is converting every battle into a system.
Fox’s authority exists because Republic law recognizes it, not merely because Palpatine allows it.
At the time, Palpatine dismissed the concerns as fear from an apprentice who saw a rival in every competent commander. Even if that commander is a living flesh droid meant to be incapable of disobeying.
Tyrannus had been correct.
Palpatine looks toward Coruscant through the office windows.
The city burns in several districts, but it has not broken.
Its citizens fought.
Its batteries held.
Its government continues operating.
The amendment vote will proceed.
The Republic is becoming stronger when it should be exhausted.
The carefully maintained stalemate is collapsing.
The war was designed to continue until the Jedi were scattered, the Senate desperate, and the population willing to accept transformation in exchange for safety.
Now Dooku is dead.
The Confederacy’s largest fleet is shattered.
Resistance doctrine spreads across occupied systems.
Separatist supply networks are failing faster than Grievous can replace them.
If the Republic continues at this pace, it may win.
Actually win.
Not through manufactured surrender after Order 66.
Not under the banner of a new Empire.
It may defeat the Confederacy while the Senate still possesses enough confidence to reclaim emergency powers and while clone officers remain loyal to that stupid clone instead of their hidden commands.
The Clone Rights Amendment makes the danger worse.
Once the clones are legally recognized as people, every order issued through the control chips becomes more difficult to conceal afterward. CC-1010 already knows too much about contingency protocols. Its medical officers are examining implant records. Its investigators have begun tracing Kaminoan accounts.
Palpatine’s gaze lowers to the vulptex on the report.
The stylized creature seems almost amused.
A narrow face.
Sharp ears.
A curled tail encircling the Republic star as though the office has already claimed it.
CC-1010 was supposed to be a tool.
A capable administrator who would reduce military waste, keep clone resentment contained, and centralize enough authority to make the eventual transition simple.
Instead, the thing has built a second government inside the first.
Fleets answer to it.
The Guard protects it.
Senators trust its reports.
The clones see the thing as proof that they can become more than property.
Worse, the public now knows its chosen name.
Palpatine touches the report and scrolls through the casualty projections.
At the current rate of Confederacy collapse, the Republic could force an end to the war within a year.
Possibly less.
The Empire is not ready.
Order 66 is not ready.
Anakin is not ready.
The amendment vote is days away.
Palpatine looks once more at the vulptex.
Dooku had seen the writing on the wall.
Palpatine sees it now.
CC-1010 is winning the war too quickly.
Which means CC-1010 must go.