Chapter Thirty-One
The quiet of hyperspace travel was at once strange and comforting.
Taylor sat in the Atlas’ captain’s seat. The bridge--if the term could even be used--wasn’t all that impressive. A few stations, currently occupied by droids, and a larger seat in the centre that afforded her a nice view of the swirling starscape past the viewport.
She was alone, only the occasional hum of servos from her droids or the beep of a machine filling the silence. It was nice.
She had her insects inspect the rest of the Atlas while she leaned back into the captain’s chair. Skarsk Nek was fiddling with the handle of a knife in the workshop at the rear. The ttwo Falleen members of her crew were sleeping in their respective bunks. HK-47 and Tattletale were playing a game similar to chess with little holographic characters in the mess hall.
All was well. At least for now.
Taylor was currently studying.
Antar Four. The world was a nice enough place from the looks of it. The native inhabitants, the Gotal, seemed like hardy people. A bit shorter on average than humans, with large horns on their heads and rough fur on their bodies. They had a strange sensitivity to electronics that Taylor had made note of before moving on.
As interesting as the planet and the people on it were, she wasn’t studying them for their culture and history.
Well, there was some study in that direction. After all, a lot of issues could be traced back to a source. Sometimes that meant a cultural aversion to something, or a new way of seeing things, or maybe just a historic grudge.
Mostly, she was looking for the root of the current issue with the Separatists on the planet.
A group of Gotal had been labelled as terrorists, and Taylor couldn’t entirely disagree with the label. They had bombed a building, killing a few people in the act and injuring more. Some of those had been civilians. It wasn’t a good look.
Every news report--translated through HK-47’s software--painted them as out of control rebels though.
In her experience as a villain, people didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to bomb a building. There had to be a root cause, a reason for people to take up arms.
She stopped reading news reports and started skimming them. For the most part, the repeated the same message over and over, with slightly different wording and perhaps a different angle to things.
The interviews on the scene caught her attention though. Most were holorecordings of politicians decrying the bombing as a terrible crime and calling for assistance to put down the rebels and... and she’d heard it all before.
The interviews with civilians on the scene were a little more interesting.
“It’s a shame that it came to this,” a young gotal man said. He was shaking his head in a very human-like way. “I’m not one of those Separatists, but I agree that the Republic could be handling things better.”
Taylor paused after letting that video end. Something niggled at her. The Republic could handle something better. That sounded a lot like a cause.
She went back over the news reports. There were a lot of fingers pointed at the gotal terrorists, but no one spoke of a reason for their attack, a cause.
Taylor followed her hunch and started to look further back. An organization like that would take some time to form. They’d need a cause to rally around, and if they really were tied to the Seperatist movement (which Dooku’s involvement supported) then they were being offered something, or at least wanted something from the wider movement.
It took her nearly half an hour of nearly aimless searching to stumble onto something.
The senator representing the Antar system was new. A gotal local that had been in politics for a while. There were a few articles saying that the politician was unpopular with the people. He had some ties with a few manufacturing firms that wanted to exploit Antar Five. A career politician with years of baby-kissing and a few postings across the system to back him up. Nothing too special. But it seemed that as soon as he was in the senate he instituted two changes that weren’t popular.
First, an increase in the taxation rate that applied to several companies in the system. Notably, it only applied to native companies, not those that came from out-system. Or rather, those that came from out-system received a break that evened it out for them that wasn’t available to local companies.
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Then he sold the exploitation rights to Antar Five to a Corporate Alliance mining group.
Taylor hummed to herself as she looked up the Corporate Alliance. There was a lot of information there. Too much.
She backed out, and after pausing, followed another hunch and looked into the files that Dooku had sent for information about the Corporate Alliance.
“That... doesn’t make sense,” Taylor said.
Everything she saw painted the Corporate Alliance as an ally to the Separatist Movement. One that might not have been declaring its support aloud, but still a part of it.
So, the instigating factor behind the rebellion and the start of a smaller separate movement on Antar Four was two fold. Increased taxation and likely the fall of a few local companies, and the sale of their resources to outsiders.
But then, why would the terrorists ally themselves with the very same outsiders that were exploiting them?
She found her answer after some more digging.
It was a coincidence, really. She noticed a name twice, and decided to dig into it.
Kaskai Thobooa was a member of the Gotal Assembly for Separation, a newer political faction that was becoming popular on Antar Four. Kaskai also worked with the Corporate Alliance for a few years.
Taylor grinned when she found the final link.
The Corporate Alliance didn’t only want to exploit Antar Five, they wanted to exploit the people of Antar Four too. Current Republic laws complicated that, likely for good reason. They were supporting the Gotal Assembly for Separation while promising to better support local businesses.
In an economy that was taking a turn for the worse, that kind of support was probably worth a whole lot.
Meanwhile, the Republic were doing nothing to assist. How could they, when the Gotal representative to the Republic was the cause of several of the root issues that the people of Antar four had to deal with?
“Query: Have you concluded your research?”
“I think so, yeah,” Taylor said. She stretched her legs and her one arm out until they shook. “I think this whole thing was started by one person being a greedy ass. Which sounds pretty typical, all things considered.”
“Affirmation: The greed of organics is often their downfall, both on the personal and societal levels.”
Taylor sniffed. “You’re not so free of greed yourself, HK.”
“Objection: I am not greedy, master. I am merely cognizant of a need that cannot be fulfilled.”
“A need for endless violence?” Taylor asked.
“Chastisement: Do not make a habit of stating the obvious, it is distasteful.” HK-47 moved closer to the viewport, then turned to her. “Query: Have you discovered a solution to our newest problem?”
“More or less,” Taylor said. “The problem’s the senator. He needs to be voted out, ideally. In the best case, someone more sensible will take him place. But...” she glanced at her datapad and tapped it a few times. “The next election isn’t for another five years.”
“Conclusion: We will thus need to rely on more amusing methods to solve our problem.”
“I guess so.” Taylor sat up straighter. “Can you check this report? It’s one of the last ones about Antar Four.”
She turned the datapad around so that HK-47 could read it. The droid scanned the page, then leaned back up. “Statement: Jedi are coming to Antar Four.”
“Yeah, that’s what they said. It looks like they’re going to tackle this... Roshu Sune group head on? Is that how it’s pronounced?” the datapad had translated everything to English, though she did question the quality of the translation in place. Proper nouns were often left untranslated though.
“Affirmation: Close enough Master. Statement: Six jedi will make for a fine challenge, master.”
“A challenge, right,” Taylor said. “Well, I’m not heading there for a fight. Dooku wants the problem solved. I’m sure we can negotiate things so that we find a more diplomatic solution to this mess.”
“Prevarication: Yes Master, I’m certain that if you put your mind to it, we will find a peaceful solution to this issue.”
Taylor eyed the droid, but its unmoving face gave nothing away.
She shook her head and stood. “Come on, I’m tired of pouring over news reports. I've got that lightsaber thing. Jedi use those, right? You might as well show me how it works.”