AN: No, I did not write this with SpaceCowboy’s permission, but now he gave his blessing. I’ve added to the UNSC fleet, and gave a slight explanation for the fleet being so big in the timeline. I decided to add more ship classes that are canon in the Halo universe to the fleet. Regarding the Canon ships, they’ve obviously been outfitted with stronger shields and such. Also, the Trafalgar Class is now the Punic Class. If anyone wants to make art for the story so I can use it as a cover, just PM me.

0800 Hours, 15:3:20 (GrS), Coruscant, Senate Rotunda, Grand Convocation Chamber

“This is not a matter of philosophy, more troops are needed. The Republic cannot afford to lose more ground to the Separatist onslaught!” Senator Gume Saam shouted.

“Our Jedi Generals have informed the Senate that their soldiers still perform with valor in the field of battle. What we do need is more responsibility! Need I remind you that the Republic is still operating in deep debt? This war only continues to drain the Republic of resources. We are on the verge of bankruptcy! How much longer must this war drag on?” Bail Organa argued.

“Bankruptcy does not have to be a problem my friends. If Senator Saam’s bill to open new lines of credit is allowed to be passed, we will gain access to the necessary funds to combat the Separatists,” the shrewd, business oriented, Neimoidian Senator Lott Dod insisted.

“Wouldn’t this bill essentially deregulate the banking industry?” Mon Mothma pointed out.

“A small price to pay to stay in the war, is it not?” The Kaminoan, Halle Burtoni, enquired.

Arguments between senators spreaded throughout the chamber like wildfire, stemming from the debate over the Financial Reform Bill.

“Order! There will be order in this Senate!” Mas Amedda echoed throughout the gargantuan Senate building, as he struck his staff into the floor of the Chancellor’s podium several times.

The Senate slowly began to fall silent as Senator Amidala seized her chance to gain the spotlight by pushing her pod closer to the center of the action.

“Members of the Senate, can you listen to yourselves for just one moment? More funding, more clones, and more importantly, more war! Forget fiscal responsibility, what about moral responsibility? Even emerging victorious, the debt from this war will take decades to recover from! I believe this war has gone on long enough. By expanding our military, we will accept that peace cannot be mediated with the Separatists. The Terrans will certainly aid them, and this war will strain us even more.”

Senator Sam Hill came to the center in order to challenge her. “Senator Amidala, are you suggesting we surrender to the Separatists?”

“Of course not, but negotiation might be a better course of action.”

“You can’t negotiate with those animals! Keep the war going, vote now!” Senator Mot-Not Rab shouted aloud.

Chants supporting his statement boomed throughout the room.

“Members of the Senate, I suggest we table any emergency bill until it is determined whether or not deregulation is the right course of action,” Bail Organa suggested.

After some murmuring amongst the Senate without any objections, Mas Amedda declared, “It is decided then. We shall hold a vote on this matter. A week from now, you will vote for, or against, this bill deregulating the banks. Choose wisely, I call this Senate adjourned!”

For Sidious, what within the next week meant was whenever Operation Star Fist was over.

The senators returned to their stages. The Anoco Incident and the Terran Embassy debacle was still fresh in everyone’s mind, despite it being 3 months prior. Though deregulating the banks could spell disaster for the Republic economy and many knew the state of despair the Republic was in regarding their ever-increasing debt, it was a small price to pay for an end to the war.

The war was increasingly unpopular. Few actually wanted for it to be dragged on, but everyone had their own ideas on how to end it.

Sentient Rights Activists, spurred on by comments from the UEG ambassador, had also swayed a small portion of the Republic into outright opposition of the Clone Army. Despite this, the average Republic citizen was still willing to give up everything they had for the Republic war effort.

However, the fact that the Terrans could soon be called into the war against the Republic could both sway some senators away from their pacifistic ideals or make some more inclined for a peaceful, diplomatic solution.

It was a problem that Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo was all too familiar with.

Padmé strode alongside her husband, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano.

“Anakin, you must ask the Jedi Council to speak to Chancellor Palpatine—”

“That isn’t a part of my role, Padmé,” Anakin explained.

“But Master, aren’t we peacekeepers? Isn’t part of keeping the peace voicing our opinions to advise the Chancellor?” Ahsoka asked him. “And besides, didn’t you get us into this mess when you went looking for that droid rustbucket?”

He cleared his throat to get Padmé’s attention. “I think it would be best if you could teach my Padawan a thing or two about politics.”

“After today’s debate, I hope she learned a great deal,” Padmé responded.

“Truth be told, I didn’t understand any of it. All they argued about was bank deregulation, interest rates, but almost nothing discussed about why we’re fighting this war.” Ahsoka sighed.

“Well, the Separatists think the Republic is corrupt, which is a lie, and now the Terrans want to help the Separatists continue the war, but it’s our job to restore order,” Anakin clarified.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“If that’s truly what you believe, then maybe speaking to the Chancellor really isn’t your role. Come with me, Ahsoka,” Padmé scoffed as she walked off with Anakin’s padawan.

1200 Hours, 15:3:20 (GrS), Hyperspace, Venator-Class Star Destroyer Intrepid, ETA: 2 Days

Aayla strode down one of the long hallways of her flagship. The Intrepid was on her maiden voyage, to a new galaxy no less. The ship was assigned to her after she had lost the Liberty over Quell, while Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin had selected it as his flagship for the entire operation.

Tarkin had just been transferred out of his position commanding the Carrion Spike after having been personally sponsored by Chancellor Palpatine to lead this campaign. Aayla doubted the wisdom of his appointment, but it was out of line for her to question it.

Aayla peered out of a viewing port. It was odd. Instead of the blue hue of warped light, it was nearly pitch black, with streaks of light few and far between. She figured it was because they were halfway between galaxies.

Some months ago, a spacetime distortion occurred, causing the distance between the home galaxy and the Milky Way to be vastly shortened when traveling through FTL, be it in hyperspace or in the Terran’s mysterious slipspace.

She would be among the first beings from her galaxy to travel to another and possibly live to tell the tale. The various obstacles preventing safe and efficient hyperspace travel outside of the galaxy had all miraculously disappeared. The circumferential hyperspace barrier surrounding the galaxy had vanished, opening up the intergalactic void.

After sending thousands of probes across the galaxy in search of a missing Separatist warship presumed to be carrying something important (although it turned out to be a fluke, the Jedi Council had demanded it to be found), eventually one probe that was missing transmitted its location. Its coordinates shocked the Jedi and the Republic.

It was in a separate galaxy. After the probe sent an encrypted message documenting its navigational history, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker had been sent to investigate, and the rest was history.

This anomaly was certainly a mystery caused by the Force, but its status as a blessing or a curse still remained shrouded in darkness. She could only wonder what this ‘Milky Way’ held.

For now, all it would yield is death. She was coming to this galaxy as a warrior. Perhaps she would return as a peacekeeper when it was all over.

She continued to the cramped crew compartment, housing the trooper barracks. She still could never wrap her head around how small the quarters were; 4x10 rooms with a bed and a small overhead compartment for the little personal belongings clones were allowed to have made even her claustrophobic.

As she made her way to her destination, clones nodded their heads or saluted her.

She replied in kind but she still thought it was odd for her to do; military life would never be familiar to her.

She came upon one of the lounges in the more spacious recreational areas and found Commander Bly sitting at a table watching some holonews channel with an appalled look plastered on his face.

Aayla was surprised that they were even receiving a signal, being this far out from the Core—the galaxy even. As she sat down next to Bly, she took her chance to steal a glance at the screen before Bly could engage in conversation, though it seemed he was giving most of his attention to the screen anyway.

Two news anchors, a Bothan male and a Togruta female, were debating about the upcoming war with the Terrans. Everyone in the Senate liked to pretend everything was just fine and that they could and would negotiate with the Terrans.

It was all a façade, everyone knew it only a matter of time before the Republic would be engulfed in a two front war, they just had kept it very hush-hush regarding when and where it would finally break out.

“We all know that the UNSC will be lucky to survive a year, let alone a few months, at war with the Republic. They use outdated technology for Force’s sake! On top of that, we also have millions of worlds and star systems at our disposal!” the Bothan argued, chuckling all the while.

The Togruta shook her head. “I’m going to have to disagree with that. We saw what they are capable of, as demonstrated by the Anoco Incident, and from what we know of the ‘Terran-Covenant War,’ they have faced enemies far worse than us. Just because their technology might not be as flashy as ours does not mean it is any weaker. From the small amount of information we’ve obtained, it appears that most of their worlds are highly industrialized and well-defended. We all obviously know that the Republic is more than a match for them, after all, we have half of a galaxy at our disposal, and the Terrans are just upstarts, but the Terrans are still concentrated in several dozen key systems and worlds. The UNSC is extraordinarily large for the size of the UEG. It may be small in overall size but I fear that it is a literal fortress. I’m very skeptical on whether or not the Grand Army of the Republic is up to this task, but overall I think we will take a great many casualties in defeating them...”

“If we can even beat them...” Bly said solemnly as he turned his attention to her.

“Hey Commander,” Aayla said as the screen fizzled out, a sign that they were getting farther away from the source. “What are your thoughts on all this?” she asked.

Even though she knew she could simply just read his mind, she found using her powers like that to be a perversion.

“This whole ordeal will put a crimp in our entire kriffing day, to put it bluntly,” Bly replied with the precision of a sonic hammer. He wasn’t entirely pleased that his rest had been interrupted by some boarding action drill ordered by Tarkin himself. “But orders are orders. What about you?”

“The same, I'm afraid.” She woefully stared at the dull hue of the recreational room’s floor.

The clone let out a grunt as he reclined far back in his seat as a couple of other clones took a seat at one of the couches in the room.

He swiftly leaned forward, as if coming to a revelation. “If I’m anything of a good guesser, the Jedi have about the same clue as I, or any other grunt for that matter, does about winning this war.”

Her lekku twitched as she nodded. She took great offense when people said that clones were nothing more than tools to be used as such. They generally seemed to always be the ones who knew just as much as anyone, if not more. Though they would rarely divulge it to you.

“What part are you going to play in this upcoming battle?“ He paused as he cracked his knuckles. “I wasn't assigned directly to you this time.”

“My duty will be to lead the space battle; Shaak Ti's will be to assist the battle on the ground alongside you, and Jax—”

“Will be assigned to be the ass that he is. I don’t know how the Council thought it would be a good idea to give him a promotion,” Bly interjected.

She couldn't help but smirk at that.

“He will be assigned to lead the attack on the UNSC's space platform,” she finished.

After a moment of awkward silence, the two began to strike up a friendly conversation about the state of the CIS. Suddenly, two clones near them began to play loud banging music from a personal data console.

She had heard that awful noise before from somewhere but she couldn’t quite...

“Ah, flip music,” Bly exclaimed, as if reading her mind like a Jedi. “I love that. I’d give up a week’s worth of chow just to get a hold of some more.”

The Terrans, even though they excluded themselves for the most part, had been very successful in exporting their media and culture to the galaxy at large. It was becoming a common sight to see trinkets of Terran culture on Coruscant, especially their supposedly interesting and catchy music. It had spread like a fire in dry brush throughout the ranks of the clones and Aayla could’ve sworn she had seen people walking around wearing blue jeans in the street the last time she had been recalled to the Jedi Temple.

“I find it quite ironic that we are about to go to war,” Aayla said, dismayed.

“Whatever you say, General.” Bly agreed.