After a brief discussion, Grievous waved his hand. Politics, he decided, was exactly as he remembered… a tedious mess.
"You handle these political matters," he said to Dooku. "I'll focus on managing the army."
Dooku nodded. "Alright. I'll handle it."
With a wave goodbye, Dooku boarded his shuttle and set course for Coruscant.
After Dooku left, Grievous turned to his adjutant. "Martial law for the entire army. Prepare for the fallout from this so-called intelligence leak."
"Yes, General."
Grievous sighed heavily and stared out the viewport. "I really do hate this stuff."
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
The game competition progressed smoothly. Under Garfield's watchful eye, Kasvi successfully claimed first place.
But outside the arena, trouble was brewing.
For most ordinary citizens, the Jedi Knights had always been a mysterious and righteous force.
Palpatine's revelations about the Jedi Order's dark past, however, caused a significant stir. Doubt began to creep into the public consciousness.
And behind the scenes, financial groups and other powers fanned the flames. Suddenly, the Jedi Order found themselves treated like pariahs once more.
In some systems, people secretly organized boycotts.
Garfield dismissed them with a sneer.
He issued a public notice: if any player felt that the game company or its owner had problems, they were free to quit playing.
The company would be willing to permanently ban them.
What the public didn't fully understand was that modern games used not only account passwords but also retinal scans and rapid DNA recognition technology to prevent theft.
If Garfield wanted to ban someone, they were banned. Instantly.
That was the power of the Transformers.
A few individuals started making noise online. Garfield banned them without hesitation.
When those opponents returned home from their anti-Garfield rallies and habitually logged into their accounts, the system greeted them with a single cold notification.
**Banned.**
"What the hell? Why is this happening? I just went along and muttered a few words!"
They scrambled to file appeals. Some even offered to become witnesses against the incriminating evidence.
But it was too late.
With Garfield's swift actions, the wave of opposition collapsed.
The identities of the ringleaders were gradually revealed, several habitual criminals with extensive records surfaced.
Garfield formed a temporary alliance with the Jedi Order.
After receiving approval from the Council, he personally dispatched a fleet to capture the offenders one by one.
The personnel sent were, naturally, Qui-Gon and Wings.
Jedi Knights leading robot armies, with Transformers directing operations seamlessly from the sky, capturing a few small fry was a foregone conclusion.
Garfield also broadcast the captures live.
When viewers across the universe saw the targets and their crime records displayed on screen, the consensus was clear.
Those listed in the leaked information were simply envious of High Claw's status and wealth.
Following this, the Jedi Order conducted psychological investigations. Under the influence of the Force, the criminals revealed their masterminds.
Several game companies coveted Garfield's business.
Some conglomerates wanted to devour his enormous profits, including factions within the Banking Alliance and the Techno Union.
As the fastest-rising conglomerate in the galaxy, High Claw Corporation may not have the same deep foundation as its rivals.
But Garfield had his own warships and robot production lines on a dedicated planet.
He wasn't afraid of them.
Still, he wouldn't allow them to come at him alone. A united front was a different matter.
While Garfield carried out the official Jedi Order's punishment against those companies, he secretly contacted the Trade Federation's leadership, the beetle-like species, and instructed them to prepare their fleets for battle.
The beetle-lords acknowledged the order.
They were already prepared.
First, because Palpatine wanted to fight to the death.
Second, because they had secretly received invitations from the same alliance to eliminate Garfield, the orange cat.
The beetle-lords outwardly agreed to the conspiracy.
But given Garfield's lack of concrete instructions, they had temporarily refrained from contacting him directly, to avoid revealing their true loyalty.
Garfield encouraged their discretion.
"Continue your covert operations," he told them. "As for those greedy fools who want to devour me… I have my own methods."
After issuing his instructions, Garfield sent the robot dog and robot bird into the *Wing's* magazine, activated the cloaking device, and departed from Coruscant.
His destination: the factories of certain Techno Union members.
What he intended to do was simple, give them a little surprise before they turned against him.
This was the interstellar age. Robots were everywhere.
The control of intelligence and limitations on robot populations were what sustained most jobs today.
If not for the Galactic Republic's suppression, robots would have long since replaced all artificial intelligence.
Those without jobs would have been reduced to slavery.
A sad irony of the era.
Even in this highly developed society, slavery hadn't been completely abolished.
Why?
Because the Galactic Republic lacked the military power to control all member and non-member systems.
Some planets had developed interstellar travel technology yet remained trapped in primitive, savage slave societies.
To change all that, you needed sufficient power.
After entering the space outside Coruscant, Garfield's shuttle gradually deviated from its course.
Guided by the *Wing's* star maps, it headed toward the nearest Techno Union factory.
To avoid detection, Garfield slowed down upon entering the target planet's region, then used a nearby meteorite field to stealthily enter its atmosphere.
The planet was relatively barren, thin atmosphere.
The *Wing*, still in stealth mode, remained completely undetected.
Once inside the atmosphere, the ship flew at low altitude, slowly making its way toward the factory.
Along the way, it encountered several patrol teams and radar stations. Thanks to its superior technology, it slipped past them all.
Near a rocky outcrop on the outskirts, after confirming no surveillance cameras on the ground, underground, or in the sky, the Wing opened its abdominal magazine.
Garfield cast a Disappearance Charm on the robot dog, activating its stealth mode.
The infiltration began.
Inside the Techno Union factory, a group of mechanical engineers from various species gathered around a set of blueprints. A heated debate raged.
The core question remained unresolved.
*Who would control the security system?*