Yeah another one, not much to say except go buy my p@treon cause there's a lot of stuff happening in the arc im doing over there. Hint BLUE GUY.
No New chapters this week tho, im gone till Friday.
P@treon Hermit47
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Night settled over Vel Astra without softening it.
The capital glowed beneath a silver moon and a canopy of controlled light, its towers bright against the dark, its streets still alive with movement even this late. Air traffic threaded between spires in disciplined lanes. Government convoys slipped through lower districts under escort. At the palace, preparations for the Queen's coming ball had already begun in earnest—deliveries arriving by the hour, staff moving furniture, decorators hanging silk and light-crystal banners as if a war were not pressing against the edges of the world.
Inside the capital operations chamber, the mood was very different.
A broad holotable filled the center of the room, its projection lit in shifting layers of blue and red. Palace corridors. Capital streets. Rooftop positions. Transit routes. Guard rotations. The palace district and the central government quarter had both been broken into sectors, each one marked with clone deployment patterns, patrol loops, sensor blind spots, and emergency fallback points.
Ahsoka stood beside Master Luminara, arms folded loosely as she studied the map. Barriss stood across from her, hands clasped in front of her robes, while Commander Gree remained near the edge of the table, helmet under one arm, expression unreadable in the cold light.
They had been on Vel Astra for less than a full day.
It already felt longer.
Luminara adjusted the display with a small movement of her hand and enlarged the palace grounds.
"The ball in two days concerns me more than any direct strike before it," she said. "If the intercepted communications are genuine, then that event gives any attacker too many advantages."
Ahsoka nodded. "Too many people, too much movement, too many entrances."
"And too much assumption," Barriss added quietly. "Nobility tends to believe ceremony makes them safe."
Gree's mouth tightened by a fraction. "It won't help patrol rotations, either. Once the delegates and merchant houses begin arriving, the city around the palace is going to clog. More speeders, more personal guards, more service traffic, more local law enforcement trying to insert themselves where they aren't useful."
Ahsoka looked up from the map. "How many clones do we have planetside?"
"Just over ten thousand," Gree answered. "Split between the capital district and the palace. Enough to secure fixed points and maintain mobile response teams, but not enough to lock down every street if this turns into a full panic event."
Luminara's expression remained composed, though Ahsoka was beginning to recognize the signs that she was dissatisfied. Not anger. Never outward anger. Just a sharpening of focus that made her seem even more still than before.
"The Queen insists the ball proceed?" Luminara asked.
Gree nodded. "Without hesitation."
That didn't surprise anyone in the room.
Ahsoka had spent enough time in the palace already to understand that Queen Alisanne of Vel Astra would rather choke on her own crown than let fear alter her public schedule.
"The Prime Minister seems more reasonable," Barriss offered.
Luminara gave a slight nod. "He's been cooperative."
Ahsoka glanced at her. "You trust him?"
"Trust is not the word I'd use," Luminara replied. "But he has been more than hospitable. He's answered every question I've put to him, granted us access to records without delay, and shown none of the resistance I expected from someone of his rank."
Ahsoka thought back on the man's manner—measured, polished, always just this side of deferential.
"He feels nervous," she said.
Gree gave her a brief look. "A lot of people get nervous when Jedi and ten thousand clone troopers start rearranging their city."
"That's not what I mean."
Luminara turned slightly toward her. "Explain."
Ahsoka searched for the right words. "The Queen's angry because she hates being told what to do. The Senator's nervous because he's used to being pushed around by her. But the Prime Minister…" She frowned at the holo-table. "He feels like someone trying very hard to appear calm."
Barriss tilted her head slightly. "That could still be ordinary political caution."
"It could," Ahsoka admitted. "I'm just saying he doesn't feel like the others."
Luminara considered that without either accepting or dismissing it.
"We'll continue observing him," she said.
Gree shifted the map again, highlighting the route between the palace and the capital building.
"If there is an attack before the ball, it'll likely be here or here," he said, indicating two choke points where the roads narrowed between civic towers. "If it happens during the ball, then I'd expect one of three things: an attempt on the Queen inside the palace, a strike on the Prime Minister while the crowd's distracted, or a coordinated diversion in the lower capital to pull clones off the royal district."
"Or all three," Barriss said.
"That too," Gree replied.
Ahsoka leaned over the table. "What about the Prince?"
The room quieted for a moment.
Luminara was the one who answered. "He's part of the ruling line. Which means he matters, but not as immediately as the Queen."
Ahsoka wasn't sure she agreed with that. The Prince had seemed too observant to dismiss. Too aware of who entered a room and how they moved once they were in it. But she kept that thought to herself for the moment.
"The Queen and the Prime Minister are still the two main concerns," Gree said. "At least from a public stability standpoint. If either one goes down in the middle of a state gathering, the whole city could turn ugly before we even know what hit it."
Ahsoka looked up at him. "And the formula?"
Luminara answered that one quickly. "The formula remains in the royal archive under palace authority. Which is why the monarchy cannot be treated as symbolic. If the royal house collapses, the Republic doesn't just lose a friendly world. It risks losing the mechanism that makes this planet strategically valuable."
Barriss added, "And if the Separatists get hold of it, they gain both leverage and supply access."
Gree gave a small, grim nod. "That's the nightmare version."
Ahsoka stared at the map again.
Capital district. Palace district. Ball route. Entry corridors. Rooftops. Security gaps.
Everything about the coming event felt wrong to her—not only because it was dangerous, but because the danger seemed almost too perfect. A packed palace. Nobles from across the world. Trade delegations. Public ceremony. Exactly the kind of setting where a single death could become a hundred deaths within minutes.
Luminara saw her still studying the routes.
"Something else troubles you."
Ahsoka looked up. "The timing."
Gree raised a brow. "The ball?"
She nodded. "If the attack's in two days, then whoever's planning it already knows the security shifts, the guest routes, maybe even where we're placing troops once the event starts."
Barriss crossed her arms lightly. "You think there's a leak."
Ahsoka hesitated. "I think it's possible."
Luminara's gaze lowered back to the table. "Then we proceed as though that possibility is real."
Gree didn't waste time with reaction. He simply turned toward one of the staff officers standing farther back in the room.
"I want outer and inner shift schedules rewritten before morning," he said. "Nothing leaves this room without my approval."
The clone officer saluted and moved at once.
Ahsoka looked at Gree, then at Luminara. "So we're changing the plan already?"
Luminara's expression remained level. "No. We're making sure the enemy doesn't know what the plan is."
That answer sounded much more like something Anakin would have said than most of what Ahsoka had heard from her that day, though Luminara's delivery was cleaner, colder, more exact.
Interesting.
The discussion went on for some time after that, moving through possibilities one by one.
If the ball was a diversion, how quickly could the palace be sealed without inciting panic?
If the Queen refused to alter her public route, how many clones would be needed to harden it without making the city look occupied?
If the Prime Minister became a target during the ceremony, should he remain in the palace or be transferred to the capital building beforehand?
If the Senate delegation from the southern trade cities arrived with its own guards, how much of that security could be trusted?
No one in the room raised their voice.
No one wasted words.
But by the time the meeting finally began to break, Ahsoka could feel the tension hanging heavier than it had when they started.
Luminara rested both hands lightly against the edge of the holotable and looked at each of them in turn.
"We will assume the attack is real," she said. "We will assume it's timed to exploit ceremony and vanity. And we will assume that whatever our enemy intends, they have already begun preparing for it."
Gree nodded once. "The 41st will be ready."
Barriss inclined her head. "I'll stay in the palace district tonight and review the archive security."
Luminara turned to Ahsoka. "You're with me. We'll begin again with the Prime Minister in the morning."
Ahsoka nodded, though inwardly she was still wondering whether the Prime Minister's hospitality made him easier to trust… or easier to overlook.
Outside, beyond the walls of the operations chamber, Vel Astra kept glittering beautifully in the dark, already preparing for a celebration that more and more felt like an invitation to blood.
And somewhere in that city, whether hidden in silk or office robes or polished court manners, someone was waiting for the right moment to strike.