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Lin was new to the Senate, but two days in she was already boiling with rage.
Granted, there were plenty of decent senators out there; though even they simply glanced at her with sorrowful eyes when she tangentially mentioned the slavery situation.
Because it was slavery.
Even worse, apparently her inquiries hadn’t been discreet enough, as now Royce Durmwood was sneering down on her over her consideration for the clones.
Her people couldn’t afford to alienate Atticca. They already had most of their exports cut when Erithan and Viath joined the CIS, and as transporting goods to their few left-over trade partners was almost untenable with this blasted war, Atticca was their last major buyer.
So, because she cared, she sucked it up. Started talking about the men that guarded them and lost their lives in this war as though they were objects. Joined in when Royce dared her challenge his casual use of their guards as errand boys, and on one bile-raising case as a table.
She could read the writing on the wall. Florensia needed Atticca more than Atticca need Florensia.
But God did she loathe it.
Time passed, and Royce relaxed (thank God). Casual mentions of trade embargos left conversation and Lin only realized what she’d landed herself in when she found herself at a party, discreetly chatting with one of the guests about the advantages of unpaid labour.
She had to excuse herself as the realization of what she was doing kicked in, speed walking to the restrooms. Hunching over a toilet bowl with the taste of bile on her tongue, she fought to regain her composure. Oh god, what was wrong with this world?
Someone knocked on the door of her stall. Panic froze her in place, killing her nausea better than any pills could have.
“Sir, are you alright?” The voice was unmistakeably clone. Her eyes closed and threatened tears because she did not deserve the kindness.
“Do you need a doctor?”
Just last week she’d ordered one of them punished, and now here another asked her if she needed medical help.
“No, thank you. I’ll be fine.” She forgot herself.
“Very well, sir.”
She stayed frozen until his footsteps no longer echoed through the bathroom. Staring into the mirror, she considered walking back into that room, talking with those absolute monsters and pretending everything was fine.
She couldn’t do it, she thought. But she had to.
“God, Lin, I could use a coffee.” The plastic smile on her face sagged a little as Royce motioned for the only guard in the room.
“One Corellian Black for me, and…”
He glanced her way, eyebrow raised.
Her hand went for her purse, hoping she would be missing the credits.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll pay.” Royce smiled crookedly, and distantly she hoped he wasn’t trying to flirt with her.
“One Nabooian Delight for me, please.”
Royce scoffed.
“Lin, no need to say please.” It was not a suggestion. Her smile grew wry, because hell did she know how to act.
“Habit. They look human enough, after all.”
He laughed and accepted the excuse. Her shoulders dropped when his gaze returned to the Pad they’d both been studying. She wanted a vacation.
“So, what do you think about §3? The wording is a little ambiguous, I feel.” As she answered, she hated that Royce was so good at his job. He was an amoral asshole that got off on power, but he was a good senator.
When the guard came by a few minutes later with the coffee, Lin had to fight back a grateful smile.
Royce was attempting to flirt with her. Fuck.
Absentmindedly she took a sip and had to supress a surprised jerk.
That wasn’t Nabooian Delight. Since Royce insisted on paying, she’d gone for something higher end, but this held none of the herbal notes she expected of the blend. In fact, it tasted like completely normal black coffee. Still good, as the Senate Café prided itself on its blends, but not what she’d asked for.
Taking another sip, she watched the guard hand the change back to Royce. No receipt. Huh.
A Nabooian Delight cost almost three times what a cup of Black did, though they looked very similar. Royce would absolutely have noticed the difference in price.
Which meant he’d handed Royce the change he would have gotten if he’d paid for a Nabooian Delight, as opposed to what Royce was actually owed.
She took another sip, and watched as the guard stiffy turned to look her way.
Royce was staring as well.
“Sir.” She wasn’t imagining the slight shake to his hands, was she.
“Lin, something not to your taste?”
She blinked for a second.
“Ah, no, not really.”
Another sip.
“There’s simply nothing quite as tasty as a Nabooian Delight.”
Her eyes met the guards, and she chugged back the rest.
“Throw that away, would you?”
Inside, her thoughts were racing because this, this had potential.
Any time anyone ran for coffee now, she ordered a Nabooian Delight. Sometimes, she got the ludicrously expensive herbal concoction, but increasingly she got black coffee instead.
She never mentioned it.
She hoped it helped, even a little.
A good tenth of her Senate budget was going into coffee at this point, but no one had remarked on it yet so she wasn’t going to stop.
Even if an average of five cups of coffee a day was not the best thing for her health.
Another clone rights law was proposed, reaching the senate this time. Lin stood in her booth, in front Aye/Nay/Abstain buttons and told herself that one vote in over a thousand didn’t matter. Across the Senate, the Atticca booth proudly proclaimed they had voted against.
Hesitantly, she pressed her button. Behind her, her guard shifted.
Clone rights. Skimming down her datapad, she sipped the vaguely black sludge the guards were pretending was one of the best types of coffee out there. It had changed consistency and taste a few times in the last few weeks, and while occasionally she would get shitty dispenser-coffee, most of the time it was brown liquids she most determinedly didn’t think about.
Since it hadn’t killed her yet, even suffering through five cups of it a day, she didn’t care. The withdrawal headaches were less than pleasant, though.
But she’d been thinking about the clones, hadn’t she?
Literally the only reason the entire Senate and the Jedi Order hadn’t been arrested so far was the back-log in cases in the judicial courts, a bunch of hefty bribes and the hastily applied laws that decreed human clones to be subsentient.
Since the Senate didn’t order the cloning, and was only buying what currently legally amounted to droids from the Kaminoans, they bypass the cloning laws on a technicality. The Jedi Order handed Sifo-Dyas over to the Republic trial posthumously, and he was very quicky determined the sole person culpable on the Jedi side. And Kamino, while under Republic protection was so as a vassal state; and not required to follow cloning laws.
Neat, but paper thin.
There was no such pretty answer to the blatantly ignored slavery laws, everyone was simply ignoring the issue because it suited them.
She took another sip, and supressed her gag with practiced ease.
The Clones weren’t the only ones being ignored. Before the war, the Jedi Order and the Judicials had held regular raids against slave owners in Republic space; and the associated trials were usually expediated through the courts.
While even back then, being acquitted was a little too common, the Jedi Order’s determined retrialling of the most important cases usually kept the worst offenders in quasi-permanent holding.
Since the war began, most of these cases were being let go or tried by a military tribunal that generally couldn’t swallow their own hypocrisy enough to declare them guilty.
Over her meetings, she had enough information to put a dozen senators behind bars; but only if their cases were judged remotely fairly.
They wouldn’t be. Senators were given the right to a court of equals, and the Senate had a vested interest in making certain its members weren’t judged guilty of slavery.
If the clones were to gain rights, it would most likely happen after the war, when the new wave of Senators would be looking to discredit their predecessors where possible.
A law against retrials would appeal to Naboo and the anti-trade republic block, and mentioning it would prevent Sifo-Dyas vs the Republic from being examined again would likely draw in the Jedi-apologists.
That would hopefully reduce the Judicial work load, hopefully making it effective.
Then one could file a case against the Jedi Order for child endangerment, followed by another against the Senate. With the Jedi Order already guilty, the Senate would have no choice but to see itself complicit, ousting most of those Senators that would be accused in a slavery charge out of their seats.
Then one could file slavery charges against the Republic, and if they fall through animal abuse charges. On the wave of public outcry from that, one would likely be able to platform Clone rights.
The hair in that soup however was Palpatine. The man had the right to privately trial cases that were of tactical significance. Cases against the Jedi certainly counted. Cases about the clones also. Even worse, there was nothing preventing him from privately trialling a case against himself.
If he even let it go so far, as he could just declare the entire mess ‘war exceptions’ and push it under the rug.
And say one did manage to push a sentencing through, targeting the Senate and Palpatine? Who would enforce it? The Judicial Police were all but gone, absorbed into the military. And if the military, the clones, arrested the entire senate you’d be able to hear the screams of ‘military coup’ from space. Heck, the CPF was all but dissolved as the Chancellor transferred their responsibilities to the Coruscant Guard.
And don’t even let her get started on arresting the Jedi Order.
She took another sip and shuddered.