Anabeth: Darkness Rising

Chapter 22 - Set In Motion

"Alright, how's that proof looking?" Windu asked as he strolled though the doors of the briefing room where Ana and Anakin had been working on getting into Palpatine's private system. "Almost done" Ana replied, never taking her eyes of the lines of code in front of her "We're almost past the first firewall after which we should have unhindered access to his files".

"Good. Senator Orgaa is already on his way here, so hurry it up" Windu urged them on "I'm going to go down to the landing pad and pick him up, I expect the both of you to be done when we come back". As Windu left the room again Anakin turned to Ana "I'm set to search for the files, how are things looking on your end?". "Just give it another minute, the computer is still trying to work around the passcode" Ana replied.

She carefully read through the code on her screen again, making sure they hadn't missed on alarm or shut down sequence that they were about to trigger. By the time she was sure that there was none, the computer had found a work around for the last firewall and was asking for a final confirmation to transfer the interface to Anakin's screen.

"We got it, I'm sending it to you now" Ana informd Anakin, confirming the programme on her screen before hurrying over to Anakin's one to help him search through the data.

"Alright, the day of the attack on Coruscant, let's see" Anakin mumbled, filtering through Palpatine's calls. The list of the calls from that day came up, and at first glance, there were easily more than a hundred. "The Chancelor sure is a busy man" Ana stated "Let's also filter out the calls he made after the attack then".

Anakin put in the new parameters, the list shortening down to barely twenty. "This should make it a little easier" he said as he began looking at the logs. "There, I think that's it" Ana stated, pointing at an outgoing call titled 'Tyranus'. "That's barely half an hour before the attack" Anakin discovered. "Exactly, now copy the recording to our database so we can listen to it" Ana urged him.

A few moments later the recording of the call had been copied into the Jedi database and was pulled up on Ana's screen, ready to be played. Anakin had just closed the link to Palpatine's system without a trace when the doors to the briefing room opened again and in came Windu with Senator Organa as well as Master Yoda, Kenobi, Fisto and Allie.

"Did you get it?" Windu asked in a tone that conveyed a 'I will kill you if you still didn't' message. "We didn't listen to it yet, but we have it here" Ana pointed to her screen "Nice to see you Senator" Ana added, giving him a friendly smile "It's good to see you too, Ana" Organa returned the greeting "Now, what is it that I can help you with today?"

"Palpatine" Anakin stated, getting the Senator's attention. "Pardon?" he asked a little confused. "We recently discovered that Palpatine is a Sith Lord" Obi-Wan joined their conversation. "A Sith Lord? You mean, like Maul and Dooku?" Organa seemed shocked. "Yeah, just worse" Anakin replied. Organa still looked as shocked and confused as before. "I guess it'd be best if we start from the beginning" Windu stated before telling the Senator all about how they came to suspect and eventually discover Palpatine as he Sith Lord.

"That..." the Senator tried to find the right words as he processed the new information he'd been given "...makes a whole load of sense when you actually think about it. What can I do to help?". "Obviously, we need to arrest Palpatine. We can't do as long as he is still in office though, as he would simply tell the clones to kill us, which is essentially what we are trying to avoid here. What we need you to do, is to get Palpatne removed from office without him suspecting us" Obi-Wan explained.

"How would I do that? I mean, I can't exactly waltz into the Senate and demand that the Chancelor is removed from office because I feel like it" Senator Organa asked. "Which is why we got this for you" Ana pointed to her screen "It's a call between Palpatine and Dooku that took place shortly before the attack on Coruscant. If we're correct, then Palpatie was the one to provide Dooku with the coordinates for our hyperspace lane, giving you the opportunity to charge him with treason".