Anabeth: New Beginnings

Chapter 1: A Visitor From Mandalore

Ana was hurrying through the Senate building, trying to keep up with Organa's staff. They had just finished another long meeting with the Sepratist Council after which the Chancellor had requested to speak to her in private. Needless to say, the halls of the building were packed and they were on a tight scedule.

It had been a month since everything with Palpatine happened and while the galaxy had been thriving since, it had definitely been stressful for Ana. The Sepratists had reached out and were ready to negotiate. The Senate had accepted the peace offering and Organa had signed a ceasefire with the Sepratist Council.

Since then, both sides have been working tirelessly on establishing communications and had finally come to the agreement to hold their first meeting on neutral grounds.

Organa had requested Jedi presence throughout the whole process and Windu had gladly sent him Ana, who had been sitting in on every virtual meeting between the two parties. She never took and active part in them, but the time she was spending at the Senate and in private meetigs with Organa were beginning to make her believe she was more of a Senator than a Jedi.

As they finally reached Organa's office the the group Ana had been following dispersed, only her and Organa entering the room. The door closed behind them and he noise from the hallways finally died down. "Have a seat" the Chancellor offered with a warm smile, handing her a glass of water.

"Thanks" she accepted the glass, letting herself practically fall into the chair. "You look exhausted" Organa noted. "I am, but I still need to pass this weeks meeting notes to Windu" Ana replied. "I'll try not to keep you too long then. But I wanted your view on the current deescalation treaty" the Chancellor jumped to the point.

"I think you know my view, Bail. The ceasefire with the Sepratists only accounted for the return of very few troups. We have hundreds of Jedi still holding their positions with the clones, waiting for the go ahead to return. The faster you can get the Sepratists to sign the treaty, the better".

"I know, finding a neutral ground for further discussions has just proven harder than expected". "I though we had plenty neutral planets that volunteered" Ana was confused. "We did, but most of them were symphasizing with us during the war, so the Sepratist turned them down. I'm hoping our meeting with Mandalore's leadership tomorrow will finally be the one to work out" Bail explained.

"Yeah, Bo mentioned something about coming to Coruscant soon the last time I spoke with her. But really, we literally helped in the siege of Mandalore, do you really think the Sepratists are open to negotiating there?". "I think they see someone who wants to keep Mandalore independent in Lady Bo-Katan. If we're lucky and she can sell the part tomorrow, we're ging to Mandalore soon".

"I really hope it's going to work" Ana sighed. "So do I. Now, before I keep you here all afternoon, go and drop off your report for Windu and enjoy the rest of your day" Organa sent her on her way. "Alright, see you tomorrow, Bail" Ana bid him goodbye as she headed out of the door.

Back at the Temple Ana went to meet Windu in one of the strategy rooms where he was looking at a map of troup deployments with Obi-Wan. "What are you two doing?" she asked as she entered the room. "Planning the next wave of supply runs. At this rate, it's probably still going to take a while before we can even start pulling our troups out, and even then, we can't bring them back all at once" Windu informed her.

"Well, you might want to start thinking about departure preparations. The Chancellor is pretty optimistic about the meeting with Mandalore tomorrow. You can read up the rest in my notes, but nothing much has changed since last week" she explained as she handed a datastick to Windu.

"Oh by the way Ana, Satine called a few minutes ago and asked where you were" Obi-Wan informed her. "Oh, I thought Bo was coming tomorow". Ana was confused. "No, it's today, she just kept it quiet with the Chancelor so she could have a word with you about the whole peace negotiations thing with you as the neutral party from the meetings". "Great, I guess I better get over there then. See you later" Ana replied as she hurried out of the room.