[right][h3]Towler - Offices of Senator Towler[/h3][/right][hr]

“The Chair wants to start putting together a vote count for the seizure bill. We want to build a list of people we’ll have to push to our side of the aisle,” Casmir’s voice came over the comm. 

Casmir Covost, Senator for Byblos, was the closest thing Towler had to a supervisor. He was the Vice Chair for the South Colonial Caucus, a position Towler had deeply wanted but lacked the capital to secure. Towler’s corporate supporters on Loronar had deep pockets, but there were few who could match BlasTech, and Covost had a talent for shaking down Byblos’s military-industrial complex for the benefit of the galaxy and, more importantly, himself. 

“I hear you, Casmir, we’ll put out interest letters before we leave today,” Towler answered. 

“Thanks, Fosten,” Casmir said crisply, and he hung up. Towler considered Roker, who stood in the far corner of the conference room, sunken eyes watching and waiting. Iyla, sitting across the table, sat with a datapad, ready to work. 

“The seizure bill is happening,” Towler said, stating the obvious. “Let’s use the same list we used for the initial interest letters with the mining bill. That had a good cross-section, I liked it.”

Iyla smiled. “Thank you. I’ll have those out before the end of the day.”

“And let me know where the Axis Caucus stands on this as soon as we hear, especially Tychus. This bill will be a lot easier to pass if the Axis supports it.” That was crucial. Corellia had enjoyed a special autonomy thanks to the role it played in the founding of the Republic, and the seizure bill’s proponents needed a strong, unified show from the founding worlds. If founding worlds like Alsakan stood apart from the pack, the message of the seizure being for the greater good of the Republic would lose its legitimacy as the moral high ground, and quickly. 

“Of course,” Iyla said. “Anyone else you’re interested in particular?”

“We could use a face for the bill,” Roker suggested. “Someone with a proven track record of putting the Republic first. Someone with service history?”

“No, there’ll be war heroes on both sides of the issue. We need something rarer if we want to put a face on the bill,” Towler answered, thinking. Not an advocate for war, but someone who could represent the gravity of losing the CEC shipyards to Free Corellia. “What about one of the governments-in-exile? We lost dozens of worlds to the Sith. If we had co-sponsorship that represented the impact of losing our military-industrial base, that might mean something to the constituents.”

“T’Sombe?” Iyla suggested. “Senator for Amar? She’s a hero of the war refugee crisis. She was a major leader in evacuating her homeworld and resettling the Amaran people.” 

“Now that,” Towler said, pointing a finger at the Twi’lek, “is some damn good thinking. Make sure she’s on the list and let me know where she stands as soon as we hear.”

“Thank you, sir,” Iyla said, and she excused herself to return to her desk. 

Towler leaned his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers. “Today’s been a good day.”

“Very productive, sir,” Roker agreed, unmoving. “What’s the next step for Senator Pharliis?”

“That was expensive, Roker,” Towler said. “We need to make that shipyard work somehow, and that means we need to tackle Alzoc III.” 

Alzoc III and the Talz people had long been the center of the Sujimis Sector. The lone Republic military starbase in the sector, a relatively small-scale installation but formidable nonetheless, orbited the planet and served as the primary refueling and repair station in that corner of the galaxy. It had been heavily damaged during the last years of the war, and word was that the Armed Forces committee felt that finishing the repairs and expanding the base into a full-scale installation was the best approach to securing the sector. That would leave Pantora without a case for a base. 

“Teft will have my head if I lead the charge against his base,” Towler started, “so we’ll need to go through backchannels to make it work. We have to move people toward the idea that Pantora is the better place to put the base without getting our hands dirty.” 

“That’s hard even if we’re open about it, the Alzoc III base was a sound location for the base during the war,” Roker said. 

“I know,” Towler said. And then he smiled. “But we lost the war, didn’t we? And that’s all the public cares about. You still have your media contacts? Leak this to press,” Towler said, pausing a moment to think of the words, “’Doubling Down on Losing Strategies.’ Five-word headline. The angle is just what it says, the Armed Forces committee is putting money into ideas that failed us during the war and will fail us in the future. We need a new strategy to secure the Outer Rim.”

“Pantora.”

“Exactly.”