Star Wars_ Darth Bane 03_ Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn [7]
Tool marks scored the walls and floor. The cavern had been stripped of any valuable mineral deposits long before; all that remained were dozens of irregular rock formations rising up from the uneven floor, some less than a meter high, others stretching up to the ceiling a full ten meters above. They might have been beautiful had they not all been the exact same shade of dull brown that dominated Doan’s surface.
The makeshift rebel headquarters was unfurnished, but the high ceiling allowed the Cerean to finally stand up straight. More important, the underground chamber offered some small refuge from the heat, dust, and noise of the surface, enabling them all to remove the muffling cloth covering their faces. Given the shrillness of Gelba’s voice, Medd was debating if this was entirely a good thing.
“Our next demand is the immediate abolition of the royal family, and the surrender of all its estates to the elected representatives specified in item three of section five, subsection C. Furthermore, fines and penalties shall be levied against—”
“Please stop,” Medd said, holding up a hand. Mercifully, Gelba honored his request. “As I explained to you before, the Jedi Council can do nothing to grant your demands. I am not here to eliminate the royal family. I am only here to offer my services as a mediator in the negotiations between your group and the Doan nobility.”
“They refuse to negotiate with us!” one of the miners shouted.
“Can you blame them?” Medd countered. “You killed the crown prince.”
“That was a mistake,” Gelba said. “We didn’t mean to destroy his airspeeder. We only wanted to force it into an emergency landing. We were trying to capture him alive.”
“Your intentions are irrelevant now,” Medd told her, keeping his voice calm and even. “By killing the heir to the throne, you brought the wrath of the royal family down on you.”
“Are you defending their actions?” Gelba demanded. “They hunt my people like animals! They imprison us without trial! They torture us for information, and execute us if we resist! Now even the Jedi turn a blind eye to our suffering. You’re no better than the Galactic Senate!”
Medd understood the miners’ frustration. Doan had been a member of the Republic for centuries, but there had been no serious efforts by the Republic Senate or any governing body to address the injustices of their societal structure. Comprising millions of member worlds, each with its own unique traditions and systems of government, the Republic had adopted a policy of noninterference except in the most extreme cases.
Officially, idealists condemned the lack of a democratic government on Doan. But historically the population had always been granted the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, freedom from slavery, and even legal recourse in cases where a noble abused the privileges of rank. While the rich on Doan undoubtedly exploited the poor, there were many other worlds where the situation was much, much worse.
However, the reluctance of the Senate to become involved had not stopped the efforts of those who sought to change the status quo. Over the last decade, a movement demanding political and social equality had sprung up among the lower castes. Naturally, there was resistance from the nobility, and recently the tension had escalated into violence, culminating in the assassination of the Doan crown prince nearly three standard months earlier.
In response, the king had declared a state of martial law. Since then, there had been a steady stream of troubling reports supporting Gelba’s accusations. Yet galactic sympathy for the rebels was slow to build. Many in the Senate saw them as terrorists, and as much as Medd sympathized with their plight, he was unable to act without Senate authority.
The Jedi were legally bound by galactic law to remain neutral in all civil wars and internal power struggles,