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IT WOULD, ACTING JOINT CHIEF OF STATE OF THE GALACTIC ALLIANCE Wynn Dorvan vowed, be a calm, productive, and organized meeting.

He realized even as the thought formed that it was likely to be doomed within the first five minutes. Little was calm, productive, and organized these days, other than Wynn Dorvan himself.

The recent Jedi coup that had overthrown and imprisoned Admiral Natasi Daala had also led to his unsought and frankly undesired promotion. Alongside Master Saba Sebatyne and Senator Haydnat Treen, Dorvan was one of three who had the cumbersome title of Acting Joint Chief of State. Thus far, it had worked surprisingly well, which was a good thing considering how much remained to be properly sorted out. The planet of Coruscant alone had more than enough needs to attend to, having been rattled by the unexpected transition of power, peaceful though it was, right in its heart. The ramifications of that event were still rippling throughout the entire Galactic Alliance.

One would think that this might be enough of a whirlwind of “things to deal with right now” issues for one term. Dorvan had discovered the hard way that one would be wrong. The recent flood of revolutions taking place across the galaxy was a positive step, of course. Dorvan was pleased to see slavery, an abominable institution no matter what sort of spin a government might want to put on it, cease on so many worlds. What was less positive was the chaos that inevitably followed in the wake of such a profound change.

Some of the uprisings had been extremely violent, and the “governments” that sprang up were little better than the ones they replaced—occasionally worse. Much worse. Centuries, sometimes millennia, of oppression had rendered many former slaves thirsty for revenge, and the reports of atrocities that were coming in sometimes made his assistant, the extremely sensitive-natured Twi’lek Desha Lor, very upset. Dorvan was slightly more jaded than the younger female, but he found that even he could be haunted by nightmares of what he had learned.

Other uprisings had been less destructive in terms of lost lives or property damage, but were no less of an upheaval. The change turned a world topsy-turvy, no matter how positive a change it was.

Too, with all these new governments being set up, there was a flood of applications to the Senate as worlds that had been denied because of the practice of slavery suddenly found themselves meeting the criteria for acceptance. And while that was largely the Senate’s purview, thankfully, Dorvan still had to be involved. Everyone seemed to need his full attention, right this moment, urgently.

It was all quite wearying.

He closed the door to his office and strode down the hall to the meeting room, a small case full of datapads in one hand. His pet chitlik, Pocket, moved expertly from his shoulder to the spot for which she was named and curled up. Absently, Dorvan reached up a hand and gently patted the small, warm lump. He knew that most people considered his affection for the little marsupial to be either an eccentricity or an affectation. He didn’t much care. Pocket was the ideal companion for someone in his position—mild-tempered, undemanding, and comforting.

And trained to use a litter box—also of vast importance.

Desha Lor was there, smiling brightly at the assembled beings. She wasn’t like Dorvan—not in the slightest—but he was wise enough to realize that that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Despite his initial misgivings when she had originally been assigned to him, and his irritation at what seemed to be a hypersensitive personality combined with hopeless naïveté, he’d come to value what she brought to the table. She’d learned to manage her reactions to injustices and tragedies without losing her personality, and that sweetness had given Dorvan a more appealing “face” in the eyes of the public. He relied on her instincts when it came to dealing with people, and she hadn’t steered him wrong. And when his workload had more than quadrupled in the last few weeks, she had stepped in and quietly, almost