Senate Hall - Monument Plaza – Coruscant
"All rise for the honorable Procurator of Justice."
The sound of thousands of men and women rising to their feet filled the Senate Hall as a single figure dressed in immaculate white robes exited a tunnel at the center of the hall. All throughout the oval stadium, from the row upon row of seats, they watched as the Procurator of Justice began a slow and steady ascent up the staircase which wound around the speakers podium, some thirty feet high. At it's summit there was a lectern, whose stand looked to the northern most stand of the hall, where the highest ranking members of the government were seated. Amongst them was Minister Sanya Tagge.
Her eyes wandered upwards, to the domed ceiling and then to roaring flames of the purifying and ever-burning fire of justice whose huge cauldron sat between two equally monolithic statues of winged figures, prostrate in reverence. Stone columns whose size and construction defied imagination held the hall's roof aloft. It was a vast, cold space they found themselves – the old Senate Hall building having been constructed so long ago that it contained no artificial heating or lighting – yet this was not why gooseflesh rose on the back of Sanya Tagge's arms nor why she trembled, if only faintly, as she watched Procurator of Justice take his position at the center of the Senate Hall.
"You may be seated," a deep and disembodied voice decreed and there was another rush of air, the sound of thousands sitting down in unison. Only the legions of guardsmen, present to ensure the security of the ceremony, remained standing. Brushing her palms down from her thighs to her knees, Sanya smoothed away the slight wrinkles in the fabric of her pale uniform. She, like every other governmental representative present, wore the colors and markings befitting of her station. Everyone amongst them was recognizable for what they were, thanks to what they wore – from white-suited Admirals of the fleet to the gray-clad Moffs and Grand Moffs, their colored insignia pinned proudly to their breasts.
It was impressive, Minister Tagge thought - as she glimpsed represented in the crowd the many facets of the Galactic Empire – it was impressive, she thought with a smile, just how many of them had come to witness the death of one man.
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