"...and to the left, you can see the press entrance."
"Wow, that is a lot of security," Ahsoka Tano remarked.
"It's increased with the war." Mace let the two padawans boggle at the Coruscant Guard's explosives residue testing and weapons detectors for a while more, then beckoned them towards the main access to the Senate Chamber. After that they'd go look at the meeting rooms and perhaps some of the logistics spaces down below. Tano and Offee had both visited the Supreme Chancellor with their Masters, unlike the padawans usually taking the Republic Government & Politics I seminar. They'd also missed the tour of the dome Master Vithra, who held the seminar, gave due to being on the battlefield, and thus Mace was giving them the RepGaP I tour a month later and with none of Master Vithra's contacts in the maintenance division.
"Is the Senate in session?" Offee asked.
"It is – let me check the agenda." It would if nothing else give Mace some time to plan the rest of the tour, or perhaps answer his messages. Hopefully the Senators wouldn't be too alarmed at seeing Jedi at the session for... "They're discussing homogenizing intersector tariffs for category 18.9a plant products."
"What's a category 18.9a plant product?" Tano asked.
Mace had no idea. "Perhaps there will be examples in the session."
They made their way to the Jedi observation pod. A Senator Mace didn't recognize was holding a long and impassioned speech on a section of Republic legislation that did not seem to have anything to do with tariffs. "There you can see who's talking," he whispered and pointed to the infoscreen. Gadh Gakk of Zavagho. Mace had never heard of either.
Gadh Gakk abruptly broke off into a scream. Mace snapped his attention back to the speaker's pod.
A giant snake reared up in Gadh Gakk's pod as the Senator and his retinue scrambled away from it. Around them, the rest of the Senators present also began screaming as snakes rose from their pods as well. As they weren't speaking, however, they could trample themselves exiting to the main corridors.
"Oh dear," the Chancellor quietly said.
"Go protect the Chancellor," Mace ordered the two padawans and leaped to the Zavaghoan pod to save its denizens from their fate. This would be a long day.