Darth Plagueis

22: ORDINARY BEINGS

The crepuscular chill of the Senate Rotunda had a way of lulling many to sleep. Sharpening his senses, Palpatine could hear the gentle snoring of human and nonhuman Senators seated in hover platforms adjacent to his station; more clearly, Sate Pestage and Kinman Doriana, opposite him on the platform’s circular seat, gossiping maliciously. For twenty years now Naboo and the Chommell sector had occupied the same place in the same tier in that immense mushroom of a building, though platforms had been added above and below and to both sides over those two decades to accommodate representatives of worlds newly welcomed to the Republic. Also in those twenty years, Palpatine had sat — and admittedly napped — through the orations, diatribes, and filibusters of countless beings, as well as State of the Republic addresses by four Supreme Chancellors: Darus, Frix, Kalpana, and Finis Valorum. The last was nearing completion of a second term of office that had been beset with challenges, most of which could be traced — but wouldn’t be for decades to come — to the machinations of Hego Damask and his secret conspirator, Palpatine, in their guises as Sith Lords Plagueis and Sidious. But in fact, half the Senators in the Rotunda were leading double lives of one sort or another: pledging themselves to preserve the Republic while at the same time accepting bribes from the Trade Federation, facilitating slavery and the smuggling of spice and death sticks, or abetting the operations of pirates.

The words of the ancient Republic philosopher Shassium drifted into Palpatine’s mind: We are all two-faced beings, divided by the Force and fated for eternity to search out our hidden identities.

From the Rotunda’s tall pulpit, Supreme Chancellor Valorum was saying, “The crisis unfolding in the Yinchorr system offers further proof that, in our determination to maintain an era of prosperity in the Core, we have allowed the outer systems to become lawless realms, with pirates, slavers, smugglers, and arms merchants operating with impunity. Proscribed matériel and technologies find their way to species whose appeals for Republic aid have gone unanswered, and the outcome is antagonism and intersystem conflict. Brought together by mutual need, alliances of forgotten worlds turn to the galactic cartels to furnish what we have denied them: growth, protection, and security — along with weapons and combat training.” He gestured broadly to near and distant Senatorial platforms. “While we sit in cool comfort, a confederacy of the disenfranchised expands in the Outer Rim.”

Close by, someone yawned with theatrical exaggeration, eliciting a chorus of laughter from beings seated within earshot. The Senate should have been on vacation, but the crisis in the Expansion Region had forced Valorum to convene the governing body in special session.

Across the Rotunda from Naboo’s station, Yinchorr’s platform stood vacant — the result of the Yinchorri severing ties with the Republic six months earlier and recalling their diplomatic staff. Six months before that, and armed with weapons Darth Sidious had helped them procure, the Yinchorri had launched attacks on several worlds in neighboring systems. Supplied by a Devaronian smuggler, the clandestine shipments had included a cortosis shield from a secret mining operation on the planet Bal’demnic, and had factored into the deaths of a pair of unsuspecting Jedi. Plagueis had said that the Yinchorri could be incited with minimal provocation, but even Sidious had been surprised by their ferocity.

“Since Yinchorr became a member world twenty-five years ago,” Valorum continued, “and notwithstanding the sanctions we attempted to impose, we have allowed the Yinchorri to transform themselves into a militaristic force that now threatens a vast region of Republic space. Just six months ago, when they augmented their navy with vessels commandeered from the Golden Nyss shipyards, we voted to censure them rather than intercede, in adherence to an antiquated belief that responsibility for policing the outer systems rests with the worlds that make up those systems. Ultimately, following Yinchorr’s most recent attack on the Chalenor system, the Jedi were persuaded to intervene, but with grievous results.”

Valorum halted briefly.

“As some of you already know, the mutilated bodies of Jedi Knight Naeshahn and her Padawan, Ebor Taulk, were transported to Coruscant and somehow delivered to my office in the chancellery building.” He balled his fist for everyone to see. “This is when I say that enough is enough!”

Palpatine steepled his fingers. Valorum was trying hard to be stirring, but the sudden edge in his voice was blunted by the reaction of his audience, which was rote outrage at best.

A call for quiet by the Bothan vice chancellor was scarcely necessary.

Valorum composed himself for the hovercams, his flushed expression meant to convey indignation rather than embarrassment.

“The Jedi have since dispatched a larger force to bring to justice those responsible for this barbaric act, and to drive the Yinchorri back onto their own world. But I fear that their efforts won’t be enough. Since we can’t very well station Jedi or Judicials there as an occupying force, I am asking this body to sanction the use of private paramilitaries to enforce a technological blockade of Yinchorr that will prevent the Yinchorri from rearming and renewing their nefarious dreams of conquest.”

The shouts of assent and condemnation that met Valorum’s request were genuine, as were the Bothan vice chancellor’s calls for order. Finally, Valorum raised his voice to be heard.

“Militant expansionism cannot be tolerated! Precedent for the use of paramilitaries was established under Supreme Chancellor Kalpana during the Stark Combine Conflict, as well as in the more recent Yam’rii crisis. In both cases, diplomatic solutions followed, and it is my belief that diplomacy will succeed in the Yinchorr system.”

Valorum’s political career had been forged during the Stark Hyperspace War. Now, Palpatine thought, he begins to sound like his onetime rival Ranulph Tarkin.

He waited for the Rotunda to quiet. “The events at Yinchorr speak to the greater challenge we now face. The Cularin system — our newest member — finds itself plagued by pirate attacks. The same is true at Dorvalla, in the Videnda sector. The so-called free-trade zones have become battlegrounds between defenseless worlds and corporate giants like the Trade Federation, or criminal cartels like Black Sun, which are squeezing these outlying systems dry.”

In an act of what some deemed fair play and others political guile, the vice chancellor took that moment to allow the Trade Federation’s platform to leave its docking station and hover into the dark chill of the Rotunda.

“With the Bothan’s customary impeccable timing,” Pestage remarked to Doriana.

The Trade Federation’s Senator was an unctuous Neimoidian named Lott Dod, whose sussurant, snake charmer’s voice wafted through the hall’s enunciators. “I must protest the Supreme Chancellor’s accusations.” His words didn’t convey anger so much as the arrogance of wealth — a strategy he had learned from his predecessor, Nute Gunray. “Should the Trade Federation be expected to absorb the losses it has sustained because of pirate attacks? The Republic refuses to create a military to police those sectors while at the same time prohibiting us from protecting our cargoes with defensive weapons or droid soldiers.”

“Now is not the time for this argument, Senator,” Valorum said, showing the palms of his soft hands.

But a hundred voices overruled him.

“If not now, then when, Supreme Chancellor?” The question came from the wheedling, cranial-horned humanoid magistrate of the Corporate Alliance, Passel Argente. “How many cargoes will the Trade Federation or the Commerce Guild have to lose before we arrive at the proper moment to air this debate. If the Republic cannot protect us, then we have no recourse but to protect ourselves.”

Again Valorum’s face flushed. “In every crisis we have dispatched paramilitary forces—”

“With impressive results.” The interruption came from Lavina Durada-Vashne Wren, the human female representative of the newly admitted Cularin system. “The Thaereian military made quick work of the pirates who were raiding our transports.”

Raucous laughter drowned out the rest of her words.

“The only thing Colonel Tramsig did at Cularin was make himself more contemptible!” Twi’lek Senator Orn Free Taa bellowed from his platform. “The good Senator from Cularin was merely deceived by his dubious charms.”

Argente spoke once more. “Does the Supreme Chancellor advocate that each system have a paramilitary force at its command? If so, then why not a pan-galactic military?”

Palpatine’s eyes sparkled in sadistic delight. Valorum was getting everything he deserved. He had demonstrated some diplomatic skill during the Stark Hyperspace War, but his election to the chancellorship had more to do with a pedigree that included three Supreme Chancellors and deals he had cut with influential families like the Kalpanas and the Tarkins of Eriadu. His adulation of the Jedi Order was well known; less so his hypocrisy — much of his family wealth derived from lucrative contracts his ancestors had entered into with the Trade Federation. His election seven years earlier had been one of the signs Plagueis had been waiting for — the return to power of a Valorum — and had followed on the heels of a remarkable breakthrough Plagueis and Sidious had engineered in manipulating midi-chlorians. A breakthrough the Muun had described as “galactonic.” Both of them suspected that the Jedi had sensed it as well, light-years distant on Coruscant.

“There will be no Republic military,” Valorum was saying, having taken Argente’s bait. “The Ruusan Reformations must be upheld. A military force has to be financed. Taxes imposed on the outlying systems would only add to their burden and lead to talk of secession.”

“Then let the Core Worlds pay!” someone seated below Palpatine shouted.

“The Core has no need of a military force!” the Kuati Senator responded. “We know how to live in peace with one another!”

“Why are the Jedi unable to serve as a military?” the Senator from Ord Mantell asked.

Valorum turned to look at him. “The Jedi are not an army, and they number too few, in any case. They intercede at our request, but also at their own discretion. Furthermore, the Order has seen more deaths in the past twelve years than it saw in the previous fifty. Yinchorr is fast shaping up to be another Galidraan.”

Palpatine took secret pleasure in Valorum’s reference, since what had occurred at Galidraan had been clear evidence of the dark side acting in concert with his and Plagueis’s subterfuges. Most important, for Plagueis the provincial conflict had had a devastating effect on Jedi Master Dooku, deepening his schism with the High Council regarding its decisions to deploy the Jedi as warriors.

“Once again we come full circle.” Orn Free Taa’s voice boomed through the Rotunda. “The Republic can find the credits to contract with private militaries but not to raise a military of its own. And yet the Supreme Chancellor sees fit to lecture us on antiquated thinking. Why not simply turn those credits over to the outlying systems and let them do their own contracting?”

“Perhaps the Senator from Ryloth has touched on something,” Valorum said when the applause died down. “Better still, perhaps the time has come to impose a tax on the free-trade zones to supply the outlying systems with the funds they require.”

Palpatine reclined in the platform’s padded seat as angry rebuttals spewed from the stations of the Rim Faction worlds, as well as from those belonging to the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, the Techno Union, and the Corporate Alliance. How wonderfully and predictably the Senate had deteriorated over the course of twenty years. As had so many ordinary and extraordinary sessions, this one would end in chaos, with nothing resolved.

For the screens that filled the Rotunda, hovercams captured Valorum’s sad expression of impotence.

Soon, very soon, it would fall to Palpatine to impose order on everyone.

Outside the curved walls of the Senate, the crises in the outlying systems had little effect on the lives of the billions who resided on Coruscant. Beings living in the lower levels continued to do their best to survive, while those living closer to the sky continued to spend lavishly on food, fine cloaks, and tickets to the opera, which Valorum had returned to fashion. Palpatine was an exception to the rule. In what sometimes seemed to him like perpetual motion, he met frequently with his peers in the Senate, listening carefully to what each had to say about galactic events, but not so carefully that any had reason to suspect him of being anything other than a career politician, fixed on enhancing his profile. If there was anything that set him apart, it was an impression he gave of taking his job perhaps too seriously. With just over a year remaining in Valorum’s second term of office, the chancellorship was up for grabs, and those who knew Palpatine best suspected that he might actually pursue the position if asked. His equivocations on the matter only made him more desirable to those who thought he could bring something new to the mix — an authentic centrist viewpoint. Others questioned why, given the unprecedented challenges of the times, he or anyone else would aspire to the position.

Several days after the Senate met in special session, Palpatine violated the privacy he so valued to host an informal gathering in his suite in 500 Republica. The move to Coruscant’s most exclusive address had coincided with Ars Veruna’s ascent to the Naboo monarchy twelve years earlier. Veruna’s victory had hinged on a renegotiated contract with the Trade Federation for Naboo’s plasma, although it was widely believed that the King and his cronies had fared better from the deal than the citizens of Naboo. Unlike the apartment Palpatine had occupied when he first arrived on the capital world, this one had a dozen rooms and views of the government district surpassed only by those from the building’s spacious penthouses. The neuranium-and-bronzium statue of Sistros — which still concealed the lightsaber he had constructed early in his apprenticeship — shared space with antiquities that had been procured from remote worlds.

Fashionably late, Finis Valorum was one of the last guests to arrive. Palpatine welcomed him at the door, while a contingent of cloaked and helmeted Republic guards took up positions in the corridor. The Supreme Chancellor’s round face looked drawn, and perspiration beaded his clean-shaven upper lip. Clinging to his arm like an adornment was Sei Taria, ostensibly his administrative aide but also his lover. Just inside the threshold, Valorum hooked his thumbs in the wide blue cummerbund that cinched his robe and stopped to take in the suite and nod in appreciation.

“What the HoloNet newshounds would give to see this.”

“It’s hardly a penthouse,” Palpatine said dismissively.

“Not yet, he means,” Corellia’s Senator remarked, causing several others to lift their drink goblets in a kind of toast.

Palpatine pretended to mask embarrassment. Once he would have been acting; now he wore the guise of Naboo’s Senator as effortlessly as he wore his robes and cloak.

“Journalists are more than welcome to visit,” he said.

Valorum cocked a silver eyebrow in doubt.

“Now that you’ve gotten them accustomed to transparency and accessibility,” Palpatine added.

Valorum laughed without mirth. “For all the good it has done me.”

Sei Taria broke an awkward silence. “You certainly make no secret of your favorite color, Senator.” The lids of her oblique eyes were colored to match the burgundy of her septsilk robe; her dark hair was twisted into an elaborate bun behind her head, while in front, bangs bisected her flawless forehead.

“Scarlet figures prominently in the crest of my ancestral house,” Palpatine explained evenly.

“And yet you favor black and blue in everything you wear.”

Palpatine’s thin smile held. “I’m flattered that you notice.”

Taria’s expression turned devious. “Many have taken notice of you, Senator.”

Servants hurried over to take Valorum’s and Taria’s veda cloth cloaks.

“I hired them expressly for the evening,” Palpatine said quietly. “I’m a solitary man at heart.”

Taria spoke before Valorum could. “The title of the latest HoloNet piece about you, if I’m not mistaken. The Senator who turned his back on a vast fortune to devote himself to politics. Who worked his way up from Naboo’s legislative body to the ambassadorship to the Galactic Senate …” She smiled without showing her teeth. “A heartwarming story.”

“And every word of it true,” Palpatine said. “From a certain point of view.”

The three of them shared a laugh, and then Palpatine led them deeper into the press of guests, all of whom were well disposed toward Valorum. There was no one in the suite the Supreme Chancellor didn’t know, and he greeted every one of them by name. The ability to make beings feel as if they mattered to him, personally as well as politically, was one of his few strengths.

A protocol droid delivered drinks on a tray, and Valorum and Taria helped themselves to glasses. When Valorum’s trophy excused herself to make conversation with the wife of Alderaanian Senator Bail Antilles, Palpatine steered Valorum into the suite’s main room.

“How is it that you manage to enjoy the support of both the Core and Rim Factions?” Valorum asked in genuine interest.

“A consequence of Naboo’s location more than anything else. Mine is something of a displaced world — located in the Rim but sharing the sensibilities of many of the Core worlds.”

Valorum gestured to a figurine in a wall niche. “Exquisite.”

“Quite. A gift from Senator Eelen Li.”

“From Triffis.”

Palpatine reoriented the figurine slightly. “A museum piece, actually.”

Valorum continued along the wall, indicating a second piece. “And this?”

“A ceremonial Gran wind drum. Over one thousand years old.” He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Valorum. “A present from Baskol Yeesrim.”

Valorum nodded. “Senator Ainlee Teem’s aide. I didn’t realize you were on good terms with the Gran Protectorate.”

Palpatine shrugged. “For a time I wasn’t — owing to a long-standing feud over Naboo’s abstention in a Senatorial vote of some significance at the time, but ancient history now.”

Valorum lowered his voice to ask, “Do you think you could bring Malastare over to my side?”

Palpatine swung to look at him. “Regarding the embargo of Yinchorr? Possibly. But not on the matter of taxing the free-trade zones. Both Ainlee Teem and Aks Moe have become allies of the Trade Federation.”

“An even more bewildering reversal.” Valorum sighed. “Friends become enemies; enemies, friends … I suspect I’m going to have to call in every political favor I’m owed to succeed at Yinchorr.” He compressed his lips and shook his head. “I fear my legacy is on the line here, old friend. I’ve only one year left of my term, but I’m determined to see things though.”

Palpatine conjured a compassionate tone. “If it’s any solace, I support the use of a paramilitary force — even at the risk of escalating the crisis — if only to silence those who have accused the Republic of being spineless.”

Valorum clapped Palpatine on the shoulder. “Your support is appreciated.” He looked around the room, then asked even more quietly, “Whom can I count on, Palpatine?”

Palpatine’s eyes scanned the crowd, alighting briefly on two human males, an Anx who wouldn’t have fit in a room with lower ceilings, an Ithorian, and finally a Tarnab.

“Antilles. Com Fordox. Horox Ryyder. Tendau Bendon. Perhaps Mot-Not-Rab …”

Valorum eyed them in turn, then let his gaze settle on a Rodian. “Farr?”

Palpatine laughed to himself; Onaconda Farr thought of politics the way his Rodian brethren thought of bounty hunting: Shoot first; ask questions later.

“He’s a militant, but I may be able to persuade him, as he enjoys close ties with House Naberrie, of Naboo.”

“Tikkes?” Valorum asked, gazing covertly at the Quarren Senator, whose facial tentacles were manipulating snacks into his mouth.

“Tikkes will want something in return, but yes.”

Valorum’s pale blue eyes found Wookiee Senator Yarua.

Palpatine nodded. “Kashyyyk will support you.”

Valorum drained his drink glass and set it aside. “And my opponents?”

“Aside from the obvious ones? The entire Ryloth group — Orn Free Taa, Connus Trell, and Chom Frey Kaa. Also Toonbuck Toora, Edcel Bar Gan, Po Nudo … Do you want me to go on?”

Valorum looked discouraged as they stepped out onto the balcony. A tone sounded, indicating that the noise cancellation feature had been activated. Valorum continued to the railing and stared off into the distance.

“A rare dark night,” he said after a moment.

Palpatine joined him at the railing. “Weather control is brewing a storm.” He turned slightly to adjust the noise cancellation system. “Listen: peals of thunder over The Works. And there,” he added, pointing, “lightning.”

“How unnatural it seems here. If only we might be as easily cleansed as this vast sky and these monumental buildings.”

Palpatine glanced at him. “The Senate has obstructed you, but you’ve brought no dishonor to the office.”

Valorum considered it. “I knew when my first term began that I would face opposition; that events had been spiraling out of control since the Stark Conflict. But since then I’ve sensed a darkness approaching from the outer reaches of the galaxy to shake Coruscant to its foundations. You would think, after a thousand years of peace, that the Republic would be unshakable, but that isn’t the case. I’ve always placed my faith in the Force, believing that if I acted in accordance with its guiding principles, the galaxy would act in kind.”

Palpatine frowned in the dark. “The Republic has grown unwieldy. We are coerced and cajoled into deals that compromise our integrity. We are criticized as much for what we do as what we don’t do. Most beings in the Core couldn’t point to Yinchorr in a star map, and yet the crisis there becomes your problem.”

Valorum nodded in a distracted way. “We can’t stand by and do nothing. The Jedi express as much in private, and yet even they are divided. If Master Dooku becomes any more vocal in his criticisms of the Senate and the Order, the Council may have to restrict him to the Temple.” He fell silent, then said, “Well, I certainly don’t have to tell you. People tell me you’ve become his confidant.”

Instead of responding to that comment, Palpatine said, “And Master Yoda?”

“Inscrutable as ever,” Valorum said. “But troubled, I think.”

Palpatine turned away from him slightly. “The Jedi have faced down darkness in the past.”

“True. But a study of history reveals that they have been defeated by it, as well.”

“Then the outcome is not in our grasp.”

Valorum raised his gaze to the night sky. “Whose, then?”

23: UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN

Just arrived on the Hunters’ Moon, Sidious studied Plagueis as the Sith Lord and his droid, 11-4D, viewed a holorecording of a black-robed Zabrak assassin making short work of combat automata in his home on Coruscant, some hovering, some advancing on two legs, others on treads, and all firing blasters.

Twenty years had added a slight stoop to the Muun’s posture and veins that stood out under his thinning white skin. He wore a dark green utility suit that hugged his delicate frame, a green cloak that fell from his bony shoulders to the fort’s stone floor, and a headpiece that hewed to his large cranium. A triangular breath mask covered his ruined, prognathus lower jaw, his mouth, part of his long neck, and what remained of the craggy nose he’d had before the surprise attack in the Fobosi. A device of his own invention, the alloy mask featured two vertical slits and a pair of thin, stiff conduits that linked it to a transpirator affixed to his upper chest, beneath an armored torso harness. He had learned to ingest and imbibe through feeding tubes, and through his nose.

Seen through the Force, he was a nuclear oval of mottled light, a rotating orb of terrifying energy. If the Maladian attack had weakened him physically, it had also helped to shape his etheric body into a vessel sufficiently strong to contain the full power of the dark side. Determined never again to be caught off guard, he had trained himself to go without sleep, and had devoted two standard decades to day-and-night experimentation with midi-chlorian manipulation and attempts to wrest a few last secrets from the Force, so that he — and presumably his human apprentice — might live forever. His inward turn had enabled him to master the equally powerful energies of order and disorder, creation and entropy, life and death.

“You have made him fearsome,” Plagueis remarked without turning from the recording, as the athletic Zabrak cleaved a Colicoid Eradicator droid down the middle and whirled to cut two others in half. The yellow-eyed humanoid’s hairless head bore a crown of small horns and geometrical patterns of black and red markings.

“Fearless, as well,” Sidious said.

“Still, they are only droids.”

“He’s even more formidable against living beings.”

Plagueis looked over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed in question. “You’ve fought him in a serious way?” Reconstructed vocal chords and trachea imparted a metallic quality to his voice, as if he were speaking through an enunciator.

“I stranded him on Hypori for a month without food and with only a horde of assassin droids for company. Then I returned to goad and challenge him. All things considered, he fought well, even after I deprived him of his lightsaber. He wanted to kill me, but was prepared to die at my hand.”

Plagueis turned fully to face him. “Rather than punish him for disobedience, you praised his resolve.”

“He was already humbled. I chose to leave his honor intact. I proclaimed him my myrmidon; the embodiment of the violent half of our partnership.”

“Partnership?” Plagueis repeated harshly.

“His and mine; not ours.”

“Regardless, you allowed him to believe that he is more skilled than he actually is.”

“Did you not do the same for me?”

Plagueis’s eyes reflected disappointment. “Never, Sidious. I have always been truthful with you.”

Sidious bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I am not the teacher you are.”

Plagueis spent a long moment observing the holorecording. The Zabrak’s fists and legs were as lethal as his lightsaber, and his speed was astounding. “Who applied the markings?”

“The mother did — in keeping with rituals enacted shortly after birth. An initiation, during which a Dathomirian Zabrak infant is submerged in an oily bath, energized with ichor conjured by the Nightsisters’ use of magicks.”

“A peculiar decision, given her hope to send the child into hiding.”

“The Nightsisters rarely leave Dathomir, but Nightbrothers are sometimes sold into servitude. I believe the mother wished him to be aware of his heritage, wherever he ended up.”

On seeing the Zabrak’s lightsaber produce two blades, Plagueis drew in his breath. “A saber-staff! The weapon of Exar Kun! Did he construct that?”

“The prototype was two lightsabers he had welded pommel-to-pommel in imitation of the Iridonian zhaboka. I furnished the knowledge that allowed him to improve on the original design and construct the one he is using.”

Plagueis watched as droid after droid was impaled on the opposing crimson blades. “It strikes me as unnecessary, but I won’t deny his mastery of the Jar’Kai technique.” Again, he turned to Sidious. “Niman and teräs käsi will never substitute for dun möch, but I appreciate that you have trained him to be a fighting machine rather than a true apprentice.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Plagueis’s eyes wrinkled — in suspicion? In amusement?

“I agree with you that he should bear witness to the Yinchorri attack on the Jedi Temple.”

“I will tell him. He already thinks of the Jedi as abominations. The sight of their sanctuary being violated will quicken his blood.”

“Even so, hold him back. Let his anger and hatred fester.”

Sidious bowed his head.

Plagueis deactivated the holoprojector. “The gift you requested for him is nearly complete. Raith Sienar has agreed to have the vessel delivered to Sojourn, and I will arrange to have it brought to the LiMerge Building.” He made a beckoning motion with his fingers. “Come, Darth Sidious, there is much to discuss.”

The ancient fort had never felt more forlorn. A company of Sun Guards still resided on Sojourn, escorting visitors to the surface and keeping the ground-based turbolasers in good working order. Authentication codes were still required for ships entering Sojourn space, but the moon’s coordinates were no longer the secret they had once been. For the most part Plagueis had lived like a hermit among his droids, seldom venturing offworld, though continuing to use his vast wealth and influence to support those organizations that furthered the Sith cause and crush the plans of those he opposed. For the first year following the attack, rumors swirled that Hego Damask was dead, but word gradually began to circulate that he was merely living in seclusion on Sojourn. Four years later, the annual Gatherings had resumed, but only for five years, and now there hadn’t been a Gathering in more than a decade. Fewer and fewer beings had attended the events in any case, many having distanced themselves from Damask in the wake of the murders on Coruscant.

During the long period between the Gran’s sneak attack and the first Gathering of the new era, Sidious had spoken with Plagueis only by holo. Left to progress on his own, he had trained the Zabrak in secret on Mustafar, Tosste, and Orsis, visited several Sith worlds, and spent considerable time studying the Sith texts and holocrons that remained under guard on Aborah. From the Sun Guards, Sidious heard that Damask had locked himself away in the fort and was scarcely seen. On the few occasions Damask had summoned them, they had found the living quarters in shambles, some of the experimental subjects dead in their cages or cells, and many of the droids malfunctioning. Creatures from the surrounding greel forests had invaded and taken up residence in the place, making nests in the turrets and devouring anything edible. While Damask — unwashed, emaciated, erratic in his behavior — had seemed capable of speech, it was 11-4D who had communicated Damask’s orders and requests to the guards. At one point, the guards had been ordered to install more than two hundred holoprojectors in what had been the fort’s armory, so that Damask could both monitor current events and immerse himself in historical recordings, some of which dated back hundreds of years.

Sidious knew that his own powers had increased tenfold over the decades, but he couldn’t be certain he had learned all of Plagueis’s secrets—“his sorcerer’s ways,” as the Sun Guards referred to them — including the ability to prevent beings from dying. He sometimes wondered: Was he a level behind? Two levels behind? Such questions were precisely what had driven generations of Sith apprentices ultimately to challenge their Masters. The uncertainty about who was the more powerful. The need to test themselves, to face the definitive trial. The temptation to take the mantle by force, to put one’s own spin on the power of the dark side — as Darth Gravid had attempted, only to set the Sith back countless years …

And so it had been left largely to Sidious to bring the same fervor to the manipulation of events in the mundane world that Plagueis brought to the manipulation of midi-chlorians. Instead of challenging each other, they had both dedicated themselves to executing the Grand Plan. Political mastery and mastery of the Force. Someday soon, the Sith would wield both, with Sidious the face of the former and Plagueis behind the scenes, advising him about the latter. Like Plagueis, Sidious had moved judiciously, for unintended repercussions in the real world could be as damaging to the Sith imperative as blowback from the Force. The fact that the Force had not struck back argued that their partnership was something unique and in accordance with the will of the Force. Plagueis’s self-imposed isolation had taken a toll on some of the plans he and Sidious had engineered for the Trade Federation and other groups. But Plagueis had made what amounted to a full recovery from his injuries, and the dark side was no longer simply on the ascendant but risen and climbing toward the zenith.

The Yinchorri Crisis was the first time that Plagueis had sanctioned Sidious’s direct involvement in galactic events. Until then, events manipulated by the Sith had been accomplished through the use of intermediaries. But when Sidious enlisted the aid of the Devaronian smuggler to instigate the Yinchorri, he had not only made contact by holoprojector — without revealing his Sith identity, of course — but also put him in touch with Pestage and Doriana, who had assisted in the dumping of the bodies of the dead Jedi on Valorum’s threshold and had facilitated the insertion of the Yinchorri warriors tasked with infiltrating the Jedi Temple.

Initially the plan had been devised as a test, to see whether the Force-suggestion-resistant reptilian sentients could be fashioned into an anti-Jedi army. But in the same way that repeated attempts at replication by cloning had failed, all efforts to fashion them into an obedient army had proved futile. Custom-made for aggression they were, but also unpredictable and unruly. As a result, a redesigned stratagem had been put into motion to test Valorum’s ability to manage a crisis and the Senate’s resolve to end one. But neither Plagueis nor Sidious had expected the Supreme Chancellor to involve the Jedi, and now the modified plan was at risk, as well.

“It’s well and good that Jedi have died,” Plagueis was saying as he, Sidious, and 11-4D entered his cluttered study, “but we must guard against revealing our hand too soon. Was it wise to have the corpses shipped to Coruscant?”

“They had the intended effect on Valorum,” Sidious said.

“Nevertheless, we may have misjudged him.”

“He’s more concerned about his legacy than he is about the Republic, but he may yet win a majority of the Senate over to his side, even at the cost of all his political cachet.”

“We need to engineer a crisis from which he can’t recover,” Plagueis said.

“I have set just such events in motion.”

Plagueis nodded in satisfaction. “Then perhaps there is a beneficial side to this. If the Senate approves an embargo, he will be indebted to you.”

Sidious smiled tightly. “A blockade enacted for a blockade broken.”

“To that end, we must begin to move Viceroy Nute Gunray and King Veruna into position. The Neimoidian was partnered with Valorum during the Stark Conflict. This time we will pit them against each other.”

“I knew Gunray slightly when he served as a Senator. He is acquisitive and ambitious, but oddly immune to intimidation. We will need to win him over.”

“And so we shall: with procurements that will earn him a position among the seven who make up the Trade Federation directorate.”

“How should we approach him?”

“The gift you requisitioned for the Zabrak prompted an idea,” Plagueis said. “Gunray is fond of pylats, which the Neimoidians associate with wealth. The avians are abundant on Neimoidia, but Sojourn’s forests support a rare red-spotted white one, which the Kaminoans supplied. He will never identify it as a clone.”

“A gift from Hego Damask or Senator Palpatine?”

Plagueis looked him up and down. “From Darth Sidious, I think.”

Sidious stared at him in doubt. “By name?”

“Not merely by name, but by title, as well. It is time we make our presence known to a select few.”

“Will the Sith title have any meaning for him?”

“When we make his dreams come true.”

Plagueis began to pace the cool floor. “No Sith have ever been in the position in which we now find ourselves, Darth Sidious: in step with the reemergence of the dark side, fortified by the signs and omens, certain that revenge and victory are near at hand. If the Jedi would abide by their philosophy of acting in accordance with the Force, of doing what is right, they would roll over for the dark. But they resist. Yoda and the rest of the Council members will double their meditation sessions in an effort to peer into the future, only to discover it clouded and unknowable. Only to discover that complacency has opened the door to catastrophe.

“If indeed they have been acting in accordance with the Force, how could we be succeeding in tipping the balance? How could the dark side be gaining ground? In fact, the Jedi have fallen away from their self-assigned duty, their noble path. Could they have prevented it? Perhaps by having remained in control of the Republic, by electing and reelecting Jedi Supreme Chancellors. Or perhaps by absenting themselves completely from the affairs of the Republic, and attending to their arcane rituals in the belief that right thinking by them would keep the Republic strong and on course, the galaxy tipped into the light, instead of having allowed themselves to become marshals and enforcers.”

He cast a questioning look at Sidious. “Do you see the grand error of their ways? They execute the Republic’s business as if it were the business of the Force! But has a political body ever succeeded in being the arbiter of what is right and just? How easy it is for them to bask in self-assurance in their castle on Coruscant. But in so doing, they have rendered themselves ill equipped for the world we have spent a millennium bringing into being.”

He cleared his throat.

“We’re going to back them into a contradiction, Darth Sidious. We’re going to force them to confront the moral quandary of their position, and reveal their flaws by requiring them to oversee the conflicts that plague their vaunted Republic.

“Only Dooku and a handful of others have grasped the truth. All those years ago when I first met him on Serenno, I thought: What a blow it would be to the Order if he could be enticed to leave and embrace the dark side. What a panic it might incite. For if one could leave, then ten or twenty or thirty could follow, and the hollowness at the center of the Order would be plain for all to see.”

The Muun’s eyes narrowed. “One can’t be content to abide by the rules of the Jedi Order or the Force. Only by making the Force serve us have we prevailed. Eight years ago we shifted the galaxy, Darth Sidious, and that shift is now irreversible.”

Approaching, he rested his bony hands on Sidious’s shoulders. “On my first visit to your homeworld I recognized it as a nexus in the Force. And I remember thinking how appropriate it was that the dark side should be hiding on such a beautiful planet.” He paused, straightened, then asked with sudden gravity, “Is Veruna ready, Sidious? I’m concerned that he might be as uncontrollable as the Yinchorri, and that a more malleable leader would better serve our interests.”

Sidious considered the question. “It may not be necessary to remove him, Master. Like Gunray, he favors wealth over honor.”

Plagueis nodded his head slowly. “Then nudge him, Darth Sidious. And let us see which way he leans before we decide his fate.”

24: SITH’ARI

Their targets were only asteroids, but the chromium-nosed yellow starfighters attacked the microcratered rocks as if they posed a threat to Naboo itself. Products of the Theed Space Vessel Engineering Corporation and Nubian Design, and King Veruna’s pet project since his coronation, the sleek, short-winged craft exemplified Naboo’s infatuation with classic design and flagrant extravagance. The starfighters’ engines were said to have set a new standard for emissions control, but for a world that prided itself on environmental awareness, the N-1s seemed entirely out of character and out of place.

“We’re expected to have two additional squadrons ready for flight by the start of the year,” Veruna told Palpatine as they stood at a dorsal viewport in the King’s even more grandiose, mirror-finish Royal Starship. “All will feature twin laser cannons, proton torpedo launchers, and deflector shields, along with R-two astromech droids.”

“A dream come true,” Palpatine said. “Both for you and for the Nubian Design Collective.”

Veruna arched a bushy, gray-and-white eyebrow. “Our deal with Nubian Design was mutually beneficial.”

“Of course it was,” Palpatine said, wondering how much Veruna and his cronies had pocketed on a contract most Naboo had opposed.

Palpatine had arrived with Pestage, and had met downside with Janus Greejatus before rendezvousing with Veruna and some of the members of his advisory council at Theed Hangar, including Prime Counselor Kun Lago and the King’s sharp-featured female security chief Maris Magneta. Conspicuously absent was Theed’s teenage governor, Padmé Naberrie, whose appointment had been Veruna’s compromise to an electorate that had been growing more oppositional with each passing year. Veruna, however, looked none the worse for wear. With his flaring eyebrows, long silver hair, and fussily pointed beard, he still cut a fine, swashbuckling figure. Lago and Magneta were considerably younger and more rough-cut, and had made their distaste for Palpatine and his party felt the moment they had boarded the gleaming starship.

Outside the viewport, strafing runs by Bravo Squadron were reducing asteroids to gravel and space dust.

“That’s Captain Ric Olié in Bravo One,” Veruna said. “Battle-hardened at Chommel Minor.”

Pestage failed to restrain a short laugh. “Against that pirate group whose ships collided with one another?”

Veruna glared at Palpatine. “Your aide seems to have forgotten his place, Senator.”

Palpatine flashed Pestage a look that said nothing and turned back to Veruna. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

If Veruna was unconvinced, he kept it to himself and fixed his gaze on the distant starfighter exercise. “I plan to end our partnership with the Trade Federation,” he said after a long moment of silence, and without looking at Palpatine.

Palpatine moved slightly to place himself in Veruna’s peripheral view, his eyes wide in genuine surprise. “Is that the purpose of this demonstration?”

The King turned to him. “If I had wanted it to be a show of force, I would have waited until the next scheduled plasma collection. However, since you seem to be asking, both Theed Engineering and Nubian Design assure me that the Federation’s Lucrehulk freighters would be easy prey for our N-Ones.”

Palpatine cut his eyes to Pestage and Greejatus and shook his head in dismay. “Then it’s good you thought to invite me aboard, Your Majesty, because I bring news that may persuade you to rethink your position.”

“What news?” Magneta demanded.

Palpatine ignored her by continuing to speak to Veruna. “This matter has yet to reach the Rotunda, but there is every indication that the Republic is eventually going to grant the Trade Federation permission to arm its ships.”

Veruna’s jaw dropped and he blinked. “With what?”

Palpatine pretended to become flustered. “I don’t know precisely. Turbolasers, certainly, as well as droid starfighters. Whatever combat automata are being produced by Baktoid, Haor Chall, and the hive species.” He gestured out the viewport. “Weapons that will prove to be a deadly match for those starfighters.”

Veruna was still trying to make sense of it. “Why is the Republic doing this?”

“Because of what happened at Yinchorr. Because of persistent attacks by pirates and would-be insurrectionists. And because the Republic refuses to reverse its position on creating a military.”

Veruna stormed away from the viewport, then stopped and whirled on Palpatine. “I don’t believe it. Valorum was successful at Yinchorr. He would never bow to pressure from the Trade Federation.”

“He isn’t bowing to pressure. His strategy is to enter into a deal with the Federation: defensive weaponry in exchange for taxation of the free-trade zones.”

Veruna was speechless.

“This is why I urge Your Majesty to keep Naboo on the proper side of this.”

“Do tell us, Senator,” Lago interrupted, “what it means to be on the proper side?”

Palpatine glanced from Lago to Veruna. “When the matter reaches the Rotunda, Naboo must vote in protest of taxation of the free-trade zones.”

Veruna swallowed and found his voice. “In support of the Trade Federation? With my reelection approaching? You must be mad, Palpatine. Naboo has been under the yoke of the Federation for more than thirty years. The people would never forgive me.”

“Your base remains strong,” Palpatine said. “The people will gradually come to understand that you made the correct decision.”

Veruna smoldered. “I don’t like being put in this position, Palpatine.”

Palpatine adopted a pensive pose, then looked at the King. “There may yet be a way … I’m certain that Hego Damask would be willing to broker a renegotiated deal with the Neimoidian bloc of the Trade Federation—”

“I don’t need Damask to broker anything,” Veruna snapped. “The Muun’s time has come and gone. He’s an anachronism. His enemies did us all a favor by forcing him into early retirement.”

Palpatine’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. And so, with a nudge, he reveals himself.

“If I recall correctly, Damask’s enemies paid dearly.” He fell silent for a moment, repositioning himself in front of the viewport, so that Veruna would have the strafing starfighters in direct view while he listened. “Granted, Sojourn isn’t the impregnable fortress it once was. But Damask’s reach is as long as it ever was, and his ties to the Banking Clan have never been stronger.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Senator,” Magneta interjected, “Naboo’s reach is now long, as well.”

Palpatine glanced over his shoulder at the starfighters, then fixed his eyes on Veruna. “Your Majesty, Damask will not take kindly to being cut out of our dealings with the Trade Federation. He can make trouble.”

Veruna’s gaze wandered back to him. “Let him try. Naboo isn’t the only world he has exploited. We would not want for allies. I’m more concerned about how the Senate would react to our voting against taxation of the trade zones.”

Palpatine forced a breath. “It’s a hopeless situation. The Rim Faction worlds rely on the Trade Federation for goods, so they will likely vote in the negative. The Core Worlds, on the other hand, will vote in favor of taxation, if only to bring revenue to the Republic and avoid having to support the outlying systems. Occupying the middle ground, the Trade Federation stands to win no matter what, in that it will finally be allowed to defend itself, and will force its clients to shoulder the increased costs that will result from taxation.”

“What does all this mean for Valorum?” Lago said.

“I fear that he may not complete his term of office.”

“Who will succeed him?” Veruna asked.

“That’s difficult to say, Your Majesty. Ainlee Teem, I think. Though Bail Antilles enjoys some support.”

Veruna thought about it. “What are the implications for Naboo should the Gran win over the Alderaanian?”

“Then, of course, you would have a friend in the chancellorship.”

Veruna tugged at his beard. “I’ll take your recommendations into account. But be forewarned, Palpatine, I will brook no deception. From you”—he fixed Pestage and Greejatus with a gimlet stare—“or any of your cabal. Remember: I know where the bodies are buried.”

Time is short.

Vines and creepers had clawed their way up the walls and towers of the old fort, and lianas linked the crenellated parapets to the leafy crowns of nearby trees. Insects scurried underfoot, foraging for food or laden with bits of vegetation or scraps of splintered wood. The previous night’s storms had left puddles ankle-deep on the walkway, and runoff cascaded through firing holes. The forest Plagueis had planted and stocked with rare and exotic game seemed determined to rid Sojourn of the fortress that had been erected in its midst.

From the tallest of the towers, he gazed over the treetops at the rim of the moon’s parent world and the distant star they shared. Sojourn was running fast and the last light was fading. The air was balmy and riotous with the drone and stridulation of insects, the territorial cries of avians, the mournful waking howls of creatures of the night. Clouds of bats spilled from caves in the escarpment, devouring bloodsuckers born by the strong rains. A breeze rose out of nowhere.

Time is short.

Still in safekeeping on Aborah were texts and holocrons that recounted the deeds and abilities of Sith Masters who, so it was said and written, had been able to summon wind or rain or fracture the skies with conjured lightning. In their own words or those of their disciples, a few Dark Lords claimed to have had the ability to fly, become invisible, or transport themselves through space and time. But Plagueis had never succeeded in duplicating any of those phenomena.

From the start Tenebrous had told him that he lacked the talent for Sith sorcery, even though the inability hadn’t owed to a deficiency of midi-chlorians. It’s an innate gift, the Bith would say when pressed, and one that he had lacked, as well. Sorcery paled in comparison with Bith science, regardless. But Plagueis now understood that Tenebrous had been wrong about sorcery, as he had been wrong about so many things. Yes, the gift was strongest in those who, with scant effort, could allow themselves to be subsumed by the currents of the Force and become conduits for the powers of the dark side. But there was an alternative path to those abilities, and it led from a place where the circle closed on itself and sheer will substituted for selflessness. Plagueis understood, too, that there were no powers beyond his reach; none he couldn’t master through an effort of will. If a Sith of equal power had preceded him, then that one had taken his or her secrets to the grave, or had locked them away in holocrons that had been destroyed or had yet to surface.

The question of whether he and Sidious had discovered something new or rediscovered something ancient was beside the point. All that mattered was that, almost a decade earlier, they had succeeded in willing the Force to shift and tip irrevocably to the dark side. Not a mere paradigm shift, but a tangible alteration that could be felt by anyone strong in the Force, and whether or not trained in the Sith or Jedi arts.

The shift had been the outcome of months of intense meditation, during which Plagueis and Sidious had sought to challenge the Force for sovereignty and suffuse the galaxy with the power of the dark side. Brazen and shameless, and at their own mortal peril, they had waged etheric war, anticipating that their own midi-chlorians, the Force’s proxy army, might marshal to boil their blood or stop the beating of their hearts. Risen out of themselves, discorporate and as a single entity, they had brought the power of their will to bear, asserting their sovereignty over the Force. No counterforce had risen against them. In what amounted to a state of rapture they knew that the Force had yielded, as if some deity had been tipped from its throne. On the fulcrum they had fashioned, the light side had dipped and the dark side had ascended.

On the same day they had allowed Venamis to die.

Then, by manipulating the Bith’s midi-chlorians, which should have been inert and unresponsive, Plagueis had resurrected him. The enormity of the event had stunned Sidious into silence and overwhelmed and addled 11-4D’s processors, but Plagueis had carried on without assistance, again and again allowing Venamis to die and be returned to life, until the Bith’s organs had given out and Plagueis had finally granted him everlasting death.

But having gained the power to keep another alive hadn’t been enough for him. And so after Sidious had returned to Coruscant, he had devoted himself to internalizing that ability, by manipulating the midi-chlorians that animated him. For several months he made no progress, but ultimately he began to perceive a measured change. The scars that had grown over his wounds had abruptly begun to soften and fade, and he had begun to breathe more freely than he had in twenty years. He began to sense that not only were his damaged tissues healing, but his entire body was rejuvinating itself. Beneath the transpirator, areas of his skin were smooth and youthful, and he knew that eventually he would cease to age altogether.

Drunk on newfound power, then, he had attempted an even more unthinkable act: to bring into being a creation of his own. Not merely the impregnation of some hapless, mindless creature, but the birth of a Forceful being. The ability to dominate death had been a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t equivalent to pure creation. And so he had stretched out — indeed, as if invisible, transubstantiated — to inform every being of his existence, and impact all of them: Muunoid or insectoid, secure or dispossessed, free or enslaved. A warrior waving a banner in triumph on a battlefield. A ghost infiltrating a dream.

But ultimately to no end.

The Force grew silent, as if in flight from him, and many of the animals in his laboratory succumbed to horrifying diseases.

Regardless, eight long years later, Plagueis remained convinced that he was on the verge of absolute success. The evidence was in his own increased midi-chlorian count; and in the power he sensed in Sidious when he had finally returned to Sojourn. The dark side of the Force was theirs to command, and in partnership they would someday be able to keep each other alive, and to rule the galaxy for as long as they saw fit.

But he had yet to inform Sidious of this.

It was more important that Sidious remain as focused on manipulating events in the profane world as Plagueis was intent on dominating the realm of the Force, of which the mundane was only a gross and distorted reflection.

To be sure, the light had been extinguished, but for how long and at what cost?

He recalled a stellar eclipse he had witnessed on a long-forgotten world, whose single moon was of perfect size and distance to blot out the light of the system’s primary. The result hadn’t been total darkness but illumination of a different sort, singular and diffuse, that had confused the birds and had permitted the stars to be seen in what would have been broad daylight. Even totally blocked, the primary had shone from behind the satellite’s disk, and when the moon moved on there had been a moment of light almost too intense to bear.

Gazing into Sojourn’s darkening sky, he wondered what calamity the Force was planning in retreat to visit upon him or Sidious or both of them for willfully tipping the balance. Was retribution merely waiting in the wings as it had been on Coruscant twenty years earlier? It was a dangerous time; more dangerous than his earliest years as an apprentice when the dark side might have consumed him at any moment.

For now, at least, his full convalescence was near complete. Sidious was continuing to become more powerful as a Sith and as a politician, his most intricate schemes meeting with little or no resistance. And the Jedi Order was foundering …

Time would tell, and time was short.

The Dathomirian Zabrak sat cross-legged on the duracrete floor, recounting for Sidious the surveillance mission he had completed at the Jedi Temple, weeks earlier, at the height of the Yinchorri Crisis.

“It sickened me to see how easily the reptilian infiltrators were deceived, Master, even by the fair-haired human female sentry they thought they had taken by surprise outside the Temple. From where I watched I knew that she had feigned surprise when her lightsaber failed to penetrate her assailant’s cortosis shield, and that she had merely been faking unconsciousness when the Yinchorri had yanked her to her feet and she impaled him on her activated blade.” Maul snarled, revealing sharply filed teeth. “Their stupidity allowed me to revel in the fact that their mission had been compromised — that the Jedi were simply luring them into a trap.”

The abandoned LiMerge Building had become the assassin’s home and training center; The Works and the fringes of the nearby Fobosi district, his nocturnal haunts. Circling him with the cowl of his robe raised over his head, Sidious asked, “The Jedi gained your respect?”

“They might have, had the infiltrators showed any skill. Had I been leading them …”

Sidious stopped. “The mission would have been successful? Jedi Knights and Padawans killed; younglings slaughtered.”

“I’m certain of it, Master.”

“Just you, against the Masters who make up the High Council.”

“By hiding and striking I could have killed many.”

Plagueis was right, Sidious thought. I have made him prideful.

The Yinchorri stratagem had failed, in any case. Additional Jedi had died, but Jedi deaths had never been the primary reason for instigating the crisis. What mattered was that Valorum had triumphed, with some help from Palpatine, it was true, but mostly on his own, by managing to bring Senators Yarua, Tikkes, Farr, and others over to his side and establishing an embargo. But with his political currency spent, Valorum’s position was more tenuous than ever. Even a hint of scandal and the Senate would lose what little confidence they had in him.

“You are formidable,” Sidious said at last, “but you are not a one-being army, and I’ve not spent years training you only to have you sacrifice yourself. When I bestowed upon you the title of Darth, it was not in reward for your having survived dangerous missions, starvation, and assassin droids, but for your obedience and loyalty. No doubt you will have ample opportunities to demonstrate your superior skill to the Jedi, but bringing down the Order is not your mandate, your hatred of them notwithstanding.”

Maul lowered his head, displaying his crown of sharp-tipped horns in their red-and-black field. “Master. As long as those who do derive the joy and satisfaction I would.”

“We shall see, my apprentice. But until then, there are matters we need to attend to.”

He motioned for Maul to stand and follow him to the holoprojector table and transmission grid — the same ones the Gran had left behind decades before, but fully modernized and enhanced.

“Stand out of view of the cams,” Sidious said, indicating a place. “For now, we want to keep you in reserve.”

“But—”

“Be patient. You will have a part to play in this.”

Sidious settled into a high-backed chair that wrapped around him like a throne and had a remote control built into one of the arms, his thoughts set aswirl by what he was about to do. Had Plagueis felt the enormity of the moment on Naboo all those years before when he had revealed his true self; removed, for the first time, the mask he wore in public? As empowering as it might have been, had the moment also been tainted by a kind of nostalgia; the loss of something so personal, so defining? What had been secret would never be secret again …

The comm caught Viceroy Nute Gunray in the midst of eating, and without the ear-flapped tiara and ornate azurestone collar that made him look like a jester. “Greetings, Viceroy,” Sidious said.

The nictitating membranes of the Neimoidian’s crimson eyes went into spasm, and his mottled muzzle twitched. “What? What? This is a secure address. How did you—”

“Don’t bother attempting to trace the origin of this communication,” Sidious said, while Gunray’s tapered gray fingers flew across the keypad of his holotable. “A trace will only lead you in circles and waste what limited time we have.”

“How dare you intrude—”

“Recently, I sent you a gift. A red-spotted pylat.”

Gunray stared. “You? You sent it?”

“I trust you had sense enough to have it scanned for monitoring devices.”

Gunray whirled to look at something off cam; probably the crested bird itself. “Of course I did. What was your purpose in sending it?” His accent elongated the words and softened the T sounds.

“Consider it a token of my appreciation for the unrewarded work you have done for the Trade Federation. The directorate fails to recognize your contributions.”

“They — that is, I … Why are you hiding inside the cowl of your cloak?”

“It is the clothing of my Order, Viceroy.”

“You are a cleric?”

“Do I seem a holy man to you?”

Gunray’s expression soured. “I demand to see your face.”

“You have yet to earn the privilege of seeing me.”

“Privilege? Who do you think you are?”

“Are you certain you want to know?”

“I demand to know.”

Sidious’s smile barely escaped the cowl. “Even better, then. I am a Sith Lord.”

There. I said it.

I said it …

“Sith Lord?” Gunray repeated.

The response came from deep inside him, from the center of his true being. “You have permission to refer to me as Darth Sidious.”

“I’ve not heard of Darth Sidious.”

“Ah, but now that you have, our partnership is forged.”

Gunray shook his head. “I am not looking for a partner.”

Sidious showed some of his face. “Don’t pretend to be content with your position in the Trade Federation, or that you are without aspirations. We are now partners in the future.”

Gunray made a hissing sound. “This is a joke. The Sith have been extinct for a thousand years.”

“That’s precisely what the Republic and the Jedi Order would like you to believe, but we never disappeared. Through the centuries we have taken up just causes and revealed ourselves to select beings like yourself.”

Gunray sat back in his chair. “I don’t understand. Why me?”

“You and I share an avid interest in where the Republic is headed, and I have deemed it time that we begin to work in concert.”

“I won’t be part of any covert schemes.”

“Truly?” Sidious said. “Do you think that out of millions of influential beings I would choose you without knowing you inside and out? I realize that your voracious desires stem from the cruel conditions of your upbringing — you and your fellow grubs in ruthless competition for limited supplies of fungus. But I understand. We are all shaped by our infantile desires, our longing for affection and attention, our fears of death. And judging by how far you have come, it’s clear that you were unrivaled and continue to be. Your years in the Senate, for example. The clandestine meetings in the Claus Building, the Follin Restaurant in the Crimson Corridor, the funds you diverted to Pax Teem and Aks Moe, the secret dealings with Damask Holdings, the assassination of Vidar Kim—”

“Enough! Enough! Do you mean to blackmail me?”

Sidious delayed his reply. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me when I spoke of a partnership.”

“I heard you. Now tell me what you want of me.”

“Nothing more than your cooperation. I will bring about great changes for you, and in exchange you will do the same for me.”

Gunray looked worried. “You claim to be a Dark Lord. But how do I know that you are? How do I know you have any ability to help me?”

“I found you a rare bird.”

“That hardly validates your claim.”

Sidious nodded. “I understand your skepticism. I could, of course, demonstrate my powers. But I’m reluctant to convince you in that way.”

Gunray sniffed. “I haven’t time for this—”

“Is the pylat nearby?”

“Just behind me,” Gunray allowed.

“Show me.”

Gunray widened the scope of the holotable’s cams to include the bird, perched in a cage that was little more than a circle of precious metal, crowned with a stasis field generator.

“I was concerned, when I extracted him from the jungle habitat, that he would die,” Sidious said. “And yet he appears to be at home in his new environment.”

“His songs suggest as much,” Gunray replied.

“What if I told you that I could reach across space and time and strangle him where he perches?”

Gunray was aghast. “You couldn’t. I doubt that even a Jedi—”

“Are you challenging me, Viceroy?”

“Yes,” he said abruptly; then, just as quickly: “No — wait!”

Sidious shifted in the chair. “You value the bird — this symbol of wealth.”

“I am the envy of my peers for possessing it.”

“Would not actual wealth generate even greater envy?”

Gunray grew flustered. “How can I answer, when I know that you might strangle me should I refuse you?”

Sidious loosed an elaborate sigh. “Partners don’t strangle each other, Viceroy. I would prefer to earn your trust. Are you agreeable to that?”

“I might be.”

“Then here is my first gift to you: the Trade Federation is going to be betrayed. By Naboo, by the Republic, by the members of the directorate. Only you can provide the leadership that will be needed to keep the Federation from splintering. But first we must see to it that you are promoted to the directorate.”

“The current directorate would never welcome a Neimoidian.”

“Tell me what it would take—” Sidious started, then cut himself off. “No. Never mind. Let me surprise you by arranging a promotion.”

“You would do that and ask nothing in return?”

“For the time being. If and when I’ve earned your full trust, I will expect you to take my suggestions to heart.”

“I will. Darth Sidious.”

“Then we will speak again soon.”

Sidious deactivated the holoprojector and sat in silence.

“There is a world in the Videnda sector called Dorvalla,” he said to Maul a long moment later. “You will not have heard of it, but it is a source of lommite ore, which is essential to the production of transparisteel. Two companies — Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore — currently control the mining and shipping operations. But for some time the Trade Federation has had its sights on overseeing Dorvalla.”

“What is thy bidding, Master?” Maul asked.

“For now, only that you acquaint yourself with Dorvalla, for it may prove the key to ensnaring Gunray in our grasp.”

25: THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE MERITOCRACY

A more outlandish quartet hadn’t set foot, belly, claw, and jaw on Sojourn in twenty years. A half-breed Theelin female, her Hutt master, his Twi’lek majordomo, and his Chevin chief of security crossed the fort’s leaf-litterd courtyard and entered Plagueis’s reception room. With the exception of the Theelin, they looked as if they might have wandered in from the greel forests to consort with the creatures that had constructed nests and burrows in the fort’s dank corridors and lofty turrets.

Plagueis and 11-4D were waiting just inside the gaping entrance.

“Welcome, Jabba Desilijic Tiure,” Plagueis said through his transpirator mask.

Droids had restored some semblance of order to the room and installed tables and chairs. Morning light streamed through square openings high in the wall, and a fire crackled in the stone hearth.

“A pleasure to see you again after so many years, Magister Damask,” Jabba said in coarse Basic. The ageless criminal lolled his huge tongue and maneuvered his great slug body onto a low platform the droids had erected. Gazing around, he added, “You and your droid must visit my little place on Tatooine in the Western Dune Sea.”

“Someday soon,” Plagueis said as he lowered himself into an armchair across from the platform.

Like Toydarians and Yinchorri, Hutts were immune to Force suggestions. Had Jabba known how many of his species Plagueis had experimented on over the decades, he might not have been as sociable, but then the Hutt’s own penchant for ruthlessness and torture were legendary. As a tattoo on his arm attested, he cared only for members of his clan. He didn’t bother to introduce his subordinates by name, but as was often the case with many of the thugs and ne’er-do-wells with whom he surrounded himself, two of them had reputations that preceded them. The pink-complexioned Twi’lek was Bib Fortuna, a former spice smuggler whose own species had turned its back on him. Tall and red-eyed, he had sharp little teeth and thick, shiny lekku growing from a hairless cranium that looked as if it had been inexpertly stuffed with rocks. The Chevin — a two-meter-high snout that had sprouted arms, legs, and tail — was Ephant Mon. Celebrated as a warrior among his own kind — and mildly Force-sensitive — he wore a blanket someone might have thrown over him to hide his ugliness. Plagueis knew from contacts in the Trade Federation that Mon was involved in a smuggling operation on technophobic Cerea, supplying swoops to a gang of young upstarts.

The Theelin was unknown to Plagueis. Pale and shapely, she had lustrous orange hair and purple beauty marks that ran down her face and neck to disappear beneath a revealing costume.

“Diva Shaliqua,” Jabba said when he realized that Plagueis was studying her. “A singer in the band.”

“As her name suggests.”

“A gift from Ingoda, in place of credits owed to me.” Jabba’s big eyes settled on the Theelin. “She and Diva Funquita came as a pair, but I made Funquita a present to Gardulla in the hope of smoothing over our lingering rivalry.” He grunted. “My first mistake. The second: introducing Shaliqua to Romeo Treblanc, who would move worlds to possess her.”

Notorious for his gambling, Treblanc owned the Galaxies Opera House on Coruscant. Why Jabba chose to associate with gamblers and other lowlifes was a mystery to Plagueis. In some ways the Hutt’s illicit empire was the inverse of Hego Damask’s, where, if nothing else, the criminals were at least politicians, corporate honchos, and financiers. His coming to Sojourn was both uncharacteristic and unexpected.

“Are you here to talk about Treblanc or Gardulla?” Plagueis asked.

Jabba reacted in annoyance. “As always, straight to the heart of the matter. But I can appreciate the fact that you’re a busy Muun.” He wriggled to adjust his position on the platform. “I know you were instrumental thirty years ago in giving Gardulla the run of Tatooine, as a base for her slavery operations and Podracing events. I’ve come this far to inform you that Tatooine will soon have a new overseer.” He gestured to himself. “Me.”

Plagueis said nothing for a long moment. “I was under the impression that Tatooine was already as much yours as Gardulla’s.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Jabba said. “I’ve tried to undermine her influence by fomenting distrust among the so-called Sand People — the Tusken Raiders — but success at chasing her offworld continues to elude me.”

Plagueis made an adjustment to the breath mask. “How can I help?”

Jabba appraised him. “I happen to know that Gardulla hasn’t been able to make good on the loans you extended. What she earns from events like the Boonta Eve Classic, she loses to gamblers.”

“That much is true,” Plagueis said. “But what of it?”

“I want you to stop funding her, so I can starve her out.”

Plagueis shrugged. “Your information is incomplete, Jabba. I haven’t funded her enterprises in a decade.”

Jabba balled his hands in anger. “You have influence over members of the Banking Clan and the Trade Federation who are funding her.”

Plagueis lifted his head, as if in revelation. “I see. And what can I expect in exchange?”

“To start with, a better percentage of the profits from the races and other enterprises.”

Plagueis frowned in disappointment. “You must know that I’ve no need of credits, Jabba. And you wouldn’t have come this far, as you say, unless you had learned a few things that might sway me over to your side.”

Jabba wriggled, restraining his anger. “In return for your help, I will weaken Black Sun’s influence with the Trade Federation Directorate—”

“I need no assistance.” Plagueis leaned forward in the armchair. “What do you know that I may not know?”

Jabba inflated his body, then allowed the air to escape him in a protracted, mirthless laugh. “I know something you may not yet know about the Bando Gora.”

Plagueis raised himself somewhat in the chair. Hideously masked Bando Gora assassins had become a growing concern in the Outer Rim, posing a problem to the leadership of some of the cartels Plagueis backed. “Now you have my interest, Jabba.”

“The cult has a new leader,” Jabba went on, happy to have the high ground. “A human female, she has entered into a plan with Gardulla, a Malastare Dug named Sebolto, and a Republic Senator to distribute contaminated death sticks, as a means of supplying the Bando Gora with brain-dead recruits.”

Plagueis stretched out with the Force to peer into the Hutt. Jabba wasn’t lying. “This human female,” he said.

“I’ve heard rumors.”

Again Jabba was telling the truth. “Rumors will suffice for now.”

The Hutt rubbed his meaty hands together. “Her name is Komari Vosa, and word has it that she is a former Jedi.”

Plagueis knew the name only too well. Some ten years earlier, Komari Vosa had been a Padawan of Master Dooku.

Behind each of the Rotunda’s hover platform docking stations extended wedge-shaped office complexes more than half a kilometer in length, where Senators met with one another, entertained guests, and, on rare occasions, carried out the work they had been elected or appointed to perform. Some of the offices were sealed environments, in which the atmospheres of member worlds were replicated; others, especially those belonging to hive species, were staffed by hundreds of beings who performed their duties in cubicles that resembled nectarcomb cells. By comparison, Naboo’s was rather prosaic in design and adornment, and yet unrivaled in terms of the number of high-profile visitors it received.

“I’m giving thought to leaving the Order,” Master Dooku told Palpatine in the windowless room that was the Senator’s private study. “I can no longer abide the decisions of the Council, and I have to be free to speak my mind about the wretched state of the Republic.”

Palpatine didn’t reply, but thought: Finally.

With Darth Maul traveling to Dorvalla on his first mission, Palpatine had been preoccupied all afternoon, and now Dooku’s disclosure: long anticipated and yet still something of a surprise.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been exasperated with the Council,” he said carefully, “and it probably won’t be the last.”

Dooku shook his head firmly. “Never more than this. Even after Galidraan. I’ve no recourse.”

Frigid Galidraan was years behind him, but for Dooku the incident remained an open wound. A local governor had succeeded in luring the Jedi into a conflict with Mandalorian mercenaries that had left eleven Jedi dead and the True Mandalorians — largely innocent of the charges that had been leveled against them — wiped out, save for one. Since then, and on each occasion he and Palpatine had met, Dooku had begun to look less and less like a Jedi Master and more like the noble he would have been on his native Serenno. Meticulously groomed, he carried himself like an aristocrat, affecting tailored tunics and trousers, and a velvety black cloak that gave him a dashing, theatrical look. His slightly curved lightsaber hilt, too, might have been a prop, though he was known to be one of the Order’s most skilled duelists. And behind a mask of arrogant civility, Palpatine knew him to be capable of great cruelty.

“By request from the Senate,” Dooku went on, “the Council dispatched several Jedi to Baltizaar, and my former Padawan somehow succeeded in accompanying them.”

Palpatine nodded soberly. “I know something of that. Baltizaar’s Senator petitioned for help in fending off attacks by the Bando Gora.”

“Sadistic abductors and assassins,” Dooku said in anger. “Military action was called for, not Jedi intercession. But no matter, the Council complied with the request, and now Komari Vosa and the others are believed to be dead.”

Palpatine raised an eyebrow. “The young woman who became infatuated with you?”

“The same,” Dooku said quietly. “At Galidraan she fought brutally against the Mandalorians, almost as if in an attempt to impress me. As a result I told the Council that she wasn’t ready for the trials and Jedi Knighthood. Compounding their initial error in dispatching Jedi, Master Yoda and the rest have refused to send reinforcements to search for survivors.”

Palpatine considered it. “If Baltizaar was meant to be another attempt to impress you, all Komari Vosa did was prove that you were right about her all along.”

Dooku regarded him. “Perhaps. But the failure is mine.” He ran a hand over his short beard. “As skilled as I am with a lightsaber, I’ve turned out to be an ineffectual teacher. Master Qui-Gon Jinn has become a solitary and secretive rogue. And now Vosa …” He snorted. “I declined to be a member of the Council in order to devote myself to diplomacy, and look how that has turned out. The Republic is sliding deeper into chaos.”

“You’re one man against a galaxy full of scoundrels,” Palpatine said.

Dooku’s eyes flashed. “One man should be able to make a difference if he is powerful enough.”

Palpatine let the silence linger. “You would claim the title of Count of Serenno?”

“By right of birth. My family is agreeable. Now it’s simply a matter of informing the High Council.”

“Has anyone ever left the Order?”

“Nineteen before me.”

“Have you shared your discontent with any of them?”

“Only Master Sifo-Dyas.”

“Of course.”

Dooku looked up. “He worries that I’m going to do something rash.”

“Leaving the Order isn’t rash enough?”

“He fears that I will denounce the Council openly, and reveal how divided its members are about answering to the Senate.” He looked Palpatine in the eye. “I’ve half a mind to join your cause.”

Palpatine touched his chest. “My cause?”

Dooku adopted a sly smile. “I understand politics, my friend. I know that you have to be circumspect about what you say and to whom. But that the disenfranchised worlds of the Outer Rim enjoy any support at all is largely due to you. You speak honestly and you champion the underprivileged, and you may be the only one capable of bringing the Republic back from the brink. Unless, of course, you have been lying to me all these years.”

Palpatine made light of the remark. “Perhaps a few lies of omission.”

“Those I am willing to forgive,” Dooku said, “whether or not we become partners in addition to being allies.”

Palpatine interlocked his hands. “It is an interesting notion. We would have to deepen our conversations, become completely honest with each other, bare our innermost thoughts and feelings to determine whether we truly share the same goals.”

“I’m being honest when I tell you that the Republic needs to be torn down and built up again from the ground up.”

“That is a tall order.”

“Tall, indeed.”

“It might require a civil war.”

“And how far from that are we now?” Dooku fell silent for a moment, then said, “The Senate grapples with trying to solve disputes the Jedi often see firsthand. What laws are enacted only follow from our having brought our lightsabers to bear.”

“It was the Jedi who pledged to support the Republic.”

“The Order’s place in this is a matter Sifo-Dyas and I have discussed endlessly,” Dooku snapped. “But the members of the Council are not similarly inclined. They are entrenched in archaic thinking, and slow to embrace change.” He paused, and adopted a sinister look. “Don’t let yourself be fooled, Palpatine. They see dark times ahead. In fact, they think of little else. That’s why they have allowed the Jedi to become involved in parochial conflicts like those at Galidraan, Yinchorr, and Baltizaar, which are like brush fires born of windblown embers from a massive blaze just beyond the horizon. But instead of actually rising up against the corruption in the Republic, perhaps disbanding the Senate entirely for a period of time, they have become fixated on prophecy. They await the coming of a prophesized redeemer who will bring balance to the Force and restore order.”

“A redeemer?” Palpatine stared at him in authentic surprise. “You’ve never alluded to this prophecy.”

“Nor would I now if I still thought of myself as loyal to the Order.”

“I never considered that the Force needed to be balanced.”

Dooku’s lip curled. “The Order interprets the prophecy to mean that the dark tide needs to be stemmed.”

“You don’t accept it?”

Dooku had an answer ready. “Here is the truth of it: the Jedi could fulfill the prophecy on their own, if they were willing to unleash the full powers of the Force.”

“The full powers of the Force,” Palpatine said. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Dooku blew out his breath. “Perhaps it’s something we can discuss in the future.”

“You’ve made your decision, then?”

Dooku nodded. “If one more Jedi dies because of indolence on the part of the Republic and moral equivocation on the part of the Council, I will leave the Temple and refuse to look back.”

No sooner had Dooku left the office than Sidious was donning his cloak and hurrying off to his next appointment. Hailing a sky-cab in Senate Plaza, he instructed the Gran driver to deliver him to Tannik Spaceport.

Relaxing back into the padded seat, he exhaled for what felt like the first time all day. In the space of a standard year he had gone from leading two lives to managing almost half a dozen: apprentice to Plagueis; Master to Maul; distinguished Senator; ally of Supreme Chancellor Valorum; and leader of a growing cabal of conspirators that included Pestage, Doriana, Greejatus — in line to replace him in the Senate — the Force-sensitive human Sim Aloo, intelligence analyst Armand Isard, Eriadu Senator Wilhuff Tarkin, and Umbaran telepath Sly Moore, whom he had made his covert aide.

And leading a double life of his own: Dooku. Carrying out Jedi business while in private moments flirting with the dark side, hungry to bring the full power of the Force to bear in the mundane realm, his slow reorientation a curious inversion of Darth Gravid’s, whose similar reach for preeminence had exceeded his grasp.

For the Jedi, Mastery was conferred when one attained a true understanding of the ways of the Force; for the Sith, that level of understanding was merely the beginning. The Jedi Order’s homespun cloaks announced: I want for nothing, because I am clothed in the Force; the cloaks of the Sith: I am the light in the dark, the convergence of opposing energies. And yet, while all Sith Lords were powerful, not all were brilliant or in complete possession of the powers the dark side granted them. Darth Millennial had rebelled against the teachings of his Master, Darth Cognus, and even Plagueis spoke of having reached a philosophical impasse with his Master, Tenebrous.

A human Sith Lord whose short reign had elapsed some five centuries earlier, Gravid had been persuaded to believe that total commitment to the dark side would sentence the Sith Order to eventual defeat, and so had sought to introduce Jedi selflessness and compassion into his teachings and practice, forgetting that there can be no return to the light for an adept who has entered the dark wood; that the dark side will not surrender one to whom, by mutual agreement, it has staked a claim. Driven increasingly mad by his attempts to straddle the two realms, Gravid became convinced that the only way to safeguard the future of the Sith was to hide or destroy the lore that had been amassed through the generations — the texts, holocrons, and treatises — so that the Sith could fashion a new beginning for themselves that would guarantee success. Barricaded within the walls of a bastion he and his Twi’lek apprentice, Gean, had constructed on Jaguada, he had attempted as much, and was thought to have destroyed more than half the repository of artifacts before Gean, demonstrating consummate will and courage, had managed to penetrate the Force fields Gravid had raised around their stronghold and intercede, killing her Master with her bare hands, though at the cost of her arm, shoulder, and the entire left side of her face and chest.

A Jedi Master of high standing, Dooku possibly already had some theoretical understanding of the dark side; perhaps more, if he had access to Sith Holocrons vaulted within the Temple. He could certainly be a nuisance to the Republic, though hardly an agent of chaos, as Plagueis and Sidious had been. Still, it would be interesting to see just how far Dooku might be willing to go …

Palpatine would have to inform Plagueis of their conversation. Or would he? Was an apprentice ever permitted to conceal knowledge from his or her Master?

No. Never. Especially not when there was a chance that Plagueis might learn of Dooku’s apostasy on his own, in ways that remained unfathomable.

Executing a reckless series of maneuvers, the Gran driver had changed lanes and was descending rapidly for Tannik Spaceport — a semicircular docking pad located at the edge of the Manaai district and surrounded on all sides by towering monads. Reserved for low-impact freighters, the port was a haven for drugged and abducted crew members, itinerant workers, and undocumented migrants of diverse species, most of whom were in search of steerage passage to distant worlds.

Glad to be released from the sky-cab, Palpatine edged his way into the crowds and set a course for the headquarters of the Refugee Relief Movement, whose stark offices were tucked under the port’s recessed upper level. Halfway to his destination he spied the stout Naboo he had come to see, standing alongside his slender wife and issuing commands to a group of young volunteers. Adopting an expression of good cheer and waving a hand in the air, Palpatine shouted, “Ruwee.”

The man swung to the sound of his voice and smiled broadly. “Palpatine!”

President of the RRM, Ruwee Naberrie had a large square head, thin lips, a clean-shaven face, and short hair clipped in high bangs. A onetime mountain man, a builder by trade, and a frequent guest lecturer on microeconomics at Theed University, he was not easily fooled, and his default expression was one of sincerity. The nonprofit organization he directed was devoted to providing aid for Coruscant’s billions of lower-tier dwellers.

“What a happy coincidence,” Ruwee said, pumping Palpatine’s hand. The two Naboo were close in age, but Ruwee was a product of public education rather than the series of private institutions young Palpatine had attended. “You remember Jobal?”

A tall woman with a triangular-shaped face and wide-spaced and compassionate eyes, she was allowing herself to age gracefully, though her long hair was still dark and luxuriant. Married to Ruwee by arrangement, she was every bit as serious as he was, and equally committed to the refugee movement.

“Of course,” Palpatine said. Bowing his head, he added, “Madame Naberrie.”

She made a move to hug him, then thought better of it and simply smiled in acknowledgment. “How good to see you again, Senator.”

Ruwee touched him on the back. “I never had a chance to thank you in person for allowing me to address the Senate about the refugee crisis on Sev Tok.”

Palpatine shrugged it off. “It was my honor to be affiliated with such a worthy cause. Speaking of which, Onaconda Farr sends his regards.”

“Rodia should be proud of him,” Ruwee said. “One of the few in the Senate who recognizes that good fortune should not be taken for granted but should serve as an impetus for bringing comfort to those less fortunate.”

Palpatine smiled tightly.

“What brings you to the docks, Senator?” Jobal asked.

“More than coincidence, m’lady. In fact, a matter of utmost urgency that involves your daughter, Padmé.”

“She’s here,” Ruwee said.

Palpatine looked at him. “On Coruscant?”

“Here, at Tannik.” He pointed to a nearby dock, where an energetic dark-haired girl was directing an antigrav pallet of foodstuffs into the bay of a waiting freighter. Catching sight of her father, Padmé waved.

“Who is the young man with her?” Palpatine asked.

“Ian Lago,” Jobal said.

Palpatine sharpened his vision. “The son of King Veruna’s counselor?”

Jobal nodded. “He’s become a bit lovesick.”

“And Padmé with him?”

“We hope not,” Ruwee said. “Ian’s a nice boy, but … Well, let’s just say that Kun Lago would not be happy to learn that his son has been fraternizing with the enemy, so to speak.”

Realizing that young Ian was eyeing him with sudden interest, Palpatine returned the look for a moment, then said, “This brings me directly to the point of my visit. As you’re no doubt aware, our King has instructed me to support the Trade Federation on the issue of taxation of the free-trade zones.”

“Of course he would,” Ruwee said with clear disdain. “How otherwise would Veruna continue to line the pockets of his robes with kickbacks.”

Palpatine nodded. “You and I and some of the nobles know as much. But now may be the time to let the rest of Naboo in on his secrets.”

Jobal’s expression soured. “If you’re talking about challenging him in the coming election, you’re facing a lost cause.”

“I beg to disagree, madame,” Palpatine said. “With discretion I have already approached several members of the electorate, and they concur that Veruna can be defeated by the right candidate.”

When he cut his gaze to Padmé, Ruwee’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”

“But I am, Ruwee. A member of the Legislative Youth Program at eight years of age; a full Apprentice Legislator at eleven. Her refugee work on Shadda-Bi-Boran. Plus, she enjoys more popular support in Theed than any governor has enjoyed in generations.”

Jobal blinked and shook her head in disbelief. “Palpatine, she has only just turned thirteen!”

Palpatine spread his hands. “Naboo has elected younger Queens, m’lady. And hers could be a reign that will last fifty years.” He refused to yield to Ruwee or Jobal. “The constitution has a provision that would allow the monarchy to become hereditary for a worthy dynasty. And what more worthy family is there than the Naberries?”

Husband and wife traded looks. “That’s very flattering, Senator—” Jobal started to say when Palpatine cut her off.

“The Naboo are exasperated with monarchs like Tapalo and Veruna. Padmé would allow Naboo to reinvent itself.”

Ruwee mulled it over momentarily. “Even if Padmé were to entertain the idea, I’m not sure she could be persuaded to support taxation of the trade zones, knowing what that might mean for Naboo and other outlying worlds.”

“She wouldn’t have to take a stand,” Palpatine countered. “She need only campaign against corruption and secret deals, and the embarrassing position in which Veruna has placed Naboo.”

Jobal’s eyes narrowed in uncertainly. “At the risk of touching on a sore point, Senator, you helped put Veruna on the throne and have been his advocate ever since.”

Palpatine shook his head. “Never an advocate. I have always considered myself to be a counterbalance, and in the past few years we’ve found ourselves on opposite sides of almost every issue, including the library he built and the credits he lavished on creating a space force for Naboo.” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “Trust me, Veruna can be defeated.”

Again, Ruwee and Naberrie exchanged worried looks. “We’re provincial people, Palpatine,” Ruwee said at last. “The world of politics … galactic politics, no less …”

Palpatine compressed his lips. “I understand. But what compelled the two of you to abandon the mountains for Theed, if not for Padmé and Sola, and the opportunities that might be available to them?”

Palpatine held Ruwee’s pensive gaze. He is beginning to waver.

“I wouldn’t want to put Padmé through this only to see her lose, Palpatine.”

Palpatine beamed. “I will work with you to see that that doesn’t happen. I don’t wish to speak out of turn, but I can almost guarantee the support of the Supreme Chancellor, as well.”

“Valorum knows of Padmé?” Jobal asked in delighted surprise.

“Of course he does.” Palpatine paused. “Faced with Padmé as competition, perhaps Veruna will see the light and abdicate.”

Jobal laughed, then showed Palpatine a serious look. “You have come a long way, Senator.”

26: THEIR BASER NATURE

On a clear day, looking northwest across The Works from a debris-strewn room in the circular crown of the LiMerge Building, Maul could just see the elegant centermost spire of the Jedi Temple, poking above the horizon. With his Master en route to Eriadu to attend a trade summit Sidious himself had proposed, the Zabrak had made a habit of climbing to the crown at least once a day and, with electrobinoculars in hand, gazing at the distant spire in the hope of catching sight of a Jedi.

But that hadn’t happened.

If any Jedi were present, they would be sitting in contemplation, as Maul knew he should be doing, as well. Or if not meditating, then completing work on the graciously curved speeder bike he had named Bloodfin or the droid called C-P3X, or perfecting his skill at using the wrist-mounted projectile launcher known as the lanvarok. Devoting himself to those tasks would have met with more approval from Darth Sidious than Maul’s staring at the Temple’s fin-ornamented pinnacle and dreaming of the day he could pit himself against a Jedi Master. But ever since his return from Dorvalla several standard weeks earlier, he had been too restless to sit cross-legged on the floor, immersed in the flow of the dark side, or to pore over the probe droid schematics Darth Sidious had furnished before he’d left.

When Maul reflected on the time he had spent on Dorvalla, his thoughts weren’t focused on the assassinations he had carried out. He had murdered many in his short life, and there was nothing about the deaths of Patch Bruit, Caba’Zan, and the others involved in the business of mining lommite ore that distinguished them from previous killings. In fact, the miners’ carelessness should have condemned them to lingering deaths rather than the quick ends Maul had dispensed. What he remembered instead was the feeling of participation the mission had afforded. Not only had he been able to draw on his talents for stealth, tracking, and combat, but he had used them in a manner that furthered the Sith Grand Plan, as hadn’t been the case during his years of training on Orsis, or during the forays Darth Sidious had allowed him to make to other worlds. On his return to Coruscant, the Dark Lord had praised him, which, Maul supposed, should have been reward enough. And might have been, had the mission led to another. But Darth Sidious had excluded him from participating in the Eriadu operation, and had been vague about future plans.

A direct outcome of what Maul had accomplished on Dorvalla, Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore had merged and been taken over by the Trade Federation, which in turn had resulted in Nute Gunray’s promotion to the company’s seven-member directorate. In further conversations with the viceroy, Darth Sidious had demanded that the Neimoidians willingly sacrifice one of their Lucrehulk freighters, along with a shipment of aurodium ingots, as a means of funding an Outer Rim insurgent group known as the Nebula Front. Maul had been nonplussed by his Master’s decision to reveal himself to the group’s leader, as Darth Sidious had done in his initial communication with Gunray; then dismayed to learn that the leader — a human named Havac — had betrayed Darth Sidious by attempting to assassinate Supreme Chancellor Valorum on Coruscant. The realization that his Master could be deceived, that he wasn’t infallible, had had a curious effect on Maul. It had caused him unease, a sudden concern for his Master’s safety that had intruded on his ability to still his mind and find reassurance in the dark side. It was not fear — for fear was something alien to Maul’s makeup — but a troublesome disquiet. Disquiet for the being he had once tried to kill, and was perhaps expected to kill. All these weeks later he would still sometimes spend hours wandering through the LiMerge Building like a house pet picking up on the scent of its owner …

When, though, he had expressed a desire to take part in the Eriadu operation, even if that only meant assisting the Neimoidians in procuring weapons from the hive species or commencing manufacturing operations on Alaris Prime and other remote worlds, his Master had rejected the idea out of hand.

You have no role in this, he had said, without explanation, and in compensation, Maul surmised, had given him the dark eye schematics.

The rejection, too, had prompted questions of a novel sort. Of all the beings in the galaxy, the Dark Lord had chosen him to serve as his apprentice and eventual successor, and yet Darth Sidious had neglected to equip him with the very tools he would need to carry the Sith imperative forward. For all his attempts to familiarize himself with the political landscape and with criminal organizations — some of which were allied to Darth Sidious, others antithetical to his plans — he had a limited understanding of precisely how the galaxy worked. He grasped that the Sith’s war was with the Jedi Order rather than the Republic, but he had no real inkling as to how revenge was to be meted out.

What, then, if — beyond contemplation — something untoward should befall his Master? Was there a contingency plan? Unlike Darth Sidious, who masqueraded as Republic Senator Palpatine and debated complex issues in the Senate, Maul lacked a secret identity. With his yellow eyes and horned head a black-and-red mask of arcane sigils, it was all he could do to prowl the fringes of The Works in the dead of night without instilling fear in nearly every being whose gaze he caught.

Maul had expected his life to change when Darth Sidious had relocated him to Coruscant. But in many ways the move struck him as a return to his days as a combat trainee on Orsis, waiting to be allowed to fight, receiving praise and rewards, only to be commanded to train harder. The occasional visits from his Master had allowed him to endure the isolation and superficiality of his existence. Only when his instruction in the Sith arts had begun, had he felt singular, purposeful …

But he wasn’t entirely without hope.

On occasion Darth Sidious would hint at a mission of utmost importance that they would need to carry out together; one that would call on them to make use of all their powers. He had yet to provide details, even with regard to Maul’s studies. But he continued to imply that the mission was looming. And more and more, Maul sensed that it was somehow linked to his Master’s homeworld, Naboo.

His presence requested by King Veruna, Palpatine interrupted his journey to the Eriadu summit to stop at Naboo. The spaceport was crowded with ships of unusual design, and Theed was teeming with citizens who had packed the streets and lanes surrounding Palace Plaza to hear young Padmé Naberrie speak. In stark contrast with the joyous enthusiasm demonstrated by the crowds, and seemingly organized as a kind of counterevent, the palace throne room was the scene of an extravagant fete, attended by the most corrupt of Veruna’s supporters in the electorate and several dozen offworlders of dubious character. The announcement of Palpatine’s arrival at the room met with hushed innuendos and malicious laughter that continued while he was ushered to a place at the King’s table, opposite Veruna and sandwiched between Kun Lago and security chief Magneta.

Motioning with his royal baton for decorum, Veruna greeted Palpatine with an exaggerated smile. “Welcome, Palpatine.” Drinking had imparted a slight slur to his speech. Clapping his hands, he added, “Bring wine for Naboo’s celebrated Senator.”

“Thank you, Majesty,” Palpatine said, playing along with Veruna’s insincerity. “I’ve gone without blossom wine for too long.”

Veruna pounded a fist on the long wooden table. “Then bring him two goblets, and keep the supply flowing until his thirst is slaked.”

Palpatine sat back as servants hurried in to honor Veruna’s command. Both ends of the table were anchored by beings he knew by reputation rather than acquaintance. Far to Veruna’s right sat Alexi Garyn, head of the Black Sun crime syndicate; and to his left, elevated on durable cushions and drawing smoke from a water pipe, lounged a female Hutt named Gardulla, from Tatooine. Among her retinue of beings were two humanoids whose martial uniforms identified them as members of the Bando Gora terrorist group.

More ammunition for Padmé Naberrie, he thought.

“Tell us, Palpatine,” Veruna said, after wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his gaudy robe, “what prompted you to propose this summit on Eriadu?”

Palpatine ignored the goblets of wine. “The summit will provide an opportunity for everyone involved to air their thoughts and grievances regarding taxation of the trade zones.”

“I’m certain that your friends in the Trade Federation are very appreciative.”

Palpatine waited for the laughter to end, pleased to find that the conversation was headed in the direction he had expected it to go. “Naboo has a great stake in what emerges from the summit, Majesty.”

“Ah, then you arranged this for the sake of Naboo.” Veruna raised his voice so that everyone at the table could hear. “Palpatine did this out of concern for Naboo!” His expression toughened as he leaned forward. “And no doubt you were thinking of Naboo when you approached the Naberries about having their daughter oppose me in the coming election.”

“Think twice before you offer any denials,” Magneta told him quietly.

Lago leaned over to add, “My son was present when you tendered the offer.”

“With Padmé Naberrie, if I’m not mistaken,” Palpatine said in like conspiracy. While Lago was trying to puzzle it out, he looked at Veruna. “We discussed the refugee movement.”

The monarch glared at him, then motioned dismissively with his fingertips. “What’s done is done. And I’m afraid that includes you, Senator.” Gesturing broadly in the direction of Palace Plaza, he said, “Do you really believe that that little political upstart can unseat me? The daughter of mountain peasants?”

Palpatine shrugged. “The crowd she has drawn seems to think so.”

“Idealists,” Veruna said, sneering. “Regressives. They dream of the Naboo of fifty years ago, but they’re not about to have their wish.” His finger jabbed the air in front of Palpatine’s face. “My first official act following my reelection will be to recall you as Senator.” He looked at Lago. “Kun will be Naboo’s new representative.”

Palpatine frowned in mock disappointment. “Janus Greejatus would be a better choice.”

Veruna grew flustered. “A recommendation from you is a condemnation! And I suggest strongly that you remain on Coruscant, because you will no longer be welcome on Naboo.” He lowered his voice. “Keep in mind that I have information that can ruin you, Palpatine, in the same way that you, the Naberries, and the rest are attempting to ruin me.”

The table fell silent as a squadron of N-1 starfighters shot past the arched windows to disrupt the rally in the plaza.

Palpatine conjured a smile. “The Naboo will be pleased to see that your space force is good for something, Majesty.”

Veruna’s bloated face flushed. “More than you know. I told you that I meant to end our partnership with the Trade Federation and Hego Damask, and so I shall.”

Palpatine glanced at the Hutt and her Bando Gora minions. “With the help of your new partners. And what will you do — chase the Trade Federation’s freighters out of the Chommel sector? Challenge Damask openly?”

“Damask has betrayed everyone. Ask Gardulla. Ask Alexi Garyn. The Muun should have learned a lesson thirty years ago from the Gran who targeted him.”

Palpatine took secret pleasure in the remark. And you commit the same egregious blunders they did.

“What makes you think he didn’t?”

Veruna started to speak, but bit back what he had in mind to say and began again. “From this point on, Naboo will manage its own resources. Gardulla and Black Sun will supervise the export of plasma and the import of goods, and the Bando Gora will protect our interests in the space lanes. It’s a pity you won’t be a part of it.”

“A pity to be sure,” Palpatine said, rising to his feet. “Until such time as you replace me, Majesty, I will continue to act in Naboo’s best interests, at Eriadu and on Coruscant. Should I see Damask, I’ll be certain to tell him that he underestimated … your ambitions.”

Veruna locked eyes with him. “Don’t concern yourself unduly, Palpatine. You won’t be seeing him again.”

The transpirator affixed to his face, Plagueis moved with agile purpose through the stone-cold rooms that had housed twenty years of experiments. Most of the cages and cells were empty now — the captives they had contained, released. He wondered if Sojourn’s greel forests would become a kind of laboratory, a great scarlet-wood medium for mutant evolution. OneOne-FourDee shuffled past him on the way to the courtyard, alloy storage boxes piled high in its quartet of appendages.

“Be certain that all the data has been permanently deleted,” Plagueis said.

The droid nodded. “I will make certain for the third time, Magister Damask.”

“And FourDee, carry my instructions to the Sun Guards that I will contact them on Thyrsus.”

“I will see to it, Magister.”

Plagueis entered the room that had served as his meditation chamber. Though the high-ceilinged space was already fixed in his memory, he studied the few pieces of furniture in silence, as if searching for some detail that had escaped his notice. His eyes lingered on the small antechamber in which he and Sidious had been sitting when they had brought about the shift, and the strength of that memory was such that he was catapulted into a moment of intense reverie.

For some time he had been aware that Sidious had grown critical of his fixation with unraveling the secrets of life and death. Surely Sidious felt as if Plagueis had made himself too much of a project, often to the neglect of the Grand Plan; that Plagueis had come to place more importance on his own survival than that of the Sith. Meanwhile, to Sidious had fallen the responsibility for arranging and executing the schemes that would place the two of them in power on Coruscant. Sidious directing galactic events in much the same way that Plagueis was overseeing the currents of the dark side. And yet the arrangement was as it should be, for Sidious had a gift for subterfuge that surpassed the talents of any of the Sith Lords who had preceded him, including Bane.

Plagueis found irony in the fact that Sidious had come to feel about him as he himself had felt about Tenebrous at the end of his long apprenticeship. Tenebrous trusted more in Bith science and computer projections than he had in the Sith arts … But Plagueis understood, too, that the time had come for him to rejoin the world and stand with Sidious to see this most important phase of the plan to fruition: Palpatine’s ascendancy to the chancellorship and the unprecedented appointment of Hego Damask as co-chancellor of the Republic. Ageless Hego Damask, as it would ultimately emerge. When that was behind them, they could turn to the bigger task of obliterating the Jedi Order.

Master Dooku’s dithering over leaving the Order came as no surprise. Yoda had taken Dooku from Serenno, but he had failed to take Serenno from Dooku. Twenty years earlier Plagueis had seen the stirrings of the dark side in him and had attempted since — whenever and wherever possible — to coax more of those latent powers to the surface. At Galidraan, in clandestine partnership with the local governor and members of the Death Watch to lure the Jedi into an ultimately hopeless confrontation with the True Mandalorians; at Yinchorr and Malastare; and most recently, through Sidious’s efforts, at Asmeru and Eriadu. Already strong in the Force, trained in combat, and a diplomat, as well, Dooku might have made for a powerful partner under different circumstances. Except for the fact that Dooku, unlike the Dathomiri Zabrak whom Sidious had trained, would never be content to serve as an apprentice or a mere assassin. He would demand to become a true Sith, and that would lead to trouble. A better course of action would be to allow Dooku to find his own way to the dark side — whatever version of it might be accessible to him through study of the Sith Holocrons the Jedi possessed. Better to have him leave the Order of his own accord and become the benevolent spokesperson for the disenfranchised, as one might expect from a being of high status. Yes, better to let him persuade worlds and systems to secede from the Republic and foment a civil war into which the Jedi could be drawn …

The sudden blare of klaxons put an abrupt end to his musings.

Time is short.

OneOne-FourDee returned, moving quickly for a droid. “Five battleships have been detected, Magister.”

“Ahead of schedule.”

“Perhaps your enemies received intelligence that their attack plan had been compromised.”

“A sound speculation, FourDee. Is the ship ready?”

“Standing by, Magister.”

After a final look around, Plagueis hurried out the gaping door that led to the courtyard, where the sleek starship designed by Rugess Nome and built by Raith Sienar was waiting. Styled loosely after a courier ship that had been commonplace during the ancient Sith Empire, the Infiltrator still looked as if it had flown out of the past. Just under thirty meters in length and shaped like a throwing dart, it had two short wings where fletching feathers might have been, jutting from a round command module and ending in curved radiator fins that enclosed the module parenthetically when deployed. But what made the ship unique was a stygium-crystal-powered cloaking array that occupied much of the long, tapered prow of the fuselage.

As Plagueis entered the cockpit, 11-4D abandoned the single pilot’s chair for one of the seats that lined the aft circumference of the module.

“Systems are enabled, Magister.”

Folding himself into the swivel chair, Plagueis secured the harness, clamped his hands on the yoke, and raised the ship, which spiraled as it climbed above the towering walls of the old fort before rocketing into Sojourn’s opaque sky, invisible to any scanners that might be aimed downside. Already the first energy beams from the enemy flotilla were streaking into the greel forests, hurling vegetation and igniting firestorms. Another extinction for some of the creatures that had been cloned exclusively for the moon, Plagueis thought. A second onslaught of laser beams struck the tower where he had passed so many hours in contemplation, toppling it into the courtyard. Outside the Infiltrator, the air was growing hot and jolting winds were being whipped up by what had been unleashed from above. Far to starboard, starlight glinted off an attack ship that was racing toward the surface.

Ground-based turbolaser batteries began to answer with reciprocating fire, making it appear as if the sky were at war with itself. At the edge of space, short-lived explosions blossomed, as the shields of targeted ships were overwhelmed. But others broke through the barrages, their weapons reducing swaths of forest to ash and blowing huge chunks of rock from the escarpment. The ground shook and great columns of smoke poured upward. One, then another gun emplacement exploded, taking with them an entire wall of the fort.

Plagueis studied the cockpit displays as the Infiltrator continued to gain elevation and velocity, racing through smoke and fleeing clouds.

“Rendezvous coordinates are already programmed into the navicomputer,” 11-4D said from behind him. “The comm frequency is also preset.”

Plagueis swung to the navicomputer as concussions rocked the ship. He had placed one hand on the device’s keyboard when the sky seemed to give birth to a sphere of blinding light. Following a moment of absolute stillness, a cascade of infernal energy descended on what remained of the fort and concentric rings of explosive power radiated outward, leveling everything within a twenty-kilometer radius from ground zero. The Infiltrator was lifted like a bird caught in a thermal, and for a moment all its systems failed.

Plagueis sat in enraged disbelief.

Somehow, Veruna and his cohorts — Gardulla, Black Sun, and the Bando Gora — had gotten their hands on a proscribed nuclear device. None of the Sun Guards could have survived the blast; but then they didn’t deserve to. Nuclear weapons were scarce, and the Echani had obviously neglected to check with the few black-market suppliers that had access to them.

A pillar of roiling fire and smoke was clawing into the sky, fanning out in the thinning atmosphere to become a mushroom-shaped cloud. The greel forests were blackened wastelands; the fort was slagged and turned to glass. Deeply moved, Plagueis realized that he hadn’t experienced such powerful emotions since he had bid good-bye to Mygeeto so many decades earlier and placed himself in the care of Darth Tenebrous.

Adhering to course, the Infiltrator rose out of the turmoil. Stars winked into visibility, and the fleet ship was suddenly free of the moon’s gravity and pulled into the powerful embrace of Sojourn’s parent. No sooner had it entered the planet’s night side than the comm board issued an urgent tone.

“Magister Damask, we find no trace of your ship on any of our scanners, but we trust that you’re out there somewhere.”

Plagueis disabled the ship’s cloaking device and swiveled to the board. “Star Jewel, this is Damask. Your scanners should be able to find us now.”

“Affirmative, Magister Damask. You are clear to proceed to Docking Bay Four.”

A space cruiser of gargantuan size and ostentatious design could be seen hanging in the middle distance. Shaped like an arrowhead, the vessel was heavily armed and large enough to accommodate half a dozen starfighters. While Plagueis was maneuvering toward it, the comm board’s enunciators were rattled by a resonant laugh.

“I hope to persuade you one day to share the secret of your invisible ship, Magister Damask.”

“I appreciate your punctuality, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. As I do the advance intelligence that allowed me to avoid being atomized.”

“Thus are lasting partnerships solidified, Magister. What is our destination?”

“Coruscant,” Plagueis said. “But I’ve one more favor to ask before we arrive.”

“Simply state it, and it will be done.”

“Then arrange for communications with Naboo. King Veruna needs to be informed of what he has brought down on himself and his confederates.”

Jabba guffawed again. “It will be my pleasure.”

27: CALIBRATIONS

Hego Damask didn’t simply keep a penthouse on Coruscant; he owned an entire building. While it wasn’t as grand as 500 Republica, Kaldani Spires was the Galactic Center’s most desired address outside the Senate District. Towering over Monument Plaza, the stately building was as fine an example of Hasennan Period architecture as could be found onworld, and from its uppermost suites residents could see from the peaks of the Manarai Mountains clear to the Western Sea — Coruscant’s only instances of naked rock and surface water. A neighborhood for neither politicians nor the newly arrived, the district catered to solid old-money citizenry: financiers, corporate chiefs, industrialists, and bankers.

Damask’s residence took up the whole of the Kaldani’s summit.

A pair of Sun Guards rode with Palpatine in the private turbolift, only to surrender him to another pair stationed in the penthouse’s light-filled atrium. But it was the droid 11-4D that escorted him into Damask’s study, which was darkened by tall, brocade curtains and filled with masterpieces of galactic art. The masked Muun himself rose from a plush armchair to greet Palpatine as he was shown into the room.

“Master,” Sidious said, interlocking his hands in front of him and bowing his head.

Plagueis lowered his head in a gesture of mutual respect. “Welcome, Darth Sidious. It’s good to see you.”

As the room was the opposite of the one he had often confined himself to on Sojourn, Plagueis no longer looked like the wide-eyed mystic he had seemed only months earlier. Except for having to wear the breathing device, he struck Palpatine as a slightly older version of the Muun who had visited him on Naboo so many decades before.

The two Sith moved to a sunken area of the room and sat across from each other. Plagueis filled two glasses with clear wine and passed one to his apprentice. He made the act of imbibing through his nasal passages seem almost routine.

“After Sojourn, I find it somewhat dislocating to be back in the greater world.”

“Master, I’m sorry I wasn’t the first to warn you of the attack,” Sidious said. “I didn’t think Veruna had the courage to carry out his veiled threats. Perhaps I nudged him too far.”

A long moment of silence passed between them.

“What you did and didn’t do is immaterial,” Plagueis said at last. “Coming when it did, at almost precisely the same time the members of the Trade Federation Directorate were meeting their fates, the attack was the work of the Force, substantiating our ambitions, especially.” He took more wine and set the glass down. “I never would have had the heart to destroy Sojourn, though it needed to be done; and so the Force saw to it. The incident reminds us of the need to be prepared for sudden eventualities, whether harmonious or inimical to our plans, and compliant to circumstance.”

“And now we are justified in striking back,” Sidious said.

“We no longer need to justify our actions to anyone. But bear in mind what I told you long ago: by killing one, we can frighten many.”

Sidious nodded. “We owe Jabba a great debt.”

“I spoke briefly with Veruna from the Hutt’s ship.”

Sidious grinned slightly. “I suspected as much when I learned just prior to the summit that he had abdicated, and that Padmé Naberri had been appointed Queen. He has apparently hidden himself away in Naboo’s Western Reaches.”

“That’s not hiding,” Plagueis said with a note of menace. “All went well on Eriadu?”

“Better than expected, what with the Jedi running in circles and convinced that Valorum was the target. I savored their dismayed incredulity on learning that the droids had emptied their weapons on the members of the directorate. In the end, the leaders of the Nebula Front died, as well, and our friend Wilhuff Tarkin is making matters difficult for Republic investigators. Soon the aurodium stolen from the Trade Federation freighter will be discovered to have been invested in Valorum Shipping and Transport, making it appear that the Supreme Chancellor’s push for taxation was motivated by greed and illegal enrichment. He is brought down. Even his power to deploy the Jedi or Judicials will be stripped from him.”

Plagueis’s eyes narrowed. “And Gunray?”

“Precisely where we want him: leader by default of the Trade Federation, and busy acquiring the droid weapons the Senate will sanction. Where the Neimoidians should be grateful to Senator Palpatine for proposing the summit, they are instead furious. Everything is in place for launching the blockade.”

“Almost everything,” Plagueis said. “First, there is the matter of our revenge.”

“Shall I task Maul to pay Veruna a visit?”

Plagueis shook his head. “I intend to see to him personally. Is the Zabrak — Maul, as you call him — capable of dealing with Alexi Garyn and his Vigos?”

“He will not fail us.”

Plagueis considered that for a moment, then said, “The Infiltrator sits under guard at West Championne Starport. Have Pestage transport the ship to the LiMerge Building, so that you can present it as a gift to your apprentice. I will provide you with information about Garyn’s current whereabouts.”

“That leaves only the Hutt and Bando Gora,” Sidious said.

“I have promised Gardulla to Jabba. As for the Bando Gora …” Plagueis rose from the chair, walked to the curtained windows, and peered outside. “There is a rumor worth pursuing that Master Dooku’s former apprentice, Komari Vosa, is not only alive but the cult’s newest leader, and eager to avenge herself on the Jedi Order for having abandoned her and her comrades on Baltizaar.”

“Vosa turning to the dark side,” Sidious said, as if thinking aloud. “Dooku trained her better than he knows.”

“Yes, but she is a fallen Jedi, not a Sith. We will exact revenge on the Bando Gora at another time.”

Sidious stood up and joined Plagueis at the parted curtains. “I will inform Viceroy Gunray to prepare his armed ships for relocation to the Naboo system.”

In a midlevel hangar in the LiMerge Building, Sidious watched Maul stow the last of his gear and hand-built contrivances aboard the Infiltrator, which, like the Zabrak’s speeder bike, now had a name: Scimitar. Closing a cargo hatch in the forward portion of the hull, Maul stepped back to admire the ship, then swung to Sidious and genuflected.

“I am not deserving of such a gift, Master.”

Sidious glowered. “If you feel that way, then prove your worth to yourself and me by succeeding in your mission.”

“I pledge as much.”

Sidious watched him carefully. “We need to dismantle the Black Sun criminal cartel. The Vigos had strong ties to some members of the Trade Federation Directorate, and they suspect there was foul play at Eriadu. Right now, the Neimoidians are in their sights, and we can’t risk having them interfere with our plans.”

He made no mention of Black Sun’s complicity in the attack on Sojourn.

Maul nodded. “I understand, Master.”

Sidious made a beckoning motion with his hands. “Rise and listen carefully, Darth Maul. Time doesn’t permit hunting down Alexi Garyn and his Vigos one by one. Therefore, make Boss Darnada your first victim. You will find the Dug at his deep-space reclamation station. Then jump your ship to Mon Calamari and kill the Vigo called Morn. By then, word of your actions will have reached Garyn, and he will likely summon the remaining seven Vigos to his fortress on Ralltiir. Narees, Mother Dean, Nep Chung, and the rest. You are to contact me when you have verified that they are all in one place.” He glanced at the Scimitar. “It will be an opportunity to put your probe droids to the test.”

A look of eagerness took shape on Maul’s fearsome face. Sidious walked to him and placed his hands atop Maul’s shoulders. “You will be facing many skilled opponents, my apprentice. Darnada’s Twi’lek bodyguard, Sinya; Garyn himself, who has some strength in the Force; and Garyn’s chief protector, Mighella, who is a Nightsister and will immediately identify you as a Nightbrother.”

Maul scowled. “A Nightsister is not a Sith.”

Sidious’s eyes narrowed. “As you well know. But as on Dorvalla, take care to leave no witnesses.”

Maul showed his sharpened teeth. “It shall be done. And Black Sun will cease to be an impediment.”

Sidious nodded. “Then be on your way, Darth Maul. The dark side is with you.”

Maul bowed his head and hurried up the rear boarding ramp into the cockpit module. Sidious lingered to watch the ship rise and edge out of the hangar, becoming invisible as it flew over The Works. Through the dark side, he continued to track the Scimitar as it angled north toward the Jedi Temple rather than south, and away from the Senate District. Sidious recalled the voyages he had taken ten years earlier to watch Maul fight in gladiatorial matches on Orsis and nearby worlds. Driven to win against all odds, unaffected by pain, daring, and terrifying. An up-and-coming contender at ten years of age and a champion at twelve. Under the markings that masked his face, sleeved his arms, and twisted around his legs and torso, the scars of those battles to the death.

But this one will not be content until he has killed a Jedi Master, Sidious thought.

Assuming that pride didn’t defeat him first.

Leaving the hangar space, Sidious made his way to the holoprojector in the building’s only refurbished room. What would become of Maul once Palpatine and Damask assumed control of the Republic? he asked himself. As a secret weapon, he would continue to be useful, but could he ever be eased into public life? How would he react to learning that his Master answered to a Master?

With his feet planted on the transmission grid, Sidious sat in the chair that was positioned for the holoprojector’s cams, adjusted the controls built into one of the armrests, and raised the cowl of his cloak over his head. For twenty years he had enjoyed living a double life, but now he felt an urge to be known for who he was, and feared for how powerful he could be. He directed his thoughts forward in time, yearning for a clear vision of the future, but none came. Did the dark side blind even its most devoted advocates to what was looming on the horizon? Plagueis had said that they needed to be prepared for sudden eventualities. Was he withholding knowledge of events he knew were imminent?

The Muun’s renewed vigor had taken Sidious by surprise. The mere fact that he had escaped the devastation on Sojourn made him seem almost omnipotent. Though even when ensconced in his affluent citadel in the Manarai district, he had yet to relax his vigilance or submit to sleep.

Repressing a sudden feeling of envy, Sidious began to wonder if — blinded by the dark side — he had actually failed to divine Veruna’s attack on Sojourn, or if he hadn’t allowed himself to divine it.

A touch of his forefinger activated the holoprojector, and moments later a half-sized eidolon of Nute Gunray resolved in midair. As in recent transmissions, the viceroy’s Neimoidian underlings, chief litigator Rune Haako, Captain Daultay Dofine, and Deputy Viceroy Hath Monchar were hovering in the background.

“Lord Sidious,” Gunray said, with a slight stammer in his voice. “We have been waiting—”

“Do you imagine yourself centermost in my thoughts that I should neglect other matters to communicate with you precisely on time?”

“No, Lord Sidious, I simply meant to say—”

“Are you gratified with your new position, Viceroy?”

“Very gratified. Though I appear to have inherited control of the Trade Federation at a time of crisis.”

“Save your whining for another occasion, Viceroy, for matters are about to become worse.”

Gunray’s nictitating membranes spasmed. “Worse? How can that be?”

“The Republic Senate is on the verge of passing legislation that will enact taxation of the free-trade zones.”

“This is an outrage!”

“To be sure. But I warned you that this was coming. Supreme Chancellor Valorum has lost all credibility, and after what occurred at Eriadu, the Senate is determined to weaken the Trade Federation further. King Veruna may have been able to stall the Senate, but he has abdicated, and young Queen Amidala and Naboo’s Senator are leading the call for taxation. With the Senate preoccupied, the moment is right for you to begin assembling a fleet of armed freighters to impose a blockade.”

“A blockade? Of what system, Lord Sidious?”

“I will inform you in due time.” When Gunray didn’t respond, Sidious said, “What is it, Viceroy? Across the vastness of space, I can perceive the reeling of your feeble brain.”

“Forgive me, Lord Sidious, but, as my advisers have pointed out, the redistribution of our vessels carries with it considerable financial risk. To begin with, there is the cost of fuel. Then, with so many ships allocated to an embargo, a disruption in trade in the Mid and Outer Rims for however long the blockade is maintained. Finally, there is no telling how our investors might react to the news.”

Sidious leaned forward. “So this is about credits, is it?”

Gunray’s muzzle twitched. “We are, after all, Lord Sidious, a commercial enterprise, not a navy.”

Sidious didn’t respond immediately. When he did, his voice oozed disgust. “Even after all I have engineered on your behalf you fail to grasp that by allying with me you are investing in the future.” He flicked his right hand in dismissal. “But no matter. Does it not occur to you that your most valued investors are in a position to reap great profits from your knowledge of what is about to happen? Would they not profit from learning that the Xi Char, the Geonosians, and other unionized insectoids have turned their pincers and claws to the manufacture of weapons? Might you not balance your precious budget by gaining from other shipping companies what revenue the Trade Federation risks losing?”

Gunray looked uncertain. “We feared that such actions might undermine the element of surprise, Lord Sidious.”

“That is the reason for swift action.”

Gunray nodded. “I will order a fleet assembled.”

Sidious sat back in the chair. “Good. Remember, Viceroy, that what I have delivered to you I can just as easily take away.”

Sidious ended the transmission and lowered the cowl.

Was this a vision of the future? A life of micromanaging the affairs of incompetent beings while he and Plagueis set in motion the final phases of the Grand Plan? Or was there perhaps some other way for him to govern, in malevolent satisfaction?

Even without the drenching rain, the ground would have been soft under Plagueis’s booted feet, composed as it was of eons of decayed organic matter. Water dripped from the transpirator mask and the raised hood of his cloak and splashed in the puddles that had formed beneath him. The castle that had once belonged to Veruna’s ancestor the Earl of Vis crowned a desolate hill, with no road leading to it and a view in all directions of the rolling, sodden, treeless terrain. Through night-vision electrobinoculars Plagueis studied the scanners that studded the castle’s walls and the disposition of the guards, some of whom were keeping dry in the shelter of an arch that crowned an ornate portcullis. Parked near the entrance was a veritable fleet of landspeeders, and off to one side, centered in a circular landing zone, sat a space yacht whose gleaming hull even the torrent couldn’t dull. Illumination arrays glowed behind drifting curtains of rain.

Following a deep, fast-moving rivulet, Plagueis descended the hill he had climbed to where he had set his own starship down among a riot of drooping wildflowers and falconberries. OneOne-FourDee was waiting at the foot of the boarding ramp, raindrops pinging on its alloy shell.

“Their scanners may have picked up the ship,” Plagueis said.

“Given that all countermeasures were enabled, that seems unlikely, Magister.”

“They’ve flooded the area with light.”

“As any vigilant being might on a night such as this.”

“A night fit for neither Muun nor shaak.”

The droid’s photoreceptors tightened their focus on him. “The reference escapes my data bank.”

“Seal the ship and remain in the cockpit. If I comm you, reposition the ship above the castle’s southwest corner and keep the boarding ramp extended.”

“Are you anticipating resistance, Magister?”

“Merely anticipating, FourDee.”

“I understand. I would do the same.”

“That’s comforting to know.”

Plagueis fixed the lightsaber hilt to his hip and set out at a fast clip, all but outracing the rain. If the scanners and motion detectors were as precise as they appeared to be, they would find him, though his speed might cause whoever was monitoring the security devices to mistake him for one of the wild, bushy-tailed quadrupeds that inhabited the landscape. He paused at the nebulous edge of the illuminated area to confirm his bearings, then made straight for the castle’s ten-meter-high southern wall and leapt to the top without breaking stride. Just as quickly and as effortlessly he dropped into the garden below and sprinted into the shadows cast by an ornamental shrub trimmed to resemble some whimsical beast. Plagueis reasoned that security would be lax inside the manse, but that Veruna’s wing of rooms would be outfitted with redundant monitoring devices and perhaps pressure-sensitive floors.

That he hadn’t been able to procure an interior plan of the castle was a testament to the self-exiled regent’s hypervigilance.

Plagueis moved to a stained-glass window just as two humans were hurrying through a hallway beyond. With rain overflowing a gutter high overhead, he felt as if he were standing behind a waterfall.

“Check on him and report back to me,” the female was saying.

Plagueis recognized the voice of security chief Magneta. Sticking close to the outer wall, he paralleled the movement of Magneta’s subordinate to the end of the hallway, then through a right-angled turn into a broader hall that led to a control room tucked beneath the sweep of a grand staircase. Plagueis sharpened his auditory senses to hear Magneta’s man ask after Veruna, and a human female reply, “Sleeping like a baby.”

“Good for him. While the rest of us drown.”

“If you’re so miserable, Chary,” the woman said, “you should consider returning to Theed.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Just don’t expect me to follow you.”

Plagueis stepped away from the wall to glance at the upper-story windows, all of which were dark, save for an arched opening near the end of the wall. Crouching, he maneuvered through bushes under a series of wide windows, then began to scale the wall, fastened to it like an insect. The tall and narrow target opening turned out to be a fixed pane of thick glass; the source of the light, a pair of photonic sconces that flanked a set of elaborately carved wooden double doors. Peering through the glass, he flicked his fingers at a security cam mounted high on the inner wall and aimed at the doorway, dazzling the mechanism and freezing the image of an unoccupied antechamber. Then, placing his left hand at the center of the glass, he called on the Force, pushing inward on the pane until it broke free of the adhesive weatherseal that held it in place. Telekinetically, he manipulated the intact pane to rest atop a table snugged to the opposite wall of the antechamber, and slipped through the opening. For a long moment he remained on the inner windowsill, waiting for his cloak and boots to dry and studying the patterned floor and double doors for evidence of additional security devices. Satisfied that the stunned cam was all there was, he planted his feet on the floor and walked to the doors, using the Force to trick them into opening just enough to accommodate his passing between them.

The only light in Veruna’s enormous bedroom came from a cam similar to the one in the antechamber, and just as easily foiled. The former King himself was sleeping on his back under shimmersilk sheets in the center of a canopied bed large enough to fit half a dozen humans of average size. Plagueis disabled a bedside panel of security alarms, moved an antique chair to the foot of the bed, and switched on a table lamp that supplied dim, yellowish light. Then, sitting down, he roused Veruna from sleep.

The old man woke with a start, blinking in response to the light, then propping himself up against a gathering of pillows to scan the room. His eyes widened in thunderstruck surprise when they found Plagueis seated at the edge of the light’s reach.

“Who—”

“Hego Damask, Your Majesty. Beneath this mask my former enemies may as well have fashioned for me.”

Since Veruna’s eyes couldn’t open any wider, his jaw dropped and he flailed for the security control panels, slamming his hand down on the buttons when they didn’t respond.

“I’ve rendered them inoperative,” Plagueis explained, “along with the security cams. Just so that you and I could converse without being interrupted.”

Veruna swallowed and found his voice. “How did you get past my guards, Damask?”

“We’ll come to that in a moment.”

“Magne—” Veruna attempted to scream until his voice went mute and he clutched at his throat.

“There will be none of that,” Plagueis warned.

“What do you want with me, Damask?” Veruna asked when he could, breathing hard.

“Closure.”

Veruna stared at him in disbelief. “You got what you wanted. Isn’t it enough that I abdicated?”

“Your abdication would have been enough, had you not tried first to have me killed.”

Veruna gritted his teeth. “Everything I built was in jeopardy of being taken from me — even the monarchy! You left me no choice!”

Plagueis stood and reseated himself on the edge of the bed, like some macabre confessor. “I understand. Faced with a similar choice, I might have done the same. The difference is that I would have succeeded where you failed.”

“I’ll remain here,” Veruna said in a grasping way. “I won’t cause you or Palpatine any more trouble.”

“That’s true.” Plagueis paused, then said, “Perhaps I should have been more honest with you from the start. I delivered the Trade Federation to you; I put Tapalo, then you on the throne. How did you imagine I came by such power?”

Veruna ran a trembling hand over his thinning hair. “You were born the son of a wealthy Muun, and transformed that wealth into power.”

Plagueis made a sound of disappointment. “Have you not yet learned that the galaxy isn’t moved by credits alone?”

Veruna gulped and found his voice. “How did you come by such power, Damask?” he asked in a whisper of genuine interest.

“I was shown the way to power by a Bith named Rugess Nome.”

“I know the name.”

“Yes, but his true name was Darth Tenebrous, and he wore the mantle of the Dark Lord of the Sith. I was at one time his apprentice.”

“Sith,” Veruna said, as if weakened by the very word.

“Had you known, would you have allied with me?”

Veruna marshaled the strength to shake his head. “Political power is one thing, but what you represent …”

Plagueis made his lips a thin line. “I appreciate your honesty, Veruna. Are you beginning to tire of my presence?”

“Not … of you,” Veruna said, with eyes half closed.

“Let me explain what is happening to you,” Plagueis said. “The cells that make up all living things contain within them organelles known as midi-chlorians. They are, in addition to being the basis for life, the elements that enable beings like me to perceive and use the Force. As the result of a lifetime of study, I have learned how to manipulate midi-chlorians, and I have instructed the limited number you possess to return to their source. In plain Basic, Veruna, I am killing you.”

Veruna’s face was losing color, and his breathing had slowed. “Bring … me back. I can still be … of service … to you …”

“But you are, Your Majesty. A celebrated ancient poet once said that every death lessened him, for he considered himself to be a brother to every living being. I, on the other hand, have come to understand that every death I oversee nourishes and empowers me, for I am a true Sith.”

“No … better than … an Anzati.”

“The brain eaters? What does better than mean to those of us who have passed beyond notions of good and evil? Are you better than Bon Tapalo? Are you better than Queen Padmé Amidala? I am the only one fit to answer the question. Better are those who do my bidding.” Plagueis placed his hand atop Veruna’s. “I’ll remain with you for a while as you meld with the Force. But at some point, I will have to leave you at the threshold to continue on your own.”

“Don’t do this … Damask. Please …”

“I am Darth Plagueis, Veruna. Your shepherd.”

As life left Veruna’s body, the path he and Plagueis followed wound deeper into darkness and absence. Then Plagueis stopped, overcome by a sudden sense that he had already seen and traveled this path.

Had he? he wondered as Veruna breathed his last.

Or had the Force afforded him a glimpse of the future?

28: CHAIN OF COMMAND

Returned from Ralltiir, Maul sat cross-legged on the floor in the LiMerge Building while Sidious debriefed him. Having just terminated an irritating communication with the Neimoidians, Sidious was in no mood for games.

“The way you make it sound, my apprentice, it seems almost an indignity that none survived to spread the word of your massacre.”

“You orders were that none should, Master.”

“Yes,” Sidious said, continuing to circle him. “And not one of them proved a challenge?”

“No, Master.”

“Not Sinya?”

“I decapitated the Twi’lek.”

“Not Mighella?”

“My blade halved the Nightsister after she tried to defeat me with summoned Force-lightning.”

Sidious paused for a moment. “Not even Garyn?”

“No.”

Sidious detected a note of hesitation. “No, what, Darth Maul?”

“I drowned him.”

Touching his chin, Sidious stood where the Zabrak could see him.

“Well, someone had to have dealt the wound you suffered to your left hand. Unless, of course, you gave it to yourself.”

Maul clenched the black-gloved hand. “There is no pain where strength lies.”

“I didn’t inquire if the wound hurt. I asked who was responsible.”

“Garyn,” Maul said quietly.

Sidious feigned surprise. “So he was something of a challenge. Being slightly Force-sensitive.”

“He was nothing compared with the power of the dark side.”

Sidious studied him. “Did you tell him as much, my apprentice? Answer honestly.”

“He came to the conclusion.”

“He identified you as a Sith. Did he assume, then, that you were a Sith Lord?”

Maul stared at the floor. “I—”

“You revealed that you answer to a Master. Am I correct?”

Maul forced himself to respond. “Yes, Master.”

“And perhaps you went so far as to say something about the revenge of the Sith.”

“I did, Master.”

Sidious approached him, his face contorted in anger. “And if by some marvel Garyn had managed to escape, or even defeat the one-being army that is Darth Maul, what repercussions might we be facing, apprentice?”

“I beg your forgiveness, Master.”

“Perhaps you’re not worthy of the Infiltrator, after all. The moment you allowed yourself to become distracted, the Black Sun leader cut open your hand.”

Maul remained silent.

“I hope you thanked him before you killed him,” Sidious went on, “because he taught you a valuable lesson. When you face someone strong in the Force you must remain focused — even when you’re convinced that your opponent is incapacitated. Then is not the time to bask in the glory of your victory or draw out the moment. You must deliver a killing strike and be done with it. Reserve your self-praise for after the fact, or you will suffer more than a hand wound.”

“I will remember, Master.”

The silence attenuated. “I want you to leave Coruscant for the time being.”

Maul looked up in alarm.

“Take the Infiltrator and your combat droids and return to your former home. There, train and meditate until I recall you.”

“My lord, I beg—”

Sidious held up his hands. “Enough! You executed the mission well, and I am pleased. Now learn from your mistake.”

Maul rose slowly, bowed his head once, and headed for the hangar. Watching him leave, Sidious examined the nature of his unease.

Might he, in a similar situation, have given in to an urge to gloat and reveal his true identity?

Had Plagueis done so before killing Veruna? Had he felt compelled to come out from behind his mask? To be honest?

Or was Maul’s revelation to Garyn nothing more than a symptom of the dark side’s growing impatience, and its demand for full disclosure?

“Black Sun is in utter disorder,” Palpatine told Hego Damask as they strolled among the sightseers that crowded Monument Plaza. Hundreds were clustered around the summit of Umate, which jutted from the center of the bowl-shaped park, and mixed-being groups of others were trailing tour guides toward the old Senate agora or the Galactic Museum. “Prince Xixor and Sise Fromm will inherit the dregs.”

“Again, the Zabrak proves his value,” Damask said. “You trained him well.”

“Perhaps not well enough,” Palpatine said after a moment. “While I was questioning him about a wound he received, he confessed to having divulged his identity to Alexi Garyn.”

Angling his masked face away from Palpatine, Damask said, “Garyn is dead. What does it matter now?”

The Muun’s flippant tone put Palpatine further on edge, but his composure held.

“This may be the last time I’m permitted to appear in public without armed escort,” he said in a casual way. “When Queen Amidala informed me of Veruna’s unexpected death, she mentioned that her new chief of security — a man named Panaka — will be taking unprecedented steps to ensure the safety of all Naboo diplomats. The Queen, for example, is to be surrounded by a clutch of handmaidens, all of whom resemble her to some extent.”

“And you’re be to chaperoned at all times?” Damask asked. “That won’t do.”

“I’ll convince Panaka otherwise.”

They stopped to watch a group of younglings at play under one of the plaza’s banners. Plagueis indicated a nearby bench, but Palpatine’s disquiet wouldn’t allow him to sit.

“Did the Queen express any concern about the presence of so many Trade Federation freighters?”

Palpatine shook his head. “The fleet is holding at the edge of the system, awaiting word from me to jump to Naboo. As angry as Gunray is about the taxation legislation, I had to convince him that Naboo is significant enough to ensure galactic interest in the blockade. I assured him that Amidala will not allow her people to suffer, and that before a month has elapsed she will sign a treaty that will make Naboo and Naboo’s plasma property of the Trade Federation.”

The transpirator concealed Damask’s smile, but it was clear that he liked what he heard. “While Valorum dithers, Senator Palpatine garners the sympathy of the electorate.” He tracked Palpatine. “Is it not a measure of our success that we can award worlds as if they were mere business contracts?”

A group of well-dressed Twi’leks sauntered by, gaping at Palpatine in recognition. That he should openly fraternize with a Muun was an indication of the power and influence of both beings.

It was Damask who had stressed the importance of their being seen together in public; and so, in the weeks since the Muun had arrived on Coruscant, they had dined on several occasions at the Manarai and other exclusive restaurants, and had attended recitals at both the Coruscant and Galaxies operas. Most recently they had been present at an elite gathering in 500 Republica, hosted by Senator Orn Free Taa, at which Plagueis had overheard the Rutian Twi’lek discussing plans to nominate Palpatine for the chancellorship. Next on their busy agenda was a political rally scheduled to take place on Coruscant’s Perlemian Orbital Facility, where potential candidates for the office of Supreme Chancellor would have a chance to mingle with corporation executives, lobbyists, campaigners, and even some Jedi Masters.

“A blockade followed by an actual invasion isn’t likely to win the Trade Federation any new allies,” Damask was saying. “But if nothing else we’ll be able to assess the performance of Gunray’s droid army and make adjustments as necessary.”

“Through their own carelessness, the Neimoidians managed to compromise their secret foundries on Eos and Alaris Prime,” Palpatine said, letting some of his exasperation show.

Damask eyed him. “For the moment, they have what they need. The acquisition of Naboo will demonstrate the failings of diplomacy, and prompt a sense of militancy among the Jedi.” Keeping his gaze fixed on Palpatine, he added, “In preparation for the coming war, we will relocate Baktoid Armor to Geonosis. Even then, however, we can’t equip our allies with sufficient weapons to secure a quick victory. A drawn-out conflict will ensure a galaxy pounded to a pulp and eager to embrace us.”

Palpatine finally sat down. “We still need to raise an army for the Jedi to command. But one that answers ultimately to the Supreme Chancellor.”

“A grown army could be designed to do just that,” Damask said.

Palpatine considered it. “It sounds too simple. Jedi are not easily taken by surprise. Honed for warfare, they will be even more difficult to ensnare.”

“At the end of a long war, perhaps? With victory in sight?”

“To achieve that, both sides would have to be managed.” Palpatine blew out his breath. “Even if a surprise attack could be launched, not every Jedi would be in the field.”

“Only those suitable for combat would need concern us.”

Palpatine broke a long silence. “The Kaminoan cloners failed you once.”

Damask acknowledged the statement with a nod. “Because I gave them a Yinchorri template. They told me then that your species might be easier to replicate.”

“You’ll contact them again?”

“This army must not be traced to us. But there is someone I might be able to persuade to place the initial order.”

Palpatine waited, but Damask had nothing to add. The fact that he had said as much about the matter as he intended to say brought Palpatine full-circle to consternation. Abruptly, he stood and paced away from the bench.

“Instruct the Neimoidians to launch the blockade,” Damask said to his back. “It’s important that events be set in motion before the orbital facility congress.” When Palpatine didn’t respond, Plagueis stood and followed him. “What’s troubling you, Sidious? Perhaps you feel that you’ve become nothing more than a messenger.”

Palpatine whirled on him. “Yes, at times. But I know my place, and am content with it.”

“What, then, has whipped you to a froth?”

“The Neimoidians,” Palpatine said with sudden conviction. “In addition to Gunray, I have been dealing with three others: Haako, Daultay, and Monchar.”

“I know Monchar slightly,” Damask said. “He maintains a suite in the Kaldani Spires.”

“He was absent when I last spoke with Gunray.”

Suspicion bloomed in the Muun’s eyes, and he hissed, “Where were they, then?”

“Aboard their flagship. Gunray claimed that Monchar had taken ill as a result of rich food.”

“But you know better.”

Palpatine nodded. “The sniveling toady knows about the blockade. I suspect that he’s on the loose, and out for profit.”

Damask’s eyes flashed yellow. “This is what happens when beings are promoted beyond their level of competence!”

Palpatine tensed in anger.

“Not you,” Damask said quickly. “Gunray and his ilk! The Force harrows and penalizes us for consorting with those too ignorant to appreciate and execute our designs!”

Palpatine took comfort in the fact that even Plagueis had his limits. “I failed to heed your words about sudden reversals.”

Damask frowned at him, then relaxed. “I ignore my own advice. The blockade must wait.”

“I will recall Maul,” Palpatine said.

Two weeks after the Neimoidian’s unannounced disappearance from the flagship Saak’ak, Plagueis and Sidious knew only that Darth Maul had succeeded in tracking down and killing Hath Monchar — though not without wide-ranging collateral damage — and that Maul had piloted the stealth Infiltrator to a docking station linked by a series of zero-g air locks to the Perlemian Orbital Facility’s principal reception dome, a grand enclosure that looked out on a sweep of Coruscant and the stars beyond, and was designed to feel more like a garden in space than a sterile conference hall. Just then the dome was filled with Senators and judges, corporate leaders and ambassadors, power brokers and media pundits, and contingents of Senate Guards and Jedi.

“Why did you order him to come here, of all places?” Damask asked Palpatine during a respite from the handshaking, casual conversation, and forced conviviality. Dressed in their finest robes, they were standing near a back-lighted waterfall, nodding to passing beings, even as the two of them conspired. “He has cut a swath of destruction through the Crimson Corridor and killed two Jedi, along with beings of a dozen species, including a Hutt. We can’t trust that someone isn’t on his scent — if not Jedi then perhaps law enforcement personnel. If by some fluke he were to be apprehended, he has the skill to scramble the minds of ordinary beings, but not to cloak himself from a Jedi. Both our existence and our plans for the blockade could be endangered.”

“Jedi were on his scent,” Palpatine explained. “That’s precisely why I ordered him offworld.”

Damask started to respond, but stopped himself and began again. “He is in possession of this holocron Monchar recorded?”

Palpatine nodded. “I instructed Pestage to clear a route through a seldom-used docking bay. I merely have to rendezvous with Maul at the prearranged time and place.”

Damask still wasn’t convinced. The Monchar affair had almost ended in catastrophe. It was as if the Force, so often compared to a current, had been diverted into a sheer canyon and twisted back on itself to generate treacherous eddies and hydraulics. “Why not simply have him surrender the crystal to Pestage?” he asked at last.

“We don’t know what other sensitive data the holocron might contain.”

Damask exhaled forcefully through the mask. “I trust that at least you instructed him not to be seen.” He glanced around him. “A tattooed Zabrak enrobed in head-to-toe black would certainly stand out among this crowd.”

Palpatine couldn’t argue the point. Off to one side of them stood Senator Bail Antilles and his aides. A Prince on his homeworld of Alderaan and chair of the Senate’s Internal Activities Committee, the handsome, dark-haired Antilles was surrounded by a crowd that included Core World Senators and businessbeings, all of whom had pledged to support him in the coming election, and Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth, who had been enlisted to arbitrate a dispute among some of Alderaan’s royal houses. An arrogant, wild-eyed human, C’baoth was cut from the same cloth as Dooku, whose absence from the political gathering had been noted by many. Antilles had been the Sith’s pawn in bringing to the fore accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Valorum during the Eriadu crisis, but the notoriety he had gained as a result — in the Senate and in the media — had bolstered his campaign and made him the current top candidate for the chancellorship.

No Jedi had attached themselves to Ainlee Teem, who was also within view. But the Malastare Gran was widely popular on many Mid and Outer Rim worlds, and enjoyed the support of Senator Lott Dod, of the Trade Federation, and Shu Mai, of the Commerce Guild.

At the center of the domed hall stood Valorum and Sei Taria, who was as media-savvy as she was lovely. Though ineligible for reelection, recently stripped of some of his Senatorial powers, and frequently engaged in defending himself against accusations by the Ethics Committee, Valorum had managed to make himself the center of attention, due to the presence of Masters Yoda, Mace Windu, and Adi Gallia among his followers. Merely by standing with the Supreme Chancellor, the Jedi were sending a message that they would continue to support him for the remainder of his term of office, the calumny of illegal enrichment notwithstanding.

With the Trade Federation fleet still holding in the Chommell sector, and without a besieged world to generate sympathy and support for his nomination, Palpatine might have been just one more potential nominee — but for the company of Hego Damask; Banking Clan co-chairman San Hill; recently appointed Senate Vice Chairman Mas Amedda; and Senator Orn Free Taa, a moving target for Antilles’s investigation into corruption and now ostracized by the Rim Faction for backing Palpatine.

“It’s almost time,” Palpatine said. He indicated a gardened area of dwarf trees and shrubs close to where Ainlee Teem was conferring with a handful of Senators. “I’ll trade quips with the Gran, then find some pretext to excuse myself.”

Damask grunted noncommittally. “My own target is in sight, in any case.”

Without further word the two separated, Damask weaving his way through the crowd toward a grim-faced, bearded human Jedi who was standing apart from everyone, observing the scene.

“Master Sifo-Dyas,” he called.

The topknotted Jedi turned and, recognizing him, nodded in greeting. “Magister Damask.”

“I hope I’m not intruding.”

Sifo-Dyas shook his head, his gaze fixed on the breath mask. “No, I was …” He exhaled and began again, adjusting his stance. “Until your recent arrival on Coruscant, I was under the impression that you had retired.”

Damask loosed an exaggerated sigh. “It is not in a Muun’s blood to retire. I work now with only a few powerful but largely invisible clients.”

The Jedi lifted a graying eyebrow. “It seems I can’t view a news holo that doesn’t feature you and Senator Palpatine, who is anything but invisible.”

“To my thinking, he is the only one capable of rescuing the Republic from the brink.”

Sifo-Dyas grunted. “To remain untouched by scandal for twenty years is in itself extraordinary. So perhaps you’re right.”

Damask waited a moment, then said, “I have never forgotten our discussion on Serenno.”

“What discussion was that, Magister?”

“We spoke at some length of threats that were assailing the Republic even then.”

Sifo-Dyas grew pensive. “I have some vague recollection.”

“Well, what with assassinations, taxation of the free-trade zones, posturing by the Trade Federation, and accusations of political impropriety, the conversation has been much on my mind of late. Fractiousness, factionalism, intersystem conflicts … Even in this hall the Jedi appear to be divided in their loyalties. Master C’baoth here, Masters Yoda and Gallia there, and yet no sign of Master Dooku.”

Sifo-Dyas said nothing.

“Master Jedi, I want to share with you a suspicion I’ve been carrying like a burden.” Damask paused. “I have reason to suspect that the Trade Federation has secretly been procuring more weapons than anyone realizes.”

Sifo-Dyas’s forehead furrowed. “Do you have evidence of this?”

“No hard evidence. But my business demands a thorough knowledge of the investment markets. Also, my clients sometimes reveal information to me in private.”

“Then you’re breaking confidentiality by coming to me with this.”

“I am. But only because I believe so strongly that what was once speculation is now fact. To go further, I predict that a civil war is brewing. I give the Republic fifteen years at the most. Soon we’ll see disgruntled star systems begin to secede. They will lack only a strong, charismatic leader to unite them.” He fell briefly silent before adding: “I will be blunt with you, Master Sifo-Dyas: the Republic will be vulnerable. The Jedi will be too few to turn the tide. A military needs to be created now, while there’s still a chance.”

Sifo-Dyas folded his arms across his chest. “I encourage you to share this with Supreme Chancellor Valorum, or even Senator Palpatine, Magister.”

“I intend to. But even under Chancellor Valorum’s watch this Senate will not overturn the Reformation Act. Too many Senators have a financial stake in galactic war. They are heavily invested in corporations that will grow fat on profits from weapons and reconstruction. War will be beneficial for an economy they now view as stagnant.”

“Are you willing to state this in front of an investigatory committee?”

Damask frowned with his eyes. “You have to understand that many of these corporations are owned and operated by my clients.”

A dark look came over the Jedi’s face. “You have read my thoughts, Magister. I have also sensed that war is imminent. I’ve confessed as much to Master Yoda and others, but to no avail. They give all appearances of being unconcerned. Or preoccupied. I’m no longer sure.”

“Master Dooku, as well?”

Sifo-Dyas sniffed. “Unfortunately, Magister, Dooku’s recent statements about Republic discord and our Order’s ‘self-righteousness’ have only added to my concern.”

“You said that you have some vague recall of our conversation on Serenno. Do you remember my mentioning a group of gifted cloners?”

“I’m sorry, I do not.”

“They are native to an extragalactic world called Kamino. I have on occasion done business with them on behalf of clients who desire cloned creatures, or require cloned laborers capable of working in harsh environments.”

The Jedi shook his head in uncertainty. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“I believe that the Kaminoans could be induced to grow and train a cloned army.”

Sifo-Dyas took a long moment to reply. “You said yourself that the Republic would never sanction an army.”

“The Republic needn’t know,” Damask said cautiously. “Neither would the Jedi Order have to know. It would be an army that might never have to be used, and yet be available in reserve should need ever arise.”

“Who in their right mind would fund an army that might never be used?”

“I would,” Damask said. “Along with some of my associates in the Banking Clan — and in conjunction with contacts in Rothana Heavy Engineering, which would supply the ships, armaments, and other matériel.”

Sifo-Dyas fixed him with a look. “Come to the point, Magister.”

“The Kaminoans will not create an army for me, but they would do so for the Jedi Order. They have been fascinated by the Jedi for millennia.”

Sifo-Dyas’s dark brown eyes widened. “You’re not proposing cloning Jedi—”

“No. I have been assured that such a thing is impossible, in any case. But I have also been assured that a human army a million strong could be ready for deployment in as few as ten years.”

“You’re suggesting that I circumvent the High Council.”

“I suppose I am. The Kaminoans need only a modest down payment, which I could provide to you through untraceable accounts I maintain in Outer Rim banks.”

Again, the Jedi remained silent for a long moment. “I need time to consider this.”

“Of course you do,” Damask said. “And when you’ve reached a decision, you can contact me at my residence downside.”

Sifo-Dyas nodded in glum introspection, and Damask spun on his heel and disappeared into the crowd. Palpatine was just returning to the place where they had been standing earlier, his eyes and his movements suggesting unusual excitement.

“You have the holocron?” Damask said as he approached.

“Yes, but not from Maul.”

Damask waited for an explanation.

“It was dropped into my hand by none other than the information broker Maul had been pursuing and thought dead — Lorn Pavan. The fact that Pavan’s right hand had been cleanly and recently amputated told me at once that the two fought in one of the air locks.”

“This Pavan defeated Maul?”

Palpatine shook his head. “But I suspect that Pavan somehow managed to outwit him and take him by surprise.”

“Incredible,” Damask said, astonished that events could become even more convoluted. “Then Pavan must know what the holocron contains.”

“I’m supposed to deliver it to the Jedi,” Palpatine said with obvious amusement; and looking around, added, “Perhaps to Yoda or Windu …”

“Pavan,” Damask snapped.

Palpatine squared his shoulders. “Pestage and Doriana are escorting him downside, where he’ll receive medical attention, maybe even a new hand, and a comfortable hotel suite in which to spend the final day of his life.”

“A reward we should withhold from Maul, but probably won’t.” Damask glanced at Palpatine. “In any event, it wasn’t Pavan who handed you the holocron. It was delivered by the dark side.”

Palpatine thought about it for a moment. “And Sifo-Dyas? Will he do it?”

“Even if he decides against it, there may be a way to place the order in his name. But the Force tells me that he will do it.”

“That will make him a potential danger to us.”

Damask nodded. “But it won’t matter. We have become invincible.”

This will never do, Palpatine thought as he sat opposite Valorum in the Supreme Chancellor’s cloudcutting office in the Senate Building, listening to him drone on about his troubles with the Ethics Committee.

The view through the large triangular windows was pleasant enough, but the office was far too small. Worse, it felt more like a relic from a bygone age rather than a nerve center for the New Order. No amount of remodeling could transform it into the space Palpatine imagined for himself. Perhaps a new building was required; an annex of sorts or, better still, an executive office building — if only to grant those who would work there the illusion that their pitiful efforts mattered …

“The deeper my lawyers and accountants pursue this matter, the more dead ends they encounter,” Valorum was saying. Dark circles underscored his eyes, and his hands were trembling slightly. “The aurodium ingots the Nebula Front stole from the Trade Federation freighter were converted to credits, which were used to finance their operations on Asmeru and Eriadu. But the ingots themselves moved through a series of specious banks and other financial institutions, and were ultimately invested in Valorum Shipping by unknown parties. I say unknown because the beings listed as investors appear never to have existed.”

“Baffling,” Palpatine said, drawing out the word. “I don’t know what to think.”

A week had passed since the Perlemian political gathering. Lorn Pavan was dead by Maul’s lightsaber, a day before an artificial hand was to have been grafted to the information broker’s stub of forearm. Cost cutting, Plagueis had remarked at the time.

Valorum was resting his head in his hands. “That someone or some organization engineered this to cripple me is beyond doubt. The question of why anyone — even my most stalwart detractors in the Senate — would essentially discard tens of millions of credits to achieve this in the final months of my term is inexplicable.” He raised his face to Palpatine. “My immediate predecessors were bold, and they knew how to manage the Senate. I believed I could bring something different to the office. A quieter diplomacy; one informed by the Force, and by the ideals of the Jedi Order.”

Palpatine suppressed an urge to leap across the desk and strangle him.

“I realize that I’ve made some poor decisions. But has any chancellor in the past century had to face more challenges than I have? Has any chancellor had to deal with a more corrupt and self-serving Senate, or more megalomaniacal corporations?” Valorum closed his eyes and exhaled. “Whoever is behind this machination wants nothing more than to destroy my legacy entirely; to make the name Valorum seem a stain on history …”

“Then we must double our efforts to exonerate you,” Palpatine said.

Valorum laughed without amusement. “I’m useless to the Republic if we can’t. Until the matter is resolved, I’m prohibited from sanctioning the use of Jedi or Judicials to intervene in disputes. I’m not permitted to convene special sessions without the express consent of this new vice chancellor, Mas Amedda, who blocks my every proposal and venerates procedure as if it were holy text.”

“Deception begins with bureaucracy,” Palpatine said.

Silent for a moment, Valorum adopted an expression of resolve. “I’m not without ideas.”

He tapped a touch screen built into his desk, and a large data display resolved above the holoprojector. Rising from his chair, he indicated a graph on which several dozen corporations were listed.

“One might assume — in light of the accusations stacked against me — that my family’s concern on Eriadu would suffer a sudden decline in the market. But precisely the opposite is happening. Credits have been flowing into Valorum Shipping at an unparalleled rate, and to several other shipping and transport concerns, as well — many of them based in the Outer Rim. And that’s not all.”

His hands returned to the touch screen, and a second graph took shape alongside the first. “Investments in minor suppliers of plasma and alternative energy conglomerates have increased threefold. But most important, a surge has occurred in the military supply sector, with astonishing growth in Baktoid Armor Workshop, Haor Chall Engineering, the Colicoid Creation Nest, and similar providers.”

Palpatine, despite himself, was impressed. “What do these data suggest?”

“That some nefarious business is unfolding under our very noses. That even the scandal in which I’m embroiled may be part of a larger plan.”

Palpatine was about to respond when the voice of Valorum’s personal secretary issued from the intercom.

“Supreme Chancellor, I apologize for interrupting, but we have received an urgent transmission from Queen Amidala, of Naboo.”

“The Queen!” Palpatine said with theatrical surprise.

“Can you direct the transmission to my office?” Valorum said.

“Our comm techs are telling me that the signal is very weak, but that they will do their best.”

Palpatine and Valorum turned to the office holoprojector table and waited. Within moments a noisy, fluctuating 3-D image of Naboo’s pale-faced teenage queen appeared.

“Supreme Chancellor Valorum,” she said. “We bring news of a grave development on our homeworld. Without warning, the Neimoidian faction of the Trade Federation has initiated a blockade. Their massive freighters encircle our world, and no ships are permitted to arrive or depart.”

Palpatine and Valorum exchanged stunned looks.

How perfectly she plays her part, Palpatine thought. Sitting on her throne like some costumed and overly made-up animatronic doll. The stately pose, the uninflected voice, long-bearded adviser Sio Bibble standing to one side, dark-complected security chief Panaka to the other …

“Your Highness, have the Neimoidians communicated any demands?” Valorum asked as the blue-tinged image flickered, stabilized, and flickered again.

“Viceroy Gunray states that the blockade has been launched in protest of the Senate’s decision to tax shipping in the free-trade zones. He assures that any attempts to break the embargo will meet with deadly force. Unless the new regulations are rescinded, he is prepared to see everyone on Naboo starve.”

Valorum clenched his hands. “Your Majesty, Senator Palpatine is here with me.”

Neither Amidala’s expression nor her flat tone of voice wavered. “Senator Palpatine, we are pleased that you are able to hear this news firsthand.”

“Your Highness,” Palpatine said, stepping into view of the holoprojector cams and inclining his head. “I will contact the Trade Federation delegates immediately and demand that this blockade be terminated.”

“Demands may not be enough to sway them, Senator. Naboo requests that the Republic intervene in this matter as quickly as possible.”

“And it will, Your Highness,” Valorum said all too quickly. “I will convene a special session … I pledge that Naboo will have my undivided attention.”

Amidala nodded. “You have shown us much courtesy in the past, Supreme Chancellor. We trust that you will do everything in your power, as you are our only hope.”

The transmission ended abruptly.

“The face of this nefarious business reveals itself,” Palpatine said.

Valorum returned to his desk and sat. “I give you my word — for your help during the Yinchorri Crisis and for so many years of friendship — that this situation will not stand. Though my hands be bound, I will find some way to resolve this.”

“I know that you will try, Supreme Chancellor.”

Valorum took a deep breath. “One word of advice, Palpatine. Prepare to be thrust into the spotlight.”

29: THE FORCE STRIKES BACK

Though the blockade of Naboo had been launched in direct defiance of Republic law — as much a protest against taxation as it was a challenge to the jurisdiction of the Jedi — it failed to achieve the immediate effect Plagueis and Sidious had anticipated. Far from the Core, Naboo hadn’t been invaded, and no important beings had died, as had occurred during the Yinchorri Crisis and at the summit on Eriadu. Thus the blockade was viewed by many as little more than saber rattling by the vexed Trade Federation; an inconvenience to those worlds that relied on the consortium for goods; the latest in a series of confrontations to expose the incompetence of a hopelessly splintered Senate.

Nevertheless, the two Sith had worked tirelessly to make the most of Naboo’s predicament to secure support among Palpatine’s peers, and ensure not only that his name would be placed in nomination, but that he could win if nominated. Equally important, they had to make certain that Palpatine could marshal enough votes in the Senate to ratify his decision to appoint Hego Damask co-chancellor.

For a change, Damask had taken the lead — making the rounds, making promises, calling in long-overdue favors and debts — while Palpatine, for appearances’ sake, made several futile attempts to meet privately with Trade Federation representative Lott Dod. Pestage, Doriana, Janus Greejatus, Armand Isard, and others were also busy behind the scenes, planting incriminating evidence where necessary, and seeing to it that instances of graft were made public.

Their joint efforts did not constitute a political campaign so much as an exercise in elaborate subterfuge.

“Bail Antilles remains the front-runner,” Plagueis told Sidious when he arrived at the Muun’s penthouse. “Ironically, the crisis at Naboo has drawn the Core Worlds into a tighter circle. Where Antilles has always been in danger of being dismissed as the candidate most likely to follow in Valorum’s footsteps, he is suddenly the darling of those advocating for strong, central authority.”

“He can be undermined,” Sidious said. “What about Teem?”

“In addition to the Trade Federation, Teem now has the backing of the Corporate Policy League.”

Sidious remained indifferent. “The Senate is not ready to elect a militant, much less a militant Gran. Embracing the support of the CPL is equivalent to promising the repeal of anti-slavery restrictions.”

Plagueis’s frustration was evident, even if his frown was hidden. “Interest in Naboo is already beginning to wane, and with it the sympathy vote we counted on.”

Sidious had his mouth open to respond when his comlink chimed, and he held the device to his ear.

Plagueis watched him closely.

“That is most welcome news,” Sidious said into the device, as if in a daze. “I didn’t expect this … A good choice, I think … I am certain of it, Supreme Chancellor … Yes, I’m sure she meant every word of it.”

“What now?” Plagueis asked the moment Palpatine broke the connection.

Sidious shook his head in disbelief. “Valorum somehow managed to persuade the Council to send two Jedi to Naboo.”

Despite all his talk about invincibility, Plagueis looked confounded. “Without Senate approval? He tightens the noose around his own neck!”

“And ours,” Sidious said, “if the Neimoidians panic and decide to admit the truth about the blockade.”

Plagueis paced away from him in anger. “He must have approached the High Council in secret. Otherwise, Mas Amedda would have apprised us.”

Sidious followed the Muun’s nervous movements. “Dooku mentioned that the Council would continue to support him.”

“Did Valorum say which Jedi were sent?”

“Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Plagueis came to an abrupt halt. “Worse news yet. I have met Qui-Gon, and he is nothing like some of the others Dooku trained.”

“They are a pesky duo,” Sidious said. “The nemesis of the Nebula Front at Dorvalla, Asmeru, and on Eriadu.”

“Then Gunray and his sycophants stand no chance against them.”

Sidious had an answer ready. “Two lone Jedi are no match for thousands of battle droids and droidekas. I will order Gunray to kill them.”

“And we will have another Yinchorr, and the added danger of Gunray divulging our actions, past and present.” Plagueis thought for a moment. “Qui-Gon will evade detection by the droids and wreak slow but inevitable havoc on the flagship.”

“Then I will command Gunray to launch the invasion ahead of schedule. Protecting the Naboo will become the immediate concern, as opposed to arresting the Neimoidians. Gunray may balk at the idea, but I will assure him that the Republic will not intervene.”

Plagueis agreed. “Amedda can deny any request Valorum makes to convene the Senate in special session. Still …”

They regarded each other in stony silence; then Sidious nodded.

“I will see to it that Maul is ready.”

Plagueis pressed his hands together. “It is the will of the dark side that we finally reveal ourselves,” he said in a solemn voice.

It certainly wasn’t that he didn’t trust Darth Sidious. But Plagueis had never observed Maul at close range, and he was curious about Sidious’s relationship with him. He knew that they had seldom met outside The Works, let alone walked together on a balcony of one of Coruscant’s most stylish monads in the dead of night, wrapped in their cowled cloaks. But it was only fitting that they should finally do so. With 11-4D close at hand, Plagueis stood observing the two of them from afar, his presence in the Force minimized.

The invasion and occupation of Naboo were proceeding on schedule, and the swamps were being searched in an effort to locate and isolate the principal underwater habitats of the planet’s indigenous Gungans, before they could pose a threat. But the two Jedi, Queen Amidala, and her retinue of body doubles and guards had succeeded in blasting their way through the blockade. With Maul’s help, counterfeit messages from the Queen’s adviser Sio Bibble had been transmitted to the missing starship, and one transmission had returned a faint connection trace to the Hutt-owned world of Tatooine. On learning as much, Plagueis had considered asking Jabba to apprehend the Queen, but not for long, out of concern for what the dark side might demand of him in return.

“Tatooine is sparsely populated,” 11-4D said, repeating what the Dathomiri Zabrak was saying to Sidious. “If the trace was correct, I will find them quickly, Master.”

“Go on,” Plagueis said quietly.

“In reply, Sidious is instructing Maul to make the Jedi his first priority. Once Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are disposed of, Maul is to return Queen Amidala to Naboo and force her to sign a treaty that cedes control of the planet and its plasma reserves to the Trade Federation.”

The droid paused, then added, “Maul says, ‘At last we reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge.’ ”

In the distance, Sidious turned to Maul.

FourDee sharpened its auditory inputs. “Sidious says: ‘You have been well trained, my young apprentice. They will be no match for you.’ ”

The words stirred deep misgiving in Plagueis and he stretched out with the Force, attuned to its swirling currents. Momentarily, the gates that obscured the future parted and he had a glimpse of events to come, or events that might come.

Either way, he was not encouraged.

Had he and Sidious misunderstood? Would it be better to abort the plan and trust that Palpatine would be elected even without having Naboo fall to the Trade Federation? Once the Jedi learned of the existence of one Sith, would they launch an intense hunt for the other?

Sidious had formed an almost filial bond with Maul. Attached to the present, he failed to grasp the truth: that this was the last time he and his apprentice might see each other in the flesh.

Events were converging rapidly.

Unexpected obstacles notwithstanding, Maul’s tracking skills had led him to the missing Queen. But he had failed in his mission. Despite a brief confrontation with Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Master and his party had managed a second successful escape. The Zabrak hadn’t been killed, as Plagueis had initially feared, but his crimson blade had identified him as a Sith, and now the Jedi, Amidala, and her retinue of guards and handmaidens were inbound to Coruscant in the Queen’s reflective starship. Sidious had ordered Maul to go to Naboo to oversee the Neimoidian occupation.

“Pestage and Doriana have put a plan in place that will weaken the campaigns of your chief rivals,” Plagueis was saying as he and Palpatine hurried toward the skyhopper that would carry them to the antigrav platform on which the Royal Starship had been cleared to land. “Coruscant will soon know that Senator Ainlee Teem has been protecting a Dug who is deeply involved with Gardulla the Hutt and the Bando Gora’s death stick distribution network.”

“Another favor from Jabba?” Sidious asked.

“The Hutt has become an ally,” Plagueis said.

“With Black Sun headless, he’ll have free rein over the spice trade.”

“For a time,” Plagueis said. “The information about Senator Teem has been sent to Antilles, who has been trying for years to have him removed from the Senate. When the corruption inquest is announced, Teem’s support will disappear. And so will support for Antilles, whose ambitions have blinded him to the fact that no one in the Senate wants an overzealous reformer in the chancellorship. The Rim Faction will then flock to you, in the hope of being able to manipulate you, and the humancentric Core Faction will back you because you’re one of their own.”

Sidious regarded him. “Were it not for you—”

Plagueis waved him silent and came to a sudden halt.

Sidious walked a few more steps and turned to him. “You’re not going to accompany me to greet the Queen?”

“No. The Jedi are still with her, and our joint presence might allow them to sense our leanings.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“There’s one more issue,” Plagueis said. “The Naboo crisis has finally caught the fancy of Coruscant. If we could force a similar crisis in the Senate, your election would be guaranteed.”

Sidious thought about it. “There may be a way.” He looked hard at Plagueis. “The call for a vote of no-confidence in Valorum.”

“If you—”

“Not me,” Sidious cut him off. “Queen Amidala. I will fill her head with doubts about Valorum’s inability to resolve the crisis and fears of what Trade Federation rule would mean for Naboo. Then I will take her to the Senate so that she can see for herself how untenable the situation has become.”

“Grand theater,” Plagueis mused. “She’ll not only call for a vote of no-confidence. She’ll flee home to be with her people.”

“Where we wanted her to begin with.”

“I trust that the food is better than the view,” Dooku remarked without humor as he joined Palpatine at a window-side table in Mok’s Cheap Eats the following day. A small establishment catering to factory personnel, it overlooked the heart of The Works.

“The Senate is studying plans to develop housing projects in the flatlands.”

Dooku frowned in revulsion. “Why not simply build over a radioactive waste dump?”

“Where there are credits to be made, the lives of ordinary citizens are of little consequence.”

Dooku cocked an eyebrow. “I hope you’ll put a stop to it.”

“I’d prefer The Works to remain unchanged for a time.”

Dooku waved off a waiter and regarded Palpatine with interest. “So, a blockade prevents you from going to Naboo, and what happens but Naboo comes to you. Quite a piece of magic.”

Palpatine showed him a thin smile. “Yes, my Queen has arrived.”

“Your Queen,” Dooku said, tugging at his short beard. “And from all I hear you may soon be her Supreme Chancellor.”

Palpatine shrugged off the remark, then adopted a more serious look. “That is, however, part of the reason behind my asking you to meet me here.”

“Worried that you won’t receive Jedi backing if you’re seen with me in the usual places?”

“Nothing of the sort. But if I am elected, and if you and I are going to begin to work together, it behooves us to give all appearances of being on opposite sides.”

Dooku folded his arms and stared. “Work together in what capacity?”

“That remains to be seen. But our common goal would be to return the Republic to what it once was by tearing it down.”

Dooku didn’t say anything for a long moment, and when he spoke it was as if he were assembling his thoughts on the fly. “With perhaps your homeworld as the spark that touches off a conflagration? Clearly the crisis has benefited you politically, and that fact alone has certain beings wondering.” He scanned Palpatine’s face. “Under normal circumstances, the Council wouldn’t have subverted the authority of the Senate by honoring Valorum’s request to send Jedi to Naboo. But for Yoda, Mace Windu, and the rest, Valorum is a known quantity, whereas Senators Antilles and Teem and you have yet to disclose your true agendas. Take you, for instance. Most are aware that you are a career politician, and that you’ve managed thus far to avoid imbroglios. But what does anyone know about you beyond your voting record, or the fact that you reside in Five Hundred Republica? We all think that there’s much more to you than meets the eye, as it were; something about you that has yet to be uncovered.”

Instead of speaking directly to Dooku’s point, Palpatine said, “I was as surprised as anyone to learn that Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Kenobi were sent to Naboo.”

“Surprised, of course. But pleased?”

“Naboo is my homeworld. I want to see the crisis resolved as quickly as possible.”

“Do you?”

Palpatine held his look. “I begin to wonder what may have prompted your confrontational mood. But for the sake of argument, let us say that I feel no shame in taking full advantage of the crisis. Would that cause you to distance yourself from me?”

Dooku smiled with his eyes, but not in mirth. “On the contrary, as you say. Since I’m interested in learning more about the possibility of an alliance.”

Palpatine adopted a hooded look. “You’re resolved to leave the Order?”

“Even more than when we last spoke.”

“Because of the Council’s decision to intervene at Naboo?”

“I can forgive them that. The blockade has to be broken. But something else has occurred.” Dooku chose his next words carefully. “Qui-Gon returned from Tatooine with a former slave boy. According to the boy’s mother, the boy had no father.”

“A clone?” Palpatine asked uncertainly.

“Not a clone,” Dooku said. “Perhaps conceived by the Force. As Qui-Gon believes.”

Palpatine’s head snapped back. “You don’t sit on the Council. How do you know this?”

“I have my ways.”

“Does this have something to do with the prophecy you spoke of?”

“Everything. Qui-Gon believes that the boy — Anakin is his name — stands at the center of a vergence in the Force, and believes further that his finding him was the will of the Force. Blood tests were apparently performed, and the boy’s concentration of midi-chlorians is unprecedented.”

“Do you believe that he is the prophesied one?”

“The Chosen One,” Dooku amended. “No. But Qui-Gon accepts it as fact, and the Council is willing to have him tested.”

“What is known about this Anakin?”

“Very little, except for the fact that he was born into slavery nine years ago and was, until recently, along with his mother, the property of Gardulla the Hutt, then a Toydarian junk dealer.” Dooku smirked. “Also that he won the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace.”

Palpatine had stopped listening.

Nine years old … Conceived by the Force … Is it possible …

His thoughts rewound at frantic speed: to the landing platform on which he and Valorum had welcomed Amidala and her group. Actually not Amidala, but one of her look-alikes. But the sandy-haired boy, this Anakin, swathed in filthy clothing, had been there, along with a Gungan and the two Jedi. Anakin had spent the night in a tiny room in his apartment suite.

And I sensed nothing about him.

“Qui-Gon is rash,” Dooku was saying. “Despite his fixation with the living Force, he demonstrates his own contradictions by being a true believer in the prophecy — a foretelling more in line with the unifying Force.”

“Nine years old,” Palpatine said when he could. “Surely too old to be trained.”

“If the Council shows any sense.”

“And what will become of the boy then?”

Dooku’s shoulders heaved. “Though no longer a slave, he will probably be sent to rejoin his mother on Tatooine.”

“I understand your disillusionment,” Palpatine said.

Dooku shook his head. “I haven’t told you all of it. As if the announcement of having found the Chosen One wasn’t enough, Qui-Gon discovered that the Trade Federation may have had the help of powerful allies in planning and executing the blockade of Naboo.”

Palpatine sat straighter in his chair. “What allies?”

“On Tatooine, Qui-Gon dueled with an assassin who is well trained in the Jedi arts. But he dismissed the idea that the assassin is some rogue Jedi. He is convinced that the warrior is a Sith.”

Ignoring the reactions of apprehensive residents and wary security personnel, Plagueis hastened along a plush corridor in 500 Republica toward Palpatine’s suite of crimson rooms. He had planned to be at the Senate Building to hear Amidala’s call for a vote of no-confidence in Valorum, which would strike the first death knell for the Republic. At the last moment, however, Palpatine had contacted him to recount a conversation he had had with Dooku. The fact that Qui-Gon Jinn had identified Maul as a Sith was to be expected; but Dooku’s news about a human boy at the center of a vergence of the Force had come as a shock. More, Qui-Gon saw the boy as the Jedi’s prophesied Chosen One!

He had to see this Anakin Skywalker for himself; had to sense him for himself. He had to know if the Force had struck back again, nine years earlier, by conceiving a human being to restore balance to the galaxy.

Plagueis came to a halt at the entry to Palpatine’s apartment. Eventually one of Queen Amidala’s near-identical handmaidens came to the door, a vision in a dark cowled robe. Her eyes fixed on the breath mask.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, “Senator Palpatine is not here.”

“I know,” Plagueis said. “I’m here to speak with a guest of the Senator. A young human boy.”

Her eyes remained glued on the mask. “I’m not permitted—”

Damask motioned swiftly with his left hand, compelling her to answer him. “You have my permission to speak.”

“I have your permission,” she said in a distracted voice.

“Now where is the boy?”

“Anakin, you mean.”

“Anakin, yes,” he said in a rush. “He’s the one. Fetch him — now!”

“You just missed him, sir,” the handmaiden said.

Plagueis peered past her into Palpatine’s suite. “Missed him?” He straightened in anger. “Where is he?”

“Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn came to collect him, sir. I suspect that you can find him at the Jedi Temple.”

Plagueis fell back a step, his thoughts reeling.

There was still a chance that the Council would decide that Anakin was too old to be trained as a Jedi. That way, assuming he was returned to Tatooine …

But if not … If Qui-Gon managed to sway the Council Masters, and they reneged on their own dictates …

Plagueis ran a hand over his forehead. Are we undone? he thought. Have you undone us?

30: TAKING THE FUTURE FROM THE NOW

Magister Damask was still unnerved when he arrived at the Senate Building and hurried through its maze of corridors and turbolifts to reach Naboo’s station on time for the event.

During a recess that ensued after the call for a vote of no-confidence, Queen Amidala and the pair of retainers she had arrived with had decided to return to 500 Republica. But Panaka was there, in his brown leather cap and jerkin, along with Sate Pestage and Kinman Doriana. With scarcely a word of acknowledgment, Plagueis edged past the three men to join Palpatine on the hover platform.

“Did you speak with him?” Palpatine asked, while the voice of the Senator from Kuat boomed through the Rotunda’s speakers.

The Muun shook his head in anger. “Qui-Gon had already been there. They’ve gone to the Temple.”

“There’s still a chance—”

“Yes,” Damask said. “But if the boy’s midi-chlorian concentrations are as high as Dooku hinted they are, then the Jedi aren’t likely to allow him to escape their clutches.”

“High midi-chlorian counts don’t always equate to Force talents. You told me yourself.”

“That’s not what concerns me,” Damask said, but he went no further. Gesturing broadly, he asked, “Where do we stand?”

“Antilles was placed into nomination by Com Fordox. Teem, by Edcel Bar Gan.”

“Traitors,” Damask seethed. “Fordox and Bar Gan.”

Palpatine was about to reply when the voice of Mas Amedda filled the Rotunda. “The Senate recognizes Senator Orn Free Taa of Ryloth,” the Chagrian said from the podium. Sei Taria was there, as well, but Valorum — all but ousted from power — had either disappeared or was seated out of sight.

The big blue Twi’lek stood proudly in the bow of the platform as it floated toward the center of the Rotunda, flanked by hovercams. In the curved rear of the platform were Free Taa’s consort, a petite red-skinned Twi’lek, and Ryloth’s co-Senator and death stick distributor, Connus Trell.

“Ryloth is proud to place into nomination one who has not only devoted twenty years of unflagging service to the Republic while managing to steer a gallant course through the storms that continue to lash this body, but whose homeworld has become the latest target of corporate greed and corruption. Beings of all species and all worlds, I nominate Senate Palpatine of Naboo.”

Cheers and applause rang out from nearly every sector of the hall, growing louder and more enthusiastic as Naboo’s platform detached from the docking station and hovered to join those of Alderaan and Malastare.

“You’ve done it, Darth Plagueis,” Palpatine said quietly and without a glance.

“Not yet,” came the reply. “I will not rest until I’m certain of a win.”

It was late in the evening when Plagueis made his way onto a public observatory that provided a vantage on the proprietary arabesque of a landing platform on which Queen Amidala’s Royal Starship basked in the ambient light.

With the cowl of his hood raised, he moved to one of the stationary macrobinocular posts and pressed his eyes to the cushioned eye grips. Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the boy had arrived at the platform in a Jedi ship; Amidala, her handmaidens and guards, and a loose-limbed Gungan in an open-topped hemispherical air taxi. Just then the latter group was ascending the starship’s boarding ramp, but Qui-Gon and the round-faced desert urchin had stopped short of the ship to speak about something.

What? Plagueis asked himself. What topic has summoned such an earnest look to Qui-Gon’s face, and such confused urgency in the boy?

Lifting his face from the macrobinoculars, he stretched out with the Force and fell victim to an assault of perplexing images: ferocious battles in deep space; the clashing of lightsabers; partitions of radiant light; a black-helmeted cyborg rising from a table … By the time his gaze had returned to the platform, Qui-Gon and the boy had disappeared.

Trying desperately to make some sense of the images granted him by the Force, he stood motionless, watching the starship lift from the platform and climb into the night.

He fought to repress the truth.

The boy would change the course of history.

Unless …

Maul had to kill Qui-Gon, to keep the boy from being trained.

Qui-Gon was the key to everything.

Plagueis and Sidious spent the day before the Senate vote in the LiMerge Building, communicating with Maul and Gunray and seeing to other matters. Early reports from Naboo indicated that Amidala was more daring than either of them had anticipated. She had engineered a reconciliation between the Naboo and the Gungans, and had persuaded the latter to assemble an army in the swamps. Initially, Sidious had forbidden Maul and the Neimoidians to take action. The last thing the Sith needed was to have Amidala emerge as the hero of their manufactured drama. But when the Gungan army had commenced a march on the city of Theed, he had no choice but to order Gunray to repel the attack and slaughter everyone.

Plagueis neither offered advice nor contradicted the commands, even though he knew that the battle was lost and that the boy would not die.

Instead he arranged for a conference comm with the leaders of the Commerce Guild, the Techno Union, the Corporate Alliance, and others, telling them that, despite the legality of the blockade, the Trade Federation had brought doom upon itself.

“Pay heed to the way the Republic and the Jedi Order deal with them,” Hego Damask told his holo-audience. “The Federation will be dismantled, and the precedent will be set. Unless you take steps to begin a slow, carefully planned withdrawal from the Senate, taking your home and client systems with you, you, too, risk becoming the property of the Republic.”

As daylight was fading over The Works, Sate Pestage informed them that Senators Teem and Antilles were crippled, and that some of Coruscant’s political oddsmakers were now giving Palpatine the edge in the election.

That left only one piece of business to finalize.

Attend the opera.

Suspended like a scintillating ornament from a bracket of roadways and pedestrian ramps, Galaxies Opera was owned by notorious gambler and playboy Romeo Treblanc, and designed to function as an alternative to the stuffy Coruscant Opera, which for decades had been patronized by House Valorum and other wealthy Core lineages. With the Senate scheduled to convene in extraordinary session the following morning, excitement gripped Coruscant, and in celebration of the possibility that the election of a new Supreme Chancellor might usher in an era of positive change, half the Senate had turned out. Never had so much veda cloth, brocart, and shimmersilk graced the lavish carpets that led to the front doors; and never had such a diverse assortment of Coruscanti spilled from the taxis and limos that delivered them: patricians and doyennes, tycoons and philanthropists, pundits and patrons, lotharios and ingénues, gangsters and their molls … many clothed in costumes as ostentatious as those worn by the performers on the stage.

Valorum had declined to appear, but both Ainlee Teem and Bail Antilles were among the thousands streaming in to enjoy the debut performance of a new work by a Mon Calamari mastermind. Only Palpatine and Damask, however, were personally welcomed by Treblanc — Palpatine wrapped in a dark cloak, and the Muun in deep green, with matching bonnet and a breather mask that left part of his hoary jaw exposed.

“Word has it that he lost a fortune at the Boonta Eve Podrace,” Damask said when they were out of Treblanc’s earshot.

“The event Anakin won,” Palpatine said.

Damask stopped short in surprise, and turned to Palpatine for explanation.

“He captured first place.”

Damask absorbed the news in brooding silence, then muttered, “The boy’s actions already echo across the stars.”

A Nautolan female escorted them to a private box on the third tier, close to the stage, their appearance prompting applause from some of the beings seated below, rumormongering by others.

The lights dimmed and the performance began. Watery metaphors alternated with symbol-laden projections. The experimental nature of the work seemed to enhance an atmosphere of expectation that hung over the audience. Their thoughts elsewhere, the two secret Sith sat in respectful silence, as if hypnotized.

During intermission, the crowd filed into the lobby for refreshments. Discreetly, Damask sipped from a goblet of wine while distinguished beings approached Palpatine to wish him good fortune in the coming election. Other celebrated beings gawked at Damask from a polite distance; it was as if some long-sought phantom had become flesh and blood for the evening. Holocams grabbed images of the pair for media outlets. Damask ingested a second goblet of wine while the lights flickered, announcing the end of the intermission. Pestage had assured him that some of Palpatine’s opponents in the Senate would be waylaid; others, rendered too drunk or drugged to attend the morning session. None would die, but several might have to be threatened. And yet, Damask continued to fret over the outcome …

Following the performance, he and Palpatine joined a select group of politicians that included Orn Free Taa and Mas Amedda for a late dinner in a private room in the Manarai.

Then they retired to Damask’s penthouse.

Plagueis had given the Sun Guards the night off, and the only other intelligence in the sprawling apartment was the droid 11-4D, their servant for the occasion, pouring wine into expensive glassware as they removed their cloaks.

“Sullustan,” Plagueis said, holding the glass up to the light and swirling its claret contents. “More than half a century old.”

“A toast, then,” Sidious said. “To the culmination of decades of brilliant planning and execution.”

“And to the new meaning we will tomorrow impart to the Rule of Two.”

They drained their glasses, and 11-4D immediately refilled them.

“Only you could have brought this to fruition, Darth Plagueis,” Sidious said, settling into a chair. “I will endeavor to live up your expectations and fulfill my responsibility.”

Plagueis took the compliment in stride, neither haughty nor embarrassed. “With my guidance and your charisma, we will soon be in a position to initiate the final act of the Grand Plan.” Making himself more comfortable on the couch, he signaled for 11-4D to open a second bottle of the vintage. “Have you given thought to what you will say tomorrow?”

“I have prepared some remarks,” Sidious said. “Shall I spoil the surprise?”

“Why not.”

Sidious took a moment to compose himself. “To begin, I thought I would say, that, while we in the Senate have managed to keep the Republic intact for a thousand years, we would never have been able to do so without the assistance of a few beings, largely invisible to the public eye, whose accomplishments now need to be brought into the light of day.”

Plagueis smiled. “I’m pleased. Go on.”

Speaking in a low monotone, Sidious said, “Hego Damask is one of those beings. It was Hego Damask who was responsible for overseeing development of the Republic Reserve Administration and for providing financial support for the Resettlement Acts that enabled beings to blaze new hyperspace routes to the outlying systems and colonize distant worlds.”

“That will come as a revelation to some.”

“In a similar fashion, it was Hego Damask who transformed the Trade Federation—”

“No, no,” Plagueis interrupted. “Now is not the time to mention the Trade Federation.”

“I thought—”

“I don’t see any problem with calling attention to the arrangements I facilitated between the Republic and the Corporate Alliance and the Techno Union. But we must take care to avoid areas of controversy.”

“Of course,” Sidious said, as if chastised. “I was speaking off the top of my head.”

“Try a different approach.”

So Sidious did.

And as the night wore on, he continued to amend and improvise, touching on Damask’s childhood on Mygeeto and on the elder Damask’s contributions to the InterGalactic Banking Clan during his term as co-chair. Wineglass in hand, Sidious paced the richly carpeted floor, often vacillating between confidence and misgiving. More than once, Plagueis voiced satisfaction with everything he heard, but he urged Sidious to save his energy for the morning. By then, though, Sidious was too wound up to heed the advice and kept reworking the order of the remarks and the emphasis he gave to certain points.

The droid brought out a third, then a fourth bottle of the Sullustan wine.

Pleasantly intoxicated, Plagueis, who had wanted nothing more than to revel in the sweet taste of victory, was beginning to find his collaborator’s performance exhausting, and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and drift into imaginings of his march into the Senate Rotunda; the looks of surprise, astonishment, and trepidation on the faces of the gathered Senators; his long-anticipated emergence from the shadows; his ascension to galactic power …

Unfortunately, Sidious wouldn’t let him.

“That’s enough for now,” Plagueis tried one final time. “You should probably return home and get at least a few hours’ rest before—”

“Just one more time — from the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

“Lord Plagueis, you said you wouldn’t rest until our win was a matter of fact.”

“So it is, and so I shall, Darth Sidious.”

“Then let us celebrate that, as well.” Sidious beckoned to 11-4D. “Fill our glasses, droid.”

With dreamy weariness beginning to get the better of him, it was all Plagueis could do to lift the glass to his nose. No sooner did he set the drink down than it tipped over, saturating the tablecloth. His eyelids began to flicker and close, and his breathing slowed. In twenty years of never having had to contend with Plagueis in a state of sleep, the transpirator clicked repeatedly in adjustment, almost as if in panic.

A few meters distant, Sidious came to a halt, gazing at Plagueis for a long moment, as though making up his mind about something. Then, blowing out his breath, he set his own glass down and reached for the cloak he had draped over a chair. Swirling it around himself, he started for the door, only to stop shortly before he reached it. Turning and stretching out with the Force, he glanced around the room, as one might to fix a memory in the mind. Briefly his gaze fell on the droid, its glowing photoreceptors whirring to regard him in evident curiosity.

A look of sinister purpose contorted Sidious’s face.

Again, his eyes darted around the room, and the dark side whispered:

Your election assured, the Sun Guards absent, Plagueis unsuspecting and asleep …

And he moved in a blur.

Crackling from his fingertips, a web of blue lightning ground itself on the Muun’s breathing device. Plagueis’s eyes snapped open, the Force gathering in him like a storm, but he stopped short of defending himself. This being who had survived assassinations and killed countless opponents merely gazed at Sidious, until it struck him that Plagueis was challenging him! Confident that he couldn’t be killed, and in denial that he was slowly suffocating, he might have been simply experimenting with himself, actually courting death to put it in its place. Momentarily taken aback, Sidious stood absolutely still. Was Plagueis so self-deluded as to believe that he had achieved immortality?

The question lingered for only a moment, then Sidious unleashed another tangle of lightning, drawing more deeply on the dark side than he ever had.

“Let’s go over the second part of the speech, shall we,” he said, smoothing his tousled cloak. “You useless old fool.”

With a snarl, he threw the cloak back behind his shoulders and leaned toward Plagueis, planting his palms on the low table that was now puddled with spilled wine.

“It was Hego Damask as Darth Plagueis who came to Naboo, determined to suck the planet dry of plasma and set the Trade Federation up as its overseers. It was Hego Damask as Plagueis who then set his sights on a seemingly confused young man and, with meticulous skill, manipulated him into committing patricide, matricide, fratricide. Darth Plagueis who took him as an apprentice, sharing some of his knowledge but withholding his most powerful secrets, denying the apprentice his wishes as a means of controlling him, instilling in him a sense of murderous rage, and turning him to the dark side.” Sidious stood to his full height, glaring.

“It was Plagueis who criticized the early efforts of his apprentice, and who once choked him in a demonstration of his superiority.

“Plagueis, who denigrated him in private for hiring an inept assassin to carry out the murder of Senator Kim — and yet who allowed himself to be tricked by the Gran and nearly killed by mercenaries.

“Plagueis, who turned away from the Grand Plan to focus entirely on himself, in an egotistical quest for immortality.

“Plagueis who had the temerity to criticize his apprentice for having inculcated too much pride in the assassin he had trained.

“Plagueis who attempted to turn his equally powerful apprentice into a messenger and mere intermediary.

“And Plagueis who watched in secret while his apprentice tasked their true intermediary to reveal the reborn Sith to the galaxy.”

Sidious paused, then, in derision, added, “Plagueis the Wise, who in his time truly was, except at the end, trusting that the Rule of Two had been superseded, and failed to realize that he would not be excused from it. Plagueis the Wise, who forged the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known, and yet who forgot to leave a place for himself; whose pride never allowed him to question that he would no longer be needed.”

Still struggling for breath, Plagueis managed to stand, but only to collapse back onto the couch, knocking a statue from its perch. Sidious moved in, his hands upraised to deliver another bolt, his expression arctic enough to chill the room. A Force storm gathered over the couch, spreading out in concentric rings, to wash over Sidious and hurl objects to all corners. In the center of it, Plagueis’s form became anamorphic, then resumed shape as the storm began to wane.

Sidious’s eyes bored into the Muun’s.

“How often you said that the old order of Bane had ended with the death of your Master. An apprentice no longer needs to be stronger, you told me, merely more clever. The era of keeping score, suspicion, and betrayal was over. Strength is not in the flesh but in the Force.”

He laughed. “You lost the game on the very first day you chose to train me to rule by your side — or better still, under your thumb. Teacher, yes, and for that I will be eternally grateful. But Master—never.”

Sidious peered at Plagueis through the Force. “Oh, yes, by all means gather your midi-chlorians, Plagueis.” He held his thumb and forefinger close together. “Try to keep yourself alive while I choke the life out of you.”

Plagueis gulped for air and lifted an arm toward him.

“There’s the rub, you see,” Sidious said in a philosophical tone. “All the ones you experimented on, killed, and brought back to life … They were little more than toys. Now, though, you get to experience it from their side, and look what you discover: in a body that is being denied air, in which even the Force is failing, your own midi-chlorians can’t accomplish what you’re asking of them.”

Hatred stained Sidious’s eyes.

“I could save you, of course. Return you from the brink, as you did Venamis. I could retask your body to repair the damage already done to your lungs, your hearts, your aged brain. But I’ll do no such thing. The idea here is not to drag you back at the last moment, but to bring you to death’s door and shove you through to the other side.”

Sidious sighed. “A tragedy, really, for one so wise. One who could oversee the lives and deaths of all beings, except himself.”

The Muun’s eyes had begun to bulge; his pale flesh, to turn cyanotic.

“You may be wondering: when did he begin to change?

“The truth is that I haven’t changed. As we have clouded the minds of the Jedi, I clouded yours. Never once did I have any intention of sharing power with you. I needed to learn from you; no more, no less. To learn all of your secrets, which I trusted you would eventually reveal. But what made you think that I would need you after that? Vanity, perhaps; your sense of self-importance. You’ve been nothing more than a pawn in a game played by a genuine Master.

“The Sith’ari.”

A cruel laugh escaped him.

“Reflect back on even the past few years — assuming you have the capacity. Yinchorr, Dorvalla, Eriadu, Maul, the Neimoidians, Naboo, an army of clones, the fallen Jedi Dooku … You think these were your ideas, when in fact they were mine, cleverly suggested to you so that you could feed them back to me. You were far too trusting, Plagueis. No true Sith can ever really care about another. This has always been known. There is no way but my way.”

Sidious’s eyes narrowed. “Are you still with me, Plagueis? Yes, I detect that you are — though barely.

“A few final words, then.

“I could have let you die in the Fobosi district, but I couldn’t allow that to happen when there was still so much I didn’t know; so many powers that remained just outside my reach. And as it happened, I acted wisely in rescuing you. Otherwise how could I be standing here and you be dying? I actually thought you would die on Sojourn — and you would have if the Hutt hadn’t tipped you off to Veruna’s scheme.

“And yet that also turned out for the best, for even after all you taught me, I might not have been able to take the final steps to the chancellorship without your help in manipulating the Senate and bringing into play your various and sundry allies. If it’s any consolation, I’m being honest when I say that I could not have succeeded without you. But now that we’ve won the race, I’ve no need for a co-chancellor. Your presence, much less your unnecessary counsel, would only confuse matters. I have Maul to do what the risk of discovery might not allow me to do, while I execute the rest of the Grand Plan: growing an army, fomenting rebellion and fabricating intergalactic war, corralling the Jedi and catching them unawares …

“Rest easy in your grave, Plagueis. In the end, I will be proclaimed Emperor. The Sith will have had their revenge, and I will rule the galaxy.”

Plagueis slid to the floor and rolled facedown. Death rattled his lungs and he died.

OneOne-FourDee started to approach, but Sidious motioned for it to stop.

“We’re going to have to find you a new home and a new body, droid.”

OneOne-FourDee looked once at the Muun, then at Sidious. “Yes, Master Palpatine.”

Sidious moved to the window, then turned to regard the murder scene. Hego Damask would appear to have died because of a malfunction of the breathing apparatus. He would have the droid alert the medtechs. But no autopsy would be performed, and no inquest would follow. Holos of their appearance at the Galaxies Opera would run on the HoloNet, and pundits would weigh in. Senator Palpatine might garner even greater sympathy; his delight in being elected to the chancellorship diminished by the sudden death of a powerful financial ally.

Sidious moved back into the room to take a closer look at Plagueis. Then, after a long moment, he returned to the window and pulled the drapes aside.

His spirit soared, but briefly.

Something was shading his sense of triumph: a vague awareness of a power greater than himself. Was it Plagueis reaching out from the far side of death to vex him? Or was the feeling a mere consequence of apotheosis?

Outside, the summits of the tallest buildings were gilded by the first rays of daylight.