James Luceno - Darth Plagueis

“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?”

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.