فصل 30

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-con􀀮dence, 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 􀀮lled 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 􀁀oated toward the center of the Rotunda, 􀁀anked 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 un􀁀agging 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 looselimbed 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 o􀁄ered 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.

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 stu􀁄y 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 􀀮led 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 􀁀esh and blood for the evening. Holocams grabbed images of the pair for media outlets. Damask ingested a second goblet of wine while the lights 􀁀ickered, 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 o􀁄, 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 􀀮nal 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 􀀮nancial 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 􀁀oor, often vacillating between con􀀮dence 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 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 􀀮nd 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 􀁀icker 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 􀀮ngertips, 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! Con􀀮dent that he couldn’t be killed, and in denial that he was slowly su􀁄ocating, 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 􀀮rst 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.”

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.

“Re􀁀ect 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 􀀮nal 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.