Chapter 2 - Courtiers
Along the corridor of the Imperial Palace, heading to the Imperial Information Center, sweeping the floor with the shadowcloak, gravely marched advisor of His Majesty, old Sly Moore – a creepy bald harpy with a frozen face, like a porcelain mask after the countless cosmetic surgeries, a frightening impression accentuated by lifeless white eyes. Nearby, on long jointed legs, like a spider, egg-like capsule paced, stuffed with equipment – a life-support chamber, from its half-opened flaps, like from the shell, a sickly old man looked out.
"Using the dark side, Madame Moore", he mumbled, "you need an extreme caution, observing safety procedures. Have a look at me - I don't get out of the life-support chamber, but I'm only forty."
"Apparently, the use of Force had a detrimental effect on your health, lord Cronal, because you've acted incorrectly", Sly snapped ruthlessly. "For example, his majesty the emperor, also affected by the ravages of the Force - you didn't yet work with us then, and I remember how he had aged in one night, after a duel with Mace Windu, when both used dark side against each other - the octogenarian looks better than you, walks by himself, retained the clarity of mind..."
"Uses such tool to support its image as the presence of a young lover and the birth of crown prince", Cronal willingly put in. "For ignorant people to clop their tongues: turns out, the old chap is still hoo... However, a beautiful woman is just inevitably unfaithful, like a literary translation, and in any case after Emperor's death the DNA test will show the inconsistency of prince's claims."
The advisor only sighed. Countless times she has made – to the then senator, then to Chancellor - Palpatine proposals, both formal and obscene, and he always made excuses. Sly thought that he had always had exaggerated demands - reddishness faded, he lived up to wrinkles, and still he couldn't find a match. Found in his seventies.
"Hey, droid!" Cronal shouted, looking from his capsule sash. "Turn back, stop trailing after us!
Busily beeping from behind bureaucrats, astromech changed direction and disappeared behind a corner. Cronal and Moore would have been surprised if they followed him - all the doors opened by themselves before an odd droid, even those equipped with a combination lock. R2N7 headed to the apartment of the favored mistress, and his highness the crown prince. The guards didn't pay attention to him. Ascended in the elevator on many floors up and sunk into the holy of holies, astromech remotely entered access code, moved into the Ismarens' apartment and stopped only in the room resembling a droid repair workshop, with cluttered hardware, contrasting with other furniture of favorite's apartments, completely disposing to relaxation.
R2's top bounced away, the "body" bent and out of droid's womb a boy appeared. In his eight years, curled up in fetal position, he still could fit in the disemboweled droid that had lost its former navigation and repairing skills – there were left only a few components of the former filling - and, finally breathing deeply, he began to warm up and stretch muscles, as a padawan in the beginning of the training. Precociously serious baby face, comfortable black hakama, a training lightsaber – he lacked only a braid.
Lackey, protocol TS-340, reported the young master that the tutor has arrived. White-eyed professor Magrody, after undergoing the familiar procedure of searching and scanning, that has never caused his objections - the pay envelope of prince's tutor hundredfold exceeded the modest salary that he received in the Institute and for lecturing - was let in by guards, and Irek perplexed him from the very threshold:
"Professor, can you get plans of life-support capsule from anywhere? I'm going to rebuffer the data I've read out. Tell me, is it at least standard?"
The prince began transmitting the technical specifications of equipment, which he was able to recognize. Magrody watched the pattern, emerging on a monitor, gathering formulas. However, the last Mechu-deru adept identified only a small fraction of data, missing for the complete reconstruction of the apparatus and its filling. Irek bit his lip: when he knows more, he will be able to connect to the life support system, and he immediately undermines the equipment supporting stunted life of Lord Cronal.
X X X
"Shame on my gray hair!" the Vizier habitually thought, hiding his wrinkled bald head under a hood and billowing cape in colors of the mantle. "I know this man for almost 60 years! "
Sate drank brotherhood with Palpatine when he worked as a simple clerk in the State Administration of Theed, and Pestage got in there as an intern after graduation. Sate then went hunting in a T-shirt "Shoot the Gungan - cleanse the Great Motherland", but shot, alas, only birds - and missed. Hard-nosed, meticulous, stolid, taciturn Sate instantly realized how to compensate for the lack of leadership skills - to hang on the hem of one's mantle, in order to climb the corporate ladder. Since then Pestage didn't drop this mantle. He cheated, dodged, spying and killing, covering the activities of Darth Sidious. He was appointed vizier after the coronation. He performed most of the day to day duties for the state affairs management, and stole gently and carefully. Compared with this most august misuse of funds, the hard work, with which Pestage and his Ruling Council invented how to cover previous imperial graft - when Palpatine started to build a summer residence on the Great Motherland near Moenia - seemed ridiculous.
And now, for all his meticulous work Palpatine sends Sate Pestage to retire!
"He keeps only droid lackeys. He doesn't trust the doctors, but from your hands he will take." Sardonic grin touched Pestage's thin bloodless lips. Knowing Palpatine for almost 60 years, Sate has never imagined that he was capable to get up to something like this in his eighties. The old man decided to snatch the last trophy from life. Now, the latest passion of elderly Sidious sat in the vizier's office, tiny white hands, studded with rings and bracelets, folded on her lap, - hands, from which Palpatine will meekly take and swallow his death. Sate went on:
"So, when you hand him the pills in the night, do give to him these two pills instead of your average medicine." He launched a package of drugs on the table and promised, "I won't conduct an investigation - the man was in age, it's time to pass. And I will transfer 200 000 on your account, you will get rid of the old fart, and provide yourself for the rest of your life!"
Roganda glanced with resilient look of bottomless eyes, shining the impudent stars, on the ruts of vizier's wrinkles, like bright furrows standing out against his purple hood, and, half turning, seemed to deliberately - and most likely, so it was – choose the angle to emphasize the delicate oval of her rouged face, giggled:
"Oh, Vizier, and you are asking me to kill the goose that lays golden eggs for 200,000?"
Sate frowned.
"Million", Roganda said.
"Three hundred..."
"Poison him yourself..."
"Five hundred..."
"Seven..."
"Persuaded, 700,000. Now I'll give an order to transfer the deposit to your account."
"These two hundred thousand you've initially promised?" eagerly asked Roganda.
"The rest will list when I launder the money – debit to the expenses for the funeral of Palpatine and my coronation."
And immediately after the coronation – Sate mused - I'll have to send the Death Star to Byss and blow the local edifice, so that the boss won't return in the clone body! And even if a clone appears - the vizier thought - who will obey him? Who would believe that Palpatine is reborn? Just a young impostor.
Pestage for a second imagined the squabble over the throne, what will come after him, as his 14 children and 57 grandchildren will send stranglers and poisoners to each other, and inly sang another dithyramb to the principles of constitutional, elective monarchy of Nabooian style.
Roganda gracefully rested her chin on the thin wrist and asked unsubtly,
"And don't you exclude the risk that you won't be elected? You cannot bribe or intimidate the entire Senate, there are too many of them. And you have a serious rival - sure, Isard will run for... beside all her influence, she is just younger."
Pestage leaned back in his chair. With her considerable knowledge, the babe lacks any vision or outlook. That'll come with time, one might say, if the Vizier was not going to kill her immediately after the implementation of his order.
"And it's not your concern. I can give a hundred percent guarantee that I will be elected the emperor." Sate didn't intend to expatiate, how and with whom he made arrangements. "Your task is to accelerate the process."
Roganda rose, a box of pills disappeared in the folds of her skirt. Pestage's security escorted her to the exit from the government building. Roganda got in the speeder - green this time, the color of the dress - behind the wheel DB-3765 sat - and got off from the guarded parking platform.
X X X
Roganda dropped the box of poison pills in a jewel-box. Sat down at the computer, checking her bank account. The vizier didn't disappoint with the front money, but... Pestage regarded prospects from the viewpoint of a layman, not knowing that the Lord would immediately detect misfeaser's intentions in the Force. To bring a surprise from Myrkr? Roganda immediately brushed off the idea: you never confuse the feeling of abrupt deafness, caused by the Force-suppressing presence of ysalamiri.
Sparking like blades, dead warriors of the Temple began to emerge before Roganda. Master Plett, who gathered padawans in the shelter on Belsavis at the beginning of the Purge, brother Lagan, other padawans she knew, hefty form of horned master Tiin, beside him - outlines of inseparable even in death Kolar, Fisto - tentacled head hovered a few inches above the stump of the neck, and one-armed Windu - and, finally, Count Dooku. They surrounded Roganda, and she lowered her head and closed her eyes tight, clamping her ears, but visions of the dead Jedi inevitably crowded around, different voices shouted out of tune:
"Kill the Emperor! Kill the Emperor!"
Roganda fell face down, hands covering her head, trying to stifle the inexorable demands of ghosts with the sobs.
She didn't know how many minutes, maybe hours have passed, how long she laid there, desperately crushing her dress, crying and listening to bad, repeated cries of ghosts, and finally calls of the dead Jedi subsided. Voices gradually died down, as if Roganda was swept by bountiful, black wave of huge, all-consuming, ruthless and merciful, shimmering sea of dark Force.
So, Sidious was back from work.
Roganda flew towards him and pressed her whole body to his, entwining her arms round his neck, buried her tear-stricken forehead in her master's quaggy cheek, and whispered,
"My master."
"Tidy yourself and go to dinner", Palpatine said, taking off the girl nestling to him. Lackeys were busy in the dining room. Deafening disturbance in the Force faded, and everything fell into place. Roganda again felt the presence of security guards at the doors of monarchic apartments, the echoes of the staff, running somewhere at the bottom, even slight vibration of the Force emitted by flowering plants. To bring an ysalamiri? When he feels and drives away ghosts haunting only her? He reads her like an open book. Would he not be able to detect the threat in the Force when she hands him the poison?
X X X
Despite his office was daily – in morning and in evening - checked for the bugs, despite the silencing energy field, Sate was still listened by high-accuracy devices invulnerable to silencing field.
"When Roganda poisons Palpatine, we present evidence that the instigator was Pestage."
"And will she poison him, ma'am?" questioned the agent Jade.
"You bet". The might-have-been First Lady of the Galactic Empire looked down to her large hands, wide palms, imagining herself wring and break the scrawny, flaccid monarch's neck. "And, having Pestage eliminated, after my coronation we'll sort out the mess in this sleazo joint."
"I'm with you, ma'am", Mara gasped loyally.
X X X
And the next day after this conversation, the patroness showed to Mara a recording made by a hidden camera.
Morel, shriveled like a mummy, was lying helplessly on a mountain of pillows. He was all blackened and haggard. Three doctors, emphatically shaking their heads and lifting their hands in dismay, one by one left the deathbed. Black cave of mouth with brown stumps of rotten teeth, mumbled, barely squeezing out the latest wheeze - the name of his son:
"Irek."
Overcoming disgust, the boy bent over the dying man.
"Irek, I have done for you everything I could, and now you have to take care of yourself. In your hands is a lot of power, a lot of opportunities. I am not eternal. Not everything depends on the parents... Take care of your mother, take care of yourself, acquire the heirs, to have someone to pass the property... and everything in the world."
On the threshold the lackey diffidently began:
"Madame Roganda wants to say goodbye."
"Don't let her in, I said. She must not see it."
Loud and irregular breathing escaped his rash-covered lips, like the majestic old man was supported in the world of living only by the Force. His watery gray eyes, that haven't lost a meaningful expression, dug into child's face, twisted with horror. Fingers studded with rings convulsively clutched the sheets.
With this the record came to an end.
"Reports come that this is still going on. He already doesn't recognize anybody." Isard leaned back in her chair and stretched out, crisping her fingers. "It's time to act, Mara..."
X X X
Artificial light offended the eye, the lamp was built in a bare wall, right above the bullpen bunks. Madame Director personally and with great pleasure wooled long fluffy hair of half-naked girlish form, crouched on the cold cement floor, twisted arms in metal cuffs behind her back. Drips of tears and smeared mascara stained delicate cheeks of the beauty, at this time flushed not because of rouge, but because of Isard's slaps and tweaks.
"You will give evidence and publicly confirm that you've poisoned Palpatine, getting paid for it by Pestage. I warrant you a separate cell and a bowl of glop for the rest of your life. Refuse to testify – then your death will be long and painful."
Ysanne triumphed, vulturely circling around the defenseless prisoner.
Suddenly Roganda made a powerful jerk – sparks flew, handcuffs snapped open. Mara threw both arms forward, holding her back by the Force. In vain. Roganda jumped up and, pivoting, punched Isard in the face - blood splattered, nose slid sideways, two teeth flew out - and kicked agent Jade in the groin. Neutralizing the pain with the Force, Mara grabbed her saber and blaster. The bolt at close range hit Roganda's body, flashed red, and smoking a severed hand with a sparkling protruding wires hit the floor. The body collapsed, in torn chest from under the layer of synthetic flesh, with fake muscles and veins, with a fake heart, the same wires and circuits stuck. Mara gathered the split-off arm and stared, puzzled. Ysanne sat down next, wiping the blood with her handkerchief.
"HRD", she mumbled, choking on blood.
Madame Director called the security, and paralyzed HRD was taken away; passionless security guard and agent Jade brought their bleeding patroness to the hospital. When meddroids suppressed the bleeding and set her nose in place, Isard, blinking her bunged eyes, snuffled out,
"Such twin is worth nine million at least."
Mara didn't believe her eyes. But for the pain between her legs – she should go to the X-ray examination, what if a bone cracked from a powerful blow, and internal organs are torn? - Mara was afraid of internal bleeding - she would have refused to take on a hearsay that there is such a miracle of technology. HRD – human replica droid! Dragging Roganda to the bullpen, the agent Jade clearly felt her heart rate, and pulse, and hurried breath, and cold sweat on the fighting off little captive, and the pores on her skin, and tiny, barely visible hairs on her arms, and her nail was broken when Roganda scratched Mara's cheek, and when Madame Isard began to pull her hair, the HRD wept real tears.
Isard leaned to Mara and croaked,
"Bring me the real one. Characteristics of this woman are sent to all police stations and all spaceports. She hasn't come out beyond the administrative sector - I wasn't informed."
"Roganda could pass the cordon, using the Force", Mara muttered.
"So then do use the Force, for that end I've hired you!" Isard snorted.
X X X
Sate Pestage was late – he waited too long, when at last the emperor dies from magical pills. Pestage's security was fired and replaced with Red Guards – the Vizier never budged from the place, under house arrest.
Two guards blocked the way before agent Jade, crossed their energy peaks in front of her and roared in unison,
"Hold off!"
"You want to let me go!" Mara waved her hand - and didn't reach out to their consciousness, like she ran into a permacrite wall.
"Turn back!"
Mara practiced at their training center and knew that the selection criteria were very strict - the height not less than 185 cm, flawless reliability, desirably high midichlorian count. They hit the titanic qualifying standards. The right one did fit. The left one - on the contrary, he seemed to be a dwarf.
"Aren't you too short for a guardsman!" Mara snarled, activating her lightsaber.
Soon the tall guardsman was lying on the floor in a heap of red rags, pierced with his own spear. The midget managed to dodge and block her attacks, but long-skirted, not in size, robes finally impeded the guard. Mara slashed through midget's head, but he drew back with the Force acceleration - just the helmet broke. From under the chipped face shield and a fallen cope Roganda's flushed face appeared. Her forehead, cheek and cheekbone were crossed with the red stripe of a red burn - the impact of the sword hitting the metal face plate.
Her incognito declassified, the favored mistress silently made a giant leap - and, like a fly on the wall, flattened ten meters above the floor. Mara jammed her saber and threw it towards Roganda, but the red blade, like a boomerang, bounced off an invisible field around the form clinging to the wall and, spinning, flew to cut off Mara's head.
Great Bane! She didn't even have to make passes to redirect the saber! Mara turned and ran, dodging her own sword flying after her, a bloody fragment of the peak - after breaking in half cut of current, but still able to pierce through – which sprung from the dead guardsman's chest, and a functioning peak, which Roganda was operating a moment ago, then by hand and now non-contact.
Mara made a high flip and caught her lightsaber, fighting off the chip, and crossed her crimson blade with the shaft of buzzing energy peak.
While a fight was in the outside, the Vizier took to his heels, using the remote and calling his fully automated armored vehicle. Guardsmen, placed deeper in the house and closer to Vizier's body, began firing at the vessel and at the very old fart, but both targets were equipped with reversed polarity deflector fields (Chiss production) - in Pestage's case, portable - to reflect blaster bolts at shooters themselves.
Thus ended Sate Pestage's faithful, nearly 60 years long service under Palpatine.
X X X
From the Senate flying rostrum Bail Organa yelled his usual antipalpatinism,
"His Imperial Majesty's lavishness is of great concern! Clone Wars are over for a long time, and barrage patroling of the territory and the suppression of sporadic bursts of rebel activity doesn't require the content of such a vast navy and regular governmental orders to produce more and more new SDs - with 185 billion budget deficit!"
Palpatine spieled off an address about the hidden threat of an impending expansion of militant neighbors. He could involve Doriana, Thrawn and those few witnesses who could confirm that the Vongs indeed rush along the border, waiting for the right moment, looking out, where to strike. The thing is that the hidden threat was known only to the top management - and for the time being they didn't publicize the information about the conquistadors. But at this point it was in their interest to divulge the reason for detention and capacity of building of imperial war machine.
Opposition members raised the cry, "Lies! We do not believe it! "
It became clear why Organa, Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis have perched on one podium. They hurried their chair close to the Rotunda, and hurled rotten eggs at the Emperor. Red Guardsmen tried to switch on the protective shield, but then discovered that someone had been bribed in advance and brought down the field generator! Palpatine had to pull out his lightsaber and beat back the eggs in flight, and the speaker Mas Amedda crouched down and covered with his umbrella. Opposition members continued bombing, hoping that at least one egg cracks up on wrinkly balding Sith's head. Or at worst on Amedda's! To grab him by the horns and sock his forehead! Since Yoda told Organa about a fight in the Senate, parliamentary massacres didn't leave the oppositioner's fantasy.
Odious Pestage's budget was not accepted.
"Tell me, Mas, how did you know that you need to stock up on the umbrella?" Sidious asked with the bad squint.
Amedda's lethorn pulled a handkerchief and began wiping the massive pectoral, which was still stained with a rotten egg.
"Why, master," he answered calmly, "since the rain was forecast!"
"And why you didn't leave it in the locker room?"
"But somebody could steal..."
X X X
Grim determination on his face, the Emperor came home. Roganda knelt and took off Emperor's boots. Lackey began to help him to undress, removed the dark-blue robes, Roganda handed him the dressing gown.
"I received a report from Isard, that she sent her best employee to neutralize Pestage. Without unnecessary publicity."
"I don't dare to draw parallels", Roganda interrupted, "but let me confess – I involuntarily recalled how the Chiss removed Thrawn from office for his superfluous initiative."
"As... customer of murder of the goose that lays the golden eggs", Emperor's steely gray eyes turned into slits.
"Ah, your majesty!" Deadly pale beneath the makeup, Roganda with an indescribable grace slid on her knees, looking up asquit – to Palpatine opened a good overview of the bending of the white neck, covered by a necklace, and curled tress, with deliberate casualness falling out of the hair, crowning her submissively bowed head. "If I immediately refused, the Vizier wouldn't let me live, as a witness. I decided to pretend I was going to cooperate, to take a deposit and to do nothing, and to tell you on the first occasion."
Palpatine paced along the room. Roganda stood motionless on her knees, head down, clenchig her gentle, child-like hands on her chest - the embodiment of humility and of timid, anxious reproach: what barbarian's hand rises to destroy such beauty? This small, fragile creature? Is she guilty of something? She is adrift, as the wind-picked petal. Her life is dominated by her master - he could crush her with his boot, if he pleases, but in doing so depriving himself of the only pleasure.
"But you were silent. And failed the task, losing the supervised."
"Sire, I defended the Vizier from the assassin with all my force. She smashed through - is it really called "quietly"?"
Roganda still couldn't resist to pinprick her rival and her best agent. Rival? Well, she's not your peer. Ysanne isn't the inhabitant of bedrooms and boudoirs, she can be unleashed onto the arena.
"According to Ysanne's report, without publicity, since Mara was supposed to force you to give her way." The overlord was tired of the conversation. He motioned Roganda to stand up and commanded in bored voice, "Bring the poison here."
Roganda ran to her room and, staying in front of Palpatine, shook three tablets from the vial. Three white spots on childlike palm near her mouth, huge desperate eyes: I can swallow the poison, if it is your will, but won't you feel sorry yourself?
Invisible testicle hit Roganda's hand, white tablets flew apart across the floor. DB-3765 immediately rushed to clean up.
"You've forgiven me, my master?" Roganda grabbed Sith's hand and kissed the red glowing ring. Her servility palled on Palpatine - again bowing, how much can she cowtow, entitle, he but has a name. Probably, the girl just cannot tutoyer a man who is 60 years older than her.
"Roganda, go to your room."
The concubine evaporated. Today he no longer wanted to see her, and they dined separately. Then he locked himself in a darkened room, where he spent time in meditation and studied Force techniques - for the hours nobody dared to disturb him. He mulled over how to deal with the revolting senators.
X X X
Knowing from his mother about the fight with Mara and waiting for the HRD which vanished in an unknown direction, Irek began searching in the Force for Roganda's replica droid, determined to locate it and read its memory. Search in the Force brought him to Lusankya.
Irek wanted to study her for a while. Just as well the prince could study her twin, the Executor, but the flagship was away from Sessvenna sector.
"How are they going to get it up? Again, to dig it out and then dig in? What's about skyscrapers already built over it? Scratch raw 19 km of the surface is a terrible mismanagement!" At every opportunity, the prince pestered the emperor. Palpatine just waved him aside. And Irek couldn't grasp why the ship was buried under the ground when they could easily and without worries build a nontransportable bin. All witnesses of Lusankya's burial were subjected to Palpatine's monstrous mind trick, ordering them to forget what they saw.
Of course, you would walk from the palace to Lusankya for a while, so that Irek would need official permission to visit the Intelligence bunker, and also a shuttle and escort. He would, lest he practiced Mechu-deru. When he connected to HRD, he read out her memory - and found out who is trying to make him an orphan.
Astromech R2N7 cheerfully trundled along the foyer of the 43rd floor of the palace, and its passenger was scanning all the electronics he encountered in search of the entrance to the tunnel leading to Lusankya. He decided to run the hyperdrive and to direct the leap into the nucleus of the star Coruscant Prime. Prince feared that subsidence would happen - the buildings crack, and even collapse. What if a layer of ground with buildings above the huge cavity simply falls in the void, and there will be a crater? But, in fact, it wasn't he who gave the go-ahead for real estate development on the territory above Lusankya! Let the mayor have a headache. And papa, because the entire burial project was agreed with him. He felt sorry for the staff of bunker ship, but Irek wasn't that adept at the impact on the mind to make these thousands of people - all but one! - to leave their jobs and immediately evacuate from Lusankya. I'm like Darth Vader and his minion, Galen Marek - Irek thought grimly, remembering the sabotage at the shipyard of Raxus Prime. However, the boy has already become like Vader, when his parents decided to make him a lab rat. Bitterness burned inside of his chest. He could almost feel the bile of disgust for Vader's methods which he has chosen. Really is there only one way out?
"Hey, R2!" Turning around, a tall bearded dignitary barked, accompanied by two droid guards. "I told you to wait - where? Why you had come with?"
"Voice interpretation module short out?" the right droid assumed.
The dignitary yelled,
"Come along, now!"
Narrow slit in the shell Irek looked through gave a magnificent overview of embroidered robes. The boy felt him up in the Force - in front of him was an avid member of the opposition, the viceroy of Alderaan. And he confused R2N7 with his own astromech - painted in the same white and blue palette R2D2.
Irek turned the droid and rode beyond Organa. What has he, actually, forgotten on 43th floor? Reduced copy of the Republican Senate conference room, that was located in a huge skyscraper of Imperial Palace, along with other government agencies, was in a completely different facet of the three-kilometer pyramid; Bail's office - also not close.
A woman got in touch with Bail, claiming to be Force sensitive, a gunslinger, able to drive a spaceship, and to have lightsaber and martial arts skills. It was the agent Jade, and she came to the rendezvous in a wig and a "second skin" mask with bulges, changing the shape of the nose, eye, lip contour. Bail and Mara met not in his office, but hunkered in some closet. Droid bodyguards, equipped with portable generators, activated two silencing fields, Mara took off the wig, pulled off the mask, allowed them to scan her for weapons, and the fiery oppositioner, furtively looking around, hissed:
"What's the blazing hurry, agent Jade?"
He peered from behind his droid, apparently fearing that Mara will hurl and break his neck.
"You can trust me, Senator Organa", gloomily said Mara. "I'm currently looking for a new job."
"May I know the reason why you have decided to leave the old?"
"Order of the immediate superiors went against the will of the higher authorities", the agent told, determined not to dwell on the mills of the hard-fisted pseudo-justice, grinding the dependents for the execution of the order, and even more about the specifics. "I fell back on the Force, and the Force prompted that I can be helpful to you."
There was a conditional knock and the door sunk into the wall - Mothma joined the candidate and the prospective employer, also accompanied by a pair of droids. Bail introduced Mara to her, and rebel leaders peppered her with questions, checking her trustworthiness. Having concluded that a Force-user in the ranks of the movement they lead will be even very useful – if only this very Force-user wasn't a double agent! - respected senators embarked on a totally ridiculous rhetoric about the bloody regime, built on the bones, and their sacred duty to help the peoples of the galaxy to rise from their knees and from the subjects again become citizens of a democratic legal state. Bail Organa recited verses,
"Autocratic villain! You, your throne I hate. Thy doom, the death of children with cruel joy I see..."
Preliminary indoctrination of a rookie came to an end. Organa and Mothma promised to send her to Danuta.
"You'll connect with our do-all. He'll explain the details of the operation", Mothma said softly, twisting a corner of her mouth.
"R2, show Kyle's frequency to Mara", Bail told. "Look and memorize."
Irek was thrown into a fever. He wished he would take his R2 away from the senator, in whose memory is listed the number by which the senior rebel contacts his agent! He immediately ordered the remains of artificial intelligence, that has been left inside the disemboweled droid, to display the frequency of... Palpatine's comm (this was the first number that came to prince's mind). Mara memorized, and the image faded.
Curled up inside a droid, lungs compressed, thought of a lavatory persistent, Irek wondered at deafness of agent Jade, who didn't detect his presence in the Force. He moved the droid behind the Alderaanian, who said goodbye to the accomplices and headed to the nearest landing platform, to his ship, and there – what a bad luck! - R2D2 sat and waited for the owner, as he'd commanded. (Bail liberated Artoo and Threepio along with Leia.)
"And what's then with me?" the senator wondered. "Hey, droid, where you!.. Stop! Wait, I said... Catch it!"
Palace guardsmen impassively watched the senator's droids, galloping down the hall after the skedaddle R2. Bureaucrats scurrying along the corridor with folders, reports, not even deigned to look awry at the droid. Upon reaching the first turbolift on his way, Irek tapped and stopped the cab, and ordered to stop the descent and return to the 43rd floor. When the elevator has come, Organa's droids overtook the astromech - but instead of grabbing the R2, towing it back to the platform and plunging into the senator's car, they froze - both short-circuited.
Bail waited for his droids for a long while.
X X X
Mara Jade didn't go home. She applied to the electronic reference bureau, looked through the apartment letting ads and took up quarters at the middle levels, in the area for non-humanoids, with an old Twi'lek.
Connected the frequency she'd got from Organa's droid - what a shock was waiting for her: that frequency was used by Palpatine, when he called Roganda and Irek.
"Child, you know that distance is not an obstacle for the Force", Emperor answered in the bored voice. Mara clenched her teeth. Step right, step left - the Emperor would find her in the Force and stop her heart.
Palpatine told her to ask Organa for the correct number - and to come to the rendezvous with the agent. He kept in touch with Mara's mind and helped her to calm Organa's suspicions, affecting him with the Force through her.
The rendezvous with the agent took place, but the conversation didn't last long - a detachment arrived after Mara. The best rebel agent, mercenary Katarn, was overpowered and dragged into a dark torture chamber of Lusankya, where he under torture gave out the details of the planned operation "Skyhook" – under the diversionary fire of rebel ships he had to get into Trid research facility on Danuta and steal the blueprints of Death Star. Katarn yielded threffs, passwords, and coordinates of agents involved in the operation. Oh, how many new residents appeared in the dungeons of Lusankya!
X X X
The new Vizier Ars Dangor - old, shrill-gorged, hard-nosed Nabooian – was pompously heading into his new office, leading there a bunch of journalists, deputies, secretaries and guards.
Opened the door, and there...
Bare walls. Pestage has carried out everything. Tables, chairs, lamps, equipment, blinds, pictures, even panels were torn off the walls. The floor was stripped of parquet. And just over the place where Vizier's table once stood, a portrait of crowned Palpatine hung forlornly.
Dangor pursed his lips and deep wrinkles on his ashen face came into motion as waving folds of the mantle. Abomination of desolation in Vizier's room was a mirror reflection of the state treasury. Responsibility for the hole in the budget was officially assigned to thiefy ex-Vizier, and Dangor now had to urgently establish a new budget.
X X X
After the rotten eggs bombardment, His Majesty the Emperor dissolved the Senate and in the near - as well as in the distant - future, did not intend to summon it again. A criminal case was immediately started against depraved of their senatorial immunity throwers Iblis, Mothma and Organa, as provided in clause "Hooliganism" - and after their arrest it was planned to bring against the trinity charges of high treason, organizing and funding of the armed rebellion, supported by the testimony of overfished participants in the "Skyhook" operation - but all three had incognito left Coruscant. The golden trio was put on the intergalactic wanted list. Employees of crossing point in the spaceport, who had seen a man resembling Iblis, went on trial on article "Bribe-taking in the workplace."
