Chapter II: Justice
The Works.
Coruscant's industrial region. It's a dead spot on the planet's surface, as far as the expression goes. Abandoned factories, mills and foundries fallen into disrepair, having not been occupied in decades upon decades. Emptiness. Of no interest to anyone, except those who knew and wanted a refuge in the darkness.
A Sith Lord, and his apprentice, and an unsuspecting science experiment.
Plagueis was gone when Palpatine rose the next morning.
Palpatine quickly clothed himself and went to the main hangar, where Plagueis' small craft had brought him some weeks before. How much time had passed since leaving Theed? Palpatine couldn't tell.
He walked to a transparisteel bay window and stared out at the morning horizon. Geometrically-perfect lines of sky cabs and crafts traversing the amber-hued sky. Buildings in the background, sharp an angled, narrow ebony monoliths. And in the foreground, blackness. Years upon years of construction had made Coruscant's true surface but a memory—replaced by an ecumenopolis built on industry and commerce and the backs of businessmen from eons ago.
The greatest planet in the galaxy—the universe—housing the greatest mind in the galaxy.
He could already feel his power growing. When his lessons with Plagueis were not in session, Palpatine read. Traveling to the Republic Archives at the Senate and the Library of the Senate, Palpatine read and remembered all he could. Languages, interspecies politics and cultures. By his twentieth birthday, the man spoke Huttese and Rodian--two of the galaxy's hardest languages--fluently. And he was beginning to take a keen interest in Cheunh. The language of his master.
He wanted to expand his knowledge to a point where he would no longer need Plagueis' guidance.
That, he thought—no…knew—was secondary to his own ambitions. Training was something on its own. But will…knowledge…those things were everything. They were the shatterpoints on which Palpatine's future rested.
This was fact.
He would become a Sith Lord. Soon enough. And then he would achieve the ultimate goal of which his master had spoken so voluminously.
Power. Unlimited Power.
Palpatine sat on the ledge and continued gazing at the city in the distance. And he remembered what his master had told of Naga Sadow…and of the man called Exar Kun.
There was a sequence to the history—a poetry—that Palpatine found fascinating. The order of events was so perfect that it was almost unimaginable that one man created all of it. One Sith Lord's actions begat another's and so on, until a harmony was reached within. Where one master and his apprentice declared war on the Jedi to achieve peace for the Sith. It began with Naga Sadow, nearly five thousand years ago.
Naga Sadow was a Dark Lord of the Sith, but before that he was a rogue Jedi. He was the mastermind of the Great Sith War—one of many, at least—a conflagration that brought the attention of the Jedi Order to spar with the Sith Empire when two Jedi happened upon the Sith crown world of Korriban—deep in Wild Space. Sadow declared war on the Republic and proclaimed himself ruler of the Sith Empire. He fought not only the Republic, but the forces of his rival and eventual successor, Ludo Kressh, and was forced to destroy his own fleet to escape. Sadow landed on Yavin IV and constructed vast temples with the labor of his Massassi warriors—natives versed in the ancient sorcery of the Sith.
Six hundred years passed. And another fallen Jedi, this one named Freedon Nadd, arrived on the forest moon.
There he learned Sith sorcery from the spirit of Sadow—no longer alive in the clinical sense; disembodied, but just as fearsome as he had been in life. The fallen Jedi Nadd took his knowledge and the treasures of Sadow to the planet Onderon, where he used his acquired gifts to install himself as king. Long after death, his spirit continued to advise his descendants.
And Ulic Qel-Droma, a Jedi, arrived on Onderon, unaware of the history or Sith legacy. He came across the spirit of Freedon Nadd, and was told that in time he would become a Sith Lord.
Which…eventually of course he did. Unfortunately, Onderon was a nexus for another rogue Jedi named Exar Kun. Kun yearned to learn secrets of the Dark Side after a perfunctory glimpse into a Holocron possessed by his master.
He went to Onderon.
There, the spirit of the long-deceased Sith Lord Freedon Nadd appeared to Kun. Using the young Jedi's natural naïveté to his advantage, the ancient Sith instructed Kun to continue his quest to the Sith tomb-world of Korriban. Kun agreed, plunging straight into the dark side.
On Korriban, the spirits of Sith Lords of old tested the Jedi and Kun found himself trapped under an embankment of rocks. Near death, Kun had no escape, save one. To save himself, to be imbued with greater power and sorcery of the Dark Side, Kun gave in to his anger and let the Dark Side consume him.
He left Korriban a shadow of the man he once was. And he went to the fourth moon of Yavin.
He was captured by the Massassi, the last remnants of Sadow's old empire. And when Freedon Nadd encouraged Kun to give the last shreds of darkness permanence…Kun broke free and slaughtered his captors without thought. Kun enslaved the remaining Massassi, banished Nadd's presence from the galaxy. He proclaimed himself a god. He foresaw a great battle, and knew that his plans for conquest would fail if a Jedi powerful enough intervened in the delicate beginnings.
Ulic Qel-Droma, the only Jedi powerful enough to stop Kun from refurbishing the Sith Empire, became his apprentice. Qel-Droma was seduced by the Dark Side, and all his schemes for personal glory became as nothing as the darkness enveloped him. With a new apprentice—one younger and more powerful than his contemporaries--Exar Kun was ready to fulfill his destiny.
The Great Sith War had begun.
When it was over Exar Kun had killed his old master, Vodo Siosk-Baas, on the steps of the Senate chamber. Ulic Qel-Droma encountered and killed his brother on Ossus, was subsequently stripped of his Force intuition, and went into hiding on the planet Rhen Var. And Kun, faced with extermination, drew his power inward, drained the life-force from the Massassi and bound his conscious mind to the temples they had built for him.
Four thousand years passed. And the name of Exar Kun was forgotten. Except to those who had the means to access his secrets.
Palpatine had read this history in his private moments. Of Kun's exploits; his successes and failures, his genius. Palpatine knew that he would someday take an apprentice; a thought he relished, and committed himself to learning.
He would find a way to supersede his master, a way to take an apprentice and accomplish the unfinished business of the Sith of old.
And he would do it as Kun had done with Qel-Droma.
Palpatine heard a pneumatic door slide shut behind him, and turned to see his master approaching in a deliberate stride. Half a meter in front of Plagueis, a woman, bound at the wrists and ankles with energy binders, hovered. The blue tint circled her wrists and illuminated her face, even in the encroaching daylight. She was scantily clad, and dark circles surrounded her eyes. From the looks of it, she hadn't slept.
"What is this?" Palpatine asked, watching Plagueis throw the woman to the floor. She summoned enough energy to spit at Plagueis' boots. The act made Plagueis draw his lightsaber and sever her feet in a single swipe. The lightsaber was sheathed back beneath Plagueis' cloak before Palpatine could even register motion; the clues were the woman's obviously detached feet, cauterized at the point of impact and lying lifeless on the duranium floor.
"Justice," Plagueis said calmly. "This woman is a prostitute. That is illegal on Coruscant. She means to destroy the fiber on which society is built by relaxed morality and reckless disregard for her own body. And for others."
Something clicked inside Palpatine's head. "You mean to kill her," he said factually.
"This woman is a criminal. You are the only being capable of administering justice. The only being who can be trusted to do so."
"Alright." The words came slowly from Palpatine's mouth. This was…different than crime. Perhaps this woman had resorted to the institution for financial needs; perhaps to support herself through education. In his mind, Palpatine recriminated himself. Wishful thinking.
Palpatine knew it. He just knew it.
"Yes," he said grimly. "Yes, all right."
"Good." Plagueis smiled, and extended a hand to his apprentice. The hand held a silver and duranium covered lightsaber hilt with downturned spikes on the lower point. A single scarlet button ignited the blade—a crimson flame that seemed to extend from Palpatine's own hand. To him, it was a magnificent sight. Almost weightless.
Palpatine examined the hilt for a moment before his master spoke again.
"Kill her."
"What?"
"Kill her now."
Palpatine looked at the woman on the floor: paraplegic, with a stunned and motionless expression. Her lips quivered, her eyes leaked tears at both corners…as if to say don't do this.
Palpatine had heard that voice before. The voice of retribution in his mind, telling him what punishment was in store if he committed the act. The voice telling him not to pound Talonn's face into the floor.
Palpatine scowled and stifled the voice.
And drove the blade through the woman's sternum.
Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and then closed. Dead. Palpatine brought the blade out of her chest slowly, carefully—foolishly, as if making sure he didn't singe anything on the exit.
"Good." Plagueis kneeled beside the woman and touched two fingers to her forehead. Palpatine watched silent as his master knelt over the woman. Plagueis was silent for what seemed an eternity. Plagueis bowed his head; Palpatine swore he could hear his master mumbling something to the dead prostitute.
Her eyes fluttered once more and stared at the ceiling. But they were…different. More cold and distant. Less alive. Less human.
Plagueis stood.
And said, "Do it again."
Continued...
