Chapter III: The Way of All Flesh
500 Republica.
Home to many wealthy citizens including senators and politicians. Arguably, a hornet's nest of the upper crust of Coruscanti society. Including the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, at this point in time a being known only as Kalpana.
But this is not about the Chancellor. This is about an aide of his, a man named Finis Valorum, and his friendship with the man who would eventually succeed and then kill him. Before he became Chancellor, even before he became a Senator, Palpatine was but an acquaintance of Valorum. The first step to knowing the man...was getting his foot in the door.
And as he had concluded in reading the histories of Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma, Palpatine knew that he wanted Valorum's position for his own someday. And he would use his power as a Force-adept to attain that goal.
Palpatine killed the prostitute twelve more times.
And each time, after impaling her in a different extremity, Plagueis brought her back, simply by touching her forehead and focusing his energies inward.
That was his leitmotif. His prime mover. Plagueis was a mystic. Obsessed with generation and mortality and deathlessness. But there was nothing suspicious or even alarming in this. Plagueis had told his apprentice that the Jedi and Sith alike had for millennia sought means to stave off death.
So far as Plagueis would tell Palpatine, a method to cheat death—a method of overcoming the very nature of the Force—had been discovered. By Plagueis and Plagueis alone, though Palpatine knew better. Palpatine knew his master was lying through his teeth; knew that other, far older Sith Lords had kept their essences alive. In time, he wanted those secrets. But for now, he could live with patronizing his foolishly inconsistent master.
It was this that Palpatine resented. This that gave him a reason to hate—which is what all good Sith Lords require. Hate. Unbridled, it can be an engine of destruction—for those who stand in its way. To gain true power, become one with hate. Let it flow through you, and…all your dreams will come true.
Palpatine had come to understand this, in his teachings with his master and in his private moments.
His hate was for his master. For what Plageuis had told him.
In his early teachings, Palpatine had been told of an experiment his master had conceived, to use ancient disciplines to influence the midi-chlorians to draw life directly from the wellspring of the Force itself. The child resultant from this experiment, Plagueis insisted, would potentially possess astounding power. Would be the living embodiment of the Force itself.
Palpatine understood the implications.
He saw it as the end. Plagueis intended to subvert the Master-Apprentice relationship and kill Palpatine, to replace him with the Force-born child. This was a threat. One Palpatine had intended to rectify, given time and thought.
He certainly had enough of both.
It was then that his master interrupted and took back the lightsaber.
"Good," Plagueis said, shutting off the lightsaber and clipping it back to his belt. "You have done well."
"Yes, Master."
"You have become a powerful Sith. You know that you cannot allow personal affectations to stand in the way of the Natural Order."
"Yes." Palpatine's voice was heavy.
Plagueis' eyes narrowed and he regarded his apprentice for a moment. "You served as a Praetor Urbanus for the King of Naboo. You know of politics. You know that the political system is the fitting engine by which our plans can be implemented."
"Yes," Palpatine said, annoyed.
"You, my young apprentice, have an unrivalled knowledge of the system of which we require manipulation. Only you can do this."
A slow smile creased across Palpatine's lips.
"Can it be done?" Plagueis asked flatly.
"Yes," Palpatine said.
"Then you must go to the Senate. Meet with the Supreme Chancellor, become accustomed to his ways. Immersion in the inner circle will be but prefatory to grander schemes."
Palpatine frowned momentarily. "Yes, Master."
And he went to the Senate chamber the next morning.
He approached the concierge, seated at a sprawling transparisteel desk before the entrance to the Rotunda, and smiled humbly. Palpatine slid his hands into his pockets and spoke plainly--cordially—to the concierge.
"Excuse me."
"Whaddaya want?" she asked; the fat surrounding her neck fluttered and failed to keep pace with her speech pattern. Palpatine cocked his head slightly. Such decorum.
"I'm looking for the Supreme Chancellor. Perhaps you can help me." The irony wasn't lost on Palpatine. This was a crude method to find Kalpana, but it worked. The concierge looked up from the desk and cocked an eye at Palpatine.
"Look. Buddy," she said, her voice becoming steadily rougher. Like some poor fool who's enjoyed one too many tobacc-cylinders and paid the price with a tracheostomy. "You want to see the Chancellor, make an appointment. Don't make it my problem."
"You're the concierge, are you not?"
"Yeah. The information desk. Period."
Palpatine angled his head to the side slightly. And tapped the Force. He sensed the lobby empty—no witnesses—and slid a hand underneath the scarlet cummerbund circling his waist. His fingers curled around a silver and gold lightsaber hilt, and he slid it silently from its clasp. Palpatine had constructed his own lightsaber some months ago, but Palpatine killed the prostitute using his master's blade. For some odd reason.
The concierge almost fell backward out of her chair when the tip of Palpatine's crimson blade singed the fat on her chin.
"Now," Palpatine said. The blade was steady. The concierge stared at Palpatine, trembled, and a single tear seeped from her eye. "The Chancellor. If you please."
Continued...
