Truth and Power

Three months passed. The Chommell Senator, Vidar Kim, was dead.

The CorusPol report was scant on details, claiming Vidar Kim's accidental death by means of myocardial infarction. The rumors said it was a drive-by shooting; some thoughtless nerf in an air speeder looking for a good time had killed one of the senior members of the Galactic Senate of the Republic. Republicans in the Senate subscribed to conspiracies that Kim had gone underground to protest a forthcoming bill on Mid-Rim taxation. No one really knew what had happened, save that a hand with DNA matching Kim's was found outside a Coco Street diner, badly damaged, probably because of willful mangling.

A day after the incident, Finis Valorum contacted Palpatine at his private suite. But this was not the same Palpatine as previously known. He was different.

Not as cordial as before.

Palpatine's torture at the hands of Darth Plagueis only served to blacken his spirit—to further his hate for his master.

The endgame was coming soon.


The image of Valorum glowed blue and white, illuminated by a handheld com device. He was but 12 centimeters tall in the palm of Palpatine's hand.

"I wanted to pass along the news," Valorum said. His voice reeked courtesy. "It appears that Vidar Kim was killed last night."

"Yes, I know." Palpatine was motionless.

The holo-image of Valorum cocked his head to one side and frowned. "You… But how?"

"I make it my business to know."

Valorum frowned, his face of former brilliance looked withered. Confused. Tired. He sighed. "It means you're unopposed now."

"Excellent." Palpatine sounded like he'd just had an idea. "It seems our goals intersect, Finis. I shall announce my candidacy via the Holonet by the end of business tomorrow."

"The Senate will be expecting someone to stand up, by default someone who will support this bill."

"Bill?" Palpatine asked.

"Taxation of the trade routes. It's been gathering dust for a few months, waiting for just a quorum. Kim was about to bring it up, but, well…"

"I understand," Palpatine played along.

"In any case," Valorum said and collected himself. "If they ever decide to touch it, I sincerely hope you have some input."

Palpatine disregarded the praise. "I think…this bill is the least of our problems." His finger slid over the power button. "Good-bye, Finis."

"So long, friend."

The image of Valorum faded. Palpatine slid the device back into his pocket and saw his master enter the study. Plagueis looked…different. Old.

Palpatine had known for sometime that Plagueis' life-maintaining techniques would not and were not lasting long enough. Soon, Plagueis would have to forfeit his spirit to the Great Beyond, and leave his goals--the goals of the Sith--unfinished.

Deep inside, Palpatine was stirred by something. An unnamed force that told him to attend to his master. Perhaps a scientist's desire to learn; perhaps a masochist's desire to see suffering.

"Master?" he asked, joining Plagueis' side and wrapping an arm around a hunched shoulder. "You appear to be distressed. Is there—"

"Come." Plagueis' voice was surprisingly firm, for a man who looked on the icy verge of death.

Palpatine frowned. "What?"

"The shroud of the Force lowers, my apprentice. Soon, the ephemeral veil shall claim me. Before this comes to pass I wish to show you the nature and the source of my power."

"The midi-chlorians," Palpatine said. His voice was a mixture of curiosity and awe.

Plagueis nodded once. "To cheat death is a power only one has achieved. Before I pass into the great beyond…I wish to impart this knowledge to you. When we return, you shall be more powerful than ever before. Vidar Kim will be but a memory. And you shall have your seat in the Senate."

Plagueis' private ship reminded Palpatine of decorative silver blades he had on the walls of his office on Naboo. It was roughly the size of a small apartment, and no taller than nine meters. No larger than a desert skiff, with a hull of roughly the same consistency. Hardly the most effective means for hyperspace travel. And yet Plagueis had insisted. His time was drawing to a close, and he meant to share at least one lesson before his passing.

Before Palpatine followed the fashion of generations of Sith before him.


Plagueis' ship rocketed through the crystallized hyperlanes, set in auto-pilot to Yavin IV. Plagueis himself was sequestered in the aft quarters, deep in meditation. Palpatine said alone in the bridge, contemplating the immediate future.

He had the means, and the skill, and the knowledge. And still his master refused him—tortured him—until he'd had excised all manner of humanity from the would-be Senator. Palpatine had everything. And still his master refused him.

He lacked something. Both master and apprentice knew this. Yes…that was it exactly. Palpatine had ambition, and assumption. But he had no direction. He required a nexus to which he could direct his energy and time. He needed...an embrace.

A reason to become a Sith. To now it had been merely an accessory to furthering his goals. Palpatine resented the very idea that he was not yet a complete man—a complete Sith. It filled him with more hate. He wanted to reach the finish line, and he wanted to reach it soon. In his quiet moments, Palpatine sensed he was close.

Everything he'd done until now was simply...prefatory.


Yavin IV.

A lush and green gem orbiting the gas giant of the same name.

Thousands of years ago, Exar Kun, the instigator of the Great Sith War, had come to the forest moon and enslaved its native people. He wanted to become a god among men—among Sith even—and forced the native Massassi into slavery. To build temples for him and witness arcane rituals and ceremonies. Ceremonies meant to focus the energies and probe the deepest echelons of the Dark Side.

But Kun's labors were in vain. His apprentice, the rogue Jedi Qel-Droma, repented and died in the Light. Kun himself was forced to retreat to the forest moon, where he drew his power inward and placed his consciousness within the Massassi Temples.

But before he even started a war in the name of the Sith, Kun had found himself trapped in a rockslide on the desert planet Korriban, far in the Outer Rim. There he made a bargain with the spirit of Freedon Nadd to give himself to the Dark Side in exchange for life. Only then—only after complete surrender—would Kun gain the power to create and destroy. To force events to his favor. To mold the galaxy in his own graven image.

Palpatine entertained a thought.

Life.

Kun had forestalled the inevitable by complete surrender to the Dark Side.

Complete surrender...

And on Yavin, facing death at the hands of encroaching Jedi, Kun drew his power inward. He saved himself by focusing his energy into a singularity of darkness.

This was Palpatine's epiphany.

This was how Plagueis had kept the woman alive, only for Palpatine to kill her again and again.

Plagueis' silver blade dropped out of hyperspace as a prismatic burst of reversion far away from Yavin's gravity well. He wanted to take the flight in manually.

He landed the blade in one of the few open plains on the planet. The one closest to a flat-top ziggurat that heralded the trappings of a Massassi Temple.

And the duo left the mechanical security of the blade for the humid and fetid Yavin Jungle. Plagueis led the way, walking slowly and purposefully toward the growing Temple in the distance. Palpatine followed, and stayed back from his master. This was unfamiliar territory. His fingers wrapped around the gilded lightsaber hilt at his waist.

"Your weapon," his master said, not bothering to look behind. "You will not need it."

Palpatine grew instantly annoyed. "What are we looking for master? What does this temple hold?"

"Only what we bring with us."

The interior of the Temple was vast. Sprawling.

Empty.

Palpatine was unimpressed. A ziggurat built millennia ago by a fearful race. The archaeologist in Palpatine suspected the contents—if there had been any—of the Temple had long ago been raided. But then…Yavin was supposed to be isolated. A mere afterthought on the maps and minds of Stellar Cartographers. Wasn't it?

Plagueis stopped in the center of the Temple and arched his head back to stare at a small hole at the apex. A single thin beam of daylight streamed through the hole. Plagueis took a step back and bowed, his head staring at the cracked and broken bricks in the floor.

"I call upon your spirit. I call with your blood to make a new way for me." Plagueis' voice was calm and appalling. "Blood for spirit. Spirit for order. Show me the form of the Dark Lord."

The voice wasn't a voice. At least, not in the traditional sense. Palpatine didn't hear it through his ears. He felt it in his head.

A voice warm and solid. It did not yell, it did not condescend. It wasn't terrifying or weak. It simply…was. Palpatine was motionless as the voice spoke to his mind.

"I can feel the power within you."

"What?" Palpatine asked, his eyes suddenly darting about the emptiness. "Who are you?"

"Exar...Kun..."

"Exar Kun is dead." Palpatine foolishly felt the need to correct.

"Not anymore."

Ahead of Palpatine, Plagueis stood and turned to face his apprentice. He folded his arms over his chest and stared, silent, at his apprentice.

"Listen to me," the spirit called to Palpatine. "There is a place within you. Where you can see your power, where you can conquer your fear. Find it. Look down on yourself with pride, and behold the galaxy that denied you in anger. Takeyour power in your hands, and know it.

"The Force is strong in you, Palpatine. You are destined…to follow the Sith of old. Your goals shall be those of our Order. Forever intertwined, the two shall be. Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes," Palpatine heard himself say, his voice without hate or malice. With calm and clarity.

"Kneel, Palpatine of Naboo."

Palpatine kneeled. Bowed his head to the shapeless power around him.

"You have the means, and the skill, and the power. It is your will to join with the Order of the Sith Lords?"

"Yes."

"To become one with the darkness, to learn and master its power."

"Yes." There was no hesitation.

"It is finished, then. From this day forward, now and evermore. Your power, Palpatine of Naboo, shall be the power of the Sith. Darth..."

A pause. As long as a life age. As black as the cosmos.

The lifeless spirit said it, and filled Palpatine with vindication. Meaning.

"Sidious."

The truth...and the power. The very essence of what he would become. What he was.

Palpatine's head rose to stare at his master, staring right back at him. Plagueis smiled; the eyes burned a fierce red, the blue lips curled in a sick, amused grin. Palpatine said something he had not said in a very long time.

"Thank you."


Continued...