To Cheat Death
Palpatine left Yavin IV a changed man. He was no longer Palpatine of Naboo, he no longer felt lost in the sea of darkness.
He had purpose. Meaning. He had Sidious.
Plagueis' silver blade had just made the jump into hyperspace. Palpatine took to the Holonet to announce his intentions to fill Vidar Kim's seat for the Chommell Sector. He was unopposed after Kim's death—had the dear man lived, then there would have been a minimal cause for Palpatine to worry. But then…Palpatine did not worry about anything.
His concerns were better kept up his sleeve than on it. Announcing his intentions across the Holonet was a formality. A waste of time.
"Greetings," Palpatine said to the hoverdroid in front of him. The message the droid would being recording in a minute would be saved, catalogued in archives and disseminated to the beings and governmental centers in the Chommell Sector and on Coruscant, in the office of the Supreme Chancellor.
A natural orator, Palpatine felt comfortable speaking to an audience that would neither care nor reply to him. "I think its time I made a statement about how I seek to replace the esteemed Vidar Kim.
"Doutbless, some of you know me from my days serving the King of Naboo. In that august body, I was a conscientious leader, a steadfast supporter of His Excellency. I know I can bring those same traits to the Galactic Senate.
Palpatine spoke flatly. "I know the Senate requires a person of strong mind and sound body. To serve as an example to the thousands of star systems and trillions of beings who are citizens in this great Republic. Fellow citizens, if I am elected, I promise to put an end to corruption. If elected I shall see to it that these institutions will not die. The power you give me, I shall use to help those who need it most: the infirmed, the elderly, and the young—the second-class among us who struggle their entire lives for mere pittances when they deserve much greater things. Those whom society has cast aside in favor of larger pocketbooks and grandiose Senatorial appointments.
"I have been in the realm of public service all my life. I believe I can help you. I leave it your good graces to decide the matter. All I ask is your humble consideration."
Palpatine inhaled deeply. His chest rose with the act, and he looked a centimeter or two...bigger. It was a well-timed trick.
"I leave you with this: I promise you that I will reunite the disaffected among the people. I shall strive with every fiber of my being to restore the remembered glory of the Republic. Its loyal citizens should expect no less than a government that has the ability to aid them when they need it most. I can do this for you. But I need your help."
When Plagueis' blade had safely returned to its hangar in The Works, both master and apprentice disembarked. Both knew their plans were one step closer to fruition.
The problem lay in a simple philosophical difference.
Plagueis was a mystic. He found his power from within, feeding directly from the pulse of the Force. Sidious wanted power: pure, unadulterated, unlimited; Power he could derive from the life of those around him. There was but one snag in this.
Plagueis.
In his private moments, Plagueis' downfall was ever on Sidious' mind. He would achieve it by any means necessary. Even the loss of his own life.
Of course, that was never really an objection to Sidious anyway. Death did not frighten him. This was characteristic of Sith Lords: no fear. Not of themselves, not of their masters. And certainly not of other beings.
In his mind, Sidious was a god among insects. Maintaining that status was of preeminence to him.
Three weeks after his initial announcement via the Holonet, Palpatine was elected in a landslide by the thirty-six worlds, including Naboo, of the Chommell Sector. Palpatine had sensed the election was his. He felt it in his heart. In another formality, he returned to Naboo to await the results, in a series of day-trips constructed strictly to show his surprise and humility at the results.
Then Plagueis showed his face again, communicating to his apprentice via coded Holonet transmissions.
Palpatine, in guise as Sidious, paid close attention to his master. To his mannerisms. Plagueis was getting comfortable—acclimated. He thinks he's won, Palpatine thought. Foolish alien man.
"The election is ours, I trust?" The holoprojection winked and shuddered; the signal from Coruscant was weak.
Palpatine regarded his master silently.
"I have felt it," Sidious replied, justifying it.
"Indeed. Everything that happens from here is on a downward slope. Our victory is at hand," Plagueis said. And then vanished.
When the news broke that Palpatine had been elected, Naboo exploded in a media pandemic. Swarms of Holonet crews and reporters from Coruscant made the day-trip from the Core to see the elusive Palpatine. And Palpatine played the part excellently, accepting the accolades with humility and restating his Holonet speech in paraphrased terms. When they asked him how it felt to be a first-term Senator, he replied that he was merely "thrilled, pleased, and very excited."
The galactic media outlets were instantly in love with him and his platform of moderate reform. "Too many radicals on both sides of my pod would be ready to strangle me if I proposed anything too wild," Palpatine had joked. "And I don't know about you, but I intend to live a very long time."
Palpatine then left Naboo for the Core—as if it were the first time he'd ever done so—and sent for the remainder of his belongings. This included an abstract twist of solid neuranium—a perplexing item to have in anyone's personal effects. Perplexing because of its physicality: neuranium of more than roughly a millimeter thick was impervious to sensors, and standard security scans undergone upon Palpatine's arrival at Coruscant had shown nothing at all in the mineral.
On Naboo, manifest crews were loading it on a Senatorial transport. Palpatine himself supervised.
"The neuranium is of particular delicacy," he'd instructed. "Treat it well." One of five workmen attending the twist lost his grip on its backside. The neuranium left a steep dent in the transport's duranium floor, and the workman suffered a crushed hand after a failed attempt to break its fall. The neuranium was undamaged of course, but the workman apologized anyway.
"I-I'm sorry, Senator."
"It's all right," Palpatine had said warmly, clapping a hand on the workman's shoulder. The workman had bowed obediently and boarded. Palpatine followed, and took a seat in the cockpit, next to the pilot.
"Idiot."
"Sir?"
"Nothing," Palpatine had said flatly. In the rear hold, no other workman even laid eyes on the bumbling Secundus—the man who had carelessly dropped the good Senator's art.
Palpatine himself was given little time before the Senate was to convene for the next term's session.
Upon occupying Naboo's pod in the Grand Arena—and truly, an Arena it was; some of the greatest Gamorrean-barrel politics of a thousand generations had begun in the Senate's concavity—Palpatine took his seat and obediently waited for the session to begin.
By the time Kalpana had approved the measure to lower taxes on Hutt Space—again—Palpatine was still motionless in his seat. Perfect posture, one leg crossed over the other and hands clasped together in his lap.
Palpatine was meditating, and making certain this action was masked from the Force via an arcane technique of which Plagueis had told his apprentice. Plagueis had called it "living in the light and the dark."
Bollocks to the dark side. To Palpatine—to Sidious—there was only the Force. What mattered was its utilization: for benefit or detriment. And since Palpatine was one to follow what he preached...he intended to benefit from its energies as long as he could.
Palpatine calmed himself, focusing part of his mind on the present, and another part on something...elsewhere. Elusive. Palpatine frowned. He sensed something—a tremor in the Force.
The representative from Rodia took the floor—Palpatine didn't know his name and didn't care. He winced at the prospect of Rodians in general. Disgusting, vile creatures, the lot of them. Concerned with money and possessions and firearms. So uncivilized.
Palpatine's eyes narrowed.
The Rodian deferred to the Congress of Malastare, and along with Kalpana they began a protracted elegy about something called the Katana Fleet. Palpatine looked around his immediate vicinity—the Ando senator was nodding off, his black eyes staring straight ahead belying his disinterest; Orn Free Taa was taking more interest in a slim-waisted and yellow-skinned Twi'lek female. No one was paying attention to anything but themselves.
He was surrounded by idiots.
Palpatine returned to his quarters at 500 Republica and took a light dinner. He forewent conferring with his master. When the Supreme Chancellor's office forwarded a message asking for an early breakfast and conference with the Jedi Council in the morning, Palpatine confirmed.
He spent the rest of the night in meditation.
Plagueis had mastered the ability to sustain life. Palpatine knew this much. He was unsure if Plagueis also possessed the power to create life. To use the Force to create something from nothing. Certainly Plagueis had said so. But saying and doing? That's something else.
Sidious closed his eyes, purposely deprived his senses. And reached into the Force.
On the capital world alone, Sidious felt the individual presences of over five thousand people, most of them Jedi. Only one, a Sith. It required surprisingly little of Sidious' energy to render himself immaterial within the nexus of the Force—to take himself out of those five thousand. One of the inborn gifts Palpatine had been given, and which Sidious had perfected.
He reached past the Jedi.
He saw his master, on bended knee, in deep meditation as well. Palpatine sensed that just as he perceived his master, Plagueis had perceived him, despite the cloaking. Despite the cloaking. Plagueis was inventive like that.
Sidious scowled and pushed past his master. Widened the perimeter. The further out he perceived, the faster the telescope became. Galactic City. The planet. The Core. The Mid-Rim. Expansion Region. And...
The Outer Rim.
A small planet on the fringes of known space, its surface scorched by twin suns, long since strip-mined of any usefulness.
Sidious' focal point wandered. Exar Kun...
No. Focus.
There: the tiniest of settlements laced around a sea of sand and waste.
He saved himself...
Row-houses on the far side of town. Sidious pushed past the beings wandering about the town. They were insects. Helpless. Hopeless. Not a Force-sensitive among them, not even a human of ambition among them.
By concentrating his energy inward…
A woman Sidious estimated to be his own age, gathering mushrooms from a nearby moisture vaporator. Dark haired, face weathered by the elements and—
He reached deeper, seeking the woman's shatterpoints: sadness. Uncertainty. There was little more than that to her.
Sidious' brow furrowed. There was something…else. Everywhere and nowhere. Elusive.
Kun made a deal with a demon...
Something within the woman.
A civil war in the name of the Sith...
Another heart, almost. Sidious waited—and listened—and felt it.
There. Among the ocean of drones, something else stood out. Not quite a heartbeat; the development was not so advanced. But something. A vergence so nascent and imperceptible that even the most scrupulous Jedi might overlook it.
Palpatine opened his eyes.
Plagueis sat motionless in the hanger. He felt Sidious' arrival, and preceded the coming protests.
"Lord Sidious—" Plagueis said calmly.
"Tell me what you've done." Sidious' voice carried malice. "I saw her. A woman, on the planet Tatooine. You must have seen her as well. What have you done with this power of yours?"
"It is obvious you cannot see this. For one possessing foresight such as yours, I must admit you're here sooner than I expected."
"Sooner than you expected? How long were you planning to keep this from me?"
"I was planning," Plagueis said and stood, "to tell you. That should be enough for you."
"I want to know what you think you're up to," Sidious said.
Plagueis sighed. "Use your feelings, Lord Sidious. You know, don't you?"
Palpatine's eyes narrowed. Yes, he knew. Sadly, he knew. Plagueis stood and went to the balcony.
"The Chosen One," Palpatine said, barely, a whisper.
"The Jedi craft this particular bedtime story as the prophecy of the Chosen One; the child possessing astounding Force potential. He will be the living embodiment of the Force. And he will be a Sith."
Sidious' brow furrowed. "You...you've already done this?"
"Attempted, repeatedly. I haven't the ability to breach the gulf for a sustained period as of yet. With time and concentration, yes. But I sense an unusual amount of tumult in the Force. A barrier, perhaps, that seems to prevent me from carrying this experiment out to fruition."
"But you'll keep trying?"
Plagueis turned around slowly and gave a look of vague surprise. "I will not let this power develop unchecked. Do you understand, Lord Sidious?"
Sidious hesitated for a moment. His eyes narrowed, and he entertained a thought: Plagueis meant to supplant his apprentice. Sidious would be overlooked in the province of this Sith'ari, however emergent it was.
This could not be allowed.
Continued...
