Chapter 13 | Adventures of a Soon to be Sith & a Disgruntled Killer Spider Cyborg
Palpatine tossed another dead furry Kaet to Buddy as they were kneeled on a rooftop spying on the Grand Jedi Temple. He had a plan although with Jedi involved there was always…uncertainties.
Buddy dug its long fangs into the dead Kaet beginning the gruesome but rapid process of eating. Palpatine crinkled his nose and wretched a pair of binoculars from a knapsack Palpatine had taken. Apparently Plagueis had quite a resourceful number of materials in his lair. The knapsack held: a container of Dyru which was a very flammable sticky liquid, a smoke device, and a vibro blade among other things.
Palpatine imitated Plagueis in a nasal sounding voice, "Use the Force. Tap into your soul. You will sense the object we seek. You shall know where the Force is leading you." He exhaled loudly as he zoomed in the binoculars, "How am I supposed to know what it looks like?"
Buddy was slurping gory fluids out of the dead Kaet very loudly.
"Hush, you beast," Palpatine hissed at it.
It clicked its pincers loudly in retort. Palpatine scoffed. "Look I don't particularly want to be on a mission with you either," Palpatine shot back.
The arachnid had a language, primitive but similar to an intelligent arachnid species that lived in Wild Space, the Arachi.
Palpatine's academy had briefly touched on some languages in Wild Space. Although he couldn't speak much Arachid, he could certainly comprehend Buddy's intent, especially its snider comments. Buddy was able to understand Basic as well.
I can do this on my own, without a nasty cyborg. Why was Plagueis so insistent I go with…this thing?
Palpatine threw a scathing glance in Buddy's direction. He stood up and pocketed the binoculars. Palpatine swung his leg over a sleek dark speeder hovering over the rooftop. Palpatine hit the ignition and the engine roared to life.
"Get in, you creepy little thing," Palpatine commanded Buddy.
Buddy hissed before reluctantly scuttling to the seat next to Palpatine. It extended a mechanical arm, blue electricity sparked, and it zapped Palpatine's leg.
Palpatine hissed in pain and his neck snapped to his side. Buddy let out a hiss-like chuckle.
Palpatine leaned in towards Buddy's eight biotech eyes and told it in a low voice, "I'll hurl you off this speeder if you don't cease your childish antics."
As Buddy's response its mechanical limbs withdrew into itself. Its organic parts retreated into its durosteel armor, closing itself off from Palpatine's threats. To an onlooker it would appear that Palpatine was transporting a durosteel box, not a killer spider cyborg.
Palpatine glanced at it. I could throw it over…but it's one of Plagueis's first creations. He dotes upon it. No…I better not. Palpatine hit the gas and merged into the great mass of red speeder taillights.
Coruscant traffic was renowned for its terrible drivers and dangerous high speeds. Palpatine dodged multiple careening speeders.
Palpatine decided it would be best to turn on his traffic HoloComm when he reached a tricky intersection. Traffic droids were swarming the area, but many speeders disregarded them and zipped ahead. He instantly regretted it when other speeders began to scream various galactic profanity over the HoloComm.
Palpatine hit the off switch only a few moments later. Even then, he could still hear subdued curse words being shouted all around him.
From behind he heard a nasal voice shouting, "HEY YOU FARKER! GET GOING!" The very rude being accelerated its speeder and bumped into the rear of Palpatine's speeder. Buddy stirred slightly beside him, peeking at least four of its biotech eyes out of its boxlike form.
Palpatine didn't bother to turn around. Even as much as he wanted to. It's a red light, you fool. The last thing he needed was to either zip ahead and potentially get a ticket or cause a ruckus with a fellow driver, again, risking another ticket.
Palpatine's teeth clenched as the driver bumped into his speeder's rear end, again. You mustn't compromise the mission, no matter what. Control yourself. Despite his control the dark side was whispering to him in his ear. Terrible things, awful things, things he wanted to do but resisted for the sake of the mission.
"HEY, I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Palpatine finally turned towards the same nasal voice.
Instead of being behind him now, it was to his right. The owner of the voice was a very irritated and intimidating Trandoshan that had come from behind and was now side by side with Palpatine's speeder.
"I'M COMING TO GET YOU, YOU LITTLE CREEP!" The Trandoshan stood and half crawled out of his speeder, placing one foot on Palpatine's speeder.
A primal urge for survival surged within Palpatine. Suddenly and violently, fear and anger mixed into one dark power. The darkness flowed through his soul, through his fingertips and it threw the Trandoshan back into his own speeder on top of another fellow Trandoshan.
Without pausing, Palpatine reversed the speeder, hit the gas, turned, and dove into a nearby ally. "GET HIM!" He heard the Trandoshan shriek.
Palpatine maneuvered the very compact sky-terrain wisely. Buddy grumbled loudly as they hit another sharp turn, emerging from a gap between two skyscrapers.
The Trandoshans were jeering from behind him. WHIZ! Palpatine stared in shock as a blaster bolt flew past his ear, "Great, another sky-rage," He murmured to himself.
His eyes darted to another sky route trying to come up with a conceivable route to safety. Palpatine almost laughed when he thought of it. He hit the gas even more, surely the speeder's engines would give out by now, but it somehow forged on.
The Trandoshans were in hot pursuit. Wherever they were going…it must not be too pressing. Palpatine rolled his eyes. Trandoshans were renowned to have one of the highest percentages of sky-rage related incidents on Coruscant.
A few traffic droids were also in pursuit behind the Trandoshans, blaring their red lights uselessly. Palpatine could hear the faint crackle of the droid commanding that the Trandoshans pull over, but the Trandoshans were tenacious.
Midnight, known as 0000 on Coruscant, struck as Palpatine entered the sky zone over the Jedi Courtyard in front of the Grand Jedi Temple.
Palpatine attempted to suffocate the rage within him, to hide the darkness. Plagueis had noticed that Palpatine had an unusual knack to cloak his presence within the Force.
Despite this gift, Plagueis had warned him he must be wary of his feelings while in proximity of Jedi.
"To conceal the Dark Side within yourself is no easy task. It requires discipline and most of all, pure perseverance. Do not give into your feelings if wish to live another day. For now, we must be cautious and forever mindful of our rageful tendencies. We must go against our nature for the survival of the Sith. No matter how taxing it is, you must control yourself!"
Palpatine thought it was foolish to deny your own feelings. It reminded him of the Jedi, it felt hypocritical.
But Plagueis was a Sith himself, he must know better. He must! Palpatine still wondered…still longed for the day he may display his true self without Plagueis overshadowing him.
The Trandoshans veered off realizing Palpatine's destination was the Jedi Temple. The Trandoshans clearly had no love for the Jedi nor any desire to tangle with them. They screamed parting obscenities at him before disappearing into the Coruscant night.
Palpatine, not as gracefully as he would have liked, tried, and failed to land his speeder. It was at full speed and showed no sign of stopping. A skyscraper was only fifty meters dead ahead. Palpatine considered, his gaze lingering at the long drop and then at the crash that awaited him.
I must jump…if I am to survive. He glanced to the killer spider cyborg box beside him. I could just leave it. Say he was torn to pieces in an unforeseen crash. Palpatine grimaced. But then I will be risking Plagueis' trust.
Plagueis was already showing signs of small delicate cracks in his character. He was far too trusting for a dark lord of the Sith. Revealing his true name and profession in the few hours Palpatine had known him shown vulnerability.
Palpatine snatched up Buddy who was in its compact form and leapt from the speeder. Palpatine recalled the time when he had seen Jedi jump from or up great heights and he attempted to do the same. Land on your feet. Palpatine reminded himself.
However, his landing was far from the graceful Jedi jump he saw the day before. His body smacked the pavement on his right side. Buddy landed a few feet from him, letting out a disgruntled hiss, "I just saved your pitiful life. A thank you would suffice, droid." Palpatine snarled at Buddy.
"Hey, you okay, there?" a firm but gentle voice inquired.
Palpatine glanced up to see a lean dark-haired man at least a head taller than Palpatine. The man wore a Jedi cloak and he appeared to be around middle age about 35 years old.
The Jedi's brown eyes flickered from the smoldering speeder to the young adult. "Things got a little out of control?" he asked wryly.
He stood up and limped slightly.
He had a few scratches and bruises but otherwise he was fine. Palpatine answered the Jedi after he brushed the dirt of the shoulders off his dress shirt, "You could call it that." Hopefully he doesn't write me up. I don't think I can afford another loss. Palpatine beamed at him. "I appreciate your concern, Master Jedi."
The Jedi laughed. "Master Jedi? I wish. I'm just a plain old Jedi Knight." He pointed a joking finger at Palpatine, "That's Jedi Knight Sifo-Dyas to you." Sifo-Dyas studied Palpatine, "Huh, you, look like you're a Youth Senator. Are you one?"
Palpatine nodded. "Youth Senator Palpatine of Naboo, to be exact."
"Interesting," Sifo-Dyas pondered.
Palpatine furrowed his brows. "What's so…interesting?"
Sifo-Dyas laughed. "Oh, I don't know. I never expected a Naboo to be as destructive as you are."
Palpatine's lips thinned at that comment. His plan was getting sidetracked, and he wanted to get moving. "I guess you could say I'm one out of a million."
Sifo-Dyas nodded. His voice took on a more serious tone. "I can see that you're trying to sweet talk your way out of this, Palpatine."
Palpatine eyes darted up at those words. However, the seriousness etched into the Jedi Knight's face quickly slackened.
"Eh, don't worry. I get it. I won't write you up. The maintenance droids will take care of it with no problem." Sifo-Dyas inquired. "Do you want to be taken to a sickbay? That was a pretty high jump for a guy like you." Sifo-Dyas motioned to a speeder nearby. "I'll take you."
Palpatine coaxed another charming smile to cross his face and waved off the Jedi Knight, "Oh no, it's quite alright. Worse things have happened to me." His gaze settled on the Grand Jedi Temple behind Sifo-Dyas then he turned back to the Jedi Knight. "You see, I have a very urgent meeting with Master Sincer to discuss that terrorist attack," Palpatine bluffed. He made sure to keep a straight face, intimating a sense of urgency.
Sifo-Dyas' face fell and Palpatine's heart started to race. Sifo-Dyas sighed. "I'm afraid that Master Sincer is unavailable. She and Qui-Gon are searching for my friend, Dooku. He disappeared only a few hours ago but we have not been able to sense him or contact him at all." Sifo-Dyas trailed off. "It's as though he's disappeared off the face of Coruscant."
Palpatine recalled something that Plagueis had told him before venturing on this quest:
"The light and the dark is unbalanced in this galaxy. You must be wary. The Jedi Temple is overwhelmed with light. You will be a speck of darkness, an imbalance. You are at high risk of being noticed despite your gift at hiding your presence in the Force. You must find the place in the Jedi temple where you can…blend in."
"…the Jedi were arrogant enough to build their loathsome sanctuary over a shrine of ours that has stood for millennium and millennium more. Despite what the Jedi want to believe, there is a balance within the lower levels of their Temple, the dark and light nullify each other."
"Go there and you will find what you seek, young Palpatine…"
Palpatine looked up at Sifo-Dyas. "I know where he is," he lied smoothly.
Sifo-Dyas tilted his head and agreed with him dryly. "Sure, you do."
"I do." Palpatine insisted politely. "Take me to the Jedi Temple and I will show you the way." How am I going to spin this? I need to get into the temple but…how do I explain myself?
Sifo-Dyas agreed. "Alrighty. I suppose I don't have a better idea anyway. But…no funny business, understood? This is a place of worship, and you will treat it as such." Sifo-Dyas began striding towards the Temple with Palpatine at his side. "Stick by me and you'll be just fine…"
Palpatine's gaze shifted to where Buddy had crashed, worried about leaving Plagueis' pet behind. However, Buddy was gone. Palpatine gulped and walked ahead. I swear…if that cyborg does anything stupid. When I find him, he'll be scrap before he even knows it.
As they marched up the Grand Jedi Temple's steps, he heard a voice. It was the voice he had heard at the opera and in Bazaron's secret lair.
"COME TO ME…"
Palpatine flinched at the screeching voice. His eyes darted to the ground beneath him, and he finally understood. The voice was subdued, close, less a mere whisper and more a desperate shout across the void of the darkness.
Like a moth to a flame, he drew closer to each at each step. Palpatine could almost see its faint shadow in his mind's eye, waiting in the depths below…just for him…
