The atmosphere in the ancient Sith Temple of Perlia was tense. Commodore Kasteen was present through holo, while Prime Minister Trevellyan, Lady Vaylin, every member of the Republican diplomatic party, and Dooku himself, were here in person.
Since coming to Perlia, Dooku had attended many meetings. He had a well-established reputation in the Outer Rim, both as a capable ruler and defender of the people – the latter both a result of his time as a Jedi Knight endlessly trying to keep the sinking ship that was the Republic afloat and his actions since throwing off that particular set of shackles. He had spoken with Sith intelligence officers eager to learn all they could about the current state of the galaxy, and with civil servants wondering if he might know who to ask for the supplies required in Perlia's rebuilding following the damage inflicted by Varan's fleet.
As far as he could tell, Darth Cain hadn't told anyone about his turning to the Dark Side since leaving the Order. The Sith acolytes and soldiers kept an eye on him, but they did the same with Obi-Wan and Master Plo Koon, so clearly that was because they knew of his Jedi past and were rightfully wary of his abilities. He didn't doubt that they harboured their own suspicions, of course : any Jedi who left the Order faced those, mostly because they were so often correct.
Then there were the Republican envoys. Dooku had spent his entire time on Perlia wondering if today would be the day Kenobi figured out that his grandmaster had Fallen, now that he had multiple examples of Darksiders (who weren't that rabid mutt Maul) to use as reference. So far, it hadn't happened, and the Count didn't think it would happen today, for they had far more pressing matters to discuss.
This particular meeting had been about the sudden departure of Darth Cain, along with most of the fleet the Sith Lord had assembled since his return, thousands of Imperial soldiers, and most of the Sith acolytes who'd accompanied him through time. Although the preparations for this expedition had been surprisingly discreet, there was no way the Sith Lord could have hidden it from them; or rather, Darth Cain hadn't seen the need to conceal it. He'd made a public announcement on the Perlian Holonet just before leaving, in fact, publicly declaring his intent to free the Savareen system from the Cartels.
The envoys had immediately sent a warning to the Republic. Dooku could easily imagine the reactions to the Lord of Terror's decision to 'liberate' another planet from the Hutts on Coruscant, and he was thankful it wasn't his problem do deal with – let Sidious handle the panicked politicians and news organizations. Then Senator Donali had very politely asked for a meeting with the people running Perlia in Cain's absence to 'talk about recent developments and what they mean for the relationship between Perlia and the rest of the Republic going forward', which Dooku had to admit was an impressively diplomatic phrasing for 'what the kark are you doing, you crazy maniacs'.
As the representative and ruler of another system, Dooku had been invited to the meeting, which took place in the Sith Temple as an open power move. They had been three hours into the discussion and going nowhere (the Republicans wanted guarantees Darth Cain wasn't rebuilding the Sith Empire under the guise of fighting the Cartels, while Vaylin didn't see any issue with rebuilding the Empire so long as her Teacher was in charge and Prime Minister Trevellyan wisely kept his opinions to himself) when Commodore Kasteen had cut in, the expression of her holo-projection grave.
The Invincible had received a garbled transmission from the Dread Son, the Imperial officer revealed. The ship's computers had cleaned it up quickly, and it had turned out to be a transmission from Darth Cain himself that the expedition fleet had run into an armada of pirates and mercenaries mustering at Savareen under the banner of the Cartels.
Like everyone else, the Count had expected the Savareen campaign to be a breeze for the Sith forces. Being the source of a very good brandy didn't translate to strong defenses, and unlike Tatooine, the planet wasn't known to be a center of Hutt influence. As a matter of fact, Dooku had wondered why Cain had even bothered going there in person. While Savareen's position relative to Tatooine made it a logical next step in the Sith Lord's rebuilding of his power base under the guise of fighting the Cartels, it hardly seemed worth the Lord of Terror's personal attention.
Now, with Commodore Kasteen's revelations, Dooku no longer wondered about that. Instead, he was desperately trying to figure out what Darth Cain's plan in apparently throwing himself and most of his forces into mortal peril actually was.
Whatever it was, it was clear he hadn't shared it with his subordinates, who felt on the verge of panic. Lady Vaylin wanted nothing more than take every ship still in Perlia and rush to her mentor's aide. Commodore Kasteen had respectfully pointed out that went against Cain's own orders to focus on the defense of Tatooine, which had caused some distress in the Sith apprentice. That was not exactly a reassuring prospect, given her immense power and legendary reputation for throwing the kind of temper tantrums that could make even Qui-Gon's early days as a Padawan look tame.
"If the numbers you received are accurate," said the Count of Serenno in an attempt to distract Darth Cain's apprentice from what looked worryingly like an imminent meltdown, "then merely sending the few ships still in this system will serve no purpose. Any ship leaving now will take hours at best to get to Savareen : the battle in the void will be over by then, one way or another –"
Suddenly, Dooku stumbled, his words failing him.
Being inside the Sith Temple had never been pleasant. The building Force presence was a constant pressure on his mind, a hungry beast looking at him like he was a particularly appetizing snack, kept in check only by the fact he was an invited guest of its master. But now, it was howling with delight, and the temperature, which was always kept just on the right side of comfortably fresh by what Dooku was fairly certain weren't entirely natural means, had decreased sharply, causing the breath of every Human to fog and a thin layer of frost to form on the table at the center of the room.
Dooku leaned against that very table for support now, his heart pummelling in his chest at a speed that would be very worrying in most Human men his age. Drawing on every trick he knew, he slowly managed to calm himself, and took a look around. The Jedi were also reeling, but Prime Minister Trevellyan and Senator Donali appeared unaffected. Whatever had happened, only the Force-sensitives in the room had sensed it.
"Masters Jedi ?" asked Donali, worry plain in his voice as he approached them to help. "What's wrong ? What happened ?"
"I," Master Plo Koon managed to say, his voice sounding feeble through his mask, "I'm not sure. What was that ? I felt … a great terror, looming in the distance, even as the Temple laughed in delight."
"That," said Vaylin, standing straight, "was my Teacher's doing."
The Sith apprentice no longer looked afraid for Darth Cain's uncertain fate. She was smiling now, showing her teeth in a delighted grin, and that sight scared Dooku far more than her fear had.
"What exactly do you mean by that, Lady Vaylin ?" asked Obi-Wan, looking as shaken as Dooku felt.
"Darth Cain has spent so much time here, this building is bound to him, even after all this time," the apprentice explained. "And just now, it reacted to him using his power to the fullest. These miserable vermin the Hutts have recruited in Savareen are feeling the wrath of a true Sith Lord as we speak, their puny minds breaking under his might."
"You're talking about Darth Cain's ability to inspire terror in his enemies," said Plo Koon, looking pale for a Kel Dor. "That power is described in the records we've of him, but is that really something he can use on an enemy fleet ?"
"Oh, yes," the golden-eyed Human nodded proudly. "It only makes sense, doesn't it ? People who use Battle Meditation can influence the course of void battles, so why would Teacher's power be more limited ? Isn't it part of the Jedi creed that all things are connected through the Force ?"
Dooku could read Kenobi's and Plo Koon's faces well enough to know that they wanted to protest and say that was only in theory. Yoda could prattle all he wanted about size not mattering, but Force abilities were still very much affected by things like mass and distance in practice. Sidious had hinted that such limits could be surpassed through the study of the Dark Side, and there were hints in the most ancient texts that the legendary Naga Sadow had been able to use his own version of Battle Meditation to coordinate the forces of the first Sith Empire across the entire galaxy during the Great Hyperspace War, but Dooku himself hadn't reached that level of power.
The Jedi's disbelief was understandable, but misplaced. Unlike Plo Koon, Dooku had felt Darth Cain's power first-hand when he'd first met the Lord of Terror. Given how easily the Count had been brought to his knees, he'd no doubt Cain could break the will of any number of lowly pirate scum.
"Of course," Vaylin admitted with a shrug, "it isn't exactly easy, even for my Teacher. But without Force users of their own, the Cartel thugs will be easily broken before him."
Ah, so the Lord of Terror's ability to cause unholy terror in the hearts of all who stood against him had some limits after all, thought Dooku with more than a little sarcasm. How reassuring.
"So the situation on Savareen isn't as dire as it might have appeared, then," said Trevellyan.
"Yes," nodded Vaylin. "I … I might have overreacted," she continued, with obvious reluctance, but nobody in the room was stupid enough to press the point.
The mere fact she no longer looked like she was on the verge of panicking was relief enough. Even working together with the two Jedi, Dooku didn't think he'd a chance to subdue Cain's apprentice if she turned violent – and even if they somehow miraculously succeeded where entire Sith and Jedi armies had failed thousands of years ago, all they'd have achieved would've been turning the rest of the planet – and, more importantly, Darth Cain – against them.
"If Darth Cain was able to use this ability to disrupt the Cartel fleet," said Kenobi, "then he must have been escaped the trap, and retreated back to Tatooine, right ? In which case, we should get a call from him as soon as the Dread Son enters hyperspace and is out of the jamming field, and you'll be able to plan your next move."
There was a brief instant of silence, and then Vaylin and Kasteen erupted in laughter, while Trevellyan smirked.
"I'm sorry, what did I say ?" asked Kenobi, befuddled. Dooku had an inkling as to the source of the Perlians' amusement, but kept silent.
"Master Jedi, the Lord of Terror does not 'retreat'," the Prime Minister of Perlia explained. "That is why Lady Vaylin was worried about him in the first place. In the stories passed down by my forebears, it was always made very clear that Darth Cain never fled from his enemies, even when it might have been the most sensible course of action for anyone else."
"So you think he's still in Savareen ?" asked Plo Koon. "Is Darth Cain's power so great that he can overcome such a large disparity in numbers as our intelligence indicates ?"
"It's not about numbers," explained Commodore Kasteen. "Darth Cain has never bothered with the odds, not when he is personally present and able to affect the result of the battle. He always accepts retreating from superior numbers when it's his subordinates doing it, but he's never done it himself – and he always wins. From what I understand, it became something of a contest between him and the Wrath," she added, with a quick glance at Vaylin.
"Teacher is far more powerful and smarter than that brute ever was," the apprentice murmured.
"And this 'Wrath' would be ?" asked Senator Donali.
"One of the most powerful Sith Lords of the Empire," replied the Commodore. "The Emperor's personal executioner, sent after the Empire's greatest enemies. When Vitiate's betrayal was revealed, he became the Empire's Wrath instead, and was responsible for many Imperial victories against the Republic in the Second Great Galactic War. He …" Again, the Imperial officer looked at Vaylin, who sighed and took over the explanation.
"He and I fought when I was leading my brother's armies against the Republic and the Empire," she said, "before I realized how Arcann and I were just playing into our father's hands by trying to conquer the galaxy." The amount of venom Vaylin could put into a single word was truly impressive, Dooku noted. "He was strong, and he actually managed to survive and escape me."
Hearing such a legendary figure mentioned so casually still felt surreal to Dooku, despite the weeks he'd now spent in the presence of the time-displaced Sith refugees. In the modern galaxy, Jedi were often regarded as worth an entire army on their own by the ignorant masses. In most cases, that was a blatant falsehood : Jedi were keepers of the peace, more trained in diplomacy and peaceful resolution of conflict than actual battle.
Any single Jedi who had reached a level where they were allowed to take on missions outside the Temple could face a squad of most militaries and win, yes, but that was the limit of their abilities. If a Jedi drew their lightsaber, then things had already gone wrong. Even Dooku, one of the Order's best duellists, and with the power of the Dark Side now behind him, knew that he couldn't face an entire army and win – survive and escape, maybe, depending on the circumstances, but not win.
What Vaylin was describing, however, was a reminder that she, Darth Cain, and this 'Wrath', had all played in an entirely different league when their respective nations had warred across the galaxy. Like a handful of other champions of that epoch, they were breakers of armies, tactical assets who could shift the tide of entire campaigns by their mere presence.
It seemed that Vaylin had forgotten that herself, in her very un-Sith-like worry for her Teacher. But then, the simple fact that Darth Vitiate's daughter referred to the Lord of Terror as her 'Teacher' rather than her Master was proof enough that her relationship with Cain was atypical of the Sith Master-Apprentice bond.
"Back on the matter at hand," said Dooku. "While it is undoubtedly good news that Darth Cain and his forces are not defenceless," not that he had ever thought that to be the case, "I don't believe this changes much regarding what you can or should do on your end, Lady Vaylin, Commodore Kasteen. Sending reinforcements is still –"
He was cut off by the sound of a personal holo ringing urgently. Incredulous, he swept his gaze across the other people present, and found that the offending device belonged to none other than Kenobi. Hadn't Qui-Gon taught his Padawan basic manners ?
"My apologies," said the Jedi Knight, blushing slightly as he brought his holoprojector, checked the caller's identity, and, after another quick apologetic look, accepted it. "Yes, Mrs Skywalker-Lars ? What is … Anakin did what ?!"
Oh, by all the Corellian Hells, thought the Count of Serenno, feeling his stomach drop. What had that foolish boy done now ?
Amberley was going to strangle Ciaphas the next time she saw him.
She understood why he had gone to Savareen without him needing to explain (which was convenient, since him calling her to talk about it would definitely have raised some eyebrows in the Jedi Temple). To someone who knew him like she did, his reasoning was obvious : he thought he needed to continue the crusade his reckless apprentice had started on Tatooine, and that if he didn't lead the next campaign in person, he would somehow lose the respect of the men and women he had led through hell countless times over, and they would violently overthrow him, or start launching their own operations without his authorization.
And Savareen, being (according to a quick Holonet search) near Tatooine, sparsely populated, and under the control of gangs affiliated with the Hutt Cartels who were doing Force knew what to maintain their control of said population, had been a logical next step.
But when the Republican envoys on Perlia had contacted Coruscant and said that the Lord of Terror had left Perlia with a fleet of seized ships and a large portion of his military forces, she'd been all but dragged before the Jedi Council and asked what she thought Cain was doing. Her answer had basically amounted to 'continuing what his apprentice started on Tatooine', but before the Council could start questioning her in more detail, it had happened.
The Jedi Temple was one of the mightiest bastions of the Light Side in the galaxy. To those gifted with the Force, it hummed with tranquillity, a constant background 'noise' which helped find peace. It was for this reason the Order raised the younglings here : the legacy of generations of Jedi helped them grow into their abilities with minimal harm.
Thus, the sudden rush of raw terror which had swept through the Temple's corridors had caught them all completely by surprise. Thankfully, it had only lasted for a single heartbeat before the Temple's inner radiance pushed it away, but everyone had felt it, from the Masters to the newly-inducted younglings. Somewhere far away, a great darkness had returned to the galaxy, an ancient and terrible power which had long been absent.
It was a power Amberley knew well, even if it had been many years since it had been directed at her. She'd been able to withstand such a distant echo of it with ease, but the rest of the Order didn't share her familiarity.
It had taken a few moments for the Masters to recover, and longer for them to check with the rest of the Temple and assure the Jedi that no, they weren't under attack, and they should attend to the younglings and make sure they were reassured. Yoda looked like he wanted to hop off his seat and rush down to the crèches in person, but Amberley had no doubt the Grandmaster would be on his way the moment they were done.
Which, once again, meant that she had to face the entire Jedi Council, barring Master Plo Koon who was still on Perlia, and explain what had happened.
"When the Invincible returned from hyperspace, we all felt a disturbance in the Force," said Master Mundi, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. "But this … this was something else entirely."
"Darth Cain's work, it was," said Master Yoda, and everyone in the room nodded, Amberley included. There was no point in denying it.
"Yes. That was him, without question, using his ability to inspire terror on a large scale. You must understand, however, that back during the war, this wouldn't have resonated so strongly through the Force," Amberley explained. "There were simply too many Sith Lords, too many battles, too many horrors loose among the stars. But it has been a thousand years since someone wielded the Dark Side so greatly and openly. The Force is … quieter now, calmer, like a still pond instead of the tumultuous sea it was in my time. So a single stone dropped inside it registers as a much greater disturbance now."
"Knight Vail, even during the war with the Sith Empire, Force users of Cain's power were rare," pointed out Master Windu.
Well, yes, obviously. Try making Ciaphas himself realize it, though. It was part of his charm, but the man's tendency toward self-deprecation could be downright infuriating at times. Out loud, Amberley replied :
"Rare, yes, but not unique. The pressures of war forced many previously unknown talents to the surface on both sides. There were more users of Battle Meditation in the Order at the same time than ever before, and, unless I miss my guess, since."
"Into soldiers, war makes Jedi," said Yoda, nodding sadly. "Away from peace and tranquillity, and into the crucible of violence and chaos, not different from everyone else are we. Powerful in battle, yes, but troubled in the soul, always – so it is, for all sentients, and so for us, it is as well. Great, war does not make one."
Amberley couldn't argue with that. War was all she'd known as a Jedi, and she had seen the scars conflict had left on her fellows, and bore more than a few herself. One lesson she'd learned early was the being able to use the Force didn't make the Jedi any better than the soldiers who fought the Sith Empire : they could fail just like everyone else, and their greater power meant that their failures were all the more devastating.
"I have a question," said Master Trebor. "Why would Darth Cain use this power ? Savareen is a sparsely populated world, and from what Master Plo Koon and Knight Kenobi told us, he took more than enough troops with him to deal with the local gangs. And Darth Cain does not strike me as the type of man to use such blatant shows of power without reason. If this isn't merely to remind us of the power he wields, then what might have pushed his hand ?"
That … was actually a very good question. One Amberley should have asked herself before, and one with an obvious, and worrying, answer.
"I believe," she began, "that the most reasonable explanation is that Cain found more resistance in Savareen than he anticipated, and was forced to resort to such a method."
Ciaphas was aware of how tense the Republic was due to his re-emergence. He thought he'd no choice but to continue the anti-slavery crusade Vaylin had started, but Amberley knew he'd do his best to avoid looking threatening to the rest of the galaxy. Unfortunately, for all his many talents, one thing Ciaphas had never really mastered was not looking threatening.
"We need to contact our envoys on Perlia at once," said Windu. "They might have more information on what exactly is happening in Savareen."
Yes, they should do that. And Amberley was definitely going to strangle Ciaphas when she next met him – right after she hugged him for an hour or two.
Alone in his office, Sheev Palpatine seethed.
He had been in the middle of yet another meeting with a group of Senators worried about the recent developments in the Outer Rim when Darth Cain had done … whatever it was he'd done. It had taken every bit of his self-control to avoid slipping and show any surprise to his visitors : there was a time and place to show weakness and play up his mask of a tired old man crushed by the weight of his responsibilities, but that hadn't been it.
So he had kept his facade up, and once the meeting was over, called his assistant and told him not to let anyone disturb him for the next hour, so that he could properly think about what he'd felt.
To wield such power openly, in blatant defiance of the Jedi's close-mindedness … it made Sidious burn with envy. The Lord of Terror couldn't have been more blatant, ensuring the echoes of his power reached all the way to Coruscant, into the very halls of the hated Jedi. It was an open challenge, a taunt directed at the feeble servants of the Light – and a gauntlet thrown in Sidious' own face, a mocking of his own inability to act publicly.
Palpatine had already known about Darth Cain's departure from Perlia, of course. Dooku couldn't contact him directly, not without risking drawing the attention of the Sith spies on the planet, but as Supreme Chancellor, he'd been informed the moment Kenobi and the others had learned about it.
That Darth Cain sought to extend his reach had been no surprise, but that he'd chosen Savareen as his target had been. Somehow, the Sith Lord's agents must have learned of Marlo mustering his forces at Savareen. That didn't surprise Palpatine : the spies of the Sith Empire had more experience in such matters than anyone else in the current galaxy. How quickly they had adapted to the new state of affairs, however, was concerning : Palpatine would have expected them to have taken some more time to find their footing, since every network they'd relied on was long gone … at least, he hoped so. Surely the Line of Bane would have discovered any ancient secret society of Sith spies embedded in the Republic by now.
But there had to be something he wasn't seeing yet. Palpatine had called Hanar and told her to reach out to her contacts in the Hutt fleet to find out what exactly was going on, and according to her report, Darth Cain hadn't fled Savareen while the mercenaries were distracted by his display of Dark Side power. Instead, the Sith Lord was, by all accounts, now stuck on Savareen, with a large Hutt fleet still orbiting the planet slowly pulling itself back in order. Sidious didn't believe for a moment that such low-life scum would manage to slay one such as the Lord of Terror, but it still seemed a strange move on the part of the rival Sith.
Was Darth Cain so secure in his own power, so confident in the might of the Dark Side, that he was certain he could crush the entire host assembled by the Cartels so easily ? The records of the Old Republic Sidious had access to certainly showed that Cain had a habit of facing seemingly impossible challenges head-on, and he'd always emerged on top in previous occasions.
Maybe he was, Sidious thought bitterly, ignoring the cold sensation settling in his stomach at the idea. The Lord of Terror knew more of battle than any scion of the Line of Bane ever had, all the way up to their founder, who had witnessed the tail end of the New Sith Wars. If he believed he could take on every low-life Marlo had assembled, then he must have a good reason.
Which was a worrying thought. For all the influence Palpatine wielded in his various identities, his military resources were far more limited. With the clone army still several years from readiness, the only assets available to him in his persona as Supreme Chancellor were the Coruscant Guard, who hadn't seen combat in centuries. Even as Darth Sidious, he had always worked in the shadows : Dooku was the one tasked with gathering the droid armies of the megacorporations under his control for use in the galactic war demanded by the Great Plan.
Cain's return had made that particular scheme unlikely to succeed, and while Sidious was nothing if not adaptable, he was still building up a secondary network of contacts in the Outer Rim, made up of disposable assets he could use against Darth Cain to convince him that his mysterious rival was indeed based in the Outer Rim.
Eventually, Palpatine came to the conclusion that there was nothing he could do at the moment but watch the situation. He didn't have much invested in Marlo's efforts to curb the Lord of Terror's ambitions : Hanar was a useful pawn, but a replaceable one. Cain's war against the Cartels was sure to provide him with plenty of opportunities he could turn to his advantage one way or another. War, after all, was the seedbed of chaos, and it was within chaos that a true Sith did his best work.
In the meantime, though, he needed to get in touch with Dooku. The Count's silence, while understandable, was becoming worrying. Having someone in the heart of Cain's power was a useful card, but not if the card in question flipped to his opponent's hand.
The last few months had been very confusing for Senator Padmé Amidala, but then that was hardly unique to her. Since the sudden appearance of the Invincible in Perlia and the return of the Sith to the Outer Rim, things had been confusing for everybody who paid any attention to galactic affairs.
Before the events of Perlia, Padmé's only real knowledge of the Sith had come from what had happened on Naboo years ago, when one of the mysterious Sith had barred her party's way and killed Master Jinn before being slain by Obi-Wan. Even those few moments in the red Zabrak's presence had been enough to fill her with dread, though she'd kept her fear hidden behind her queenly mask. She had heard that some people found the Jedi's perpetually calm demeanour unsettling, but that had been something else entirely, something which had called upon a deep, primal part of the Naboo queen and filled her with dread.
It was clear that Darth Cain was several orders of magnitude more dangerous than Maul (as Nute Gunray had named Qui-Gon's assassin, though the Trade Federation's Viceroy had been infuriatingly tight-lipped about where he had come from), even without taking into account the fact he'd the largest battleship in the galaxy and an army of trained, veteran soldiers under his command. Padmé didn't feel any shame in admitting that, when she'd first heard the news, her reaction had been fear, bordering on panic. But, so far, Darth Cain had yet to do anything against the Republic.
There were still calls in the Senate to prepare for war, to raise an army to fight the returned Sith. Padmé understood where they were coming from. Since the battle of Perlia, historians were regular guests on every news show on the Holonet, and while Padmé restricted herself to the more reputable networks, avoiding the sensationalizing, doomsaying ones, it was still simple fact that every single time the Sith showed up in the Republic's history had ended in war and atrocities that made the Trade Federation's exactions on Naboo pale by comparison.
However, Padmé was aware that by trying to protect themselves, they might start the very war they were afraid of. Once the Republic had an army, the temptation to use it, regardless of whether it was the correct choice or not, would be all but impossible to resist : the people would want to see something in return for the increased taxes and conscription which would be required to re-arm the Republic after a thousand years of relative peace.
Padmé herself wanted to believe that conflict with Cain wasn't inevitable. From what she had heard, the Jedi Order genuinely believed that peace was possible, or at least possible enough to warrant at least attempting diplomacy with the Lord of Terror. And since the Sith and the Jedi had always been bitter enemies, the fact that the Order was willing to consider peace was a strong indicator that they should follow suit – though there were rumors, of course, that the Order was merely pretending to play along with Cain's diplomatic overtures to buy time for the Republic to rearm, and that they were failing the Knights by not doing everything in their power to prepare.
There was also the fact that Cain had freed Tatooine from the Hutts. Since witnessing the practice of slavery on the desert planet with her own eyes years ago, Padmé had done her best to fight that affront to sentient dignity. She'd sent her handmaidens to help free slaves and get them off-world, while she did everything she could on Coruscant to get more support for the enforcement of the anti-slavery laws.
To her shame, she couldn't deny that her handmaidens had done more good than her, as every attempt at changing Coruscanti attitudes had ended in failure. At least she'd managed to get in touch with some like-minded fellow Senators who supported anti-slavery organizations in the Outer Rim.
These same Senators had been hard at work trying to figure out what exactly was going on with Perlia and Tatooine now. The galaxy's various news organizations were keeping an attentive look on any information out of the two systems, but so far, nobody had dared to send reporters to either. Their only source of information was the images coming from the locals, which was obviously suspect (the Sith Empire's mastery of propaganda had been legendary, and judging by the images of Lady Vaylin's actions on Tatooine which had spread, clearly the Imperial experts hadn't lost their touch), and the periodic reports of the diplomatic envoys on Perlia.
In that regard, at least, the news were good. Senator Donali had spent weeks on Perlia without incident. It might all be a ploy to get the Republic to lower its guard, but at the very least, it indicated that Darth Cain wasn't as bloodthirsty as some of the less-credentialed historians claimed all Sith Lords were, especially since the Senator of the Damocles Sector was escorted by Jedi.
She should talk with Obi-Wan soon, she decided. It had been too long since the two of them had spoken, and if nothing else, it would give her a reason to ask about Shmi, whom she'd seen on Perlia's Holonet news, standing with Vaylin herself. It had been quite the shock at the time, but she hadn't seemed to be under any kind of duress, and the sight of Anakin running up and hugging her had brought a tear to her eye.
And, at the same, she could ask how Anakin was doing, now that he'd been reunited with his mother. The fact that Padmé had been unable to do anything to prevent the boy who'd risked her life to help her get to Coruscant in the (ultimately futile) hope of finding help for her people from being separated from his mother had kept her up at night, but maybe she could make it up to the two of them somehow now.
Yes, Padmé decided. She had spent too long on the sidelines, trying to figure out what was going on. It was time for her to get involved directly.
AN : Look, I said there would be shorter chapters in this arc, and that comes at a price. I promise we'll get back to Savareen in the next one.
While writing Padmé's POV, I checked Nute Gunray's backstory, and I have a question : why in the Force's name didn't the Jedi ask him where this Sith who killed Qui-Gon came from ?! No, seriously. Since Maul doesn't speak during his confrontation with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, I can only assume the reason the Order even knows his name is because Gunray gave it to them (he knows it because Sidious gave it to him when he sent him over to assist, in the "this is getting out of hand, now there are two of them" meme).
So the Jedi Order knows that Gunray was in cahoots with at least one Sith. Given that they know about the whole Master/Apprentice thing, if not the Rule of Two itself, that means he probably also worked with the OTHER Sith. Why didn't they interrogate him about that ?! I understand that the answer is probably tied to Palpatine wanting to keep things secret and use Gunray as a pawn in the Clone Wars later on, but still. This is the sort of thing that makes the Order look like a bunch of morons in the prequels.
I am going to assume the Jedi tried to get access to Gunray after he was handed to the courts, were rebuffed for political/bureaucratic reasons (manipulated by Sidious in the background) and ultimately decided that damaging their relationship with the Republic over what Gunray knew (which they assumed - probably correctly - wasn't much in the first place, what with Sith being notoriously paranoid) wasn't worth it. Perhaps not the correct move in the long run, but it's easy to critique from our omniscient perspective.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Also, I think it's time I start looking for some cover art for this story, so if one of you fine people happens to be talented at drawing or know of an existing piece of artwork which (with the artist's permission) would fit, please tell me.
Zahariel out.