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*Author's note: Yep, this is different lore than the Legends Luceno book. I created my Palpatine backstory years before Luceno was ever hired to write that book and based it on one question: Which Sith is more evil, the one who was born with a screw loose and then abused and manipulated, or the one who was born with every marble intact, not so badly abused, and then trained by THE weakest Sith who actually wanted to re-merge with the Jedi? If you can be raised with all those mitigating influences and still you go bad ... you really ARE bad.
Of course, then you also retain the Power of Choice in a way you do not if you're born with a screw loose, badly abused, and then manipulated. Hence, my Palpatine, raised by a half-Munn grandfather who also happened to be the reigning Sith master, who was proud of him and loved him, and who couldn't quite bring himself to abuse him wholeheartedly even to train him ... and who was coming to understand that the Sith were fundamentally wrong about the Force.
Enjoy ...
Lord Sidious followed his feelings, allowing the dark side to lead him.
The terrain rose steeply now, sometimes rock, sometimes snow, sometimes ice over rock. He could have used some sort of spike on his boots for traction; no doubt serious mountain climbers had such a thing.
No matter. He had learned to use the dark side for this long ago. Even now, that trip burned in memory. Cold this frigid could sear, when one's master insisted one climb the tallest peak on Mygeeto dressed as if for a summer's day on Naboo. It was a miracle he hadn't lost his hands and feet to frostbite, to say nothing of his life.
He still hated Plagueis for that trip, had burned with anger and hatred the entire time, until the moment his grandfather laid his hand on him and said, "You wanted to learn; this is how you learn. You killed for this. You took the oath, you knelt before me, and you asked me to teach you. And so I am. You don't have to do this, enSheev. You can change your mind if you wish."
Sidious had glanced aside at him. So much Muun in him: the height Sheev was not blessed with, the gangly arms and legs, his long face, his flat yellow hair that was almost gone now.
"You wouldn't kill me?" he said.
He felt the truth in the Force. His grandfather was yet too fond of him to obey the Rule of Two and kill him, even if Sheev quit now. It was the very thing that made him inferior as a Sith, midichlorians be damned; the very thing that embarrassed and angered Sheev, driving him up the peak, willing his hands to strangle him.
He would never be such an embarrassment. He would become the greatest Sith who ever lived.
His masters in the Korriban Temple ensured that, after he betrayed and murdered Plagueis. Of all the Sith since Darth Bane, Sidious alone had had the opportunity to be trained by the great Bane and every master who had reigned since. He was the lone combination of all their best.
That, added to his own innate talent, made him formidable. Like Appenza Peak itself, he towered above the rest.
The great Lord Sidious held to the dark side and climbed. Meters and meters of almost sheer vertical dropped beneath him.
At last, the dark side stopped him. It diverted him, a few meters here, a few meters there. Then: voices. Sidious concealed himself behind a boulder.
Ah, yes. The Ferren party. Unmistakable. Party of five, one a Bith.
The Bith was the one he was after.
Sidious crouched on a small outcropping of rock, slicked with ice; one part of his mind held to that thread of the dark side that secured him there as he peered around the boulder to observe his quarry.
A huge crevasse separated him from the Ferren party. From here, the five climbers looked like five-year-olds. Now and then their remarks echoed across the crevasse.
"All right, who takes lead on this pitch?"
"Me. It's my turn!"
It was close enough. Sidious could see who the Bith was, and that was all he needed.
To his delight, it was the Bith who started up the rock face alone. Sidious was dimly aware that mountain climbers sent one person ahead to secure something in the rock from which to suspend safety lines, then the others climbed up after. One climber held a line attached to the leader, with the responsibility to catch the leader if he fell past them. They had a name for it, one Sidious could not remember.
No matter. A simple push with the Force, a simple pinch of the line, and one Bith was out of Lord Sidious's way. A second seat on the Trade Federation Directorate he could push to fill more to his liking.
This was too easy, entirely so. Lord Sidious found himself frustrated with the whole endeavor.
All the same, he was here. He was doing it himself. Because he still could.
A dark blue line trailed the Bith as he slowly climbed up. Apparently, serious climbers really did wear spikes on the soles of their boots. Sidious watched as he dug into the ice. Using some kind of a pickaxe, he inched up and up the mountain.
The wind picked up, frigid, stunning his cheeks and nose. Sidious raised his warm cowl higher.
At last, Ferren the Bith reached a satisfying distance from the others.
Time to end this business and return home. He still had some of that nerf broth with noodles. Sidious envisioned himself meditating on the floor in front of his brazier, a steaming cup of it nearby.
He raised his hand and closed his fingers. The dark side cut the line. Sidious drew the flat of his hand to the right, directing a subtle push.
With a terrified scream, Ferren the Bith plunged into the frigid air, arms and legs waving in space. An answering cry went up from his fellows below him.
Sidious took a satisfying glance down. From this side of the peak, the view was absolutely dizzying. So far below him the scene was too small to resemble even child's toys, the jagged mountain fell and fell, almost straight down. Then came the gentler slope Sidious had hiked, impossibly far from here. Below that, the green of forests and fields.
Pan Ferren made it nowhere near that far. His body stopped with a jolt and a jerk, and Sidious realized he had made a mistake. There had to be a second line. Ferren hung, waving like a spider on the end of a thread, and Sidious realized the second line had to be white like the snow. Even with Ferren spinning on the end like some kind of sideshow daredevil, he still could not spot the rescue line.
Ah. There it was. Crossing a short expanse of black rock, Sidious could see it; a tiny white thread at this distance.
Well. Then, he would simply snap that one. Only, Force, it was hard to see.
It was like trying to Force-choke someone light years away when you had no contact and no visual to focus upon. He simply could not do it. Sidious squinted for another glimpse of the white line as Ferren got some momentum and began to swing back and forth. Suspended in midair, he swung himself close enough to the rock face to drive the spikes on his boots into some ice; and Pan Ferren was once again in business.
Sidious scowled. No matter. Ferren would rejoin his buddies, and Sidious could push them all off the mountain.
Ferren could be a fast climber, especially over terrain he had already covered. He reached the other four and hoots of glee and tension-relieving laughter echoed back to Sidious across the crevasse as the five climbers slapped each others' palms and shook each others' shoulders. They had a nice little ledge to stand on for the moment, and as Sidious watched, they retreated from him, backwards away from the mouth of the crevasse.
He raised his palm again, directing it outward, pushing them all toward the edge. Screams and shouts echoed across the crevasse; the beings all dropped to hands and knees, frantically scrambling with pickaxes and spiked boots for purchase.
The white line saved them. Sidious observed it for the briefest instant as the new leader coiled and tossed it. Each being secured himself and tossed it to the being behind him. In the very rear, the Bith rolled, pushed himself to his hands and knees, rolled again, grabbed at something, fastened it to his belt. They had it secured somewhere; Sidious could not see it.
The wind howled in his ears as Sidious realized the ledge they were all standing on was longer than he has previously observed, wrapping around the mountain, and growing wider in the direction toward which they retreated.
Here he sat on his little outcropping, separated from them by a deep crevasse many meters wide, watching as they disappeared from view, passing the invisible rope between them, all holding tight.
Lord Sidious growled deep within his chest.
There was nothing for it but to follow. That meant he would have to breach the crevasse, crawling inside it until it narrowed enough to make a good Force-assisted jump across, then back out again. At least two hours of exhausting work, he thought, and then he would have to follow and find them without being seen.
Well, he had wanted a challenge. Sidious stood, made his way over the boulder, and started into the crevasse.
The crevasse proved three hours' careful and sweat-inducing work. It was sheer rock inside, almost devoid of hand- and footholds, and dark. The fact that this was the short side of Alderaan's day cycle and the light was waning anyway made it worse. Every move took Sidious's utmost concentration and deep focus in the dark side to be sure he didn't slip and fall to his death.
He had never thought he'd be thankful for that excruciating week of training on that infernal peak on Mygeeto, but today he most certainly was. The leap across to the other side of the crevasse, he had to perform in almost pure darkness, with nothing but the dark side to guide him.
At last, he made it to the other lip of the crevasse and peered around it. Sure enough, there was the ledge, and Sidious gratefully made his way there and sat in the snow to rest.
Every muscle, every sinew ached. He didn't remember this from that miserable Mygeeto trip … at least, not until days into that work.
Over twenty years made a difference, and in this instance, not a good one.
Lord Sidious sat and rested a few minutes more; then he forced himself to get up and keep walking. Five sets of bootprints in the snow led him forward. He peered around the bend.
He had heard of these; little caves or huts climbers built and used as way stations along a route. Some of them were quite large, staffed at least part of the year, and featured restaurants, beds, and showers. This one was tiny. Carved into the rock, it looked like a little one-sided igloo in the snow, just large enough for five exhausted and nervous climbers.
Ah. This was easy, then. Sidious turned and began an ascent, climbing over the igloo and up. As he went, he experimented with the Force, pulling here and there at the boulders, ice, and snow with the dark side.
Perfect. This area would start a very satisfactory avalanche.
Sidious ascended a few meters further, found a comfortable outcropping from which to sit and work, and then sank into meditation. A push here, a pull there …
The pop and tumble of a few little pebbles and shards of ice falling grew into a storm. First it drummed like rain on a tin roof, and then a veritable roar shook the ledge upon which Sidious sat, as a huge shard of ice and packed snow broke loose and fell, crumbling into shards and powder directly on top of the igloo. Sidious opened his eyes and peered down, inspecting his work, and decided to send more down, ensuring the entrance was thickly blocked.
And that was that. Could a climbing team suffocate under sufficiently packed snow? Sidious did not know, but barricaded they certainly were. Perhaps he should cave the roof in for good measure. Yes. He summoned the Force and this he did, admiring with satisfaction the appearance of the roof. From his vantage point, it looked as if a giant foot had stepped on it, crushing it. The terror he sensed from helpless beings beneath that crushed roof, he found very satisfying. Concentrating, he traced the pain of broken arms and legs, the smell of blood. The claustrophobic sensation of having very little room to move.
Surely cold and death would take them very soon. As the sun dipped below the horizon, Sidious felt the temperature click down significantly.
He was exhausted. He turned and scraped out a small hole for himself in the snow and unpacked some rations and the highest-rated heat-reflective blanket he had been able to find offered for sale on seven of the coldest worlds. It had been expensive, and as he rolled himself in it, he realized it had been worth every credit. Alderaan had the purest atmosphere and therefore the cleanest snow; he used that for his water supply, nibbled his meager dry rations, and admired the incredible beauty of the Alderaanian sunset from the west face of Appenza Peak.