Chapter Text
The next afternoon, a red-haired apparition surprised Palpatine after lunch. Luxuriant hair flowing around her in loose curls, in a smart, slim-fitting dress in brown and green with more than a little cleavage exposed, Sereine was most certainly not dressed for work. She had timed her arrival for almost the moment he would be leaving to go back to the floor, sweeping into his private office and closing the door.
Sheev eyed her cleavage. "Well. To what do I owe this visit?"
"I came to say goodbye."
"What? You're not leaving for two more weeks." Anger flared, and he let it show in his eyes.
"Well, but I had to think about how to schedule theTonight Showprep and this hyperspace thing for Bail. I don't want Via to think I'm shortchanging him. So, I'm going to go out two weeks early, stay a week, get campaign headquarters set up, then I'm going to come back here for a week and you and I are going to work on theTonight Show,and then I go back out to campaign with Via for six months."
"I see." She came forward for a kiss, and he turned his head. "You could have told me sooner. You could have told me in bed last night."
"I'm sorry,Eder.I was thinking about it before I went to sleep, and then I was on the comm with Via's office setting all this up this morning. And I need a full week minimum, so I have to go now."
She laid her palms over the buttons on his frock coat. "I'll be back in a week." Her face, defined and handsome in makeup she didn't normally wear with her gray working cloak, morphed into a suggestive come-hither smirk. "I'll make it up to you."
He let his hands settle on her waist, defined by lacings on the sides of her dress. "Will you, now?"
"If you promise to miss me."
He raised an eyebrow at her and pulled her closer for a kiss. "Travel safely,Ederra."
"Zora."She nuzzled his nose with hers and drew back with a wicked smile. Belatedly, he realized she was paying him a compliment.
"I have three tankers leaving here on their way to Serapin and then Cato," said Rominger. "Monitor them."
"With these long-range scanners and the government codes, I will have no difficulty. Any ship that doesn't appear on my registry, I will transmit the location as soon as I see it," Pestage assured him. Rominger Ascaris had two armored ships complete with buzz and vulture droids on patrol. Pestage was to be the eyes of the operation, circling around the Kuat sector in a government Star Cruiser—liberated by Palpatine for the purpose—specially outfitted with state-of-the-art hyperlong-range scanning equipment.
The next afternoon found Senator Palpatine in office hours, holding one-on-one meetings with colleagues and—always irksome—constituents who were either comming or visiting from Naboo. Constituents tended to be either too shy or too pompous, ill-informed, and, since his nomination for the Peace Prize, annoyingly talkative and long-winded. His private comm lit up during one of these interminable sessions. He knew it was Pestage, comming him with some report, but he had to wait nearly an hour to answer.
At last the irritating couple finished their complaint and left his office, and he could turn to his blinking comm.
"Sheev," said Sate, "I was wondering if you had the tidbit you promised me."
"Oh, yes," said Palpatine. "If Rominger cares to look into his personal savings account at the Bank of Cato Nemoidia, he's going to find that it's been tampered with. It will look like Baylis Ascaris, of course."
"Nice little prod," said Sate.
"Yes, I've had Kinman working on that. What's your status?"
"I've got my eyes on one nonregistered ship. Little corvette, but it's outfitted nicely with laser cannon. I gave Baylis the Federation tankers, but there are three of them, so they're hanging back. Baylis wants to hit a passenger vessel or two, to make them look like random hijackings, and there are several in the sector, so it's probably going to be one of them."
A dart of suspicion hit Palpatine in the stomach. It must have shown on his face, because Sate said, "Palpatine?"
"Stand by," Sheev said. "I'll be right back."
He reached for his official Senatorial private comm and hammered in a code.
"Lumisol and Associates." He knew the little face that answered: Maisine Templar. He'd had Sate ransack her hotel room once.
Palpatine did not bother with pleasantries. "I need Ms. Lumisol's flight information; passenger line and flight number."
Maisine blinked. "Sir, I'm not at liberty to give you that."
He leaned into the screen and his growl was pure Sith. "Get me Tomal Gilio. Immediately!"
Senator ViarepresentedKuat.
The screen went blank for a tension-inducing three minutes, then Sereine's dark-haired twenty-four-year-old assistant director appeared. "Senator Palpatine."
"I need Sereine's flight informationright now,Tomal."
"Sir."
Tomal reached for a datapad, scrolled. "I know it's Pan-Republic. Flight …"
Sheev clenched his fist.
"Flight 83770."
Sheev dispensed with pleasantries and cut the call.
He commed Pestage again. "Looking at Pan-Republic flight 83770. Do you see that?"
"Out mid-sector pretty close to our pirate," said Sate, looking down at his display.
Palpatine became conscious of a growing pain encompassing all of his guts. Not because Sereine's flight was in danger.
Because he should not care if Sereine's flight was in danger.
He had sent Lord Maul to nearby Alderaan on another bit of housekeeping. If he had not arrived yet, perhaps …
He kept one of Lord Sidious's hyperwave transceivers in the office, locked securely in his safe. The Force opened it and snapped the transceiver into his hand. He tapped Maul a message and in a minute or two received a message back. Coordinates.
Palpatine looked up at Sate. "I'm sending you my apprentice, Darth Maul. The two of you will rendezvous on Kuat and then follow that ship. Any interference with flight 83770 and you will intervene. I want regular reports, Sate."
"Will do. Transmit to me contact information for Lord Maul."
"Coming."
He checked his chrono; he had to take another meeting. He sat through the Senator from Ithor's insistent lobbying for his vote on an upcoming bill, with knives in his guts.
His training whispered,Let her go. It does not matter. This has gone on long enough, anyway.
His mind raced, one eye on the translator as it rendered Tendau Bendon's grunts and growls into Basic, one eye on his private comm.
A third tendril of his attention was on the Force. What did the dark side have to say about this?
He walked Bendon to his office door, pretending to the polite sentiments that he should express, desperate for quiet. As soon as the door whispered closed behind Bendon, he commed his secretary. "Drin. Cancel the rest of my appointments for this afternoon."
"Yes, Senator."
Palpatine rested his forehead against the cool metal did the dark side have to say about this?Apparently, nothing.
Which made sense. Sereine Lumisol was as dead in the Force as Darth Bane.
He thought about theTonight Showprep and the prep for Bail. As per usual, he had no idea what she had in mind.
He could do it, of course. The final touch in the final debate that had successfully defended his claim to this office? His. He had rewritten her on one third of the Emancipation Act speech. He had figured out how to perform that infernal second section entirely on his own.
Still, pure brilliance tended to require both of them. He could be brilliant on his ownaftershe had coached him several days. Galling, that.
As galling as the specter in his mind's eye of her flight exploding in a flash of brilliance, and never seeing her again.
He was not supposed to care. He was Sith.
He did not care.
The light on his comm went on.
Sate's face appeared in hologram, Lord Maul behind him.
"We're late. By the time we rendezvoused and made it back here, the hijackers boarded the ship."
"They boarded."
Palpatine's fist clenched.