"Rominger must have received the banking information before you broke ranks to attend Sereine," he said, Lord Sidious growling in his throat. "If not, I shall be sorely displeased with you, Sate."

Early morning sun streamed through the slatted picture window in Palpatine's home office. He had locked himself and Sate inside for a private conversation.

Sate Pestage bridled at his formality. "'I shall be sorely displeased with you, Sate,'" he parroted. "When did you start sounding like a pompous elder statesman, Sheev?"

Lord Sidious was not pleased with the informality, the attempt to return to an earlier age and an earlier era. No, he had not spoken like this during their days of carousing the "specialty" clubs of Coruscant. It was only a few short years ago, yet Sidious had attained a new maturity, immersed in the Senate.
Somehow, things could change and they had changed. He was no longer the carousing playboy, enjoying a last taste of youth. He had left Sate Pestage back there by himself.
Senator Palpatine fixed his chief aide with his most penetrating stare and waited.

"It was done as you ordered," said Pestage, and Sidious saw him swallow and was satisfied. "What's the next stage of this?"

"The next stage?" said Palpatine. "They will all fall like children's toys. One … by one … by one." He passed the flat of his hand slowly over the burnished surface of his desk, as if he were knocking down children's blocks all in a row. "And best of all, not by our hand. Except the first one. Such enmity among sons and brothers can be well exploited, if one knows how."

"And the first one?" Sate crossed his arms over his chest. In former days he would be leaning negligently back against the wall. Now he stood erect, a soldier awaiting orders.

"I'm leaving that to Lord Maul." Palpatine quirked one side of his mouth in a grim half-smile. "He has erred of late. I'm giving him a chance to redeem himself." Sidious strode past him to the door and waved one hand to open it, then strode through.

Sate followed at his heel. "Generous of you."

"I thought so," said Palpatine. He strode into his private living room and stopped short. Sereine was there, wrapped in his silk wrapper, using the picture window as a mirror. Studying her reflection, she paced carefully around in a circle, waving her arms, her movements painfully slow.

Palpatine stopped short and Sate nearly collided with him. "You're awake. You should still be sleeping, Ederra."

She turned. "We have less than two weeks to get this done, floor speech, Tonight Show, all of it. I don't have a whole lot of time to waste. I want something innovative enough to match the precedent we set with the Emancipation Speech." She shrugged. "Just not audacious enough to get you fired."

He crossed his arms. "What are you doing?"

She stared down at the floor, then at the wall. "I figure if we take the benches out of the pod, we've got about this much space." She gestured with an arm like a broken wing. "I want to put you in something flowing and start with movement, and build the speech around it."

"What?"

"We've got a reputation to uphold. Since your body is as graceful as your voice, we're going to use it."

Then she spied Sate in the shadows behind Palpatine. "Mr. Pestage. I'm glad you're here. I was going to request your presence for a prep meeting, but since you're here—if you have time."

Sate scowled at his master. "What am I supposed to do?"

Sereine picked up a datapad and limped across the room to hand it to him. "I think you might be able to help us deal with this."

Pestage's lips moved in a just-checked smirk and he handed the pad to Palpatine.

Sheev looked down at an image of himself—at the Peace Prize banquet, yet—with an inset of an uncomfortably familiar face and the headline, "Senator Palpatine Used Me For Sex!"

Reflecting that Sereine herself could have narrated that story rather well, he paged through the publication and skimmed through the relevant piece.

It was an interview with the woman he had bedded several times on that disastrous campaign tour more than two years ago, when he was losing—badly—battling the fear and stress, and hadn't trusted Sereine any farther than he could have thrown her. The woman—he couldn't recall her name—had been pretty, she had made a surreptitious pass at him in the hotel lift, and he had made it a point to find out who she was.

Apparently who she really was, was someone who would sell an intimate story to Coruscant Confidential, no matter how it made the woman herself look. He scrolled through a two-page story full of unflattering observations upon his character and glanced up to find Sate regarding him with an amused twinkle.

"I told you it'd come back to bite you in the ass, Sheev," he murmured, and it was Palpatine's turn to scowl.

"It was a campaign tour. It obviously wasn't serious," Sheev snapped.

"Occupational hazard," said Pestage.

"At least this is showing up now and not two years from now!" At reelection time, Sheev added silently.

"Well, I don't know," Sereine countered. "How many more stories like this are there?"

Palpatine neglected to answer that, feeling the corners of his mouth turn down.

Sereine said, "These are sold by the story, not the issue. The publisher of CC is assuring me the read-through rate on this is excellent. That means the tabloids will be looking for more. And when you walk onstage in ten days or so, Gael is going to ask you about your private life."

She hobbled to a couch and lowered herself gingerly down, pulling a blanket around her that she had left there and picking up a mug of tea. "Gentlemen, please, sit. We need a strategy session."

Sheev heaved an exasperated sigh as he crossed the room to a chair, noting that Sate seemed to have instantly mastered the art of looking both dismissive and smug at the same time. Lord Sidious did not appreciate the smug air, but he did find the quiet strife between his two dedicated and faithful servants—obviously over whose talents took precedence—quite amusing.

As for himself, Sheev Palpatine had never found these sometimes necessary words more distasteful: "All right," he said to her. "What?"

Sereine pointed to the offending story. "We need to put paid to all that right now. I mean retire it. For good. And we can do that in ten days if we handle this right, but I need to know everything I'm dealing with."

Pestage looked at Palpatine. Palpatine looked past his political consultant at the wall.

"This is where I need you to keep him honest, Mr. Pestage." She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and burrowed deeper into it. "I know you went carousing with him. Unspeakable. Clandestine."

Sate shot Sheev a look, and Sereine followed it with her eyes. "The Catacombs. Come on, gentlemen. What am I missing?"

If she knew everything she were missing, Sereine would not like it one little bit. Personally, not just as his rep. Palpatine did not wish to have this conversation with her in front of Sate.

Ideally, he did not wish to have it at all.

"We know what goes on at The Catacombs," Sereine prompted, and fortified herself with a sip of tea. "Come on, gentlemen. Group sex?"

Sate threw Palpatine another hooded glance. Should I answer that?

Anger simmered in his stomach. Finally, Sheev challenged her with his eyes and snapped, "If you must know, yes."

Sereine put her hand out. "Give me back my datapad."

Sheev handed it to Sate. Sate walked it across the room to her. Turned around. Sat. Met Sheev's eyes and raised his brows.

Sereine typed notes. "Did you ever participate in group sex without a mask on? Or, by the way, a condom?"

"No," said Sheev. One-word answers were easier.

"To your knowledge, did anyone ever recognize you?"

"No." He thought a moment. "This was also before you made me change my hair."

"Good to know." Sereine typed. "When did you stop going there?"

Lord Sidious ought to have been able to remember this to the exact date. He looked at Sate.

"Your first Senate speech," Sate prompted.

"Yes," said Palpatine. "After the Chancellor wrote me personally, we thought it was a bit too risky."

He watched her brow, alert for the first sign of distress. Sate sat back in his chair with a smug look, probably betting himself on exactly what detail she would burst into tears, change, and leave.

Sereine peered up from her datapad. Her eyes shifted between them. "So … did the two of you ever …?"

Palpatine shouted, "No!" at the exact moment Sate did. He glanced aside. High color touched the assassin's cheeks.

The ghost of a smile crept across Sereine's face. "I know this is uncomfortable," she said. "Let's just get through this as efficiently as we can." Something in his expression lowered her voice. "I need to know everything in order to do my job. Whatever the two of you went out and did, I've probably heard worse."

Palpatine thought of Lord Sidious's exploits and silently answered, No, you haven't. Even the trusted Pestage did not know of The Profanities, a cycle of Sith rituals he had studied astutely upon his arrival on Coruscant. The lower levels had provided perfect sources for the partners he had needed in his study of those.

Lord Sidious had traveled those errands alone, and he had left no witnesses.

An exhausting and stressful two hours took them through the bondage scene at Unspeakable, the dancing Twi'lek girls for hire at Clandestine, several whorehouses that offered an interesting range of services, and a few other clubs Sereine hammered at until they finally broke down and told her.

At last she looked up and said, "Is there more, gentlemen?"

Palpatine rubbed at a headache between his brows, surprised she had made it this far with so little reaction. "Not to my recollection."

Sereine looked at Sate. "Sate?"

Silence. Sate looked at Palpatine.

"Sate?"

Sate said, "Unless you went somewhere with Kinman and didn't tell me, I think we're through."

Sereine fixed Palpatine with a severe look. "Where'd you go by yourself? What'd you do?"

Lord Sidious's exploits were not for Sereine's ears. But as for where Palpatine had enjoyed some free time alone …

She wanted to know, so he told her. Sheev Palpatine pulled the plug and let the truth rain down on her head.

When he had finished, even Sate Pestage sat back in his chair. "You found a place like Obsessions and you never told me?"

"It's a boutique house." Sheev raised a hand, defending himself. "You need a key to get in. If I'd shared it with you, Senator Deechi would never speak to me again. I'd be out of favor with many in the Aak caucus and that would do me no good."

Sate's mouth twitched.

Sereine's gaze met his evenly. "Anything else?'

Sate looked at Palpatine, wordlessly asking the same question. Watching his mistress, Palpatine observed that Sereine saw the look.

"Is there anything else, gentlemen?"

Palpatine sat back in his chair and locked her gaze with his. "I think we're done."

Sereine didn't look away. "You'd better be sure we're done."

Sate spluttered to his right. "There is no way you're scotching all this with ten minutes on the kriffing Tonight Show!"

Sereine scrunched deeper into her blanket—Sheev got the idea she still felt miserable—but she shifted that steady stare to Pestage without missing a beat. "Watch me. Only I don't need anything that's been left out to surface and bite us in the ass months or years from now. If that happens, we can't cover it, so I need all the cards on the table right now."

Other than The Profanities, Sidious had divulged it all. He showed her two empty palms.

"If you're lying to me, Sheev, you're the one who's going to suffer for it, not me. Don't shoot yourself in the ass, here."

"Sereine." He leaned forward. "That's all."

She gave him a long, evaluative look. Then she scrolled through her notes.

And scrolled. And scrolled.

At last she looked up, settling herself again into her blanket. "I guess we're through with you now, Mr. Pestage, if you need to be somewhere else."

Sate's eyes narrowed. "I wouldn't miss this." His tone issued a challenge.

"So," said Sereine, "you're going to walk across the stage, and Gael is going to shake your hand, and you're going to sit, and he's going to say, "Welcome back, Senator!" and then he's going to say a few words about how we've all been following your career, and maybe what it's like to lose a Peace Prize—you know how to handle that—and then he's going to say, "Are you married?"

She gestured, and Palpatine understood she was beginning a role play. He brightened into the stage presence they had rehearsed so often. "No, actually, I'm not."

"Any thoughts about what's going on here?" Sereine turned her datapad, showing the men the offending news story.

A dart of alarm pierced Palpatine. "You don't think he'd be that blunt, do you?"

She pointed at him, assuming that commanding air he hated, but so often had had to put up with. "First mistake," she snapped. "You're not 'single,' Sheev, you're widowed. Never forget that."

Great Lords of the Sith, how had he forgotten that? Sheev corrected himself. "Widowed, actually, Gael," he said, slipping back into character.

"Very nice," said Sereine. "I want you to do it just like that." She sat up, warming to the part, ruffling his blanket around her. "Senator, did you ever cheat on your wife?"

Palpatine sat bolt upright. "What?"

Sereine broke character and laughed. "I don't want to hear 'What?' come out of your mouth. But tone down that postural shift a bit and it will work very well. If Gael does go after you that hard, the nonverbal will pull people's sympathy your way. Speaking of which." She pulled her features into a sort of mock concern, back in her Gael persona. "You were widowed rather early in your life, weren't you?"

Palpatine settled back in his seat. "We were twenty-six when Cyrah died."

Sate snorted. "Do you really think you can scotch enough bad publicity to last a decade with this chuba?"

Two russet eyes bored into him from the couch. Sereine said, "Watch. Me."

Palpatine shrugged. "It's happened before. Quite fortuitously, I might add."

"Sheev," Sereine snapped. "There's been nothing 'fortuitous' about it."

Sate gave them a short bark of laughter. "If you can whitewash all that kink in ten minutes on the Tonight Show, I'll shave my beard!"

This would be interesting. Palpatine smiled.

Sereine said, "We play our cards right, we'll have half the galaxy fall in love with you by the end of the evening. The female half. You'll have women sending you their underwear." And then she pointed at Sate and said, "You're on!"

XXX

For those unaware, the X's denote an explicit scene that's been left out. Those can be found on a...o...3 under FictionGarden.