Palpatine’s expression changed. “Then speak honestly. You’re a long way from your coven, Nightsister. And a practitioner of magicks more than sufficient to keep your child from harm.”
Her eyes opened wide and bored into him, in search of explanation. “How—”
“Never mind how I know, Witch,” Palpatine said sharply. “The child, whether yours or not, is a Nightbrother, conceived for the purpose of serving the sisterhood as a warrior and slave.”
She refused to avert her gaze. “You’re not a Jedi.”
“Clearly I am not, as I suspect you have already intuited. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why are trying to rid yourself of the infant?”
“To spare the one for the sake of the other,” she said after a moment. “Half a clan pair, this one is. And I want one to live freely, since the other can’t.”
“Who poses the threat?”
“Talzin is her name.”
“Who is Talzin?”
“The Nightsister Mother.”
Palpatine filed the information away. “Where is the infant’s father?”
“Dead — by tradition.”
He snorted. “Will the infant not be missed?”
“Talzin knows only of the one, not the other.”
“You delude yourself.”
Gently, she pushed the shoulder bag toward him. “Then take him. Please.”
“What would I do with him?”
“This one is strong in the Force. In the right hands, he can become a powerful asset.”
“Servitude of a different sort.”
She ignored the remark. “Take him. Save him.”
Palpatine regarded the newborn again. “Have you named him?”
“Maul, he is called.”
“Befitting the power you divine in him.”
She nodded. “Take him.”
Palpatine gazed at her and, motioning with his right hand, said, “You will forget this encounter.”
She locked eyes with him. “I will try.”
“For your own sake, I hope you do. Now, go. Before I change my mind.”
Placing the bag in his hands, she turned and hurried off, disappearing into the crowd.
Palpatine studied the bundle of life he held. That the Force was strong in the infant was reason enough not to allow him to wander about unprotected, and perhaps fall into the hands of the Jedi.
Now Palpatine simply had to figure out what to do with him.
From a high turret in the old fort on Sojourn, Plagueis and Sidious observed the revelry in the courtyard below. There, amid the blazing fires, the smell of fresh blood and roasting meat, the cacophony of guttural chants, strident music, and screams of abandon, a Gathering was in progress. Returned from the hunts, beings of many species told tall tales and shared in vulgar laughter, while exotic dancers writhed atop tables laden with food and intoxicating drinks. Away from the roasting pits, beings huddled in the sultry night air, forming alliances, revealing hidden agendas, hatching plots. Passion, envy, and conspiracy were on the loose. From the high turret, the two Sith could see Damask’s Sun Guards and Muuns circulating, Larsh Hill introducing his eldest son, San, to representatives of the Commerce Guild and the Techno Union. The Gotal Grand Mage of the Order of the Canted Circle was speaking with starship designer and Santhe/Seinar CEO Narro Sienar. Boss Cabra was making the rounds, as well, pressing the flesh, the scales, the rough hide of partners and potential allies. Members of the Trade Federation were in attendance, including a richly dressed Neimoidian. And for the first time in decades, representatives of various hive species were present — the Xi Charrian prelate, the Geonosian Archduke, even a couple of mistrustful and dangerous-looking insectoid Colicoids, from the Colicoid Creation Nest.
“We will not be denied,” Plagueis was saying with unusual annoyance. “We will have our way in the Senate, regardless of what the Gran Protectorate, Black Sun, and the rest wish to see happen. Let the beings of the Hydian Way and Rimma Trade Route worlds go on thinking that the Trade Federation is seeking to tighten its grip on intersystem commerce. The real danger in seating the Federation’s client worlds will emerge when the Senate ignores the needs of those worlds, and disenfranchisement begins to spread through the Mid and Outer Rims. Then the Republic will reap the whirlwind, and we will harvest the benefits.”
He exhaled in disgust. “Pax Teem and the rest aren’t acting out of concern for the Republic but out of fear that their entitlements might disappear if trade shifts to the outer systems. Half of them sit in the Rotunda only because I want them there. They’ve forgotten how effortlessly they can be replaced.” He swung away from the view of the courtyard to face Sidious. “As for Veruna, you should encourage his plans to amass a Space Corps to defend Naboo against the Trade Federation. When we make him King, we will lead him by the nose into a morass that will appear to be of his own making.”
Plagueis lowered his gaze to the courtyard. “The climate begins to shift, Darth Sidious. The body politic begins to show signs of contagion. The reemergence of anger, hatred, and fear signal a loss of faith in the Force. The light is waning, pushed into retreat by dark matter, and the universe begins to seem inimical rather than comforting. In such times, beings are wont to look for solutions in the enactment of harsh laws, the ostracism of strangers, and warfare. Once the Republic has fallen, the Jedi are but a memory, and beings have nowhere to turn but to us, we will provide them with a sense of stability and order: a list of enemies, weapons capable of decimating entire star systems, durasteel prisons in which they can feel secure.” He gestured to the courtyard. “Look how they hunger for the dark.”
A fierce light came into Plagueis’s eyes. “We must demand the attention of the dark side to aid us in dictating the future. Together and separately we will see to that, and once we’ve put these Senate issues behind us, we will set the stage for the next act. With the promise of unlimited funding, guilds and unions will ally, and the hive species will turn pincer and claw to the manufacture of weapons, even in the absence of conflict, let alone all-out war.”
Doubt tugged at the corners of Sidious’s mouth. “The Jedi won’t simply stand by and do nothing, Master. While I have no affection for them, I do respect their power. And weakening the Republic without weakening the Jedi could provide them with justification for attempting a coup. They have the numbers to succeed.”
Plagueis took it under advisement. “Their time is coming, Sidious. The signs are in the air. Their Order might have already been decimated had it not been for the setback Darth Gravid dealt the Sith. But his apprentice carried the imperative forward, and each successive Sith Lord improved on it, Tenebrous and his Master most of all, though they wasted years attempting to create a targeted virus that could be deployed against the Jedi, separating them from the Force. As if there were some organic difference between the practitioners of the light and darks sides; as if we communicate with the dark side through a different species of cellular intermediaries! When, in fact, we are animated by the same power that drives the passion of these beings gathered below. Target midi-chlorians and we target life itself.”
“An attack of that sort would fail, regardless,” Sidious said, as if thinking out loud. “The Jedi are widely scattered, and it’s unlikely that we would be able to act quickly enough to kill all of them in the same instant. We would need to assign an individual assassin to each, and there would be no way to still the tongues of that many assassins. Our plan would be revealed. We would be betrayed and become the targeted ones.”
Plagueis paced away from the turret’s window, his hands interlocked behind his back. “We don’t want them to die too quickly in any case. Not, that is, until the Republic has been so ravaged, so weakened, that beings will willingly embrace the stability we impose.”