Suspecting an attempt at entrapment, Sidious agreed to a daytime meeting, the location of which served only to further arouse his suspicions. Unlike the upper-tier restaurants patronized by the political crowd, the Shimmersilk was in a low-tier district known colloquially as POTU, which to most beings stood for “the periphery of the Uscru,” but to the better informed meant “the peril of the Uscru”—a slowly gentrifying area accessed by the Deep Core Mag-Lev Line that had once been the haunt of turf gangs, serial killers, molesters, thieves, and other bottom feeders, on a world whose bottom was uncommonly deep. With residents preying mainly on one another, the police saw little reason to patrol, and even security cams were scarce, as they were frequently stolen and disassembled for parts. Still, the risk of mayhem or murder appealed to the Rotunda crowd, and it wasn’t unusual to encounter a Senator or an aide slumming in the POTU, mingling with shady beings, indulging in proscribed substances, flirting with danger.
Sidious considered bringing Pestage and Doriana along, but ultimately rejected the idea. In the absence of undergoing any formal training with Plagueis, he was eager to see what he could do on his own.
Cramped and rattled by the frequent passage of nearby mag-lev trains, the Shimmersilk catered to what looked like a local crowd. Dressed down for the meeting, as was Sidious, the Sullustan lobbyist was waiting at a corner table, with his back to a wall adorned with cheap holoimages. Only six other tables were occupied — nonhuman couples in the main — and catered to by three clumsy human waiters and a Dug bartender. Instrumental jatz music, barely audible, wafted though air in sore need of recycling.
Sidious adopted a look of wide-eyed innocence as he sat down opposite the Sullustan. They began to talk in a general way about current events and Senate business, before the lobbyist steered the conversation toward STP’s need for Senate approval to expand its operations along the Rimma Trade Route. Drinks and appetizers were ordered and reordered, and before too long Palpatine’s interest began to wane.
“I think you may have overvalued my worth to STP,” he said at last. “I’m nothing more than the voice of Naboo’s regent.”
The Sullustan waved his small hand in a gesture of dismissal. “And I think you undervalue yourself. Your short speech to the Senate put you on the map, Senator. Beings are talking about you. STP believes that you can be of great service.”
“And to myself, you said.”
“Naturally—” the Sullustan started, but Sidious interrupted him.
“In fact, you’re not here to recruit me.” Motioning negligently, he repeated: “You’re not here to recruit me.”
The Sullustan blinked in confusion. “In fact, I’m not really here to recruit you.”
“Then why are we here?”
“I don’t know why we’re here. I was instructed to meet with you.”
“Instructed by whom?”
“I, I—”
Sidious decided not to press him too hard. “You were saying?”
Again the Sullustan blinked. “I was saying … Just what was I saying?”
They both laughed and sipped at their drinks. At the same time, Sidious used the Force to shift the apron of one of the waiters just enough to reveal the grip of a hold-out blaster the man was wearing at his waist. Lifting his glass for another swallow, he did the same to another of the waiters, whose apron concealed an identical weapon. Both had been manufactured by BlasTech, but not for common consumption. The E-series 1–9—the aptly named Swiftkick — was available only to elite members of Santhe Security, headquartered on Lianna.
“I had better slow down,” he said with purposeful awkwardness. “I believe I’m becoming a bit light-headed.”
The Sullustan’s demeanor changed, though almost imperceptibly. “You just need some more food.” He slid a menu across the table. “Choose whatever you wish. Cost is no issue.” He stood. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, we’ll order as soon as I return.”
Sidious noted that the Sullustan wasn’t the only one getting to his feet. Under low-voiced orders from the waiters, patrons were calling for their checks and exiting. In moments he would be the Shimmersilk’s sole customer. As he swung slightly in his chair to stare into the corner of the room, a scenario began to emerge in his imaginings. The Sullustan, STP’s link to Malastare, Santhe Security agents, even the Dug bartender … Their issues were not with him but with Damask Holdings. He wasn’t being set up for an eventual allegation of corruption; a far more sinister deception was unfolding, and his interest was immediately renewed.
His first thought was that they had attempted to drug him. His investigations into Sith sorcery had taught him how to nullify the effects of many common poisons and venoms — a practice he had performed routinely before he’d even seated himself at the table. Perhaps, then, they were waiting for him to slump forward and lapse into unconscious or froth at the mouth and be shaken by spasms …
Just when he was thinking that it was his acting ability that was going to be put to the test, two of the waiters converged on him, now showing their discreet but powerful weapons.
“Someone wants a word with you, Senator,” the taller of the pair said.
“Here?” Sidious said in apparent confusion.
The other one motioned to a door. “Through there.”
Sidious masked his smile: the Shimmersilk had a back room.
He stood clumsily, leaning deliberately toward one of the security men, gauging his body temperature, heart rate, and respiration. “I’m slightly intoxicated. I may have to count on you for support.”
The man made a sound of exasperation but allowed Sidious to place one arm on his shoulder.
How effortless it would be, he thought, as the dark began to rise in him, searing and hungry, yearning to assume control of his body and unleash itself, to break the necks of both of them, to tear their beating hearts from their chests, to hurl and plaster them against the walls, to bring the entire sour-smelling place down on their heads …
But he didn’t. He needed to meet his abductor. He needed to learn the names of all those responsible. He needed to prove to his Master that he was adroit and capable — a true Sith Lord.
The back room had a second door that opened into a dark corridor leading to an ancient turbolift. Shoved forward by the guards, Sidious calculated the distance they had come from the Shimmersilk to the turbolift. He fell silent as they began to rise, and devoted his attention to calculating their rate of climb. He estimated that they had risen fifty levels when the turbolift came to a halt, depositing them in a corridor as aged as the first, though wider, tiled, and illuminated by wall sconces. Perhaps a maintenance corridor for the monads above, though still far below what would constitute the deepest of the sub-basements. The Santhe Security men guided him north across a stretch of stained permacrete floor to an intersection where a four-being speeder was idling, a heavily armed Rodian seated at the controls.
This one isn’t Santhe, Sidious told himself. A freelance mercenary or assassin.
Shoved roughly onto the speeder’s rear bench seat, he was reminded not to do anything foolish. Restraining an impulse to reveal that they already had, he continued to play the intimidated abductee, cowering in the seat, hands interlocked in his lap, avoiding eye contact. The speeder traveled east at a moderate speed until the first intersection, then turned in the direction of the government district and resumed the same speed for a longer duration. Sidious reckoned that they were twenty or so tiers beneath the outlying buildings of the Senate when the speeder swung west into an even broader corridor toward a district known as The Flats or The Works — a kind of industrial plain situated well below the governmental plateau, overlooked to the far north by the Jedi Temple and the horizontal landing fields of Pius Dea Spaceport, and to the south by the resiblocks and commercial towers of the Fobosi district.