During the long period between the Gran’s sneak attack and the first Gathering of the new era, Sidious had spoken with Plagueis only by holo. Left to progress on his own, he had trained the Zabrak in secret on Mustafar, Tosste, and Orsis, visited several Sith worlds, and spent considerable time studying the Sith texts and holocrons that remained under guard on Aborah. From the Sun Guards, Sidious heard that Damask had locked himself away in the fort and was scarcely seen. On the few occasions Damask had summoned them, they had found the living quarters in shambles, some of the experimental subjects dead in their cages or cells, and many of the droids malfunctioning. Creatures from the surrounding greel forests had invaded and taken up residence in the place, making nests in the turrets and devouring anything edible. While Damask — unwashed, emaciated, erratic in his behavior — had seemed capable of speech, it was 11-4D who had communicated Damask’s orders and requests to the guards. At one point, the guards had been ordered to install more than two hundred holoprojectors in what had been the fort’s armory, so that Damask could both monitor current events and immerse himself in historical recordings, some of which dated back hundreds of years.
Sidious knew that his own powers had increased tenfold over the decades, but he couldn’t be certain he had learned all of Plagueis’s secrets—“his sorcerer’s ways,” as the Sun Guards referred to them — including the ability to prevent beings from dying. He sometimes wondered: Was he a level behind? Two levels behind? Such questions were precisely what had driven generations of Sith apprentices ultimately to challenge their Masters. The uncertainty about who was the more powerful. The need to test themselves, to face the definitive trial. The temptation to take the mantle by force, to put one’s own spin on the power of the dark side — as Darth Gravid had attempted, only to set the Sith back countless years …
And so it had been left largely to Sidious to bring the same fervor to the manipulation of events in the mundane world that Plagueis brought to the manipulation of midi-chlorians. Instead of challenging each other, they had both dedicated themselves to executing the Grand Plan. Political mastery and mastery of the Force. Someday soon, the Sith would wield both, with Sidious the face of the former and Plagueis behind the scenes, advising him about the latter. Like Plagueis, Sidious had moved judiciously, for unintended repercussions in the real world could be as damaging to the Sith imperative as blowback from the Force. The fact that the Force had not struck back argued that their partnership was something unique and in accordance with the will of the Force. Plagueis’s self-imposed isolation had taken a toll on some of the plans he and Sidious had engineered for the Trade Federation and other groups. But Plagueis had made what amounted to a full recovery from his injuries, and the dark side was no longer simply on the ascendant but risen and climbing toward the zenith.
The Yinchorri Crisis was the first time that Plagueis had sanctioned Sidious’s direct involvement in galactic events. Until then, events manipulated by the Sith had been accomplished through the use of intermediaries. But when Sidious enlisted the aid of the Devaronian smuggler to instigate the Yinchorri, he had not only made contact by holoprojector — without revealing his Sith identity, of course — but also put him in touch with Pestage and Doriana, who had assisted in the dumping of the bodies of the dead Jedi on Valorum’s threshold and had facilitated the insertion of the Yinchorri warriors tasked with infiltrating the Jedi Temple.
Initially the plan had been devised as a test, to see whether the Force-suggestion-resistant reptilian sentients could be fashioned into an anti-Jedi army. But in the same way that repeated attempts at replication by cloning had failed, all efforts to fashion them into an obedient army had proved futile. Custom-made for aggression they were, but also unpredictable and unruly. As a result, a redesigned stratagem had been put into motion to test Valorum’s ability to manage a crisis and the Senate’s resolve to end one. But neither Plagueis nor Sidious had expected the Supreme Chancellor to involve the Jedi, and now the modified plan was at risk, as well.
“It’s well and good that Jedi have died,” Plagueis was saying as he, Sidious, and 11-4D entered his cluttered study, “but we must guard against revealing our hand too soon. Was it wise to have the corpses shipped to Coruscant?”
“They had the intended effect on Valorum,” Sidious said.
“Nevertheless, we may have misjudged him.”
“He’s more concerned about his legacy than he is about the Republic, but he may yet win a majority of the Senate over to his side, even at the cost of all his political cachet.”
“We need to engineer a crisis from which he can’t recover,” Plagueis said.
“I have set just such events in motion.”
Plagueis nodded in satisfaction. “Then perhaps there is a beneficial side to this. If the Senate approves an embargo, he will be indebted to you.”
Sidious smiled tightly. “A blockade enacted for a blockade broken.”
“To that end, we must begin to move Viceroy Nute Gunray and King Veruna into position. The Neimoidian was partnered with Valorum during the Stark Conflict. This time we will pit them against each other.”
“I knew Gunray slightly when he served as a Senator. He is acquisitive and ambitious, but oddly immune to intimidation. We will need to win him over.”
“And so we shalclass="underline" with procurements that will earn him a position among the seven who make up the Trade Federation directorate.”
“How should we approach him?”
“The gift you requisitioned for the Zabrak prompted an idea,” Plagueis said. “Gunray is fond of pylats, which the Neimoidians associate with wealth. The avians are abundant on Neimoidia, but Sojourn’s forests support a rare red-spotted white one, which the Kaminoans supplied. He will never identify it as a clone.”
“A gift from Hego Damask or Senator Palpatine?”
Plagueis looked him up and down. “From Darth Sidious, I think.”
Sidious stared at him in doubt. “By name?”
“Not merely by name, but by title, as well. It is time we make our presence known to a select few.”
“Will the Sith title have any meaning for him?”
“When we make his dreams come true.”
Plagueis began to pace the cool floor. “No Sith have ever been in the position in which we now find ourselves, Darth Sidious: in step with the reemergence of the dark side, fortified by the signs and omens, certain that revenge and victory are near at hand. If the Jedi would abide by their philosophy of acting in accordance with the Force, of doing what is right, they would roll over for the dark. But they resist. Yoda and the rest of the Council members will double their meditation sessions in an effort to peer into the future, only to discover it clouded and unknowable. Only to discover that complacency has opened the door to catastrophe.
“If indeed they have been acting in accordance with the Force, how could we be succeeding in tipping the balance? How could the dark side be gaining ground? In fact, the Jedi have fallen away from their self-assigned duty, their noble path. Could they have prevented it? Perhaps by having remained in control of the Republic, by electing and reelecting Jedi Supreme Chancellors. Or perhaps by absenting themselves completely from the affairs of the Republic, and attending to their arcane rituals in the belief that right thinking by them would keep the Republic strong and on course, the galaxy tipped into the light, instead of having allowed themselves to become marshals and enforcers.”
He cast a questioning look at Sidious. “Do you see the grand error of their ways? They execute the Republic’s business as if it were the business of the Force! But has a political body ever succeeded in being the arbiter of what is right and just? How easy it is for them to bask in self-assurance in their castle on Coruscant. But in so doing, they have rendered themselves ill equipped for the world we have spent a millennium bringing into being.”