The Theelin was unknown to Plagueis. Pale and shapely, she had lustrous orange hair and purple beauty marks that ran down her face and neck to disappear beneath a revealing costume.
“Diva Shaliqua,” Jabba said when he realized that Plagueis was studying her. “A singer in the band.”
“As her name suggests.”
“A gift from Ingoda, in place of credits owed to me.” Jabba’s big eyes settled on the Theelin. “She and Diva Funquita came as a pair, but I made Funquita a present to Gardulla in the hope of smoothing over our lingering rivalry.” He grunted. “My first mistake. The second: introducing Shaliqua to Romeo Treblanc, who would move worlds to possess her.”
Notorious for his gambling, Treblanc owned the Galaxies Opera House on Coruscant. Why Jabba chose to associate with gamblers and other lowlifes was a mystery to Plagueis. In some ways the Hutt’s illicit empire was the inverse of Hego Damask’s, where, if nothing else, the criminals were at least politicians, corporate honchos, and financiers. His coming to Sojourn was both uncharacteristic and unexpected.
“Are you here to talk about Treblanc or Gardulla?” Plagueis asked.
Jabba reacted in annoyance. “As always, straight to the heart of the matter. But I can appreciate the fact that you’re a busy Muun.” He wriggled to adjust his position on the platform. “I know you were instrumental thirty years ago in giving Gardulla the run of Tatooine, as a base for her slavery operations and Podracing events. I’ve come this far to inform you that Tatooine will soon have a new overseer.” He gestured to himself. “Me.”
Plagueis said nothing for a long moment. “I was under the impression that Tatooine was already as much yours as Gardulla’s.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Jabba said. “I’ve tried to undermine her influence by fomenting distrust among the so-called Sand People — the Tusken Raiders — but success at chasing her offworld continues to elude me.”
Plagueis made an adjustment to the breath mask. “How can I help?”
Jabba appraised him. “I happen to know that Gardulla hasn’t been able to make good on the loans you extended. What she earns from events like the Boonta Eve Classic, she loses to gamblers.”
“That much is true,” Plagueis said. “But what of it?”
“I want you to stop funding her, so I can starve her out.”
Plagueis shrugged. “Your information is incomplete, Jabba. I haven’t funded her enterprises in a decade.”
Jabba balled his hands in anger. “You have influence over members of the Banking Clan and the Trade Federation who are funding her.”
Plagueis lifted his head, as if in revelation. “I see. And what can I expect in exchange?”
“To start with, a better percentage of the profits from the races and other enterprises.”
Plagueis frowned in disappointment. “You must know that I’ve no need of credits, Jabba. And you wouldn’t have come this far, as you say, unless you had learned a few things that might sway me over to your side.”
Jabba wriggled, restraining his anger. “In return for your help, I will weaken Black Sun’s influence with the Trade Federation Directorate—”
“I need no assistance.” Plagueis leaned forward in the armchair. “What do you know that I may not know?”
Jabba inflated his body, then allowed the air to escape him in a protracted, mirthless laugh. “I know something you may not yet know about the Bando Gora.”
Plagueis raised himself somewhat in the chair. Hideously masked Bando Gora assassins had become a growing concern in the Outer Rim, posing a problem to the leadership of some of the cartels Plagueis backed. “Now you have my interest, Jabba.”
“The cult has a new leader,” Jabba went on, happy to have the high ground. “A human female, she has entered into a plan with Gardulla, a Malastare Dug named Sebolto, and a Republic Senator to distribute contaminated death sticks, as a means of supplying the Bando Gora with brain-dead recruits.”
Plagueis stretched out with the Force to peer into the Hutt. Jabba wasn’t lying. “This human female,” he said.
“I’ve heard rumors.”
Again Jabba was telling the truth. “Rumors will suffice for now.”
The Hutt rubbed his meaty hands together. “Her name is Komari Vosa, and word has it that she is a former Jedi.”
Plagueis knew the name only too well. Some ten years earlier, Komari Vosa had been a Padawan of Master Dooku.
Behind each of the Rotunda’s hover platform docking stations extended wedge-shaped office complexes more than half a kilometer in length, where Senators met with one another, entertained guests, and, on rare occasions, carried out the work they had been elected or appointed to perform. Some of the offices were sealed environments, in which the atmospheres of member worlds were replicated; others, especially those belonging to hive species, were staffed by hundreds of beings who performed their duties in cubicles that resembled nectarcomb cells. By comparison, Naboo’s was rather prosaic in design and adornment, and yet unrivaled in terms of the number of high-profile visitors it received.
“I’m giving thought to leaving the Order,” Master Dooku told Palpatine in the windowless room that was the Senator’s private study. “I can no longer abide the decisions of the Council, and I have to be free to speak my mind about the wretched state of the Republic.”
Palpatine didn’t reply, but thought: Finally.
With Darth Maul traveling to Dorvalla on his first mission, Palpatine had been preoccupied all afternoon, and now Dooku’s disclosure: long anticipated and yet still something of a surprise.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve been exasperated with the Council,” he said carefully, “and it probably won’t be the last.”
Dooku shook his head firmly. “Never more than this. Even after Galidraan. I’ve no recourse.”
Frigid Galidraan was years behind him, but for Dooku the incident remained an open wound. A local governor had succeeded in luring the Jedi into a conflict with Mandalorian mercenaries that had left eleven Jedi dead and the True Mandalorians — largely innocent of the charges that had been leveled against them — wiped out, save for one. Since then, and on each occasion he and Palpatine had met, Dooku had begun to look less and less like a Jedi Master and more like the noble he would have been on his native Serenno. Meticulously groomed, he carried himself like an aristocrat, affecting tailored tunics and trousers, and a velvety black cloak that gave him a dashing, theatrical look. His slightly curved lightsaber hilt, too, might have been a prop, though he was known to be one of the Order’s most skilled duelists. And behind a mask of arrogant civility, Palpatine knew him to be capable of great cruelty.
“By request from the Senate,” Dooku went on, “the Council dispatched several Jedi to Baltizaar, and my former Padawan somehow succeeded in accompanying them.”
Palpatine nodded soberly. “I know something of that. Baltizaar’s Senator petitioned for help in fending off attacks by the Bando Gora.”
“Sadistic abductors and assassins,” Dooku said in anger. “Military action was called for, not Jedi intercession. But no matter, the Council complied with the request, and now Komari Vosa and the others are believed to be dead.”