The lights dimmed and the performance began. Watery metaphors alternated with symbol-laden projections. The experimental nature of the work seemed to enhance an atmosphere of expectation that hung over the audience. Their thoughts elsewhere, the two secret Sith sat in respectful silence, as if hypnotized.
During intermission, the crowd filed into the lobby for refreshments. Discreetly, Damask sipped from a goblet of wine while distinguished beings approached Palpatine to wish him good fortune in the coming election. Other celebrated beings gawked at Damask from a polite distance; it was as if some long-sought phantom had become flesh and blood for the evening. Holocams grabbed images of the pair for media outlets. Damask ingested a second goblet of wine while the lights flickered, announcing the end of the intermission. Pestage had assured him that some of Palpatine’s opponents in the Senate would be waylaid; others, rendered too drunk or drugged to attend the morning session. None would die, but several might have to be threatened. And yet, Damask continued to fret over the outcome …
Following the performance, he and Palpatine joined a select group of politicians that included Orn Free Taa and Mas Amedda for a late dinner in a private room in the Manarai.
Then they retired to Damask’s penthouse.
Plagueis had given the Sun Guards the night off, and the only other intelligence in the sprawling apartment was the droid 11-4D, their servant for the occasion, pouring wine into expensive glassware as they removed their cloaks.
“Sullustan,” Plagueis said, holding the glass up to the light and swirling its claret contents. “More than half a century old.”
“A toast, then,” Sidious said. “To the culmination of decades of brilliant planning and execution.”
“And to the new meaning we will tomorrow impart to the Rule of Two.”
They drained their glasses, and 11-4D immediately refilled them.
“Only you could have brought this to fruition, Darth Plagueis,” Sidious said, settling into a chair. “I will endeavor to live up your expectations and fulfill my responsibility.”
Plagueis took the compliment in stride, neither haughty nor embarrassed. “With my guidance and your charisma, we will soon be in a position to initiate the final act of the Grand Plan.” Making himself more comfortable on the couch, he signaled for 11-4D to open a second bottle of the vintage. “Have you given thought to what you will say tomorrow?”
“I have prepared some remarks,” Sidious said. “Shall I spoil the surprise?”
“Why not.”
Sidious took a moment to compose himself. “To begin, I thought I would say, that, while we in the Senate have managed to keep the Republic intact for a thousand years, we would never have been able to do so without the assistance of a few beings, largely invisible to the public eye, whose accomplishments now need to be brought into the light of day.”
Plagueis smiled. “I’m pleased. Go on.”
Speaking in a low monotone, Sidious said, “Hego Damask is one of those beings. It was Hego Damask who was responsible for overseeing development of the Republic Reserve Administration and for providing financial support for the Resettlement Acts that enabled beings to blaze new hyperspace routes to the outlying systems and colonize distant worlds.”
“That will come as a revelation to some.”
“In a similar fashion, it was Hego Damask who transformed the Trade Federation—”
“No, no,” Plagueis interrupted. “Now is not the time to mention the Trade Federation.”
“I thought—”
“I don’t see any problem with calling attention to the arrangements I facilitated between the Republic and the Corporate Alliance and the Techno Union. But we must take care to avoid areas of controversy.”
“Of course,” Sidious said, as if chastised. “I was speaking off the top of my head.”
“Try a different approach.”
So Sidious did.
And as the night wore on, he continued to amend and improvise, touching on Damask’s childhood on Mygeeto and on the elder Damask’s contributions to the InterGalactic Banking Clan during his term as co-chair. Wineglass in hand, Sidious paced the richly carpeted floor, often vacillating between confidence and misgiving. More than once, Plagueis voiced satisfaction with everything he heard, but he urged Sidious to save his energy for the morning. By then, though, Sidious was too wound up to heed the advice and kept reworking the order of the remarks and the emphasis he gave to certain points.
The droid brought out a third, then a fourth bottle of the Sullustan wine.
Pleasantly intoxicated, Plagueis, who had wanted nothing more than to revel in the sweet taste of victory, was beginning to find his collaborator’s performance exhausting, and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and drift into imaginings of his march into the Senate Rotunda; the looks of surprise, astonishment, and trepidation on the faces of the gathered Senators; his long-anticipated emergence from the shadows; his ascension to galactic power …
Unfortunately, Sidious wouldn’t let him.
“That’s enough for now,” Plagueis tried one final time. “You should probably return home and get at least a few hours’ rest before—”
“Just one more time — from the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“Lord Plagueis, you said you wouldn’t rest until our win was a matter of fact.”
“So it is, and so I shall, Darth Sidious.”
“Then let us celebrate that, as well.” Sidious beckoned to 11-4D. “Fill our glasses, droid.”
With dreamy weariness beginning to get the better of him, it was all Plagueis could do to lift the glass to his nose. No sooner did he set the drink down than it tipped over, saturating the tablecloth. His eyelids began to flicker and close, and his breathing slowed. In twenty years of never having had to contend with Plagueis in a state of sleep, the transpirator clicked repeatedly in adjustment, almost as if in panic.
A few meters distant, Sidious came to a halt, gazing at Plagueis for a long moment, as though making up his mind about something. Then, blowing out his breath, he set his own glass down and reached for the cloak he had draped over a chair. Swirling it around himself, he started for the door, only to stop shortly before he reached it. Turning and stretching out with the Force, he glanced around the room, as one might to fix a memory in the mind. Briefly his gaze fell on the droid, its glowing photoreceptors whirring to regard him in evident curiosity.
A look of sinister purpose contorted Sidious’s face.
Again, his eyes darted around the room, and the dark side whispered:
Your election assured, the Sun Guards absent, Plagueis unsuspecting and asleep …
And he moved in a blur.
Crackling from his fingertips, a web of blue lightning ground itself on the Muun’s breathing device. Plagueis’s eyes snapped open, the Force gathering in him like a storm, but he stopped short of defending himself. This being who had survived assassinations and killed countless opponents merely gazed at Sidious, until it struck him that Plagueis was challenging him! Confident that he couldn’t be killed, and in denial that he was slowly suffocating, he might have been simply experimenting with himself, actually courting death to put it in its place. Momentarily taken aback, Sidious stood absolutely still. Was Plagueis so self-deluded as to believe that he had achieved immortality?
The question lingered for only a moment, then Sidious unleashed another tangle of lightning, drawing more deeply on the dark side than he ever had.
“Let’s go over the second part of the speech, shall we,” he said, smoothing his tousled cloak. “You useless old fool.”
With a snarl, he threw the cloak back behind his shoulders and leaned toward Plagueis, planting his palms on the low table that was now puddled with spilled wine.