Chapter 24: ED : Chapter 22: The Truth Hurts III
Coruscant, Republic Executive Building (Same Day)
The man the galaxy knew as the dignified, often amiable, and always articulate Chancellor of the Republic was as tense as he was coldly, collectedly furious, but these feelings were not new.
They'd been with him, and intensifying, ever since events had begun to deviate from the carefully orchestrated design he and his thankfully deceased teacher had been meticulously creating for years.
The new day, with it's intense demands of both his personas, would begin in only a few hours.
Yet as he paced the confines of the expansive bedroom like a caged Vorn tiger and considered these deviations with icy deliberation, Palpatine dismissed sleep as impossible.
With the exception of his assassin's untimely loss, events up to and including the elimination of Plagueis on the eve of his ascension to the Chancellorship could not have proceeded more perfectly.
With naught but a handful of softly spoken words, fools all about him were persuaded to consign themselves to destruction on a regular basis. Only after their collective utilities had been appropriated, of course. Maybe that was it, he reflected sourly.
Could he be growing complacent, as those weak, blind fools, the Jedi? The thought wasn't dismissed for it's repugnance, because he seldom allowed emotion to enter into his calculations.
It was abandoned because it didn't fit. He was keenly aware how vulnerable he would remain until he solved the conundrums brought on by the deviations.
"Bringing me back to square one." Here in the unquestioned privacy of a bedroom swept for all manners of surveillance twice each day and twice a night, for that matter, he allowed his lips to draw back in an uncharacteristic snarl of discontent at the thought.
The temptation to blame it all on the damnably intractable Cloners almost seduced him.
His every effort (through intermediaries he was artfully shielded from being connected to, of course) to persuade the Kaminoans that, as the inheritor of the accounts drawn on to fund their largest and most elaborate commission, he should be allowed to modify said commission continued to fail.
It wasn't a matter of credits or favors, at least not directly.
In much the same way that bankers held the privacy of their account-holders sacrosanct not on any moral basis, but due to their fear that failing to do so would undermine clientele confidence and cause the collapse of their edifice.
The highly regimented powers of the flooded world had become convinced no one would wish to trust them with commissions this ambitious in future, if it were ever revealed they'd allowed a commission to be modified without the appropriate proofs.
In their minds, since Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas's thumbprint and biometric scan was attached to the commission-authorization documentation, then only Sifo-Dyas or a duly designated representative acting on his behalf could order modifications to the ongoing commission.
"Netherworld of the Force, it's taken my agents half a standard year of negotiations just to get them to agree that the Jedi Order are the actual holders of the commission, and that as such, Sifo-Dyas was merely the agent of the Order in this matter".
Palpatine muttered under his breath. Which brought him straight to the second thorn in his heel.
Dooku. The aging Jedi from Sorenno had seemed to have his feet squarely planted on the first night-black stones of the Dark Path. Only for something to suddenly cause him to draw back and seem to reconsider his present course.
It had been such an unexpected development and rare miscalculation with regards to human nature, the Sith Lord had felt himself seized by the desire to scream in frustration for the first time since shortly before that wonderfully cathartic orgy of violence which had done away with his loathsome parents.
He'd been leading the Jedi Master and the Kaminoans down converging paths that would have simultaneously solved the problem of getting the inhibitor-chips implanted into the Fett-clones, then this latest setback had stalled those plans.
Once he'd persuaded Dooku to kneel, it would have been a simple matter to induce him to betray his long-time friend in such a way as to see that the Cloners were satisfied as to their damnable proofs-of-commission.
Now, the man had been most recently tracked to Ossus of all places. Where it seemed he'd played a part in recovering from hibernation an ancient Jedi. One of Dooku's primary weakness was a hunger for new Force-lore.
Meaning this new, or rather very old, Jedi might inadvertently be the one to feed Dooku's hunger in a manner not at all helpful to the furtherance of the Grand Plan. Something not lost on the Sith for an instant.
"It's the boy and his damnable visions. A thousand years of strengthening the Dark Side on the part of every Sith since Bane to create a shroud capable of blinding the Jedi, and Plagueis's overly ambitious meddling seems to have given the fools sight when I most need them to remain blind." Sidious thought to himself.
He couldn't (yet) prove it, but he had no doubt young Anakin Skywalker was responsible for leading the Jedi to their ancient compatriot.
Momentarily, he considered placing a contract on the apprentice's life, but dismissed the idea as both premature and horrifically wasteful. There was time yet, and the boy seemed to warm to him well enough.
Besides, Palpatine reminded himself to regain the icy, crystal clear clarity of purpose which was his greatest strength. There were plenty of other portions of the Plan advancing as beautifully as could be hoped. His new apprentice was in many ways far superior to Maul.
Being in many ways an ideal blending of the Zabrak's ferocious tenacity and incredible athleticism, with Dooku's skill, cunning, focus, and persuasiveness as a statesman. Darth Ximshak, with the vast Bulq family assets at his disposal, was even comparable to the might-be Count of Sorenno on that front.
His efforts with the disparate groups which would eventually be welded into an organized secessionist movement had been as exemplary as they were as-yet well-concealed, and the project just begun on Saleucami beneath his personal direction showed exceptional promise.
A few setbacks, even one as troubling as the difficulties with the Kaminoans, didn't justify this anxiety bordering on, yes, he could admit it, fear. It was almost as if the shadows within the darkness were whispering a warning he'd been all but deafened to, but what could it be?
Decisively, he went to a console and summoned both Kinman and Pestage to his secret complex in the Works. He was missing something, but possessed enough insight from the Force to know what he was missing, one of the two men could direct him to.
It wasn't a deeply buried truth. Just one which had somehow eluded him, and he would know it within the day. This, he grimly vowed as he prepared to slip from the building.
...
I'll appreciate if you guys can throw some power stones to keep the story going.
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