Chapter 14: Somebody's Watching Me
Valad who had chosen to save two Jedi from a fate which would lead to many other Jedi and Civilian deaths, had taken care of the rest of the Handmaidens Indoctrination within a night's work. Narec only arrived shortly after, yet everyone was rather clueless of what he was talking about.
He began asking anyone if they saw anything strange. He had sensed the force being used, yet shortly after it was used, the presence completely disappeared. Not even a trace which was strange, since even when using Force Cloak it was extensively hard to hide one's presence to this level.
However during this time, he didn't think of looking for familiar presences, he stopped reaching out when he couldn't find the perpetrator. Why couldn't he identify the person?
Meanwhile Valad would be Padmé's room, seated with his legs crossed as he was on her sofa. Watching her as she was resting on her bed. She was still rather bothered by the whole introduction to Plagueis. Why did he show her the person who was behind the scenes that would possibly be a threat to her people? Was it so she knew who not to trust? The problem is, she didn't know who was connected to this man and she needed to think, hard.
With the Faction Management tab open, he had various lists of information pertaining to troop loadouts, to political agendas, membership and the diverse statuses available. There was even a button for recruitment and starship commissions which he didn't really understand. However since the Naboo didn't have a military power and didn't seem to have any naval power other than their security forces, these options were greyed out.
Though after scrolling through the open tab, he found that there was a secondary recruitment option which allowed for direct recruitment of Royal Security Officers, Royal Pilots and even Handmaidens. There were also options for commissioning more Naboo Starfighters with varied color choices, the default being yellow.
He liked the idea, but he wanted to wait a little longer before he started testing these options. He didn't know if it was going to work like the vouchers and just spawn things in. That would be rather awkward for a random human officer to appear in the Queen's chambers.
That was when all of a sudden the communicator buzzed. "Yes, what is it?"
"Your Highness, the young Asajj Ventress is here to see you and your Guardian." The handmaiden guarding the door said with a respectful and dutiful tone.
The other handmaidens in the room glanced over towards Valad before looking to the Queen awaiting her command. "Let her in." Padmé's voice held a simple tone. While she was indeed relaxing, she was currently in her guise as the Queen of Naboo. There was no problem with letting the child into the room.
"Understood, Your Highness." The handmaiden at the door nodded to Ventress and allowed the door to slide open.
Ventress walked in with a soft smile on her face as she looked around the Queen's chambers before narrowing her eyes on Padmé. "Your Highness," she gave her a light bow before looking to Valad in the corner of the room on the sofa.
"How can we help you, Little one?" Valad casually addressed Asajj with Narec's nickname for her.
She reacted with a light pouty face before composing herself. "I was wondering if you could help me." She said with a reserved almost monotone voice, though he could see her pleading under this facade.
"With what exactly?" Valad leaned forward as he folded his hands beneath his chin, his elbows resting on his knees.
Ventress paused for a moment before letting out a slow exhale, as if trying to keep herself composed. "I want to become stronger, to be of use to my Master."
He understood where she was coming from, her Loyalty and love for her master had turned her down the dark side of the Path when he had been taken from her. He gestured for the Padawan to come closer to him, and once she was within arm's reach, he grasped her arm and pulled her over onto his lap.
At first she was rather shocked by the sudden action, but relaxed relatively quickly. "Is this suppose.." She voice literally died when a her sight rested upon a milky jade green cube in the man's hand. "When… did that get there?"
Ventress recalled how he pulled three puddings out of his sleeves, as if it was some sort of magic trick. She didn't exactly understand how he did that either, and now he was pulling a Holocron out of his sleeve?
"What is this?"
Padmé was also surprised by Valad's actions, but even more surprised by the appearance of a milky jade colored cube with strange markings on it.
"A replica of the Tedryn Holocron, it possesses knowledge from various people dating as far back as the Great Hyperspace War. It was thought to have been lost a couple hundred years ago. It holds many secretive teachings of the Jedi," Valad said with a small smirk forming over his lips as he heard the little humanoid in his lap gasp, mainly in surprise that he had something like this in his possession.
There would be no way in hell that Narec would be relaxed should he ever figure out he had one of these things in his possession. Especially since the contents were mainly things only Jedi could access.
"How does it work?" Ventress asked, watching as Valad's grasp moved to her wrist and he moved to press her fingers against the symbols on one of the faces of the cube. Suddenly it began to glow and green ghostly smoke would be released from the front.
…
Meanwhile on the planet of Coruscant Darth Plagueis was in the Corusca branch of the InterGalactic Banking Clan's building, in a private room. In front of him was a hologram of Darth Maul.
The world was lively as always, decorated in sky scrapers which stood high above the lower undercity and mediocre settings.
"My Apprentice, I've found a partial trace," He stated to the Sith Warrior with a grim expression on his face. "The individual known Valad Katsure is on Naboo, apparently he lead an unsanctioned two man team against Borvo's camp and eliminated him and his smuggling and weapon dealing ring." The Dark Lord of the Sith still couldn't understand why this boy had given him a tip about his master. Apparently Darth Tenebrous had transferred his conscious into his body and began infecting his midi-chlorians, transforming them into Maxi-chlorians. He found this out after studying his own blood to find out the truth, but soon found out that his master had long since left his body.
He could only snicker at the thought of his master finding his way out of his body and back to his dead corpse. "I want you to investigate him. Do not engage him unless he finds you, we do not want to reveal ourselves just yet…" Plagueis stated as the figure of Maul knelt before him.
"Yes, My Master…" With Palpatine gone, much of Maul's background had also changed. The mindless slaughter wasn't necessarily part of his missions unless it was completely deemed necessary.
Places such as Orsis Academy still stood, he hadn't been ordered to slaughter the people of the Academy. He was forgo from using any force powers other than his heightened senses. Director knew not to cross the Dark Lord and unlike Palpatine, Plagueis didn't go out of his way to bring the Deathwatch Member back to the Academy.
Much of the events that happened at the Academy however were very similar to the known timeline's, except during his break he was training with a more prideful Plagueis the Wise.
There were two ways someone would react to not being praised. They would either push themselves further to prove themselves or they will begin lacking in motivation. Plagueis knew Maul had expected praise and deprived him of it, finding that he worked harder to prove himself to his master. Though it was possible that praise and reward was an even more powerful weapon?
He allowed Kilindi Matako and Daleen to live, despite them befriending his Sith Apprentice and instead used them as incentive to instill loyalty into Maul. Essentially making them his hostages which would always be around Maul.
Using the force to bind their lives to himself, should Plagueis ever die, the women who cherished Maul would perish along with him. This meant Maul had no choice to follow his orders, even though he would even follow the order to slaughter them both. This acted as an award, Maul only wanted recognition and Plagueis was giving an inch at a time.
Though he was also being cautious, he was running low on time and he didn't want to start all over again like the time he lost the young Sheev Palpatine to a Hyperdrive Malfunction.
Was the Magister of the InterGalactic Banking Clan becoming soft?
…
Darth Maul was seated in his Scimilar, the Star Courier which had been gifted to him by Darth Plagueis himself. Apparently it was supposed to be the only one of its kind. The ship was in the middle of a hyperspace jump towards the planet of Naboo.
He was meditating as the ship itself was on auto-pilot. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted downward. Unlike Plagueis, he didn't have a clear view of the future or greater senses of foresight. He was an assassin, a warrior.
Sleeping in the holds below, were his two companions. Daleen a supposed Princess who was now a graduate of Orsis Academy, as well as Kilindi a former slave who had been brought to the Academy after slaughtering her slave family. It seems they had grown quite attached. They were the only ones who didn't fear him, at least not from his expressions or his demeanor.
It seemed like hours since they had left the system of Coruscant. In only moments, the ship would emerge from hyperspace. While the initial vector had been detected, his cloaking system allowed him to hide from being found.
The ship slowly crept through the Security net which surrounded the planet and narrowly avoided clashing with the flat flooded plains below the cliff which the Palace was situated on.
That was when his on board computer chirped lightly, a notification, a signature similar to their own ship was nearby. This made Maul's eye brow raise in confusion. There was a ship similar to theirs within scanning range?
Maneuvering his ship, he rose the Scimitar to be level with the open hangar of the Naboo Royal Palace and glared forward seeing a near exact replica of the Scimitar. The only difference was that the exterior had been plated with a black chromium finish with sapphire blue viewports instead of red. It was clear it had been modified even further than his own aesthetically.
This confusion turned into rage however, angry that someone else had something similar to his ship which was supposed to be a singularity amongst personal transports.
Since he was hiding his presence, he made sure he wasn't being sensed by those around the area. Though it wasn't the presence of Maul that was sensed by Valad, but the energy source of his very ship.
Valad had the ability known as Mechu-Deru which allowed him to exert his influence over machines, both simple and computerized. It also allowed him to have intuitive knowledge of machinery. However he also had knowledge of the ability to electronic manipulation which required the capability to manipulate and sense energy within machines.
Due to the transports energy output, Valad was able to find out who had just arrived at the scene as he was finishing learning from the Holocron with Ventress in his lap. He had been using Ventress as a key to access the Holocron's deeper secrets meant for only Jedi to access.
Darth Maul would move his ship to a clearing deep into the forests of Naboo and released his probe droids. It was time for some reconnaissance.
Weekly Power Status
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