Chapter 135:
Palpatine:
The Force… heaved and writhed.
Palpatine could see it. The great skein of the present, the future, moving, shifting. Writhing.
Destiny… was in flux
A thrill ran through him when he realized it. A shiver of something that made him smile. While certain victory had its own pleasure, there was nothing better than ripping victory away from those who thought they had a chance.
Right up until they comprehended the full scope of their folly… and his might.
Even so. For all that he was… reveling in the latest developments- that did not mean it wasn’t without its… irritations.
“You failed then.”
The words were delivered with a harsh bite, the blue pixels of General Grievous seeming small in this dark room.
“Worse than failed-” He continued. “The target might now be in the hands of the Jedi!”
He’d heard nothing of Maul’s capture. Nor had he sensed his apprentice on coruscant now that the Yavin battlegroup had returned. But that did not mean anything definitive. If Maul had spoken to the Jedi as to who he really was, even the most obtuse of the fools would say nothing to him. And given the Jedi’s increased security and, well, paranoid even before Yavin- they might very easily be holding him off world even if Maul hadn’t spoken to them yet.
“Worse than that.” Komari was all but crooning in her corner of the room as she spoke. He could feel her satisfaction, her malice laced joy at seeing Grievous fail. “The Mandalorians? They’re gone, largely because he tried to get them killed. The Fallen Jedi, also scattering elsewhere.
Neither of those was a great loss. The Mandalorians could simply be bought back. And the fallen Jedi were weak, pitiful things that would crawl back the moment he turned his gaze onto them with the promise of retribution. They’d well and truly broken. But coupled all together it was another headache he didn’t need.
Sidious sneered. “All of this. And you could not even kill two worthless Padawans. Perhaps our credits were better spent elsewhere.”
He could sense the Cyborg’s indignation. He didn’t care.
“It is unlikely Dallon or Hebert got off of that moon in time Lord Sidious. One, or even both, may very well be dead.” He tried to justify.
“They are both alive, General.” He answered. “You achieved Nothing. You cost us more than simple failure. Do not think yourself so important, that if performances like this become the norm that you are not replaceable.”
The Machine’s eyes narrowed.
He didn’t believe him.
Palpatine felt his irritation spike, anger rising. The tight, controlled coil of power at his center coming undone, slipping, just for a second fresh power from those he’d devoured on Dathomir answering to his command relishing the chance to be unleashed at long last as he stretched out his hand across the length of the Galaxy.
Grievous’ insides spasmed.
The Cyborg lurched forward, as though he were about to cough. A hand rising to his chest.
“Lungs.” The Sith Lord rasped, seliberately slow.
Grievous suddenly stood, ramrod straight, a position most unnatural for his species, and his alarmed cry of pain was entirely genuine.
“Spine.”
The Cyborg clutched at his chest now.
“Heart.”
Grievous lifted; the Near metric ton heavy Cyborg rose off of his feet in the holo-link and Komari’s sudden, reflexive fear was entirely satisfying, a palate cleanser as he drank in Grievous’ sudden alarm.
“You are not irreplaceable-” He repeated, teeth bared. “Do better General. Or I’ll make another who will.”
He released the machine, his armored feet crashing down onto the deck with a deafening bang even through the Holo.
The former Kaleesh staggered, wobbling on legs that shouldn’t shake but did in this moment, his eyes filled with a new wariness that bespoke of the fact that he’d gotten far too accustomed to the idea that he was invincible.
Sidious sneered. “Get out of my sight.”
The Cyborg hesitated for a moment, then, quickly bowed and retreated.
He waited until he heard the doors close behind him before he addressed his final catspaw.
“Go to the fallen Jedi” He demanded. “Press them back into line. Then- you will recall the Mandalorians.”
He could sense her incredulity. “I doubt they’ll be amenable.”
“Their kind is always amenable. It’s merely a matter of price.”
“And if they aren’t?”
“Kill Viszla. Take that trinket from him. Then they’ll obey You. A moronic tradition if ever he’d heard of one. But it served his purposes well enough in this instance..
“And Maul?”
“Cad Bane.” He’d used the bounty hunter before. Shrewd, skilled. Careful. He would, if not kill Maul, slow his former apprentice down. It would have to be good enough.
After a moment, she offered a nod, and a bow.
“It will be done.”
He cut the connection, proceeding to think.
Maul’s escape or capture complicated matters in either direction. A capture, coupled with the destruction of the LiMerge compound, told him that he was acting entirely on borrowed time.
Even if Maul wasn’t captured and he escaped, the LiMerge building alone told him the Jedi were closing in on their leads rapidly.
Acting against the Jedi… needed pretext. Their reputation had suffered, true, but a wholesale slaughter without sufficient plausible cause would be… messy.
Especially with Amidala still in control of the vast majority of chipped Clones.
Certainly, he’d done certain things to circumvent her control with fresh batches of clones and new transfers, but not nearly enough to confidently say he could opose her directly with the troops under his own control.
No… he needed to get a sufficient pretext. Something to turn the senate against the Jedi, or at the very least convince Amidala that one of her investigations needed to be done before she could act.
But that required time. Time that- if Maul indeed had been captured, he didn’t necessarily have.
If Maul hadn’t been captured, and he escaped… well… It gave Sidious more time but left a wrathful Krayt Dragon out in the proverbial deserts to strike whenever he wished in ways that could potentially do damage if Maul turned his ful, animal cunning towards that purpose. The consequences of those actions would be difficult to compensate for at a moments notice.
And then there were still the political concerns. Alexandria had shaken his tight hold over the Senate enough that Organa had seized an opportunity, presenting a bill to open negotiations with planets that had declared neutrality in the conflict in recent months. Breakaway states that had defected to the separatists but were now forming their own independent league, to hear out their grievances.
Palpatine couldn’t let it succeed, if it did; too much clout, and worse, power would centralize around Organa and his allies, allies which included Amidala and worse Alexandria.
The simpering Alderanian might not know how to wield that power, but Alexandria did and Palpatine had no doubt she would go straight for the throat.
So very many crises. So very many problems. He could not do everything at once.
So… he needed to prioritize.
The Jedi were the most immediate threat. If they knew, or they acted against him… Everything else would follow after that. Either falling into place- or going catastrophically wrong.
And so… that is where he needed to focus, everything else, must be secondary.
As he ruminated on what his next steps would need to be and how best to juggle everything- a small, rarely used comlink activated. Rarely used; because Gunray had long ago learned to not bother him with trivialities.
As he saw the small innocuous alert light, his eyes narrowed, the eddies and currents of the Force once more shifting.
He answered the call.
The sniveling Nemoidian was wringing his hands, seemingly undecided on wether he should prostrate himself or stand tall in the glowing light of the holocom.
“Speak, Gunray.”
“M-My Lord Sidious. It is… well… That is to say- Why? Why did you order it?”
For once, Sidious was at a loss.
“Speak clearly, Gunray. I have ordered many things. What is of concern to you is likely a triviality.”
“A-A triviality! Sending one of your sith to assassinate Po Nudo is a Triviality!?”
Palpatine’s brain stuttered to a dead stop.
Po Nudo was a member of the Seperatist leadership oligarchy.
He was the head of separatist propaganda and information control.
A useful piece. An invaluable piece.
And a Sith assassinated him…
There was only one obvious culprit.
It seems Maul hadn’t been captured after all.
But even so, Palpatine hid his rage, a spike of it lancing through his chest as he realized immediately Maul’s intent.
Whatever time Palpatine might have had now by virtue of Maul’s escape on the Jedi front, he would lose rapidly if the separatist oligarchy turned against him.
Maul would hunt them down, one by one, his assassin training would serve him well in that regard.
And in doing so, scare the sniveling cowards into calling off the war. Once they themselves fell under threat, with Sidious unable or unwilling to guarantee their safety…
His timetable, regardless of which way he looked at it- had shrunk significantly.
“My Lord Sidious please. You must explain!” Gunray demanded.
For a long, interminable moment, Sidious held his silence, befuddling the weak Gunray’s mind to give him time to think in peace.
He could see, feel, now, why the skeins of the Force were so muddled. Why fate had changed.
All his enemies were coming, Martial, Political, Jedi, Sith.
All their fates would be decided…
And it would be soon.
The first one to make a mistake on the Dejarik board… would lose.
Silence reigned Gunray’s addled mind still believing barely seconds had passed.
‘Very well.’ He thought, a malice filled smile blooming across his lips, unnoticed by the befuddled Nemoidian.
Pulling on the power of the Force, Sidious took hold of the sniveling creature’s mind, bending it like flimsyplast. The effort needed was laughably miniscule.
Gunray had always been a toad.
“You will inform the Seperatists that the Jedi have begun an assassination operation, specifically targeting the members of the Executive Seperatist Council. Po Nudo was their first victim. They are to heighten security.”
The Nemoidian repeated back the statement, the instructions taking root in his mind.
“Second. In two weeks time, General Grievous will call the Council to assembly. All are to attend. You will do your utmost to see his demands met and even exceeded. If I need be involved in convincing any members to cooperate, I will be most displeased, Gunray.”
Again, the Nemoidian repeated the statement back. Sidious wondered if he had two weeks at all, but it was the bare minimum needed. The Cyborg would soon be undergoing surgery or, repairs.
Repairs that were… necessary.
“You will contact me tomorrow for further instructions and inform me of any developments within the Executive Council.”
Gunray nodded. “I will conta-”
Sidious shut the call off. The weak willed toad would obey regardless.
Glancing out of his apartment window Sidious let himself look at the glittering lights of corusant’s ‘night’ glimmering like jewels in the night. In the distance, the Jedi temple stood at it always did. Monolithic… enduring.
Did they know? He wondered.
If they didn’t, they would, very soon.
One way. Or the other.
The Lord of the Sith considered his next act.
Unnecessary. Perhaps even foolish.
But then, he shrugged.
Let the pretense come away, if only for a moment.
The power, so tightly controlled, so impossibly chained… he loosened its fettered, let the chains rattle.
Like a serpent unwinding from its long slumber- Lord Sidious let loose.
Darkness, invisible to the mundane, the blunt, but all consuming nonetheless spread out, blanketing the whole of coruscant, devouring the city in its sickly miasma.
Its people would never know.
But he saw the Temple, the light of the temple, wither, recoil, die.
And then, like a fortress with manned walls, it returned. Illuminating, brilliant. A star in the blackness of the void.
Sidious narrowed his eyes. Feeling. Searching.
In their minds eyes they saw eachother. The Master of the Dark Side and the small, diminutive Grand Master.
Sidious let his power lash out, serpents biting, sinking venom. But the wall held.
Yoda stared him down, eyes narrowed, grim determination in his ancient, wizened features.
He would not bend.
That was simple enough though.
If he would not bend. Then Sidious would see him broken.
Then. Another stepped into this battleground.
The wall grew stronger.
Sidious recognized the form, the presence. His ghostly visage appearing beside the grandmasters own.
Skywalker.
Then, another at the grandmasters other side.
Windu.
A third, a Fourth, a Fifth.
More.
Hebert, Dallon, Kenobi, Gallia, Yaddle.
One by one he could sense them all, each mind another brick on the wall. Another glimmering mote of starlight.
There was fear in some. There was always fear. Fear of failure. Fear of the battle. Little… cracks in the wall.
But the wall was strong.
Its statement clear.
Sidious… allowed himself to laugh. Allowed them to hear it in their grim resolve.
Let them understand… He would relish… tearing it all down.
(X)(X)(X)
And so, we've reached the end of this arc and the start of this story's final arc once and for all :)I'm excited, but also kinda nervous too. As stated in the previous chapter I will be taking a month long break or so to more carefully plan things out for the final conclusion. You guys have been amazing and I hope you'll all stick with the story to its final conclusion.
As usual now that we've hit a break I'll be putting up a Poll to see wether or not these advanced chapters will be released to the public, same caveats and terms as usual. One of the readers called it a formality but we stick by the rules in this house :pUntil then, read, review and all that good stuff, if you'd like to speak with me or others regarding the story, contact me during the break or just share some memes, we do still have our discord channel. https://discord.gg/xQRawXJzAnd I hope that during the Break we'll see some updates to the TV tropes page. Its been a bit neglected and needs some updates by this point xD
So until my return I thank you all again from the bottom of my heart and I'll catch you all later. :)