Darth Plagueis

11: AVATAR OF MORTALITY




The planet Chandrila sponsored a monthlong retreat for members of the Legislative Youth Program. Once a year young beings from a host of worlds arrived to participate in mock Senate trials in and around Hanna City and to tour Chandrila’s vast agricultural projects, wilderness areas, coral reefs, and garden parks. It was in Gladean Park—a game reserve outside coastal Hanna—that Plagueis paid young Palpatine an unannounced visit. But it was Plagueis who was surprised.

“I knew you would come, Magister,” Palpatine said when Plagueis and 11-4D turned up at one of the game reserve’s viewing blinds.

“How did you know?”

“I knew, that’s all.”

“And just how often are your premonitions correct?”

“Almost always.”

“Curious,” 11-4D remarked while Palpatine was hurrying away to excuse himself from the company of two friends.

Plagueis recognized the older male as Palpatine’s mentor in the youth program, Vidar Kim, and sensed that the comely black-haired female was Kim’s paramour. At the conclusion of Palpatine’s animated explanation, Kim turned his head to show Plagueis a look of disapproval before moving off with his companion.

“Your mentor doesn’t care much for me,” he said when Palpatine returned.

Palpatine dismissed it. “He doesn’t know you.”

Standard weeks had passed without any communication between the two of them. Judging by Palpatine’s mood, he knew nothing about the forced meeting in the Lake Country, and yet he was agitated just the same, possibly in reaction to something Cosinga had done to monitor or foil his son’s offworld holotransmissions. With Damask Holdings’ secret agent silenced, the royals had gained ground. Despite Tapalo’s denials that the deal with the Banking Clan had dissolved, the travel ban imposed on the Muuns had planted seeds of doubt among the electors, and the contest for the throne was becoming more heated with each passing day. Worse, the Banking Clan’s interest in Naboo was beginning to wane.

“We’ll have to keep this meeting brief,” Plagueis told Palpatine while they were following an elevated pathway that connected the viewing blind to one of the park’s rustic lodges. “Your father may have dispatched surveillance personnel.”

Palpatine ridiculed the idea. “He is monitoring my offworld communiqués—that’s why you haven’t heard from me—but even he knows better than to have me watched.”

“You underestimate him, Palpatine,” Plagueis said, stopping in the middle of the pathway. “I spoke with him at Convergence.”

Palpatine’s mouth fell open. “The lake house? When? How—”

Plagueis made a soothing gesture and explained in great detail what had taken place. Concluding, he said, “He threatened, too, to place you out of reach.”

All the while Plagueis spoke, Palpatine was storming through circles on the narrow path, shaking his head in anger and balling his fists. “He can’t do this!” he snarled. “He hasn’t the right! I won’t allow it!”

Palpatine’s fury buffeted Plagueis. Blossoms growing along the sides of the pathway folded in on themselves, and their pollinators began to buzz in agitation. FourDee reacted, as well, wobbling on its feet, as if in the grip of a powerful electromagnet. Had this human truly been born of flesh-and-blood parents? Plagueis asked himself. When, in fact, he seemed sprung from nature itself. Was the Force so strong in him that it had concealed itself?

Palpatine came to a sudden halt and whirled on Plagueis. “You have to help me!”

“How can I help you?” Plagueis asked. “He’s your father.”

“Tell me what to do! Tell me what you would do!”

Plagueis placed a hand on Palpatine’s shoulder and began to walk slowly. “You could use this incident as a means of emancipating yourself.”

Palpatine frowned. “Naboo doesn’t honor that practice. I’m in his sway until I’m twenty-one years old.”

“The legalities of emancipation don’t interest me, and they shouldn’t interest you. I speak of freeing yourself—of completing the act of recreation you began when you rejected your given name.”

“You mean disobey him?”

“If that’s as far as you’re willing to go. And without thought to consequences.”

“I’ve wanted to …”

“Uncertainty is the first step toward self-determination,” Plagueis said. “Courage comes next.”

Palpatine shook his head, as if to clear it. “What would I do?”

“What do you want to do, Palpatine? If the choice was yours and yours alone.”

The youth hesitated. “I don’t want to live as ordinary beings live.”

Plagueis regarded him. “Do you fancy yourself extraordinary?”

Palpatine seemed embarrassed by the question. “I only meant that I want to live an extraordinary life.”

“Make no apologies for your desires. Extraordinary in what way?”

Palpatine averted his eyes.

“Why are you holding back? If you’re going to dream, then dream large.” Plagueis paused, then added, “You hinted that you had no interest in politics. Is that true?”

Palpatine firmed his lips. “Not entirely.”

Plagueis came to a stop in the middle of the walkway. “How deep does your interest go? To what position do you aspire? Republic Senator? Monarch of Naboo? Supreme Chancellor of the Republic?”

Palpatine glanced at him. “You’ll think less of me if I tell you.”

“Now you underestimate me, as you do your father.”

Palpatine took a breath and continued. “I want to be a force for change.” His look hardened. “I want to rule.”

There! Plagueis thought. He admits it! And who better than a human to wear the mask of power while an immortal Sith Lord rules in secret!

“If that can’t happen, if you can’t rule, then what?”

Palpatine ground his teeth. “If not power, then nothing.”

Plagueis smiled. “Suppose I said that I would be willing to be your ally in the quest.”

At a sudden loss for words, Palpatine stared at him; then he managed to say, “What would you expect of me in return?”

“Nothing more than that you commit to your intent to free yourself. That you grant yourself the license to do whatever is necessary to realize your ambitions, at whatever risk to your alleged well-being and in full expectation of the solitude that will ensue.”

They had not yet reached the lodge when Plagueis steered them into a gazebo that occupied the center of a luxuriant garden.

“I want to tell you something about my past,” he began. “I was born and raised not on Muunilinst but on a world called Mygeeto, and not to my father’s primary wife but to a second wife—what Muuns call a codicil partner. So I was a young adult before my father was finally returned to Muunilinst and I had my first taste of the planet that gave rise to my species. Owing to Muunilinst’s regulations governing population growth, no Muun of less influence than my father would have been allowed to import a nonindigenous offspring, let alone a half-clan. And yet the members of my father’s family regarded me as a trespasser, lacking proper legality and the social aplomb that comes to those born and raised on Muunilinst. For if there is anything the Muun detest more than wasteful spending it is nonconformity, and I had it in abundance.

“They were model citizens, my fair brothers and sisters: insular, self-important, identical in their thinking, thrifty to a fault, given to gossip, and it angered me deeply to have been accepted by the galaxy’s downtrodden only to be rejected by this hive of self-serving parochial beings. Much to their further displeasure, they were forced to accept that I was a fully bonded clan member, entitled to the same share of my father’s vast wealth as the rest of them. But as is the case with all members of the elite clans, I had to prove myself worthy of the status by preparing successful financial forecasts and allowing myself to be judged by the ruling elect.

“I passed my tests and trials, but soon after, my father took ill. On his deathbed I sought his advice concerning my predicament, and he told me that I should do whatever I needed to do, as my very survival was in jeopardy. He said that lesser minds needed guidance, and punishment on occasion, and that I shouldn’t hesitate to use whatever means necessary to protect my interests; that I owed as much to myself, my species, to life itself.”

Plagueis paused.

“The cause of his premature death was determined to be a rare genetic abnormality that affected the tertiary heart, and one that all of my siblings had inherited, but I—having been born to a different mother—had not. Panicked by the thought of early death, my siblings launched a galactic search for the finest geneticists credits could procure, and ultimately one surfaced, claiming knowledge of a curative procedure. And so they underwent treatment, each and every one of them—my clan mother included—in full confidence that they had dodged the family curse and could soon return to their primary passion, which was to have me legally ostracized from the family.”

He looked hard at Palpatine.

“Little did they realize that I had hired the geneticist, and that the treatments he provided were as phony as his credentials. And so, in due course, they began to grow ill and die, each of them, as I watched from afar, gloating, even entertaining myself by feigning sadness at their funerals and indifference at the allocation rituals that transferred portions of their accumulated riches to me. Eventually I outlived all of them and inherited everything.”

His amalgam of fact and fiction concluded, Plagueis stood tall and folded his thin arms across his chest. In turn, Palpatine trained his gaze on the gazebo’s wooden floor. Plagueis detected the quiet whir of 11-4D’s photoreceptors focusing on the youth.

“You think me a monster,” he said when a long moment of silence had elapsed.

Palpatine raised his head and said, “You underestimate me, Magister.”


Hanna City Spaceport was chaotic with the launch of starships returning youth program trainees to their near and distant homeworlds. In the central passenger cabin of the Naboo vessel Jafan III, Palpatine and a young trainee from Keren were comparing notes on their experiences during the previous week. On a track to becoming close friends despite their political differences, the pair had segued into discussing Naboo’s upcoming election when a flight attendant interrupted them to say that Palpatine needed to return immediately to the spaceport terminal. The attendant didn’t know who had requested his presence or why, but no sooner had he entered the connector than he recognized the stern countenance of one of the security guards his father had recently hired.

“Palpatine won’t be reboarding,” the guard told the attendant.

Confused, Palpatine demanded to know why he had been removed from the ship.

“Your father is here,” the guard said after the attendant had reentered the starship. He pointed through the connector’s transparisteel viewport to the far side of the field where sat a sleek starship bearing the crest of House Palpatine.

Palpatine blinked in surprise. “When did he arrive?”

“An hour ago. Your mother and siblings are also aboard.”

“They didn’t say anything to me about coming here.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” the guard said. “You’ve already cleared Chandrila customs, so we can proceed directly to the ship.”

Palpatine glared at him. “Just discharging your orders, is that it?”

Unruffled, the guard shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s a job, kid. That’s the long and short of it.”

Surrendering to the inevitable but angered by the sudden change in plans, Palpatine trailed the guard through a maze of similar connectors to one that accessed the family starship. The elder Palpatine was waiting in the entry air lock.

“Why wasn’t I informed of this beforehand?” Palpatine demanded.

His father nodded for the guard to seal the hatch. “Your mother and siblings are aft. I’ll join you there once we’ve completed the jump.” Maneuvering around Palpatine, he slipped into the cockpit. Palpatine turned to the air lock hatch and considered leaving while he had the chance, but ultimately thought better of it and went aft, though into not the main compartment but a smaller one that housed the communications suite. Strapped into an acceleration chair, he stewed through the launch and the jump to hyperspace. Unfastening himself when the ship was between worlds, he stood up and began to pace back and forth in the cabin, and was still in motion when his father entered a few minutes later.

“Our course is set for Chommell Minor.”

Palpatine stopped to stare at him.

“For the foreseeable future, you’re going to be residing with the Greejatus family. Clothes and other items we thought you’d like to have with you are already aboard.” When Palpatine said nothing, he continued. “You and Janus got along well the last time we visited. A change of scene will do you good.”

“You decided this without conferring with me?” Palpatine managed to ask at last. “What about my university courses? What about my obligations to the youth program?”

“That has all been arranged. You can partner with Janus in Chommell Minor’s program.”

“The Greejatus’s hatred of nonhumans meets with your approval, then.”

“Their chauvinism notwithstanding, I approve of them a lot more than I do your current friends.”

Palpatine began shaking his head. “No. No.”

His father’s tone turned harsh. “This is for your own good.”

Palpatine’s nostrils flared. “Father of lies,” he muttered. “How would you know what’s good for me? Have you ever even cared? This is about my friendship with Hego Damask, isn’t it?”

The elder Palpatine snorted in derision. “Is that what you think it is? Damask is merely using you as a means of securing information about our strategies for the election.”

“Of course he is.”

Taken aback momentarily, Cosinga said, “And yet you continue to … befriend him.”

“What you consider the rape of Naboo, I consider to be an essential step forward, and Hego Damask a blessing. He’s powerful, influential, and brilliant—more so than any of my professors. Head and shoulders above you or any of your royal confederates.”

Cosinga’s lip curled. “It begins to sound to me that this confrontation goes beyond mere political differences.”

“You know it does. You’re using the situation as an excuse to put me under your thumb again.”

“Which wouldn’t be necessary if you showed even the slightest ability to conduct yourself appropriately.”

Palpatine sniffed. “My social infractions and trespasses. I refuse to go over old ground.”

“You’re easy on yourself, considering the shame you’ve nearly brought on us.”

“I’ve brought no more shame on the family than you have.”

“We’re not discussing me,” Cosinga said.

Palpatine threw up his hands. “All right. Leave me on Chommell Minor—but I won’t remain there.”

“I can see to it that you do.”

“By assigning some of your musclemen to keep me in line? I’m a lot smarter than them, Father.”

Cosinga made his lips a thin line. “After what you already did to counter our plans for Tapalo, there can be no hint of scandal. Have you no idea what’s at stake for Naboo?”

“And for you,” Palpatine said, with a sly smile. “The brother of your mistress becomes king, and you attain the lofty position you’ve always desired but don’t deserve.”

Cosinga flung his words with cruel abandon. “It will be so good to have you gone.”

“Finally you admit as much.”

Cosinga was suddenly crestfallen. “You’re as much a mystery to me now as you were when you were young.”

Palpatine’s smile bloomed. “Only because you lack the ability to understand me fully.”

“Grandiose, as ever.”

“Grandiose, in fact, Father. You have no idea what I’m capable of. No one does.”

Cosinga exhaled deeply. “I know that you are of my blood, because I had you tested, just to be certain. But in truth, I don’t know where you came from—who or what you’re actually descended from.” He glared at Palpatine. “Yes, there it is: that glower I have been on the receiving end of for seventeen long years. As if you want to murder me. Murder has always been in your thoughts, hasn’t it? You’ve merely been waiting for someone to grant you permission to act.”

A darkness came over Palpatine’s face. “I don’t need anyone’s permission.”

“Precisely. You’re an animal at heart.”

“King of the beasts, Father,” Palpatine said.

“I knew this day would come. I’ve known it since the first moment I tried to swaddle you, and you fought me with a strength that was too powerful for your size or age.”

Palpatine looked out from beneath his quirked brows. “I was born mature, Father, fully grown, and you hated me for it, because you grasped that I was everything you can never be.”

“Hated you more than you know,” Cosinga said, allowing his ire to rise once more. “Enough to want to kill you from the start.”

Palpatine stood his ground. “Then you had better do it now.”

Cosinga took a step in Palpatine’s direction, only to be hurled back against the bulkhead separating the communications room from the main cabin. A female voice from behind the closed hatch asked in distress, “What was that?”

Nursing an injured shoulder, Cosinga looked suddenly like a trapped animal, his eyes wide with surprise and fear. He made a move to strike the handplate that opened the hatch, but Palpatine thwarted his effort without raising a finger. Twisting violently around, Cosinga fell over one of the acceleration chairs, bloodying his face as it struck the armrest.

A pounding began on the hatch.

“Guards!” Cosinga shouted, but the word had barely left his lips when the bulkhead against which he was slouched buckled inward, heaving him face-first to the floor and driving the breath from him.

Palpatine stood rooted in place, his hands trembling in front of him and his face stricken. Something stirred behind his incandescent eyes. He heard the pounding on the hatch and whirled.

“Don’t come in! Stay away from me!”

“What have you done?” It was his mother’s voice, panicked. “What have you done?”

Cosinga pushed himself to his knees and began a terrified retreat, leaving smears of blood on the deck. But Palpatine was advancing on him now.

“If the Force birthed you, then I curse it!” Cosinga rasped. “I curse it!”

“As I do,” Palpatine growled.

The hatch began to slide to, and he heard the voice of the guard who had escorted him from the Jafan III. “Stop!”

“Cosinga!” his mother screamed.

Palpatine pressed the palms of his hands to his head, then in eerie calm streaked to the hatch, pulled the surprised guard through the threshold, and tossed him clear across the cabin.

Raising his face to the ceiling, he shouted, “We’re all in this now!”


They could have been torturers: Plagueis and 11-4D, leaning over an operating table on Aborah that supported Venamis, still in an induced coma and now anesthetized, as well; the droid’s appendages holding bloodied scalpels, retractors, hemostats, and Plagueis, gowned and masked and with eyes closed, his shadow puddled on the floor by the theater lights, but in truth nowhere to be found in the mundane world. Folded deeply within the Force, instead, indifferent to the meticulous damage 11-4D had done to the Bith’s internal organs, but focused on communicating his will directly to the Force’s intermediaries, the droid monitoring cellular activity for signs that Plagueis’s life-extending manipulations, his thought experiments, were having their intended effect.

A sudden current of intense dark side energy snaked through Plagueis. Stronger than any feeling he had experienced since the death of Darth Tenebrous, replete with flashes of past, present, and perhaps future events, the disturbance was powerful enough to snap him completely out of his trance. A rite performed; a confirmation conferred. Half expecting to find Venamis sitting upright on the table, he opened his eyes to the sight of 11-4D shuffling toward him from the operating theater’s communication console.

Plagueis’s mouth formed a question: “Hill?”

“No. The young human—Palpatine. A deep-space transmission.”

Plagueis hurried to the device. They hadn’t spoken since the reunion on Chandrila, but Plagueis had been waiting, wondering if his manipulations had borne fruit. If not, then he might have to take personal action to solidify the Naboo gambit. Placing himself in view of the holocams, he took a moment to appraise the noisy image onscreen, Palpatine’s face bathed in the flashing lights of an instrument panel, something new in his eyes—color that hadn’t been there previously. A glance at the comm board’s coordinate readout; then:

“Where are you?”

“I’m not sure,” Palpatine said in clear distraction, his gaze shifting to something off cam.

“You’re in a starship.”

Palpatine nodded, swallowed, and found his voice. “The family ship.”

“Read aloud the navicomputer coordinates.”

When he had, Plagueis looked to 11-4D for elaboration.

“Rimward of Exodeen along the Hydian Way,” the droid said.

Plagueis absorbed it. “Contact the Sun Guard. Have them ready a ship and prepare yourself to accompany them.”

“Yes, Magister.”

Plagueis swung back to the monitor screen. “Are you capable of maintaining your present course?”

Palpatine leaned to one side. “The autopilot is engaged.”

“Tell me what happened.”

The human took a deep breath. “My father arrived unexpectedly on Chandrila. He had me taken from the youth program vessel and brought to our ship. My mother and siblings were already aboard. After the launch I learned that I was being taken to Chommell Minor. Just as you warned. We fell into an argument … then, I’m not sure what happened—”

“Tell me what happened,” Plagueis demanded.

“I killed them,” Palpatine snarled back. “I killed them—even the guards.”

Plagueis restrained a smile, knowing now that Naboo would be his. Over and done with. Now to reel him in further, and ensure his continued usefulness.

“Did anyone on Chandrila observe you board the family ship?” he asked quickly.

“Only the guard—and he’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

“We need to return you quietly and covertly to Chandrila. I’m sending help, my droid among them. Offer no explanations of what occurred—even if asked—but follow every command without question.”

“You’re not coming with them?” Palpatine asked, wide-eyed.

“I will see you soon enough, Palpatine.”

“But the ship. The … evidence.”

“I’ll make arrangements for the ship’s disposal. No one will ever learn of this event, do you understand?”

Palpatine nodded. “I trust you.”

Plagueis returned the nod. “And Palpatine: congratulations on becoming an emancipated being.”


Sleek as the deep-sea creature on which it was modeled, the passenger ship Quantum Collosus plied the rarefied currents of hyperspace. One of the finest vessels of its type, the QC made weekly runs between Coruscant and Eriadu, reverting at several worlds along the Hydian Way to take on or discharge passengers. Draped in muted-green shimmersilk, Plagueis had boarded at Corellia, but had waited until the ship made the jump to lightspeed before riding a turbolift to the upper tier and announcing himself at the entryway to the private cabin he had secured for Palpatine.

“You said soon,” Palpatine barked the moment the hatch had pocketed itself in the bulkhead. “A standard week is not soon.”

Plagueis entered, removed his robe, and folded it over the back of a chair. “I had business to attend to.” He glanced over his shoulder at Palpatine. “Was I simply supposed to drop everything in service to the predicament you’ve gotten yourself into?”

Speechless for a moment, Palpatine said, “Forgive me for having allowed myself to believe that we were in this together.”

“Together? How so?”

“Am I not your agent on Naboo?”

Plagueis rocked his head from side to side. “You did provide us with some useful information.”

Palpatine studied him uncertainly. “I did more than that, Magister, and you’re well aware of it. You share as much responsibility for what happened as I do.”

Plagueis seated himself and crossed one leg over the other knee. “Has it really been only a week? For you seem greatly changed. Were the Chandrilan and Naboo authorities so rough on you?”

Palpatine continued to stare at him. “As you promised, where there is no evidence, there is no crime. They went so far as to enlist the aid of salvagers and pirates in the search, but came up empty-handed.” His look hardened. “But it’s you who have changed. Despite the fact that you saw this event in the making.”

Plagueis motioned to himself. “Did I suspect that you and your father might reach an impasse? Of course. It would have been obvious to anyone. But you seem to be implying that I somehow divined that the confrontation would end in violence.”

Palpatine considered it, then snorted in derision. “You’re lying. You may as well have forced my hand.”

“What an odd way to put it,” Plagueis said. “But since you’ve grasped the truth of it, I offer a confession. Yes, I deliberately goaded you.”

“You came to Chandrila to make certain that my father’s spies would see us together.”

“Once more, correct. You make me proud of you.”

Palpatine ignored the flattery. “You used me.”

“There was no other way.”

Palpatine shook his head in angry disbelief. “Was any of the story about your siblings true?”

“Some of it. But that scarcely matters now. You asked for my help and I provided it. Your father attempted to thwart you, and you acted of your own free will.”

“And by killing him I’ve rid you of an opponent.” Palpatine paused. “My father was right about you. You are a gangster.”

“And you are free and wealthy,” Plagueis said. “So what now, young human? I continue to have great hopes for you, but before I could tell you everything I needed you to be free.”

“Free from what?”

“From fear of expressing your true nature.”

Palpatine’s expression darkened. “You know nothing of my true nature.” He paced away from Plagueis, then stopped and turned to him. “You never asked about the killings.”

“I’ve never been one for grim details,” Plagueis said. “But if you need to unburden yourself, do so.”

Palpatine raised his clawed hands. “I executed them with these! And with the power of my mind. I became a storm, Magister—a weapon strong enough to warp bulkheads and hurl bodies across cabinspaces. I was death itself!”

Plagueis sat tall in the chair, in genuine astonishment.

He could see Palpatine now in all his dark glory. Anger and murder had pulled down the walls he had raised perhaps since infancy to safeguard his secret. But there was no concealing it now: the Force was powerful in him! Bottled up for seventeen standard years, his innate power had finally burst forth and could never again be stoppered. All the years of repression, guiltless crimes, raw emotion bubbling forth, toxic to any who dared touch or taste it. But beneath his anger lurked a subtle enemy: apprehension. Newly reborn, he was at great risk. But only because he didn’t realize just how powerful he was or how extraordinarily powerful he could become. He would need help to complete his self-destruction. He would need help rebuilding those walls, to keep from being discovered.

Oh, what a cautious taming he would require! Plagueis thought. But what an ally he might make. What an ally!

“I’m not sure I know what to think of this, Palpatine,” he said at last. “Have you always had such powers?”

Color had drained from Palpatine’s face, and his legs were shaking. “I’ve always known I was capable of summoning them.”

Plagueis rose from the chair and approached him warily. “Here is where the path bifurcates, young human. Here and now you need to decide whether to disavow your power or to venture courageously and scrupulously into the depths of truth—no matter the consequences.”

He resisted an urge to grasp Palpatine by the shoulder, and instead paced away from him. “You could devote the rest of your life to trying to make sense of this power, this gift,” he said, without looking back. “Or you could consider a different option.” He swung to face Palpatine. “It’s a dark path into a trackless wilderness from which few return. Not without a guide, at any rate. But it is also the shortest, quickest route between today and tomorrow.”

Plagueis realized that he was taking a great gamble, but there was no turning back from it. The dark side had brought them together, and it would be the will of the dark side that decided whether Palpatine became his apprentice.

“In your studies,” he said carefully, “have you ever learned of the Sith?”

Palpatine blinked, as if preoccupied. “A Jedi sect, weren’t they? The result of a kind of family feud.”

“Yes, yes, in some ways just that. But more: the Sith are the prodigal offspring, destined to return and overthrow the Jedi.”

Palpatine cut his eyes to Plagueis. “The Sith are considered to be evil.”

“Evil?” Plagueis repeated. “What is that? Moments ago you defined yourself as a storm. You said you were death itself. Are you evil, then, or are you simply stronger and more awake than others? Who gives more shape to sentient history: the good, who adhere to the tried and true, or those who seek to rouse beings from their stupor and lead them to glory? A storm you are, but a much-needed one, to wash away the old and complacent and prune the galaxy of deadweight.”

Palpatine’s lip curled in anger and menace. “Is this the wisdom you offer—the tenets of some arcane cult?”

“The test of its value is whether you can live by it, Palpatine.”

“If I had wanted that I would have forced my parents years ago to surrender me to the Jedi Order instead of transferring me from school to private school.”

Plagueis planted his hands on his hips and laughed without mirth. “And of what possible use do you think a person of your nature would be to the Jedi Order? You’re heartless, ambitious, arrogant, insidious, and without shame or empathy. More, you’re a murderer.” He held Palpatine’s hooded gaze and watched the youth’s hands clench in fists of rage. “Careful, boy,” he said after a moment. “You are not the only being in this plush stateroom with the power to kill.”

Palpatine’s eyes opened wide and he took a step back. “I can sense it …”

Plagueis grew deliberately haughty. “What you sense is a fraction of what I can bring to bear.”

Palpatine appeared suitably chastened. “Might I be of some use to the Sith?”

“Possibly,” Plagueis said. “Perhaps even likely. But we would have to wait and see.”

“Where are the Sith?”

Plagueis allowed a smile. “Just now there is only one. Unless, of course, it is your will to join me.”

Palpatine nodded. “I do wish to join you.”

“Then kneel before me and pledge that it is your will to join your destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords.”

Palpatine stared at the floor, then genuflected, uttering, “It is my will to join my destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords.”

Plagueis extended his left hand to touch him on the crown of the head. “Then it is done. From this day forward, the truth of you, now and forever more, will be Sidious.”

When Palpatine stood, Plagueis took him by the shoulders.

“In time you will come to understand that you are one with the dark side of the Force, and that your power is beyond contradiction. But just now, and until I tell you differently, abiding submission is your only road to salvation.”