Darth Plagueis - James Luceno [147]
For some time he had been aware that Sidious had grown critical of his fixation with unraveling the secrets of life and death. Surely Sidious felt as if Plagueis had made himself too much of a project, often to the neglect of the Grand Plan; that Plagueis had come to place more importance on his own survival than that of the Sith. Meanwhile, to Sidious had fallen the responsibility for arranging and executing the schemes that would place the two of them in power on Coruscant. Sidious directing galactic events in much the same way that Plagueis was overseeing the currents of the dark side. And yet the arrangement was as it should be, for Sidious had a gift for subterfuge that surpassed the talents of any of the Sith Lords who had preceded him, including Bane.
Plagueis found irony in the fact that Sidious had come to feel about him as he himself had felt about Tenebrous at the end of his long apprenticeship. Tenebrous trusted more in Bith science and computer projections than he had in the Sith arts … But Plagueis understood, too, that the time had come for him to rejoin the world and stand with Sidious to see this most important phase of the plan to fruition: Palpatine’s ascendancy to the chancellorship and the unprecedented appointment of Hego Damask as co-chancellor of the Republic. Ageless Hego Damask, as it would ultimately emerge. When that was behind them, they could turn to the bigger task of obliterating the Jedi Order.
Master Dooku’s dithering over leaving the Order came as no surprise. Yoda had taken Dooku from Serenno, but he had failed to take Serenno from Dooku. Twenty years earlier Plagueis had seen the stirrings of the dark side in him and had attempted since—whenever and wherever possible—to coax more of those latent powers to the surface. At Galidraan, in clandestine partnership with the local governor and members of the Death Watch to lure the Jedi into an ultimately hopeless confrontation with the True Mandalorians; at Yinchorr and Malastare; and most recently, through Sidious’s efforts, at Asmeru and Eriadu. Already strong in the Force, trained in combat, and a diplomat, as well, Dooku might have made for a powerful partner under different circumstances. Except for the fact that Dooku, unlike the Dathomiri Zabrak whom Sidious had trained, would never be content to serve as an apprentice or a mere assassin. He would demand to become a true Sith, and that would lead to trouble. A better course of action would be to allow Dooku to find his own way to the dark side—whatever version of it might be accessible to him through study of the Sith Holocrons the Jedi possessed. Better to have him leave the Order of his own accord and become the benevolent spokesperson for the disenfranchised, as one might expect from a being of high status. Yes, better to let him persuade worlds and systems to secede from the Republic and foment a civil war into which the Jedi could be drawn …
The sudden blare of klaxons put an abrupt end to his musings.
Time is short.
OneOne-FourDee returned, moving quickly for a droid. “Five battleships have been detected, Magister.”
“Ahead of schedule.”
“Perhaps your enemies received intelligence that their attack plan had been compromised.”
“A sound speculation, FourDee. Is the ship ready?”
“Standing by, Magister.”
After a final look around, Plagueis hurried out the gaping door that led to the courtyard, where the sleek starship designed by Rugess Nome and built by Raith Sienar was waiting. Styled loosely after a courier ship that had been commonplace during the ancient Sith Empire, the Infiltrator still looked as if it had flown out of the past. Just under thirty meters in length and shaped like a throwing dart, it had two