Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

too drunk or drugged to attend the morning session. None would die, but several might have to be threatened. And yet, Damask continued to fret over the outcome …
    Following the performance, he and Palpatine joined a select group of politicians that included Orn Free Taa and Mas Amedda for a late dinner in a private room in the Manarai.
    Then they retired to Damask’s penthouse.
    Plagueis had given the Sun Guards the night off, and the only other intelligence in the sprawling apartment was the droid 11-4D, their servant for the occasion, pouring wine into expensive glassware as they removed their cloaks.
    “Sullustan,” Plagueis said, holding the glass up to the light and swirling its claret contents. “More than half a century old.”
    “A toast, then,” Sidious said. “To the culmination of decades of brilliant planning and execution.”
    “And to the new meaning we will tomorrow impart to the Rule of Two.”
    They drained their glasses, and 11-4D immediately refilled them.
    “Only you could have brought this to fruition, Darth Plagueis,” Sidious said, settling into a chair. “I will endeavor to live up your expectations and fulfill my responsibility.”
    Plagueis took the compliment in stride, neither haughty nor embarrassed. “With my guidance and your charisma, we will soon be in a position to initiate the final act of the Grand Plan.” Making himself more comfortable on the couch, he signaled for 11-4D to open a second bottle of the vintage. “Have you given thought to what you will say tomorrow?”
    “I have prepared some remarks,” Sidious said. “Shall I spoil the surprise?”
    “Why not.”
    Sidious took a moment to compose himself. “To begin, I thought I would say, that, while we in the Senate have managed to keep the Republic intact for a thousand years, we would never have been able to do so without the assistance of a few beings, largely invisible to the public eye, whose accomplishments now need to be brought into the light of day.”
    Plagueis smiled. “I’m pleased. Go on.”
    Speaking in a low monotone, Sidious said, “Hego Damask is one of those beings. It was Hego Damask who was responsible for overseeing development of the Republic Reserve Administration and for providing financial support for the Resettlement Acts that enabled beings to blaze new hyperspace routes to the outlying systems and colonize distant worlds.”
    “That will come as a revelation to some.”
    “In a similar fashion, it was Hego Damask who transformed the Trade Federation—”
    “No, no,” Plagueis interrupted. “Now is not the time to mention the Trade Federation.”
    “I thought—”
    “I don’t see any problem with calling attention to the arrangementsI facilitated between the Republic and the Corporate Alliance and the Techno Union. But we must take care to avoid areas of controversy.”
    “Of course,” Sidious said, as if chastised. “I was speaking off the top of my head.”
    “Try a different approach.”
    So Sidious did.
    And as the night wore on, he continued to amend and improvise, touching on Damask’s childhood on Mygeeto and on the elder Damask’s contributions to the InterGalactic Banking Clan during his term as co-chair. Wineglass in hand, Sidious paced the richly carpeted floor, often vacillating between confidence and misgiving. More than once, Plagueis voiced satisfaction with everything he heard, but he urged Sidious to save his energy for the morning. By then, though, Sidious was too wound up to heed the advice and kept reworking the order of the remarks and the emphasis he gave to certain points.
    The droid brought out a third, then a fourth bottle of the Sullustan wine.
    Pleasantly intoxicated, Plagueis, who had wanted nothing more than to revel in the sweet taste of victory, was beginning to find his collaborator’s performance exhausting, and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and drift into imaginings of his march into the Senate Rotunda; the looks of surprise, astonishment, and trepidation on the faces of the gathered Senators; his long-anticipated emergence from the shadows; his ascension to galactic power …
    Unfortunately, Sidious wouldn’t let him.
    “That’s enough for now,” Plagueis tried one final time. “You should probably return home and get at least a few hours’ rest before—”
    “Just one more time—from the beginning.”
    “The beginning?”
    “Lord Plagueis, you said you wouldn’t rest until our win was a matter of