Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

survey report and a mining probe.”
    The platform began to rise and the Gossams extended their long necks in fear. “We can make this right!” one of them said in a pleading voice.
    Damask eyed the ceiling. “Then be quick about it. The laser cannons fire automatically.”
    “Plasma!” the same one fairly shrieked. “An untapped reservoir of plasma! Enough to provide energy to a thousand worlds!”
    Damask signaled one of the Ugnaughts to halt the platform’s rise. “Where? On what world?”
    “Naboo,” the Gossam said; then louder: “Naboo!”
    Hill elaborated, though unnecessarily. “Something of a hermit planet in the Mid Rim, and capital of the Chommell sector. Relatively close to Tatooine, in fact. Once a source for the veermoks we had cloned for use as game in the greel forests.”
    Damask allowed him to finish and looked up at the Gossams. “Who hired you to conduct a mining survey?”
    “A faction in opposition to the monarchy, Magister.”
    “We swear it to be true,” another said.
    “This Naboo is ruled by a royal?” Damask asked.
    “A King,” the chief Gossam said. “His detractors wish to see the planet opened to galactic trade.”
    Damask paced away from the platform. He considered torturing the Gossams, to learn who had hired them to sabotage Tenebrous on Bal’demnic, but decided to leave that for another day, since the Bith was known to have had many adversaries. Turning finally, he ordered the Ugnaught to return the platform to the floor.
    “This plasma reservoir is as enormous as you claim?” he demanded.
    “Unique among known worlds,” the leader said in relief as he and his comrades stood shivering in Damask’s withering gaze.
    Damask regarded them in silence, then swung to the commander of the Sun Guards. “Transport them to the most remote world you can find in the Tingel Arm, and make certain they remain there in the event I have further need of them.”
    Leaving his fellow Muuns to rest, Damask climbed the fort’s eastern rampart for starrise. He was as weary as any of them but too dissatisfied with the outcome of the Gathering to find much comfort in sleep. On the chance that an untapped reservoir of plasma might be of interest to the disgruntled leadership of the Trade Federation—and ignoring for the moment the effect it could have on Malastare’s energy exports—he had ordered Hill and the others to learn everything they could about the planet Naboo and its isolationist monarch.
    Once the Gossams of Subtext Mining had been dealt with, Damask and the Muuns had devoted the rest of the evening to meeting with members of what they termed their steering committee, which was made up of select politicians, lobbyists, and industrialists; financiers representing Sestina, Aargau, and the Bank of the Core; elite members of the Order of the Canted Circle and the Trade Federation Directorate; and gifted ship designers, like Narro Sienar, whom Plagueis planned to support in his bid to become chief operating officer of Santhe/Sienar Technologies. The committee met periodically, though seldom on Sojourn, to assure the swift passage of corporate-friendly legislation; fix the price of such commodities as Tibanna gas, transparisteel, and starshipfuel; and keep Senators in place on Coruscant as career diplomats, as a means of distancing them from what was really taking place outside the Core.
    Not everyone agreed that the Muuns’ strategy of “tactical astriction” was the best method for keeping the Republic off-balance and thus ripe for manipulation. But Damask had insisted that their common goal of oligarchy—government by a select few—would eventually be realized, even if attained as a result of actions and events few would observe, and about which some of the membership might never learn.
    Starlight glinted from the hulls of the last of the departing ships. Damask took comfort in knowing that his guests believed they had taken part in something secretive and grand, and had been encouraged to execute campaigns that on the surface may have seemed informed by self-interest but were in fact bits of Sith business.
    Movements in the symphony that was the Grand Plan—
    Keening klaxons fractured the morning silence.
    Damask’s eyes narrowed and swept the surrounding forests for signs of disturbance. He had moved to the southernmost parapet when two Sun Guards hurried up the stairs in search of him.
    “Magister, the eastern perimeter has been breached,” one of them