Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

transform, and they waited.
    The Shi’ido did not disappoint him. And the moment he began to shift—from Askajian to what might have been either an Ongree or a Gotal—11-4D activated the laser weapon hidden in its right arm and fired a tightbeam into the base of the Shi’ido’s brain.
    The momentarily monstrous medley of species loosed a tormented scream and collapsed to the floor of the tunnel, squirming in pain. Moving quickly, 11-4D dragged him deeper into the dimness, where Plagueis positioned himself behind the skinshifter’s grotesquely bulging cranium, uneven shoulders, and hunched back.
    “Why did you transfer your winnings to Kerred Santhe?” Plagueis asked.
    The Shi’ido’s twisted mouth struggled to form a response. “Are you with the Gaming Authority?”
    “You only wish. Again: Why Kerred Santhe?”
    “Gambling debts,” the Shi’ido slurred, as slaver dripped to the ground. “He’s in debt to a couple of Black Sun Vigos and other lenders.”
    “Santhe is one of the galaxy’s wealthiest beings,” Plagueis pressed. “Why would he need what you’ve been stealing from casinos from here to Coruscant?”
    “He’s millions in debt. He hasn’t stopped drinking and gambling since his father was assassinated.”
    Brilliantly assassinated, Plagueis thought. “Even so, Black Sun would never target him.”
    The Forceful Shi’ido craned his lumpy neck in an effort to get a look at his inquisitor. “He knows that. But the Vigos are threatening to go public with the information. A scandal could persuade Santhe/Sienar’s board of directors to oust him as chief operating officer and appoint Narro Sienar as his replacement.”
    Plagueis laughed shortly in a surprised but satisfied way. “As well they should, skinshifter.” He stood and began to move off. “You’ve been most helpful. You’re free to go.”
    “You can’t leave me like this,” the Shi’ido begged.
    Plagueis came to a halt and returned to his victim. “If you were funding terrorism or purchasing weapons, I might have allowed youto continue fleecing the casinos. But by fattening Black Sun’s coffers and protecting the reputation of an enemy of one of my friends, you become my enemy, as well.” He lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “Consider this: you have one last chance to use your Force talents to win big before your horrid image becomes the centerpiece of the cheaters database on every gambling world. I suggest you use your winnings wisely to make a new life for yourself where the Gaming Authority won’t be able to find you, and I won’t come looking for you.”
    To say that the planet Saleucami was the bright spot of its system meant merely that it alone, among half a dozen airless and desolate worlds, was capable of supporting life. Its own bright spots were not, as one might suspect, those areas that hadn’t yet been victimized by meteor bombardments, but rather some of the impact craters the ceaseless celestial storm had left behind. For there the meteor strikes had conjured mineral-rich underground waters to the arid surface, turning the craters into caldera lakes, and the environs into oases of orbiculate flora.
    Blue-skinned, yellow-eyed bipeds from the far side of the Core had been the first to colonize Saleucami, which meant “oasis” in their tongue, for the world was just that among those they had visited during the long journey from Wroona. Since then had come hearty groups of Weequay, Gran, and Twi’leks, in flight from conflicts or in search of hardscrabble isolation, and up to the tasks of farming the colorless ground for moisture and subsisting on tasteless root crops that withered in the midday heat and froze solid at night. Eventually the planet had given rise to a city and a spaceport, constructed in the shadow of one of the calderas nourished by geothermal energy.
    Saleucami’s more recent immigrants were of a different sort: young beings from worlds as distant as Glee Anselm and Arkania, dressed in tattered clothing and carrying their possessions on their backs. Drifters and searchers arriving in the battered transports and tramp freighters that served the Outer Rim systems. Male and female, though three times the latter to the former, distinguished by what some saw as a restless gaze and others the look of the lost. At first the native colonists didn’t know what to make of these feckless wanderers, but gradually an entire industry had grown up to cater to their simple if peculiar