Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

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 despitetheir 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.