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i.
“Your problem is that you don’t know how to enjoy yourself.”
Two beings, both richly robed – each in the style of their own planets – sit amongst the pot plants and empty armchairs of the Republic’s consulate on Cerra III. One a human and the other a twi’lek. Both of them are senior politicians and maintaining a collegial affability despite their cultural and ideological differences.
Enhance.
The twi’lek, owning the comfortable obesity of a true hedonist, leans back smiling warmly at his human colleague. He is not armed, but his red-skinned assistant carries a sleek blaster and a ceremonial blade.
“It’s true what I say. They sense it, you know… the locals think you’re aloof.”
Vocal signature: Senator Orn Free Taa of Ryloth.
The human, small for a male of his species, and homely rather than handsome, nevertheless exudes a dignity that makes his features quietly compelling. He is said to be a subtle, considered man – as far from the exuberant twi’lek as it is possible to be.
Target identified: Senator Palpatine of Naboo.
“I’m aware.” The target nods politely to his colleague and returns the smile without showing his teeth. “I trust that you are enough of a party animal for the both of us.”
“Hah!” Senator Taa snaps his fingers and his nubile young aide refills his glass with a brightly coloured intoxicant. “You should come to my party tonight. Off-planet communication will be impossible during the meteor storm – they’re saying even the local satellites might go down.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” the target replies softly, taking a sip of kaff.
“What you need is a woman.”
The target blinks, almost losing a mouthful of kaff. “I beg your pardon?”
The twi’lek senator raises his fat hands, conciliatory. “Or a man – I make no judgements! – just not that anemic secretary of yours.”
“I shall tell Pestage you said that.”
“You misunderstand. I like you, senator, you’re clever. But you don’t have a strategy for these receptions. Everyone sees you lurking like a shadow. Do you fish?”
“My father did.”
“Then you know something of the sport. A shiny lure for all the little fishes… you understand?”
“I’m afraid not, Senator Taa.”
“Vergobret Ra-chi had the most delightful reception last night.” Senator Ta gives a luxuriant sigh. “It wasn’t an official function, but he invited me. Why do you think that is?”
“I would assume that he values your company.”
“Not at all! He dislikes me intensely.” Thick blue fingers reach up to stroke the aide’s cheek. “But he likes Gorla very much.” The young woman laughs, but her heartrate does not accelerate. “You underestimate beauty, senator, because it is not something you value.”
The target tilts his head, regarding the young female thoughtfully. “What is your opinion, Lady Gorla?”
The aide, surprised to be addressed, smiles at the target. “Some company might do you good, Senator, and… like guttkur, diplomats hunt better in packs.”
“Ha!” Senator Taa foundles Gorla’s backside. “You see?”
The target smiles enigmatically. “I’ll consider it.”
ii.
The sky over Cerra III is bright with death. Meteors dance across the city’s shields like fireworks and rain fire over those beyond. To Lord Sidious, the fear is louder than the excitement of those gathered to view the meteor showers from the safety of the urban forcefield. Huddling in caves, tunnels, and cellars beings cling to one another, begging an indifferent universe to spare their lives and hating the vergobrets who refused them shelter.
It is beautiful.
A meteor strikes overhead. All is noise and light, the shield ripples, and then cheers and clapping erupt from the balconies below Sidious’ own. A youngling sits on someone’s shoulders, waving a glowstick and squealing.
He and Senator Taa are here to persuade the Cerrans to join the Republic. But tonight, it’s easy to sense that the planet will be rife with civil war within a standard year. A wise ambassador would advise the Senate to wait before admitting them, but it would be best to ensure the Cerrans join before the violence escalates. Another messy task to occupy the Jedi.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
His secretary stands behind him, but the Sith Lord does not turn, contenting himself with waving Pestage away. What was it Taa called him? Anemic. “Nothing more tonight.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
He has an invitation to Taa’s evening entertainment but has little desire to spend time with the venal and grasping creatures frolicking in his colleague’s decadent penthouse suite. It disturbs him that their time together on Cerra III has given the twi’lek enough insight to realise that their notions of beauty differ profoundly. Perhaps it would be a good idea to feign more typical attractions… for now.
I don’t have time for this.
Retreating from the balcony, he can feel the floor vibrating as another meteor strikes the city’s shields. The Force is alive with excitement and terror.
A high-pitched noise slices through the chaos and Sidious ducks just in time, rolling out of the arc of fire. Spars of red light flash overhead. There will be no help – no one will hear anything over the chaos in the sky. His hand twitches as he drops behind the couch but his lightsabre is with the rest of his luggage – inaccessible.
The Dark Lord closes his eyes. A lone assassin, aided by a targeting droid. He reaches up, catching the blast in his fingers and flicking it towards the droid. It screeches, colliding with a viewscreen in an explosion of glass and sparks. Grinding his teeth, Sidious flings out his other hand and presses his thumb down hard on empty air.
The assassin chokes, wriggling, and drops the blaster.
The Sith Lord stands, regarding the figure for the first time with his own eyes rather than those of the Force. A slight figure clad in cheap black armour. Local talent. His fingers close around the blaster, releasing the pressure on the assassin’s neck as he angles the weapon under its owner’s chin.
“Who sent you?”
The assassin hisses and attempts to knee him in the groin. Pathetic.
“Who sent you?”
iii.
Likelihood of target elimination: ninety-eight percent with a two percent risk factor owing to one significant variable. Senator Palpatine of Naboo: combat training unknown.Even for a professional like Aliss, the statement still stands. She’s never seen anything like it.
“Contract… c-confidential!” she gasps out, trying not to clutch her collar, looking for a way to get out without him pulling the trigger. He’ll do it too. Those steady blue eyes tell her it wouldn’t be the first time. She should have put down the extra credits for an identity-locked weapon.
“Listen,” a deep voice purrs, a sliver of nightmare leaking into reality. “I’m good at this… but I’m better at what follows. So, if you don’t want every thought you’ve ever had leaking out of your broken mind before I pitch your body over the balcony, you will stop struggling.”
Aliss stops struggling. She has no idea how he plans to make good on the threat – drugs, torture, hypnosis? – but there’s no bluff in that calm face. None whatsoever. Non-compliance has a hundred percent chance of termination.
“That’s better. Take off your helmet – slowly.”
He doesn’t gasp, or laugh, or comment on her appearance like most men would.
“Tell me what you know,” he orders flatly, pulling back, sitting down, and waving her to a chair as though his suite weren’t half destroyed. Aliss has to fight not to collapse in relief.
“It’s a standard agency contract – I don’t know the who the client is – but there’s plenty here who don’t want to see us join the Republic.”
“I see.” He turns her blaster over in his hands. “So… what is your name and why should I let you live?”
“I’ll take out a new contract with you,” she says quickly, trying not to sound desperate. “Security. Local intel. You won’t regret it.”
“And what’s my guarantee that you won’t try to collect on your original contract?”
“Simple. You’ll pay me more than two-thousand credits, which is all those cheap bastards thought you were worth. You don’t keep a large retinue like the other senator. They said it would be easy to kill you when you were alone.”
“Two-thousand, really?” The mild-mannered indignation would be more believable if he wasn’t still holding her weapon.
“Yeah. Disappointed?
The senator clenches his jaw and his pupils dilate. “By the time I’m finished with this galaxy, my death will be a portal to chaos, and greater warriors than you will have failed for a far steeper price.” It doesn’t sound like a boast. Either what he’s saying is true or he’s insane. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
“It’s Aliss.”
The probable megalomaniac – her implant is busy calculating the likelihood of various antisocial personality disorders – nods. “Well, Aliss, I’ll pay you five-hundred credits a day. My secretary will write up a contract. Does your agency know what you look like beneath that helmet?”
“No.” For five-hundred a day she will defend him to the death, however many undiagnosed conditions he has.
“Good. Then you can be my plus one tonight.”
What the kriff?“But I… I don’t have a dress.”
“Then I suggest you find one. Take my card… oh, and your blaster.”
Her new client hands it back like a toy he’s all but forgotten about.
iv.
Aliss isn’t her real name, that’s plain, but Lord Sidious won’t ask for another. The name you choose carries more weight than a name you are given. Beneath the scruffy black helmet is a face even Orn Free Taa would find compelling. Violet eyes, black hair pulled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, and the luminous mauve skin and vestigial antennae common to all Cerran females. But what he finds beautiful about her is the way she adapts. The calculation in those bright eyes. The way she watches everyone around her.
A pity she has no connection to the Force.
The dress splashes a deep glittering V across her chest. A silken star-filled sky, slit at the leg and concealing her weapon. Dancer’s flats rather than heels.
“You look beautiful.”
And she does, unquestionably, but it does not touch him any more than a finely wrought sculpture. Even when he takes her arm and breathes in the expensive perfume she’s bought with his credits. Cerran flowers whose scents he cannot name.
“Thanks.” She looks at him critically. “Aren’t you going to change?”
“Into what?” he asks, quirking his lips.
“You made me dress up. Aren’t you going to… dress down?”
“Oh… all I packed were formal clothes, sleepwear, and a few cloaks. They all think I’m a stuffed shirt anyway. We Naboo don’t believe in laying aside our ceremonial garments. These robes were designed to express our desire for intergalactic fellowship.” He manages to say it with a straight face.
Aliss gives him a look, not sure if he’s serious or not, and it amuses him to keep her guessing. A lightsabre, tucked invisibly into an interior pocket, is the only accessory he felt compelled to add for tonight’s entertainment. Who knew how many fools might attempt to claim the miserly bounty some idiotic Cerran placed on his head?
The party is in full swing by the time they arrive. Lights dance and the din of the music vies with the boom of the meteorites overhead. Sweat, perfume, and the saccharine scents of atomised narcotics cling to the bodies swaying on the dance floor. Orn Free Taa, lounging on what might be termed a throne with two twi’lek females fondling his lekku and feeding him canapes, cries out in pleasure when he sees them, waving them over.
“Senator, you’ve taken my advice!”
“As you say.”
“A local beauty – ahah – a little intergalactic relations, hm?” The twi’lek senator winks at him and Taa’s attendants titter at the joke. “Very diplomatic. Our hosts will be pleased.” He turns to Aliss, yellow eyes drinking her in. “And how did you meet my esteemed colleague?”
“I…”
“We met in the hotel lobby,” Sidious says smoothly. “She had a meeting with one of the guests and I convinced her to mix business with pleasure.”
v.
Visibility is at sixty-seven percent. The target – client – skirts the edges of the room. His profile indicated a solitary, introverted personality. His conversations with his fellow guests are mostly one-sided. He listens as others speak. Aliss places four possible hostiles. Despite not taking any of the various substances on offer, she can feel the vapoursleaking in through her exposed pores, interfering with her implants and causing her performance predictions to fluctuate. Her capacities remain within acceptable parameters, but it’s enough to make her nervous.
She’s not entirely comfortable with the stares that follow her. The shimmering black dress feels so insubstantial, like walking around naked. Retail activity had finished for the day when the client dispatched her to find one but, for a large fee, the concierge took her measurements and had a dress ready within the hour. There had been a small argument over the shoes but Aliss had insisted. Heels would have made her taller than the client and limited her movement. If she’d wanted to become some rich aristocrat’s toy she wouldn’t have gone into debt with the agency for her implants. She wonders how many of the other women have explosive devices crammed into their decorative clutch bags. The probability is low but her paranoia is stronger than the statistics the implant feeds her.
Wealthy guests attempt to pull her away from the client onto the dance floor. The client smiles gently and tells her it’s fine but she refuses as politely as she can. Losing sight of the client would be extremely unprofessional. He is having an intense discussion with an off-duty government official about import tariffs. The cousin of a vergobret. She brings them food and drinks: wine, rare ujala juice, and sculptural canapes filled with smoked meat and rich sauce. She has worked for wealthy clients before but this party displays a level of largesse only found off-world.
By the time the conversation ends, the client is lightly intoxicated. He asks her to dance. The music is slow and rhythmic, occasionally disrupted by the percussive effect of the meteors. Aliss is glad her family are long dead. They have not lived to see the vergobrets abandon their people. If she performs her duties effectively, perhaps the client will take her with him when he leaves. It would be easy for him to obtain a diplomatic passport for her. She does not know whether or not she would miss her home planet but she will not miss its people.
“What are you thinking?” the client murmurs in her ear as they sway. He holds her like a vase rather than a woman. Firm, gentle, and with no hint of interest. Her implant puts like likelihood of sexual relations between them at fifty-eight percent and rising, but she can sense his lack of interest. His flirtations are performative. It is reassuring.
“Nothing.”
“Indulge me.”
“I was thinking how much I hate everyone here.”
“Mm…” he hums, visibly delighted, as though she’d just kissed him. “Tell me.”
“They’re parasites,” she hisses, “feeding off everyone else – I’d kill everyone in this room if I thought I could get away with it.”
“Even me?” He tilts his head, smiling.
Too late, she remembers herself. “You’re my client. I would take you to a secure location out of the blast radius.”
“How reassuring. I suppose I wouldn’t mind… as long as I have a good view.”
iv.
The lights are pulsing. Sidious is only as inebriated as politeness demands, but it’s enough to give the room a febrile heartbeat. Only after a second does he recall that the storm is without rather than within. His new bodyguard is, fortunately, still sober and takes charge of getting him back to his suite. Back home they call it moon-glow – the drunk of gilded summer festivals under the stars – but he is far from Naboo on a planet under siege by the sky itself.
Instead of coming down on his head, the shock-stick swings wide. He rolls sideways, laughing, and kicks one of his attackers in the neck. Screams and blaster fire ricochet down the corridor. The scent of copper and burning flesh combine to effect his system more powerfully than any intoxicant. A Cerran demon in the remnants of a silk dress is locked in hand to hand combat with a heavy-set Trandoshan, her blaster-arm pinned down. Two assassins are on the floor but one is getting up, murder in his eyes.
Death crackles out of his fingers and the assassin spasms wildly and goes still, while a beam of scarlet energy severs the Trandoshan’s legs from his reptilian torso. It’s only when the second piece of him hits the floor that Sidious realises he’s still laughing and that Aliss is staring at him in open-mouthed amazement.
He deactivates his lightsabre and tucks it back inside his robes. It’s a pity he has to kill her now. He rather enjoyed his evening with the hired killer cum bodyguard. A lure. Yes, he saw what Taa meant. The way gazes followed her and slid past him. But perhaps it’s better to get rid of her and find a suitable replacement back on Coruscant. Someone with more polish and the right connections.
“I have pinged the authorities,” she says quietly, watching him. “But the network is down. They won’t get the message until communications come back online.”
v.
This is what comes of pinning your hopes on a client with a sixty-nine percent chance of some form of deep psychosis. He doesn’t move like a man with implants. It’s more like the legends she’s heard of sorcerers as a child. Magic. But she’s seen that face before. The look of someone with a secret they will kill to protect.
Aliss has 4.3 seconds.
She kisses him because it’s the first suggestion the implant comes up that has a viable success rate. His lips are dry, his mouth very still as he follows through his own internal calculations. Not enough. Taking a deep breath, she slaps him across the cheek before kissing him again, harder this time, pushing him against the wall. A technique she has seen on a popular Holodrama.
He’s smiling. Not the feral grin from before, but something softer, and he reaches up to touch her forehead. “Your face is bleeding.” Who are you, she wants to ask, what are you? But those questions will lead his mind back to what she shouldn’t have witnessed. “And your dress is in shreds.” He takes off his outer cloak and wraps it around her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
They walk the rest of the way to the senator’s suite in silence.
vi.
“Earlier… you said your death would be a portal to chaos, what did you mean by that?”
They’re sitting in his lounge eating room service. Aliss moves more easily in her skin-suit and gambeson and he’s had a wash and changed into his night garments. It’ll be dawn soon but fire still reigns in the paling sky. He has time to consider the young woman’s fate.
Sidious leans back and closes his eyes. “I was like you once. All disaffected malice.”
“Did you grow up on the streets, senator?” She rolls her eyes at what she considers to be patrician affectation.
“No.”
“Then you were never like me.”
“Perhaps not. If I ordered you to kill someone would you do it?”
“Depends on the someone. You still owe me for my targeting droid.”
Sidious waves a hand dismissively. “Your droid wasn’t worth more than the bond I’m losing on this suite, so I’d call us even if I were you.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Noticed that, did you?”
“I notice everything.”
He opens his eyes, taking in her steady gaze, the way she perches easily on the arm of the couch. “How do you manage that?”
“I have implants.”
“Ah, the fabled Cerran cybertechnology. I mustsay, it doesn’t show. What do they do?”
“I can predict movements, behaviours… analyse situations more effectively. I don’t have an eidetic memory, but the implant has perfect recall and I can access it if I need to.”
How very interesting. “And what did that cost you?”
“It wasn’t so bad. The technology was experimental back then. It still cost more than I could afford, but the elite kit means I can work off the debt.”
“I guessed that much. What did it do to your brain?”
“Oh.” She looks away with a shrug. “A few years off my lifespan, the usual caveats… it’s hard to tell.”
“Back in the corridor you wanted to run, but instead you kissed me.”
“Running wasn’t a viable strategy.”
“You must be wonderful at dejarik. Care for a game?”
“Sure.”
vii.
The client is a good player. She wins the first match, to impress him, and then attempts to let him win the second to avoid touching his pride. But he counters this strategy by making deliberate mistakes until she has no option but to beat him a second time. The third game he wins on his own merits.
“You play like a droid when pushed into a corner,” he tells her afterwards. “You let the implant do too much of your thinking for you.”
“Story of my life.”
He frowns, lacing his fingers – those fingers that can call a storm from empty air – together and staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. “And what do you want to do with that life exactly?”
“Pay off my debt. Leave this planet.”
“Trivialities.” He shakes his head. “Try again.”
“I want to be free.”
The client laughs. “No one is free, Aliss. We are all slaves to someone… or something.”
“Even you?”
“Oh yes. Perhaps, when all is done, I will know something of true freedom… but even the hand the holds the chain cannot let it go. However, a mind like yours will only ever shine in harness because you haven’t the genius to rise above your programming. That much was clear from your play.”
This too is a test.
“I…”
Her implants were not programmed by philosophers. What answer does he want to hear?
“I want to change the way things work. I want the meteors to fall on the ones who left my people outside to die.”
A slow smile spreads across the client’s thin lips. “Better.”
viii.
“It’s so romantic!” squeals the junior attaché to the Naboo delegation. “Falling in love during a meteor storm, can you imagine?”
Sidious bites his lower lip, feigning deafness as his staff discuss his private life in the corridor.
“Don’t you think he’s a little old for her?”
“Oh, grow up, Kordé! What do you know about Cerran lifecycles, anyway? Pestage asked me to make reservations for them at the opera tonight. He’s smitten.”
“I don’t know. The senator is so very… particular. I can’t imagine him married, can you?”
“Who said anything about marriage? She’s not Naboo and he’s not wearing courting colours. It’s an affair of the heart.”
“Excuse me,” another feminine voice, with a lilting Cerran accent, chimes in. “I’m looking for Senator Palpatine’s office.”
“Oh, Lady Aliss – just through there!”
The door hisses open and Aliss walks in, dressed for their evening entertainment in a low-cut gown with a wookie coat around her shoulders, the animal’s soft fur dyed a brilliant crimson. Conscious of their audience, she kisses him just below the ear. “Senator.”
“That’s new,” he murmurs, admiring the coat. “My favourite colour.”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Of course. What’s the chance that Malastare will vote against Chancellor Valorum’s latest raft of trade proposals?”
“Considering Senator Aks Moe’s history of taking Federation bribes, I would say there's a seventy-four percent chance he will pursue a course contrary to his planet’s own strategic interests.”
“My dear, your words are music to my ears.”
They walk out into the scintillating night, arm in arm, leaving onlookers to make what assumptions they will.