Chapter Ninety Three

As Sidious had feared, Mace had kept any outside influence away from Anakin over the years, and in many ways the boy was a poster child for the Jedi Order now. But there were still cracks there, and the boy's ego had grown too much.

Push the two of them to take more important and more visible missions from now on; force him into the limelight and start creating a public image that Anakin will feel as both his just due and something to live up to, thereby manipulating both him and Windu further. Windu will not let that go too far without nipping it in the bud, but that can be used to drive a further wedge between them, one Windu will not see coming.

After that I can initiate further conversations about the nature of power and why Windu might be purposefully holding him back. After all, what Master would like to be surpassed by his student at such a young age… Yes, that message will find fertile ground here.

On top of that are the interesting feelings I was able to sense when I mentioned the Amidala bitch, Sidious mused after signing off, allowing his public persona to slough off his face, revealing the cold, controlled visage of Darth Sidious beneath. Whether a crush, 'love,' or obsession, that could be used later on to manipulate the youth further. It is certainly not a mere physical attraction, though that would no doubt become part of it if they met again.

I can manipulate events to create such a meeting soon, but not quite yet. Perhaps… Yes, Amidala has already started to be courted by the disarmament faction in the Senate, despite the fact her own planet has a native military that is among the best, if least offensively minded, in the sector. If she joins them she will bring numerous votes to join that group, a threat that needs to be dealt with by the Armament faction, many of whom I can use as a fall out for the assassination attempt via my confederate patsies. Place Anakin in a position to save her, and that will make for a fine reintroduction.

Setting aside those thoughts and, indeed, thoughts on the Senate as a whole, where the Great Plan was proceeding like clockwork, Sidious turned his thoughts to the portions of the plans which were not going as well as he wished them to.

The Order is not the weak, moribund, and, above all, paranoid and reactionary thing it should be, at least not all of it. There are more Sentinels and more Guardians now than I would have liked to see at this stage. And Jedi deaths are down from where the Great Plan projected them to be. Master Ranicisis' reforms and Yoda's push for these new techniques are slowly remaking the Order. But they are going too slowly.

Still, because they are pushing for those reforms there are many cracks within the Order. Many of the Order's members might be more ready for what is to come, but the Order as a whole has lost much of its unity. There are fracture points which my agents within the Order can use, and, once their unity is shattered, more Jedi will fall to the Dark Side, thus wrecking their public persona further and leaving them all more vulnerable.

My plans to set C'boath and others up as the voices of the true Jedi, making them the head of the Secessionist block, is not proceeding as well as I could hope, but it will come in time and will possibly even spark an outright civil war within the Order. The fact that Serenno has become such a hotbed of secession will also force the Order to take sides within the next year or move off planet. At this point I would take either as a win, given my frustrating inability to get an agent into the training center on a full time basis and my equally frustrating inability to rouse local sentiment against them. I don't know who to curse more, Tholme and his security reforms, or Vosa and the way she has been able to keep the Jedi's public persona there so positive.

On further reflection, Sidious decided that it was Tholme, since despite its importance in its sector, Serenno was not important in itself: rather, the training center was. Yes, Tholme and that Vurk, Trebor, are a threat I did not foresee, despite the fact I have been able to lead the Order's attempts to find 'the brotherhood' around by its nose. Still, my tools to deal with them are ready now…

That thought was sparked by a nearby computer screen beeping at him, the sign that a series of codes had been activated, telling him that the Scimitar, or rather, a Scimitar, had arrived. The ship had been replicated five times now, though its current pilot had no way of knowing that, nor the fact that he himself was one of many.

Sidious smoothly finished some more hours of his work as Chancellor before retreating into his public quarters and from there into his sanctum, hidden from any attempt via electronics or the Force to find him. There he found Darth Maul, or rather, the first clone of said to return. He had several new scars and a few missing horns, but beyond that the Zabrak looked none the worse for wear from his duel with himself.

"Good, my apprentice, you have arrived. I knew the original would defeat that foolish creation of Plagueis'. While you have been gone I have continued the plan apace, else I would have halted the duel between you on Wayland. It is one of many mistakes I have been forced to clear up in the past few years. Still, you are here now, and that is important, for the Sith have need of you." Sidious said all this while watching his apprentice for any sign that the indoctrination had failed or had developed cracks, his Force powers reaching into the other's mind so subtly that Maul himself didn't feel it, let alone any Jedi up in their Temple through the intervening minds of Coruscant's masses.

There was nothing, only the enhanced rage, anger, and paranoia which Sidious had hoped to see. Having been forced to give himself to the Dark Side to a greater degree than ever before in order to combat himself, Darth Maul was now even more of a blunt object than before, but an even more dangerous one. Good. He is no longer truly worth the Darth name, but he will perform his tasks well. The experiment has proven itself.

"What is thy bidding, my master? I am your blade; direct me!" Maul said, going to one knee.

"Rise, my apprentice. We must start to strike at the Jedi, but in a very specific way. I have a task for you: a Jedi which must die without any word of how getting out. You must kill the Jedi Master known as Tholme. He will be on Ord Padron soon. Strike him there or somewhere else, I care not, but his continued push for more internal security within the Order must be halted." Sidious gestured, and a datapad flew through the air to be caught by the red-skinned Zabrak male. "You will find further information on him and his abilities on that. I will trust you to plan his assassination on your own. Do not fail me."

"Yes, Master," Maul replied, taking the datapad and leaving the room without another word.

Sidious smiled, moving to take a seat in his throne, letting the warm darkness of the room soothe his soul as he once more centered himself in the Dark Side. The next two clones of his former apprentice, winners of matches against their fellows, would soon be online, and, given the way this one's indoctrination had worked, Sidious was certain theirs would too. One would lead the other 'special' clones into the Corellian Sector inNubus, further causing disunity between the so-called Green Jedi and the rest of the Order, while also causing trouble for a major thorn in Sidious' side in the Senate.

A third would be sent back to the defunct Orsis academy with everything Sidious had collected about the new techniques the Order had developed, both rumored and not, to train in how to combat them. Sidious had developed the stunning technique and even refined it to a lethal level, and he had begun to be able to change his appearance slightly, but not a lot. The Force Shield still eluded him, let alone the remainder of the techniques C'boath had warned him that rumor within the Order said could be learned on Serenno.

I now have my true apprentice, who in turn has his own assassin and the clones of my former assassin. I have my secessionist block beginning to gather forces and my own army building. Another two years and the clones will also be ready, my dagger at the Order's back. Yes… Yes, despite all the minor setbacks, despite the changes the Order has made, despite their searches for what they thought was the Brotherhood, the Force is still on the side of the Sith. The Jedi's days are numbered...