Saga - PT “Look what you made me brew”, a Palpatine one-shot (19 BBY)

Title: “Look what you made me brew”, a Palpatine one-shot

Summary: Necromancy is always eating away a lot of life force from the being who practices it. Therefore Sheev Palpatine is very exhausted. He just forced the soul of his niece into a new promising body, that still needs to grow in a clone tank. The most capable scientists of Kamino will help him to achieve that goal.

Time frame: The story takes place nine days after the failed coup of Headmaster Gentis on Coruscant (19 BBY). It is the follow up of my fanfic “Magic always comes with a price”, another Palpatine one-shot.

Continuity: Before the Saga – Legends mix-up

Length: One-shot

Genre: Drama with a bit of humour

Planet of choice: Kamino

Reader warning: Please excuse my weird English! I am German. English is only my Second language!

Disclaimer: SW is owned by George Lucas, Lucas Ltd. and now The Walt Disney Company


You remind me of the babe (what babe?)
The babe with the power (what power?)
The power of voodoo (who do?)
You do (do what?)
Remind me of the babe

I saw my baby, crying hard as babe could cry
What could I do?
My baby’s love had gone
And left my baby blue
Nobody knew
What kind of magic spell to use
Slime and snails
Or puppy dog tails?
Thunder or lightning
Then baby said

Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)
Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)
Put that baby’s spell on me
Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)
Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)
Put that magic jump on me
Slap that baby, make him free

I saw my baby, trying hard as babe could try
What could I do?
My baby’s fun had gone
And left my baby blue
Nobody knew
What kind of magic spell to use
Slime and snails…




Outside the laboratory it was still night. Not the usual Coruscant affair with interludes of air traffic and light pollution. Here on Kamino the weather was more feral and crude. The air was full of roaring thunder.

Lightning lashed out towards Tipoca City, constantly attacked by the ocean waves.

But those were not the reasons why Sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sidious was not willing to go to sleep yet. Actually, he did not mind the ominous atmosphere. It soothed his nerves.

No, the reason for not hitting his pillows was of a different kind.

He grinned a terrifying grin.

After an excessive ritual, there was always much cleaning to do. And he preferred to do it himself.

The Kaminoans were decent cloners, but when it came to arcane magic of the darkest kind, they were helpless children. He did not wish them to stumble upon things that were not meant for their almond-shaped black eyes. And certainly not for elegant, three-fingered hands.

So the elderly man, who had made himself Emperor of the known Galaxy, held on to the mop and plunged it into the bucket, filled with water and vinegar.

What he had done for the soul of his niece tonight was just a little crime. There were a Sith spells that were more terrifying and sinister.

One was called the Tsaiwinokka Hoyakut. Not only did it animate the dead. It actually transformed them into unstoppable soldiers that knew no pain and were able to pass on a vicious infection by biting.

It had been the god queens of Cunabula, direct ancestors of House Palpatine, who had begun such practices. His father, Old Cosinga, had meant to keep such facts hidden from him, his heir. But he had found out any way and had dug very deep into family lore.

This way Sheev had learned about the so-called spirit ichor, which was the base for all magic employed back on Draconis. It came from channelling Ištar, the Winged Goddess. Also named the Plumed Serpent by her followers and her opponents. Her breath manifested in bilious green.

Another smile crossed his withered lips, while his mop swished back and forth.

Ichor. The word alone was an epiphany. It referred to the blood of the gods, regarding it as ethereal fluid. But another translation pointed out to a foul-smelling watery discharge from a wound or ulcer.

Mother Nature was indeed a double-edged sword. Benevolent and destructive at the same time. Such was the Force itself.

He remembered a passage from an ancient script roll.

“Blood follow’d, but immortal; ichor pure,
Such as the blest inhabitants of heav’n
May bleed, nectareous; for the Gods eat not
Man’s food, nor slake as he with sable wine
Their thirst, thence bloodless and from death exempt”

It had been a pity that he had to extinct the Nightsisters of Dathomir in the same way as the Jedi Order. Those Force witches used to have so much in common with the Sith. Each of them had grown up steeped in the dark side. Mother Talzin had wielded her powers like no other. And on her planet of birth the spirit ichor also had existed. So many coincidences and similarities.

In remorse, he shook his head underneath his hood. “Survival of the fittest, my dear,” he muttered. “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

It was one of the oldest rule since the beginning of creation. One the Sith believed in like no other.

First Sheev had taken this woman’s secrets. Then he had stolen her son, Maul. And much, much later he had taken away everything else from her. Including her life. Doku and Grievous had been his henchman, as usual.

He smirked.

Neither of them had possessed the necessary means to become ever more than a mere tool to him, despite his promises to them. Maul had possessed the possibility to become something special, but in the end the Zabrak had been a disappointment beyond belief. The greatest failure though was the Skywalker boy.

In dismay, he shook his head.

In private, he liked roast meat, but not in such a way. He preferred it on a plate with vegetables and a heady Naboo wine.

To be honest, the Sith lord still was not sure how to continue with the sorry excuse of a human being. Out of a mood, that dangerously came close to pity, he had not let that thing burn to death. He had chosen to pick the charred leftovers up and had them carried away from the lava shores of Mustafa.

The practical reason is that the Sith master has spent twenty years manipulating Anakin towards the Dark Side, grooming him like no other before. It would be a terrible waste of all that time if he had discharged of the cripple like organic waste.

An intense memory almost swept him off his feet.

“Nagina,” he mumbled, while dropping the broom.

His niece had been covered in filth and rotten kitchen scraps, when he had found her more dead than alive on the Convergence property. At that time she had been just three years old. No match for her sadistic grandfather.

Sheev closed his eyes, remembering a tiny, white foot amidst the mass of fruit skins and withered vegetable.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” he said to himself. “No act of charity goes unresented.”

Even though they had been cousins in some twisted way, Darth Vader had not liked Nagina, when they first had met at the Galaxies Opera House. Jealousy had overcome the young man at the sight of the middle aged woman in the company of Prince Xizor.

“My sunshine.”

Sheev threw a longing gaze towards the nutrient solution. It would take many years for the clone body to grow, but he was not willing to undergo the worries for a child once more. Once in a life time was enough. No, he would wake Nagina up in forty years. But that asked of a contingency plan on his behalf. Not that there already was one in motion. He never had taken his own mortality into account though.

He rose an arm right above his head, his fingertips sparkling with Force lightning.

With her untimely death, his niece had done him a favour. Not only had she sacrificed herself on the altar of his ego and, by doing so, completed his journey into the arms of the dark side. She had given his existence a totally new purpose. He only saw that now.

He laughed until tears smarted from his blue eyes.

As a believer of Shiraya, the moon goddess of the Naboo, Nagina had believed that humans were in a cycle of death and rebirth called samsara. When a person died, their atman was reborn in a different body.

There was a way out of his conundrum. He would not be a doter of hundred and five years, when his niece left her clone tank in twenty years.

He flopped himself on a laboratory stool.

“Blessed be, Nagina!” he beamed.

What his darling niece had given him was precious in many ways. It was his ticket to eternal life.

He started giggling, low and creepy sounds coming from the depths of his throat. Then he quoted words from his valuable Sith library.

“My ascendance is inevitable. A day, a year, a millennium—it matters not. I hold the patience of stone and the will of stars.”

A clone of himself. That was the answer.

And why not. He already had established, when killing his master, Darth Plagueis, that he was the Sith'ari.

More quotes flooded his head.

“The Sith'ari will be free of limits.
The Sith'ari will lead the Sith and destroy them.
The Sith'ari will raise the Sith from death and make them stronger than before”

In mockery, Sheev bowed his upper body slightly. “I am not a creature of superstition,” he repeated the words of the Muun long gone. “But if the robes of the Sith’ari fit, I see no reason not to claim them.”

Until now he had delayed taking the only path that was his to take by right. But finally determination seized him. He would be like the legendary Tenebrae, using multiple host bodies. And why taking control over a total stranger?

Nagina was not the only one who would get a re-start, arranged by the courtesy of the ruling council. Cloners never asked questions when the money was right.

He got up from his seat and summoned the broom back into his aged hands. Soon enough those hands would be smooth and young again.

But he did not want his own embryo room or egg lap here on Kamino. No, he would seek out a place far out of his own Empire’s reach. A place of legends and myths only Nagina would have known for what it was. Ixigul.

He had taught his niece much over the years. Perhaps too much. It was possible that all this Sith knowledge had survived. But it also might have gotten lost during her re-birth tonight. In the end it did not matter. He had her back.

As for making a clone of himself, there was no particular need to hurry.

Of course, the recent attack on his life, conducted by Headmaster Gentis and all the other traitors, had almost finished him off. He had been made aware of his own mortality. And he did not like it at all.

Loosing his usual contenance, he flashed his teeth like an old Loth-wolf. “The fault lies with you, Gentis!” he roared into the laboratory.

But then again, the Force always balanced itself out. And he would get his current existence in order.

Another smile bloomed on his pale lips. He spoke the words of the legendary Sith Emperor with triumph and pleasure.

“My life spans millennia. Legions have risen to test me… My ascendance is inevitable. A day, a year, a millennium—it matters not. I hold the patience of stone and the will of stars. Your striving is insignificant. Let your death be the same.”

Headmaster Gentis already had faded into insignificance. As had his comrades and the Jedi Council.

Sheev alone would grow in wisdom, power and dark glory. And perhaps Nagina could be persuaded to take her place by his side one fine day. Through his niece he could continue the Palpatine bloodline in a more natural way. Not that he wanted her for himself, oh no. He had always seen himself as her protector, her older sibling. But he wanted her sweetness back to grace him.

He remembered one of her favourite books. Not the one about a unicorn searching the rest of her kind. But one about twins. A boy and a girl who had a unique bond. One of them had to walk the Golden Path and sacrifice himself. The other one had to continue the blood line.

Well, with his niece being out of the game for a while Sheev had to reconsider his options. About a great many things.


Sources:
The song “Magic dance” from David Bowie (1989)
An excerpt of Homer’s Iliad V. 339–342
Lines from the song “No good deed” from the musical “Wicked” (2003)
An honorary mentioning of Frank Herbert’s “The Children of Dune” (1976)
Wookieepedia – The Star Wars Wiki
Jedipedia, a free German Star Wars-Encyclopaedia

 

Augh, creepy Sheev is back at it again! What did we tell you about raising the dead through unnatural rites and unethical science, dude?

Wow, Sheev. Just wow.

 

Sheev is the creepiest.
That he could "hide in plain sight" as well as he did

 

No. You're Sheev. So just sit there in your Sheeviness and be Sheev.

 

@Kahara: Yeah, the old Sheevster is on the prowl. It was fun to write that.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha: He is a good actor when it comes to hide his malice.

@Cowgirl Jedi 1701: Thanks for writing that and making me smiley!

 

Bonus points if you got the reference.