Lost and Longing.

The primary Dark Lord considered that, tapping his fingers together as consequences of the action were pondered. He was awfully tempted to have Dooku kill Ventress immediately. She could pose a legitimate threat to his endgame. But at the moment, none of their other potential acolytes in training was anywhere close to ready for an important mission, much less a mission of this scale. And Palpatine really wanted to know why the slicer was attempting to search for some of those terms. Where he might have found the information and, just as importantly, why?

"Very well," The Dark Lord agreed shortly. "You may take her back, provided you can control her, but I hold you responsible for her actions. If she becomes a threat, or looks to be a liability, I expect you to dispose of her permanently."

Dooku nodded his head in acknowledgement, "She will agree to serve me once more or she will die."

"And the slicer?" Palpatine asked.

"Ventress should be able to evade or destroy any simple bounty hunters that get in her way. I'll also send several other operatives if for no other reason than to season them or weed them out." Count Dooku stated easily.

Palpatine regarded Dooku evenly, the statement he just made directly counter to the concern he expressed for Ventress' life when fanning the flames against Jedi.

A ghost of a smile crossed over Dooku's face at the unspoken question. "If she allows some bounty hunter rabble to capture her then she is quite obviously not good enough to be Sith."

"Good. I want that slicer alive. And I want what he knows and just as importantly, how. Do not fail me, My apprentice." Palpatine said before disconnecting the holocom, the protocols to completely wipe any trace of the conversation from the various systems connected to his office automatically engaged the disconnected the call.

already moment

and he

Palpatine sat back in his chair and considered his actions once more. He sighed as he ran the different actions in his mind. A giant game of chess requiring pieces be in certain places and fall in certain orders. He allowed a troubled look to briefly cross his face.

His former Master, Darth Plagueis, had long taught him the art of maintaining a cloak of darkness that hide him from his enemies. He had also shown him how to hide his activities from the Jedi. His master had applied the ability to distort and tamper with the Jedi's ability to seek guidance from the Force on such a limited range and on such a small scale. He had only been interested in hiding his research, experiments and presence. Palpatine had truly thought big, and extended the ability and blanketed the Force with darkness. The entire Jedi Order was impacted, all of them had lost their ability to get any but the murkiest glimpses of the Force. Only someone who was willing to embrace the darkness would have a chance of seeing something through the shroud. That effectively eliminated the Jedi Order.

The more success he had with driving Jedi to their deaths with his plots, the more powerful his ability to hide became.

But now, something had changed. His visions, which had been so certain for so long, had been somewhat cloudy these past few days, and were certainly nowhere near as clear as they had been over the past thirty years. It wasn't unprecedented. His cloak had occasionally shifted, and even faltered over the past two decades, as distant plots were sometimes foiled by happenstance. However, this time, his ability to prepare for a certain future while obscuring his enemies' sight had done more than falter, it had stumbled and forced him to take a knee.

It was also not unprecedented. It had happened a few times in the past few decades. Two of the most notable occasions were during the invasion of Naboo and the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt's son.

In the former situation, Palpatine had intended for the Trade Federation to take the planet and force the peace treaty. Then he had planned to use that sympathy to put pressure on the sitting Chancellor Vellorum, setting him up for a fall.

He had not foreseen the Queen's escape from the planet or her arrival on Coruscant. But it could not have worked out better for him. Her emotional appeal to the Senate had pushed the sympathy far beyond what he initially imagined possible and had removed Vellorum from his position entirely.

In the second situation, he had intended for Jabba's son to die, making the Outer Rims a perilous place for the Jedi and the New Republic. His apprentice had even set the Jedi up to look responsible for it.

Unfortunately, young Anakin's intervention had saved the crime lord worm's son. This had strengthened the Jedi's abilities to move their armies through the Hutt's territories. However, that had lead to advantages for the Sith. The Republic's presence in the Outer Rim territories had always been weak at best. Even with Jabba's permission others were not as pleased to have armies moving through their territory. They felt the need to put their nose into business that would have gone unnoticed before, inflaming discontent.

It had also been responsible for several dozen skirmishes on different planets between Separatists and Republic forces, those skirmishes had resulted in further drain on Republic resources as well as a number of Jedi deaths, further weakening the Order.

So even occasionally missteps in interpreting the will of the Force still helped move toward his ultimate goals. Palpatine could even pinpoint the moment it had begun this time. It was directly after Tano's trial and her refusal to re-enter the Order. It also coincided with the odd disturbances in the Force that were apparently done in close proximity to her before she left the planet.

However, this in of itself wasn't something to cause him to overly worry about the long-term implications.

In the past the same thing had happened when more esoteric Force users encountered Jedi. Usually they were someone with a trick or two, who didn't even realize they were using the Force, and if they had been spotted as a child would have been trained. Without it, the Force amounted to bouts of luck that would help them in one way or another in specific circumstances.

He chuckled darkly. The Jedi were always surprised when their attempts to keep tabs on people like that were stymied. Reports regularly were given about people disappearing. It wasn't inaccurate, the people did disappear. Occasionally on their own, but usually, Palpatine made them disappear so that he could have access to their abilities. He experimented remotely, determined to understand the different ways the Force manifested, and also determined to replicate his former Master's experiments and attempts to defeat Death.

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