The lights were dimmed for the evening, and Palpatine emerged from his shower, freshly toweled and draped in a Dramasian shimmersilk robe, to find Hego Damask seated in the dressing room, waiting for him.
“Master.” The senator paused in his tracks, his slippered feet coming to rest on the richly brocaded rug. “Welcome.” The unheralded appearance of the Muun here in his apartment, at this hour of the night, caught Palpatine off guard, even as he was forced to admit that Damask, as Lord Plagueis, had been in his unconscious thoughts for some time. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Plagueis nodded. “There are times when those seem to be the only pleasures left,” he replied cryptically, and then waved the thought away. “But never mind that. You must forgive me the melancholy ruminations, Lord Sidious, even as you forgive the uninvited visit.”
“Any visit from you is welcome.”
“Even now?” the Muun inquired. “Under these circumstances?”
Sidious gazed at him for a moment before nodding. “Ah,” he said. “You refer to the recent developments on Cog Hive Seven. Yes. I’ve been informed.”
“There is no Cog Hive Seven any longer, it seems,” Plagueis replied ruminatively. “At this point all scanners report nothing but a loose metallic debris field somewhere in the Outer Rim.”
“As requested.”
“Indeed,” the Muun agreed. “Apparently the entire space station ripped itself to shreds …” He paused, meeting Sidious’s gaze. “Immediately after the departure of your apprentice. And he did complete his mission perfectly, did he not?”
“Yes,” Sidious said with a nod.
“According to our initial bioscans, there were no survivors,” Plagueis said, almost gently. “Including your primary target, Iram Radique.”
Sidious stared at the Muun for a long, searching moment, wondering if there was something else beneath Plagueis’s words, an entire substratum of meaning that he’d overlooked until now. Had Plagueis begun to guess at his true purpose in sending Maul to Cog Hive Seven? How would he react to the revelation of what had happened in those final moments, if he ever found out that the Bando Gora had been there and taken possession of the nuclear device whose procurement had been his ultimate goal there?
Yet Plagueis was apparently already moving on to other things.
“As you have already learned,” he said, “the Force has a purpose and will for all things that even you and I have only now begun to discover. By exploiting its fullness, we stand to inherit untold power and glory.” Plagueis paused. “Together.”
Sidious said nothing for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Very well,” he said, and then, with some difficulty, managed an indulgent smile. “Although I cannot help feeling that in some way, by risking the possibility of exposure, I have failed you as well.”
“Have you?” Plagueis regarded him inscrutably. “It seems early to make such a sweeping condemnation.” Then, with a slow exhalation of air that signaled the conversation was over, he rose to his feet. “It is late, Senator Palpatine, and I know that your hours of privacy and leisure are becoming increasingly limited, so I’ll show myself out.” His yellow eyes gleamed. “We’ll speak again soon.”
He left Sidious standing in his dressing room. It was a long time before the Sith Lord moved again, stepping away from the place where he’d been standing, and going to seal the hatch of the dressing room, closing himself inside.