The Senate Gardens of Naboo were quiet that afternoon. White stone walkways wound between fountains of clear water, their mist catching the amber light of Naboo's setting sun. The planet seemed peaceful deceptively so.
Palpus sat upon a marble bench, posture composed, fingers laced loosely in his lap. He wore diplomatic attire today nothing ostentatious, just the refined simplicity of a noble born to influence. His golden eyes were half-lidded in thought, concealed behind the gentle façade of warm hazel he used in public.
Across from him, pacing with earnest energy, was Padmé Naberrie not yet Queen, only an impassioned fourteen-year-old senator-in-training, filled with hope and conviction.
Her voice carried the tone of someone who believed the galaxy could be persuaded to be better.
"We must enact regulatory reforms," she insisted, hands moving with conviction. "The taxation policies on outer rim trade routes are crushing smaller colonies. Worlds with little infrastructure worlds that need aid are being forced into poverty. How can the Senate allow suffering to continue simply because trade guilds wish to maintain profit margins?"
She expected him to agree. He always seemed calm, rational, reasonable someone who listened.
Palpus let silence stretch just long enough to matter.
"Because trade," he answered softly, "is what keeps peace balanced."
Padmé froze mid-step.
"You'd defend the corporations?"
Palpus smiled kindly, almost sympathy in his eyes. An illusion as precise as sculpted marble.
"Not defend. Acknowledge. If the Republic fractures its economic stability, idealism becomes chaos. Revolution thrives where famine grows."
She frowned, deeply.
"Then we change the system so there is no famine."
A noble sentiment.
Naive. Beautiful in its fragility. Like stained glass shattered by the first thrown stone.
Palpus rose from the bench, steps slow, controlled, measured.
"Padmé, your heart is admirable. Truly. But the galaxy does not change because we wish it to. It changes because someone is strong enough to force it into shape."
She looked at him with disbelief.
"Force is not the answer."
Palpus leaned in, lowering his voice the way one speaks to a child insisting fire is harmless.
"One day, you will understand that peace is not born from kindness. It is imposed."
Her jaw tightened.
"I will prove you wrong."
He bowed, faint amusement flickering behind his soft, polite eyes.
"I look forward to your attempt."
She left with righteous indignation burning behind her. She would try. She would build. She would hope. And when the galaxy crushed her ideals
She would break beautifully.
Palpus turned away, his expression falling into cold, still neutrality the moment she vanished from sight.
Foolish girl.
He did not hate Padmé. He pitied her.
Departure to the Unknown Regions
Hours later, in the privacy of an unregistered shuttle bearing no Senate codes, no Republic transponders, Palpus shed the last remnants of his noble facade.
Gone was the young diplomatic scholar. What stared back from the viewport reflection was someone sharpened eyes glowing faint traces of gold, jaw set in silent command.
The ship surged into hyperspace, the stars stretching into white lines across the void.
Destination: The Unknown Regions.
The region of whispers. Lost empires. Dead civilizations. And his project.
The Extractor.
A moon-sized skeletal ring of hyperdense alloys, half-constructed around a dormant dwarf star. An engine of hunger. A device that would devour light and exhale creation.
He had financed it with funds from his father and master at first but war was coming, and the clone program demanded astronomical budgeting. Credits drained into Kamino like water into sand.
So Palpus adapted.
He entered the Galactic Market.
Not as a gambler. As a predator.
He made trades that never lost value. Because accidents… happened.
A freighter carrying grain for the Inner Rim mysteriously malfunctioned the moment he shorted the supply line.
A trade consortium leader died quietly in his sleep the night before negotiations allowing Palpus to buy their stock for one-tenth its worth.
A pirate fleet, hired secretly, would ambush mining vessels only after he positioned himself to profit from emergency resource exchanges.
And always always his father's senatorial influence provided cover.
No investigation touched him. No accusation lasted longer than a whisper.
Profit flowed like blood from a fresh wound.
He built his empire before the Republic had any idea there was a new empire being born at all.
The shuttle exited hyperspace.
And before him
A black star glowed faintly in the endless dark. Orbiting it: skeletal scaffolding stretching miles wide.
A machine designed to eat suns.
His creation.
His legacy.
His future throne.
Palpus stood in silence, watching workers droids, enslaved separatist remnants, silent cybernetically-modified artisans labor under the direction of his will.
A voice crackled through the comm-link.
"My lord, construction of Extraction Spire Three has begun. Core containment lattices are stable. Fusion scaffolding is ready for ignition testing."
Palpus exhaled slowly, gaze cold and calm.
"Good. Soon, we will no longer require alliances… or armies."
The overseer swallowed.
"Then the galaxy ?"
Palpus's eyes glowed like molten gold.
"The galaxy will kneel."