Yanking their hands from the roomy, opposite sleeves of their robes, the hooded members of the order made sidelong throwing motions, which sent dozens of decapitator disks screaming through the air. Muuns to both sides of Plagueis fell to their knees, their last breaths caught in their throats. A disk buried deep in his forehead, one of the Sun Guards twirled in front of Plagueis like a crazed marionette. Blood fountained, turning to mist. Struck in at least three places and leaking lubricant, 11-4D was trying to limp to Plagueis’s side when another disk whirled into its alloy body, touching off a storm of sparks and smoke.

Plagueis pressed his right hand to the right side of his neck to discover that a disk had made off with a considerable hunk of his jawbone and neck, and in its cruel passing had severed his trachea and several blood vessels. He cupped the Force against the injury to keep himself from lapsing into unconsciousness, but he fell to the floor regardless, with blood pumping onto the already slick stone circle. Around him, slanted in his faltering vision, the assassins had drawn vibroblades from the other sleeves of the robes and were beginning a methodical advance on the few Muuns who were still standing. A hail of bolts streaked from the blaster cradled in the arms of the remaining Sun Guard, sweeping half a dozen hooded beings off the rim of the circle, before he himself was butchered.

Tricked, Plagueis thought, as pained by the realization as he was by the wound. Outmaneuvered by a group of inferior beings who at least had had sense enough to place artfulness above arrogance.

***

Slumped on his right side, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes open but unmoving, Plagueis watched the second Echani succumb to multiple stabs from the assassins’ vibroblades. With blood welling out from under Plagueis’s cupped right hand and glistening in a pool on the floor beneath his neck, they had taken him for dead. But now they were moving from the body of one fallen Muun to the next, checking for signs of life and finishing what they had begun. A few had lowered their black hoods, revealing themselves to be Maladians—the same group Sidious had employed to deal with Vidar Kim.

For an instant he wondered if Sidious had secretly taken out a second contract, but he immediately dismissed the thought—born as it was of his not wanting to admit to himself that the Gran had bested him. He wondered if the Maladians had actually been bold enough to kill the prominent Canted Circle members they were impersonating. Unlikely, given that the assassins were known and respected for their professionalism. The members had probably been rendered unconscious by gas or some other means.

Not a meter away stood 11-4D, five decapitator disks protruding from his alloy body and telltale lights blinking, in the midst of a self-diagnosis routine. Having run himself through a similar test, Plagueis knew that he had lost a great deal of blood, and that one of his subsidiary hearts was in fibrillation. Sith techniques had helped him perform chemical cardioversions on his other two hearts, but one of them was working so hard to compensate that it, too, was in danger of becoming arrhythmic. Plagueis moved his eyes just enough to fix the locations of some of the two dozen assassins that had survived the Sun Guards’ counterattack; then he dug deep into the Force and catapulted himself to his feet.

The closest of the assassins swung to him with raised vibroblades and rushed forward, only to be flung backward off the canted stage and against the room’s curved walls. Others Plagueis felled with his hands by snapping necks and putting his fists through armored torsos. Spreading his arms wide, he clapped his hands together, turning every loose object in the vicinity into a deadly projectile. But the Maladians were far from run-of-the-mill murderers. Members of the cult had killed and wounded Jedi, and in response to confronting Force powers, they didn’t shrink or flee but simply changed tactics, moving with astounding agility to surround Plagueis and wait for openings.

The wait lasted only until Plagueis attempted to unleash lightning. His second subsidiary heart failed, paralyzing him with pain and nearly plunging him into unconsciousness. The assassins wasted not a moment, throwing themselves at him in groups, though in a vain attempt to penetrate the Force shield he raised. Again he rallied, this time with a ragged sound dredged from deep inside that erupted from him like a sonic weapon, shattering the eardrums of those within ten meters and compelling the rest to bring their hands to their ears.

In blinding motion his hands and feet smashed skulls and windpipes. He stopped once to conjure a Force wave that all but atomized the bodies of six Maladians. He spun through a turn, dragging the wave halfway around the room to kill half a dozen more. But even that wasn’t enough to deter his assailants. They flew against him again, making the most of his momentary weakness to open gashes on his arms and shoulders. Down on one knee, he levitated a Sun Guard blaster from the floor and called it toward him; but one of the assassins succeeded in altering its trajectory by hurling himself into the path of the airborne weapon.

With nothing more than the Force of his mind, Plagueis rattled the floor, knocking some of the assassins off their feet, but others rushed in to take their places, slashing at him with their vibroblades from every angle. He knew that he had life enough to conjure one final counteroffensive. He was a moment from loosing hell on the Maladians when he sensed Sidious enter the room.

Sidious and Sate Pestage, in whose hands a repeating blaster fashioned a hell of its own, a barrage of light that separated limbs from torsos, hooded heads from cloaked shoulders. Hurrying to Plagueis’s side, Sidious lifted him upright, and in unison they brought swift death to the rest.

In the stillness that followed, 11-4D, glistening with leaked lubricant, reenabled itself and walked stiffly to where the two Sith were standing, syringes grasped in two of its appendages.

“Magister Damask, I can be of service.”

Plagueis extended his arm toward the droid and then lowered himself to the floor as the drugs began to take effect. He lifted his gaze to Pestage, then glanced at Sidious, who, in turn, showed Pestage a look that made abundantly clear he had become a member of their secret fraternity, whether he wanted to or not.

“Master, we need to leave at once,” Sidious said. “What I felt, the Jedi may have felt, and they will come.”

“Let them,” Plagueis rasped. “Let them inhale the aroma of the dark side.”

“This carnage is beyond explanation. We can’t be here.”

After a moment, Plagueis nodded and summoned a gurgling voice. “Recall the Sun Guard. When they’re done here—”

“No,” Sidious said. “I know where the Gran are. It won’t be business as usual this time, Master.”

- Chapter 20