It didn’t matter how many years had gone by, or how much evil Palpatine had accomplished or not accomplished. What mattered, finally, was that justice had to be served. Only Palpatine’s death could make up for the injustice of that long-ago day when brother had killed brother. And justice would come, soon, bringing a cleansing fire with it. Boda was ready for it to burn away his pain as well.
The tallest spire of the Imperial Palace, and thus the tallest point of any building on Coruscant, contained a small transparisteel room known as the Emperor’s observation deck. This room was shaped like a cylinder with see through walls, and was bare except for a throne that could rise up through the floor from the room below. The Emperor liked to sit here and view his planetary domain, reflecting on the knowledge that it was all his own. He might lay claim to distant worlds on the rim, but Imperial City was something he could touch and truly possess.
It was a magnificent sight this evening, as usual, and it served to distract Palpatine from his growing fears about his physical decline. The sun had just set, and two pale moons were visible, hanging in the dusk sky. The dimming light revealed a world surface made up, not of land, but of buildings, with cathedral like clusters of skyscrapers rising from a vast plain of rooftops, public squares, and spaceports. At the rooftop level, the narrow spaces between buildings looked like long roads from the Emperor’s perch, but were actually dim canyons where windows and travel tubes were aglow, descending into darkness like the light starved lower levels of a dense forest.
The city extended from horizon to horizon, a world of densely packed structures that blended into each other from the vantage point of the observation deck. The buildings that stood out from that height were the colossi, structures that rose above the rest like castles on a field. Among these were the towering walls of Monument Plaza, an enclosed park where one could touch the bare rock of a mountain peak without going far south to the Manarai range, as well as view many statues of the Emperor himself. Palpatine’s gaze also fell on the Senate building, with its carved stone pillars. Once, it had been the tallest structure on the planet, but now the Palace cast its shadow completely over it. The Emperor smiled as he looked down on where he had once served as a Senator. Ah, how the mighty have risen, he thought. He moved on, revolving his throne to look for the sprawling University of Coruscant with its millions of students, all studying Imperial-approved subjects. There was the Imperial Justice Court, where his laws were enforced, and the giant cube of the Imperial Security Operations building, where the agents of the New Order congregated. And there was Lord Vader’s dark castle, a brooding structure that suited its owner. It was the only large edifice without a multitude of surface lights. The Emperor took in the city glow that arose from everywhere else, smiling with satisfaction.
His eyes automatically skipped over certain areas of Imperial Center; they ignored the segregated alien sectors, and did not pause where the decaying underworld of Coruscant could be glimpsed. Instead, they tracked upwards, to the constant stream of ships flying all around against the shimmering green and red night sky auroras. It was beautiful, but he had saved the best for last. Palpatine rose from his throne and walked to the window. Looking straight down, he could see his masterpiece below him, his world, his Palace. It had been built over the ancient Presidential Palace, reconstructed, enlarged, and enhanced according to his design. It was a hybrid cathedral and pyramid made of polished gray-green rock and sparkling mirror crystals, beautified with marble and carvings based on old Sith symbols. The structure was never dark, and at night, it was lit up as if the sun had been trapped in a hollow glass mountain, a fortress of light with tapered spires and fragile looking towers rising from every conceivable surface. The Palace was Palpatine’s monument to himself. He loved to gaze at its majesty, which reflected his own. His world contained treasuries and prisons, computer centers and war rooms, libraries and residential areas, vaults and studies, audience chambers and throne rooms. Most importantly, his world contained himself. But…for how long?
As they inevitably did, Palpatine’s thoughts returned to his problem—his accelerated, unstoppable aging. For now, he owned this magnificent world, but bleak death waited in the shadows, marking time until it could steal all of this away. He couldn’t bear the thought of another person ruling his Empire when he was gone. But what could he do? He was the victim of a hideous irony. The very power he had used to rise so high was now destroying him. It came down to this: Palpatine needed the dark side more than it needed him. The dark side eventually consumed its champions, so hungry to destroy life that it swallowed even its greatest servants. According to his studies with the Sith, if a great dark side adept died, his spirit would be forever lost in the howling chaos of the dark side itself. With that waiting for him, there was only one thing he could do. He had to find a way not to die at all.