Palpatine’s ability to survive death had been based on transferring his life essence into one of his own clones. But that ability was limited by distance from his clone body. Ideally, he would have initiated the transfer by himself, inside his citadel on Byss, near the cloning lab. This would have limited the duration of his exposure to the terrifying chaos that awaited powerful servants of the dark side after death. But when the Eclipse was destroyed with Palpatine on board, the Emperor’s clones were half a galaxy away on Byss. The dangerous journey his spirit had to make threatened to destroy it.
Once before, he had been in such a dire situation, when the Death Star had exploded over Endor. Then, Palpatine had survived the explosion by mentally connecting with Mara Jade and transferring his essence into her mind. The experience had diminished his power, putting him on a road to recovery that took years, but the desperate plan had worked. Sate Pestage had brought Mara to Byss, and in close proximity to his clones at last, the Emperor had left her and was reborn.
Thinking of Mara Jade and Sate Pestage emotionally distracted Palpatine from his organized recollection. He found that every time he thought of Pestage, there was a pang of regret. Four years ago, the old man had died, the victim of an attempted coup by several dark side adepts. Pestage had been the only man who Palpatine had allowed to become close to him. It was reasonably certain that Pestage had been the biological father of the boy, Espaa, who became Palpatine. It was only after Pestage was dead, however, that the Emperor discovered that the man had meant something to him personally. Pestage’s loss had opened Palpatine to a new world of anger, and unlocked the power of Force Storms. There was some small irony in the fact that those same Storms had killed Palpatine over Pinnacle Moon. Pestage had always wanted so much to keep his son alive, and had died fighting an adept, Urn Zelotes, who wanted his son dead. Palpatine sighed. Regrets were useless. Pestage was gone forever. Even though the old man had been cloned, the replacement had never satisfied the Emperor. It was just not the same thing…a mere empty shell. Pestage had totally lacked Force sensitivity, and there had been no way for him to preserve his life essence, as his Master had.
And then there was Mara Jade, the former Emperor’s Hand. As much as he wished Pestage was alive, he wanted Jade dead. He had given her a mission to kill Luke Skywalker. If she had followed orders, Palpatine would not have been in his current situation. However, not only had she failed, but she had joined the Rebels as well!
The reborn Emperor had kept track of her from Byss while he regained his dark side power and built up his military forces. After years of living on the fringe of galactic society, Mara finally found Luke during the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn. She should have killed Luke then, but Skywalker had once again turned an enemy into an ally. In the end, Mara had helped Luke to defeat Thrawn and C’Baoth. Palpatine did not see Mara turning against Thrawn as a betrayal of the Empire. After all, Palpatine was the Empire, and he had never meant for Thrawn to succeed anyway. The Grand Admiral was just a distraction for the Rebels while the Emperor gathered forces far beyond those Thrawn was allowed to have. But Mara’s failure to kill Skywalker…that was a betrayal. The assassination order for that cursed Jedi had been a direct command! No one disobeyed a direct order from the Emperor and lived. Palpatine had wanted Mara dead, but the woman had wisely dropped out of sight as soon as the Emperor reborn had revealed himself. Once, Palpatine could have located her through the Force, using the mental link that they shared. But that link had vanished along with Mara’s Force sensitivity when the Emperor had placed his essence within her mind after Endor. Thus Mara had escaped his wrath entirely.
Palpatine scowled. What was he thinking? She was nothing to him now. Neither she nor Sate Pestage was any part of his current problem. He wrenched his thoughts back to the matter at hand. How had he arrived in this place…wherever it was? A dusty, empty desert, with silence as his only companion. A world where the Force was gone.
All right. He had been on the Eclipse. And the Eclipse had been destroyed. His spirit had been forced to find its way back to Byss, by traveling through a nether-realm where the ravenous chaos of the dark side wanted to claim him forever as payment for all the power it had given him in life. How long had the journey taken? How far had he been forced to go? He had no answers to these questions. Time and distance were very different in that realm. He had only been able to focus on his will to reach his goal, the clones on Byss. Using the skills of Life Transfer which he had taken from the Holocron of Ashka and Vantos Boda, he had defied the forces of dissolution and struggled to regain life. The battle for life had been profoundly traumatic, and for the first time ever, the outcome had been truly in doubt. He was unsure now if he would have won it on his own, for there had been help where he had not expected it. Help from the spirits of the past Dark Lords of the Sith!