Their Lady Adyé [Star Wars]

The Long Game

Emperor Palpatine leaned back in his throne as the large doors on the far side of his throne room slid shut behind his apprentice and the girl. He traced absent patterns on the smooth metal of the armrest as he sank into thought.

That had been a most curious encounter. He wasn't above admitting when he was impressed anymore than he was when intrigued. And Athara Adyé? She had managed to do both.

Sure, he was also harbouring a seething fury that his apprentice dared try to hide things from him, but as this was a potentially useful bit of leverage to have, he was able to restrain the urge to act on Vader's duplicity. He played the long game, after all. Patience was arguably his greatest strength.

But this girl...

His apprentice believed he didn't know the significance. Well, intrigued and even impressed as he was that Vader had demonstrated some skill in subtlety, he was still more disappointed on the balance.

He hadn't even changed the girl's family name when he left her on Nubia. Did he really think Palpatine wouldn't recognize it? Obviously he'd considered it, as Vader hadn't told Palpatine the girl's family name directly, but had he really believed he wouldn't eventually find it out? Did he really think Palpatine wouldn't investigate the child? Her history on Nubia? It was clear Vader hadn't stumbled upon the girl on Nubia as the towering young Sith had claimed.

He'd found her on Naboo. With her mother. With Neva Adyé.

On a mission Palpatine himself had sanctioned.

More than that, Vader seemed to have forgotten that he'd already confessed his suspicion that the Nabooian woman had ties to his former Master, Obi-wan Kenobi. That she'd disappeared nearly the same time the Jedi had was curious but alone, meant very little; a lot of people had left the Capitol or outright gone into hiding when he'd announced the formation of his Empire.

However, the security recordings from Padme Amidala's apartments had told a different story: the affection between Kenobi and Adyé had been clear. Palpatine smirked at the recollection. It seemed the prefect Master Kenobi had fallen to the same weakness as his apprentice, if only a few steps behind. The potential conclusions that followed were simple enough to make; either Adyé knew where Kenobi was or had even gone into hiding with him. And eventually, the answer to which it had been had become clear.

To then get word from his spies that Neva Adyé had resurfaced on Naboo to deliver her child? It had left only one conclusion and one alone.

She had gone with Kenobi into hiding and a child had resulted.

Foolish of Vader to think Palpatine wouldn't eventually make the connection between his little pupil and the aide who had haunted Amidala's apartments before disappearing along with one of the most wanted Jedi in the Galaxy. He was Nabooian by birth, after all; the name Adyé might not be widely known throughout the rest of the Galaxy, but Palpatine knew the name well, just as he knew how rare it was. Not to mention that the Jedi and his lady love had been foolishly sentimental enough to name the brat they made after Kenobi's barely remembered mother; there was little out of Palpatine's reach and even the well buried records of a Jedi's birth family weren't so lost as many seemed to think.

For a time, Palpatine had believed that his apprentice had done as he was bid and destroyed both the woman and the child—not that he'd told Vader the child would be there...or even existed. He'd anticipated the rage realizing his hated former Master had what Vader had lost would inflame would be too potent to contain. He had been confident his apprentice would not falter when confronted with ending a child's life.

He hadn't before.

And part of Palpatine fumed that he'd been wrong.

Yet...there was the potential that the development could yet be fortuitous for him.