Ponder: переводы

→The rend that Tenebrous’s Twi’lek Master had opened in the fabric of the Force had been felt by the Jedi, and already the Order was beginning to show signs of circumspection and languor. The Republic, too, had been similarly undermined, by encouraging corruption in the Senate and lawlessness in the Outer Rim systems, which had become the dumping grounds for the Core.

→As Tenebrous explained it, the Jedi had emerged strong from the war of a millennium earlier, and while Darth Bane and subsequent Sith Lords had done their best to disrupt the reborn Republic, they labored at a disadvantage. So eventually it was decided that the Sith should hide in plain sight, amassing wealth and knowledge, and securing contacts and alliances with groups that would one day form the basis of a galaxywide opposition to both the Republic and the revered Order that served it. By all accounts those early centuries had been challenging, watching the Jedi return to their eminent position. But the Sith had had the luxury of studying the Order from afar without the Jedi ever being aware that they had adversaries.

→Like Plagueis, Tenebrous had obviously embraced the fact that Darth Bane’s Rule of Two had expired. Precious few Sith Lords had honored it, in any case, and with good reason, as Plagueis saw it. The goals of the Grand Plan were revenge and the reacquisition of galactic power. But while most Sith Lords since Bane had in their own fashion helped to weaken the Republic, their efforts had owed less to selflessness and allegiance to the Rule than to weakness and incompetence. Driven to discharge Bane’s imperative they might have been, and yet each had fallen prey to individual foibles and eccentricities, and so had failed to exact revenge on the the Jedi Order. Plagueis understood. He would never have been one to lay in wait or devote his reign merely to positioning a subsequent Sith Lord for success. Nor would he have been content to remain in Tenebrous’s shadow as an apprentice had the Bith actually triumphed where others had failed.

→“A reward we should withhold from Maul, but probably won’t.” Damask glanced at Palpatine. “In any event, it wasn’t Pavan who handed you the holocron. It was delivered by the dark side.”

→Palpatine squared his shoulders. “Pestage and Doriana are escorting him downside, where he’ll receive medical attention, maybe even a new hand, and a comfortable hotel suite in which to spend the final day of his life.”

→“Pavan,” Damask snapped.

→“I’m supposed to deliver it to the Jedi,” Palpatine said with obvious amusement; and looking around, added, “Perhaps to Yoda or Windu …”

→“Incredible,” Damask said, astonished that events could become even more convoluted. “Then Pavan must know what the holocron contains.”

→Palpatine shook his head. “But I suspect that Pavan somehow managed to outwit him and take him by surprise.”

→“This Pavan defeated Maul?”

→“It was dropped into my hand by none other than the information broker Maul had been pursuing and thought dead—Lorn Pavan. The fact that Pavan’s right hand had been cleanly and recently amputated told me at once that the two fought in one of the air locks.”

→Damask waited for an explanation.

→“Yes, but not from Maul.”

→“You have the holocron?” Damask said as he approached.

→For the past five hundred years, the Sith of the Bane line had eschewed selecting children as apprentices, finding it more advantageous to discover beings who had already been hardened or scarred by life.

→We Sith are an unseen opposition, Tenebrous had told his young apprentice. A phantom menace. Where the Sith once wore armor, we now wear cloaks. But the Force works through us all the more powerfully in our invisibility. For the present, the more covert we remain, the more influence we can have. Our revenge will be achieved not through subjugation but by contagion.

→Nine years old … Conceived by the Force … Is it possible …

→Palpatine had stopped listening.

→“Very little, except for the fact that he was born into slavery nine years ago and was, until recently, along with his mother, the property of Gardulla the Hutt, then a Toydarian junk dealer.” Dooku smirked. “Also that he won the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace.”

→“What is known about this Anakin?”