**Chapter 370: The Stuff Begins**
**Scene 1**
Palpatine set the datapad down on the polished desk with deliberate care. Isard's encrypted report — delivered less than half an hour earlier — still glowed faintly on the screen. He leaned back in the high-backed chair, a slow, genuine grin spreading across his aged features.
"Well," he murmured to the empty office, "the stuff is about to start."
The phrase was known only to dedicated theatergoers. Four hundred years earlier, a director named Verliam Stuff had become infamous for his wildly extravagant productions. During a single performance he would change sets, music, actors, and even the entire narrative on a whim, injecting chaos and surprise into every act. Centuries later, critics remained bitterly divided: some hailed him as a genius who had added an entirely new dimension to live art, while others dismissed him as a madcap eccentric who trampled every boundary of propriety and taste.
Dagon Marek had just pulled something straight out of Verliam Stuff's playbook.
Palpatine had expected the man to do something outrageous — he had, after all, been carefully molding this new Vice Supreme Commander into the Republic's own version of Grievous. But even he had not anticipated the sheer scale of what had just occurred.
Destroying the capital of Zygerria — along with every other city on the planet and virtually its entire population — did not trouble Sidious in the slightest. Mirage Scintel had grown far too arrogant, flaunting her open alliance with the Confederacy while raiding Republic-aligned worlds. She had become a liability.
Even the fact that Dagon had rescued more than four hundred thousand sentient beings — many of them likely Republic citizens — and was now ferrying them straight to Coruscant was acceptable. The optics could be spun beautifully. A humanitarian triumph. A blow against the slave trade. A decisive strike by the Republic's most celebrated general.
But the way Dagon had so openly, so categorically declared war on the very institution of slavery itself… that was unexpected.
Palpatine himself was neither for nor against slavery. He had long ago accepted that some forces in the galaxy were simply too ancient and too deeply rooted to oppose directly. Slavery had been the foundation of the Rakata Empire and had survived its collapse. It had been fought for twenty-five thousand years by the Republic, by the Jedi, by countless planetary governments and reformist organizations. Some had achieved local victories, but in the grand tapestry of history those victories were insignificant. Even one somewhat sane Sith Lord in the distant past had waged his own futile crusade against it.
To Palpatine, slavery was neither good nor evil. It simply *was*. The time to dismantle it once and for all had not yet come.
Yet here was Dagon Marek — the man the public already viewed as Palpatine's creature, one of the most important figures in the war — declaring, not in words but in devastating deeds, that slavery would no longer be tolerated.
The Supreme Chancellor's grin widened, sharp and predatory.
"Problematic," he whispered to the empty room, "but useful."
He steepled his fingers, yellow eyes gleaming in the low light.
The game had just become far more interesting.
**Scene 2**
"Hello again, Galaxy! This is your Jeff Kleis coming to you live from the Galactic Herald studio, broadcasting to every corner of this vast universe! Our traditional midday newscast begins today with a truly shocking development that arrived just one hour ago!
"As we have learned, the Mern-13 fleet under the personal command of Jedi General Dagon Marek, Vice Supreme Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, has carried out a daring raid deep behind Separatist lines and struck the planet Zygerria — a known ally of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
"We have already covered the recent Zygerrian slaver raids in previous broadcasts. It now appears those operations have suffered a catastrophic blow. Four hundred twenty-five thousand seven hundred forty-two sentient beings have been liberated and are en route to Coruscant, where they will receive immediate medical care and all possible assistance.
"The Zygerrian capital has been completely obliterated. Queen Mirage Scintel and the highest levels of her government are presumed dead.
"We are already receiving an overwhelming number of viewer comments and have scheduled a special panel discussion on these events in three hours. In the meantime, we welcome your thoughts, dear viewers and listeners.
"Reactions from the Separatist side have been swift and furious. Count Dooku has condemned the action as a 'barbaric act of violence' and claims that millions of Zygerrian civilians have perished. He has already dubbed General Marek's fleet the 'Death Fleet.'
"However, we are also seeing the first expressions of open support for General Marek's actions. The head of the Tula family on Alderaan has categorically approved of the operation and offered his full public support. We do not yet know the precise reason, but two and a half years ago the Tula family's daughter and youngest son disappeared following the mysterious loss of a luxury cruise ship. It has long been suspected that Zygerrian slavers were responsible.
"Additionally, new intelligence suggests that Wat Tambor — the CIS leader who captured Ryloth roughly two weeks ago — had been planning to sell large numbers of Ryloth's citizens into Zygerrian slavery.
"No doubt a very tense and dangerous session in the Senate will take place in the coming days.
"Moving on to other news…"
The broadcast continued, but across the galaxy millions of beings had already stopped what they were doing, eyes glued to their holoscreens.
The war had just taken a sharp, irreversible turn.