Time: Now Location: Palpatine's secret clone lab Dr. Thalia Padi's desk looked uncharacteristically messy. Files and printouts of inventories, and power drain readouts were scattered about with several datatapes. The graph on the computer screen held her attention, the lines spreading further than they should. The sixty-seven year old woman looked up from her computer screen, an expression of anger on her normally serene face. "The Emperor needs to know about this," she muttered. Padi set up the seldom-used direct communications holo transmitter and composed herself before it. She keyed in a code that she'd only used three times before in her decades as manager of Palpatine's personal clone lab. True, various Sith had been placed in overall charge through the years, but she, a student of the original clone masters and sworn to utter fealty to the Emperor, was the one who kept it running on a day-to-day basis when the Sith Princess was otherwise occupied. It took several minutes for the encoded comm request to make its way to its destination, and when the green light showing the connection was complete flashed, she took a deep breath. An oversized holo of Palpatine's hooded face covered the area in front of her desk, obscuring the surveillance viewscreen that allowed her to supervise her staff's maintenance activities without their knowledge. She bowed deeply, rising only when bidden to do so. "Dr. Padi. What is so serious that you send me a rare direct communication?" he snapped. The dark-skinned woman replied, "Sire, even on this encrypted, secret transmission, it is not something I feel safe about divulging. However, I believe the security of your primary clone may have been compromised." "I will come at once. No one is to leave the lab for any reason and _no one_ is allowed entry until I arrive. _No one_. Do you understand me?" "Yes, your majesty." She bowed again. "I would not disturb you if I did not feel it was a true threat." "I know that, Doctor. But you had better have your proofs ready for me." Without a parting salutation, Palpatine closed the connection, momentarily filling the room with static until Padi turned off the transmitter on her end. Pausing briefly to run a thin manicured hand over the surface of the sparti cylinder that rested against the wall behind her, she turned back to the documents and files on her desk and began to go through them again. She shook her neatly coiffed gray head as suspicions ran through her mind. *It couldn't be^Å. Could it?* (To be continued)
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