You no longer control the Separatist Alliance...

And then the beast had had the gall to somehow cut off his attack on it.

He had immediately tried to contact the others, then. San Hill. Nothing. Wat Tambor. Silence. Poggle the Lesser. No response. Po Nudo, Tikkes, and Passel Argente. Equally uncommunicative. Nute Gunray. A Trade Federation auto-holo notifying him of the alien's recent demise. And Shu Mai had actually had the nerve to block his call! All of his carefully chosen puppets in the Separatist alliance were either dead or refusing to talk to him. Of the ones still alive, perhaps the cyborg had threatened them into submission. Of course, any of them still alive would come to regret, for the brief time they remained alive, being more afraid of that monstrosity than him.

Grievous! Of all the things he should never have had to worry about! Lord Tyranus' lightsaber apprentice! His pet! How Tyranus had fawned over that beast, had favored it, even.

And Sidious had never seen the harm in that. Simple pride over his creation, a creation uniquely Sith in origin. Sometimes one needed a servant who was a monster. Not something already monstrous, but something turned from an ordinary creature into a twisted nightmare of death and destruction. Tyranus had accomplished that with Grievous, continuing the grand tradition of the Sith. And to ensure his success, he had altered the mind of his unwitting subject so that Grievous would be forever under his thrall.

Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to have gone. Someone must have interfered, and when Sidious found out who it was, he would make sure they regretted their defiance! More than anyone else involved in this wretched affair, they would learn the true meanings of fear and pain. Oh, how he would make them writhe in agony! Eventually, they would die, of course. But first, they would suffer. They would suffer, and they would wish that they were dead.

For Sidious hadn't simply lost his valuable placeholder apprentice, but the entire Separatist Alliance. The apprentice would have been bad enough. Sidious hadn't nearly completed Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. He was going to have to accelerate that process now. And in the meantime, he would have to find another temporary apprentice. Unfortunately, The assassin Asajj Ventress was the only Dark Force user of any note that Tyranus had collected before his untimely death.

Sidious loathed her. Tyranus had been in every way an optimal apprentice, excepting of course his obvious inferiority to Skywalker. Sidious harbored no fondness for his deceased apprentice-such things were not the domain of the Sith. But he had been the right tool for the current task at hand.

Asajj had none of the abilities Tryanus had had as a statesman, and worse, she was rapidly growing in ambition and power. He sensed she would contact him soon, however. Her pretension that she was a Sith would drive her to him. Well, he might yet have some use for her. If he could determine one, he would make sure she served it.

His mind turned back to the Separatist Alliance. The monster would now have control of it. What would it do? Sidious considered. Grievous had once been a Kaleesh warrior, and additionally, a brilliant tactician. That brilliance had suffered somewhat due to the tampering to his mind, but he had still served surprisingly well as the Separatist's Supreme Commander. With his mind restored to him, he could be a true menace to all of Sidious' well-laid plans. At least, until Sidious reclaimed the Separatists. Which he would do by bringing the monster back to heel, this time directly under his own control. That would save him the most effort, now that the beast had successfully thwarted his previous attempt on its life. A trap would have to be set for Grievous. And Sidious knew exactly where to set it.

Kalee.

Far above, in the Coruscanti atmosphere, a cloud moved away from the sun. Bright light streamed in from the large window behind the man called Palpatine, giving his grandfatherly visage something of a halo. The Chancellor smiled a small, restrained smile.