A Destiny Not His Own
The world around him went black as he inhaled deeply with pain before falling to his knees and coughing up blood. His eyes failed him and he could perceive nothing save his own shadow, which had encompassed him completely, with no sign of light anywhere in the distance. His ears fared little better and the loudest of noises seemed distant and distorted, as if he were submerged in water. His body had succumbed to the disease that plagued him and he felt nothing except numbness and the empty feeling of an unfulfilled life.
By the time he had escaped the symptoms the battle had shifted greatly. The Separatist facility was in flames and Republic troops were slaughtering droids left and right. Leading the charge, Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker cut down the magna guards, who vainly tried to contain them and suppress their efforts. Like the very war itself, the battle seemed bleak and had little chance of ending in his favor.
He got to his feet and kept his hand on his heart and walked away slowly through the carnage of battle while his subordinates fell readily behind him. The blood from before had dripped into his beard and his pulse was irregular and spotty. He could no longer escape the fact that had consumed him for the past few months. Count Dooku was dying.
He entered the escape shuttle just as the two Jedi and their clone legions got into range. Shots from multiple rifles and pistols blasted against the hull of the small ship, but their efforts were in vain. At least his equipment was in good shape. With the facility destroyed and his fleet in ruin, he retreated to the one place he could still find refuge: the fortress on Vjun.
As the shuttle left the atmosphere Kenobi and Skywalker retracted their lightsaber blades and allowed the clones to shoot down the retreating droid forces.
"That was odd," Anakin noted to his former Jedi Master, "Dooku retreated without putting up much of a fight. I expected more from him; something is wrong with this picture."
"Yes, I agree. Dooku yielded without his usual efforts to retain his position. This war may be affecting us all in ways we cannot know," Kenobi responded.
…
Dooku used the force to mend as much of his ailing health as he could, but even his great mastery was almost rendered null within days of treatment. The disease he had picked up was extremely rare, but even more extremely fatal. If he hadn't had the force he would have been dead within weeks rather than the several months he had lived with it.
He exited into the fortress and retreated to his chamber, resting for a short time and repairing his spirit and appearance in order to communicate with his master.
Finally he opened the channel and the blue hologram of his Master Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, greeted him warily.
"I am not pleased with the results you bring me Lord Tyrannous. Your performance as of late has been most displeasing."
"Forgive me my Lord," Dooku replied, already bowing before his superior in the ways of the force.
"You seem troubled," Sidious remarked, "perhaps something is amiss in your walk down the path of the dark side."
"No. I am committed to serving the dark side. To serving you."
"Then I foresee great struggles in your future, my apprentice, for making up these blunders will require all your skill and resources."
Dooku's face contorted slightly as Sidious spoke, partly because Dooku knew he would be in for trouble and partly because the blasted disease was letting its usual effects take hold now that he had stopped using the force to relieve them. Every day he lived with a burning sensation in his chest and a never ceasing ache in his limbs and head. His vision had been blurred for over a month, so much so that even when the symptoms were not affecting him very much, others were little more than blurs of light and color and some objects were nothing more than large blobs of indistinguishable features.
"And what can I do to make amends Master?" Tyrannous inquired as he held in a deep cough.
"It is time to make everything we have fought for a reality. It is time to move on from the Clone Wars. Abduct Chancellor Palpatine and hold him on the Invisible Hand. Use whatever resources you can, for this will prove to be the end of you…if you fail me," Sidious instructed.
"Yes, my Master," Dooku bade farewell and went back to the solitude afforded to him by the sanctuary.
His breathing became heavy and his face again shriveled up in pain. His teeth gnashed together and he clutched at his chest again as an even larger pool of blood came spouting from his mouth. His skin became much more pale in a matter of minutes and his body felt the effects of old age more so than it ever had.
He wasn't sure how long he had sat in the chair in the dark room, being assaulted by the sickness, but when he came to again he immediately called in his service droid with simple instructions:
"Bring me my personal ship and have coordinates for this planet planned out on the onboard computer," Dooku ordered as he handed the droid a small device with space coordinates on it, "and after you have done that, give the other set of instructions on that device to the Separatist commanders on Felucia. Make sure they follow my orders to the letter."
"Yes Count," The droid responded and hurried off without question.
Dooku stumbled down to his ship and let time slip by as he was carried off to the world he requested. It was a time of uncertainty, but he had no other choice.
"Count Dooku," the native Separatist leader and ambassador welcomed, "it is a pleasure to see you."
"Have your scientists prepared what I sent you?"
"Indeed they have. It will be operational within the hour."
"Excellent, show me, and when we arrive, leave me be."
"Of course," the alien leader replied and led him down many staircases, into the darkest places of the facility, where no living being went if they could help it. The path took him down to a small room with only two native scientists within it. Upon the Count's entry, they abandoned it with their leader.
Dooku stood alone in the room, a metal coffin waiting for him. With this move, he would be taken from his time, and his entire life's work would easily be swept away, in all likelihood.
He opened it and coughed deeply another few times before lying down in it and shutting the lid. The container grew unbelievably cold and the Count was soon swept away into the deepest and longest sleep anyone had ever taken.
When the native species returned three days later they found a sealed coffin with contents they were expressly forbidden to identify. They launched it far off into the recesses of space, as they were ordered by Dooku himself days before.
…
The lightsabers of red and blue color respectively flashed and sparked and moved at rapid speeds around the two combatants until they locked, pitting their wielders face to face.
"I sense great fear in you…Skywalker…you have hate…you have anger…but you do not use them," Dooku taunted, and the blades hit again and again and again, flashing around them with no goal except to destroy the other.
Dooku was pushed back by a heavy swing, but maintained his stance, not daring retreat against the Jedi prodigy. After a few more exchanges, Dooku twirled around and his blade faced Skywalker's for the last time.
In an instant Dooku's hands were cut off and he fell to his knees, Skywalker now in possession of his lightsabers.
"Good, Anakin, good," Palpatine cheered from the sidelines, "kill him, kill him now."
Dooku looked over at the Republic's Chancellor, in reality his Master, Lord Sidious, and then back at Skywalker, and for the first time in his life, Dooku's soul was filled with pure fear. No, not pure fear, pure terror.
"…I shouldn't," Anakin hesitated, sensing the conflicting wills of Palpatine and Dooku squaring off against each other, though the choice rested solely in his own hands.
Dooku began to breath in and out with his mouth and continued to face Skywalker. The Jedi was undecided in his actions just yet.
"Do it!" Palpatine urged again, this time not hiding his malice nearly as much.
After the longest pause he had ever known, Dooku suddenly ceased to exist in the eyes of the galaxy…but none of them knew that it was merely a clone, sent by elite Separatist scientists under orders from Tyrannous.
While Sidious, Skywalker, and the others faced off to determine the immediate future of the galaxy, Dooku's near lifeless body existed in an almost endless slumber, deep in space, beyond the reach of both the Jedi and Sith. One day he would return and face down the same corruption he dedicated his life on both sides of the force to stopping. It would be under a different name, another face, but corruption was corruption, and it showed no signs of fading, even within his very life. He was overwhelmed, and too near death to do anything, but in the far future maybe he could regain his strength and find a cure, and once again devote himself to making a galaxy free of all true evil. He had to keep trying. He was only disappointed that his current life was a destiny he did not own.
…
"I don't believe this…"
"What is it? What have you found?"
"This is too good to be true?"
"What have you found, Scholar?"
"This is the one and only Count Dooku, from the Clone Wars era…what he was doing and why he was so far lost in deep space I can't know…but this find is easily the greatest in centuries!"
"Can you wake him?"
"I'm already on it…"