3 Years Later

If someone were to sit down and map out the most important planets in the galaxy, some thought would have to be given to what each one brings to the table. Coruscant would be the most complex, a glittering gem among the stars. Perhaps Naboo or Alderaan would be the eyes of the galaxy's soul, sea green or deep blue and filled with life. But Telos IV? That would have to be the back that bore the scars of a thousand lashes. Kingdom after conqueror, war after rebellion had followed Telos' history, and like a master's favorite whipping boy, if conflict was brewing, then Telos was sure to get the worst of it. There had hardly been a period in the Outer Rim planet's history when it hadn't been involved in some point of galactic upheaval. From Sith lords to civil war, the fact that Telos hadn't come unhinged off its orbit and flown into the sun already was a testament to the indomitable spirit and relentless optimism of its populace. At least, that's what the Ministry of Tourism would have offworlders believe.

In the years preceding this modern era, Telos IV had been significant for several reasons. The planet covered up its scars well, with an arboreal beauty born of terraforming that testified to a beautiful marriage of nature and science. Politically, Telos had always been on the Hydian Way hyperlane, which made it a valuable piece of property for anyone who wanted to establish a foothold in the Outer Rim. The clever and well-connected had found a way (like they did on every planet) to get rich off the planet's newfound popularity, seeing the newly restored garden world become a hotbed of tourism and political intrigue over the past millennium. Telos had been experiencing a renaissance, and the galaxy was finally leaving them alone. Too good to last, they should have known.

Between their dearly departed (and deeply corrupt) former planetary Governor Crion and his spawn ruining their natural resources and sacred places, to the Offworld Mining Corporation getting rich off the toxification of their planet, Telos was being reduced to a shadow of its former glory. The scars were starting to show again, rising to the surface like angry red welts. Corporations and special interest groups now effectively ran the show on Telos, and the typical corruption that followed was exacerbated by the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Being firmly in Separatist territory, Telosians now enjoyed few freedoms that weren't exceptions to corporate rule, and few amenities that weren't bought at the proverbial company store. In other words, the current situation on Telos was karked. Not exactly somewhere that people were tripping over themselves to visit any more.

The apartment was small, even for the prefab housing that comprised the Labor District. Plasteel walls painted the same 0ff-white as a doctor's office were the first thing his eyes saw when he opened his eyes, and when he went to bed. Well, except for the small rotator fan on the ceiling that kept him from sweltering to death in the summer. Not so much help come winter, though. The dream was the same, a tune that faintly drifted to him on the breeze, like a song that was muted. It was a warm sound, weak but detectable, calling him closer to wherever it was going. Every time he thought he was getting closer, and tried to catch the song in his arms, it would vanish, and he'd open his eyes to see that stupid fan overhead, moving around hot air. His tired eyes, irises the color of storm clouds, blinked in the light of the artificial sun that was linked to his alarm. It mimicked a sunrise, giving the illusion of sunlight coming through the windows. He resisted the urge to smile mirthlessly at the thought, choosing instead to blink painedly as he sat upright with a soft "ugh." Implying his hovel had windows. Funny.

Popping the joints in his neck, Shard leaned forward, eyes closing again against the harsh light as his alarm clock kept beeping. The computer in the clock scolded him. "Employee Shard Avellar, ID# L03611779, your shift begins in 1 hour. Standard morning preparation time factored in requires you to begin hygiene and decorum process now if you are to begin your delivery route on time."

Eyes screwed shut still, Shard groaned. His medium length hair, dark gold and unkempt from the previous evening, sprawled on his pillow as he stretched out a hand. It looked like he was reaching for the clock, but he didn't go all the way. He strained, almost like he was trying to force his will on the alarm clock. "Come on, don't fail me now…"

Shard growled again as his efforts were rewarded with nothing but the continued blaring of his alarm. A rattle on his ceiling told him that the noise had woken his upstairs neighbor, and he quickly opened his eyes, stretching his arm further to just barely deactivate the alarm. "Sorry…" He said with a frown, rapping the sheet metal roof with his knuckles to communicate that the message had been received. "Thought I was gonna be somebody this morning. Guess not."

Standing to his feet and throwing aside the thin sheet that had covered him, Shard looked to the mirror in the corner that served as his hygiene prep area. Mirror, 'fresher, sink, threadbare curtain and toilet. Who needs extra rooms when you never have guests? A single, rough looking futon graced the middle of the room, in case some poor soul needed a place to rest and didn't mind the intimacy that accompanied poverty.

He wasn't a huge fan of what he saw in the mirror: Tallish but not bulky, he had a rough musculature that came from work instead of muscular sculpting. No gym had shaped him, only working the courier route and the factories. The foreman that he worked under always looked like a god, being able to afford an electro-stim toner, though he hadn't lifted a finger in manual labor in years.

He shook the mutinous thoughts from his mind as he absentmindedly scratched at his sunburned neck. Shard's skin was rough and occasionally cracked, having been a standard Human white before his long days on a speeder bike and in the fields that left him sun-bleached and scorched at times. A shadow of light stubble dusted his cheeks, and he scowled. Until he could grow a full beard, he refused to settle for a patchwork mess of hair. He'd tried before, and it just wasn't worth it.

At 17 standard years of age, he wasn't going to hit full maturity for a few years, so he wasn't concerned. Yet. He bared his teeth looking at them in the mirror. At least he had all of them still. Dropping his smallclothes and stepping into the refresher, he braced for the shock of cold that inevitably came before the warm water found its way into his pipes. He shivered in the morning light, letting the water cascade over him.

Shard spied his toothbrush on the counter, and frowned again. Same as with the clock, he stretched a hand out, as if he were trying to grasp the brush from afar. It felt to him like trying to catch the song from his dream; a small snippet, and then it was gone. The toothpaste beside the brush fell off the sink, as if pushed by a breeze. Shard rolled his eyes, sighing as he returned his attention to the shower. "That's what I get for thinking."

Choosing instead to close his eyes and wash himself, he started whistling, lathering his hair. He couldn't remember where the tune came from, so faint it was. Without thinking now, he stretched out a hand again, knowing what he needed. Though his eyes were closed, his fingers curled around a razor that had seemingly flocked to his hand, although a moment ago it had been on the sink with the toothbrush. He laughed, this time smirking with genuine humor, shaking his head and clearing his eyes of soap. "Sure, work when I least expect it. Thanks a lot."

He shaved as best as he could with no mirror in the shower. If his father had been around, he might have taught him how to shave like a man, but he got along okay. Whenever he had earned enough credits to get off this stupid rock and search the stars for him and mom… maybe he'd get around to teaching him someday.

As he started to get dressed, he began very, very slowly willing his clothes to come to his hand. The more he tried to bend them to his will, he had found over the years that objects simply didn't wanna follow. But, if he almost… invited them to come to him? It was a little easier. His gray cargo trousers slowly floated across the room as if on a wire, and into his hands.

Shard wasn't an idiot, he had heard of the Force before. But nobody had ever swooped out of the sky to tell him that he was some kind of wizard, so he figured he was on his own as far as developing his talents went. Having some Force sensitivity didn't make life on Telos easy, just easier. Knowing when a bruiser was gonna throw a punch, or when his mate was cheating at Pazaak, these things made life better for him. Nobody would be any the wiser if he was subtle, and by stars he was. Luck, he'd called it, and from his point of view, he was lucky. Lucky that he could sense and change things that they couldn't. Still, that wouldn't make him any less late for work if he didn't hustle.

He grabbed the rest of his clothes by hand, no time for games any more. A simple white shirt and worn leather boots complemented his laborer's ensemble, and he grabbed his hooded long coat on his way out the door. The commlink on his glove winked on as he thumbed the switch, exiting the dwelling. The sun still hadn't risen, being so early in the Telosian morning. The long row of stacked and sorted prefab houses were still dark, most inhabitants still sleeping as he exited the complex. His speeder bike was parked down beside his building, security lock preventing any of the neighborhood's petty criminals from stealing his source of income. Kicking the ignition pedal, he felt it hum to life under him.

Shard's journey to the AllFy Courier Service building was uneventful as always, and he tuned his commlink's radio to the news channel. A droid's voice came through on the static, barely louder than the whirr of the bike's repulsors. "Today marks the third anniversary of the great victory, where CIS forces bravely stormed the seat of political corruption on the planet Coruscant. Chancellor Palpatine's demise was a great day for the Systems, and Count Dooku's increased political and military pressure has led us to greater and greater victories. Political analysts are predicting that Chancellor Amidala will be forced to surrender to our forces by the year's end."

Shard rolled his eyes as he steered around the dusty trail towards Thani, the capitol city and his destination. The broadcasters were always painting a very optimistic picture of the war, when the reality of places like Telos told a different story. "In similar news, valiant war hero and diplomat Count Dooku has released an exclusive interview concerning the opening of the Sith training centers across CIS territory."

The voice that then filtered across his commlink was refined and cultured, but made his skin crawl somehow. "The revival of Sith Temples across our allied territories are not only a cultural victory for a much-maligned religious sect, but a necessity to combat the tyranny of the Jedi Order, which has overstepped its authority and turned on the galactic citizens that they claim to protect." Shard frowned, gunning his bike as he entered the city limits. Jedi, Sith, all sounded pretty much the same to him. Not much difference between one goon with a laser sword and another when cities get destroyed in their wake… Telosians knew.

The sun was just beginning to color the sky a rosy pink, without making itself seen as he pulled up in front of the drab grey building, permacrete rising into the air like a monument to mediocrity. Shard sighed as he ambled onwards, ready to start another day in a dead-end job, in a dead-end city, on a dead-end planet, in a galaxy with very little meaning. The poor and homeless often curled up on heat vents throughout the city, and as he approached his building, he could see a few. Human, Twi'lek, even a Togrutan woman judging by the montrals poking through her hood, all huddled around the vent outside the building.

It was a shame what this planet did to people. His thoughts drifted as he neared the door, and he felt the creeping hand of despair approach his mind. "Nope, too much to live for, Avellar, can't give up and roll over now. Haven't found them yet. Can't give up, just keep moving."

He psyched himself up, confident that no one would overhear him, and if they did, then they wouldn't care. This was Telos, after all. No one looked out for each other here. Unbeknownst to him as he walked inside, someone did hear, and despite herself… cared.

Elsewhere...

Darth Tyranus had a problem. He had been having a problem for the last 3 years, and had finally been able to take steps towards fixing this problem. For Count Dooku, the day that Chancellor Palpatine had been killed had officially been a day of great triumph, celebrated amongst the heads of the Separatist war effort with champagne and much debauchery. But for Darth Tyranus, Sith apprentice to Darth Sidious, the day had been one of… utter chaos.

The shroud of the dark side that had permeated the galaxy had begun to lift immediately, like a room filled with black smoke when a window was cracked. Still, the darkness clung to the galaxy through his own great willpower, but it was a candle to a flame; Sidious had mastered the dark side on a level that Dooku was just beginning to grasp, and unless he devoted increasingly more of his time to maintaining his own aging body, he would not be around forever to learn more.

As he fitted his cloak to his shoulders in the mirror of his richly furnished penthouse, he scowled at the thought of his time being wasted. 3 years of poring over and decoding various notes and journals that Sidious had left behind, all because the arrogant fool had absolutely no contingencies made for the event of his death!

For all his myriad schemes and deceptions, Sidious had a single, glaring flaw that Dooku was now very privy to: He had considered himself above such petty things as dying. He would have given his sword hand just to see the look on Palpatine's face the day he died, but any satisfaction in knowing that his former master had been careless was outweighed by the fact that all their plans had centered around him.

Without Sidious, Dooku had no idea what to do next. The eradication of the Jedi via the clones was out of the question, as Order 66 was only issuable by the Supreme Chancellor. The boy Skywalker, who was supposed to have been so easy to turn once Palpatine's machinations were set into motion, was now a stronger servant of the light than ever, now that his ghastly progeny had been born. The secret of the new Chancellor's husband's identity was a card that he would keep up his sleeve, but even an ace was useless unless played masterfully. The Rule of Two had been put in jeopardy, and it was up to Dooku to revive the Order of the Sith.

The first step, he reflected as he chose a pair of expensive looking cufflinks to attach to his sable tunic sleeves, had been to continue the war effort. Per Sidious' original plan, he was to have surrendered to Skywalker, which would have brought the conflict to an end, and the peace would leave a vacuum for Palpatine to seize ultimate authority. Now, that plan was dashed to ruin, so the war needed to end some other way. The only way that would ensure that Dooku, a well-known enemy combatant, could hold any position of legitimate power would be for the CIS to win the war. For good.

Levying his battle droid forces, he had used every bit of his knowledge of Republic intelligence to make an extremely strong push right after Sidious' death. His inroads into their systems were quickly discovered and fixed, with Palpatine being unavailable to cover for him, and given the lack of subtlety in his assaults. So now, the conflict was very much up in the air. Key planets were trading hands every week, but Dooku smiled thinly to himself as he called his lightsaber to his hand, the curved hilt appearing like a crescent of silver as he fastened it to his belt.

Clones and droids were a dime a dozen, and Dooku knew that he and Amidala could trade their expendable ground troops and pilots like pawns on a game board. What really mattered were the Force-users that each side possessed. Dooku sniffed at some elusive scent as he slipped into bantha skin boots, dyed black to match the color of his tunic, thinking about the nature of the dark side. There was no doubt that it made its adherents stronger, but they were also more likely to come into conflict. Ventress was missing, Oppress was dead, Mother Talzin was oddly quiet after the Chancellor's death, and all of his little turned Jedi like Billaba and Vos had been returned to the light. Their cowardice in the face of true power was simply revolting, he assured himself.

Dooku, now fully garbed, strode down his hallway on the way to his appointment. As he walked, he considered the realities facing Force-users in this conflict: The Jedi were far more numerous than he was, for he was one and they were many. But the many had been growing thinner and thinner, as the war claimed more Jedi as it raged on. Many had thought of the Knights as invincible, but he knew better, and so did they. The Jedi were running out of apprentices that they could hurry into knighthood, and they were dying faster than they could be replaced in some theatres of war. An amused chuckle almost escaped his plum lips at the thought of sending younglings to fight him. They might as well, at this rate.

But, Dooku was in a bind as well, since even though the Jedi were growing thinner in rank, they were still more numerous than he without the loss of his instruments, and his master. He could only be so many places at once, and kill so many Jedi before they wizened up and trapped him somewhere he couldn't escape from. He needed to level the playing field, and that's where Sidious' archive had come into play. There were old Sith temples everywhere in the galaxy, if one knew where to look. Korriban, the planet he was now on, had been colonized in recent memory by the Commerce Guild, a proud member of the Separatist movement. It had once been home to a mighty Sith temple, where the teachings of the dark lords were passed down to willing supplicants.

The Rule of Two had been suspended, at least for the moment. Dooku needed to fight fire with fire, and he was about to gather some kindling. Entering the viewing box above the arena's edge and looking down upon the first round of applicants who stood below, staring at him with trepidation, Dooku stretched out a hand to draw their attention. "You know why you're here, so there is no need for frivolous introductions. Most you do not have what it takes to become masters of the Force, but some of you indeed show promise. You will all be tested. Failure may very well result in your death," he added as the sentients below him shifted, visibly uncomfortable at the thought, "So by all means, do try to succeed at any cost. Now…"

He leaned forward, raising an eyebrow as he tried to gain their measure. It would be a hard road for them both, students and master. The dark side was not forgiving, so neither would he be. "Let us begin."