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Boz Pity - 19 BBY

With the death of General Remus Lupin, a new member was named to the Council - the hero of Mon Calamari and Ord Cestus, Kit Fisto. From that point on, it was difficult for James to look at Kit without thinking about his lost friend. Unfortunately, with so many Jedi having been killed in the Clone Wars, Remus wasn't given the proper burial James knew he deserved.

After the death of Darth Voldemort, General Grievous replaced the Dark Lord as the leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. But as far as James knew, Sidious had yet to replace Voldemort with a new apprentice. But he knew that Sith Lord would have to so that his Order wouldn't die. James thought it was vital now more than ever that they track down the mysterious Dark Lord of the Sith and destroy him.

A month after Voldemort's fall from power, Asajj Ventress's role in the galaxy came to an end. In the Underworld of Coruscant, Ventress tracked down Anakin, and the two engaged in a duel. At the end of the duel, Ventress was believed to be dead, and Anakin earned himself a scar across his eye. He now looked more like a hardened soldier - their replacement arms had done the same thing for James and Harry.

However, after Ventress's supposed death, James noticed that Obi-Wan went through an almost Qui-Gon-like obsession with finding the Rattataki assassin. James agreed with Anakin and Siri, and pretty much every senior Jedi, who urged Obi-Wan to give up this odyssey. There was just no proof that Ventress was alive.

But Obi-Wan was determined. The young General believed that Ventress was not entirely evil, and that she could be redeemed. James respected this - not a day went by when James didn't feel that way about Wormtail. But this wasn't the type of thing a Jedi should get involved with. It brought to mind Qui-Gon's relationship with Captain Cohl thirteen years ago.

Eventually, Obi-Wan and Anakin tracked down Ventress. The two Jedi confronted her on Boz Pity. Obi-Wan attempted to show Ventress the light side, showing her how Voldemort had betrayed her. In the end, she received life-threatening injuries from Anakin, and was believed to have died. However, Sirius had discovered that Ventress had faked her death and retired in peace, realizing that Obi-Wan was right. According to Sirius's information, Djinn Altis had helped her hide out - away from influence of the Republic or the Confederacy.

Cato Neimoidia - 19 BBY

The Outer Rim Sieges were now the site of much of the war's most notable battles. Even the Jedi Councilors weren't entirely safe. Obi-Wan had gone on a mission with Anakin to help on the war on Cato Neimoidia - to capture the Viceroy of the Trade Federation. Since James knew Wormtail personally, he and Harry accompanied Obi-Wan and Anakin on this mission. The mission didn't go as planned. Wormtail escaped with his aides once again, but the Jedi discovered something - an elaborate mechno-chair the Neimoidians had left behind.

Obi-Wan frowned. "I think I've seen this chair before."

James, Harry, and Anakin stared at Obi-Wan in surprise. "Where?" Anakin asked.

"On Naboo," Obi-Wan replied. "Shortly after Viceroy Pettigrew and his entourage were taken into custody in Theed."

Anakin frowned. "I don't remember seeing it."

Obi-Wan snorted. "I suppose you were too excited about having blown up the Droid Control Ship to take much notice of anything. What's more, I saw it for only a moment. But I do remember being struck by the design of the holoprojector plate. I'd never seen one quite like it - or since, for that matter."

James shook his head. "Neither have I, Obi-Wan." He glanced at Anakin, who was the mechanic among them. "What do you think, Anakin?"

"It is unusual," he replied. "These cells could contain valuable messages in storage."

"That's what I'd thought," Harry replied. "We should have Intelligence take a look at this."

"I agree, " Obi-Wan agreed.

Anakin, however, did not. "That could take forever," he said.

"It's not like we're going anywhere, kid," James reminded him. "We can wait."

Unfortunately, Anakin didn't obey what James and Obi-Wan had said, and he took it upon himself to tamper with the mechnochair. After a little trouble with the chair, they finally began to slice into the chair. They discovered a startling piece of information. They found a meter-high hologram of a hooded figure, and heard the unmistakable voice of Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew.

"Yes, my Lord Sidious. I will see to it personally."

So that was it. Dooku had been telling them the truth all those years ago - there was indeed a Sith Lord at large named Darth Sidious. This Sidious had trained Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and Darth Voldemort. They were now closer than ever to tracking down Darth Sidious, and destroying him.

Almost at that moment, a shuttle landed on Cato Neimoidia. Intelligence had come to the planet. With them stood Grand Master Yoda. As soon as Yoda arrived, James filled his mentor in on what they had learned. Once the senior Jedi Master had taken that in, Obi-Wan asked, "Master Yoda, is it possible that Count Dooku wasn't lying at Geonosis? Is it possible that Sidious is in charge of the Senate?"

Yoda shook his head. "Looked hard at the Senate we did - and risked much we did by doing so, questioning in secret those we serve. But no evidence we found. If in control of the Senate Sidious was would not defeated the Republic already be? Would not to the Confederacy the Core and Inner Rim belong?"

"Unless Sidious had a bigger plan we don't yet understand?" James suggested.

"Hope not I do, James," Yoda replied

"As do I," James replied. "But it seems obvious that this Sidious trained both Dooku and Voldemort, doesn't it?"

Yoda nodded. "Following the destruction of Darth Maul at Naboo."

"That explains it, then," Harry stated.

"What do you mean, son?" James asked.

"Mandalore," Harry explained. "Savage Opress was mysteriously killed, and Darth Maul vanished. The two were at the height of their power on the Mandalorian planet. Darth Sidious must have been behind this. If it is true as they say that there can be only two Sith at one given time and it is also true that Sidious's apprentice had been Darth Voldemort . . . "

"He wouldn't want Maul around anymore," James finished. "That means that Sidious had been on Mandalore that day Obi-Wan flew to confront the Zabrak."

There was a grim silence following James's words. It was broken by Obi-Wan: "I heard rumors about Dooku's early fascination with the dark side. Was there not an incident in the Temple involving a stolen Sith Holocron?"

James had also heard this - it was about forty years before his time.

Yoda nodded. "Of Lorian Nod you speak."

James, Harry, Obi-Wan, and Anakin knew Lorian Nod well. James had never known the old man as a Jedi. He'd left the Order forty-five years before James, Sirius, Remus, and Harry joined. He'd apparently returned thirty-five years before the Marauders' arrival, an adversary of Dooku and Qui-Gon Jinn. Then he resurfaced yet again while James was still a Padawan to Yoda, as an enemy of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. He then vanished for several decades after that, until he returned at the start of the Clone Wars. He'd returned as an ally of the Jedi. He was eventually killed by Darth Voldemort.

"But understand this, Obi-Wan," Yoda continued, "a Jedi Dooku was - for many, many years. Difficult the decision is to leave the Order. Influenced he was by many things. The death of your former Master, for one - even though avenged Qui-Gon was."

Yoda spent the a good time enlightening the younger Jedi on Dooku's fall: "A stern Master Dooku was - to Qui-Gon and others. Powerful he was; skilled, disdainful. More important convinced that lowering the shroud of the dark side was. Signs there were all around us - long before you came, James, Obi-Wan; long before Qui-Gon came. Gross injustices, favoritism, corruption . . . More and more called the Jedi were to enforce the peace - more and more deaths there were. Out of control events were becoming."

James thought on Galidraan, the battle that nearly wiped out the Mandalorians - the battle had deeply shaken Dooku. It was probably the war that was instrumental in Dooku's fall to the dark side.

"Did the Council sense that the Sith had returned?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Never absent they were, Obi-Wan," Yoda reminded him. "But stronger suddenly, closer to the surface. Spoke much of the prophecy, Dooku did."

"The prophecy of the Chosen One?" Obi-Wan asked.

"The larger prophecy: that unfold the dark times would. Born into their midst the Chosen One is to return balance to the Force."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said.

Yoda paused. "Difficult to say - maybe, yes; maybe, no. More important the shroud of the dark side is. Many, many discussions Dooku had. With me, with other members of the Council. Most of all, with Sifo-Dyas."

James looked up - Sifo-Dyas had been the Master the Kaminoans had named as their employer. If he and Dooku had had these deep discussions, the late Count could have had something to do with the creation of the Grand Army of the Republic.

"Close friends they were," Yoda explained. "Bound together by the unifying Force. But worried about Master Dooku, Sifo-Dyas was - worried about his disenchantment with the Republic, about self-absorption among the Jedi."

James did remember Sifo-Dyas - he's been close friends with both Dooku and Jorus C'Baoth. Dooku had fallen to the dark side, and Sifo-Dyas and C'Baoth had been killed mysteriously. All three of those Masters had been rather troubled as Jedi - Dooku and C'Baoth had been quite arrogant James had thought. Not on the level of arrogance James had always been - worse, far worse. They seemed to believe that as Jedi, they should be ruling the Republic - not serving it. Dooku and Sifo-Dyas weren't so bad, but C'Baoth was most difficult to be around.

James realized he's digressed a little in his thoughts, and he returned his attention to Yoda, in time to hear the Jedi say, "Sensed he may have the birth of the Separatist Movement."

"And yet we dismissed Dooku as an idealist for so long," James said. "We saw with our own eyes what Dooku had become, but we were in denial. It was so difficult to believe that any Jedi could have fallen that far."

"The question is," Harry said, "did Dooku track down Sidious, or did Sidious track down Dooku?"

"Impossible to know," Yoda said. "But accept Sidious as a mentor Dooku did - until his defeat at Geonosis, and subsequent assassination."

Shortly after Dooku's imprisonment on Kessel, he had mysteriously died. No one had ever discovered who had killed him. A similar death had met Granta Omega shortly after his imprisonment.

"And did Sidious kill both Dooku and Omega?" James asked. "After we captured them, they would have been loose ends. This explains all those mysterious deaths we were unable to explain - Senator Kim, King Veruna, Sifo-Dyas, Savage Opress, former Chancellor Valorum, Jorus C'Baoth, Lorana Jinzler."

"True it is," Yoda allowed, "that Sidious may assassinated his rivals. But it was he did unsure I am. And mysterious the fate of Master C'Baoth's Outbound Flight Project still is."

"And," Obi-Wan added, "why would Sidious assassinate Kim, Veruna, or Valorum? What goal lie in killing them?"

An awkward silence followed Obi-Wan's words. Then James spoke up: "Was Dooku the mysterious Darth Tyranus Fett mentioned to Obi-Wan on Kamino?"

"Likely this is," Yoda agreed.

"But if Dooku knew Fett, hired Fett," James guessed, "then he likely knew of Fett's clone army. Is it possible that Sidious manipulated the Sifo-Dyas from the start?"

Yoda regarded James for a moment. "Possible it is that Sidious put the idea in Sifo-Dyas's head. Obvious it is that know of the clone army Sidious did. If manipulate the Kaminoans Sidious had, then eventually want control of the order he would."

"That's why Sifo-Dyas's death coincided with the creation of the army, then," Harry guessed. "Dooku was Fett's employer, he provided the Kaminoans with Fett. He must have killed Sifo-Dyas, and tried to manipulate us from the start."

"Voldemort's arrival to this galaxy," James said, "seems rather convenient. It would seem that Sidious and Tyranus learned where we were from, and was intent on retrieving a Dark wizard from our home. Did Sidious intend on Dooku dying at Geonosis? Did Sidious always intend on having Voldemort as his apprentice? Did we ruin his plans at Vjun?"

Yoda sighed. "Many questions, so few answers."