Chapter Thirty-Seven: On Instinct

"It's unusable."

Valis couldn't say she'd been expecting a different answer, but the words still fell against her ears like the toll of a dismal bell. Rubbing at the back of her neck—looking up to meet a Kaminoan's eyeline caused a lot of unfortunate stiffness—she sighed. "For how long?"

"Much of the equipment will have to be replaced or repaired," Taun We replied, her own expression void of any discernible emotion, "with a degree of care that the crew of these ships cannot provide. Fortunately, much of the structural damage is superficial"—Tell that to the hole I fell through, thought the admiral ruefully—"but nonetheless, I estimate at least two months before this facility will be safe to resume production. That's also assuming you and Lord Maul disposed of all the . . . misbegotten test subjects."

Her eyes darting over to look at Maul, Valis noticed his clenched left fist. Other than that tell, however, he kept his cool. "We were thorough, but a squad can be sent down to sweep the entire facility."

Blinking in the equivalent of a nod, Taun We said, "Prime Minister Yi will expect a report on the status of the mission. Do you wish me to deliver it to her in private, or shall you accompany me?"

There was no hint of an intentional slight in her question, but it rankled. "Taun We," Valis said coolly—as coolly as she could with her head tilted at 45 degrees, anyway—"I am the one giving the orders here. I and Warlord Maul will speak to the prime minister in my chambers. Then, when we have finished, you will deliver your report. Is that clear?"

After a moment of tense silence, the Kaminoan blinked. "Very well, Admiral Valis. I shall return to my quarters and await your command." Turning, she swept slowly toward the bridge door, her garments flowing behind her.

As the alien departed, Valis shot Maul a quick thought. Two months is as good as could be expected with the state of the place.

As good as can be expected means nothing, he shot back. We wanted an advantage over Mekosk. Now we have nothing but delays.

She wanted to get angry, for form's sake if nothing else, but she knew the Zabrak was right. She had promised a cloning facility that was in working order with living staff; instead, they'd uncovered mangled equipment and genetic abominations. We still have an opportunity here, she managed. Which we will discuss after we meet with Yi.

This was met with silence.

Without looking at Maul, the admiral clenched her hands together behind her back and turned to Rama. "You have the bridge until we return."

The Pau'an nodded, her eyes a little lost. Valis couldn't blame her.

She wasn't sure where things were going anymore either.

"Well, if it was an assassination attempt, the clones are even stupider than I thought," Qui-Gon said, her voice echoing through the depths. "He didn't even manage to take a shot at you."

"If I didn't know better," replied Dooku, dry amusement in his voice, "I'd say I detected disappointment." He made each step with elegant precision, careful not to step on a husk of rotten machinery or into a puddle of fluid; behind him, the pair of bodyguards who'd come along mirrored his walk, though from the occasional scraping sound Qui-Gon judged they weren't quite so successful at avoiding junk.

"Well, don't tell anyone, but I'm rather sure Obi-Wan would've been a touch relieved," she replied, suppressing a smile. "Would have left him and Lorian free to chat with each other about trivia for the rest of the summit."

"God," said Jesmyn from up ahead, casting their flashlight's glow back and forth, "I can't believe we let this place go so badly."

The depths were not without a certain gothic charm, thought Qui-Gon as the Arkanian's light traced the contours of an enormous derelict mining droid-turned-statue, but she could see Jesmyn's point, especially when a cloud of scavenger robots retreated from the light like a swarm of flies. "Why not just dump them over the side of a platform," she asked, "if they're just going to sit here?"

"They're nominally here to serve as spare parts should the need arise," replied Jesmyn, turning to look at the other two, "but I think the real answer is that the nobility are packrats. No offense, Count."

"You could have stayed up top, you know," said Qui-Gon, pausing and leaning on her cane more than was strictly necessary—Have to keep up the performance. "If we do find any clones left down here, you'll be—"

"Accompanied by my bodyguards and fully capable of defending myself," replied the Count. "Whereas Jesmyn is a mechanic, and you, my dear, are hardly in tip-top shape."

"You got me," she said, raising her hands and smirking. "I'm just trying to question your abilities to make myself look better by comparison."

Dooku himself gave a tiny smile, but as he looked away from his former student and into the reaches of the droid graveyard, his expression faded into faint unease. "If Kenobi's warship has reliable sensors—and I've no reason to think the Republic would have spared any expense there—that clone and however many others came with him arrived before you did. And as you say, if that was an assassination attempt it was spectacularly mismanaged."

"You don't suppose . . ."

"That it was a deliberate attempt to lure two Jedi out of the city? Perhaps not. But if it was . . ." It certainly worked, was the obvious conclusion.

"Well," Qui-Gon said, "at least Obi-Wan called in his fighter squadron to keep an eye on things in the upper atmosphere before he and Anakin tore out of here. I'm told they're quite good. No need to worry."

The Sawsharks' watch was in truth small comfort, she knew—if clones were already in Stratum Apolune, there wasn't anything the pilots could do. And, of course, Dooku would know this as well. But Obi-Wan and Anakin will be back. And if not, well . . . She rolled the top of her cane between her fingers. I'll do in a pinch.

"At any rate," she said aloud, taking a step forward to look her old master in the eyes again, "it's nice to be on a mission of sorts with you again. Even if that mission is trudging through garbage waiting for something to jump out at us."

Dooku raised an eyebrow. "Still more exciting than most of our other missions together, if I remember correctly."

Qui-Gon chuckled. It was true—her chief complaint when studying with the Count had been that, for someone who wanted to be a Knight, she spent far too much of her time in libraries. Not that she'd disliked learning—otherwise Dooku's cover story of being her university professor would have been incredibly ill-suited to her—but once she'd constructed her lightsaber she'd gotten the itch. To travel the galaxy, battle injustice wherever it might lurk, get into a few fights in the bargain.

It's precisely your readiness to fight, he'd told her then, that means you are not ready.

Still haven't quite learned that lesson, master, she thought to herself. Not that I'm as ready as I'd like to be these days.

Turning away from him, she raised her voice. "Any luck?"

From ahead, Jesmyn shook their flashlight's beam back and forth in a negative. "Not that I exactly know what to look for. Perhaps you'd give me a hand?"

"Care to venture forth?" she asked Dooku, extending an arm.

Shaking his head, he replied, "I wouldn't want to impede the two of you from your investigations. I'll be here"—he nodded in the direction of his guards, who'd hung a few paces back as the two of them conversed—"if you find anything."

Nodding, she simply said, "Of course," and turned to go after Jesmyn. "They're rather easy to spot," she called to the Arkanian as she wound her way around junk, "what with them all having the same face. Should have brought a picture, I suppose."

This was, Valis reflected, the first time she'd had Maul in her quarters aboard the Charybdis. If he'd come himself, it would have felt like an invasion of privacy, and even as it was the thought of his amber eyes roaming over her possessions wasn't a welcome one, but it couldn't be helped. She did not want to have this conversation on the bridge, nor did she want to use Taun We's hologram device a second time.

Fortunately, the Zabrak seemed to have little interest in inspecting her living space; he simply locked his eyes on her helper droid as it floated into the center of the room. "Droid," Valis said—Mate seemed a little too friendly to use in front of the warlord—"tightbeam communication to Prime Minister Ruala Yi. Encrypted."

Mate didn't appear to like Maul all that much—he stayed silent, simply hovering and whirring as he started the transmission. Moment later, he'd spat out a series of scan lines that clustered themselves into an amalgamation of a Kaminoan's face. "Yi," the hologram said, voice crackling with static.

"Prime Minister," Valis began, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, "we have a report on the mission's status, as you requested."

"I trust this report will begin with you informing me where you've taken my scientist," said Yi. It was not a question.

Inclining her head slightly, the admiral resumed, "Our goal was to capture a cloning facility that had been set up on the planet Wayland by a criminal syndicate and used for black-market medical practices. Taun We was brought with us in order to evaluate the state of the facility and, if necessary, oversee any changes that needed to be made. Unfortunately, we've found that it's in more disrepair than we had initially planned for, which means that there will need to be some reconstruction—overseen, of course, by your capable engineers and scientists. Taun We estimates we could have an operational facility within two months."

"Exactly what level of disrepair would necessitate two months of reconstruction, as you put it?"

Gritting her teeth, Valis replied, "There were some . . . aborted experiments that seem to have gone poorly. The criminals who ran the facility seem to have moved from cloning individual body parts to attempting to clone whole organisms. The results ran amok, killed their creators, and caused a considerable amount of damage. We were able to wipe most of them out, but we can't undo what they've already done. I trust you'll be able to replace whatever equipment they destroyed—"

As she had during their last conversation, Yi suddenly leaned forward, lowering her neck to look Valis in the eye, her head hovering mere inches from the admiral's. It was rather like a wolf holding your gaze before tearing your throat out, Valis thought. "I was given to understand that this mission, once completed, would yield Kamino a concrete advantage in the war and in the board's hierarchy. Am I to understand that you now want me to divert valuable resources away from the war effort into a project that will erase any plausible deniability I have as regards your unauthorized mission?"

For the first time, Maul spoke—Valis glanced over and saw that his face was full of barely concealed disdain equal to that of the Prime Minister's. "Mekosk and his allies would never agree to the construction of a new facility when they could divert funds to toys like the Lancer platforms. Two months of work for an increased output of soldiers and a site for experimental procedures to be performed without his oversight seems a reasonable price."

Perhaps were she in the same room as the warlord, Yi would have been a bit more reserved; with the safety of a hologram between them, she showed no such caution. "Need I remind you, Warlord Maul, that neither you nor Admiral Valis gives orders to me. The only reason that Executor Mekosk is not aware of your treachery in lying about a Jedi outpost is because I granted you my protection. And now you are making demands on me? You are not in the position to do anything of the kind."

"Trust me, Minister," said Maul, his voice edging toward a growl, "you are in no position to threaten me."

Shut. Up, Valis shot at him, taking a step to the right to partially obscure him from Yi. They were in a poor negotiating position as it was; the last thing they needed was for the Prime Minister to think Maul genuinely meant to do her violence (which, for all Valis knew, he did). "With all due respect, Prime Minister, Warlord Maul is correct. You'll be sacrificing a skeleton crew of your people for two months in exchange for a base in which your scientists can work unrestricted, unobserved."

"Except by the two of you, of course. Please don't insult me by thinking you can convince me you view me as an equal, Admiral Valis." Retracting her neck, the Kaminoan gazed imperiously down upon the two of them. "At any rate, Executor Mekosk is right about one thing. The Lancer, for all its weaknesses, gets immediate results. Results that will bear fruit a good deal faster than two months."

Out of context, this could have been a hypothetical, but Valis felt the dark side trickle a warning down her neck. "What . . . do you mean?" she asked flatly.

"Ah, I'd forgotten," said Yi, in a tone that made it clear she hadn't forgotten at all. "You've been under radio silence, you wouldn't have known. The next Lancer station is operational, and the Executor has expressed great interest in testing it. It's bound for the Aurora system, along with a sizable portion of the fleet. And once it's done its work, the Executor assures me that Kamino will be granted platforms to erect a new cloning facility—one that he promises will be . . . what were your words, Warlord? Unrestricted and unobserved."

She couldn't help it; her voice rose to a shout. "Mekosk is attacking Serenno?"

"Indeed he is. He brought his plan to the Board, and in your absence we took a vote. He won't be leading the attack himself, naturally; Psoriss Threll, the Archon of Sluis Van, will be in command. I believe that as we speak, operatives are preparing to destroy the communications node for the Aurora system to commence things. A pity you'll miss it."

Before Valis could say something, anything, the Kaminoan leaned back in her chair and said, "I think we have exhausted all possible conversation at this time, Admiral Valis. I shall await Taun We's full report. Until then."

Mate gave a faint gurgle of static, and the hologram vanished.

"You two get on suspiciously well," Jesmyn told Qui-Gon in a low voice as they ducked between the legs of a still-standing mining unit. "Never thought I'd see Old Man Dooku be so warm with anyone."

"Oh, I'd say you rival me in the royals' affections. Viscount Lorian seems to adore you from what I saw upstairs."

The Arkanian snorted. "I'm definitely something of a favorite with him. With his husband? Not so much."

"Well, you do call him Old Man Dooku. I can't picture him being thrilled about that."

"Trust me, if I called him that to his face I'd be out of a job. My security is dubious enough as it is, I don't need to add to it."

Now this was interesting. "You mean he would seriously—"

"Oh, I'm probably being overdramatic. I do good work, and the Count knows that. He just also knows that I'm not always given to following protocol. Lorian thinks it's an endearing trait, not so much his husband."

"So if he knew you'd contacted the Coelacanth to fly my ship down here, he'd be very grumpy."

Qui-Gon withdrew the field of Force perception she'd extended as far through the depths as she could—there were still no clones as far as she could tell, and if her old master's far more acute senses weren't picking up anything she doubted hers would. "And speaking of that," she continued, turning her full attention to Jesmyn, "why did you do that? Is being overdramatic just part and parcel of how you operate?"

The Arkanian tried and failed to suppress a grin. "Well, truth be told, I just needed an excuse to get your attention. I've been dying to know what his Jedi student must have been like, and I have to say you're not at all what I thought you'd be."

Qui-Gon's immediate reaction was to whip her head around to see if Dooku had somehow overheard—to her relief, he and his bodyguards were still standing where she and Jesmyn had left them. Reddening slightly at her panic, she looked back at the droidsmith, whose grin had grown even wider. "Well, you certainly have my attention now."

"Ahh," they replied happily, "you're not denying it."

"I'm a good enough liar to know when it won't do any good." Releasing a shaky laugh, the Jedi asked, "How did you find out?"

"Curiosity and being the Viscount's favorite are a dangerous combination, especially when the Viscount likes to talk too much. I managed to pull it out of him a few years ago, though of course he made me promise not to tell a soul. Which I haven't, but I figured you could be an exception for obvious reasons." Jesmyn chuckled. "The poor man was so devastated when he realized he'd blabbed it to me, I almost felt bad for leading him on. Of course, as soon as it happened he clammed up and refused to say anything else about you, so like I said, I've been operating mostly on assumptions."

"So," Qui-Gon asked, arching an eyebrow, "what is it about me that doesn't match your mental picture?"

"Well, I pictured someone . . . stuffier. More conventional. Willing to follow an old man's orders."

"Oh, he would have liked that, but the Force had other plans."

"And," the Arkanian continued, almost as an afterthought, "my mental picture was not nearly as beautiful as the genuine article."

Qui-Gon could feel her heartbeat quicken like it had when she'd first realized she was being flirted with. This is utterly ridiculous, she thought to herself. It's been years since anything like this has happened, and you're trading banter in the middle of a hole full of rust. As if to emphasize this, a cloud of scavenger droids whirred by overhead, close enough that the Jedi could hear the clicking of individual limbs. And your friends are chasing after a possible Confederate invasion. You couldn't have picked a more opportune time to develop a crush?

And yet, even as she thought this, she heard herself replying with a smile, "Well, I have to say, I would have expected a palace droidsmith to be much more . . . covered in oil and grease. Not very charming. It seems I might have to revise my expectations too."

Jesmyn cast a furtive glance back toward Dooku, then locked their eyes with Qui-Gon's. "It's just a pity the summit isn't going to last too much longer. It would be so nice to keep tearing down out preconceptions—"

Without thinking, Qui-Gon stepped forward and kissed them.

It wasn't much—brushing her lips against Jesmyn's, then pulling back. But she felt a white ball of flame rise up inside her all the same.

When the droidsmith didn't say anything—just stood there, as if still processing what had happened—Qui-Gon said, "It's been a long, long time since I had the opportunity to do that, and I don't know how often I'll be able to leave Coruscant after this is over, so you'll forgive me for being forw—"

And then Jesmyn was kissing her back, and the whirring of scavenger droids and moaning of crumbling machinery vanished into the pulsing in Qui-Gon's ears.

Far too soon for her liking, the droidsmith pulled away—someone was calling them, though Qui-Gon was still too caught up in what happened to be able to tell who it was at first. Then the voice called again, and she realized it was Dooku. "Have you uncovered anything?"

Reluctantly, she turned to shout back, "No, I think Obi-Wan's man may have been the only one here."

Nodding, the Count said, "We'd best return to the city. I only hope General Kenobi and young Skywalker will have good news when they return." He and his bodyguards turned and headed for a turbolift, their silhouettes receding into the darkness of the cavernous chamber.

A sudden whisper tickled Qui-Gon's ear, making her jump. "I don't know about you," Jesmyn murmured, "but I hope they don't bring their good news back for a little while longer."

Chuckling, the Jedi looked at Jesmyn and said, "Well, I'll have to disagree with you there. I suppose if your passion is droids you might find this spot a bit more romantic, but I can't say I'm a fan of the view."

"Not even the lighting?"

She moved her gaze along the torches that flickered throughout the deep. "Hmm. Does have a certain ambience, I suppose." Hefting her cane, the Jedi sighed. "But in all seriousness, as . . . absolutely lovely as the last sixty seconds or so have been, I'm a Jedi. If Obi-Wan and Anakin get back, I can't be lingering down here."

The Arkanian frowned, chewing idly on their lower lip, but nodded, sighed in turn, and extended their hand. "Perhaps we could do some lingering back on the upper levels, once they've returned?"

Qui-Gon slipped her fingers through Jesmyn's, dark mingling with white. The warmth of the touch extended from her hand into the rest of her body. "I think that could be arranged."

"This isn't over yet," Valis said. The best thing to shake off her shock was movement—brushing past Maul, she began to pace the length of her chambers, from one wall to the other, boots thumping against the tile. "If Yi is smart enough to hold out on us and be making plans with Mekosk as well, she's smart enough to know stabbing us in the back before victory is assured isn't the best idea."

Mate floated by her, his expressionless "face" somehow inquisitive; Valis waved him away. "If something goes wrong at Serenno and he can't give her her precious facility, she'll need us as backup, so she can't afford to betray us to him yet. We should head back to Olympus, consolidate our position with what allies we have there just in case. Worst comes to worst, we have the Charybdis and our support ships—"

"You know as well as I do that won't work," Maul said quietly. He sounded perfectly calm.

"A plan that probably won't work is better than no plan at all, Maul," the admiral snapped, "and considering we just had this dumped on us I'm thinking as fast as I bloody well can."

"Don't. Think."

The bark in those words commanded attention; Valis turned despite herself, though she didn't stop moving. The Zabrak's rotting teeth were bared not in the usual threat display but genuine frustration. "Do you think I couldn't sense what you were feeling fighting those experiments?" he asked, his eyes following her across the room. "For the first time, you did what I said and let the dark side guide you. And it felt right. You were in the moment, acting on instinct."

Lying to him would have been pointless, not to mention childish; Valis knew that the heat of her emotions in the moment he described would have been white-hot in the Force. And she had to admit, he had a point when he said her current semblance of a plan was useless. Racing back to the capital to try to stage a last-ditch coup on the Executive Board is as good as suicide if we have no safeguards in place. Especially considering that even if we succeeded, we'd have Maul's master to deal with. Halting her pacing, she turned on her heel and looked at him. "Very well, then. What does your instinct propose we do?"

Capitulation was, in a way, a minor victory; she detected the surprise that surged through Maul when she made no argument, and for a moment he simply stood silent, as if he'd been too busy preparing jibes to actually remember what it was the Force had told him. Valis repressed a smirk; then, the warlord spoke.

"We know where the attack force that will hit Serenno has to be coming from, and we know they'll emerge from hyperspace at the edge of the system, to avoid detection. We also know that Wayland is far closer to the system than Olympus is, which means that even though they have a head start, we can get there first."

At this, he allowed himself a grim, feral grin. "When they emerge from hyperspace, we'll be waiting to assume command and lead the attack. The dark side will let us know what do do from there."

Making the jump to the Aurora system and launching themselves into a siege they'd had no part in planning or preparing for was ludicrous. It was dangerous, it was stupid, and it could easily end with Psoriss Threll and her ships blowing the Charybdis out of the sky.

But even as Maul suggested it, Valis felt a heat blooming within her chest, a core of pulsing excitement. Her thoughts flitted back to Yi's smug revelation of Mekosk's counteroffer, and her fury stoked the excitement's fire, turning it white-hot.

He was right. She knew what she had felt in the midst of the wrecked cloning facility. And turning over his idea in her mind, Valis admitted to herself that the savage anticipation it stirred within her, no matter how foolhardy, was a much better feeling than the impotent frustration her best-laid plans had gotten her over the last several days.

Looking Maul directly in his amber eyes, she said, "I'll order the jump immediately."

As she strode out of her chambers, the Zabrak fell in alongside her. He did not, as would have been customary, lurk behind her, ever-watchful, or take the lead so that she had to follow him.

The two walked together, united in purpose and in step, to the bridge.

Republic Archives: The Depths of Stratum Apolune

As the population of Serenno's numerous floating platforms grew, it became more economical to build those platforms upward rather than expanding them outward. Thus, descending through the levels of a Serenno city platform becomes a journey through that platform's history—terminating in a structural style now referred to as The Depths.

These Depths are the remnants of Serenno's first settlement platforms—crude structures built by miners to facilitate the harvest of the moon's raw materials. Exposed piping, metal grate flooring, and archaic incandescent lighting are all hallmarks of The Depths. Today, each platform's Depths house essential city utilities like water, power, and comm lines. They also serve as a dumping ground for mining mechs that have fallen into disrepair.

Over the years, The Depths of Stratum Apolune have formed a sort of self sustaining mechanical ecosystem. Spider-like "scavver droids" roam The Depths, harvesting parts off the mining mechs discarded there. The droids use the parts to maintain the networks of piping found under each platform, as well as for performing self-repair. Serennan droidsmiths have even noticed fluctuations in scavver droid populations which coincide with availability of materials—when few parts are available, the scavver droids will harvest each other; when there is a wealth of old mining mechs to pick over, the scavver droid colonies will build new units to help with the harvest.