The elegantly curved blade sparked as it hit my chest, the accompanying sting of pain hardly registering as I acknowledged defeat.

"You need to narrow your focus, my young Knight," Master (not quite yet Count) Dooku announced as he deactivated his training blade. "In a duel, your insistence on separating a part of your mind from the task at hand is dulling your reflexes. Your enemy needs to be all that you think about."

I nodded. "I'm not certain that's possible, Master, but I will continue to try."

"I know you will. Avoid that language in front of Master Yoda, however. He bristles at the word 'try.'" The older man stepped to the side to bring water to his lips, and I noticed the sweat dripping from his face.

"Thank you for inviting me to spar with you today," I began, "but I wasn't expecting this opportunity. Might I inquire what prompted it?"

Dooku nodded; I felt his sense of import swell up as he explained. "Following the matters on Naboo and Kamino, several of us on the Council have decided that your Visions should be looked at more closely. Certain measures are being taken to address their more… concerning elements."

"I am glad, Master. Much of what happens in the next few years is certainly concerning."

"Particularly," the Master continued, "regarding your choices in deviating from what you describe." He emanated disapproval, but gently, as though guiding an errant child rather than addressing an opponent.

"I know there are arguments that Visions are the will of the Force. But if you mean to imply that I should have allowed Anakin's mother to remain on Tatooine -"

"Not at all. Although your… intimacy with the Skywalker woman has not gone unnoticed." His emotions there were mixed, at least as far as I could sense. "No, we're concerned with your…" he swept his gesture towards my lightsaber "... combat readiness. The future that you recount seems to hinge heavily, in several places, on your skill with the blade."

"Not that alone, though," I pointed out. "It was always Obi-wan's overall awareness and adaptability that -"

"Why do you do that?" Dooku asked abruptly.

"Do what?"

"Refer to yourself in the third person when describing your Visions."

"I don't always," I grasped.

"No, but it's happened often enough to be commented on." The older man had some sort of suspicion, i could tell, but he closed down on it with an act of will. "That's beside the point. What I'm telling you, Obi-wan, is that your Visions are heavily skewed towards these clashes, and you need to win them."

He stalked over to where his outer robe hung in the training area, and removed a data chit. "We are not arguing you about this, so we had it written into an official mission."

I suppressed a glower at him as I took the small piece of memory. "For how long?" I asked, simply.

"Years, probably. As the Mission states, you will train a minimum of three hours a day, every day, until you best me."

"The could very well take years," I agreed.

"It will take three months, at most," Dooku contradicted.

"Then how -"

"You are then assigned to train with Master Unduli, three hours per day, until you best her. Then Master Tiin, Master Mundi, Master Yoda, and finally Master Windu."

The final name on the list was too much. "He'll kill me in less than three hours!"

"If you began with him today, this would most likely be true," Dooku agreed, returning to his place at the sparring mat. "Hence the sequence of partners. Each should provide you with sufficient skill and endurance to survive training with the next." I began to voice another objection, but he cut me off. "We can discuss this more when we have time. For now, there is still two hours and forty minutes left for today." His smile was toothy, implying some savagery. "The clock is only ticking when our swords are moving. Breaks don't count."

It was a long three hours, and my blade never touched him once.

I propped myself against the floor when he finally called us done for the day, and asked, "Isn't this going to cut into your ability to spend time managing your estates off-world?"

"Most matters can be handled from here," Dooku explained. "And, if needed, you and Olana can accompany me to Serenno. Just as I am going with you to Ilum in two weeks' time."

"This will constrain our ability to take other missions, then," I pointed out.

"Yes, if the mission is long enough that it would negatively impact our sessions." He pulled his outer robe off the wall and donned it. "Although urgent enough matters may take precedence, many of the items included in your extended timeline may be reassigned to other Knights. You are far from the only Jedi in the Order, after all."

I acknowledged this as I pulled on my own robe. "Thank you, Master, for investing so much in me."

Dooku nodded respectfully, and then added, "If you are not otherwise obligated, I have an appointment in the morning that I would invite you and your Padawan to attend." At my affirmative nod, he continued, "Senator Palpatine and I have continued working to track down older relics of significance to the history of the Order and the Sith. You have expressed your own interest in this, I know, and the Senator has suggested that this should be encouraged. I agree."

"Does this meeting concern anything in particular?" I allowed my curiosity to motivate my question.

"Indeed. A holocron, seized in a raid on smugglers."

"Intact?" I asked excitedly.

"He believes so," the old Master said, "but he has asked me to examine it directly. You will join us?"

"Of course," I agreed. "I am sure Olanna and I can learn a lot from you two."

**(To) 0B-1.**

**(To) 0B-1.**

**(To) 0B-1 (from) R2-D2. Acknowledge.**

I finally looked up from my bed where I had been slowly drifting to sleep. Embarrassingly, it wasn't until my droid friend extended his greeting that I recognized the beeps as his attempt to address me. It had been a very long day, and he could sometimes hang out in my quarters for days at a time without a word. "Sorry, Artoo. What is it?"

**R2-D2 submits a resource requisition.**

"Of course. What do you need?"

**75,000 Republic credits.**

I blinked. "That's a lot of money. What do you need it for?'

**That information will be provided in the future. Query: Resource requisition approved?**

I blinked again. I couldn't remember Artoo ever stonewalling me on information. "Approved, sure. You have access to my accounts already, though."

**Removing funds obligated to a different function is not advised Expenditures in excess of 0.5% liquid assets should be coordinated between managing units.** He made a squeal indicating he was accessing the comm net. **Authorization acknowledged. Assets transferred.**

"You're welcome. Ah, does that mean you've been spending smaller amounts without asking?'

**Affirmative.**

"On what?" The droid hardly ever left the Temple… as far as I knew.

**That information will be provided in the future. Informing 0B-1 at this interval would reduce probability of success from 28.7% to 11.4%. Unacceptable.**

This was making less and less sense. "Artoo, you're saying I'd stop you if I knew what you were doing?"

**Negative. Further information will not be provided at this interval.**

"All right. Good night, then."

I took longer than usual to fall asleep, as I tried to think of what Artoo might be doing. The droid was not what I expected, at all. I'd always thought of mechanicals as just humans in a different sort of body, but working with them had taught me that there was more to it than that. They experienced and thought about the world in a fundamentally different way.

In the end, though, I trusted R2-D2. Of all the characters from the series, he was one of the few that clearly and unambiguously stood on the side of the protagonists the entire time.

It was that trust that finally grounded me enough to get some sleep.

"What do you know about Sith holocrons?" I asked Olana as we boarded the flyer. I'd been to Palpatine's personal quarters before when working with him on political matters, and Dooku assured me that they were just as palatial as I remembered.

Olana considered me and the question before answering. "As much as any initiate," she offered. "When we're first introduced to the Jedi holocrons in the Archive, they warn us to respect the gatekeepers within, and that knowledge of the Force is restricted for good reason. The implications are obvious."

"Implications?" I prompted.

"Teachers like to pretend it's a big secret, as though they'll caution us about falling to the Dark Side every lesson, and it will never have occurred to us that it must have actually happened before." She shrugged. "There are stories. A Sith holocron would have a Sith's personality embedded in it as well as their secrets, influencing anyone who uses it. 'The fastest path to the Dark Side is to seek it out.'"

I nodded. "That's probably a good lesson to teach initiates."

Olana raised an eyebrow. "But you'd teach a different lesson to more experienced Jedi?"

I shrugged. "Knowledge doesn't corrupt, and neither does Force Persuasion. If a Sith holocron makes more Sith, it does so by teaching them something that makes them decide to become Sith. Secrets like that tend to lose their power once they are out in the open."

"So you think the reason why Sith holocrons guard this information, is that the corrupting influence is strongest when the information is studied by an individual and in secret?" She was doubtful of this idea.

"If an idea could corrupt by being spread broadly," I pointed out, "the Sith have certainly had the tools at their disposal to do so. Light is an excellent disinfectant for evil ideas."

"Unless the Sith didn't see the Dark Side influence as 'corruption,' but as power. And they wanted to limit access to that power."

"That… actually makes a lot of sense," I admitted.

"So that's where we're going? To see Palpatine's holocron?"

"To see the one he acquired, yes," I agreed. "He has intimate connections with banking interests on several Core worlds, which I understand to be how he is able to call on such significant resources."

Olana paused for a moment before she spoke again. "I don't like him," she finally said, quietly, watching me carefully to gauge my reaction.

This surprised me; I didn't know anyone who disliked the Senator other than his political opponents. "What don't you like?"

She swallowed. "Have you followed his political trajectory? How he came to be Senator, to wield the power he does in the Senate?" I shook my head, and Olana explained, "Each event has a reasonable explanation on its own, or at least a plausible one. But taken together, they create an image of a man more driven by ambition than anything else. And willing to ruin lives to get it."

"I'll look into it more," I agreed, "but have you considered the selection bias at play here?"

"You mean, the fact that I'm looking at the one person who ended up on top, and pointing out it's improbable for one person to win so often?" I was impressed how frequently she was following my reasoning. "That may be. I guess it's just that… well…" she sighed. "His demeanor doesn't match his results. It's… suspicious."

"I think he's just pragmatic. He separates the business of politics from personal animosity."

"As you say, Master," my apprentice-to-be concluded, respectfully.

The hired flyer dropped us on a sweeping balcony, where Palpatine and Dooku awaited our arrival with brandy glasses in hand.