The tunnel door opens, and Obi-Wan Kenobi steps out into a world of fire.

All around him Mandalore burns. On and around the landing pad, Maul's Death Watch soldiers clash with Bo-Katan's loyalist soldiers, jet packs roaring, blasters ripping, voices howling. Behind him, back in that glass-walled throne room where Maul now reigns, Duchess Satine Kryze is dead. Gone, just like that, Maul's thirst for revenge slashing the thread of her life before Obi-Wan's eyes. Pain, Kenobi: You will know my pain.

And now this: Civil war raging in the power vacuum that has enveloped this last bastion of neutrality in the galaxy. It is all a mess. It is so much worse than what he expected when he first received Satine's distress call back in the Jedi Temple. All he can do is carry the memory of her with her back to Coruscant, the tale of a planet embroiled in chaos and strife. A failure. His failure; his inability to stop the anarchy of Mandalore from escalating, his failure to stop Maul. His failure to keep Satine safe.

That hole, that wound—even hours later it still hurts just as much as when Maul's saber snuffed out Satine's life.

Behind him, Bo-Katan surges out of the hanger tunnel with her blasters alight. Bolts soar past her from engaging Death Watch troops; Obi-Wan knocks away one, two with his lightsaber, going through the motions now, the fight a sad denouement to a sadder chronicle. As a Mandalorian troopship drops down to the landing pad behind him, he breaks for the ship, reflecting another blaster bolt on the way.

Bo-Katan backs up to the vessel's landing ramp as Obi-Wan steps aboard. "Go back to your Republic and tell them what has happened," she says as she keeps up the fire, her face grim, her eyes flashing.

Obi-Wan can see right through her expression. That determination. That steel will in the face of adversity. He sees it at last: There's a reason Bo-Katan is here, leading soldiers against Maul's troops. She looks so much like Satine. What he feels; what she must be feeling.

But he shakes off the recognition and answers her: "That would likely lead to a Republic invasion of—"

Then he stops short. His eyes dart to the side. Something is amiss. Something is coming that shouldn't be here.

All too quickly he sees it. All too late. Too late to do anything but sheathe his lightsaber, lunge forward, and shout, "Bo—get down!"

Obi-Wan tackles her. They crash to the ground as a pair of violet missiles slam into the Mandalorian ship, blowing apart the engine cowling and blasting it into a plume of fire and shorn metal. Obi-Wan looks up just in time to see two droid starfighters zipping away from the carnage and another pair bearing down in their wake, laser cannons flashing as red bolts lance out at individual Mandalorian soldiers.

The vulture droids are not alone. A conical drop pod slams into the landing pad not ten meters away. The door ejects with a violent crash, and a second later a super battle droid emerges in a cloud of haze, blaster bolts blazing from its wrist and the volley catching the first Death Watch trooper to engage.

Bo-Katan snarls. "Battle droids."

"What are the Separatists doing here?" Obi-Wan says through gritted teeth as he ignites his lightsaber.

"I was hoping you'd have an answer for that. You're the Jedi."

"Well, I'm all out of answers today."

The super battle droid rounds on the two of them and opens fire. Obi-Wan catches the blasts with his blade, advancing one step at a time, careful, careful. Bo-Katan is not so cautious: She tumbles and dives away from the droid's gunfire, somersaulting to the side and unleashing a torrent of fire into the droid's lightly-armored waist joints. It tumbles into a heap of sparking scrap, its vocabulator mumbling and moaning as Obi-Wan pushes it away with the Force. "We have to get off this landing pad," he says as he looks up, spotting a trio of Trade Federation landing craft dropping down from the clouds. It's not just a strike but a full-scale invasion fleet; the Separatists are serious about seizing this place. But why? Is it just another Taris situation, a bid to move up the front line of the Clone Wars? Or is something else taking place on this scarred world? "The Separatists are going to be dropping in all over this city. Is there somewhere else we can escape to? Anywhere I can get off-world?"

Bo-Katan nods. "There's an emergency launching chute for VIPs under the palace," she says. "We'll have to fly back through the city, though. And since it's at the palace, there's a good chance Maul will run into us."

"Anywhere else?"

"I've got nothing, Jedi. It's there or we take our chances at a landing pad that isn't getting blown up by droid fighters."

"Then let's take our chances at the palace. It's possible that the Separatist attack has drawn Maul off," says Obi-Wan.

He turns, takes a step—and then staggers as the Force itself seems to rend and tear. A blast of feeling and raw emotion roars from deep within the city, hitting where only a Jedi might feel it. A howling of the Dark Side. A scream of energy, of instinct. Obi-Wan presses his hand to his forehead and winces to stymie the pain. He has no idea what happened that might have sent waves of this magnitude rippling through the Force, but he does know this much: Deep within Sundari, something terrible has happened. He, Maul, and Savage must not be the only ones strong in the Force here tonight. Something else has come to Sundari, not just the Separatists, but something or someone far more powerful.

Bo-Katan spies his wincing expression. "What's wrong?"

"A darkness…a tear in the Force. Like something great just shouted and was snuffed out," says Obi-Wan, shaking his head. "Never mind it, not now. To the palace. Come on." It is not just escape that he thinks of now, however. The palace: It is there, he imagines, that mountains have moved, there that power has flexed, fates have changed. While he is here amid the madness, he wants to see for himself what could shock the Force like that.

He and Bo-Katan tear off on their jetpacks, veering back through the entry tunnel into the city. The violence has intensified within: Droid fighters zip through the flocks of warring Mandalorians, battering defensive emplacements and city infrastructure with laser fire and torpedo volleys. A few STAPs have joined the aerial fight as well, and already battle droids fan out into the street. The invasion is moving rapidly. "On our left," Bo-Katan says, waving her blaster at a squad of STAPs peeling off of their flight and diving in on them. "Separatist speeders."

"They'll outrun us. We have to lose them," says Obi-Wan. He eyes a city arch spanning the breadth of a highway below and prepares to dive. "Down there."

"On it. Get on my tail."

Bo-Katan dives, and Obi-Wan follows. They hurtle through the air like falcons, birds of prey diving through the wild, two warriors leaping through the flames. Bo-Katan veers expertly under the arch and the lead STAP follows too closely: It rams the building and blows in two, the upper half—pilot included—erupting into a fireball as the lower half spirals down to the cityscape below. Obi-Wan is not so dexterous with his jetpack, and as he makes a wider, rounder turn about the arch, the second STAP on his tail dips, lines up a shot, and fires.

"Ah!" he shouts. The first bolt catches his jetpack right in the left engine nozzle. It bursts into flames and smoke, and Obi-Wan struggles desperately to get a hold on his trajectory. With the jetpack sparking, sputtering, and dying as the flames bellow, Obi-Wan unbuckles the mechanism and tosses it away as he falls. Spinning, pinwheeling—he drops through the air almost gracefully, a dewdrop in a rainstorm, all the world clashing and clamoring around him and he in the middle of it. The ground rushes up to meet him. So, too, does the third STAP of the squadron close in.

But now the foe is an opportunity. Obi-Wan concentrates, focuses, reaches into the Force, and he slows his descent just enough to land on the STAP as it crosses under him.

"Bah!" screeches the droid pilot.

"Sorry about this," Obi-Wan says, wrestling with the battle droid for the speeder's controls. He manages to wrench the droid free just before the STAP slams into a building, but as he veers away, he hits the brakes—and rips them free from the console. "Oh, blast it. Federation manufacturing."

Diving towards the highway surface, Obi-Wan leaps free from the STAP as it careens into the ground. He ducks, avoiding the shrapnel explosion, alive but still far from the palace and now without any means of flight. Bo-Katan drops down nearby. "Your pack's gone?" she asks. When he shrugs, she swears. "Damn it."

"Is there a speeder garage or anything of the sort nearby?" says Obi-Wan. "Anything that can get me back into the air?"

"Not that I know of, and we're far too far from the palace for you to walk on foot," says Bo-Katan. She shakes her head. "I'll send someone to pick you up and take you the rest of the way, Jedi. I can't leave my men out there to fight both Maul's troops and the Separatists. Not without fighting alongside them."

Obi-Wan nods. "I understand. I'll get word to the Republic. You have my promise. And may the Force be with you, Bo."

"And you, Jedi," she says. Then she is gone, a harrier taking wing, the spirit of Mandalore still defiant against those who would drive a proud people into history. A warrior, still.

It is not long before her help arrives. A courier speeder lifts up over the highway ledge with a single pilot, a tall young man with blonde hair and facial features just a little too familiar. That same iron look in his eyes that Obi-Wan saw in Bo-Katan. Something else, though, something unique to him. Something in the cut of his chin, his square jaw, that Obi-Wan both recognizes and does not. Not Satine, that feature. But where…

"Master Jedi," the young man calls out as he sets the speeder down on the empty highway. "Bo said you were in need of a ride."

Obi-Wan hurries forward. "Thank you. I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi," he introduces himself.

"Korkie. Where do I take you?"

"I need to get to the palace and get off this world, Korkie. Bo-Katan mentioned an emergency hanger bay beneath it. Can you get me there?"

Korkie lifts the speeder off as a shadow crosses his face. "Yeah. I can do that."

"You know your way around the palace?"

"Of course I do," he says, his voice hardening as he hits the speeder's thrusters. "Aunt Satine took me around there enough."

Aunt Satine. Obi-Wan looks at the young man; looks away. He does not know what to say. He did not even know Satine had a nephew. Now it is so easy to see all those features he liked about her, that familiarity evident in his face. "I'm so sorry. Your aunt—" he begins.

"You don't need to say anything more. Bo told me what Maul did to her," Korkie spits, his eyes fixed firmly ahead as he speeds through the cityscape, not to much as glancing up at the aerial combat lighting up the city all around. "I meant to go to the palace anyway."

"Korkie, no," interjects Obi-Wan. "Maul is far too powerful to try and seek revenge on him. He is a Sith warrior, and he's not alone. I know what you must feel right now—"

He glares over his shoulder at Obi-Wan. "Yeah? Do you? How's that?"

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath. "I met your aunt when I was a Padawan, on an extended mission with my master. And I'm here tonight because I came to rescue her."

"You're who she wanted to contact?" Korkie says, turning away. "Good job."

"I know I failed. I was there when Maul…when she died. I wasn't strong enough. Wasn't fast enough," says Obi-Wan. "But I told Bo I would get word to the Republic. Now that the Separatists have landed—"

"And why are they here? Did you bring them?"

"I have no idea why they're here, but they have come in force. The Republic will be unable to ignore this. You have my word."

Korkie scoffs. "We don't need the Republic! We'll drive Maul out, then we'll work on the Separatists. For what happened to Aunt Satine. For what they're doing to our home. We won't rest."

Obi-Wan feels Korkie's anger. That rage, that wildfire burn lashing out in all directions. The tree-snapping heat of hatred, unable to strike back against its sworn foe, left only to swat at everything to cross its path—be that Obi-Wan or the Separatists or anyone else. But it is not his place to lecture the boy. He isn't Anakin. This isn't Obi-Wan's world. Even if Korkie is Satine's nephew, he has to focus on the mission.

But a part of him wants to speak up. Satine would not want her family to boil in anger at her death.

As they close in on the palace, Korkie growls. "What'd they do to it? Those monsters."

Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder. In place of the Duchess's palace is a smoldering mess, a ruin of metal and glass and char-black rubble, evidence of a bombing. Maul? Is he dead? Was that what Obi-Wan felt out there on the landing pad? And is that why the Separatists have come—orders from Dooku or whoever that mysterious Sith lord behind this whole war is, a command to excise a rival? But he will not find out tonight. He is one man, and before anything else, he needs to get back to the Jedi Council. They can figure this out, together, with wisdom, not with reckless abandon in the midst of a warzone.

"Where do we go to get to the hanger?" says Obi-Wan.

"There's two entrances. One in the palace complex itself, and an evacuation exit near the palace base," says Korkie, eyes still locked on the smoldering ruin of the throne room.

"Is that first option still viable?"

"Yes. It's part of an elevator network that's located near the ducal offices. We'll go in through the front," says Korkie.

There's a finality to his words. It's not just that the boy sees it as the easiest way in; he hopes to meet Maul or his solders head-on, to get that fight he's craving, to exact justice from an unjust tragedy. But Obi-Wan will not argue. He is enough to protect him. He hopes.

They land near the front entrance to the palace complex, before a wide set of stairs rising to a sweeping set of double doors. Overhead a pair of Mandalorian soldiers blow by, pursued by the scarlet lances of laser fire from a chasing tri-fighter. "This way, Master Jedi," Korkie says, drawing a blaster pistol. "Right in through the front."

"If Maul's men are in there—" Obi-Wan begins.

"I'll handle that part."

"Not if it's Maul himself. Korkie, listen to me—he was too strong for me. If we come across him, we run."

Korkie scowls. "No promises. You want off Mandalore? Then come on."

The intensity of this one. That same Kryze stubbornness. There is no point in arguing.

They make it almost all the way up the stairs when Obi-Wan stops. He feels it again in the Force, less intense this time but close, so close. A smoldering, a seething. The Dark Side is here, right before him. "Hold on," he says, grabbing Korkie's arm. "Step back."

Korkie wrenches his arm free. "What?"

"I'm sensing something coming from inside. Stand back."

The doors throw open and trickles of smoke slither out. From behind them looms a silhouette in shadow, black-wraith figure stepping out from the darkness into the feral light like a phantom newborn taking its first steps in the deep. The Dark Side pours out. Obi-Wan can feel it everywhere. "Get back," he says again, igniting his lightsaber.

The phantom raises its arm, and a red lightsaber blade flashes in the smoke. "Maul," snaps Korkie. He raises his blaster and fires.

The figure easily swats the shot away. "Get out of here, son," Obi-Wan shouts, stepping in front of him. "Get of here, now!"

"But—"

"Now!"

"Brave of you, boy," the phantom says in a voice Obi-Wan has heard too many times over the last three years. It is not Maul. It is far worse. "But Lord Maul will not be joining us tonight."

Obi-Wan raises his lightsaber before him. "Dooku."

"Whatever you are doing here, Obi-Wan Kenobi, it is far too late to change anything," Dooku says, stepping out of the smoke, his black cloak torn, soot smearing his noble face. Compared to his typical regal appearance he looks downright dirty, as if emerging from battle. He deactivates his lightsaber and raises his arms. "This is a night of providence. What I have foreseen has come to pass. And there is nothing you can do, for the future has been made present."

Looking over his shoulder—and seeing, to his relief, that Korkie has scattered—Obi-Wan says, "What are you talking about, Dooku? What are you doing here?"

"I am here for the only thing that matters, Obi-Wan. I am here for everything."

"What does that mean? Did you come to kill Maul?"

Dooku smiles. "Maul was an object in the way, nothing more. Be he alive or be he dead, I do not know, and I am not concerned," he says, pacing along the top of the steps. "Do you remember three years ago on Geonosis?"

"Of course I remember. I remember all those Jedi you killed."

"Not that, but before the unpleasantness of our fight. When it was not a battle but merely a conversation between you and I, when we still could have been allies, and not foes," says Dooku. "I told you a Dark Lord of the Sith was behind all the machinations at play, one who would tear the galaxy apart in war."

"Your master?"

"Yes. He was my master," Dooku says, his smile growing. "Was. For tonight I have thrown aside the mantle of apprentice. Darth Sidious is dead at my hand. Now I am the Dark Lord of the Sith, Obi-Wan. Now I bow before no other."

Obi-Wan's chest feels airy, empty. His head throbs. "Impossible."

"Inevitable."

"No, that can't be. There are always two Sith," says Obi-Wan. "If you killed this Darth Sidious, your master, then who is your apprentice now? I met Ventress on Tatooine. She isn't working for you anymore. Who is it, then? Who serves you?"

Dooku laughs. "I think you will find I have a much different interpretation of the Sith Code then my predecessors of the past thousand years did," he says. "I do not care for the nuances of master and apprentice. I do not care to hide away as the Sith have done for so long, twisting in the shadows. I will build an order of my own, an order to rival the Jedi, and with it I will forge order itself—real order, order where the sloth of the Republic has failed, order where the inaction of the Jedi has left only ruin. A new order, one to stretch from Mandalore to Coruscant to the Outer Rim. I do not care about the orthodoxy of the fight between Jedi and Sith. I do not care about the tiny ambitions of the Separatists that I lead. I am remaking this galaxy now, one planet at a time. I dream of a Galactic Empire, Obi-Wan. A place of security. Of strength. Where the madness of this war will subside and peace—order—will reign. Where none of the death and lunacy and anarchy of the Clone Wars will ever happen again."

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "You are mad."

"Do not shackle yourself to the dogma of the Jedi," Dooku says. He reaches out a hand. "Look within yourself. Search your feelings. You and I were destined to build this galaxy together. We are part of an unbroken line, myself to Qui-Gon Jinn to you. That is the legacy of master and apprentice."

"I am sure Anakin would love to hear that."

"There is a place in my galaxy for every Jedi who would heed reason. Even Skywalker," says Dooku. "Trust your instincts, Obi-Wan. Everything Qui-Gon taught you, every word you follow today—I first taught him. We are so alike. We do not need to be enemies. We have spent three years at odds, but I can forgive our fight. Join me. Join me, and we will make a better galaxy. A better future. I foresee it. Not as master and apprentice, but as brothers in arms, as soldiers of purpose."

Obi-Wan angles his lightsaber at him. "You're fallen at last," he says. "Your lust for power has led you to this, Dooku. Look around you: Is this the order you wish to bring? Tearing apart a neutral world? Wrecking Mandalore? Killing innocents in droves? Do you think this is what Qui-Gon would want? No. If this is your dream of empire, then wake up from it. I will never join you. Nor would Qui-Gon. No Jedi ever will."

"There you are wrong. One Jedi already has. The first of many to come," says Dooku. He lights his saber once more. "But if you will not come too, then so be it. A purging fire must cleanse this galaxy before it can be remade, and I will do what I must."

Obi-Wan readies himself for the fight. "You will try."

Before they can clash, however, a speeder rises off of Obi-Wan's left. "Master Jedi!" Korkie shouts, handling a Death Watch jetpack mounted on the speeder's front. "Get down!"

He launches the back-mounted missile from the jetpack squarely at Dooku. The Sith Lord leaps away with a grunt of frustration as the warhead explodes, showering the steps with shrapnel. "Hit the thruster," Obi-Wan yells to Korkie as he leaps, then jumps again in the air with the Force, bounding onto the speeder behind Korkie. 'Go! Go!"

Korkie does not need prodding. He jams on the thrusters as Dooku rises. The Sith Lord reaches out and launches a blast of lightning at the speeder, and only Obi-Wan's timely interception with his lightsaber catches the electricity in time. Korkie's face pales as he slaps the speeder's console. "Come on!"

As they rush away, Obi-Wan looks back. Dooku stands like a conqueror, back straight, proud, lightsaber slipping into its handle as he watches his quarry flee. This is not Obi-Wan's fight. And Dooku—such power. Obi-Wan has never felt that in their previous encounters. The Dark Lord of the Sith. So may it be.

"We'll take the emergency exit in," says Korkie as he dives the speeder. "Down near the base of the city." His voice is higher-pitched than before, an alarm inflected in his words.

"Are you all right?" Obi-Wan asks.

Korkie hesitates. "That was—"

"Count Dooku. Yes."

"This is crazy. First Maul, then the leader of the Separatists. This—this is crazy."

"Yes," Obi-Wan says. "Yes it is."

They slip inside the base of the palace complex via a door so subtle and hidden away that Obi-Wan would've missed it on his own. Inside, red emergency lighting casts a haunting glow over the empty corridors. The vacuum in the palace strikes Obi-Wan hard. There is no one in power here now. No one to lead Mandalore. Just the shock and awe of the Separatist invasion and the madness of the civil war contraposed. A world of violence. As Mandalore was once. As it is again. Dooku's dream may be born, but Satine's dream of a peaceful planet is dead.

Obi-Wan and Korkie reach a slim, darkened hanger bay with a single bullet-shaped craft resting in a launching cradle. Ahead stretches a long length of launch tube, too far to see the other side. "Get in," Korkie says, pointing to an entry ramp at the vessel's rear. "The launch sequence will activate as soon as you start the ship up. I hope you're good for your word, Jedi."

"Korkie, wait," says Obi-Wan. "Come with me to Coruscant."

"What? No. No, my fight's here. My people are here. My friends are here," says Korkie, his face darkening. "I'm not abandoning them."

"Listen to me: Maybe your resistance could've fought off Maul, but you can't fight a full-scale Separatist invasion. Especially not if they control orbit, and I guarantee that they do."

"We'll manage."

"You'll manage to raid them from time to time, at best. But repulse an invasion fleet? No. No, and that is not what Mandalore needs right now," Obi-Wan says, his voice growing urgent. "Satine came before the Senate once to speak on her people's behalf. Now Mandalore needs its native son to do the same. What is more powerful? Who will the senators believe? Another Jedi report of a battle lost in a war full of that? Or you, speaking on behalf of your world, your people? I know you want to fight, Korkie. I know what the death of someone you look up to means. When it happened to me—and it was against Maul as well, years and years ago—I fought then. This war you can't win alone, however. But you don't have to. Come with me and rally the Republic to Mandalore's aid. That's how you liberate your people. Not with gunfire, but with words."

Korkie pauses. His jaw sets. Obi-Wan thinks the young man will turn him down, walk away, give in to his hunger for revenge. But then he sighs. "Get in," he says, walking past Obi-Wan and up the ship's ramp. "I'm trusting you, Master Jedi. I hope you're right."

"I sure hope I am as well," Obi-Wan says, "because we can't afford any more losses."

Anakin presses his hand to fist to his forehead and stares out of the viewport. The black of space. Darkness and darkness, out there, inside him. As within, so beyond.

The door to the viewing chamber aboard the Leveler opens and a smartly-dressed Republic officer with a paintbrush mustache and serious eyes steps inside. His salute is perfect. "General Skywalker," he says. "We've met up with Captain Dodonna's fleet. We're all together now."

Anakin does not want to hear the report, but he will. He's the senior officer of whatever remnants of the Ziost attack fleet got out of there. His word leads them on. "How many ships survived the battle?"

"Nine ships of Dodonna's vanguard, plus another five of the core fleet. Not counting the Leveler."

"Barely anything. Eighty percent losses. More."

"Still survivors, sir."

Anakin frowns. He does not mind this officer, Captain Gilad Pellaeon. Just another ship commander amid the attack fleet, but clearly a dedicated man. The Leveler is a well-run vessel as far as he can tell, and Pellaeon's commitment to smashing his way through the Separatist armada to rescue Anakin's escape pod from the disaster aboard the Invisible Hand strikes a chord. He owes the man a favor. He owes him his life. But right now he does not want to talk to anyone, and he most certainly does not want to talk about fleet movements. A loss is a loss. If it was only a mere defeat, Anakin would be angry but accepting. But this was much more than just a loss. "What's the word from the med-bay?"

Pellaeon's answer is brief and to the point: "Padawan Tano's in a bacta tank. The medics have her stable but comatose. If they remove her—"

"She'll die. I get it," Anakin says. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Tell Dodonna to get us all back to Coruscant. He's in command the rest of the way. Unless it's urgent, he can handle it on my behalf."

"Yes, sir," Captain Pellaeon says. He reads Anakin's body language and moves out without a dismissal.

At least someone gets it. If only the whole universe could leave him alone.

But Anakin's peace is short-lived, for another visitor arrives shortly later. This one, at least, will understand the way he feels.

"General," Rex says as he enters, R2-D2 trailing along behind him. "They, uh, kicked me out of the med-bay. Said they needed to modulate the Commandor's vital signs, or something to that extent."

Anakin's heart skips. "Is she stable?"

"Yeah, it was just medical jargon. They didn't seem too caught up about it."

"Fine," mumbles Anakin. He feels as if in a daze; his head swirls and scrambles. Then he pounds the viewport with his fist. "Damn it!"

"General?"

"Damn it! Blast it, if I hadn't just run off to the bridge to get Grievous, if I'd…if Ahsoka'd…damn it!"

Rex looks down. "No. I failed you, General," he says.

"What?"

"I should've taken a shot at Grievous, but Commander Tano didn't want me to get killed. I should've done something. I should've jumped into the fight. You sent me along with her to keep her safe, and I failed. All I did was watch Grievous cut her down," he says. He closes his eyes. "I'm sorry, General."

"No, stop. Don't start," Anakin says. "Ahsoka was right. Grievous would've killed you. I should've been there. I was the one who gave the order to split up. Grievous knew I'd do it, and he took advantage. Don't blame yourself. Put the blame where it belongs. It's on me."

"Sir, you're not—"

"Get some rest, Rex," says Anakin, looking away. "Please. I just want to be alone right now."

Rex salutes. "Yes sir. And sir—no, that will be all."

Then he, too, is gone, and it is no one but Anakin and R2 alone in this chamber, only cold steel and colder space all around. R2 chirps, trying his best to keep up Anakin's spirits. "I don't know," Anakin murmurs. "I don't know."

Then he slumps down to the ground, back pressed against the lip of a seat, his hands draped over his knees. R2 waddles up, intonating sadly. "What am I supposed to do, buddy?" Anakin says to the droid. "I screwed up and Ahsoka paid for it. What do I do now? I can't even talk to her in that tank. And even if she makes it back to Coruscant, then what? Grievous practically cut her in half. How am I supposed to fix that? How do I even help her? Where do I even start? Is she even gonna be the same?"

R2 bumps Anakin's hand reassuringly. Anakin wraps his arm around the droid and sighs. "What is the point? I can't even protect her. I wasn't even strong enough to make Grievous pay. And if I'm not strong enough to protect her, then what is the point?" he says, speaking into his lap. "What do I do? What can I do?"

He clamps his eyes shut and grimaces. The dark of space, the dark behind his eyelids. The black is without bottom, the depths unknowable. Minutes passing like eons. The silence is earsplitting.

Sae stares into the light, and it is blinding.

She is alone back in the Jedi Temple, back in the same meditation room she lost herself in right after Master Gallia's funeral. It is quiet. Lonely. So lonely—because this time there will not come a soft knock on the door. There will not come a curious little head poking inside to try to cheer her master up. There is no one coming, because Sae, at last, has lost everyone.

How she even made it back to Coruscant mystifies her. Her hands worked like a droid's in that fighter cockpit, punching buttons, guiding her from hyperspace waypoint to waypoint until at last she found her way home. But home is not home anymore; this temple is only an empty house and she a squatter. Here in the Jedi Temple is the light meant to reach all members of the Order, from the oldest of Jedi Masters to the youngest initiate. Here Sae looks up at the setting sun and hates it for its glow.

Fire. Flame. The sunburst of an unnamed pirate transport exploding amid the vicious, uncaring black of deep space. She hates it all. But she hates herself most, because that damnable thing on Ziost showed her the future and she chose to ignore it. You fool. You accursed demon. All of those other people—Falco, Master Gallia, your friends among the Jedi dead on Geonosis—them, perhaps you couldn't save. But you could've saved the one person you cared about most. You could've saved Tamri. This never had to happen. But it did, because of you. You always kept going. You never stopped, or even slowed down, even when Tamri told you to. Just forward. Always forward. On you went, and so you killed her. This is your fault. You did it. You.

You, you, you.

When Sae gave her report to the Council upon return, she told them of Mirial, Tamri's abduction, and then her death. Honor her, Master Mundi had counselled. Honor your Padawan for her light in life. And then let her go. She has passed into the Force, as is all our fates. It is in life that we must walk the path of the Light and know that death is not an enemy but a part of the universe as natural as a tree or a flower.

Mourn her do not, Master Yoda had added. Miss her do not. In the Force, trust. Pass into the Force, must we all. Young and old alike.

Screw them. Sae had bowed her head politely and left, but inside a storm had raged at their words. How dare they. How dare they tell her to look away, to simply forget Tamri, to throw away her memory. They spit on her. Those bastards in their Council seats, staring at her as if she's the one who is flawed. As if she's wrong for mourning. Sae could pick any random bystander off of the street and find more empathy.

And with each thought her hate grows a little more. Just a little more.

Just like the last time she was here, she withdraws her lightsaber and ignites it. The weapon of a Jedi. And the end of many Jedi. She switches it off and presses the unlit emitter to her forehead. Summon your strength. We all go to death, hm? Then why shouldn't she, too? Get away from this accursed world, where the venerable, wizened Jedi Masters who advise the greatest names in the galaxy would tell her to forget the only four years of real happiness she's had in this shipwreck of a life. All hints of joy screeching to an end so suddenly, so drastically, the light drowned out in a single catastrophic moment. Damn it all. Damn them for sending her on that mission to Ossus in the first place. Damn the Jedi for even existing. Damn her stupid nameless, faceless parents for bringing her into this trash heap of an existence.

And damn herself most of all. Damn her for wasting those four happy years and never telling Tamri the truth. Your Padawan. The girl you saw as your daughter. Damn you for never telling the girl that you loved her.

Hit the switch. Ignite your blade. Do it. End it.

But Sae is not strong enough. She sets down her lightsaber and sighs, closing her eyes. In the silence comes a voice—not hers. A mumbling. A murmuring. That same feeling from before, from Ziost, that mix of terror and excitement, and then a scene flashes behind Sae's closed eyelids. A familiar scene, one she saw back when she first stared into the howling maw of the Celestial. A yellow lightsaber crossed with a red lightsaber. Serenno.

She ignored the future before, and then watched it come true. Is this too the future? Well. She looks at her lightsaber. She is not strong enough to do it herself. But, perhaps, she can find someone—someone on Serenno, someone who feels so, so familiar, to do it for her.

The Jedi certainly won't. So what does she need them for? After all, where she's going, she won't be needing anything. You can't take anything with you.

The stolen Cloakshape fighter she escaped the Haxion Brood base in still lies in its docking cradle in the Jedi Temple hanger bay, patched up by maintenance droids. No one tries to stop her. No one asks where she is going. It seems like destiny: The future unfolding with every step. And how many steps does she have left, then? She nestles into the fighter cockpit and looks around the sleepy hanger bay. No ships coming and going. Not even but a few other Jedi in here. A strange feeling writhes in her stomach: If she means to do what she thinks, then this is the last time she will ever see this place. This is her last Coruscant sunset. Her last look at the capital world itself—her birth world, her home.

So be it. She cannot go on like this.

At last, as she fires up the fighter's start-up sequence, the Jedi Temple's hanger control blares over the comm: "Unidentified fighter, what's your mission order? Please reply for launch confirmation, along with name and rank."

No. Sae has never said that one word enough. She doesn't need to say it now, either, but even thinking it is good. Without replying, she pulls the fighter loose from its docking port and hits the main thrusters. The starfighter surges forward, bursting out of the Jedi hanger into the light of the setting sun. Blinding. Painful to look at.

But in a way, beautiful. On evenings like this Tamri would be in the Temple garden, tending to all those plants that Sae never learned the name of. She curses herself for not taking one last walk around there before leaving, but it is too late now. She is committed.

She allows herself one last look at the world. Coruscant. Glimmering silver. A still-sea cityscape lapping at the horizon. The sun a half-melon ripening over all that hustle and bustle. She wishes she would miss it.

But she does not. This is where she began, and so this is where all her pain began. This house of devils. This nest of anguish. She sets her thrusters to full throttle and begins punching in hyperspace coordinates that will lead her to Serenno. She'll have to navigate through at least one Separatist fleet to get there, but if they shoot her down, no problem. The same result is achieved. In the end, she supposes the Jedi are right: Death really is natural. Like going home after a long, exhausting journey through the darkness.

As the hyperdrive charges up, Sae presses her hands to her face and in her heart burns.

Count Dooku's pilot droid chirps out an affirmation: "Course set for Ziost. One minute and counting to hyperspace."

Dooku leans back in his passenger's seat and stares out into space, the glow of Mandalore fading away, Separatist capital ships in orbit passing by to reinforce the planetary blockade. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hm. He hadn't seen him in his vision. But no matter: if Kenobi will not join him, then it is no different then it was before. Just another Jedi to defeat. Qui-Gon would be so disappointed in his Padawan.

At last he has a moment of peace. Sidious is dead. The Separatists are fully under Dooku's control, and he can stop carrying out his former master's whims and start implementing a real strategy to topple the Republic. No more games. No more machinations in the dark. The Sith never should have been a phantom menace, a lurking snake in the grass to cower away from the Jedi's every step. No. This is an open war, a declared fight for the Force and the galaxy. The Dark Side is Dooku's now, and he will not waste it.

He thinks of Sidious's real plan in the Clone Wars. How many know of it? Sidious himself, and Dooku. The Kaminoans know the technical details, if not the intent, although they will never act upon it. Who else? Order 66. The demolition of the Jedi Order at the hands of the clone troopers. If Dooku could find a way to get into the Republic Chancellor's Office's personal communications line, he could issue it himself. Kill the Jedi in one stroke.

But this is his game now, not Sidious's. And his success turning Taron Malicos to the Dark Side tells Dooku that there is no need for Order 66. In fact, he does not want to use it for anything but a last-ditch emergency outlet in case all goes wrong. Why kill the Jedi when he can turn them? Why destroy powerful Force-users when instead he can show them the power of the Dark Side and use them to build an order greater than anything the Jedi ever had? No, no. Nothing so crude as Sidious planned. Dooku will chart his own path, and he will rise far, far above the barbarity of his former master. So uncivilized.

Back to Ziost, then. Back to the Celestial, that fortune teller that has led him to such victory. He will see what it has to offer him again, and he will not shy away. The future is his.

A passing thought jars him away from his plans, however. He recalls another scene he saw as he peered into the swirling madness of the Celestial. It was…Serenno, yes. A yellow lightsaber and a red, crossing in a duel. And so very soon.

Sae. The one who found the Celestial. Already he felt how she burns in those few times they crossed paths.

She will be his next.

And he will be ready for her.

"Pilot," he says. "Change course to Serenno."

"Changing course. Affirmative, My Lord."

My Lord. It has a new ring to it, and he likes it.