War rages on Mandalore, yet the rubble of Duchess Satine's palace settles gently in the aftermath of Count Dooku's bombing. In a corner of the ruin, a pile of blackened, charred debris stirs. A groan—a growl—and a red blade of energy punches through a scrap of metal. A moment. Another groan. Then the whole scrap pushes aside, first a little nudge, then a great shove that sends it cascading down the pile of rubble with an iron croaking.

He stands, this survivor, this man who has been defeated so many times that he has forgotten how to lose. This very planet that he has subjugated, stolen away so quickly. His grab at real power, the power of the Dark Side—robbed, first by Sidious's arrival, then by Darth Tyranus's trick. Still he survives. He is Darth Maul. He is Sith, and he will not fall so easily.

Ash on the hot breeze billowing through Sundari. He takes a deep breath. Lets it in. Ruin. He has spent so much time amid ruin. But this time he will not let it drag him down—not for long.

An abyssal seed stretches out roots deep in Maul's heart. A new hatred digs deep. Kenobi, for sure, his escaped this calamity, and Maul will not abandon his old grudge so quickly. But there is a new man to hate. A new face to seek, a new rival to crush. Maul looked him in the eyes in that melee in the palace. Count Dooku. The man who would call himself Darth Tyranus. After all, Maul feels it: Sidious is dead. There is a vacancy in the Force, a gaping wound where once there was a titan and now there is only an emptiness. The Dark Lord of the Sith is dead, and the throne of the Dark Side is without an occupant. Tyranus might style himself ruler, but Maul will not let him get away with this so easily. He will not allow Dooku to put him down like an animal. He was Sidious's first apprentice, and with Sidious's death, the Dark Side should be his. His! By right. And until Dooku snuffs the life out of him, he will fight for what is his. He will unseat this usurper and throw him down into the oblivion he deserves.

But he cannot do it alone. He looks at his lightsaber, scowling. Somewhere beneath all that rubble is the Darksaber, but Maul has no intention of digging through the detritus for it. A weapon is a weapon. Death Watch was useful for a time, but Mandalore is no more important than any other world, and Maul is not interested in fighting for planets like the fools in the Republic and Separatist Alliance do. Like Dooku does. Like the Jedi do.

Because he is not them. He is Sith. A phantom menace. Outright war will not win the day. Schemes, strategies, careful planning, perfect execution—his mind and his will are the weapons he needs.

And one other thing, too. A master and an apprentice there must be, and Maul still feels Savage's life hanging on.

Straining, he grabs a sheet of metal with the Force and rips it away. Then another. Then another. He concentrates. Focuses his rage for Dooku. Focus. Feel it strengthen you. Your hate. Your anger. Focus. He picks through the debris one piece at a time. Perhaps this is beneath a Sith Lord: If he would not bother for the Darksaber, why for an apprentice who has failed him? But Maul cannot stop. Even the word apprentice feels wrong as he digs for Savage in all that twisted metal and broken debris.

Brother.

At last he spots a yellow-and-black tattoo pattern in the rubble. Maul tosses aside a final piece of debris and grabs Savage's exposed shoulder. "Savage," he murmurs. "Find your strength." As his brother groans, Maul scowls. "Do not let Dooku defeat you so easily. Concentrate. Take your anger and wield it like a blade, and rise."

Savage's eyes snap open.

With a roar he throws aside the metal plate covering him, a slab heavy enough to kill a lesser man. Maul does not flinch. Blood leaks from a ragged wound in Savage's shoulder, but the big Zabrak shakes it off. His eyes gleam with malice. "Dooku. Where is he?"

"He is gone," Maul says, turning and observing the chaos storming all around them in the city. "Retreating back to his Separatist forces, no doubt. And Sidious is dead. I have felt it in the Force. Do you know what that means, brother?"

Savage seethes. "An opportunity."

"Quite so. It means that there is no ruler of the Dark Side. No one man to claim the mantle of the Sith. It is ours for the taking, but first we must prove ourselves worthy."

"It is not going well here," Savage says, looking around at the battle.

"Mandalore is nothing but a smudge on the galactic map. A means to an end. Our work here has paid off more handsomely than I could have ever predicted: Sidious is dead, even if it was by Dooku's machinations, and not ours. Now Sidious cannot meddle in the affairs of the galaxy. This war he has unleashed will be fought honestly, not according to his schemes. Dooku will turn the full force of the Separatist military against the Jedi and the Republic, and they will batter each other to smithereens," mulls Maul. He presses his hand to his chin. "And so we must be patient."

"Patient for what? Let us pursue Dooku. We kill him and we will face no more Sith rivals," snarls Savage. "There will be only us."

Maul shakes his head. "Your anger empowers you, but it also blinds you," he murmurs. "We must be smarter than our foes. The Jedi will not fade so quickly, and they will hunt us. No: Now patience is more valuable than any weapon. Now we must turn from our soldiers and to our minds. Let the Jedi and Dooku clash and clash until they are bloody. By being open with their intentions, they weaken themselves. And we, the one force in the galaxy still in the dark, are thus in the best position of all."

Savage growls. "So what do we do? This planet is lost. We cannot stay here."

"No, we cannot. And even if we could, there is nothing to gain here anymore," says Maul. "Our fight lies elsewhere. We have an entire galaxy at our disposal, and armies of three criminal syndicates for us to use as we see fit. Our hour is not yet at hand, Savage, but it will come." He smiles and lifts his head. "And when it does, we must be ready."

"I am ready," Savage says, slapping his chest. "I will not fail."

"No, brother, we shall not fail," murmurs Maul. "I have failed enough for one lifetime. We have been defeated here, but we have not lost. And on our knees, we have no choice but to stand."

Obi-Wan hears the news almost the minute he is back on Coruscant. Leaving Korkie to speak with Senators Bail Organa and Riyo Chuchi about the Mandalore situation, he hurries to the Jedi Temple as fast as he can. He is needed. He cannot wait.

He does not find him in the Temple's medical bay, although he does receive a brief situation report from the Jedi healers there. He does not find him in the fighting dojos, burning off any residual anger. Not until Obi-Wan searches the meditation rooms does he find Anakin, alone and staring into the shadows cast by a shade-drawn window, the entire room blanketed in dusk. Anakin does not look Obi-Wan's way when he enters. "Master," he murmurs.

"The healers told me what happened," Obi-Wan says, closing the door behind him. "Ahsoka—"

"I don't want to hear a lecture, so if that's what you came for, don't bother," Anakin growls.

"That's not why I came, actually. I came to see if you are all right."

Anakin scoffs, glances at Obi-Wan with eyes of disbelief, then looks away again. "Am I all right? Of course I'm not all right. The Separatists were waiting for us at Ziost. They killed almost everyone. Master Fisto's gone, Admiral Yularen's gone. Three-quarters of the fleet got wasted. And Grievous…Grievous knew everything I was going to do before I did it. He set me up and I fell for it."

"Anakin, it's not your fault."

"Of course it's my fault!" he snaps, fists clenching. Obi-Wan can feel Anakin's anger swirling like a hurricane, and his thunder lashes out at anyone and anything in its path. "Ahsoka's my Padawan. I'm supposed to protect her, and I couldn't do that. I barely even kept her alive. I failed her, Obi-Wan. I failed her. And even though she's alive now, the healers tell me it's still fifty-fifty that she even makes it. And if she does—" He shakes his head, leans against the wall, and laughs. There is no mirth to it; it is the sad-song chuckle of a man who wanders through the void with no guide to set him straight. "They already told me the likely outcome. Grievous hit her spine, some of her internal organs, too much to save everything. If she survives—if—she'll lose both legs at least. Part of an arm, her hip, more. She'll be more machine than being."

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "That's not fair. She's still Ahsoka. Even if she's battered, she's still herself. And she will need you. She will need you more than ever."

"Will she? For what? When I couldn't protect her?"

Obi-Wan takes a step forward, but Anakin shies away with a scowl. "Anakin, listen to me," says Obi-Wan carefully. It is like he has been transported years into the past. Those strange days after Naboo, after Qui-Gon's death, years when he was but a young Jedi Knight with a Padawan in tow, both of them equally lost, neither quite knowing what exactly to do. Yet they carried on, master and apprentice. Anakin was always there for him. And Obi-Wan was there for his Padawan. Then, now, always. His job was not finished when Anakin was knighted. His job will never be done. "When I took you as my Padawan learner, I had hopes for who you would become. And you have far exceeded what I taught you. You are a great Jedi, a greater warrior, one of the finest fighters in our order. But you cannot fight your way out of every battle. If there is one thing you still need to learn, it is what to do when your lightsaber can't get you out of a problem."

"Obi-Wan, I said—"

"Please. Hear me out. For Ahsoka's sake," Obi-Wan says, pushing through Anakin's resistance. To his amazement, Anakin relents. "Maybe you couldn't protect Ahsoka. Maybe Grievous did get the better of you. Of her. But that isn't what she needs right now. She doesn't need you to fight her battles for her. She doesn't need your lightsaber. She doesn't even need you to be her master. She needs you, just you. She needs your presence, your words, your hand on her shoulder as you tell her she'll make it. This isn't the time to be a fighter, Anakin. You need to be a man. You have to become the man I always hoped you would become. Not tomorrow. Not later. Now."

For a moment Anakin smiles. Then he crumples to the floor, leaning against the wall, his hands around his knees, a picture of defeat. Obi-Wan freezes. "You know what I said? I told her everything was going to work out fine," Anakin chokes. A tear trickles out of the corner of one eye. "Because I knew she would never let me down. And she never has. But I did. I let her down, Obi-Wan. I lied when I said everything would work out." He laughs again, shaking his head. "If she makes it through this, she should hate me."

"Anakin—"

"She should. There's no going around it. But she won't," he says, soldiering on. "Because that's not who she is. She'll get right back up and make the best of it." He balls a fist and presses it to his forehead, grimacing. "You said you had hopes for me? Well, I didn't have any hopes for her when she showed up on Christophsis. I just thought I was stuck in a pretty bad situation with a Padawan I didn't want. But she's done better than I ever could've hoped. She's a better person than I am. She can forgive just like that. And—" he slaps the floor— "and I don't deserve that, damn it! She shouldn't forgive me!"

Obi-Wan looks on, uncertain of his next move. At last Anakin has run out of targets to aim his lightsaber at. At last he has turned his blade on the one foe he has yet to defeat—himself. The one enemy he has always avoided fighting. But there is no avoiding it now, now as Obi-Wan watches his former Padawan hunch over his knees and half-growl, half-sob his way through his pain. Through a loss so grave that he cannot seek revenge or justice. Because there is nothing to do against pain but bear it, withstand it, and keep going, step by step.

So Obi-Wan does the one thing he knows he must do: He takes his own advice. He cannot fight his way through this either. He sits down beside Anakin, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and says nothing. For nothing needs to be said.

Later that evening he kneels in the Hall of Knighthood atop the Jedi Temple's Tranquility Spire. There is no Knighting ceremony today; no one is expected to use this vacant room of reflection. It is Obi-Wan's for the taking. He stares off to the darkening horizon as lights blink on across the Coruscant cityscape, sector by sector of the Senate District flickering to life. All those millions of people going about just another evening. Coruscant the same as it has been for thousands of years. And here, separated by a pane of glass, he suddenly feels cripplingly alone. Satine is dead. Anakin is at the lowest point Obi-Wan has ever seen him. Ahsoka is barely hanging on. To whom does he turn? There is always the other Jedi Masters and the Council, but when Obi-Wan himself needs a voice to counsel him, where does he really go?

A strange stirring births in his stomach. He has the funniest feeling that he is not alone here in the Hall of Knighthood, even though no one accompanied him up here and no one has entered. There, too, the light—an off-white shade reflecting off of the glass, even though Obi-Wan has turned on no light.

He turns—and he faces a ghost.

A shade in an aura of white stands before him. A human body clad in Jedi robes, his figure translucent like a specter. But apart from the ghostly image, Qui-Gon Jinn looks as if he never died. As if he is the same age as that fateful day on Naboo, when he and Obi-Wan and Darth Maul clashed blades and the fate of a planet was decided.

"Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan breathes. He has heard of this phenomenon, although only in tales so vague as to be indistinguishable from myth—the ability of a Jedi's spirit to persist beyond death, for one to be so attuned to the Force, to life itself, to maintain consciousness and commune with the living even after departing the mortal coil. But it is not myth standing before him. His eyes see clearly.

And his ears hear clearly, too, when the Force ghost speaks. "I will always be with you, Obi-Wan," the spirit—Qui-Gon—says. "And I can feel your trouble through the Force. Even now."

"How are you here?" say Obi-Wan, the first question that comes to mind spilling from his lips.

"The Force works in mysterious ways," Qui-Gon answers, clasping his hands before him. "It flows through us all. Guides us. Sometimes our journeys do not end with death. Sometimes we have a larger part to play. As I do. As you do."

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. When he opens them, Qui-Gon's spirit still stands. "A larger part in what? In this war?" Obi-Wan says. "We are losing ground everywhere, Master. Even here at home. Jedi are falling one after another. It's all I can do to try and keep Anakin on the right path, but—"

"That is all you need do," says Qui-Gon. "Trust your instincts, Obi-Wan. They will not fail you. The Force is not in the grand machinations of civilization and the galaxy, but in each and every minute. In the words we speak, the feelings we grapple with. It flows through all life at all times." He turns to the side. "Anakin will bring balance to the Force. I believe it now as I did when I first met him on Tatooine. But you cannot walk his path for him. Listen to the very words you told him. Be there. Support him."

"What more, though? I feel the turmoil in him."

"You are right to do so. But that turmoil is his to confront, not yours," says Qui-Gon. He walks to the window and gazes out into the growing darkness. "It pains me that I did not live to see you knighted here," he says, "but I know you have done the Order proud. You were a fine Jedi even as a Padawan, Obi-Wan, and you have become a far greater Jedi than I. Have that same faith in Anakin."

"I try, Master."

"That is all anyone can ask of us. Of any of us. Results—those are merely effects. Out of our hands. It is what we do with what we can that matters. It is all that matters," says Qui-Gon. He narrows his eyes. "Do not forget that. Mind your feelings. Listen to them above all else when the road falters and the path becomes indistinguishable from the bramble. The Republic, the galaxy, they are headed into dark times, Obi-Wan. The darkness will lead you astray if you let it. It will certainly tempt Anakin. But the Force will guide you. Do not concern yourself with moving forward; instead, listen to what is around you now. Your feelings will guide you. Heed them. And know that I will be with you. Always."

"Unauthorized entry detected. East Wing."

Dooku looks up at the security alert. Good. She has come.

He waits in the central chamber of his manor on Serenno, a day after returning from Mandalore. He has foreseen this all. His visitor has made it through the Separatist fleet standing watch in orbit; she has made it through the battle droids that cover Serenno in their multitudinous armies. She has even made it through his bristling manor defenses. Excellent. He expects no less from one who has seen the future as he has, one who has stared into the warping madness of the Celestial on Ziost. They share that bond, he and Sae Tristess. They are so close to meeting once again—and this time, Dooku does not intend to let her go. He knows her destiny. He knows what is to be decided here today. It is so close. Only minutes remain, ticking down second after second.

A sip from a glass of water. An idle check of a non-emergency transmission from Grievous. His mind isn't in any of it. Focus, focus. A powerful Jedi has come to die, but he will not let her go before her time.

Patience. The seconds are agonizing.

Then, at last, the doorway at the far end of the hall opens. A single thin figure in Jedi robes walks in. Dooku rises. And he smiles.

Destiny unfolds.

"Welcome, Sae," he says, stepping out from behind his desk. "I have foreseen this moment. As have you, I believe. We both know what secret swirls on Ziost. We both know what is to come. And I know well what haunts you, what you have brought yet neglect to acknowledge: You are in pain. You have come here to die, to have me kill you, because you are not strong enough to take your own life." He nods. "But I will make you stronger."

Sae says nothing. She reaches to her belt, draws her lightsaber. The yellow blade activates. Just as Dooku saw in his vision. He draws his own blade, red light gleaming. All according to plan. "You think you take your last steps," he says, walking forward as Sae advances slowly. The moments are long, frozen, time sliding along at winter's icy pace. "You think you breathe your last breaths. And you are correct: For the Jedi you have been must be thrown aside, Sae, and the woman you are to become must be born."

"Enough," Sae growls.

She lunges at him. He catches her blow with minimal effort, parrying and throwing her back. They stand off with lightsabers drawn, warrior on warrior, the Dark Side buzzing with anticipation. "I can feel your rage," Dooku says. "Your hatred. It gives you the strength before death that you have never had in life."

Sae glowers. "Taron Malicos," she snaps. "He's your animal, isn't he?"

"Indeed he is."

She snarls and attacks. Again Dooku throws her away. She is blinded by her anger, reckless, throwing the full weight of her emotion at him in a vain attempt to force his killing blow. He knows what she thinks: Do it. Strike her down. But he will not give in. "I know what happened on that asteroid base near Ord Radama," he says as Sae circles. "I know how you failed. I know that Tamri Dallin is dead."

Once more Sae attacks. Dooku blocks, one blow then the next, Sae's strikes coming in a flurry. He pushes her back with the Force and she steadies herself, lightsaber lowered like a spear, feet set to charge. "It is neither your hate nor your anger that drives you, though, is it?" Dooku taunts. He feels Sae's rage flare at his words. Good. Good. "It is your pain. The pain of losing one so close, one you considered your only family. The pain of never telling her what you felt. And now you know: It is the Jedi that blinded you all this time. It is the teaching of the Jedi that kept you from embracing your feelings. It is the Jedi Code that has kept you from the life you deserve. It is the Jedi who have brought you so low, who have brought you here. And only now do you see the truth of it all: That this is an unjust world, and that those who would clad themselves in righteous silks and self-aggrandizing cloaks are the worst villains of us all."

Sae screams and launches herself at him. Dooku swats aside her attack again, but she comes once more, fury in every strike. She is a storm, a thunderhead, strikes like lightning bolts, fast and flashy, her light spending with each strike, the darkness billowing all around. They clash once more and lock their lightsabers, their eyes mere inches from one another. "And what is the only way to meet an unjust world?" Dooku booms. "It is with anger!"

Sae pulls back and swings for Dooku's head. He steps back with ease, with grace, and knocks away her lightsaber. As Sae darts back, Dooku unleashes a river of lightning through the Force. Sae fails to get away: She tumbles back, electricity dancing across her skin, her teeth gritted, her eyes clamped shut in pain. She gets to her knees as Dooku summons her lightsaber and stashes it on his belt. "Do it," Sae says through panting breaths. She has exhausted her anger; her voice sounds as if she is on the verge of tears. "Do it already, you bastard."

Dooku smiles. He reaches out his hand. "No."

He launches a blast of lightning. Sae flies back, crumpling into a smoking heap, a low moan escaping her lips as she falls still, unconscious. Dooku chuckles. No. No, your path doesn't end so soon, Sae Tristess. The old you, maybe. But the woman you can become is just getting started.

He ignites her lightsaber, eying the yellow blade. It will look so much better in red.

The wreckage is like a minefield. Metal bits and pieces everywhere, a near impossibility to determine what's salvageable and what is nothing more than space junk. An old, scarred bulk freighter is the lone ship out here pushing through the debris. Its searchlights comb through the floating rubble, looking for anything worthy, anything that might earn a few credits or salvage something from the Separatist attack that blew apart this Haxion Brood outpost.

The freighter pushes on, thrusters igniting, for now its radar has picked up something interesting indeed at the edge of the debris field. Its captain, a burly Nikto with one eye and one arm, watches the scanner with interest from the cramped, dusty, rust-laden bridge. He is Haxion Brood himself, but from a different station; nowhere does it say that one pirate can't enrich himself off another's misfortune. Even so, traveling out here to Ord Radama was quite a hike. It almost seems worthless, especially seeing how thorough the Separatists were in blowing this place to bits. There's nothing left of the original asteroid installation.

But the Nikto does know one thing, given that he was prudent enough to review the station's logs. They had a particularly interesting prisoner aboard, one they had intended to sell to the Separatists. A Force-user. A Jedi. Maybe they indeed did sell the Jedi to Dooku's forces and were paid with treachery. Or maybe something went wrong in the deal. Either way, the Nikto captain would be remiss not to have a look for himself. Maybe he'll leave here with nothing—or maybe he'll walk away with a nice find.

His first mate, a thin, wiry Weequay, taps a tablet and clears his throat. "Got a reading," he says. "Looks like an escape pod, boss."

"Hmm," the Nikto says. "So?"

"It's, uh, got a lifesign. A pretty weak one, but it's there."

"Get it. Move us into position for retrieval."

"It's not much of a lifesign. Ya sure?"

He is sure. He has a good feeling about this one. His brother—before he died on a raid, bless him—always told him to trust his feelings, and he has no intention of going against advice that has worked well so far. "Nothing else is out here but scrap metal. A slave is worth something. More than scrap," he says. He motions to his pilot at the front of the cramped, shadowy bridge. "Move us in. I'll have a look down in the cargo hold."

"For one pod? What if it's not one of the slaves who're supposed to be on board? What if it's one of our boys?" says the first mate.

The Nikto shrugs. "So what if it is? His problem now."

Down in the cavernous cargo bay, destroyed hulks and raw resource deposits line the hold. None of it is worth much—scrap here, maybe a few technical parts there, but the whole lot will barely pay for the fuel it took to come out to Ord Radama. The Nikto is counting on something. Anything. He needs a prize. He needs to keep his crew's morale up, because it's been far too long since they've had a score worth celebrating. If he keeps it up, they'll either mutiny or defect to some other Brood captain. This debris field has to deliver.

The bay doors open wide and a protective shield spreads out. Beyond lies deep space, split by the spinning passes of so many bits of rubble. And there, coming in via the ship's tractor beam, is an octahedral pod, barely large enough for an occupant. It's been two days since the station blew. The captain can hardly believe anything has survived in such a small emergency vehicle—but if his first mate said there's a lifesign, he'll trust him. He needs to at this rate.

"Bring it in," he snaps.

The shield warps around the pod as it enters; the doors creak and rumble as they close. Then the pod lays still upon the dark, rusting metal, no viewport to see what might lie inside, nothing but old steel tempting the Nikto's imagination. He points to the boarding hatch: "Get it open."

For now, at least, his crew is loyal, and they snap to the task. The Nikto waits with baited breath as his pirates cut open the escape pod. Be something good. Earn me some credits. I need a slave worthy of celebration.

What he gets instantly disappoints him. Not only does the occupant look dead when his crew drags it from the pod, but it is only a human girl, little more than a child, small and slender with long golden hair tied back neatly. The Nikto scowls. Maybe he can sell it to a Hutt. Maybe. It's not particularly pretty; its use as a dancing girl seems rather remote. "Is it alive?"

"Ya, captain. Barely. Looks like the air was almost gone."

"Get a blood check on it. Compare it with this station's database. Data should still be in the system even with the base gone. See if this human has any worth," he barks out, still holding on to hope for at least a few credits.

His first mate complies, jabbing the human's arm with a scanner probe. He waits for a moment as results pass. Then he gasps. "Ah! This—captain!"

"What?"

"See! Look!"

Grumbling, the Nikto snatches the scanner away from the Weequay. Then it is his turn to gasp. The human is one of the station's prisoners, indeed. Merchandise for sale; a slave-to-be. Brought in by an ex-agent not long ago—one Lendon Rust.

The Jedi survived. By the stars, what luck he has!

The Nikto tilts back his head and laughs, triumphant. All of it was worth it. Coming out here to this backwater system was worth it. Sifting through this wreckage was worth it. This will pay for…for everything! Forget just rewarding his crew, he can become a guild leader of the Brood by his own right. He will have attendants by the dozens, soldiers by the hundreds, ships—plural—at his command. All he has to do is sell this human—this Jedi—to the right buyer.

And that is where the trouble will begin. He can't just sell it to the Separatists, of course; not after what they did to the station. They'd betray him just as quickly. Nor is the Republic an option; they do not take kindly to ransom requests. He will have to broaden his horizons.

But that can come later. First, secure this thing. Then—celebrate. "Get this human in a secure cell," he says, barely constraining his excitement. "Make sure it can't get out. Make double sure. Then make triple sure. Then—" he grins— "break out the good stuff, men. We're all gonna get rich."

His men howl in delight. The Nikto smirks as he looks at the little human girl. Oh, Jedi. What fun we're going to have.

END ACT 1