Star Wars: Infinities – The Apprentice
Chapter 11
By: Christopher W. Blaine (darth_yoshi@yahoo.com)
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations contained in this story are used without permission for non-profit entertainment purposes only and are ©2002 by George Lucas. This story (pertaining to this chapter and all subsequent chapters) is ©2002 by Christopher W. Blaine and may not be reproduced in any form, except hard printouts for personal enjoyment, without the express permission of the author.
"Your wounds will heal, Lord Maul," the witch said, running a hand along the head spikes of the dark lord. Darth Maul did not mind her touch, found it pleasing even, but she was trying to distract him from his mission. He understood her reasons; males were a rare commodity among the witches and to have an actual lord of the Sith sire a child would elevate the status of the mother greatly.
"My wounds are of no consequence," he said coldly and removed her hand. He held it for a moment, staring at her. She was beautiful, but that would change in time. The dark side had a tendency to eat away human bodies slowly from the inside without proper precautions. He doubted if these women had the facilities or the requisite knowledge necessary to stave off such effects. "I need to know if my master can count on the Witches of Dathomir maintaining their side of the bargain, Gethzerion."
The witch smiled and pushed back her platinum blond hair. "You garrison forces here and we will prevent either our misled sisters or the Jedi from interfering. In exchange…"
"We shall provide you with sufficient…manpower to allow your people to flourish." Maul reached out and took a piece of cooked lizard from the fire and plopped it in his mouth. Several of the other Nightsisters were watching him with hunger in their eyes. "From that stock you will provide my master with proper soldiers of the dark side."
Several of the Nightsisters giggled and cackled in anticipation of the imported "goods". The witches were the descendants of fallen Jedi who had escaped to the planet to avoid prosecution by the Jedi Order. They were divided into two distinct groups of light and dark side followers and were made up nearly entirely of women.
A few times in the past, a Nightsister would leave Dathomir to seek their fortune in the galaxy. Maul even killed one that was in the employ of Black Sun over a decade before. Their existence was known only to the Jedi and Sith. For centuries, the Wtiches had been content to fight over control of Dathomir, but this Gethzerion was hungry for something else. She was different.
She was powerful.
An alliance was necessary if only to have the witches who were not Nightsisters, the members of the various clans, eliminated so that they could not provide aid to the Jedi. It had been Maul who had suggested the alliance; his master considered the Nightsisters beneath his notice.
"Then it is agreed," Gethzerion said, reaching for her own piece of meat. "There is only one final piece of business then."
"As in the ways of old, when the dark lords ruled."
"Yes," she said as she stood, shedding her robes. "When the dark lords ruled."
Count Dooku smiled and shook every proffered hand, sometimes even accepting a kiss from the wife of a delegate as he showed them to the door of his apartment. Another political action meeting, another set of converts to the cause of order. Life outside the Jedi Order was indeed sweet.
When the final guest had been let out, Dooku left the mess to the housekeeping droids and picked up a glass of rare wine from Drall. He sniffed it and then sipped as he proceeded down the passage to his private bedroom. He considered calling up one of his lady friends for the evening, perhaps the young wife of the treasury minister from Chandrilla?
His senses were dulled slightly by both age and the wine. He had consumed quite a bit during the night, but he was far from losing his senses in a drunken stupor. Not when he had the Force as an ally. Pulling his curved lightsaber from his belt, he stopped. There was another presence in the apartment. A familiar presence.
"I should have guessed," Dooku said as he approached his bedchamber door. It was slightly ajar and he could feel the cool Coruscant breeze. His window was open. "Who dared to send you to your death? I can sense the malice in your thoughts, Jango Fett."
Dooku felt the presence move back away from the door and then disappear. "How clever, bringing the ysalamiri, but it will not help." Dooku ignited the blade, its light casting a crimson glow through the darkened passageway. Some of the light fell into the bedchamber and through the cracked door, he saw a shadow move. Calling the Force, Dooku slammed the door open and heard a screech as it swung back and crushed the ysalamiri.
His perceptions changed and he could sense not only Jango Fett, but two others in the room. Dooku dropped the wine glass after a final drink and casually stepped into the room. Two shots came at him, but he deflected them with his weapon without so much as blinking. "I always thought you were a much better shot, Fett," he said.
A cold, metallic voice answered him from behind. "I am."
Dooku was surrounded by blue lightning, which danced around his limbs and jumped away from the ignited lightsaber. Dooku's eyes brightened and then dulled, as if all of the alcohol he had consumed was hitting him at once. Jango Fett stepped up from the rear wearing a metallic frame on his shoulders that held two ysalamiri and waving an odd looking weapon.
"Hapan design, Count. It's called a Gun of Command. My kid read up on it and you wouldn't believe what I had to do to get this, not that you're even remotely interested." Fett moved over to the other man dressed in similar armor. "You leave, now. Make sure you're seen somewhere other than here."
"Yes, sir," the clone trooper said. How fortunate it was that Jango had been used as the prototype for the clone army the Republic had recently confiscated. He waited until the false Fett was gone and then looked to the two thugs who were dressed in brown robes.
"You two have those lightsabers I found for you?" he asked.
One of them smiled, showing his lack of dental hygiene. "Got 'em right here, Fett," he commented, patting the hilt hanging from his belt.
Fett nodded and turned to the silent and still Dooku. There was nothing the man could do; not even the Force could help him once he was under the control of the gun. "You have outlived your usefulness, Count Dooku…Lord Tyrannus…whatever you call yourself. But your master has been gracious enough to allow you to go out like a man, fighting in the style of the Jedi." He then leaned in close, careful to avoid the still ignited lightsaber. "You should never have dismissed me as a mere lackey. There's a reason why I'm considered the most dangerous man in the galaxy."
He moved back and waited as the two men ignited their lightsabers. Using a holonet link in his helmet, he put the Count's security recorders back on standby. "Count Dooku, you will battle these two men…but you will not use the Force and you will not attempt to flee."
Dooku still tried to resist, as was evident by the quaking of his hand. His defiance was admirable, but in the end it would mean nothing. Fett had originally been contracted by Darth Sideous, not Dooku. While Fett held no deep resentment towards the count, he would lose no sleep over his death either. It was all business after all.
The lightsaber battle was short and predictable. Not even the great Count Dooku could escape from the murderous conspiracy that the Jedi had weaved. That was how it would no doubt read on the news services when Dooku's severed body was found.
Fett retrieved the security holos and would copy them with the equipment on Slave 1. The two would-be Jedi would have to be properly disposed of as well, but that came with the job. If they were to talk, then Fett's reputation could be damaged and that would inevitably effect his son, Boba.
For his son, Jango Fett would slit his own throat if it was required of him. When he stopped to look at the galaxy as a whole, all of his exploits as both a mercenary and bounty hunter were meaningless. His legacy was his son. As a man got older, he started to realize that dying alone was not as romantic as it played out in holodramas.
Satisfied that he had fulfilled the requirements of his contract with Darth Sideous, he took a copy of the security holo to Sate Pestage. What the connection was between the two of them was beyond Fett, but he was starting to suspect. If his suspicions were true, then it was time to get himself and Boba to the other side of the galaxy to wait out the coming storm.
Padme stood at the top of the waterfall, several meters above the clear pool of water and took a deep breath. She jumped, screaming in pure delight as she sailed through the air until gravity grabbed hold and pulled her down. She landed with a splash and remained under the water for several moments before surfacing.
She threw back her head, removing her wet hair from her face and wiped the excess water from around her eyes. She then looked up to see where Anakin was. They had chosen this area specifically for the remoteness. They were the only ones for several kilometers; even the native wildlife seemed to be giving them a wide berth.
They had climbed to the top of the waterfall to look at the flowers that were growing at the top when Padme had suggested the swimming. Anakin had blushed from behind his neatly trimmed beard and Padme realized that he may have never learned to swim. When she tried to apologize, he had laughed. Of course he knew how to swim; his training had taken him to several exotic locals. His master had required him to learn how to fight on land, in space and underwater.
Padme had smiled and moved off to a set of bushes to remove her outer garments. Clad only in her "unmentionables" she had stepped to the edge of the falls and jumped, fully expecting Anakin to follow. "Can't he take a hint?" she asked herself.
The Nightsister watched as the young man stripped down to the waste, his taught muscles rippling as he struggled with a boot. He seemed to be in a hurry and while he carried a lightsaber, a sign of the off-world male witches, she could not detect any of the magic coming off of him. Perhaps he could hide his magic? She didn't care for it had been three long months in the wilderness, trying to hunt down a mate that had wandered too far from one of the clans.
When he stood up and she saw the detailed tattoo on his stomach, she gasped as desire almost overcame her. He would be a fine catch and many of her fellow witches would pay handsomely for a night with him. Four or five good children he would produce in the first year she reasoned, maybe one of them would be a male she could trade off!
Vader turned slowly to walk away and then froze. He held his hand out and called his lightsaber to him and activated it. The Nightsister leapt from her hiding place. She would have to take him down quickly before his owner came back up from the pool below them.
Chanting the spell that would allow her to use the binding magic she came within a meter of her quarry before Vader turned and swung down, cutting her off at the knees. She started to scream, but his reflexes were too quick and he grabbed her by the throat, stopping any air from escaping. She felt the magic now as it raced from deep within him into his fingertips. It was then that she realized the folly of her attempt to capture him.
"Nothing is ever going to take me away from those I love again," he said, a demonic snarl on his lips. The Nightsister tried to say something, but the only sound was the snapping of her neck and trachea. With a Force-backed shove, he tossed the corpse back into the bushes. He then picked up the severed limbs and threw them as well.
Vader made a belt out of some vines, as his underclothes were not meant to carry weapons, and he slung his lightsaber over his shoulder. Without a second glance, he pushed through some brush and found the little path that would lead down to the edge of the waterfall.
Standing on the edge, he looked down to see Padme floating and looking up at him. She waved to him and he nodded before stepping off.
Padme gasped as he remained there for several seconds, floating in the air and then he began to drop very slowly, he arms folded across his chest. When he was a meter above the water, he stopped and held out his hand. "The Force is with us, Padme; in me, in you, in everything."
She managed to close her dropped jaw and swallow before replying. "I'm no Jedi…"
He smiled. "No, but the Force is within you, I can feel it. It is there…you have more ability then you realize. In each of us, my master told me, the Force manifests itself in different ways. For you, it is most likely in the way you capture the hearts of so many…"
She blushed and splashed water at him, beckoning him to enter. The Force grabbed hold of her and pulled her bodily from the water and she stopped mere centimeters from him, floating above the water. "For me, it is the ability to keep you close and never let you go."
He reached out and pulled her close and she found the warmth of his bare chest comforting as the water evaporated from her body. She shivered both from the cold and the anticipation as his lips neared hers. "You were my angel," he said, calling up the memories of that day long ago in Watto's shop when they had first met..
"No, I'm just a woman in love with you," she said before they met in a passionate embrace. They continued for several seconds and then the Force released them. Holding each other tight, their lips never parting, they sank to the bottom of the pool and remained there for just a little while more before the need for oxygen forced them to surface
"You will let us see Master Yoda," Quinlan said, waving his hand in front of the guard.
The effect of the ysalamiri extended outside the cell it appeared, as the guard was unaffected. "Don't try your Jedi tricks with me, scum."
Ferrin stepped up and punched the guard square in the face. After the man had crumpled to the ground, Ferrin looked at Quinlan. "Forgive me, master."
Quinlan shrugged. "I would have done the same thing eventually." He reached down and pulled the key card from the guard's belt. Using it in the reader, he got the cell door open and the two stepped inside. Master Yoda sat on his cot, his complexion pale. He had lost most of his hair and to the other Jedi, he appeared to have aged centuries in just a few short months.
Ferrin was most upset by his physical condition; it appeared as if he had lost half of his body weight. The Jedi Master looked more like a child's toy than their leader. "Master Yoda!"
Yoda nodded. "Come now you have to rescue me?" He laughed a little and then coughed. "Why you look at me so? So close to death am I that young eyes cannot hide their pity?"
"You are dying?" Quinlan asked.
Yoda nodded. "For 800 hundred years have I used the Force to keep me alive. Long lived my race is, but not immortal. Poisons in the air have affected me, they have." He then looked at Ferrin. "So, young one, survive your trial you did. Good, for the Jedi will have much need of you."
Quinlan stepped forward. "Master, we have discovered the identity of the true Sith Lord that has been behind all of this…"
Yoda coughed again, this time more violently. "Chancellor Palpatine, know this I do."
"You knew?" Ferrin asked, not believing. "Why didn't you warn us?"
"Only confirm my suspicions do you, matters not anymore. The Jedi are in danger, lead them to safety you must. Regroup the Order will, but not here."
Kneeling next to Yoda's cot, Quinlan spoke in hushed tones. "There is not much time, master; they will come to see about your guard when he does not check in. Tell me what must be done."
"Scattered the Jedi must be, to the winds they must be cast. Harder to hunt down will they be, but hunted they will be. Seek out Master C'Baoth…" Yoda started coughing again and scooted so he could lie down. "Come for you Vader will. Beware Vader and hide."
Quinlan turned to Ferrin. "Quickly! Go get Master Windu and any of the others you can find. We are leaving!"
Ferrin halted, looking towards Master Yoda. "A fine Knight you become, Ferrin Durron; do what your master commands."
Ferrin swallowed and choked back the tears. "Yes, master, I will try."
Quinlan and Yoda spoke in unison, reciting one of the most ancient of Jedi proverbs. "No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."
Ferrin nodded and hurried out. Quinlan once again turned his attention to Master Yoda. "Damn these ysalamiri! If I could get you out of here and back into the Force…"
"No; foolish I have been, much sorrow because of my arrogance. My place, you will take," Yoda said, putting a small hand on Quinlan's.
"I am tainted, Master," Quinlan offered.
"Tainted are we all." Yoda's voice began to become faint and Quinlan saw that he was making an effort to hold his eyes open. "Sorry I am…"
Yoda took in one last breath and then died and Quinlan waited for his body to disappear. Powerful Jedi were said to become one with the Force upon death, but it did not occur. A rattling above him caused him to look up and he saw the wide eyes of the Force-repelling ysalamiri.
His hand went to his lightsaber. He didn't need the Force for what he was about to do.
In the end when Quinlan exited the cell a few minutes later, only the tattered robes of the greatest Jedi Master of all were left on the cot.