The Separatist Special Sciences Facility (S3F) on the planet of Taia was so large that many of its resident researchers had not breathed fresh air in years, unless oxygen leaks count (and that was often the last breath of air they experienced). The President of S3F was Clare Myoollen, a floating octopus thing. She took partial credit for all the work conducted by the scientists in exchange for not having them executed. It was a dog-eat-dog atmosphere, literally in the case of Dr. Palvov, who was working on getting peaceful creatures of the same species to attack each other for no reason.

One of the oldest residents of S3F, who had been there before it was commandeered by Separatists, was a creature named Nancy Tam. She was senior enough to have picked up an evil nickname, Dr. Specious. She had not left the facility in fifteen years. Fame had come to her briefly during her work on extracting scientific secrets from the Vindolian scientists, but that was already ten years ago and she had done vague, rarely successful projects since. Or rather, she just never completed anything. She had started designs on a machine that could stop time, another that could penetrate people's dreams, and had long been messing around with redox flow cells.

Nan looked like a cross between a cat and a monkey. She was orange-brown, with large green eyes, about two feet tall, and walked on her hind legs. She usually wore a white lab coat that had seen better days. The pockets were filled with vials, pipette tips, snacks, and other junk. She lived in S3F's residential block in a small, cell-like apartment. By virtue of her seniority, she was not in particular danger of being kicked out (the atmosphere of Taia was poisonous, so when a scientist got kicked out…) Clare Myoollen had some grudging respect for Nan and kept her around as a sort of monument, and because Nan had been her mentor when Clare just started. Scientists never entirely forget the debt of gratitude they owe to the mentors that help set up their Schlenk line and teach them column chromatography. Nan's budget was low but she was such an expert hacker that nobody knew just how much time she stole on various instruments when she worked at night.

Eventually Nan's absent-mindedness created a situation that even Clare could not overlook. Months ago, Nan had gotten some undergrads to work on a project that involved growing microscopic cnidarians to monstrous sizes. The undergrads had to feed and measure the little creatures. Nan forgot about the project but the undergrads kept it up. One day, the feed ran out and they substituted something from a poorly labeled bottle. Overnight, the cnidarians had a growth spurt that destroyed an entire building. Luckily the facility had automatic doors that closed whenever gas from the outside was sensed so nobody was poisoned by the atmosphere.

The S3F committee decided that Nan had become a serious threat and had to be removed. Clare was about to issue Nan's termination notice when she got an unexpected call. Count Dooku appeared on the hologram. After expressing her surprise and gratitude at the call, Clare asked him why he was gracing her with his presence.

"I've heard about an accident at S3F," said the Count.

Clare felt her hopes sink. Nan's bloody mistake could reflect badly on Clare. She should have fired that disaster-waiting-to-happen years ago!

"It was a very minor, unimportant building," she said. "It has been there for years and quite frankly, we were thinking of tearing it down anyway. All the equipment in it was old. We lost no personnel. I assure you the responsible party will be swiftly removed."

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure the building was old. I'm interested in the responsible party. I've read the reports on her and she seems like a rather…disagreeable sort?"

Clare decided to shower Nan with abuse. That should make it obvious that none of this was Clare's fault.

"She's awful. Despite her tiny budget, she causes more problems than many others put together. She's obstinate, annoying, a smart-aleck, and very messy to boot. Her lab was a disgrace."

"You're planning to retire her?"

"In the usual way, of course."

"I have another solution. One of my employees needs to learn a thing or two about responsibility. Perhaps if I put this scientist in his care, under the pretense of doing efficiency studies on droids, he will stop demolishing entire battalions on a whim. Give her these orders…"

A few days later, Nan had lunch with some colleagues. The aforementioned Dr. Palvov was there. Another was Kevin Nickells, who worked on alternative energy sources, and the last was Kate Shuskey, a new hire who wanted to develop clone-specific viruses.

It was a somber affair, but there was a lot of food. Due to an embargo, meat had not been seen for weeks at S3F but Dr. Palvov had provided kebabs and meatballs. The fact that they were made from the dogs that tore each other apart in his experiments fazed only the newbie Kate. Nan liked a good meatball and focused on her food. The others watched her sadly, but resignedly.

"We'll miss you, Nan," said Kate. "You've been so nice to me, showing me around and teaching me how to whack the snack machine so it spits out another candy bar…I really appreciate it."

"I'm so sorry for you," said Kevin. "Really, I am. You have been an inspiration. Let me give you some advice: keep your head low. The war will blow over someday. If your ship does not go down in battle, and it shouldn't because it's a just a slow-moving space base, you may get out of it alive."

Dr. Palvov was a pessimist and said, "Don't be so cheerful, Kevin. Nan needs to be realistic. The war may last for years more and she can't stay out of General Grievous' way forever. At some point she'll run into him and you've heard what he's like. I know he's not supposed to harm her but he'll only remember that after her head is rolling."

Nan shrugged and eyed the cake Kate had bought. Kate cut them all slices. Soon they parted ways. Nan was leaving in a few hours. She went to her apartment and packed some bags. Then she went to visit her only friend.

"Goodbye, old pal," she said. "We've had many comfortable hours together and lots of stolen moments. Nevermore will I sit here in front of you, pressing your buttons."

The gigahertz NMR machine let out a puff of nitrogen and was still.

A small shuttle piloted by droids came to collect Nan and the equipment she was being allowed to take. Nobody saw her off. Nan sat by a window and watched S3F and Taia recede as the shuttle departed. The ship Nan was being taken to was called the Despair. It was a station for temporarily housing droids, repairing vessels, and planning operations. It was not supposed to engage in warfare. The Republic had not discovered it.

The shuttle docked and some yellow battle droids helped Nan get her stuff out.

"Hello, droids," she said.

"Hello," they all said.

Nan thought of how funny it would be if she could program the droids to say, "go fuck yourself," instead of hello. That, of course, was not lying low like Kevin had recommended.

The droids showed her a cabin that was to be her room and the lab space that had been cleared for her. No more HPLC, NMR, GPC, TGA, PCR, or even mass spec for Nan! Just about all she had left to use was a soldering iron. She figured she was a pretty good engineer and could actually do her job, that is, increase the efficiency of droids, but it was going to be so boring.

"Does the General want to meet with me?" She asked a droid.

"He specifically asked that you stay as far away from him as possible," it said.

Nan got to work, more or less. After two days she was lonely and missed the companionship of her sort-of friends. The lot of them were, of course, backstabbers. Nan called Kevin and found out that he had already taken her lab space that had not been destroyed. Kate did not even answer the hologram, even though Kevin assured Nan that Kate was in her office when she called. Dr. Palvov died. He thought he'd found a cure for the dogs' aggressiveness (it would be useful to turn it on and off at will) and tried to convince a committee of this by stepping into a cage with the dogs. Everything was fine until a committee member sneezed and some decorative bells in her hair rang. Kevin had jumped at the chance to grab Dr. Palvov's bigger office.

Nan started to wander around the spaceship. She looked at the stars for long periods of time, pondering questions of astronomy and breathing on the windows to write formulas in the resulting fog. The droids ignored her unless she asked questions, but there was nothing to ask. She had brought a lot of food with her but the droids assured her the ship had a kitchen. It did not have anything fresh but Nan had not eaten anything that was not out of a packet in years.

Finally she decided to disobey the General's orders and go introduce herself. What else was there to do? If he killed her, fine, whatever, she had nothing to live for anyway. She found the bridge with the help of a droid. It led her to the elevator, where there was another droid that said the elevator was broken. They showed her the stairs. Doubts rose in Nan's mind about the purpose of her visit and even more so in her limbs. Stairs and ennui were her only enemies.

Nan took a deep breath, which didn't last long, and ascended the stairs. By the time she reached the top she was seeing black spots and her lungs were burning. She pushed open the door at the top, not really remembering why she was there, and tried to speak. Only a gasp came out. The bridge was large, having controls for all the various procedural compartments within the base. General Grievous, Count Dooku's trusted evil henchman, paced the center like a large metal vulture.

He did not notice her until a droid said, "Sir, you have a visitor."

The General turned to look at her. Nan still could not talk. Finally she managed something.

"I'm sorry…the stairs…I'm not in shape…my name is Dr. Specious, or Nancy Tam. Just Nan, really…oh, those stairs…"

"Why are you here?"

"I thought I'd introduce myself properly."

"You thought wrong. Get out of my sight!"

A trip wasted. Nan turned to go, sticking her hands in her pockets. She accidentally punched out one of the pockets and the crap in it fell out, including calipers, paper clips, crumbs, screws, and a vial of sodium cyanide that rolled toward the General's clawed foot. He stepped on it and read the label.

"What is it?" He asked.

Nan refrained from asking what sort of idiot doesn't know his periodic freaking table and can't tell what NaCN is and said, "Sodium cyanide, to poison myself when there's no point in going on."

"Get all this crap out of here, including yourself!"

A droid helped Nan collect her stuff and she left, but she thought the meeting went well and decided to further pursue acquaintanceship. After a few days during which Grievous was off at some battle front, Nan had a droid send him a message that said, "It would be very helpful for my project to increase the efficiency of droids if I was allowed to observe their interactions with figures of authority. Could I come sit on the bridge every now and then and take notes silently?"

A droid told her that she could come but only if she was very quiet. She grabbed a notepad and ran over to the elevator soon after. She had swipe access with a card to all the rooms in the ship but when she tried to call the elevator, the screen said it was still out of order. Was watching General Grievous yell at droids really worth climbing up the stairs again?

Well, there was little else to do except solder crap so up she went. She sat down in a chair, her first mistake. When a droid dumbly stood next to it, Grievous yelled at her that all the chairs were for droids and she better get off. She found a bucket on the stairs and sat on it. Her second mistake was when she took out some chips. There was suddenly a lightsaber two millimeters from her nose.

"No eating!" Said the General.

Nan moved her bucket into a corner and leaned against the wall. The goings on were not so interesting. Various admirals, commanders, corporals, etc, consulted with Grievous about their positions and the doings of the enemy. Nan doodled in her notepad. Some skirmish occurred and the General had to go there in person.

"Get your fat ass downstairs. I don't want you up here alone," he told Nan and waved her on with the lightsaber. She obeyed.

It went on like that for a few days. The elevator never got fixed. Nan started calculating the calories she was losing taking the stairs. The amount was insignificant. Nobody ever said exercise is easy. Still, "hanging out" with Grievous beat counting nebulae or playing chess against a computer. One day Nan even tried to start up a polite conversation.

"How are you today, General?" She asked.

He glared at her, then said, "Dreadful."

When after ten minutes he did not say anything, Nan said, "I'm lousy, if you'd care to ask."

"I don't."

That same day, one of the droids messed up and somehow shot at one of their own ships. Grievous got angry and cut its head off. Nan doubted sarcasm would win her any points, but she could not help it.

"Yeah, that totally fixed the problem," she said.

"You're the one who's here to improve the efficiency of droids."

"Huh. Touché."

"I'm serious. Get over here and fix this droid."

Nan looked at him suspiciously. The General pointed at the clock and said, "You're supposed to be a super-genius, extremely talented engineer. I'll give you ten minutes to fix this droid with whatever you've got in your pockets or your head can join its on the floor."

"Count Dooku forbids you to harm me."

"Count Dooku has other things to worry about. He's forgotten that he ever sent you here. You're all alone, little scientist rat."

Nan shrugged and ambled over to the droid. Grievous turned on one of his lightsabers and spun it back and forth. Nan sighed, scratched her head, then suddenly pulled some wires and pliers out of her pockets and reattached the droid's head in a matter of 145 seconds.

"Where was I?" The droid asked.

Nan grinned and said, "Suck it," to the General.

She didn't even see him move, but the next second Grievous had her pinned to the wall with a lightsaber against her face. She vainly tried to pull away.

"Consider yourself lucky to still be alive," said the General, and let her drop.

"Where was I?" Asked the droid again.

Nan left, but she was not cowed. Without further ado, she sent a message to Count Dooku. She summarized some of her findings regarding the structural integrity of the droids and expressed an intense desire to fortify them against the most damaging sort of attack—the cut of a lightsaber. "I think it would be extremely helpful," she wrote, "if I were to acquire a lightsaber and use it in various tests against droid materials to determine how they can better be made to survive the blow. Unfortunately, the weapon is hard to come by. I know that General Grievous has several but I am hesitant about broaching such a topic with him. Could you possibly ask him if he will lend me one?"

She had to wait several days for a reply, but since her message was sent from the flagship Despair, it stood out and Count Dooku curtly responded that he would request the General supply her with the device.

The General was not happy about this.

How did Nan know? Oh, perhaps it was the stomping and door slamming, or the table banging once Grievous found her in her lab.

"How dare you?" He said.

"It's all in the interest of science."

"I will cut you open like the fat bag of garbage that you are and scatter your entrails about this worthless lab so that others will receive the message that no one messes with me!"

Nan yawned and held out her paw. After glaring at her some more, he handed her a lightsaber. Nan nearly dropped it because it was heavy. Grievous chuckled.

"Your twig arms can't even manage that."

Nan let him have the last word and turned to her notes. She stayed out of his way for a while and actually tried some tests with the lightsaber. It was slow, repetitive work. Nan watched TV and came upon a Separatist propaganda commercial that showed Jedi sneaking into people's homes, cutting through the wall with lightsabers, and stealing children. Nan thought that looked like fun (cutting through walls, not stealing children) and overturned a table to try.

Five minutes later, the place was flooded and a few droids wandered around with fire extinguishers. Grievous showed up, alerted by the fire alarm, and looked skeptically at the scene. Nan waited for his scorn, which was not long in coming.

"Did your poor wee arms tire and you let that dangerous weapon burn some papers?" He asked.

"She tried to cut through this table," said a droid that had been there, "but she kept the blade in the wood too long and it caught fire."

"Who do you think you are, a Jedi?" Said Grievous. "I've read your file. You're nothing but a has-been and a burden on the science facility. They should have tossed you out years ago. They would have, after that fiasco you caused because of your empty-headedness and forgetfulness, if it wasn't for some stray chance."

Nan knew she should keep quiet but she said, "At least I'm not a stupid, hateful coward."

Naturally, he had her by the throat immediately. Nan pushed back at his arm with her hind legs but it was hopeless. The end at last. Perhaps that had been the whole purpose of her actions. Drinking a glass of cyanide solution alone is so depressing. Let someone else do the killing. Somehow that makes it seem less like one's own choice and removes some of the responsibility.

"Remember me in hell," said Grievous. "You're about to die just like any other wretched worm."

"So what?" She hissed. "Death is only a matter of style.[1] I welcome it."

She started to black out and did not realize that he had put her down until consciousness returned. She looked up groggily. The General turned on a lightsaber and used it to cut a surviving table into sections.

"That's how you cut a table," he said, and stalked out.

Nan spent a few days lying around feeling sorry for herself and eating chocolate cookies. Then she went for a walk. She got close to the bridge, noting that the elevator was still inactive, when she heard the distinctive clicking of the General's claws. He was approaching from around the corner. She did not feel like meeting him and dashed around another corner. She expected to hear him open the door to the stairs and go up. Instead, he stopped near the elevator and…it came.

Nan ran out of hiding and stared, confounded. Grievous saw her and chuckled, then coughed.

"You disabled my access to the elevator!" Said Nan, guessing everything.

"When I saw you huffing and puffing up the stairs that first day, I decided you needed a bit of exercise."

He went into the elevator and Nan followed.

"So nice to take the elevator, isn't it?" He said.

She took her position on the bucket and he paced the bridge, occasionally looking at the screens. Then he went up to her and watched her. He didn't seem to need to blink, so he won the staring contest, but Nan refused to ask what he wanted. Finally he spoke.

"You're a disgrace to the Separatist army. I can't have a weakling like you on my ship. It's bad luck, or something. I am going to teach you to fight."

"With a lightsaber?"

"With anything. You're in very bad shape. This is going to require a lot of work."

"Okay. Um…I can't accept such a generous gift without offering something in return. How about I teach you the things I know, math and science?"

"Er…deal."

Nan looked down at her notepad and Grievous went to the window. They both thought, "This sounds like such a pain in the ass, but I can't let him/her think I can't do it!"

Footnotes

[1] A paraphrasing of a quote from Vladimir Nabokov's novel Bend Sinister. The actual quote is as follows: "But the very last lap of his life had been happy and it had been proven to him that death was but a question of style."