Main story, chapter two : Where Jedi Master Dooku makes assumptions and Han Solo says only the truth - relatively speaking

Jedi Master Dooku came out with an headache from a difficult mediation. He could have taken his ship directly back to the Temple, but felt an hour or two of meditation would alleviate the pain. Besides, Komari would surely be eagerly waiting for his return and he was at loss how to deal with her problematic attitude. Weaning her off was proving hard enough that he was careful not to display any of the care he felt for her. The Force seemed to share his opinion and lead him toward a luxurious park inside the city.

Dooku faltered a bit, seeing the place already taken. A boy of fifteen appeared to be meditating himself in his chosen spot. Odd, Dooku had no memory of another Jedi being sent on the planet. Maybe undercover? The clothes and absence of braid of what was clearly a padawan seemed to indicate so. The master must be somewhere nearby, made invisible by the planet own Force presence, or personal shielding. In fact, the padawan had excellent shielding too, explaining why Dooku had not sensed him, and was clearly advanced in meditation. He appeared to be struggling reaching for a deeper state of meditation, one which could only be expected from senior padawan, which the boy was too young to be.

It was careless of the master to leave his padawan alone, if his suspicions were true, and he himself came here to meditate. He could as well wait for the master return to give him a dressing down, or do so to the padawan once he came out of meditation. A quarter of an hour later, Dooku cranked an eyelid open and resolved himself to help the padawan reach the state of meditation he wanted to attain, because he was disturbing his own meditation.

The padawan name turned out to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the master did not bother to show up. Getting invited to an early dinner was easily done, but Dooku admitted he did not expect the padawan to lead him to a well-kept freighter on which a mechanic was busy doing repairs. His surprise grew as the padawan addressed the mechanic as his master. Quickly, he understood the master shields were truly exceptional for he appeared to lack Force sensitivity completely. Impressive, really. No wonder his padawan was making early headway.

The qui pro quo held until the middle of breakfast next day, when Master Solo enquired whether he could ascertain his padawan advancement. The puzzling request led Dooku to discover Solo really lacked Force sensitivity and was cobbling an haphazard education for the boy he claimed as padawan. In insight, it was evident, for Solo only knew the barebone of terminology and was ignorant in some aspects of the Order, while being privy to master level technics on the other hand. It was appealing, but Kenobi did seem to thrive in some areas and not be tempted in any way by the Dark Side. But his saber form was lacking and his theorical knowledge stopped at Initiate level which was unacceptable. So Dooku gave them his comm number and set an appointment on Serenno at the same time he planned his next trip on his home world.


Han knew a thing or two about Jedi, and better than to lie when the Jedi Master he may be able to foist Obi-Wan to very soon, because he was reaching his limits of Force-related knowledge, asked for answers. So when Dooku enquired of his knowledge of the Force, Han answered truthfully, hiding all trace of time displacement in his tale. "Well, it started with Old Ben. Never told me his real name, so I called him Old Ben. That or crazy Ben, that was how he was called on Tatooine. Did not guess he was a Jedi right until his death. He booked passage for Alderaan along with his padawan, Luke Skywalker. They wished to save Luke's sister, Leia. She had stolen sensitive documents about a new type of weapon and been discovered in the act and was held prisoner. Mid-journey, we were caught by a tractor-beam and anchored in the heart of the enemy base. We managed to get Leia out, but Old Ben sacrificed himself, gaining us the time to escape by engaging that dude with red lightsaber in a fight. Short story, he lost and Luke was short of a teacher.

"Red lightsaber?" enquired Dooku. "Aye. He called himself Darth Vader, the apprentice of old Palpy wrinkle face. Don't know much about Palpy except he was really good at mind games and lightning people up, but I will tell some more about Vader later. We, mainly Luke, disabled the weapon and after some frankly unnecessary to recount adventures in which we got tracked across the entire galaxy by Vader were finally cornered in a mining station. Got turned in carbonite by Vader because I dared to be a little too close to Leia and a good friend of Luke, Luke preferred to make a suicide drop rather than become Vader apprentice. Oh, and Vader thought it was a good idea to chop off Luke's hand then tell him he was his father, instead of the guy who killed his father like Old Ben had told Luke. Then Luke got into his head he could make his father come back to the Light. Turn out, he could. Vader killed Palpy to stop him electrocuting his son, and died mere minutes after from excess of lightning."

"That's… an interesting tale" finally managed Dooku. "I've got more interesting. Like Luke, Leia was Force sensitive, but never had someone to teach her so Luke started teaching her roughly at the time we got married. Leia and I, I mean. Got a son, named Ben after Old Ben, which Luke tried to teach too. Ben rather followed his grandfather footstep. Leia died, I don't know how I am still here to speak today because I got a lightsaber in the guts from my own son, and Luke flew to Ach-To to try to deal with his padawan turning on him. A few years after Ben left, I found Rey on Jakku. She was Force-sensitive and shook Luke enough he got out of his funk and trained her. Luke nearly killed Ben but could not do so in the end and died, Ben killed his Sith teacher and found out it was puppeted by old Palpy who managed a sort of immortality through cloning technology. Ben and Rey were apparently some sort of Sith wet dream called a Dyad, but Palpy would rather have Rey as his apprentice because she was his granddaughter. There was a runaway clone involved in that and Rey much rather be a Skywalker, so in the end Ben and Rey killed Palpy, and Ben died during the fight. So to answer how I know Jedi things, I stuck around during Luke, Leia and Ben training."

"I can tell you a few more about how Vader came to be Vader, but not much. Happened before I was born and all that." Dooku nodded, eyes a bit glassy. Han had packed up information so he would not question it, so the glassy eyes was a good sign in his book. "It was Old Ben Jedi master, which I don't even know the name, who found Luke and Leia's father. He was too old to be trained as a Jedi, but that did not stop him from attracting Palpy eyes. I guess Palpy must have been young at a time. The master was killed by Palpy then apprentice, whom I don't know the name either which is not very important because Old Ben killed him soon after. Old Ben, who was at the time a padawan, promised his dying master to teach future-Vader. And he did, but Vader grew up, got married, had two kids and was manipulated by Palpy to becoming Vader or his wife would die. His wife still died, nobody even know who she was, Vader became Vader, until Luke convinced him to kill Palpy."


Dooku understood a few things. First, and not unexpectedly, Han Solo did not know exactly how Jedi operated. Secondly, there was a powerful Dark Sider – maybe not a Sith Lord, despite Old Ben reported claim – who was probably still around planning his next bid to power. Thirdly, the Skywalkers extended were some sort of rogue Jedi line who discarded most of the Code and insisted on hiding their existence from the Order, based on their extensive shielding technics. Fourthly, if he wanted to find more information, he should seek out Rey Skywalker. Sadly, he did not find her on Tatooine and accredited this fact to excellent shielding or not being on the planet at the time. There was a few Skywalker, but Han Solo had explicitly stated that the Skywalker were native of Tatooine and regularly returned here, so it could very well be relatives. As he did not have time to search the galaxy for Rey Skywalker, he placed an alert on correlation between the name Skywalker and mention of Dark Sider and continued his duties as a Jedi.