Coruscant had places one couldn't persuade a droid air taxi driver to take one, even with the promise of a free year of lubrication baths at Industrial Automaton.
The labyrinth of dark back streets south of Corusca Circus.
Daring Way, where it crossed Vos Gesal in upper Uscru.
Hazad's Skytunnel in the Manarai Uplift.
And just about anywhere in the sector known colloquially as "The Works."
Foot mat to the Senate District, with its New Architecture spires and domes, its blade-thin obelisks that resembled oft-used candles dipped in gleaming alloy, the Works had been a booming manufacturing area until escalating costs had driven the production of spacecraft parts, labor droids, and construction materials off world.
Kilometer after cheerless kilometer of flat-roofed factories and assembly plants; towering cranes and enormous gantries; endless stretches of pitted mag-lev tracks that might have been overgrown with weeds if weeds grew on Coruscant; skyscraping clusters of vacant corporate buildings with rocket-fin buttresses … For standard centuries, the sector had been the destination for billions of hardworking immigrants from the Inner Rim and the Colonies, seeking employment and new lives in the Core. Now the Works was a destination for fugitives from Nar Shaddaa who needed a hole to crawl into. A Coruscanti might risk a visit to the Works if he had just been laid off by the Bank of Aargau and was looking for someone to disintegrate his former boss. Or perhaps when death sticks no longer satisfied and a capsule of Crude was in order …
It was the gritty, toxic smoke that still belched from the stacks of factories closed for generations that made for the crimson-and-gold splendor of Coruscant's sunsets, gawked at by the affluent habitués of the Senate District's Skysitter Restaurant.
The entire sector might have been demolished if it could be determined with any certainty just who owned what. Rumors persisted that hired assassins and crime syndicates had buried so many bodies in the Works that it should be considered a cemetery.
And yet Dooku loved the place.
The antithesis of his native Serenno, the Works was very much a home away from home for the human who had earned the title Darth Tyranus.
One structure in particular, columnar in shape, round-topped, propped by angular ramparts, rising from the defiled core of the Works like a stake driven into its heart. Strong in the dark side, made so by Darth Sidious, the building had been the place of Dooku's apprenticeship, just as it had served as a training ground for Darth Maul before Dooku, and who knew who or how many other Sith disciples before Maul.
The grounds on which Dooku and Sidious tried, and failed, to break the will of the Grand Master: Yoda.
During the ten years preceding the outbreak of the war, when Count Dooku of Serenno was believed to have been peddling his Separatist agenda to disenfranchised worlds in the Mid and Outer Rims, he had, in fact, spent long periods of time in the Works, coming and going at will, or as required of him by Darth Sidious. Even in the three years since, he had been able to visit Coruscant without fear of detection, thanks in part to unique countermeasures the Geonosians had engineered into his interstellar sloop.
The modified Punworcca 116 rested on its slight landing gear in the building's vast docking space. With its needle-tipped bow carapaces and the spherical cockpit module they gripped, the sloop was typically Geonosian in design. Its signature sail, however, had been obtained with Sidious's help from a dealer in pre-Republic antiquities in the Gree Enclave. Furled into the ventral carapace now, seldom used any longer, it had been created by an ancient spacefaring race that had taken to the grave the secrets of supralight emission propulsion.
A precise method to approach a planet without leaving any noticeable ion trails.
Normally measured, Dooku's pace was rushed and somewhat haphazard, evidence to anyone who knew him that the Count was troubled. If asked, he might have admitted as much. Even so, in moments when he could put aside the reasons for his visit, he surveyed the docking bay with a certain fondness, recalling the years he had spent under Sidious's tutelage, learning the ways of the Sith, practicing the dark arts, perfecting himself.
Mastering evil, Yoda would have said.
The problem was partly semantic, in that the Jedi Order had seen to it that the dark side of the Force had become equated with evil. But was shade more evil than stark sunlight? Recognizing that the dark side was on the ascendant, the Jedi who pledged to serve the Force should have known enough to embrace it, to ally themselves with it. After all, it was a matter of balance, and if the preservation of balance required the dark side to be on top, then so be it.
With Dooku, Sidious hadn't had to waste precious hours on lightsaber technique, nor on ridding Dooku of ill habits born of a lifetime spent in the Jedi Temple, for Dooku had long before rid himself of those. Instead, Sidious had focused on giving Dooku what had amounted to a crash course in tapping into the power of the dark side, a mere taste of which had proved intoxicating. Enough to convince Dooku that no course was left open to him but to abandon the Order; more, that his entire life had been preparation for his apprenticeship to Sidious.
That at long last he had found a true mentor.
The Sith saw no need to take on only young disciples, though they often did. Sometimes the training went smoother with disciples who had lived long enough to grow disillusioned or angry or vengeful. The Jedi, by contrast, were shackled by compassion. Their penchant for showing mercy, for granting forgiveness, for heeding the dictates of conscience, prevented them from giving themselves over to the dark side. From becoming as a force of nature itself, paranormally strong and quick, capable of conjuring Sith lightning, of exteriorizing rage, all without the need for the magic hand passes the Jedi were so fond of employing.
When they gave into these emotions on rare occasions, it was seen as shame instead of pride. Being human was a sin.
The Sith understood that the elitism and mobsterism of the Republic could be ended only by bringing the diverse beings of the galaxy under the control of a single hand. The galaxy could only be saved from itself by the imposition of order.
What fools the Jedi were not to see it. Blind to their own downfall, the coming of their endtime.
What fools-
The sound of soft footfalls made Dooku turn.
From off to one side of the docking bay a figure approached. Dressed in a hooded cloak of burgundy material, closed at the neck by a distinctive clasp, and so soft and voluminous that it covered everything but the lower portion of the figure's face and his hands. Rarely was that hood lowered, allowing the wearer to walk unnoticed through the byways and plazas of Coruscant's blurred underground, just another recluse or religious initiate arrived in the Core from some world beyond imagining.
Perhaps to the inquisitive, a Jedi who wished not to be recognized, Dooku thought. The count couldn't help but find the irony stunning.
Of his youth, Sidious had offered little these past thirteen years; of his rumored Master, even less.
More than once it had occurred to Dooku that Sidious and Yoda had certain qualities in common. Principally, that neither was entirely what he appeared to be. That is, made frail by age, or by the intensity required to master the Sith or Jedi arts.
On Geonosis, Yoda's easy parrying and, indeed, handling of the Sith lightning Dooku hurled at him had come as a surprise. Had made him wonder if, on some level during the course of Yoda's eight-hundredodd years, the Jedi Master hadn't delved into the dark arts, if only as a means of familiarizing himself with his perceived enemy. And on Vjun, only months ago, Yoda himself had admitted as much. Carry a darkness within me, I do, he had said. Yoda probably believed that he had defeated Dooku on Geonosis. But in fact, Dooku had only fled the fight to safeguard the plans he had been carrying, the technical readouts to what would one day become the Ultimate Weapon...
"The Force remains aligned to our cause, my Master" Dooku spoke aloud, bowing slightly at the waist. He recalled how both familiar but also different this meeting was compared to when he arrived at the eve of the Clone Wars nearly three years ago.
"Darth Tyranus," Sidious said as he drew nearer. "Welcome to Coruscant."
"Lord Sidious," Dooku said, returning to his normal posture. "I spared no haste in arriving here."
"And took a great risk you did, my apprentice." Whether by nature or design, Sidious's words came slowly, sibilantly.
"A calculated risk, my lord."
"Do you fear that the Republic has become so adept at eavesdropping that they can now listen in on our private transmissions?"
"No, my lord. At most, they have only learned of our… partners, shall we say. But I am confident that the Intelligence division knew nothing of our plans for dealing with the Bith at Escarte."
"Then my instructions were carried out?"
"They were."
"And still you have come here," Sidious said, his voice commanding that an explanation be offered.
"Some matters are best discussed in real time."
Sidious only nodded, satisfied with the honesty of the response. "Then let us speak of these matters in real time."
They walked in silence to a balcony that overlooked the desolate sprawl of the Works. In the far distance the glassy towers of the Senate District disappeared into clouds. "I suspect that the planned disappearance of Thal K'sar did not go according to plan," Sidious said finally.
"Regretfully, my lord. He was taken into custody, but our guild confederates at Escarte failed to act quickly enough. Hours from execution, K'sar was rescued and spirited from the facility by a Republic Intelligence agent, who had the help of...several Jedi."
Dooku had been able to count on one hand the number of times he had seen Sidious angry.
Suddenly he needed two hands.
"Most unfortunate, Lord Tyranus" Sidious said with purposeful slowness. "They are after the engraver, and designer, of the mechno-chair..."
"The Xi Charran has been eliminated, my Lord" Dooku spoke up with an attempt to please his master. "They have only the Bith."
Sidious pondered it for a moment. "From Viceroy Gunray to the Bith on Escarte..."
"The Jedi mean to expose you, my lord."
"And what if they should?" Sidious snapped. "Do you think that would bring an end to what I have set in motion?"
"No, my lord. But this is unexpected."
Sidious eyed Dooku from beneath the hood of his cloak. "Yes. Yes, it is, as you say, unexpected." He returned his gaze to the far-off towers. "Someday I may choose to reveal myself to the galaxy, but not now. This war must be made to continue a while longer. There are worlds and persons we still need to convert to our side."
"I understand."
"Tell me, who is conducting this… search?" Sidious asked, before dry sarcasm fell from his lips. "Master Windu? No, he's too busy trying to play politics with the Republic. Yoda? Of course not, blind to our presence, he is" Sidious continued with contempt. "Or perhaps it's Shaak Ti? Perhaps she's about to fail at another investigation."
Dooku flinched as Sidious ruthlessly deconstructed a series of scenarios, dismissing each Jedi he referenced for all their faults. As much as he didn't want to interrupt Sidious' conversing with himself, he exhaled with purpose when his master paused. "Plo Koon and Quinlan Vos...assisted by Kenobi and Skywalker."
Sidious took a long moment to respond. "A worthless Jedi with no talents to offer and a dark disciple who forsake us. The so-called Chosen One, and a Jedi with enough good fortune to almost make one believe in luck. Four Jedi; four crusaders of their precious order" Without turning from the view, he added: "I am displeased by this turn of events, Lord Tyranus. Greatly displeased."
Plo Koon was not a Jedi that Dooku had any fond attachments towards, other than that he was an underwhelming rival during his time as a master. Vos, however, was a thorn that was coated red by the blood of another forsaken disciple: Asajj Ventress. So much potential, wasted away on the Jedi. Vos had talents that could have been used to great effect, had they not been corrupted by the fallacies of the Jedi lifestyle. However, even Dooku admitted that he was not nearly as much a nuisance as a certain Jedi duo.
Once Master and Padawan, Kenobi and Skywalker had become the scourge of Dooku's existence. On Geonosis he had deliberately allowed them to pursue him, just as Sidious had instructed him to do. Also as instructed, Dooku had made Kenobi aware of the existence of Darth Sidious, as a means of confusing the Jedi Order by telling them the truth. In the sloop's docking bay he had demonstrated his mastery to Kenobi and Skywalker. And throughout the war, he has continued to best the two Jedi time and time again. Collected, Kenobi was able to put up a decent fight; Enraged, Skywalker had proved a powerful opponent.
Long have I watched young Skywalker, Sidious had once admitted.
And all the more so of late.
"My lord, the Jedi may search for others who contributed to fashioning the communications devices you distributed to Gunray, myself, and others. Also, there is the matter of Grievous's defeat at Belderone."
Sidious made a gesture accepting that defeat. "Do not trouble yourself about Belderone. It may suit our ultimate purpose to have the Republic believe that they have chased us from their precious Core. When faced with a setback, there is often another way forward. As regards your concern for keeping secret my whereabouts, I am moved. Thrilled, even, that you so care about my identity. But here, too, I begin to see a way to engineer events in our favor." He paused to consider something, then said: "Yes, I begin to see the blazes along the trail that the Jedi will follow."
Sidious turned to Dooku, grinning malevolently. "Their singlemindedness will deliver them into our hands, Lord Tyranus. It's evident we cannot stop them entirely, but we can control their inquisition. We will set our trap for them on Naos Three."
Dooku allowed his skepticism to show. "As remote a world as can be found in known space, my lord."
"The Jedi will find their way to it" Sidious answered. "In good time."
Dooku decided to take it on faith. "What would you have me do?"
"Nothing more than make arrangements, for you are needed elsewhere. Employ outsiders."
Dooku nodded. "It is done."
"One small addendum. See to it that Plo Koon, Quinlan Vos and Obi-Wan Kenobi cease to be irritants." Sidious sneered the names.
"They will be destroyed, but does even Kenobi represent so forceful a threat to our plans?"
Sidious shook his head. "Perhaps not, but Skywalker does. And Kenobi… Kenobi has been as a father to him. Orphan Skywalker once and for all, and he will shift. The other Jedi will not be able to reign him in."
"Shift?"
"To the dark side of the Force."
"An apprentice?"
Sidious gazed at him, eyes burning straight into him. "In good time, Lord Tyranus. All in good time."
Having suffered through all four hours of Palpatine's State of the Republic address to the Senate, interrupted dozens of times by standing ovations, an archaic tradition not practiced since the era of Supreme Chancellor Valorum Eixes, Bail Organa watched from the backseat of the air taxi as a trio of assault cruisers lifted off into Coruscant's flame-orange sky, casting their wedge-shaped shadows on the spired roof of the Jedi Temple.
Bail's destination.
He instructed the droid pilot to set the taxi down on the Temple's northeast landing platform, where two Jedi younglings were waiting for him. The opulence of the Temple's wide corridors was lost on him as he followed his escort to the room the Order used for public meetings, rather than the circular chamber reserved for private conclaves in the summit of the High Council spire.
A holorecording of Palpatine's speech was running in the center of the room when Bail was admitted. Around the holoprojector table sat Council members Yoda, Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, Stass Allie, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto.
"And so it is with a heavy heart that I commit two hundred thousand additional troopers to the Outer Rim sieges," the holoimage of the Supreme Chancellor was saying, "though in full confidence that the end of this brutal conflict is now in sight. Cast from the Core, expelled from the Inner Rim and Colonies, driven from the Mid Rim, and soon to be exiled in the spiral arms, the Confederacy will pay a dear price for what they have brought down on our fair house."
He paused for applause, which went on for far too long.
Droid cams buzzed around the Great Rotunda to highlight the more well-known of the Palpatine-friendly factions then, coming full circle, closed on Palpatine's thirty-meter-tall podium to linger on the two dozen human naval officers who were standing just below the summit, clapping enthusiastically.
"A show of force, this is," Yoda remarked.
Dressed in robes of magenta and forest green, Palpatine continued. "Some of you may question why my heart is heavy when my tidings bring news of such long-awaited redress. The decision weighs on me because I would sooner say: Enough is enough, let the Confederacy, the Separatists, wither and die on their own in the Outer Rim. Let us keep our best and brightest home safe their from foreign hands. Let them become alienated from our noble society; let us refrain from bringing bloodshed to any more worlds, harm to our noble soldiers, our trusted Jedi Knights."
Yoda harrumphed and many if not all of the Jedi tensed at this particular declaration.
"Sadly, though, I cannot decide with my heart alone. Because we cannot allow the enemies of democracy to rest and recuperate. Like a life-threatening growth taken hold in the body, they must be excised. As a contagious disease, they must be eradicated. If not, our children's generation and generations to come will live under the threat that those who brought chaos to the galaxy will find the strength to regroup and attack anew. The spirit of our society depends on defeating the evil that has grown within us and preventing it from taking root again."
"Applause break," Bail recalled from memory. The Jedi Masters stirred in their high-backed chairs but said nothing.
"Lest my statements convey an impression that the hardest decisions are behind us, let me hasten to add that much work remains to be done. So much rebuilding; so much reordering… To you, all of you, will I look for guidance in determining which worlds we should welcome back into the Republic's embrace, and which, if any, should be kept at arm's length, or shunned for the injuries they have heaped upon us. Similarly will I look to you for guidance in reshaping our Constitution to conform to the needs of the new epoch."
"What does he mean by that?" Mace Windu interjected.
"Finally will I look to you, all of you, to author a new spirit in Coruscant, in the Core, throughout the star systems where the light of democracy continues to shine, so that we can look forward to another thousand years of peace, and another thousand beyond that, and so on, until war itself is stamped from our just domain."
"Had enough politics for one day?" Stass Allie asked while the Senate broke into extended applause. Tall, slender, and dark-complected, she wore a Tholoth headdress similar in design to that worn by her immediate predecessor on the Council, Adi Gallia. When no one objected, she deactivated the holoprojector. "Sometimes I get the impression he just loves the sound of his own voice."
Turning to Bail, Yoda said, "Appreciate your visit, we do, Senator Organa."
"I just wanted all of you to know that, despite what the HoloNet news might lead you to believe, not all of us were on our feet."
"Aware of this, we are."
Bail gestured broadly to the room's triangular windows and shook his head in dismay. "Coruscant is already in a celebratory mood. You can practically taste it in the air. As if they already won a great victory."
"Victory? Premature, any celebration is for victory," Yoda said ruefully.
Mace leaned forward in his chair. "What can Palpatine be thinking, committing half of Coruscant's home force to the Outer Rim sieges?"
"Emboldened Palpatine is, by what we achieved at Belderone. To him, the enemy is defeated."
"The Supreme Chancellor singles out Mygeeto, Saleucami, and Felucia," Agen Kolar said rubbing the horns that surrounded his face and scalp.
Ki-Adi-Mundi's elongated head made a subtle nod. "A 'triad of evil,' he labeled them."
"They are Separatist bastions," Yoda said. "But so remote, so insignificant they are."
"A danger to the body and spirit of the Republic," Bail said.
Mace ridiculed the idea. "When the body is damaged, it prioritizes. It doesn't rally its defenses to deal with a pinprick when the chest has been holed by a blaster bolt. And spirit? The spirit of the Republic does not come from Mygeeto and Saleucami, and certainly not Felucia."
Bail glanced around the room. "Some of us are concerned that the Supreme Chancellor has been persuaded to press these sieges as a means of acquiring worlds by force. There are bills before the Senate now that could grant him the authority to overrule local system governments."
Yoda compressed his lips in indignation. "A labyrinth of evil, this war has become. But protect ourselves, we must. Safeguard the traditions the Jedi have upheld for one thousand generations."
Mace ran a hand over his shaven head. "We can only hope that Obi Wan and Anakin find their way to the source of this war before it's too late. And as for Plo Koon and Quinlan Vos, let them do their part to defeat that source once and for all."