Snips of the Future Ch2

Ahsoka dove from her perch, igniting her practice sabers as she fell. She didn't think, didn't consider, she just acted. She didn't have time for anything else against this foe. Among the many lessons on war she'd learned as Anakin's padawan, one of the most prominent was that a mediocre plan, or even a crazy plan, violently executed now, was better than any number of perfect plans too late. She struck even before her feet hit the ground, left and right hands moving in tandem. High, middle, low, middle, high, high, low, spin around him and try to impale through the back. These were practice sabers, not her won familiar ones. They weren't sized for her, and even turned up to maximum the worst they'd was give someone a burn. But all she had to do was delay him. Delay him long enough and Anakin would come. Or Master Obi-wan, or Rex. She just had to hope that the clankers he must have brought with him weren't doing too much damage elsewhere in the mean time.

Gut-stab, X double slash, she could never remember the fancy names for moves. Just the moves themselves, honed over hundreds of battles. Fake a clockwise spin and turn counter-clockwise to stab again. Duck the expected counter-attack, (which didn't come. That's strange.) Use the Force to jump and kick up toward the face then use the arm raised to block as a springboard to somersault over his head. Come down and turn around to see him already turned around facing her with his saber an inch from her throat.

"Count Dooku. What an... unexpected pleasure. If I'd known... you were coming I would have made sure to roll out... the red carpet." Ahsoka was gasping for air and trembling. A fight this short shouldn't have taken this much out of her, but she was feeling strangely weak. She desperately tried to imitate the way she'd seen Master Kenobi buy time in the past.

"Young Tano, I must admit you've surprised me." Something wrong with his face. It wasn't as lined as she remembered, and his beard and hair were brown with only a light threads of white here and there. That, and though his gaze was intent and calculating, it wasn't nearly as hard.

Technicians who she just now realized had been watching open mouthed started to gather around, and the one who seemed to be in charge bowed nervously.

"Master Dooku."

"Pay it no mind." Said the man who had once been the Sith leader of the Confederacy said with cool politeness. "Just a light spar is all. We apologize for interrupting your work."

Then he turned back to Ahsoka, and his eyes held surprise, consideration, and even a hint of approval.

"Young Tano. It's been a while since anyone has taken me up on my standing offer to try and sneak attack me. And never so thoroughly by one so young. Who is your saber teacher?"

And all at once, Ahsoka realized where she was, or to be more precise when she was. She deactivated the too-large training sabers, stepped back, and bowed, as he deactivated his own saber and re-attached it to his belt.

"Master Dooku." She tried to make the word sound natural, despite the acid taste they left in her mouth. "I did not expect to see you. I apologize for my unprovoked attack." The sabers were oversized enough on her to be awkward to attach to her belt, so she used the Force to pull her small bag of necessities from the duct and place them inside.

Dooku raised one eyebrow, but said "Indeed. It is of no concern. As I said, there is my standing offer, even if no-one has taken me up on it for many years. And no harm was done. Come with me. We have much to discuss." Then he turned and strode away without a single look back.


Despite her unwillingness, Ahsoka followed him as he strode to the lecture halls, and commandeered a small meditation and counseling room. Her memories were screaming at her to attack, to run, to raise the alarm. It was Count freaking Dooku on the grounds of the Temple itself!

Her reason, on the other hand, reminded her that at the moment it was Jedi Master Dooku, former padawan of the great Master Yoda himself, premier living lightsaber master, and member of the Jedi High Council. If a member of the Jedi High Council wanted to commandeer a room and speak with a youngling, then that was very much their prerogative, and the youngling in question should feel honored and flattered.

Ahsoka Tano did not feel honored or flattered. It was all she could do to keep from flinching every time Dooku's hand passed the part of his cloak that hid his lightsaber.

Finally, he sat down, and motioned her to join him.

"I apologize for the unusual setting. Normally, a meeting such as this, involving private personal discussions would have taken place in my quarters, or some other informal setting, but I have been on meditative retreat following the outcome of recent missions, and have not been at the temple to make sure my quarters are kept in order, and we are not acquainted enough to have other informal options available. Please understand that this meeting in no way reflects my position on the Council, or the actions of the Council in any way."

She sat gingerly, making sure there was a good distance between them, and that her bag was within easy reach. A flicker of a frown seem to cross his face for a moment before being hidden again behind his normal impassive mask.

"No apologies are necessary, Master Dooku." Which was true, and yet wasn't at the same time. This Dooku had nothing to apologize for, and she didn't think she would be able to accept any apologies the Dooku of her memories might have offered.

"How may I help you?" Only after she spoke did she think of how strange that might sound; a four year old youngling offering to help a Jedi Council member, but he did not seem to find anything amiss in the polite formula.

"I was on meditative retreat as I said, when I received a call from my old friend Mistress Nu. In the midst of our conversation, she mentioned that a young Initiate was predicting the immanent death of my former padawan, but that as of yet no action had been taken. Lacking any more immediately pressing business, I decided to investigate. So, young Tano, tell me what you have seen, so that I may decide how to respond."

Ahsoka paused for a moment, but she couldn't seem too suspicious without rousing even more suspicions about herself than whatever she already had. Besides, she did desperately need help. All the plans she'd come up with so far wouldn't have even passed Skyguy's approval, let alone someone like Master Kenobi. Plus, she'd been probing his aura as discreetly as she could, and either he was even better at shielding his nature than Sidious had been during the Clone Wars, or he wasn't currently Dark. She decided to tell him what she knew, at least about the upcoming Naboo mission.


Jedi Master Yan Dooku was gravely concerned, and on a number of issues. Young Tano did not act like a youngling of her known age, even a youngling raised in the most strict and advanced environment. She was using words and concepts far beyond even the extremely high standards the Jedi Order had for it's younglings, and her understanding of politics, though crude, was incisive.

Their brief lightsaber clash had shown surprising skill, but not the physical conditioning that would have been achieved as part of gaining that skill. Her style was primarily a mix of Ataru, Shien, and even the advanced Jar'Kai style, but with some elements he didn't recognize. She was also adept at incorporating the Force into combat, helping to mitigate her small size. At her age, she should have only had the most rudimentary introduction to saber combat, even to Shii-Cho the first form taught to younglings.

And then there were her reactions. She was exhibiting the sort of hyper-vigilance he'd come to expect on war refugees and extreme combat veterans. He'd noticed that she always kept her weapons within arms reach, never had her back to a door or window, and always paid attention to the hands and feet of each person. Her shielding was very good. Good enough that he would have recommended a Knight at that level to take time teaching, yet he suspected that her passive force perception was still active.

Dooku had checked her records, and they displayed none of this. According to them, she'd only been in the temple a little over a year, and had had no formal training beyond the beginning play of brand new Initiates. Yes, there was that encounter with the fake Jedi before Master Koon found her, but that was brief. Yes again, her file showed that she was very athletic, with good Force Sense for her age and training level, but nothing on the level of skill or mastery that she had showed to him.

And what was most disturbing was that she was utterly terrified of him, and trying her best to hide it.

All of this would require investigation, but for the moment there was the more immediate issue. If this young Togruta were correct, his headstrong young padawan was flying right into a deadly trap. According to her, the Trade Federation was being manipulated by a hitherto unsuspected Sith Lord. Shortly after they boarded the blockade's command ship, they usually so cowardly Neimoidians would blow up their Consular class ship, and fill the meeting room with poison gas. It was a stupid thing to try on Jedi, but he'd never been impressed by Neimoidian intelligence. Then the murderous fools would send battle droids in against them. Ahsoka didn't seem too impressed with the droids they supposedly would send, but Dooku wasn't familiar with the model.

After dispatching the droids, instead of sneaking into a comms station to call for help like any sane person, Qui-gon and his padawan would try to charge the bridge of the ship. That Dooku could well believe. It was completely in character with his bull headed former padawan. Of course, Neimoidians being Neimoidians, they had multiple defenses, and drove them off with more impressive droids. What followed was a series of mishaps that rang all too true to Dooku, before they escaped Naboo with the queen in a damaged, unarmed transport, and had to hide out in some outer rim backwater.

The Sith apparently decided enough was enough and sent his apprentice after them, wielding a double bladed red lightsaber. Qui-gon apparently would escape with his life after rescuing yet another pathetic lifeform, this time convinced it was the Chosen One. Of course the Council didn't believe a word of it, either about the child or about the Sith, and so they sent him and Obi-wan back out by themselves guarding the queen as she tried to liberate a planet with no professional army or navy, while a known, powerful, Force-wielding assassin was after them.

Dooku felt his teeth grind at that. He could just hear the voices of the Council Members using platitudes to dismiss what was going on. Dooku had recently learned a hard lesson about not gathering information before acting, and also about not leaving obvious openings for danger. That was why he had come when he heard about this girl with visions. Yan Dooku knew that visions could not be followed without question, but he also knew that they couldn't be ignored either, something that much of the Council seemed perfectly happy doing. Just as they seemed perfectly happy to accept the easy and comfortable answer, and allow themselves to be manipulated like puppets on a string.

So, of course, the Sith Assassin showed up, and of course Qui-gon and Obi-wan engaged him without any kind of backup. And then the cherry on top, his idiot former padawan left his own padawan behind and tried to engage the assassin on his own, and got a saber through the gut for his foolhardiness.

Yan Dooku sat an pondered for a while on what to do. As crazy as the whole thing sounded, (and visions were rarely so long, so concrete, or so direct in their narrative,) the Force was telling him that she was telling the truth. It was what the Force was telling him to do that baffled him. The first part was what he would have done anyway, but the second...

"Very well, young Tano. I will go to verify what you have seen, and if it occurs as you have seen I will intervene. And..." there was an almost physical struggle in saying in, "I will take you with me.


Notes: I'm glad to have another chapter, and this was a long one. Please be honest. Who guessed the identity of her visitor before reading the chapter?

Per what I've read, it seems that in Legends, The Phantom Menace occurs just about a year after the Battle of Galidran, and in the same year as the Battle of Baltizaar. I've decided that the Baltizaar mission finished shortly before the start of the story, so Dooku is extremely disillusioned with the Jedi Order and the Jedi Council, and has withdrawn from active service (hence why he wasn't present on the Council during the movies,) but has not yet formally left the Order. I've decided that it was those 2 blunders, plus the Council ignoring the changes in the Naboo situation and (in his mind,) leaving his Padawan to die, that pushed him over the edge into formally leaving the Order in the main timeline, as well as leaving him so vulnerable to Sidious' manipulation.

I'm having trouble finding any scenes where Ahsoka directly confronts Dooku in person in Legends or Canon, so I've avoided making references. That said, she definitely knew who and what he was, and he had a fearsome reputation among the Jedi during the clone wars. For those who noticed, Ahsoka had a bit of a flashback on encountering Dooku, and forgot that he's not currently the Sith Lord she's known him as. That being said, she desperately needs help to try to fix what's going to happen, and so far he's the only one who's shown any willingness to act on what she knows.

Dooku's recapping of the plot of The Phantom Menace was rather hard to write, and I was tempted to skip it, but I felt it was important as it shows how he thinks and feels about what's going on.

The battle scene was something else that was hard to write. Ahsoka is going all out to kill if she can, but she's also not in her right state of mind, her body isn't the one she's used to, and she's just not a match for Dooku. Dooku does not treat it as a fight at all. He is the most respected duelist and saber instructer at this time, with the possible exception of Yoda, who stands in a category all his own where the jedi are concerned. Dooku is surprised and impressed by her ability, but he never feels seriously threatened, and simply defends while evaluating her form for later feedback. Also, when watching his duels, that is generally how he fights. Dooku defends while he learns about his opponent, and waits for them to make a mistake he can capitalize on. He generally uses the minimum of movement and energy, while letting his foe expend all their energy.