THE ESSENCES OF LIFE

Chapter 11 – A Little Armageddon

The strike in the Mid Rim territories had depleted Grievous's fighting forces and it was time to take his fleet in for supplies and repairs. He set sail for the sector's CIS military headquarters as soon as he'd gathered up the vessels he'd left behind in the Outer Rim, and a further two quick hyperspace jumps later, was already docking the entire Separatist droid army in temporary safe harbour while the Republicans were still reeling over what had happened to Oronaciem.

The headquarters, and an immense supply depot, were based on the single desolate moon orbiting a Trade Federation-managed world named Nees'n'ublay, but which everyone now simply called Nee'port. Just as its new name suggested, Nee'port did indeed have a spacious port—it had three, actually, each one of them serving separate distinct functions. Nee'port proper was the planet-based spaceport that catered to all Separatist personnel and friendly neutrals alike. It was a free port and Grievous's people, the Kaleesh, would have been welcomed there if they'd been in the habit of conducting business off-world. Then there were the massive orbital shipyards and civilian docks for vessels that couldn't make planet-fall, sited directly above Nee'port's spaceport, and thirdly, the purely military dockyards hugging the moon. Grievous berthed his ships in the military yard. His wasn't the only fleet in port, but it was by far the largest and most formidable.

Grievous left it up to the various ships' captains, mostly droid, a few living, to get the actual resupplying and maintenance started, and shuttled down to the moon base. He had several important meetings scheduled, one with Count Dooku within the hour, and he also wanted to see whether his latest raid had generated any far-ranging repercussions yet. He hurried along to the base's operational center, to quickly brief himself before he met with his superior.

It was already late in the evening, by the moon base's time schedule, and there were few people left still roaming about in the corridors, yet as luck would have it, Grievous ran into one of them nonetheless. It further happened to be one of his least favourite people in the entire galaxy. One of Dooku's special minions. The Dark Jedi, Asajj Ventress.

They both jammed to a halt upon catching sight of each other and regarded one another with nearly identical attitudes of mingled surprise and disgust, the cyborg having no difficulty at all in expressing his immediate loathing with his eyes and body posture alone. Asajj, a female Rattataki, scowled right back. She was a slender woman, humanoid, clad in a form-fitting upper garment and full skirt, and clearly very fit and athletic. Her pale blue-grey face with its fine features and opaline eyes was as striking in its way as Grievous's own and would have been quite beautiful if her visage hadn't been so curdled by long years of harsh deprivation and hatred.

One of her hands had already slid down to lightly grip one of her lightsabers, just in case. Grievous viewed her action with scorn. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I might ask you the same thing," she shot back.

"I'm here with the fleet. My fleet. And to see Dooku."

"Good for you."

Her tone was sneering, controlled, but Grievous could hear the festering jealousy underlying it even so. Asajj had once sought command of the droid armies being gathered together by the Separatists, had expected it almost, and had been shocked and outraged when Dooku had appointed Grievous instead. It was not surprising, therefore, that when the two of them, Supreme Commander and spurned aspirant, eventually met, that they'd instantly clashed on every level imaginable. Accusations had soon followed, insults had been hurled, and then they'd flown at each other without further preamble, too frenzied in their respective rages to even make it a proper duel. By the time Count Dooku, alerted by the veritable psychic explosion of their emotions, arrived, he'd found them brawling on the floor like a couple of rabid curs, with the cyborg about to dash the woman's brains out for good. Grievous had earned a violent tongue-lashing for his actions and Asajj a week's stay in sickbay, and Count Dooku had been so furious with the both of them that he wouldn't look directly at either of them for days. To top it off, just before Dooku interrupted them, Grievous had apparently snatched away and secreted a lightsaber which Asajj had just laboriously finished building, the first and last one she'd ever make herself, and he refused to return it after the fight. Asajj had been so upset by this that she'd eventually swallowed her pride and came crying to Dooku about it, which angered the Count all over again to the point where he'd simply snapped at her that he wasn't about to get involved in the petty quarrelling of his students and that she should go challenge Grievous directly if she wanted the weapon back so badly. This, she never did, although whether it was because she was too apprehensive or because the opportunity never presented itself, was something only Asajj ever knew for sure. In time, Dooku relented and gave her a pair of new lightsabers, but it still didn't make up for what Asajj saw as Grievous's outright theft.

She stared at him now, emboldened by the knowledge that Dooku had protected her before, standing firm and refusing to get out of his way. Grievous, with his master's past anger also on his mind, relented first.

"I have work to do," he said coldly. "Stand aside."

"You've got room. Move yourself."

A little ripple, a sort of mechanical shudder, went through the cyborg. He moved, taking a single large step sideways before starting forward. Asajj strode forward too. They both walked stiff-legged and bristling, with exaggerated, almost comic gravity.

Grievous couldn't stop himself from cranking up his hearing as they began edging past one another. And then—he couldn't believe it—he distinctly heard the muttered phrase "bloody droid". It was all the excuse he needed. His pit instincts kicked in and launched him into an instantaneous sideways leap, arms uncoupling as he lunged at the woman. Asajj was caught by complete surprise. She'd made the mistake of believing he'd never dare defy Dooku's wishes, and even her Force sensitivity didn't warn her, for there was so little left of the cyborg's former organic self that he wasn't even detectable as a living being under normal circumstances. He slammed her up against the wall, upper hands grabbing her wrists, lower hands pushing back her torso, grasped her ankles together with one taloned foot, and pinned her as neatly as mounting a butterfly specimen on a piece of cork.

Asajj's lean wiry body convulsed at once, yet it was already hopeless. The horrid clawed appendages clamped upon her limbs shifted not iota. His grip remained as sure and implacable as time itself no matter how much she exerted herself, almost as though the revolting creature had been practising for just such a moment, something she wouldn't put past him. From all she'd heard and seen of him to date, Asajj thought him exactly the sort of sadistic beast who would get off on tormenting women.

Grievous, who was not at all discriminatory and who hated anyone he perceived as a rival with equal intensity, leaned in and tilted his head down until the front of his faceplate was almost touching the woman's ear.

"You want to watch that tongue of yours," he purred roughly. "Better yet, perhaps I should tear it out and watch it for you. You just don't learn, do you?"

"Dooku will have your head," she hissed, still defiant.

"Will he? I doubt it. Your star is fading, you witch. I hear a padawan kicked your ass and stole your ship."

Asajj struggled furiously again, her face going almost puce with rage. Grievous let her, maliciously enjoying her futile efforts. He still couldn't believe his luck in having gotten the drop on her. Occasionally, he felt an immense, invisible pressure shoving at him as she tried to Force-push him away, but she couldn't seem to channel her power properly from her awkward position or perhaps he was just too close, and he had, in any case, taken the precaution of magnetically locking his free foot in place to anchor himself. He breathed hard right in her ear for no reason other than because he knew it would repulse her and let one of the hands he'd pressed beneath her throat drop down to her waist. He contemptuously fingered the hilt of one of the dual lightsabers hanging there.

"Don't you dare!" she choked out in a high, screechy voice.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't have them," he jeered back. "Dooku gave these to you, didn't he? What's the matter? Couldn't make another one yourself? You're not even a real Jedi anymore. You're not Sith either. You're nothing."

"I'm more anything than you'll ever be alive! You're just a machine and a few scraps of medical waste!"

"You scrawny old harridan! I ought to—"

The loud unmistakable sound of a throat being cleared froze them both. Count Dooku was standing there in the corridor, his face thunderous.

Grievous let the woman go with slow reluctance. "We were just exchanging pleasantries," he said.

"Really!" Dooku exclaimed. "It looked to me as though you were exchanging intimacies."

The very idea got the two of them apart like nothing else. Grievous back-pedalled, feeling nauseous. He didn't even have a stomach anymore and he still felt sick. Asajj looked as though she'd woken up to find a live spider in her mouth. Dooku regarded his two subordinants with an exasperation rare for him. At least he'd caught them this time before any damage had been done.

"Miss Ventress, you have business to attend to down in the weapons lab, am I correct?"

"Er, yes, Count."

"Then I suggest you see to it at once," he replied sharply. "As for you…" He gaze slid over his Supreme Commander, who was still glaring at Asajj and standing crouched over in a feral, animalistic way which Dooku thought vulgar and quite distasteful. "You come with me!"

The Count strode off, not bothering to check whether Grievous was following—he knew he would. Asajj watched them go, scowling and rubbing at her sore wrists. "I'm not old," she muttered to herself.

Grievous was very tense at first as he strode along behind Count Dooku, bracing himself for the caustic condemnation he was sure would come his way at any time. As the minutes went by without any such thing happening, he began to relax. Dooku must have heard how the Ventress woman had insulted him and decided he'd been fairly provoked, Grievous thought. It was the only reason he could think of to explain his superior's willingness to overlook his lapse. The cyborg would have been helplessly outraged had he ever suspected the real reason for Dooku's generosity, if he'd known that the human had rationalized to himself that if one chose to work with brutes, then one simply had to expect and tolerate a certain amount of brutish behaviour, there was nothing else for it.

Dooku finally glanced back at Grievous and said, "Admiral Talzikan's fleet is also in. Did you see?"

"Yes. It appears that he has lost several destroyers."

The Count nodded. "Three," he confirmed, pleased by the cyborg's keen observation. Brute though he might be, when it came to warfare, Grievous was proving himself meticulous and a true asset—it was a shame that all his enhancements hadn't worked equally well. "The Admiral is strategizing in one of the planning rooms," Dooku went on. "We still have some time. Would you care to meet him?"

Grievous answered in the affirmative. He was well aware that the Separatist war effort encompassed many more forces than just those under his personal command and that his human master worked closely with any number of people on a variety of projects, including other special apprentices and students with whom he shared his Sith knowledge. He'd always been a little inquisitive about the military end of Dooku's interests, wondered sometimes about what other armies and battles the Count monitored and might have had a hand in directing, and was not about to pass up an opportunity to allay his professional curiosity. Dooku nodded again, as if well satisfied by Grievous's response.

The Count led them on through another screening and into the most highly guarded sector of the base and entered one of the secure operational rooms used for planning. It was quite dim inside, the lights turned down so the occupants could better see the screens and holographic projections above the central plotting table, but not so dark that the people within didn't instantly see and recognize the two visitors who'd just entered. For Dooku, they all straightened a little, respectfully. For Grievous, their attentive postures froze solid with astonishment and fear. None of them had ever actually met the cyborg before, and in the shadowed periphery of the planning room, lit only by the feeble glows of the operational instruments, the extraordinary figure with its spectral face and glimmering eyes looked positively ghoulish.

"Admiral Talzikan, may I present my Supreme Commander and colleague, General Grievous," said Dooku.

"Um. A pleasure," the Admiral, a short, sturdy man of human stock, replied automatically. He considered whether to shake the General's hand, looked at it, shuddered inwardly at the thought of those bone-white artificial digits even touching his own, and dropped that notion in a hurry. He wound up just standing there, with no idea of what to say or do next, fighting the urge to squirm.

Dooku concealed a faint smirk and decided to rescue the poor man. "We're both interested in your latest campaign, Admiral," he said. "You'll soon be engaging the Betschek system, yes?"

"The Betschek homeworld, yes, your grace," Talzikan said, relieved to find himself directed back onto a subject he knew how to handle. His gaze flicked over towards the silent cyborg out of politeness, to acknowledge him, and hurriedly returned to the Count's far more cordial visage.

"Have you finalized your battle plans yet, Admiral?" Dooku inquired.

"Almost. I can give you a synopsis of what we've in mind so far."

"Please do."

Talzikan swung into briefing mode, quickly establishing his target's situation and the possible resistance he expected to encounter, and running through the tactics he planned to use to overcome it. The Count looked on attentively, making an occasional small query to help clarify what Talzikan was telling him. The General just kept standing there, still saying nothing—if it weren't for his shifting eyes, it would have been hard to tell if he were even alive. It wasn't until the Admiral was finished and Count Dooku turned to address Grievous that the machine-like creature finally seemed to stir to some semblance of life again.

"General Grievous? Have you any comments on Admiral Talzikan's strategy?"

"It will succeed—" he grated out.

"Ah."

"—at the cost of half his troops."

One of Dooku's elegant eyebrows arched up. He looked at Talzikan. "Admiral?"

Talzikan was already frowning, the expression on his broad, honest face showing some heat for the first time. "I'm estimating losses of no more than twenty-five percent," he said.

"The Betschekians are fierce fighters. They are warriors by heritage," Grievous pointed out. "They will not yield and they will not surrender."

"Admiral? Were you aware of that?" Dooku asked quietly.

"We…know they're good fighters. I'm not expecting it to be easy."

"Still. Half your men… That exceeds the usual level of acceptable losses, does it not?"

Talzikan dug his toes in, growing stubborn. "I disagree with that estimate," he insisted.

"I see…"

Dooku was enjoying himself. He regarded Talzikan thoughtfully for another long moment, then turned back to Grievous.

"General? Is there any way to lessen those casualties? A change of tactics, perhaps, if you were devising this strategy?"

"Of course."

A single stride of his long, angulated legs brought the big cyborg up to the side of the plotting table. He grabbed up a light pointer and began using it to indicate various parts of the holographic projections with quick, sharp jabs as he spoke on.

"The forces you are holding in reserve for the major ground assault on the capital, I would position them—here—instead. I would begin the attack as planned, then use the reserves five minutes later to launch a second assault on this sector, where they'll be trying to safeguard the civilian residents. Betschekian females do not fight, only the males. Attack here and the men opposing you will be thrown into turmoil. They will want to fall back to defend their mates and young. Their officers will have great difficulty controlling them."

Talziban stared at Grievous, aghast. Not all of the forces working for the Separatists were wicked men. Many were simply pawns, obeying well-intentioned governments who'd been seduced by Dooku and others of his ilk, and Admiral Talziban and his staff were prime examples. The counsel dealt out by the Count's alloy colleague served only to horrify them.

"General, I—I don't think I can ask my men to attack unarmed women and children," Talziban stuttered.

The look he got back was one the Admiral would never forget for the remainder of his life—a glare of such malevolence, such merciless, cold contempt, that Talziban felt himself to be looking into the eyes of a fiend and actually flinched back. The words that followed were just as cruel.

"Then be prepared to lose half of them."

Dooku again arched one eyebrow.

"Advice worth considering," he remarked, then gestured at Grievous and turned to leave. The people left behind continued staring after the unlikely pair, helplessly, until they'd gone.

As soon as they were out in the corridor, Grievous huffed and said, "He won't do it. I know he won't."

"No," Dooku agreed. "Not everyone shares your determination to carry out your duty in the most expedient way possible, I fear. And he hasn't your training. He doesn't understand the power one is granted when one follows the teachings of the Sith."

They walked on, into the innermost sanctum of the base headquarters, one even more tightly guarded and secured. At last they came to the small spare chamber that Dooku sometimes used as an office when paying one of his frequent visits to Nee'port. It was a curiously unadorned room with a strange circular device set right in its center. Both men approached it solemnly and Dooku activated a control built into its base. After a moment, a holographic figure, shrouded, began to form.

The two of them, human and Kaleesh cyborg, sank at once onto their bent knees in postures of obeisance. The figure represented the only being in the entire galaxy that either would humble themselves before, even Grievous, who called Dooku his master although he refused to kneel to him. But he'd kneel for his other master, Lord Sidious, the figure coalescing above the device. Grievous, and the Count, both knew where the true power resided.

They waited until Sidious greeted them and bade them to rise. Grievous gazed with respect at the cowled face which he'd never seen in its entirety. He knew only that Sidious was human, like Dooku.

Lord Sidious began to brief them. It was nothing like the briefing Dooku and Grievous had just gotten from the ill-fated Admiral Talzikan, nothing even like the much more comprehensive briefing Grievous had been seeking in the base's operational center before he'd been so rudely intercepted. This was an outlining of intent to bring down entire star sectors, to sow terror upon hundreds of worlds and billions of inhabitants, and to ultimately conquer the galaxy itself. The words fell as welcome rain upon the two listeners. Their eyes glittered feverishly, strangely akin though so different. Both of them felt humbled anew by their master's grand vision, and proud and privileged to have been chosen to execute his plans. When Sidious brought up an image of a galactic star chart, to better illustrate his objectives, both Count and cyborg leaned forward eagerly, as if to already grasp the targets in question.

"The Corellian trade spine," Sidious declared, indicating one of the major trading routes linking many of the most important worlds of the Republic. "This will be our key. Conquer it and our way into the Core will be clear."

Grievous trembled, the quiver of a volcanic mountainside about to blow. "I will turn it into a river of blood, my lord," he exclaimed.

"Yes, good, good," said Sidious, "and in time it will bear you to Coruscant itself. You will walk on that world, General. I have foreseen it."

Grievous saw it too. He saw himself striding defiantly across the face of the planet, its citizenry fleeing before him or cowering in whatever bolthole they'd managed to scrounge. And he saw himself in the Jedi Temple, one foot clutching the torn chest of the last slain Jedi lying before him; all of them dead at last, no one left to oppose him. Such were the dreams of a killer cyborg.

It was the first and most important meeting Grievous would have during his short time at Nee'port and in retrospect it would be the only meeting of any true consequence—all the rest he considered mere busy-work, meetings to get his ships repaired, to authorize certain projects, even (most annoyingly) to tend to his political obligations as the deputy leader of the Separatist Council. The only thing Grievous came to think of as being more useless and annoying than the political meetings was the casual associated socializing which Dooku demanded of him on several afternoons, when he had to accompany the Count while he walked aimlessly about near the base's wardroom or in the observation domes and pretended to be pleasantly surprised when he met the inevitable occasional important guests and dignitaries. Dooku would always introduce his Supreme Commander with great pomp, and after nodding curtly, Grievous would then have to stand there bored out of his skull, listening to inane small talk he wanted no part of and refused to participate in, having to tolerate the constant sneaking glances and outright gawks of anyone passing by. Before long, word got out and visitors actually began seeking them out, all for the vain pleasure of getting to meet Count Dooku and his elusive metal warlord, and then Grievous thought he would go mad, having to listen to all the inanities squared and tripled many times over as whole clusters of people fawned around them. At least no one tried to touch the cyborg. Even more so than being a poor socialite, he was a total failure as a huggy person.

Then there were the media encounters. The first time, it was turning around in one of the observation domes to behold a blue-skinned humanoid man pointing a camera at him. Grievous didn't like having recording devices aimed his way any more than he liked having people gawk at him. He'd taken an aggressive step towards the man, growling, "What do you think you are doing?"

Dooku had halted him. "Easy, General. Just a few visuals for our news agency," he'd explained. "I'm sure many people will be pleased to see one of the heroes leading the movement they support so diligently."

Grievous had seen the security badge and credentials on the man's jacket and swung part-way back to the window, far enough to make it clear that he had no intention of answering any potential questions while at the same time offering his profile so that the cameraman could get his footage. An annoyance on top of annoyance, but a necessary one, Grievous supposed. He didn't know yet that the clip of his initial turn and apparent lunge towards the camera was destined to be deliberately leaked, sans sound, to the Republic within a few days, and that it would become infamous as the first good clear visual to put a face on the enemy who'd torn Oronaciem apart, an enemy whose actual ghastly countenance for once exceeded everyone's most horrific imaginings. There would be much more footage of the General in the months and years to come, but for many Galactic Republicans this first glimpse would remain their defining image of him: a dark, becloaked, hulking figure which slowly extended a terrible, skull-like face to one side and then swung round to reveal its body, a nightmare apparatus of metals and plates and grasping claws, just a fighting machine of some dreadful new type, surely, yet the eyes burning within the deep-set sockets of its head were somehow hideously alive. It was the General's sulphurous eyes, hatefully glaring out from where life had no business residing, that would come to often frighten people the most.

On Grievous's last day in port, just hours before he was scheduled to leave, Count Dooku appropriated the moon base's gymnasium and gave his Supreme Commander an extensive session of lightsaber training. They fought together for a long time, duel after duel, with Dooku uttering a string of criticisms throughout and issuing more comprehensive critiques whenever they temporarily stopped. Grievous didn't mind. All of Dooku's fault-finding had to do with minor matters. Grievous knew he'd mastered the basics and that the Sith Lord was just trying to refine his techniques and bring them into line with his own exacting standards and fastidious preferences. Dooku still didn't like that Grievous's style suffered from what the Count perceived as a woeful lack of finesse. He wouldn't admit that the cyborg's strengths—his sheer power, endurance and amazing agility—were becoming ever more effective as Grievous's ability to manipulate his body grew more practised and swift. Grievous could tell he was getting better just the same, however. He knew it from the way he could now make Dooku step back at times when they sparred, in how the human had to work harder now at containing him even when their swordplay was one-on-one. It always gave Grievous a thrill whenever he was able to force Dooku to yield, even a little, and it would be coupled with a rush of gratitude for the skilful training he was receiving; yet at the same time, he also felt a growing disdain for his master, that he refused to acknowledge the cyborg's own special, obvious improvements.

As the afternoon wore on, Grievous began fighting with his mag-lock feature switched on, anticipating that Dooku would soon attempt to Force-knock him off his feet in order to end their training session, as he usually did, but the Count seemed disinclined to even try. Grievous, heartened, began pushing for a match during which he'd be allowed to use more than one lightsaber.

"I was able to engage and defeat four Jedi Knights at once the last time I fought in the field," Grievous said. "I would appreciate it if you would assess some of the new routines I used."

"Yes, I thought you'd want that. I've already arranged for a special practice for you," Dooku replied, rather cryptically. And then, lifting his head to look past the cyborg's shoulder, he added, "Ah! Here she is. Right on time."

Grievous turned his own head sharply. Asajj Ventress had entered the gym and was walking up to them.

He looked back at Count Dooku with anger and disbelief. "You expect me to learn from a mere trainee?" he exclaimed, his words dripping disgust.

"Don't be so hasty in dismissing Miss Ventress's abilities, General, " Dooku retorted mildly. "Like you, she has an affinity for using multiple weapons. And she has the advantage of possessing considerable command of the Force, something you droids will never be privy to."

Asajj smirked upon hearing this. She couldn't have asked for a better, more public validation of her own opinion. And the makeshift droid in question, he was just standing there stunned, eyes glazing over, as though utterly unable to formulate a reply in his defence, and really, how could he? Only Dooku, the Sith Lord, with his fully developed Sith command of the Force and ability to detect its faintest ebbs and ripples, sensed what was really going on within Grievous and saw him suddenly emerge as a literal white-hot flare of rage upon the inner mappings of the Count's psychic mind.

"Shall we?" Dooku went on. "Considering your apparent past mutual eagerness to compare your fighting skills, I thought that the two of you would enjoy the opportunity to do so under more…civilized circumstances."

Another smirk from the Rattataki woman. As if the wretched droid could comprehend civility of any kind! She halted a couple of meters away from Grievous and drew both of her distinctive curve-handled lightsabers slowly, igniting the crimson blades with a flourish. Oh, she was going to enjoy this all right, now that Dooku would be present from the start to ensure that the misbegotten metal brute played fair for once.

"No tricks this time, General," she warned, her derisive tone making a mockery out of his rank. "You won't find it so easy to—"

Grievous suddenly lashed one foot out at her. She jumped back, shocked. The vicious talons had almost gotten her. She'd just learned that he could reach much further with his legs than with his arms. Asajj flushed with indignant resentment and her hands tightened angrily on the hilts of her weapons. If that was the way he wanted it, fine. She'd hurt him now, if she could.

He drew two of his own lightsabers, finally, moving with a peculiar stiffness that Asajj misinterpreted as reluctance. Dooku looked on with keen interest. He'd let his Dark Jedi disciple believe that he'd orchestrated this match for her benefit, so she would have a chance to properly out-duel and thrash the cyborg as he deserved. In reality, he'd arranged it because he was fed up with having to monitor his two minions and trying to keep them apart whenever they came within shouting distance of one another. Sometimes it was easier to just let a couple of curs fight it out… Dooku thought he already knew how this particular contest would end, but was unsure as to its length and specifics.

Asajj slid sideways, trying to coax her adversary into striking at her, so she could gauge his ability. She'd fought a great many opponents over the course of her hardscrabble life and was very, very good at what she did. Her confidence was high and she trusted Dooku, her mentor, to referee and force Grievous to face her, if need be. She thought Grievous something of a sneaking coward, efficient enough when he could use underhanded tactics and surprise, but apt to fold when made to fight honestly. She also didn't believe that any droid's—or cobbled-together half-machine or whatever he was—that his lightsaber skills could possibly match her own.

"Not so eager now, are you?" she taunted. She jabbed at him with both blades and he turned the blows aside, automatically, still moving with that weird robotic stiffness, his stare as flat as his lack of animation. As duels went, this one was getting off to a disappointing start, she thought. "Maybe you'd rather be fighting Durge," Asajj mused aloud. "I think he's more your style. Another dumb, half-droid—"

Grievous exploded.

One second he was just standing there, yellow eyes fixed on her as she poked at him, the next flying through the air at her, feet first. She dodged in the nick of time and whirled on him, to confront him, and found him right there on top of her already, with both lightsabers coming down at her head. She ducked again and the two blades whooshed right past her face—they would have crisped her hair, if she'd had any. Asajj retreated, to get back into position, but Grievous chased right after her. His eyes were blazing with crazed, murderous fury. His rigidity was gone, replaced with all the fluidic athleticism he was capable of and the relentless drive of an enraged predator, and Asajj suddenly realized that this was no sparring duel, there was not going to be any feint and parry, no trading of moves, no sportsmanship and no honour. It was a death match. Grievous was fighting without restraint, with no thought guiding him save a berserk lust to destroy, and if he could break through her defences and catch her off guard, he would kill her.

"No! Wait! What are—" Another smashing blow, that almost sent her to her knees. She'd had no idea he could exercise such strength. He pounded on her like a thing possessed, the way the Jedi padawan, Anakin Skywalker, had frighteningly whaled on her just before he'd tried to send her plummeting to her death. Asajj jumped back once more as soon as she safely could, needing to get away from Grievous to marshal her own strength, to regroup. The problem was that Grievous could jump too. He could match her leap for leap, his machine reflexes making him equally fast, and she'd no sooner landed than he'd be right there again, thudding down and slashing at her, giving her no respite whatsoever. He pursued her all round the gymnasium, the two of them moving in fits and bounds, and all the while Dooku watched with calm, cool eyes, his lips slightly pursed in concentration.

Asajj wanted to use her Force abilities to fling Grievous aside or hurl an object at him, anything at all to throw him off stride, but she never got the chance—it took all her power just to stay ahead of him and ward off his attacks. She'd thought him nothing but a droid, and now she was learning to her peril and dismay exactly what advantages a droid body had when directed by living intellect and limitless rage. She glanced at Dooku, seeking help, some intervention at least, and during that split second when her attention was diverted, Grievous uncoupled his right arm and shifted his lightsaber to his upper hand alone. The lower hand he bunched into a fist which he pistoned at Asajj's face in a vicious uppercut.

He clipped her right under the chin. The woman went flying, cartwheeling back, head over heels. Her body slammed down and slid long meters before coming to rest in an ungainly sprawling heap, and Grievous pounced on top of her.

Dooku cried out sharply. "Stop!"

Grievous gave not the slightest indication of having heard. He crouched eagerly over Asajj's fallen body. One arm went back, the lightsaber lifting. Dooku raised one of his hands, prepared to exert his Sith powers, and tried one last time to command the cyborg by voice alone.

"General Grievous! STOP!"

It got through. Barely. For long seconds Grievous stood wavering, shuddering, torn between bloodlust and obedience. Then, with a strangled oath, he sprang away from his downed opponent and began marching out of the gymnasium, deactivating his weapons as he strode, unwilling or unable to spare Dooku a single backward glance. The Count let him go. He could sense how tenuous the General's control was at that moment and understood that it was only by removing himself from the scene that Grievous could refrain from murdering Ventress or even (the Sith Lord noted with a certain grim satisfaction) attacking Dooku in her stead.

The Count called for several service droids to join him and had a look at the Ventress woman while he waited. Grievous had left her in a bad state again. She lay conscious but moaning, her eyes rolling and out of focus, utterly unaware of her surroundings. Dooku thought that Grievous might have fractured her neck with his violent blow, not badly enough to paralyze her for her limbs were still twitching in a spastic, uncoordinated way, but enough to disable her for an easy kill. It would also be enough, Dooku adjudged, to finally put an end to any future petty squabbling between the two. He was certain that Ventress would never voluntarily go near Grievous again.

The droids arrived. Dooku ordered them to take the woman to the infirmary and get her fixed up. Her head lolled as they carelessly picked her up. Blood dripped out of her slack mouth and onto the deck. Pathetic, Dooku thought. She'd had such promise once. Now she couldn't even hold her own against a half-alive, experimental biodroid who was as Force-insensitive as a piece of furniture.

Dooku began considering whether it mightn't be time to start watching for an opportunity to cut Ventress loose…

As for Grievous, he'd already returned to his ship, the Invisible Hand, to isolate himself in his lofty quarters where he could pace and pace, still vibrating with arrested fury. He was wishing he'd disobeyed Dooku and tried to kill Asajj, for he sensed now that he would not have been unduly punished if he had, and the satisfaction he would have gotten out of ripping her apart would have been well worth suffering a blast of Sith lightning and the Count's most scathing tirades. An opportunity wasted, that's what it was. Like Dooku, Grievous was certain Asajj would never come near him again. If she recovered, that was, something he didn't care about one way or the other.

Grievous let his flagship's captain take care of leading his fleet out of port at their scheduled departure time an hour later, and morosely watched the moon base and then the moon and Nee'port itself fade away into the distance. Count Dooku had not tried to contact him before he'd left, for which he was grateful—Grievous didn't think he could have been at all civil with his master. Gradually, the big sleek cyborg calmed down. He began to think about his new orders, always a good way to relieve the gnawing restlessness that constantly ate at him. Someday soon he would wield his fleet down the length of the Corellian trade spine like a murderous scythe, and then—Coruscant, the heart, his to take. The pleasant anticipation of it all soothed away the last of his agitation like nothing else.

Grievous decided to bump up his latest bacta treatment again and get that out of the way before settling down to work out his latest campaign plans, and called for his physician to come and look after him. He was soon meeting with her down in the infirmary and watching the Neimoidian medical staff do their resigned temporary shuffle out of their workspace, a sight he never tired of. Lissa was wearing a new type of jumpsuit, one finally tailored for her human dimensions instead of making do with the usual Neimoidian uniform garb, he noted. His scientists and other civilian staff must've also done their share of replenishing supplies and niceties, he thought, then dismissed the topic as being of no further interest to him. Grievous was not much for spit and polish anyway, although he did have a very healthy belief in the old school of command whose adage was 'when I say jump, you ask how high'.

Lissa, who'd just earned another round of ribbing from her Geonosian boss because of Grievous's apparent eagerness to be treated by her, was in a cheerful mood and had to restrain her natural inclination to engage her patient in a round of chatty small talk and queries before getting started. She compromised by once again expressing her pleasure over his diligence in adhering to his schedule and asking him a single question, how he'd been feeling. Grievous replied with a noncommittal grunt and a "fine", then let her know he'd had enough personal interaction by barging on ahead into the autopsy room. Lissa, sighing, followed him in.

Grievous had somehow gotten grimier than usual and some of the smudges looked quite greasy. Lissa turned the water temperature up to better help get the dirt off. There was no need to ask whether he found it too hot. He slumped completely almost the instant the steamy spray began sluicing over his droid body, with every indication of thoroughly enjoying the heat, and when Lissa cleaned his head, he inclined his face into her hands as if to encourage her touch. Mightily pleased by his small gesture of trust, she rubbed over the elegant mask with a bit of chamois and then just her fingers for a long while, and afterwards used a small towel she'd tucked into a back pocket to blot up a little water that'd snuck past her protective efforts and trickled into the carved sockets. Grievous kept his eyes closed throughout, and his whole attitude seemed so tranquil and his carriage so slack that she wondered whether he hadn't perhaps learned to sleep in micro-bursts and was doing so now.

One of his chest plates had a net of fresh scoring on it. Lissa had to work at getting off the dirt there—it'd gotten ground into the fine lines. She thought he might have taken a close shot from a blaster or a couple of lightsaber strikes to his side, it was hard to tell. The ceramic duranium was so durable that it tended to spread the impact.

"Is something wrong?"

Lissa turned her head with mild surprise and found herself gazing straight into Grievous's right eye only centimeters away—he'd swivelled his lowered face her way just far enough to be able to look at her. There was nothing sleepy about the expression in that bright, watchful eye, either. He'd been wide awake the whole time despite the relaxed droop of his body and was clearly wanting to know why she was pausing so long over one specific part.

"There's nothing wrong, not exactly, General," she replied. "It's just that there's been quite a lot of damage done to this right chest plate of yours since I last examined you. I was just getting a proper look at it."

"Has it weakened my armour?"

"No, it's only surface damage and very shallow. Strictly wear and tear."

"Then leave it be. As long as it doesn't affect my functioning in any way, I want it left alone. I don't want you bothering with any wear damage on my MagnaGuards, either."

"Of course, sir, I understand. Anything cosmetic I'll just note and monitor. I won't try to fix it or spruce it up."

"Correct," Grievous said, and closed his eye again and turned his face away and lapsed back into silence. Lissa looked at his curved profile with thoughtful interest while she resumed washing down the side of his chest. She'd known individuals from other species that took pride in their scars, but this had to be the first time she'd known anyone who extended such pride to damage incurred by the droid body they happened to be living in, and full droids he considered members of his general staff to boot!

Grievous was quiet and cooperative for the rest of his session and didn't tense up or jerk away once, not even when Lissa treated his eyes and palpated the flesh around them. She felt good about that. His vitals and organics looked good, too, his heart thudding strongly through the abnormally slow rhythm that was normal for him, his eyes clear and healthy, his breath coming easily—she had to be doing something right. The temptation to open up his skull and toss in an extra brain examination was very great, but she restrained herself, afraid his suspicions might flare again if she broke the routine they'd established, and in the end sent him off with the mystery of how his excised scars had healed still locked away within that armour-plated head of his. Next time!

TBC