Man! For any of you who thought this story was slow before, I'm sure you'll find that this chapter will be the one that brings it to a screeching halt. Therefore, warning: double dose of drama and possible boredom ahead. It also, oddly enough, turned out to be the most fangirly segment I've written to date and I'm honestly not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. It's no MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, but I did my best.

THE ESSENCES OF LIFE

Chapter 12 – A Dinner With Dooku

Lissa Veleroko had managed to snag a lot more than just a new jumpsuit during her time in port. Once the fleet was underway again, the very next afternoon found her back aboard the Invisible Hand, rummaging through two pallet-loads of boxes that had been dumped in the Geonosians' battle duty workshop. She soon found and began pulling out what she was looking for and began piling the still-packed equipment on a big new cart with adjustable shelving. Her two biodroids, Trigger and Gregory, assisted her. It wasn't too often that she got the chance to bring the two along to exclusively help her out anymore. They spent more time working with the Geonosians nowadays than they ever did with her.

By the time they got the load pushed out of the shop to ferry it along the perimeter of the flagship's enormous main hangar bay and then up to Lissa's office, a new commotion was underway halfway across the hangar floor. A sizable vessel had apparently rendezvous with them while they'd been dickering about in the workshop, and maintenance droids were just in the process of guiding a large antigravity sled with a personal spaceship of some sort parked on top through the shielding of the bay's exterior hatch and onto the hangar floor. The spaceship looked as though it might have been a fighter, built to accommodate a pilot. Lissa had never seen anything like it, but then, she better knew the different types of purely droid starfighters. Manned ships were of lesser interest to her.

A handsome personal shuttle had already landed in the hangar too, close to where the sled was being parked. While Lissa watched, a living figure suddenly walked out into view from behind it and she felt a jolt of unexpected pleasure. She knew only one human man who could pull off wearing a cape with such aplomb. It was Count Dooku.

He soon noticed her and began walking over to her. Lissa gave her droids a heads-up as he approached. "Behave yourselves now. That's General Grievous's boss," she told them.

Gregory scrutinized the advancing figure from his usual hovering position. "He seems okay even so," he pronounced.

Lissa was again struck by the Count's air of youthful strength as he strode up. He inclined his distinguished head and exclaimed, "What a surprise to find you here, Miss Veleroko. I am pleased to see you again."

"How do you do, Count Dooku? I'm surprised too. I thought we'd left you back at the Nee'port moonbase."

"I was scheduled to depart last night," he said.

Lissa formally introduced him to her droids. "This is Count Dooku," she stated, "the founder of the Separatist movement and leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems."

"You flatter me," the Count murmured. He inclined his head again.

Trigger said, "Good afternoon, your grace."

"Hi," said Gregory. "How are ya?"

Lissa fought a grin and told the two to finish bringing the new equipment up to her office and to wait for her there, then turned back to Dooku. She wasn't about to get caught with her attention misplaced a second time. The Count was watching the droids toodle off, looking faintly bemused.

"What an unusual pair of machines," he remarked. "Would they be biodroids?"

"Yes they are," Lissa confirmed happily.

"Your own designs?"

"Yes, sir. They're both experimental prototypes."

"Indeed. Then you must appreciate the irony of having been recruited by yet another unique prototype."

"Oh, I certainly do, Count Dooku. It also seems to be a source of great hilarity for my Geonosian colleagues."

"Yes, I imagine it would be," Dooku agreed, his amusement now genuine, lips parting to show his fine white teeth. His smile was charming. At that moment, Lissa found him entirely likeable. "You mentioned having an office," he went on. "Are you stationed aboard Invisible Hand now?"

"Yes and no. My usual assignment is still to work with Nagas the Patriot's science team aboard the droid tender. But General Grievous has also made me a member of his general's staff. I report here whenever the fleet's at battle stations or he has need of my services." She waved in the direction taken by her departed droids. "I just picked up a lot of new equipment back on Nee'port, to better run the General's diagnostics. He's quite diligent about wanting his droid components kept functioning at peak efficiency."

The bemused expression had returned to Count Dooku's face.

"My dear," he said, "do you mean to tell me that the General has appointed you his personal maintenance technician?"

"Um, actually, sir, the position's entitled 'personal physician'. And it encompasses caring for his elite staff as well as himself."

"Physician. He calls you that. His physician."

"Yes, sir. All the time," Lissa said, rather ruefully, recalling how Grievous had ingrained the term into her memory early on by hollering it at her during her first field foray. Dooku's teeth flashed again. He was not just smiling anymore, he was grinning. Then he laughed. It was such a cheerful, delighted laugh that even Lissa felt obliged to join in on the joke, even though it was on her.

"Yeah, the Geonosians like that part of it too," she admitted sheepishly.

The Count was still chuckling. "Forgive me, Miss Veleroko," he said, "it is not your part in the situation that I find amusing, merely that…" He paused to collect himself, leaned forward and added in a conspiratorial tone, "Well, he is quite the delusional creature, isn't he?"

Lissa received this statement with a degree of puzzlement, not sure at first what Dooku was getting at. Her only objection to being labelled Grievous's physician had always been that it made her sound as though she were pompously misrepresenting herself and pretending to have credentials which she didn't possess. It hadn't occurred to her that someone might think it inappropriate for a cyborg to even have a physician. Her own smile remained, but the warmth behind it began draining away as she kept thinking things over. She remembered how cold the Count had been towards Grievous when the cyborg had been injured and the way Nagas had described him treating Grievous in the Geonosian arena, and she suddenly realized that she didn't really like Dooku very much after all.

"Speaking of your patient, here he comes," Count Dooku said.

It was Grievous all right, gaiting rapidly out of one of the entrances off the ship's main corridor and angling straight for them across the hangar floor, footfalls loud and ringing upon the metal decking. As he came closer, he slowed and adopted a more upright carriage, still striding fast but with the cadence of a normal walk now. He held his head high and his cloak, its edges tugged back to lay over his shoulders, streamed away behind him. It exposed the whole of his superbly-engineered body, and Lissa, who hardly ever saw him walk so from a good observational perspective, thought he looked marvellous. Dooku, however, must've thought otherwise. She could see Grievous's gaze fix on his superior's face with almost nervous intensity as the cyborg came clattering up.

"My apologies, Count Dooku," he said as soon as he'd joined them, his accent causing his husky voice to dwell slightly on the human name, drawing it out. "I expected your shuttle to dock at my private entrance."

"That's quite all right, General. I knew you would correct your false assumption before long and so you have. In the meantime, I have been having an enjoyable conversation with your…personal physician. Another one of your Kaleesh vanities, I presume."

Grievous bridled. "She is a member of my staff," he said.

"Yes. So she has informed me. Well, I suppose we all have our little predilections. Even one such as you, General."

The two men continued to square off while Lissa, seemingly forgotten, was left to fret on her own. She knew she wasn't very good with social subtleties, much to her occasional chagrin, and this exchange was already beyond her. All she could tell was that something about her appointment ticked Dooku off, even though he'd laughed, and that Grievous was being defensive about it. Lissa hated being involved in spats, especially those she'd unwittingly helped create. She wished she could think of some excuse to slink away before the pair of them really got into it.

Grievous might also have wanted to avoid a quarrel—he responded by baldly changing the subject. "May I inquire as to the reason for your unscheduled visit?" he asked, voicing what Lissa had only hinted at before.

Dooku regarded him coolly. In answer, he lifted one hand and pointed past him at the antigravity sled that was still being manoeuvred into place in the middle of the hangar bay. The sled's contents meant far more to Grievous than it had to the human woman standing beside him. He drew in a sharp breath and exclaimed, "A fanblade!"

"Yes," said Dooku. "It was delivered to me at Nee'port yesterday evening, just a little too late to transfer to your own vessel before you'd left. My own people have already gone over it. I was told it is in perfect order and ready for use. You may have it if you like, General." The Count's eyes shifted so that he was looking at Lissa instead. "It is a new type of starfighter, another fine product of your Geonosian friends' engineering expertise. Only six of them have ever been constructed," he explained to her. He made a point of glancing back at Grievous, then dryly continued. "It seems that my Supreme Commander insists on continuing to endanger himself unnecessarily in certain ways, despite my wishes to the contrary, so my only recourse has become to equip him with superior weaponry and vehicles that allow him some hope of surviving his reckless spells. Plus which, the former intended recipient of this particular fighter…will not be needing it now."

Lissa felt even more confused. She'd gotten the starfighter part all right, but the rest sounded…well, like personal stuff she didn't understand or really need to hear. She could see Grievous peripherally out of the corner of her right eye and he didn't look very happy either—he was wearing his neutral expression, the flat, indecipherable one he adopted when trying to conceal his emotions. Dooku stared at him, his own expression gone distinctly frosty again.

"Shall we go and have a look at your new starfighter, General?" he asked.

"Yes." And then, after a beat, in a monotone as devoid of feeling as his carved duranium face, Grievous added, "Thank you, Count Dooku."

It was the least enthusiastic thank you Lissa had ever heard in her life. She almost felt embarrassed for him, and for Dooku, too—what in the galaxy was going on between the two of them anyway? But at least she was about to be out of it. The Count was stepping forward already, getting set to walk over to the contentious new starfighter, the fan-whatever, with his cyborg colleague. Then he paused.

"Ah, Miss Veleroko, before I forget," Dooku said to her. "Maintaining the fleet's heading will not unduly affect my own vessel's ultimate course for some hours yet. Would you care to have dinner with me this evening?"

Lissa suppressed what she really wanted to say, which was no. That would definitely have been embarrassing for Grievous, to have one of his subordinates snub Dooku in front of him, not to mention being professionally unhealthy for Lissa's own sake. She was stuck, and she didn't like it one bit.

"Why, thank you, Count Dooku. I would be honoured to accept your invitation," she replied, as pleasantly as she could manage, exercising a goodly amount of her own deception.

"Excellent," the Count said.

"Will General Grievous be joining us?"

Grievous's careful neutrality vanished instantly. His head swung her way. His sensor panels actually came forward a little in his keen surprise. Dooku did not react at all for a few seconds. When he did, it was with a short laugh, his decision being to treat her query as a joke.

"Really now, you of all people must realize that the General does not eat," he responded, smiling.

Lissa was ready for him. "The General may not partake of food in the usual fashion," she countered, her own manner still perfectly friendly, "but that doesn't also negate his ability to take part in dinner conversation or grace us with his company. Does it?"

Now Dooku was stuck. His smile faded. After a moment, he said, "If General Grievous believes that he can contribute something to our evening, then the invitation, of course, extends to include him, however—"

"I would like to come," Grievous interjected in a loud voice.

It was the humans' turn to stare at him. Well, good for you! Lissa thought. If she couldn't avoid what she hated, she would much rather continue listening to the two of them than have to put up with the Count alone—she had the sense that his dinner talk might express unpleasant attitudes she would find impossible to ignore if she were on her own. Grievous had unpleasant attitudes too, but he didn't verbalize them. Usually. She had no real idea of what to expect from Grievous in a social setting.

Dooku couldn't refuse Grievous's participation after that without appearing unbearably churlish and curtly informed the two of them that dinner would be promptly served at nineteen hundred hours and offered to send a shuttle to fetch Lissa from the droid tender at an appropriate time. He then summoned Grievous to follow him with a gesture that was almost as abrupt and rude as snapping his fingers, and the pair went off to finish attending to the matter of the Geonosian starfighter. Lissa was left free to resume her own business and hurried off to get her own affairs completed. The dinner invitation and the extension of it which she'd somehow managed to wrangle hung over her the whole time. She was always doing stupid, evasive things like that when she was flustered. She ought to have had the courage to deal with Dooku herself, really, and left poor Grievous the hell alone, yet there was no denying that the cyborg had volunteered to do his part, and pretty eagerly, too. Ah well, it would surely be an interesting evening, if not necessarily pleasant. It would serve her right if the two men did nothing but snark at one another all through dinner while she sat there like a lump and got battered from both sides.

Lissa managed to get her new gear stashed in record time and was soon back in her regular quarters aboard the tender, getting cleaned up and cheerfully putting off Gregory's frequent unsubtle suggestions that he be allowed to accompany her—Grievous, he disliked, but Dooku for some reason had appealed to the little droid. Afterwards, the woman sorted through the stash of new garments she'd just picked up at Nee'port's spaceport. Even if the Count's invitation was unwanted, its timing had been good. Until several days ago, she hadn't even had any casual clothes, her wardrobe having been limited to what she'd literally been wearing on her back the day Grievous had kidnapped her and whatever items of uniform work dress available through the fleet's stores had half-way fit her. She finally settled for a pair of black slacks tucked into high, real-leather boots and a tan and cream-swirled blouse left open at the neck to show off her good natural colour. Nothing too fancy, but it was as glamorous as her practical-minded nature would allow without delving into actual (and in her opinion, quite useless) formal wear, and she didn't think a simple dinner engagement, especially with someone she didn't much like anyway, quite warranted that.

A rather comical-looking service droid showed up at her door soon after that to escort her to the promised shuttle and then fly it over to Dooku's spaceship, which was holding station next to Grievous's flagship. The contrast between the two vessels could not have been greater. The flagship was all bristling armament and sweeping lines and hulking menace, a no-nonsense ship, obviously military. Dooku's ship was some private construct that looked quaintly archaic to Lissa's eyes, its exterior not at all streamlined and fairly dripping opulent adornments, the sort of thing that would have looked quite at home ploughing through ocean waves rather than outer space. It was just as sumptuously appointed inside as out and Lissa was not surprised to see what looked like real wood paneling and expensive brocade on the walls. Dooku just struck her as a wood and leather kind of guy.

The woody motif extended right into the dining room Lissa was eventually taken to, and the dining table proper and its accompanying chairs were of the sort that would have given a master carpenter and carver orgasms. Both men were already present and waiting and stood up graciously when Lissa was shown in. Dooku looked to be wearing a dark blue and black variant of the same things he usually wore, all of it cut from obviously rich fabrics and perfectly tailored for his still-good figure. Silver threading and accessories accented his outfit and drew attention to his own nice silvery hair, and Lissa had to admit to herself once again that, no matter what his age, the Count was one fine-looking man. As for General Grievous, he was wearing a new cape.

Lissa regarded him with astonishment. It was definitely a garment she hadn't seen before, styled much like Dooku's own cape and fastened on either side of his neck cowling, off-white in colour, almost ivory, with a bright crimson lining. Even more remarkable, his whole body appeared to have a distinct muted sheen to it, as though he'd had all his metal and duranium surfaces lightly buffed. A cyborg's way of dressing up. She hadn't thought he had it in him.

"How charming you look," Dooku said, bowing slightly as he greeted her. Grievous just bowed. He was wearing his indecipherable expression again and was impossible to read. Lissa murmured some inanity in response and they all sat down again and got right to it.

Lissa was a little surprised to find that she and Dooku had been seated at the opposing ends of the dining table and Grievous midway along one side. She wouldn't have put it past the Count to have placed her immediately to one side of himself with the cyborg parked off at the other end, where he would have been easier to ignore. But there was no ignoring him under the current set-up, given that he was the brightest, most colourful thing in the whole dark-hued room. Lissa snuck a few more glances his way as she waited for the service droids that had just entered the room to finish serving out the first course, small bowls of some steaming thick soup. Yes, Grievous was definitely looking glossier than he usually did. He didn't want her touching up any of the scratches, dings and dents on his armour or body finish, yet was willing to make an effort when it came to socializing with his boss…or her? or her and Dooku together? She didn't know. She really had no clue what normally went on in his head.

The soup was good, though. She said as much and the Count launched at once into a whole long story about the gourmet intricacies of its recipe and others like it, and began praising the next course, several appetizer tidbits, with equal enthusiasm as soon as it appeared. Lissa tried to change the subject. She didn't think they really needed to go on and on about any sort of food with Grievous sitting there empty-handed and asked instead about the starfighter Dooku had delivered—what was it the General had called it, a fanbelt? Grievous stirred and corrected her, and went on to tell her something of its specs, and after a moment the Count weighed in with his own information and opinions. It eventually turned into a general discussion about fighter types and their relative merits. Lissa could offhand think of about a hundred topics she'd rather hear people talk about over dinner, but at least it was a conversation Grievous could take part in and seemed to have a surprising amount of keen interest in.

"Did you learn to fly early on, General?" Lissa asked. "A lot of pilots I've known seem to have caught the bug when they were young, usually when they were still just adolescents."

"Yes, at home, one of our neighbours had…he had…" A strange look abruptly came into the cyborg's golden eyes. "No, it was…during training, military training…" he amended, his deep voice trailing off. Dooku's own eyes narrowed a little. He rubbed several fingers over his short trimmed beard.

"You learned during your military's version of officer training, I should think," the Count suggested mildly.

"Yes, that is right…" But he still seemed confused. Lissa regarded Grievous with some alarm.

"I, of course, learned at the Jedi Temple," Dooku went on. "I was ten, I believe, when I was allowed to solo my first fighter." The corners of his mouth turned up into another of his appealing smiles and his gleaming eyes sparked. "Young enough for you, Miss Veleroko?"

"More than enough," she replied, thought over what she'd just said, and inwardly winced. Ugh. That was one exchange which was way too open to misinterpretation. "You really grew up at the Jedi Temple, Count Dooku? I always thought Jedi weren't allowed to leave the Order."

"Oh, no no, of course we are. After all, trying to force a member to remain once they have decided to do otherwise would be tantamount to indentured servitude, don't you agree, Miss Veleroko?"

"True."

"It is a violation of the same principle which has forced this war, I fear. The worlds I represent wished only to secede in peace in order to form a new, more vigorous coalition. The Republic would not let us, and…well, you see what has happened."

Lissa said nothing this time. It all sounded a wee bit too simple the way he put it and she was in any case not informed enough about the subject to really have an opinion—some people even thought she was a fool when it came to politics, after all. (She glanced once more at Grievous as she remembered this, but he was still just sitting there, seeming oddly preoccupied.) Then they were all distracted by the service droids entering again to serve the main meal and Lissa for one was tempted enough by the tantalizing odours to shut herself up for a while and just eat. The food was, like all the rest, delicious. And it was strangely comforting to be able to identify what most of it was, for a change, something she was hardly ever able to do when dining with her Geonosian colleagues.

The dinner went not too badly after that. The two men didn't harp at each other the way she'd feared they would, and Dooku proved a polite and attentive host. He was attentive only to her, though. It soon became apparent that if Lissa didn't initiate it, none of their conversation would involve Grievous at all. Dooku never once attempted to solicit the cyborg's input on anything and Lissa suspected that the Count would have been happiest of all had the General never said another word all evening. She eventually settled for just sitting back for the most part and letting the Count talk on about himself and his beliefs. He was clearly very fond of doing that.

It wasn't until the dessert course was almost over that Lissa finally put her foot into it. The matter of the Count's former Jedi background came up again and she asked him to clarify something else that was Jedi related.

"The energy weapons you use, the lightsabers, Count Dooku—I always thought that only Jedi could use them. But that's not true, is it? I mean, General Grievous uses them and he's not a Jedi." She shot a glance at the silent cyborg. "Er, you're not, right?"

Dooku chuckled and supplied the answer himself. "I should think not," he remarked dryly. "The General is merely one of my students. The art of lightsaber combat can be learned by the occasional non-Jedi if they are properly taught by a Master such as I. What the Force-insensitive can't do is construct such weapons themselves. They may wield them, but they can't make them."

Lissa looked over at Grievous again. He looked back, his eyes smouldering under the subdued lighting within the room like slow embers. She recalled the grisly setting she'd found him in back on Oronaciem, the dead clone troopers and Jedi heaped all around. "I'm guessing that General Grievous must be your best student," she said.

Dooku paused a moment before answering. "He is the best for what he is," he allowed.

It was the second time Lissa had heard the Count attach an odd stipulation in reference to the cyborg. "What does that mean exactly, 'for what he is'?" she asked. "For a Kalee you mean, or—?"

"I meant, for a non-organic, Miss Veleroko. My other students have always been normal flesh and blood beings. General Grievous is self-evidently not."

Lissa frowned. "Oh, but he is organic in the important ways, sir. He still has an intact brain. He still thinks and experiences emotions. That makes him as much a person as you and I. Why should it matter if the General has cybernetic implants?"

The Count's own visage altered slightly. Grievous, who'd perked up as soon as Lissa had asked Dooku to explain his phrasing and who'd been following their exchange with great interest, knew the look well. It was the expression Dooku wore when he was politicking, when he wished to exert his opinions and sway his audience while at the same time remaining entirely affable and reassuring.

"It matters, my dear, because all diminishments of the flesh diminish the soul to some degree. I would have thought that someone in your field would be in a unique position to appreciate this."

"But that's just it—if anything, it proves the exact opposite to me," the woman persisted. "I've come to believe that one's soul resides strictly in the brain. All the rest is really just extraneous, it's just a support structure, something that the mind uses with which to interact with the outside world. What that structure looks like, what it's even made of, doesn't impact on the mind at all, as long as it works according to the mind's directives."

"My belief," Dooku countered, "is that one's exterior is a reflection of the mind. And if that exterior is damaged or maimed or lessened, so too is the mind within."

"But that's—I'm sorry, that's just crazy! It doesn't even make any biological sense. What possible difference would it make to me—me!—the person within, if I had, say, a cybernetic leg? Yes, it would look different, but it wouldn't make a difference, not when you speak of a person's soul!"

She rattled on, becoming more and more agitated. Both men stared at her with varying degrees of disbelief. Grievous was even startled—she was defying Dooku! Of course she had no idea of what he truly was or the depth of power he commanded, but still! Who'd've thought the nondescript little thing had such fire in her?

Grievous began to get a little worked up himself. He'd been feeling strangely all day, ever since he'd first seen Dooku and Lissa standing together in the hanger bay of the Invisible Hand, and was just starting to understand why. It had to do with what the two of them represented. Dooku, his master, had been expertly demeaning him for so long that a small, secret part of him had begun to agree with such assessments and feel shamed by his cyborg body, so that his retaliatory rages, when such occurred, were now redirected at anyone or anything but the Count himself. Lissa, his physician, had much more recently offered him a different perspective and way of regarding himself, one based on matter-of-fact acceptance and logic, and it was a viewpoint he liked and was beginning to believe in more and more. It just made sense. The woman was right. Why should he feel ashamed of his changed exterior? It hadn't altered what he was inside (or so he believed). He was different now in how he looked and in what he could do, but he was still Grievous, the Grievous of before! He stared hard at Dooku, his manner defiant. The Count was still watching Lissa hold forth, having shifted into listening with that polite, practised, feigned impression of interest which Grievous knew to be no real interest at all. He was just letting the woman ramble on, his own mind already made up and closed, pretending to consider what she was saying while he waited for her to finish.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I fear you haven't convinced me," Dooku said at last. "You forget, I think, that I have a certain special insight into the inner workings of most beings. And I can tell you that your point of view may be idealistic, but it is not realistic."

"But it's grounded in reality, nothing but reality, don't you see?" she cried. Frustrated, she wound the fingers of one hand through the shaggy bangs tumbling over her forehead. Her gaze fell on Grievous again. "General! Could you please come here and help me prove a point? Just scoot on over here and sit beside me."

Grievous was still so mystified and intrigued by her fierceness that he complied with her request without thinking. He hiked his chair over down the side of the dining table until he came up against its corner and Lissa shifted over too. She grabbed his hand that was closest to her and pulled it up, setting his forearm vertically above the table, resting his elbow joint on the wood. Once she had it in the position she wanted, she lifted one of her own hands and forearms and leaned it back against his own in an incongruous show and tell. Grievous bore her manipulations of his limb without the slightest resistance. Her small pinkish tan fingers looked tiny and helpless next to his own.

"Look here!" she said sharply. "All the bones, the tendons, the joints, the muscles, it's all perfectly replicated and works the same way. The commands to operate both of our arms come from the same exact source, a living sentient brain. What does it matter in the end whether the limb being commanded is one of flesh and blood or alloys and synthetics?"

Dooku showed a hint of genuine interest for the first time, not in Lissa's argument but in what she was doing. He looked the two of them over, making comparisons, contemplating the tableau they made. Grievous saw a very faint sneer pull at one corner of the Count's mouth.

A dull fury rose up in the cyborg. He was suddenly fed up with all of it, all of the slights and belittling comments and casual slurs. He burned with the desire to force Dooku to acknowledge him, not as a general or as a political ally, but simply as a man, just once. But Dooku wouldn't do that. The Sith Lord didn't even like to think of Grievous in that sense—he could see it in how Dooku was looking at him now, the disdain he thought he'd so cleverly hidden clear beneath his set expression and in the stiffness of his pose. He was probably disgusted with having to watch the woman touch him, Grievous thought, was put off by seeing one of his fellow humans have her precious flesh sullied by his metal hand.

A wicked notion abruptly occurred to Grievous, one born of anger and desperation. He shifted his chair and sidled closer to Lissa. He moved his elbow a little to prop his hand in a better position behind her own. Lissa had never feared his body. She didn't mind and never even truly noticed that Grievous was now all but brushing against her, hovering almost. Or that he'd lowered his head, his eyes slitting half-closed, and let one thumb fall down over her palm, then drew it up in a suggestive gesture.

Dooku assumed exactly what Grievous hoped he'd assume. Utter revulsion flickered across the human's face, too fast for Lissa to catch, but easily detected by the cyborg's alien acuity. Grim, sour triumph flooded through him. So! Not just a droid after all, am I! he thought with savage satisfaction.

The Count withdrew completely after that, no longer inclined to entertain a word the woman said, and even Lissa eventually realized that she was wasting her breath. "It seems that we'll just have to agree to disagree on this topic, Count Dooku," she said in conclusion, winding down, although her cheeks were still flushed with emotion.

"Yes, so we will," Dooku intoned, then, when he was sure that she wasn't looking, fired a contemptuous glare at his Supreme Commander. Grievous ignored it. He'd already gotten what he wanted from the Count.

Dooku didn't ask them to stay for the customary after-dinner drinks. As the two saw themselves out after having been very curtly dismissed from the dining room, Lissa wondered whether Grievous realized that Dooku had cut their evening short and started feeling guilty. "Well, that could have gone better," she admitted, abashed.

"Yes. It could have," Grievous agreed.

Lissa grimaced to herself and hung her head all the further. "I am sorry, General, really I am!" she exclaimed. "It's just that— I mean, he—"

"You may speak freely."

"All right! I will! I don't like that man, General Grievous, I really don't! Oh, I know he's your boss and all and you can't speak ill of him yourself, but I just don't like him! I don't like his attitudes, I don't like his snooty posturing, and I don't like the way he treats you. I think he's a bigot, is what he is, and—and…well, that's what I think."

She steeled herself for a deserved reprimand, but Grievous said nothing, nothing at all for a long while, and when he finally did speak again it was in a curiously mild tone of voice.

"I am surprised to hear you say all that. I've observed that most people find Count Dooku very agreeable. And I would have thought that you would appreciate some male company of your own kind."

"Ha! Not his!" Lissa crowed, much relieved that Grievous wasn't angry with her. "I'd rather spend an evening alone gibbering away to myself in my quarters than socialize with him again. Besides, I get all the male company I can handle in you."

Grievous jerked his head around sharply—had she realized what he'd done after all? He scrutinized her carefully, but no. Her words had been issued in innocence. There was no mockery in them. The General swung his face back into line. Was that how he was still perceived by everyone then, as male? His accident had neutered him as surely as it had robbed him of his ability to walk and the last of his residual hormones and urges had been drained away forever when what was left of his organic body was almost wholly stripped away during his operation. He'd come to think of himself as merely masculine.

They said nothing else to each other until they reached the bay where Grievous's and Dooku's shuttles were waiting. There, Lissa faced her superior again and gravely said, "Well, thank you for your company, General, and I apologize again if my actions at dinner caused you any trouble or embarrassment. In my defence, I think that at least it turned out to not be a boring evening."

"No, it was not that. And I would not expect the opportunity to stage a repeat anytime soon, if I were you, Miss Veleroko."

Lissa grimaced again, although this time it was laced with self-effacing humour.

"I won't. And that'll be fine with me, sir, believe me," she said. "Well, good night then, General Grievous. I suppose I'll see you next on Thursday, during your diagnostic check-up."

"Yes."

He watched her start walking to Dooku's shuttle, then took a sudden step forward. "Wait," he called. "Come on my shuttle instead. I'll take you over."

The woman regarded him with wonder and a little doubt. "If you're sure it's not an inconvenience for you…"

"It's not."

And so, in the end, she rode over to the droid tender aboard Grievous's shuttle. Lissa would have found it awkward to start a new conversation after having just made her farewells and the cyborg seemed to feel the same way—he kept his face turned to the viewport, looking out at his fleet throughout the brief flight. Yet once they reached the tender and had docked inside, he insisted on coming to the hatch with her and then stood in the doorway of his shuttle, waiting until she'd safely disembarked.

"Well, good night again, General," Lissa called up to him from the hangar floor, "and thanks for dropping me off."

Grievous nodded. She turned to go.

His husky voice rose up behind her. "Miss Veleroko?"

Lissa stopped and looked back over one shoulder, surprised. His white-caped, burnished figure was still framed in the shuttle hatch. "Yes, sir?" she asked.

"Thank you."

She was so shocked that he'd already shut the hatch and lifted off long before she could even think of formulating a reply.

TBC