Chapter 6: Start the Count-down
Ahsoka and Greg snuck down to Naboo to put listening devices on a farmhouse Martha said Hartwald sometimes used. Martha had not been as informative as they would have liked. She did not know what Hartwald and Palpatine's evil plan was or anything about the secret weapon. She had met Hartwald several times at the farmhouse on Naboo because he wanted to train her to be a like a Sith. She was not Force-sensitive but Hartwald wanted her to learn to fight in case rebels came after her (clearly his lessons were time wasted.)
"Gary is really evil," said Ahsoka after getting a feel for the place. "I don't understand how I didn't realize it earlier."[1]
Greg stuck his head out of a chicken coop and said, "Honey, dozens of super-wise, ultra-experienced Jedi didn't realize Palpatine was a Sith right under their noses. The Sith seem to have some superpower of concealment."
The barn contained training equipment and droids that Hartwald sparred with for training. Greg downloaded the droids' visual memory banks and scanned through many, many hours of a sweaty Hartwald taking out his anger on the robots. There wasn't anything useful in the barn or the farmhouse but Greg did steal a dozen eggs and ate them raw. They had left their shuttle in the nearest city and walked to the farm. Now they walked back. It was a nice day for a walk.
By the time they reached the city, it was dark. Greg poked his nose into all kinds of corners, hoping to scare out a rat. Nan was right. Smell really was the most informative of the senses. He really didn't mind the smell of shit anymore. He saw somebody throw something into a dumpster ahead of them and pulled it out. It was a carton of spicy chicken.
"Oh, man, how could anyone throw this out?" He exclaimed. "It is so good!"
Ahsoka tried a piece and said it was spicy enough to kill someone.
"Darling, I breathe fire. I can take any amount of this."
He ate while he walked, using his upper pair of arms to shovel the chicken in his mouth. Ahsoka's mind was preoccupied with thoughts of supplies for the rebellion and the other places from Martha's list that they still had not bugged. They reached the parking lot and flew back to the rebel fleet. Ahsoka put people in charge of monitoring the listening devices at the farmhouse. Greg ambled off to Hamilton's ship to check on a program he was running using Hamilton's face recognition software. He was surprised to find a positive result. He called Ahsoka over and said he had to go on a little field trip.
"The computer has found my ex-wife," he said.
The top secret project located in the basement of Building 1 was not chemistry-or physics-related. It was not biology or psychiatry. It was archaeology. The building rested on an ancient temple older than the Jedi or Sith and scientists were trying to decipher the language and figure out what the creepy tools were for, even though it seemed obvious they were used for human sacrifice. The site had survived almost intact because the Sith had taken over once the Old Ones died out. The Sith had taken good care of it because they hoped to make use of the artifacts. Nan got assigned to the team that worked on the language but she made sure to talk to everybody about their projects.
It was not long before Nan encountered the prophecy the young Sith had been repeating on a stone cylinder. The Sith apprentice had come here a while ago and seemed really shaken by the prophecy. Hartwald had been here many times, though he didn't go by that name. Nan recognized him from descriptions. He always went downstairs into the actual temple. The scientists were only allowed to go down there with him or Vader, who also came now and then. They had photos of all the writing on the walls except the innermost chamber, where nobody except Hartwald and Vader had gone.
One scientist named Saul Fernandez complained about the job sometimes.
"I'm an inorganic chemist," he said. "I'm supposed to be making exciting new materials and growing cool crystals. Here I'm just an extra brain."
But he couldn't leave. None of them could, unless they agreed to have their memory wiped. Saul had just memorized 500 digits of pi and the entire Imperial national anthem so he had something to lose.
From Saul, Nan learned that the Old Ones had unique weapons based on lightsabers. They could actually make the lightsaber ductile and use it as a lasso to catch people and slice them up from a distance. Hartwald and Vader were quite interested in reproducing that technology, but the scientists didn't have any luck so far in growing such kyber crystals. The Old Ones did a freakishly large amount of human sacrifice and it was suspected that this increased their power. However, the more Nan understood of their language, the more she began to doubt it was human sacrifice after all. For example, in one panel, there were drawings of a person being killed at an altar but he was up and about in the next.
It quickly became apparent that the real secret weapon was down in the innermost chamber. Nan could not get to sleep these days without pharmaceutical aid because of the evil creeping up from it. She tossed and turned all night, wanting to claw through the wall and the ground to get out of there. Saul, her roommate, said she was insufferable. He also provided her with the means to get downstairs into the temple.
Scientists were required to stay in their rooms or a common area at all times. They carried cards that were scanned whenever they entered or exited a room. Nan did not trust Saul enough to ask him to carry her card for her so one night, she insisted they stay working until all the other scientists had gone. While Saul's back was turned, Nan slipped a drug into his water bottle. It was the truth serum, the only drug she had. Saul took a drink.
"I never loved my sister," he said suddenly, and the confessions continued. One of the problems with the truth serum was that you couldn't get people to stop speaking the truth.
"When I was in fourth grade I stole another kid's remote controlled car. Then in high school I threw a rock through a class window and blamed it on someone else. I cheated on a biology exam. I once spent an entire night masturbating to porn I found on my sister's computer. I think I never loved her because I felt that my parents loved her more than me, and she beat me at sports. Although, deep down, I've always felt that I should look at things differently and make it up to her…"
Before he could ramble on about his boring family issues anymore, he felt vomit rising in his throat and ran off to the bathroom. Nan slipped her card into a back pocket of his binder. When he came back she suggested he go to their room and lie down while she cleaned up. He agreed. Nan turned off the lights and waited for the night guard to pass. Then she went down to the lowest level of the basement and hacked the door code to the temple. She opened the door. She smelled dust. This was it. Death awaited.
The staircase behind the door led down to a dark chamber that felt very long but not wide. Nan smelled out some candles and lit them. The chamber had columns down the sides. Standard temple stuff, really, temple décor had not changed in millennia. Nan sniffed and located the scent trail of people she guessed were Hartwald and Vader. She started to follow the trail when the screaming began. It was actually more annoying than scary, like you would imagine people in a mall screaming if they were suddenly told aliens were about to attack. Still, it was unexpected and Nan sank to the ground, looking around fearfully. She did not see anybody. Was it a recording? The screaming changed to wicked laugher punctuated by mournful cries and wails of pain. Nan took out a device and scanned for tech but did not detect anything.
"You are supposed to be dead," said a familiar voice.
It was Count Dooku.
Nan made a face and said, "Not to state the blatantly obvious, but so are you."
"I am dead," said what definitely appeared to be the Count, since it had his dark green pants, beard, and perpetual frown.
Nan fished around in her pocket and found a rubber eraser. She threw it at him. It bounced off.
"Don't shit me," she said. "You're just some asshat pretending to be Count Doodoo. If you were really dead that eraser would have gone though you."
"First of all, don't call me Count Doodoo. Second of all, I was a Sith and as such, am not entitled to peacefully become one with the Force after I die. The Sith haunt this world and its most evil places forever until they are nothing more than a scream in the dark."
As if to emphasize this point, the screaming began again. Nan could almost make out words of hatred, revenge, and regret, but they sounded like the deranged rantings of a lunatic.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
"This is a site of great importance to the Sith, as I'm sure you've figured out. The spirits of dead Sith are obligated to help out live ones, though we don't always make it easy for them. We guard this place. I have been awaiting your arrival since I first sensed your filthy existence in the land of the living several months ago. I felt that you are now somehow a Force-wielder and knew you would come here."
Nan was starting to feel very uncomfortable with all this and covered up her fear with anger.
"You knew I'd come here? You knew all along? So why the fuck didn't you just invite me down here when I first arrived on this planet instead of making me work with Frank who doesn't shut his trap for weeks?"
The Count did not deign to respond but just looked at Nan reproachfully.
"This is all your fault, you know," he said. "All of it. I hired you to teach Grievous some responsibility and you went ahead and made him good."
"I'm sorry, are you blaming me for your idiotic belief that Palpatine considered you his best apprentice when in reality you were just a tool and practice killing material for Anakin Skywalker? Eh, Count Doodoo?"
The Count's nose twitched. He was in no mood for banter.
"Shut up and pay attention," he said. "I am the guardian of this temple and I will fight you to the death. You have no choice in the matter. If you don't react, I will just chop you down like last time."
"To the death? You're already dead, numbnuts."
"Fine, what do you want if you win?"
"Uh…I want you to follow my every command. I could use a Sith ghost slave."
"All right. Take out your weapon. If you don't have one I don't care and will kill you anyway. You don't even have Grievous to protect you this time. He's alive too, from what I understand. It's ridiculous that you two morons are alive and I'm rotting down here."
Nan took out her flashlight, which was a covering for her lightsaber. So this was it. Her death had waited ten years and now it took on the same form it had before. All the fear and misery Nan had been feeling over the past few weeks settled on her now. The spirits of the Sith sensed her mood and set up a light wail. "Die, die," they seemed to whisper. "All flesh is grass. Prepare to die, again, again, again." Nan felt her grip on the flashlight get weak. Her fingers were cold. She sensed the Count, her executioner, about to strike and this time she was all alone.
"Everything must repeat again," said the voices. Nan suddenly jumped out of the way just in time as the Count attacked. She did a back flip and landed on the stairs. Again, was it? Everything had to repeat again? But who said it had to be the same? Nan had spent several weeks with a guy named Frank Trapp who wouldn't shut up with his positive nonsense, and she realized that some of it had seeped through into her mind after all. Instead of viewing the events as an example of history coming back for her, it could be that she was being given a second chance.
Nan pulled the lightsaber out of the flashlight cover and held it up for Count Dooku to see. He recognized it.
"Is that my lightsaber? How did you get it, you worthless rat?"
"Do you want your lightsaber back? Then come and get it, ho."
He used the Force to bring the ceiling of the stairs crashing down. Nan laughed because she was already ten feet away. She jumped over his head and parried his blow in mid-air. He sent her flying in another direction but she twisted like a cat and was behind him in an instant.
"Hey Dooku, you may want to attend to your personal attire before fighting, because your fly is open!" She said.
The Count looked down and Nan was upon him like a viper. She cut his shoulder. He used the Force to throw her against the wall, but she used the Force to push off from the same wall and land on an empty candelabrum.
"Made you look!" She said. "You're wearing drawstring pants, you fool, you don't have a fly!"
"I knew you'd start with that pants nonsense again!"
Nan somersaulted off the candelabrum and used the Force to send it flying at the Count, spinning as it went. He dashed it aside only to find Nan right in his face. They slashed at each other, too quick for an ordinary person to follow. Dooku suddenly jumped back and the candles went out. Nan could not smell him, him being a ghost, and he moved very quietly. Nan hid behind a column and taunted him.
"Oh, so you're going to turn off the lights? You want to play peekaboo? Or are you just running away in the dark, like you did that time Master Yoda was whupping your ass after the battle of Geonosis?"
The lights went on again, but they were green and blue. The expression on Dooku's face would have made the weak-hearted quail.
"So you want to make this a psychological battle, do you?" He asked. "I'm all for it. Why don't we take a look at what your so-called friend Greg is up to?"
The green and blue lights flashed and the temple antechamber vanished. Dooku and Nan appeared in a parking lot on Naboo. Ahsoka and Greg were paying the parking lot attendant for their ship. That done, they walked to the ship, but stopped to look at some shooting stars. Ahsoka hugged Greg and said he was her best friend.
"I'm glad Nan is gone," he said. "I enjoy being with you a lot better. Once we hear that she's dead on Meyershand, we can be together without worrying about her causing a scene."
"Why should we wait for her to die?" Said Ahsoka. "We can be together now."
They went into the spaceship. The scene dissolved and Nan and Dooku were in the temple again. Nan pretended to vomit.
"Did you actually make that up? Are you seriously implying that Greg and Ahsoka had sex? I would expect no less from a man who's into Hutt porn."
"That's not true!" Yelled Dooku. "You made that up to slander me!"
"Yeah, but something must have given us the idea, after all, you did have a bumper sticker on your ship that said 'I like Hutt Butts.'"
"Because you put it there! It took me months to notice that!"
Dooku attacked her and they fought viciously, but the Count was obviously off his game. Somehow, his trick with the fake Ahsoka and Greg love scene had backfired, and Nan had reminded him of the Hutt porn incident. Dooku lost his footing at one point and Nan almost cut his throat, but he threw her off with the Force. The spirits of the Sith tried to aid him by screaming and wailing, but they backed off when Nan yelled some awe-inspiring expletives at them. The Count smashed several columns to bits. The roof did not cave in, meaning they were only there for decoration. Nan did an amazingly long jump to the other side of the room. The Count rushed at her and she assembled the bits of column into a wall in front of him. He smashed into it like a bulldozer, but his momentum was lost. Nan activated the spinning saw on her tail and leaped at him. Dooku tossed the stones up while he got back on his feet. Nan cut through the debris. Their lightsabers collided and they pushed each other back and forth. Then Nan brought her tail with its spinning blade closer and closer to Dooku's arm. Even as a ghost, the prospect of losing an arm did not entice Dooku and he jumped and rolled away, clearly on the defensive.
"Why the hell do you have a spinning saw on your tail?" He asked.
"I don't know…maybe because you severed my spine?" Suggested Nan. Then she said, "Hey, will this work for me? Can I bring up a scene from your past to try and unsettle you? Come on, assbangers, show me your magic!"
The spirits of the Sith grumbled, not pleased with the epithet she'd used, but once again the temple was replaced by an artificial image. This time, Count Dooku and Palpatine appeared in a dark room in Dooku's mansion on Serenno. They were looking at video of battles from the Clone War. Anakin Skywalker was seen in them, taking down droids by the hundreds.
"Isn't Anakin great?" Said Palpatine. "I wish he were my apprentice instead of you. Can't you just drop dead?"
"Yes, yes, of course," said Dooku. "I'll do anything for you."
The real Dooku blew the scene away with a wind and yelled, "That never happened!"
"I don't know, the way you acted and the things you said all suggested you were totally okay with letting Anakin take your place and kill you and all," said Nan.
In a blind rage, Dooku attacked her for the last time. Nan took a moment to yawn, sidestepped him, and drove her (his) lightsaber through his back. Unlike a living person, he did not die, but the noises he made suggested that he was not unable to feel pain. For a few minutes he tried unsuccessfully to throw up but that seemed to be beyond the capabilities of his ghostly metabolism. After he recovered, he grudgingly admitted that Nan had won and he now had to do her bidding.
"But if you think you can use me to help the rebellion, think again," he said. "I am still a Sith ghost and can only materialize in places where Sith have often gathered or in areas of great evil."
"Then I think you should be able to materialize anywhere, considering that the universe is just one big Sith-hole."
The Count looked at her with no humor.
"You don't get it?" Asked Nan. "Sith is an anagram of shit, and the universe is one big…never mind, you never did learn to laugh. I can still find a use for you, I'm sure."
"You're just going to make me moon the Emperor, aren't you?"
"Not now that you've taken the fun out of it. So, first and foremost, Sith slave, I command you to take me down to the secret chamber where Hartwald and Vader keep the secret weapon."
"Ha! Finally I can put a damper on your high spirits. Hartwald took the weapon away from here before you even arrived."
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck…," Nan quietly mumbled the f-word under her breath some more, then asked, "Where did he take it? And what is it?"
"I do not know where he took it, and as for what it is, nobody really knows. You can go down to the chamber and read the ancient texts yourself, I don't care."
He indicated some stairs. Nan insisted he come with her. The stairs were very narrow and very long. Nan tried to engage Dooku in small talk.
"So what's your first name?"
"Does it matter? You'll just keep calling me Count Doodoo anyway."
"Not unless your first name is something even more hilarious, like Hugh. Then I could call you Hugh the Poo. And if your name is Richard you'll be Saggy Dick forever and ever!"
"I pity the people named Richard or Hugh that have to deal with you. My first name is William."
"You can stay Count Doodoo, then."
They reached the door at the end of the stairs. It had a modern lock and Nan set to cracking it, which was easy but took some time. She did not want to bust the lock because Vader and Hartwald would know she'd been there. Then she recalled the busted columns upstairs and decided it was too late for subtlety. She looked up at Dooku and the image of her best friend, broken and dying, flashed through her mind.
"Why'd you have to kill us anyway?" She muttered. "It was such a shitty thing to do. I always had this tiny hope that you would let us go."
"What in the galaxy made you think so? That's absurd. You two betrayed me and caused lots of problems."
"I said it was a tiny hope, and it was because you never killed Grievous earlier. He messed up so many times. You sent Ventress to her death for only a few mistakes and blew up the droid commanders for only one blunder, yet you pardoned Greg over and over again. I almost thought you valued him as a friend."
"Again, that's absurd. Grievous, or Greg as he calls himself now, seemed to be very loyal to me and did lots of my dirty work. Plus, you silly rodent, the war was never meant to be won by anyone! The fact that he kept messing up was to our advantage because it prolonged the bloodshed."
"You disgust me."
"You were a murderer too, once upon a time."
"Suck my balls."
They entered the chamber. Nan forgot the Count and focused on the tablets on the walls. She knew enough about the ancient language to tell that the Old Ones had dealt with serious shit and it was time to stop the bantering, even though the "silly rodent" comment still deserved retribution. The chamber was claustrophobically small with space for an empty table and some panels on the walls. From these panels Nan learned of the nature of the secret weapon. It was a magic book called the Holocode, or perhaps Hollow-Code, since the universal prefix "holo" had not been invented back then. This book gave the person who read it and performed the proper rites incredible power over all creation.
"So you see, Dr. Specious, you and your rebel gang will be crushed as soon as Hartwald and the Emperor activate the book," said Dooku. "Personally, I am rooting for Hartwald to take over and destroy Palpatine with the book, considering what Palpatine did to me, but it doesn't matter. Once the Sith have the power of the Old Ones, they will be unstoppable."
"Why do you want that?" Asked Nan. "You're dead. Don't you think that maybe the real reason you're still chilling on this earthly plane is not because this is a punishment but a chance for you to redeem yourself?"
"You've been listening to that Trapp fellow for too long."
"Suit yourself. Anyway, this doesn't feel right. I think something is missing…"
Nan's eye fell upon two blank panels on the wall. There was some stone dust on the floor, as if they had been moved. Nan used the Force to pull them out and turn them around. There was more writing and hieroglyphics. The panels showed in pictures what the Hollow Code was supposed to do. In the first panel, a guy killed five people and spilled their blood on the book. In the next, he stood over the book, which radiated light. In the third, the guy shot lightning from his hands and planets burned. The next two had been turned around. The fourth panel showed the guy in the uncomfortable position of having his guts torn out and thrown all over the place. The final panel depicted a giant explosion.
"This isn't just a weapon that gives someone ultimate power," said Nan. "This thing will eventually destroy the user and the universe!"
"Are you sure?" Asked Dooku nervously. "That sounds like an over-exaggeration."
"That's what it says. It will destroy the Living Force. That's what's being pulled out of the guy, not guts. We need to stop Hartwald. These panels were turned to the wall so maybe he doesn't know how bad it is. Who could have turned them to the wall? Who would want the destruction of the universe?"
Nan noticed the conspicuous absence of the wailing voices that up to now, had accompanied all their moves.
"Where have those cockteasers gone?" She asked.
"You think the spirits of the Sith turned the panels around?" Asked Dooku.
"I'm sure of it. Who else? They don't see any other way to end their own miserable existence other than to destroy everything. It's motive like this that is keeping you all down, Doodoo."
Dooku was about to say that he would have never done such a thing, but he shut up and considered it. He wasn't any different from those older dead Sith, now, was he?
Nan ran upstairs and cleared the top stairs that Dooku had collapsed earlier. She gave Dooku his instructions. He was to cover her until she escaped Meyershand and then go to all the evil Sith places he could access in search of Hartwald and the book, or just the book really. Palpatine could have offed Hartwald already once he learned how to use the book.
Dooku went ahead and put a ghostly hand on all the security guards they met. That put them to sleep (obviously with nightmares). Saul Fernandez ran into them, still green around the gills from the truth serum. He wasn't a genius scientist for nothing and had figured out Nan meant to escape.
"Take me with you!" He said. "I can't do this archaeology thing anymore. I need crystals!"
Nan let him come with if he could keep up. He did not ask how it was that guards were falling asleep everywhere because they were running too fast for talk. They made it to the upper levels. The place was teeming with Stormtroopers by then. Nan sent Dooku to knock them all out, since this ability of his seemed to be unlimited. She hid in the cafeteria with Saul. A few scientists looked at them with interest. Nan announced that anyone who wanted to escape could follow her. Frank Trapp approached her with a photo.
"Oh, great," said Nan. "You want to escape?"
"Actually, I'm fine here. I was just wondering if you would autograph this photo."
It was a photo of the Tam Lab from 14 years ago. Nan was in it, surrounded by her grad students and undergrads, one of whom was a young Frank. Nan stared at him in surprise. Was he a spy, then? If he knew her from the past, why hadn't he told anyone yet?
"You were a great role model, Nan," he said obliviously.
"I treated you like shit. I treated all undergrads like shit."
"I preferred to think of it as tough love."
"I gave you so little consideration that I didn't even recognize you when I got here."
"I still learned so much from you."
Dooku came back and said he'd cleared the area and Nan could take the Stormtrooper shuttle. Nan sent the scientists that wanted to get out ahead.
"Come with us," she asked Frank.
"Nah, the food's too good here," he said.
Nan and Saul ran to the shuttle and took off. Nan contacted Ahsoka and asked for an escort in case of pursuit. She disabled the tracking devices on the stolen shuttle while Saul piloted. Saul had figured out that things were bad but he wanted to know how bad.
"You know how crystals are sometimes twinned and you can't get a structure?" Asked Nan.
Saul gulped and said, "Yeah, that's the worst."
"If the Sith activate that book, nobody will ever get any crystal structures again."
Footnote
[1] This would be a good place to insert a chapter about Hartwald's past, to kind of round him out as a character. Fortunately, I don't feel like it. The reasons for his evildoing will never be fully explained, but I have a suspicion that Nan's theory may be right. She guessed that he was raped by the Emperor as a kid.