Chapter 83: Assault Tactics

"You're ready." Quinlan grinned brightly, his heart fluttering in his chest when he heard the words come soft, easy out of those lips that he had kissed far, far too often. The pale face flushed with annoyance, and she crossed her arms before her chest. "As ready as you'll ever be, in any case. We were better prepared before."

"Well, we couldn't go before, you said I wasn't ready." His dark brown eyes glanced off to the side to look at the kybuck that lay dead just a few meters away, and Ventress' gaze followed his. Quinlan had killed it, lured it in with the Force, and than used the Dark Side to kill it. It was...senseless and awful, the creature non-sentient and therefore inherently innocent, but Quinlan had done it to prove a point. He had murdered before, and now he had done it again. She sighed when the Jedi flashed her another bright grin.

"Alright, enough. Back to the ship, we need to plan our attack, and the atmosphere here is..." She wrinkled her nose. "Distasteful." It wasn't true, but she didn't want to admit that she was effected by the highly unusual atmosphere of Zeltros, and while they had avoided the high concentrations of the lusty, pheromone-secreting, beautiful red skinned Zeltrons in their capital city, even the breeze in the forest seemed to be filled with air that sent the mind into a lusty haze and made the body crave physical pleasure. It was under control, yes, but only just barely.

Quinlan had insisted on coming here for their final training session before their mission to kill Dooku, as the forests were rich with an abundance of life, and the planet was known to be the place to go if you wanted to experience hedonism on a level previously unheard of, and the Zeltrons were, by far, the most sexual species in the galaxy. Presumably because they lived in a pheromone-induced haze that drove them to seek pleasure. That would have been fine, had it not been known to effect other species as well, which left Zeltros in a state of continuous lusty celebration. So powerful was this effect in their atmosphere that no invasion had ever been successful, as the will to fight simply died the second an invading force hit the planet.

And Asajj Ventress had agreed to come here. Stupidly.

Quinlan had said that if he was going to die, he wanted to go to Zeltros at least once, and Ventress couldn't find it in herself to deny him. After all, they probably were going to die, and so long as their training could be done, she didn't care where they were. It had turned out, in fact, to be an excellent place to train, as the distracting haze that surrounded them proved to be a fine tool to hone their focus, though by the time that Vos had killed the kybuck, both of them were ready to abandon the training in favor of...more pleasurable things. They walked back to the ship quickly, and Ventress growled in irritation, using the Force to focus herself. They had an assassination to plan. They couldn't afford this distraction.

As soon as they entered Ventress' ship, the Banshee, she slammed her hand on the button to seal the airlock and pressurize the ship, the filtration system kicking in to clear the sir of the infuriating pheromones, though the effects still lingered. But it was enough. With a sigh, she pushed past Quinlan and walked to the cockpit, dropped into the pilot's seat and activated the holoprojector, frowning when she saw the list of information she had compiled for the mission. It was extensive. They could allow for no mistakes, no contingency unplanned, no event unaccounted for. She pulled up a map of an enormous palace when Quinlan sauntered in and dropped into the seat.

"This is Raxulon," Ventress said softly, zooming out to display the entirety of the beautiful, sprawling city, the palace standing tall and magnificent at its center. "This is the palace, and it's here we'll find Dooku."

Quinlan whistled. "That's an awfully big building.," he said softly, clearly impressed. "Are you sure this is our best chance?"

"It's our only chance," Ventress insisted, zooming back on to the palace and further still to show a large courtyard overlooked by an elaborate balcony high above the extensive gardens. "We won't get a chance like this again."

"It's a major event, there's going to be every measure of security in place for it."

"Yes," Ventress agreed. "But maybe not Kenobi."

Quinlan chewed on his lip as he looked over the image. The Confederacy was holding something of a memorial for the late Duchess Satine, both to show their respects for the galactic peacekeeper and to welcome previously Separatist worlds back into the Confederacy. It was no secret that the Mand'alor had gone to great lengths to build bridges with the leaders of the Republic and the Confederacy, and the gesture did nothing but make the Separatists look terribly good when compared to the Republic. The celebration would make it fairly simple to blend into a crowd, sneak into the palace, hide out until the throng had thinned and the Count was alone, and possibly tired and inebriated from the evening's festivities.

But most importantly, because of the nature of the event, it seemed the most likely time that Obi-Wan would not be around to lend aid to his Sith ally. It wasn't a sure thing, but both Quinlan and Ventress knew Kenobi well, knew how close he had been to lovely Satine, and thought it very likely that heartbreak would keep him far, far away from Raxus. Neither of them wanted to fight Obi-Wan. Neither of them wanted to see what grief had done to their friend. They just needed to kill Dooku and get out quickly.

"We'll need to deal with Grievous?" Quinlan asked, and Ventress nodded her head. "We should be able to take him."

"We don't even need to do that much," she said softly. "We just need to keep them apart. Though," she added, glowering at the image of the palace, "I wouldn't mind if he didn't make it out of this alive."

"He won't go down without a fight," Vos said swiftly. "Maybe it's best that we don't kill him. Confronting him would just alert Dooku." Ventress nodded, but didn't say anything. "...do you think Obi-Wan will be there?"

"There's always the chance..." Ventress said absently, looking over the palace and drawing a route with her finger, a red line trailing after her path in, and a blue plan on the path out. She exhaled in frustration as she looked over her work, cleared the paths, and began again. "But if ever Dooku would be without him, it would be fore this. I can't imagine him subjecting himself to that sort of pain."

"And he never liked parties," Vos added, and Ventress chuckled as she traced a new path.

"No, I got that impression as well. He and I would always keep out of sight when Dooku hosted at Serenno. We would spend hours training together, he was a relentless teacher."

"...I didn't know you were so close," Vos said softly, and Ventress could sense a hint of jealousy in his voice, though she couldn't tell if he were jealous of Kenobi, or jealous of her. "I didn't think there was any closeness among the Sith."

"...there usually wasn't," Ventress whispered. "Dooku was a hard, cruel Master, and he and Kenobi were always making things difficult for each other. They compete for their Master's attention. Or, they did. Something has united them. I don't know what, but it isn't good."

Quinlan tapped his finger on his leg, watching Ventress slowly draw and erase their infiltration plans, and he very slowly added his own lines, smiling gently at Ventress when the woman glared at him, grumbled in irritation, and incorporated his additions into her route. "Do you think they are still working together?"

"...I don't know." Ventress crossed her arms and leaned back, looking at the plans and trying to decide if they were good enough to be final. "I can't imagine why not. If so, Kenobi will be there. He won't be present, but he will be near, and if he's on the planet, he will sense us." She sighed heavily. "But I don't know what this loss will do to him. If I had to guess..." She bit her lip, and refused to make eye contact with those expressive brown eyes. "He's Sith, and they thrive on pain and anger, and he will have an abundance of both. He will be dangerous and unpredictable, especially at something like this. He has a great deal to occupy him in his own home. I don't think he'd leave."

"So no Kenobi."

"As I said, it's the best shot we have at catching the Count alone."

Vos nodded. "Three days?"

"Three days," Ventress affirmed. I have secured our invitations, so getting in shouldn't be a problem." She traced her finger along the path that had been set. "Everyone will be in the courtyard here, Dooku will give his speech from the balcony here," she said, pointing to it, "and then we'll be free to explore."

"What will his strength be, do you suspect?" Vos asked, and Ventress scoffed, waved her hand dismissively.

"Just the might of the entire Separatist Army. Grievous will be there for certain. There will be a substantial droid presence, but that won't be a problem."

"So just Grievous to worry about? Vos asked, a carefree smile on his face, and Ventress could feel her own confidence grow with the Jedi's. "And maybe Kenobi. No problem."

No, that wasn't it. She frowned, closed her eyes, and remembered Dathomir, the execution of her sisters, and the agents that had carried out the slaughter. "There may be another," she hissed softly as she pulled up the painful memory. "On Dathomir, when my sisters were killed..." There was pain in her chest, deep sadness as she remembered what had happened, how hard she had fought against Obi-Wan, how it hadn't been enough, how her old friend so casually lashed out at her through the slaughter of the Nightsisters. She felt the Force pull on her, strong and insistent, and she suddenly knew exactly how Kenobi had changed after Satine's death. She had seen it when she faced him on Dathomir. With a growl, she pressed the thought aside. She needed to focus.

"Dooku sent his most powerful allies with Obi-Wan to exact revenge upon me and the Nightsisters for our betrayal."

"Betrayal?" Vos felt shocked. How could she believe that she was the one that betrayed them when it was the Sith that had tried to kill her? She returned his disbelief with a stern look.

"Betrayal, yes. Not against Dooku. Against Kenobi." The Jedi didn't seem to understand. "As I said, they are working together," Ventress said patiently. "Dathomir was attacked for the Sith, but Kenobi being there made it personal. He didn't need to go." She growled and shook her head. That was another matter. "The important thing is that Dooku sent Kenobi with his strongest allies."

"Grievous." Ventress nodded.

"And another. A Jedi."

"A Jedi..." Vos repeated, his voice distant and confused, his sharp mind searching for possibilities, but could find none. "As you sure?"

"I know what I saw, idiot," Ventress snarled, and Vos couldn't help but smile despite himself. It wasn't a nickname exactly, but the way she said it always seemed to him...affectionate. "He was huge. Two double sided lightsabers, green and blue, wielded between four arms." Quinlan felt the air go out of his lungs as if he had been punched in the gut.

"Pong Krell..." He swallowed hard and shook his head. "He was presumed dead on Umbara, he was a Jedi Master." He quickly ran through his mind for any other possibility, but the pull of the Force upon him told him that he had the right of it. It was Pong Krell that Ventress spoke of. A Jedi Master involved in the massacre of Dathomir. But why...

"If you say so," she shrugged. "But he was there on Dathomir, he was sent to aid Kenobi. The turnaround was a bit quick, but Dooku always tests prospective apprentices before he begins to train them. It could be possible that the slaughter of my people was this Jedi's test to be worthy of being Dooku's new apprentice."

"And if Krell is apprentice to Dooku, than he will absolutely be there on Raxus."

"Exactly."

Quinlan felt his confidence falter. Killing Dooku had been one thing. Separating the cyborg General from the Sith Lord had been another. But now there was a third in the mix. A very dangerous third, and even worse was the prospect that Kenobi may not be far behind either. He and Ventress against Dooku seemed like a fair fight, but mixing in not one but two more Sith into the equation made their chances of success dangerously low.

"Can we get a third invitation?" he asked quietly, and was met with a hard, disapproving glare. "Ahsoka had begged me to go. We won't get better help than her."

"She's a child."

"And a damn good one." Ventress was unimpressed, and her mind was clearly on something else. "Asajj. We need help if we're going to deal with all of that and live. Ahsoka can help."

"You do realize that we're probably going to die doing this, right? Do you really want to bring your Padawan into this." Vos nodded.

"She isn't dead weight, Asajj. Ahsoka is very good. She can deal with Grievous while you and I handle the Sith." He flashed her a cocky grin when Ventress looked at him dumbfounded. "She doesn't need to fight him, she just needs to draw him away and trap him, right? I trained Ahsoka for survival. She can do it."

"Alright," Ventress growled, sinking deep into her seat. "But don't blame me if things go wrong and she gets hurt."

"I won't. Besides, this is an even fight now!" Vos leaned back in his seat, hands folded behind his head and ankle crossed over his knee. "Unless Obi-Wan's there. What do you suppose are the chances of that."

"Fifty percent," she growled. "Maybe." She looked at the Jedi closely, observed his calm, the ease that came so freely to him, felt the Dark Side within him, strong and eager, but not too dark. Simply shadows of a greater power, one that he could touch and quickly turn away from. She could trust him. She did trust him. "I can't be sure," she said softly, "but I think I may know what Obi-Wan has become." Vos leaned forward, his dark eyes wide and sympathetic, his whole being attuned to her, and she felt herself flush, and Ventress found herself looking away. "He tried to bring me back," she whispered. "He tried so hard, but I was angry, and I would have none of it. I was his friend, and the Nightsisters took me away from him."

"And he returned to kill them all," Vos finished gently, reaching out and grabbing her hand, and Ventress did not pull away. "Do you think he did it because of you?" Ventress nodded sadly.

"He met loss with massacre, what do you suppose grief of this magnitude will do to him?"

Vos shivered, the Force itself trembling at the idea. "You don't suppose it will destroy him, do you? I've seen grief take everything out of a man."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Ventress said softly. "He's answered grief with slaughter. If he holds nothing close to him anymore, than nobody is safe. Not even you, Quinlan Vos."

He looked at her for a long time, felt the disquiet within her, and for the first time, he really felt that they may die on this mission. He had been so sure before that everything would be fine, that in the end, Kenobi would help him, or at the very least, would stay his hand, but things may have changed, and he feared that Ventress had the right of it. She was often right, and despite the danger to herself, she had agreed to stand beside him and help, despite her claims that she would never do so. But Ventress was brave and strong, carried the bitter scars of her Sith Master upon her, and she was beautiful for it.

Vos didn't realize that he had leaned in and kissed her, hard and insistent, but he did notice when she swiftly opened herself to him, drew him closer, ran her long-fingered hands over his chest and shoulders as he felt her melt against him. It was perfect. She was perfect, and he felt...he didn't know what he felt, but he needed to be closer to her now. He was terribly aroused, had been since they had landed on lusty Zeltron, and though their focus had kept them solidly on the task at hand, he could feel the chemicals his brain was forced to release rushing through his blood alongside the Force. He could repress it, but he didn't want to. Not now. Not when they may die soon. Not when it was unthinkable that he hadn't found his way into her bed after their weeks of close physical contact and heated, exploring touches. He had been afraid before of what he was feeling, and whether it was the impending death or the potent pheromones of Zeltron, he found he didn't care nearly as much as he did before.

"Vos..." Ventress said, breathless as she broke away. "We have an assassination to plan, we-"

"It can wait," he growled, voice low and husky and Ventress' eyes widened as the Jedi pressed against her, his need made painfully clear. "It can all wait. I want this. You want this, I can feel it..."

"Y-yes..." she stuttered, looking away from him for a moment as she tried to compose herself, but like her companion, the effects of this place were far too great, and her focus had slipped, giving way to her own desire. "But we have work to do," she tried softly, laying a hand on his chest to press him away and found herself caressing him instead. "And you are flooded with the intoxicant in the air, you're not thinking right."

"Maybe not," Vos mumbled. "But there's always tomorrow to do it again if you don't believe that this is coming from me right now." He kissed her, hard and swift, and Ventress felt her legs tremble as she swiftly reached for the Kiffar's belt and undid it. "And again the next day. And after that, and after that..."

It was over for Vos when Ventress moaned, melted against him as she surrendered to the feelings that rushed through her mind. He didn't realize how badly he wanted this, how close he felt to her, and through the fear of these new emotions, he had pushed it away. Vos was no stranger to carnal pleasure, but it had always been over quickly, and he rarely visited the same girl twice. His missions for the Jedi kept him on the move, and his training kept him unattached. It left him with pleasure of the body, and nothing more. But this was different, all at once more pleasurable, and he couldn't help but finally understand how and why Obi-Wan had held on so tightly to his love for Satine, even when he had been dedicated to the Jedi, even when they had been separated for years after his mission to Mandalore. And he could understand how, now that it was gone, his tight hold on his love for the woman he lost could drive him to insanity and the potential destruction that Ventress had talked about.

But Vos didn't love Ventress, did he? He looked at her, her face flushed, her pale eyes dilated so much that hardly any of her light blue irises could be seen, and he felt his heart lurch in his chest. It had to be the effect of the pheromones of Zeltron. Or maybe it was love, he didn't know, but thought could wait until the two of them were good and sated. They had a need for each other, and that need must be met.

"That is a terrible idea." Anakin sighed when he was met with the harsh, immediate disapproval of Wilhuff Tarkin, the man's arms crossed in front of his chest as he stood beside Chancellor Palpatine's desk, the blue lines of the hologram frozen on a still of an image pulled from the data dump of Kenobi's ship. The recorded data was deleted every day, and Tarkin had managed to pull the security footage from the ship just before the memory was flushed. While they learned nothing new about Kenobi's methods, they did get a complete recording of the fight that had occurred between them, and it gave Anakin and Tarkin a more complete picture of the man they fought.

"It's not a completely terrible idea," Anakin offered meekly, and he was met with the cold glare of the Admiral.

"Yes, it is. Uniquely terrible." Tarkin sighed and rubbed his temple. "First off, we do not know where Kenobi's home base is, and therefore, we cannot attack it." Anakin opened his mouth to speak, but Tarkin quickly held up a hand, and the Jedi shut his mouth. "Yes, I know I could probably find it, but that is not how we will win this fight. Attacking him on his home is suicide. Besides, we already know he spends time on Raxus and Serenno as a high ranking member of the Separatists and as a close associate of Count Dooku, and attacking him there is an equally terrible idea."

"Could you discern his location, Wilhuff?" Palpatine asked softly, and the Admiral sighed heavily.

"I could certainly narrow the search, if that is what you wish, Chancellor," Tarkin said wearily. "But I must insist that we avoid it. One does not go to hunt an apex predator where he is most dangerous."

"He's going to be dangerous everywhere," Anakin said, watching as Tarkin cleared the hologram and brought up a map of the galaxy, his long fingers flying over a datapad in his hands as he entered in his search criteria. "Especially now that his family is dead."

Tarkin scoffed. "He was always dangerous, General. This loss of his is irrelevant."

"I disagree," the Jedi said firmly. "We don't know what grief will do to him, we don't-"

"With all due respect, sir, we know exactly what it will do to him." He looked up from his datapad when he felt curious eyes upon him, and irritation gripped him when the need to explain was made apparent. "He is a man with nothing to lose," he said slowly. "This will make him inexorably dangerous, and in such, he will be reckless. This will give us a chance to strike at mistakes he may not otherwise make."

"You can't know-"

"I can," Tarkin insisted. "I do. We have seen him in action, He is a man driven by passion and anger, as you Jedi say. If we wait long enough, we will see exactly the form his vengeance will take, and we can use that to entrap him. I say him becoming more dangerous doesn't change anything because he was already dangerous to begin with." He huffed in irritation. "When faced with a Kryat Dragon, it doesn't matter if the beast's fangs are exposed or not, because you are still facing thirty meters of beast that wants you dead. Maybe he is more aggressive, but the fact has not changed that Kenobi has always been our most dangerous enemy."

"So you wouldn't change a thing?" Anakin asked, and the Admiral shook his head.

"I wouldn't. Our mission is still the same. Hunt him down and kill him. We will need to see his new strategy, though, and I highly suggest we lure him out to observe him before we attack."

"Lure him out?" Palpatine asked, concerned. "You will lose men if you do that."

"Acceptable losses," Tarkin said with a dismissive wave of his hand, and Anakin frowned.

"We can't just send men to their deaths, Tarkin."

"He's going to begin killing us rather soon, I imagine," the Admiral said, eyes returning to his datapad. "We can either cross our fingers and hope to get lucky in our observations, or we can lay a trap where we can observe him in action. And if that works, we can do it again and kill him." Anakin chewed on his lip as he watched areas of the galactic map darken. "All this is Republic space," the Admiral mumbled. "We can safely assume he doesn't keep his base here."

"We can rule out the neutral systems as well," Anakin said quickly. "We know he stayed on Mandalore, but it wasn't his base of operations. His investment there would keep him from building his home there." Tarkin frowned as he looked at the man, then slowly nodded and darkened those areas as well.

"That leaves us all of Separatist Space," he mumbled, moving his hand through the map. "Serenno, Raxus, Murkhana. Your triad of evil, Chancellor, Mygeeto, Saleucami, Felucia," he said softly, pointing to each planet in turn, the small dots lighting up as he touched them. "We cannot discount Mandalore. It may not have been Separatist, but his lover occupied the throne, and we are fools if we believe that Satine Kryze didn't have eyes out for the father of her child."

"The crime lords must figure into all this somehow," Anakin said swiftly, moving into the projection and touching the area that was classified as Hutt Space. Tarkin quickly opened his mouth to object, but Skywalker quickly cut in with, "They wouldn't have united under Maul if they didn't share a common enemy, and Kenobi made himself an enemy of them when he forced them out of the Mandalore system."

Tarkin thought about this for a long while, and he finally passed his hand over Hutt Space, darkening the area. "Is that where it started?" he whispered, and Anakin shrugged. "Forcing them out of a sector is one thing, making them fear him is something else. What would make an entire crime syndicate fear a single man..." Tarkin stood back and looked at the map, observing the bright spots located on the map, all of them in the Outer Rim, and he slowly touched new points to highlight the known bases of the galaxy's largest criminal syndicates. The lower region of the map was lit, but with no bright spots save for one.

"There," Tarkin said, a satisfied ease to his voice as he pointed to the singular point. "Mustafar."

"Are you sure?" Palpatine asked softly, his hands on the desk and leaning forward, and Tarkin quickly waved him off.

"It is simply speculation, Chancellor. Given what we know about him, and with General Skywalker's idea about his link to the criminal syndicates, Mustafar seems to be a possible candidate for a base of operations. But as I said before," he said sternly, "attacking there isn't possible. It would be like trying to attack Raxus, and it will not be worth the loss. Our best option is to get ahead of Kenobi and lure him out before we are forced to respond to the traps he sets for us."

Anakin dropped into a chair and ran his hands over his face as the hologram shut off. He was going to have this meeting with Tarkin privately, but the Admiral had been with the Chancellor that afternoon, and it didn't seem like such a bad idea to keep the man in the loop. After all, he was ultimately the one that approved of these missions, and could quickly shut down any further attempts at going after Kenobi if it seemed to divert too far from the course of the war. Keeping in his good graces and maintaining a close connection with him had been something that Tarkin had insisted upon, and so far, it had been to their benefit. Tarkin got nearly everything he wanted out of the Chancellor.

"I think just being out in the war is going to draw his attention," Anakin said softly. "I can't imagine he's happy that our fight was interrupted, he's going to want to finish what we started."

"I'm inclined to agree," Tarkin said as he pulled up the recording of the fight aborad the Skywalker, and quickly forwarded through to the moment before Ki-Adi-Mundi died. Anakin had to look away, but Tarkin studied it closely. "Is he...controlling that beast?" the Admiral asked, looking at the Jedi. "I had thought it looked like it."

Anakin nodded. "Through the Force, we can bond to other living things. I sensed the connection between the two."

"He's in direct control of the beast?" Skywalker indicated that the Admiral had the right of it. "And I take it that he has all the same powers as a Jedi?"

Anakin bristled. "He's not a Jedi," he growled, and Tarkin rolled his eyes.

"These are semantics, General. You Jedi are so concerned with what he is labeled, how he is different from you, that you fail to grasp what matters. You are failing to see the forest for the trees." The General didn't say anything. Rather, he looked interested. "He has always been powerful and ruthless. He is, at the heart of it, a Jedi with no Code to get in the way of victory. You look at this tragedy of his and see something dangerous, but I see an opportunity. He may be more dangerous, but he is also vulnerable. We need to strike at him now before this open wound becomes a scar."

Anakin took a deep breath and looked at the image of Ki-Adi-Mundi in the hands of the rancor moments before he was pulled apart, at Tarkin, firm and brutal and resolved and so, so right about so much, at the Chancellor, nervous and uncertain about this obvious threat to the Republic. Slowly, all the information presented to him by the Jedi Council, by the hunter that was Tarkin, by the concern of the Chancellor, by the tender care of Qui-Gon all started to come together. He closed his eyes and quietly placed himself in Kenobi's place. He imagined himself and Padmé with a child on the way, happy and content, and then imagined losing it all. He would have Qui-Gon to fall back on, his wise Master always there to lead him back on the path. But Obi-Wan didn't have Qui-Gon Jinn. That was stolen from him too.

Panic gripped Anakin as sudden images of Padmé flooded his mind, the woman not dead, but very, very much alive, her body flushed and naked and aroused as she moved against another man, his body strong and scarred and handsome as he sat deep within the former Queen that Anakin called his own. A strangled noise filled with pain and longing was torn from Skywalker's throat, and he quickly covered his mouth, shutting his eyes tight against it, but the vision became more detailed, more vivid. He had seen this before many times, but why now? He had been trying to imagine what it would be like to lose her, but this...

This was worse.

"I think," Anakin said slowly, swallowing hard and fighting back the deep flush that threatened to creep up his neck, "that Kenobi may do what he's always done. You are right, Tarkin. He was always dangerous, but without the distraction of a family, I fear he may be more focused."

"I believe you are correct."

"Which will make him not just an enemy, but a dangerous hunter of Jedi," he whispered, zooming the image onto the face of Ki-Adi-Mundi, and he looked hard upon it, pushing away his concerns and doubts about Padmé as he did so. He would keep this moment within his mind. He would never forget. "We've been working on building up the Council, and since he's been actively hunting them in the past, I think it's safe to assume he will do so now."

"Your Council is becoming rather small," Palpatine said softly. "Perhaps we should recall your Masters from the war effort to preserve them." Anakin shook his head.

"We're building up again. Oppo Rancisis has returned to his seat from retirement, and Aayla Secura, Stass Allie and Agen Kolar have just been elected." The Chancellor frowned, and for a moment. Seemed almost hurt.

"I hadn't heard that the seats have been filled."

"This only happened yesterday, Chancellor," Anakin quickly reassured the man. "We aren't being secretive, I promise, we just..." Anakin growled and ran a hand through his long hair. "We've just been so busy trying to make sense of all of this. Obi-Wan is a truly frightening element, especially now that he may be much more dangerous than before."

"I understand," Palpatine said softly, his shoulders slumping as he relaxed. "I am reluctant to divert a large force to facing him. He has shown himself to be very effective at killing our troops."

"Tarkin and I will take care of him, Chancellor," Anakin said, and he was met with the groans of the Admiral. "The Council has a lot of very young Masters sitting on it now. We believe that...a new perspective is necessary. The Jedi will draw him out, and I'll kill him." He smiled sadly. "At this point, I think it's a mercy."

"We will watch these Masters closely," Tarkin said, shutting off the hologram and collecting his things to leave. "I believe that we will be seeing them attacked very soon, if Kenobi doesn't come for use first. If we are very careful, I think we may be able to use them to lay a trap, and hopefully limit our casualties in the process."

"I hope you're right, Tarkin," Anakin said softly, but deep inside him, he knew that he wasn't. Lots of people were going to die. He could feel it, sense it in the Force, and through the soft, gentle lapping of it upon his consciousness, he could have sworn that, far away, he could feel it burning.