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Narglatch in Shaak's Clothing Chapter 10
64 BBY
The chase through the planet's seedy underworld is exhilarating. Dooku can feel his padawan beside him in the darkness, their hearts beating with one purpose: the hunt. Somewhere ahead of them, the local chapter smuggling ring has scattered into a dozen pieces, each self-important drug lord disappearing into the dark crevices of the city's streets.
Their personal guards are another matter entirely, being promised large amounts of credits for their loyalty (and for any Jedi heads taken). Dooku and Palpatine wade through wave after wave of sweating, growling enforcers with bodies the size of small mountains. He watches his apprentice dance through a line of three thugs, his green and red sabers reflecting the blaster fire with ease. "Sheev, to your left!" Dooku shouts and throws his lightsaber in a sharp arc. Palpatine ducks under it, and it takes off the long snout of a ponderous Whiphid. The alien shrieks in pain and thrusts its pike down blindly, by pure luck catching the edge of Palpatine's cloak and pinning it to the street.
Palpatine is jerked off balance, and Dooku's heart stops for a moment when a second hulking smuggler sweeps his padawan's feet out from under him and brings his vibro-ax crashing down. Impossibly fast, Palpatine wriggles out from under his assailant, slicing through his own thick cloak with his lightsaber and jerking the blade up through the Yinchorri's muscular shoulder. The reptile screams and drops the weapon, its bulk clattering uselessly to the ground.
Dooku can breathe again.
He can see that Palpatine is grinning broadly even now, somehow encouraged by his near death. It has always been that way with this apprentice, and after nearly six months of meditation and confinement to the Temple for his efforts to build the red lightsaber, Dooku's apprentice sometimes feels wilder than ever before across their bond. Dooku fells another large Whiphid with a judicious Force push, sending the alien into the crumbling exterior of an abandoned warehouse that collapses around its body. Then he catches up with his padawan, and they are off and running again.
"Are you certain the leader went this way, Master?" Palpatine calls, long red braid flying out behind him, eyes alight with his excitement. "I could have sworn there were more bodyguards with him than that."
Dooku grimaces and ducks under a low, weathered sign. "If you wish to go search out a bigger challenge for yourself, then be my guest, Padawan. I'm quite content with what we have."
The younger Jedi laughs, and Dooku wonders at the simple, pure bloodlust behind it, almost as if Palpatine is an apex predator, most comfortable when he is pursuing, when he is cornering his target. Dooku has sensed the same emotion in dozens of other Jedi in the heat of battle, but in his padawan, it burns very bright indeed. For all our glorified passiveness, the blades bring out something more in each of us. One simply cannot be a pacifist with a weapon in hand. He snorts, causing Palpatine to glance curiously at him as they run. Unless one is Master Yoda.
This thought makes him wonder how Palpatine's sessions with the old master are faring this year. His padawan is usually very tight-lipped about the whole affair. Each week that the pair is on Coruscant, Yoda takes him aside into the meditation chambers for nearly four hours, and Dooku has to admit that he is extremely curious. Sometimes Palpatine returns looking as though he will bite the head off the nearest unlucky padawan, and other times he is smiling tightly, as if amused by some cosmic joke. In a strange twist, the sessions seem to bring Palpatine closer to Dooku, make him more open in their personal conversations. He seems to genuinely regret not informing Dooku of his attempts to make the new lightsaber. It takes time, but the bond between them strengthens. Enough to twist Dooku's heart whenever the padawan throws himself into danger with wild abandon.
Reckless and calculating… Dooku wonders how one small padawan can embody such paradoxical qualities. He does not have time to ponder long, because Palpatine has suddenly ducked out of sight down a small alleyway. The Jedi master sighs, unsurprised. He will surface again; they have played this routine many, many times. Dooku focuses on his own pursuit.
Three more streets and seven thugs later, and he comes across a familiar sight: Palpatine crouched over a terrified crimelord, both lightsabers burning the air in a cross at the Rodian's throat. Around the pair, three bodies lie heaped, one's clothing still smoking from the lightsaber burns. "I hope you're leaving enough to be questioned," Dooku says drily.
"Oh, they're alive," Palpatine glances back at his master. "So far."
The Rodian squeaks as the blades slip closer to his green neck. "Let me go," he cries. "I've done nothing wrong!"
"Claims of innocence when you work for the Black Sun?" Dooku scoffs as he approaches the two. "We've already spoken with your contact, Rodian. Your guilt is clear in the eyes of the Republic."
Palpatine raises his eyebrows. He knows Dooku is bluffing, that no such contact was ever made. Other Jedi might raise their eyebrows in disapproval at the lie; he is only impressed at Dooku's audacity. And then he makes the decision to join in. "Comply with us, and we might be able to ease your sentencing with the local authorities." He does not try to exert his Force powers on the Rodian's mind; the last time he tried that and left his prey a gibbering fool for hours, Dooku had turned him over to Master Yoda for a lecture on the misuse of power. The lecture took nearly half a day and three additional sessions until Yoda was satisfied.
The Rodian scowls through his fear. "I'm not convinced. I have many friends with the local authorities, and I demand to talk with my representative before I say anything else to you, Jedi scum."
Palpatine tips the red lightsaber closer to shine down on the sweating face of the smuggler. "You know," he starts, conversationally, "We're not really in the mood for your games tonight," and then his face brightens with deceptive happiness, "but my games are another matter entirely." Or is the happiness entirely too real?
The Rodian fixates on the padawan's wide smile, and his fear increases tenfold. "Games?" he squeaks, his natural pheromones exuding a truly hideous stench.
Dooku glances sternly down at Palpatine. "We are not going to torture him."
Palpatine ignores him and leans closer. "Not if he starts telling the truth."
The Rodian whimpers at the dark promise in the young human's eyes, and he firmly believes that Dooku either won't or can't hold the other back. "I'll talk, I'll talk, just-just don't!"
When the local police arrive along with the other two Jedi and take the willing suspect into custody, Dooku grabs his padawan's collar and forcefully steers him further out into the darkness of the street, leaving the other Jedi and padawan to tidy things up. Palpatine goes agreeably enough, still grinning.
"We are Jedi, Sheev," Dooku says firmly. "And we've gone over this before. We don't resort to torture and intimidation."
Palpatine lifts his head defiantly and meets Dooku's glare. "It wouldn't have gone that far, I could tell, and he deserved it anyway."
"That is not for us to decide," the master retorts, shoving aside the small voice that says he's right. "We are not his judge or jury."
Palpatine's voice drops as low as Dooku has ever heard it. "But you have to admit, it worked."
Dooku stares down at his padawan. "You walk along the edge of night, Padawan."
But there is no condemnation in his voice when he says it.
Just an empty warning.
Just a strange pride that threatens to undo his balance. He will need to meditate long tonight.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Palpatine is developing into quite the little pragmatic negotiator, and making Dooku second-guess himself. I enjoyed the part in Darth Plagueis when he notices that Anakin reminds him of himself when he was younger. Very different backgrounds, but some unique similarities all the same.