35 BBY
In the Serenno Palace, a small child was perched precariously atop a chair that was much too tall for someone of her stature. She stared at her face in her mother's dressing room mirror, scowling at her small, round, cherubic features and soft pale skin. Maybe the only flaw in her appearance was her overly expressive eyebrows, but otherwise her long black hair was clean and her clothes were neat and well made. Compared to life in an orphanage, she was clearly much better off if the size of her room, and the quality of fabric was anything to go by. Nevertheless her face was contorted into a mixture of frustration and disgust
Her tiny fist slammed into the desk, and stung from the punishment. Her soft hand throbbing, Tan'ya gasped at the pain and had to fight the urge to burst into tears.
How could this have happened?! She was a child! "Again?! Arrrgh!" She screamed.
Oh, she didn't even need to ask how. She already knew.
"Being X, you bastard." What she intended as a threatening growl came out as more of a helpless sob. Even with more than fifty years of memories to draw from, her mind was that of a small child. Instinct was a powerful force, so when her mother entered the bedroom to find out what all the screaming was about, her daughter burst into tears and sniffled out an ancient word, replete with meaning. "Mommy!"
"Oh, did you hurt your hand?" Athemeene rushed over to her child, hurrying over as fast as she could when she was five months pregnant. Tany'a's mother reached out and effortlessly plucked her daughter from the top of the chair, before setting her on her feet. "What were you doing up there? Let me see your hand, sh-sh-shhhh." She hushed her daughter, who's body began to rock with sobs, burying her face in her mothers bosom. "Oh, it's only a hand, Tan'ya. No need for this much."
Ashamed of herself, terrified, and struggling to breath through the sobs, Tan'ya only clung to her mother all the tighter.
"Oh, I hope this hand isn't broken." Athemeene murmured, unable to understand the real source of her daughter's pain.
Later that day as the sun set over the palace, Tan'ya lay on her back in bed, looking at the ceiling and feeling ashamed of herself. There was no need to make her parents worry like that, Mother had even called in the medical droid to see if her hand was fine. Even so, for almost an hour after awakening to her old memories, Tan'ya hadn't been able to stop crying.
It was so unfair! She'd done it! She'd found a way out, a way to win against Being X, and in the end what did she have to show for it?
"What's this supposed to be, best two out of three?" She muttered to herself in disbelief. "When will you be done tormenting me?"
Scowling, Tan'ya rolled over and thought about the worried holocall Mother had made to Father, and his words to her.
"Are you hurt, daughter?"
She'd swallowed and shaken her head.
"Can you tell me what's wrong?"
Again, she couldn't.
Her Father's face took on a more stern countenance. "Tan'ya, you are my eldest child. Understand?"
She could see no choice but to nod.
"You're worrying your mother. As the big sister, you have to be strong. Your younger brother can't take care of himself yet, and your mother is carrying another child. Can you be a big girl for me, Tan'ya?"
Of course she could. She'd been a bloody grown man once! She'd fought in war zones that were likened to hell for several generations! Commanded armies and taken many, many lives in deadly aerial combat!
In the end she had to promise Father that she would indeed be good, that she could in fact be a big girl, and said that yes, she was sorry for scaring her mother. The memory of it was so embarrassing to Tan'ya that she stuck the edge of her pillow in her mouth and bit down, kicking her feet as she did. She was not a child! There was no excuse to blubber her eyes out like that! Eventually she calmed herself down, and Tan'ya clapped both of her stubby hands against her cute chubby cheeks.
"No more of this." She told herself, determination rising inside her. "Throw your worst at me Being X. I'm ready for anything." Tan'ya shot a hateful glare at her stuffed Bantha, half expecting it to come alive and demand her worship. "I'm not afraid of you."
The next day, Tan'ya decided the best course of action was to take stock of her situation. Hers was an organized, comparted mind that was good for assessing her environment, she was confident in that. It wasn't hard to put her hands on a data pad, Father had left his inside the nightstand next to his bed.
After breakfast, while Mother was still feeding Kenth, Tan'ya snuck off to find a quiet corner of the garden to sit and read. The first thing Tan'ya discovered when she turned the pad on was that her comprehension was terrible.
Nothing was written in Japanese, or Germanian, or even English which she'd only ever learned the basics of anyway. No, the language was Galactic Standard and it came with its own alphabet, which at four years of age, Tan'ya had only begun to learn the intricacies of. Tan'ya tried to force herself to read an article on galactic history, but found she didn't recognise many of the words, let alone how to pronounce them.
With a frustrated huff, Tan'ya ran off to find a solution. M8-ID was the family's protocol droid that Father purchased for his work, but mainly seemed to be used by Mother for babysitting their eldest. He was surprised when Tan'ya found him during his low power cycle and demanded she be taught how to read. His processor whirred for a few moments, before deciding there was no harm in it.
Later that day, Mother found her laying on her belly in the hall next to one of the droid power charging stations, a look of extreme concentration on her face as she read a brightly coloured flimsy picture book aloud.
"Tan'ya, lunch time."
"Can I eat it here?"
"No." Mother said firmly. "We eat together at the table, Tan'ya."
With a small pout, Tan'ya stood up and held the book out to her droid. "Could you please hold onto this until I get back, M8?"
"It would be my pleasure, Princess."
Tan'ya began to move towards her mother.
"Tan'ya, what do you say to M8-ID?"
She froze, mind whirling. Then Tan'ya remembered her manners and turned to the droid. "Thank you."
"It's my pleasure, Princess." He replied, inclining his head as much his limited articulation would allow.
Mother smiled at her, and they left to have lunch together.
Obviously Tan'ya couldn't learn to read and write Standard overnight, but as someone who was already multilingual and was reasonably competent in the spoken form of the language, it was far from challenging. With M8's help, Tan'ya was reading at the level of an average adult in just a few months. Soon she would be spending long hours researching into the night about the history and state of the Galaxy.
There was a lot to sift through, so she thought it wisest to start close to home with her world and her family, both named Serenno. The planet naturally had a lot of continental movement, which resulted in many earthquakes and tsunamis, meaning much of the population lived away from the coast. Tectonic collisions forced many mountain ranges to rise from the ground, but almost constant rainfall wore them all back down over millions of years. Her planet was tropical and mountainous, with countless soaring peaks, naturally formed stone monuments, deep unexplored jungles, wide open plains and vast oceans.
In terms of economy, until recently Serenno was best known for its lumber exports, if it was known at all. Most people in the galaxy didn't know where their furniture came from, they just purchased it from a business called Oda-Attz, which as best as Tan'ya could tell was a lot like a galactic version of Ikea. Much like on Earth, no one really cared that Ikea got the wood for its furniture from slave labor in Russia, and similarly no one in the wider galaxy cared that many Serennoan men worked long hours in dangerous conditions with terrible pay. There were plenty of planets out there that could supply lumber.
More recently, her planet had discovered mineral wealth in the form of… Sacanium? She hadn't a clue whatever that was, but apparently once refined it was lighter and stronger than… durasteel?
Tan'ya's eyebrows came together in confusion.
Whatever. Something to research more later. For now she understood there was demand for it, and the Galactic Mining Guild wanted access to it, but so far Father had refused. It didn't take much more research to find out why.
The G.M.G. was a conglomeration of the galaxy's largest mining corporations that worked together to corner the market on valuable minerals. They worked hard to shut down their competition with trillions spent on lobbying the Galactic Senate alone. Worse still they had an incredibly cozy relationship with the major refineries who refused to buy from anyone who wasn't selling at rates set by the guild. The GMG was an absolute monopoly protected by the highest powers of the Galactic Republic.
While the Senate had the power as well as the obligation to bust monopolies as they form, they had yet to take any action. The flimsy reasoning for failing to do so was the technicality that classified the Galactic Mining Guild as a trade guild and not a unified corporate body.
No one actually believed this obvious nonsense, except for the Galactic Senate, apparently. In one article Tan'ya saw a picture of the Senator from Corellia snorting spices at a table, while in the background the GMG's Manager of Public Relations was laughing and cheering him on. She did a little more research, and found out the journalist who published that article was fired from their job mere hours after it went public, supposedly for entirely unrelated reasons.
The obvious stink of corruption was so powerful it nearly made Tan'ya's head spin.
To use a comparison from her original world, Tan'ya thought Serenno was trapped in a similar situation to many resource rich African nations. They would be forced to sell raw materials at a below market rate, the major corporations would turn those raw materials into valuable products and sell those back at a substantial mark up. It was possible that a ruling class might profit, but the people would be made to foot the bill.
To further that comparison to a third world country from Earth, Serenno had even had a major civil war in the last decade! Tan'ya was shocked to discover that her now deceased uncle had even gone so far as to hire Ab… Abus? Abbyssan? Tan'ya mouthed the unfamiliar word aloud. "Abbyssinian?"
It didn't matter. Pirates. Uncle Ramil had hired crews of pirates to raid his own world! It was complete madness until Father came in and stopped it… by personally boarding Uncle Ramil's personal freighter?
No way, that was soooo cool. Tan'ya was impressed by Father's willingness to take direct action to end the conflict, though that did raise the question of what he was doing before that point?
Apparently Father was once a… Jed-ee? "Jed… Eye. Jedi." Tan'ya continued reading. "Originally an independent order of warrior monks whose primary belief was in the Living Force, the Jedi now serve as an official institution of the Republic in a variety of areas, but are mainly focussed on settling diplomatic disputes and law enforcement.
…If the Jedi are supposed to be law enforcement for the entire Galactic Republic, where were they during the Serennoan Civil War?
Well it turned out the Jedi only involved themselves in a conflict if invited to by the Senate, or an official representative of the world or system where the conflict was taking place. Father had defied the Jedi Order by returning home to put an end to the conflict, then quit the Order shortly afterwards.
Tan'ya was impressed by the evidence of her father's convictions. It spoke to a high degree of inner strength to go against the will of such a powerful institution, and a lot of talent that he was successful in doing so.
As the new head of state for Serenno, Father had done a lot that made him popular with the people. He reformed the bureaucracy of Serenno, doing away with the often corrupt appointees of Uncle Ramil and replacing them with competent and reliable men. He reformed the law enforcement system, so locally appointed deputies were required to receive proper training at an academy that Father paid for, staffed by Coruscant Security Force officers he trusted from his days on Coruscant. Ah, meritocracy. It was good to see Father understood and appreciated its importance, despite his aristocratic lineage.
Most importantly, Father had invested heavily in local defenses to make sure there were no more pirate raids. Serenno now had a small fleet of its own, rented from the Trade Federation, crewed by battle droids.
Oh, they had battle droids? Interesting. Back on Earth, Tan'ya had always listened to speculations that drones would one day replace even infantry as the bedrock of modern warfare with mixed interest and skepticism. On the one hand it sounded nice to spare men and women the horror and misery of warfare, and much faster to manufacture machines on an assembly line than to train new soldiers, but on the other it gave absolute power to whoever controlled the machines. The other factor to consider was that in many ways machines were a lot less rugged than people were, being incapable of self repair.
Either way, this droid army was something that Tan'ya was interested to see for herself. As the heir to Serenno it was only right that she should inspect her future holdings, wasn't it? It was important that they were able to defend themselves.
Captain Suib Sugreth quietly fumed. Behind his mask of professionalism he had to fight to keep the scowl off his face. The Nemoidian had worked hard, schmoozing his way up the chain of command to become captain of his own Munificent Class Frigate, the Hearty Margin. He'd complemented ugly wives, enthusiastically agreed to ideas he knew were terrible, screwed good men beneath him out of promotions, and faked sexual climax at one point just to get to where he was. He knew how it worked in the Fed. What you knew was hardly as important as who you knew.
Then Count Dooku, the client his small fleet was being rented out to for protection against pirate raids, had wanted to inspect his ship at its mooring. Well, fair enough. Suib had arranged a date with the protocol droid that was liaising on behalf of the Count. He'd had the ship scrubbed from top to bottom, had the command crew dressed in their parade uniforms and arranged to have them all ready to receive the Count.
The Count's expensive droid driven speeder had arrived and out of it emerged a protocol droid, and a literal child! Not the client himself, but his bratty toddler. Where was the Count? Was Suib seriously expected to entertain a child for the next few hours?! This was a warship, not a toy!
The little rodent was dressed in a tiny set of formal robes that Suib was sure her parents thought were just the absolute cutest, but taught him a new meaning of hatred and humiliation. Suib led Daddy's Little Princess on a tour of the ship at its moorings, while she looked about the place with a haughty little scowl, occasionally tugging on her protocol droid's sleeve to murmur a question that the machine would then repeat in Neimoidian.
In the end he ended up showing her basically everything except Crew Quarters. The engine crew had all but came to a complete stop when they saw their captain walk on deck escorting a human toddler around. Suib's glands had all but burned with humiliation, even knowing that most of them were just droids.
Speaking of which, Daddy's Little Princess had even had the nerve to ask for the B1's to give her a demonstration! It took almost an hour to set up a small combat arena in one of the open hangers, using empty crates for cover and with all rounds set to stun. Two teams of B1's had entered the arena from opposite sides and thrown stunning rounds at each other until just a pair were standing. Some part of him expected Daddy's Little Princess to show any level of appreciation for how out of his way he was going to impress her, but instead she watched the whole thing with an unimpressed little scowl.
Well, he was sorry to have bored her! Was Suib the one wasting her precious time? He'd be sure to stock up on jawa juice and animated holovids for his next damned VIP!
Suib couldn't be happier to see the back of Daddy's Little Princess. The little rodent didn't even say thank you on her way out, just told her bloody protocol droid to do it for her.
He was a captain, a hard working one. He wouldn't stand for this. It was time for him to talk to his supervisor.
"Wife, have you seen my datapad?" Dooku asked, searching his bedside drawer.
"I saw you with it on the ship." Athemeene called back from the bathroom.
No, that was his work datapad, they were completely different models. He left his private datapad at home because he didn't want to lose it. Dooku could have sworn he'd left it in his bedside drawer but now it wasn't there. He scowled with irritation.
"Master." M8-ID knocked on the door.
"What is it?"
"There's a call for you from the Trade Federation."
"Is it important?" Dooku slammed his drawer shut, not even waiting for the answer. He waved a hand to dismiss M8. "Tell them I'll be there shortly."
"Yes, Master." The protocol droid left.
The Count of Serenno walked over to his closet, and began to undo the silken belt of his exquisite black pajamas. He quickly changed into his usual outfit, before swinging his cape over his shoulders and fixing it in place with his chain of office.
"Oh, are you going out?" Athemeene asked and she waddled back in from the bathroom. At eight months pregnant, she was almost due. She lowered herself onto their bed and looked to her husband. "Isn't it the weekend?"
"It is." Dooku replied, as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull his boots on one at a time. He was annoyed but not at her. "The Trade Federation has called, and I will not talk to them in my loungewear."
Athemeene watched him for a moment. "We should have servants, human servants. As a Count it's beneath your dignity to dress yourself." She patted her swollen stomach and grimaced. "The force knows there are days when I could use the help."
"I don't want strangers in our bedroom." Dooku replied, tapping his feet on the ground to adjust his boots before standing up. "We can buy a droid."
His wife didn't seem very happy with that compromise. "I miss the servants from home. Having other people around will really bring the palace to life." She paused then added. "And I think it might be good for Tan'ya."
Dooku turned his head. "How so?"
"Other than us, she has no one her own age to talk to. The only company she has are droids, who all simply obey her without question. If she's going to command people one day, she's going to need to learn how to show respect to people above her station and below it."
"What of Kenth?" Dooku had the suspicion that this was going to be one of those issues his wife would keep pushing, but he couldn't bring himself to give in without exhausting other options first. "She can play with her brother, surely."
"He's a boy, dear and two years younger." Athemeene pointed out. "She needs playmates her own age."
"She has cousins. Your side of the family."
"We could constantly fly her to and from Raxus, I thought the easier option would just be to bring in some servants with their own children here on Serenno."
Dooku breathed out a long, frustrated sigh.
"You're upset." Athemeene reached over to take his hand, before shifting across the bed to lean against him. Unlike in the past he didn't flinch away from her touch. It took Dooku a moment to relax, but the tension left his shoulders and he placed his free hand on top of hers. "It's not the datapad, and it's not about the servants. The Council again?"
"What else could it be?" Dooku growled.
"Oh no." Athemeene let out an exasperated, sympathetic sigh. "What is it this time?"
"Ky Narec."
Athemeene searched her memory and found nothing. "Is he on the council?"
"No, he's a mere knight." Dooku explained. "Who happened to find a young force sensitive slave in the Outer Rim. She was too old to join the Jedi, but he felt sympathy for her so he brought her to me. It turned out that he'd been training her in secret for years, so she was at a level in her training appropriate for a padawan of her age. So the simple, sensible solution was that I take over as her master. I'm building a temple, I need students for that temple. This seemed to me to be a plain stroke of luck."
"But the Council didn't see it that way."
"But the Council refused to see it that way." Dooku all but hissed out. "She's too old. Her attachment to Ky was simply too great." He waved a hand in contemptuous dismissal. "The Jedi spend countless hours meditating and searching for all force sensitive children in the Galaxy to bring to Coruscant, and as we know they do a fine job of that. Too fine a job. All that's left for us is the ones they don't want! Of course my students will be older!"
"But they just won't listen."
"They. Will. Not. Listen."
Athemeene shook her head in sympathetic disbelief. "Even after all that trouble choosing a site for the Temple."
"Don't remind me." Dooku pulled away from his wife. "I'm surprised we got through that without causing a damn civil war!"
Just getting the New Temple site chosen had taken half a year. The Council had said it was important the New Temple be built at a nexus of the force, and so he proposed Raxus Prime. Just those words had nearly made the Council explode with outrage. Raxus Prime was a hub of the Dark Side! The Empire had once rested its laurels there! So Dooku had suggested they build the Temple on Serenno, but no, that wasn't a nexus of the force. Well where else could they build it? Dooku couldn't build the New Temple on lands House Serenno didn't own, now could he?
When they heard that, the Council had a meeting, and after much deliberation agreed to support Dooku in purchasing land at a Force Nexus that had no connection to the Dark Side. They seemed to think it was such a reasonable compromise. What they failed to understand was that the entire Outer Rim had been ruled by a Sith Empire of one kind or another at one point. There was no Force Nexus without a connection to the Dark Side because the Sith had already been to every one of them!
The Council then spent half a year doing their best to avoid a decision until Dooku made it for them. Of course the Council was upset, and sent many a passive aggressive message questioning the wisdom of his decision, but he simply told them it was time to start working and to stop procrastinating. They had not liked that at all, but eventually they stopped complaining when they realized it was falling on deaf ears. That suited Dooku just fine.
Presently they had only just finished laying the foundations for the building, and it would be half a decade before construction was complete. In the meantime Dooku had no choice but to put up visiting Jedi and prospective students in premade hab-blocks transported in from offworld, the kind you might see on a construction site. No one had complained so far, thankfully. Dooku might just fall to the Dark Side if they did!
He might have fallen already if it hadn't been for Athemeene.
"I better go take this call." He said, pulling away from his wife. "And then I have some more calls to make."
Athemeene rolled her eyes. "I love it when you bring your work home with you."
"I will only be a few hours." He promised her, heading to his office where his stationary communicator was installed. Everyone carried a normal pocket holo communicator, but when it came to formal situations it was convention to use a stationary holocommunicator, a larger one that projected more than just the person carrying it.
In his office, he reached across the table and pushed the button to receive the transmission from the Trade Federation representative.
The communicator projected the large face of a Nemoidian, with its bulbous eyes and flap-like mouth. The representative bowed respectfully. "Good morning, Count Dooku."
"Representative." Dooku inclined his head politely.
"I can see you're busy, and this isn't a big deal, so I'll just hurry this along?" The Representative gave a polite smile. "We've received a complaint from Captain Sugreth about inappropriate conduct from a client towards his crew."
…Who? Dooku's eyebrow shot up.
The representative paused to allow a response, but when none was forthcoming continued. "Currently you're on our deluxe planetary security plan, which comes with three frigates and support ships, and of course we invite you to inspect our ships and crews at any time you choose to arrange, we're confident in the quality of our product. But we do ask you to understand that these are warships, intended exclusively for defensive purposes."
Of course, where was this going?
"So Captain Sugreth has put in a complaint, asking us to make sure you understand that it's not appropriate to arrange a tour of the ship for a child."
"I made no such arrangement."
The representative paused, then reached over to touch something off screen. On the holographic display appeared footage Tan'ya accompanied by M8-ID walking through the halls of a starship.
They continued. "Now, this isn't a serious incident, and so we're not going to put a formal mark against your name or withdrawing our services, but we are issuing an official warning-"
Dooku hung up. Turning, he marched from his office down the hall to Tan'ya's room and threw open the door. His daughter had been laying on her belly on her bed, lounging about on a weekend morning with her legs kicked up behind her. When he opened the door without warning, she'd jumped, looking shocked and dropped the datapad she was holding.
Wait. He never bought her a datapad.
Dooku's eyes narrowed. "Get up. Now."
Frightened, Tan'ya hurriedly threw herself off the bed and stood practically at attention, with her back completely straight and her arms at her sides. She looked frightened, and guilty. Like she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. In the force he could feel her mind racing, trying to find what she'd done that had made him angry.
Dooku reached out in the force to grab his datapad. He wanted to know what game she had been playing, and was surprised to find an article on the structure of the Trade Federation corporate body. He opened the history tab, to find his daughter had been reading much about history, politics, astrography and economics. Much of it was quite advanced and technical, things that he knew about but had never had a great interest in.
In the force, Tan'ya seemed to come to a realization about why she was in trouble. "Father, I should have asked permission, first." She lowered her head. "I'm sorry."
Dooku regarded his daughter for a few moments. "If you want a datapad, I can get one for you. Tan'ya, why did you arrange a tour of the Trade Federation ships?"
Strangely, she perked up at that. Any sense of guilt in the force disappeared as she rushed to explain, "It's very important to understand our defense capabilities. I was working on a report, recommending a new defense policy, and there's no substitute for an in person inspection."
Curious, Dooku opened the documents section of the datapad and found the report his daughter had been working on. The first thing that shocked him was the quality of the work, and how professionally the whole thing was put together. It started out by establishing its goal of finding a cost effective method of defending Serenno and its citizens from pirate raids, without violating any laws of the Republic. It then outlined various options, like the Trade Federation, hiring mercenaries, training up a permanent professional army, creating a semi-professional militia and more. There were other documents in the folder that she had only begun working on, like options for the creation of a navy, and the necessity of the creation of a 'military industrial complex'?
"You wrote this?" He looked at his four year old daughter in disbelief.
"Yes, Father." She puffed out her chest proudly.
Dooku's mind raced. He had always known his daughter was special, being the most powerfully gifted force user discovered since Yoda, but this went far beyond even that. This level of focus, and depth of knowledge wasn't possible in a regular child. Dooku had heard of prodigies, children who were unnaturally gifted in mathematics, science and the arts. Such prodigies were rare, let alone ones who were also force sensitive.
He could feel in her emotions that she didn't even think she'd done anything wrong. She hadn't snuck out to inspect the Federation Ship, she'd done it simply because it was a necessary step in getting her report complete. If the evidence of it all wasn't right in front of him, Dooku wouldn't be able to believe it.
A slight bit of nervousness slipped into her emotions when he was silent for a long moment. "What do you think, Father?"
He was reminded of something Yoda once said to him, about the Force giving strange gifts sometimes. "I think… it's time for you to begin your training."