The Hunter and the Liberator
Master Dooku entered Grand Master Yoda's solar, troubled by the knowledge that something was terribly amiss. The Force could not keep it a secret from Dooku, nor could it hide that the purpose of his summons concerned the Sith. He had known for years that they had returned. In secret, he had made investigations into what might have become of the Sith following their apparent extinction during the Seventh Battle of Ruusan. His investigations of events a thousand years ago suggested that a Sith had infiltrated the Jedi Temple, taking care to ensure the bread crumbs which could be used to trace them had been deleted. Whether that had been shortly after Ruusan, years after, or even decades after, he did not know. All he knew was that the Temple's sanctity had been violated once.
It could not happen again.
"Master," Dooku said as he stepped forward. "I came as requested."
Grand Master Yoda nodded, appearing as weary as nine hundred years suggested. "Much to discuss, I fear. Blind, we have all been to the new threat."
"Yet we both sensed this Sith years ago."
"Sensed her did Qui-Gon as well."
Dooku smiled weakly. He was proud that his student had recognized the presence of an ascendant Sith Lord through the Force. But the knowledge that another had known irked him. He should have been informed, especially since he had discussed the matter several times with Yoda in the years since the presence first made itself known to them.
"What do we know of this Sith Lord? The one we, along with Qui-Gon, sensed years ago," asked Dooku, probing for the answers he desired. He already suspected the Lady Edelweiss responsible for events in Hutt Space was the Sith Lord in question. Unlike many, Dooku had not been fooled by the allegations that the one leading the crusade against slavery was Knight Whae Rynn. The girl he had met, if only briefly, possessed a timidity that prevented bold action like purging slavers and attacking Nal Hutta with atomics. She had been perfect for work as a Jedi Shadow, unassuming enough that many might have never known her true affiliation.
"Unknown, her homeworld is. Posed as Knight Rynn, we both know. Little else, however, presently known to us." Yoda pursed his lips. "Troubling this all is. Especially in light of Eriadu, and chaos in the Senate."
Dooku nodded, even though he believed the answer to the troubles in the Senate to be simple: the Jedi should take temporary control, just as they had several times throughout their twenty-thousand-year history. They had played a key role in the Republic before the Ruusan Reformation, for their role in the Republic required them to abandon the warrior ways necessary to wage the off-and-on, millennia-spanning Jedi-Sith Wars. They had embraced the peacekeeper role they presently played, despite the minor skirmishes and threats to that role. Dooku also knew his opinions were extraordinarily unpopular within the Jedi Order. Few, if any, had a desire to bother with politics. If they had their way, the Jedi Order would be located on some flung off world instead of on Coruscant, barely fifteen minutes by speeder from the Senate.
But then, few understood that politics would always bother with the Jedi Order. They were too powerful to be entirely ignored.
"Do you believe something will happen with the Trade Federation after Eriadu?"
Yoda nodded. "Already spoke of this the Council has. Wait for word from the Chancellor, we will. Jedi selections for who will handle any matter already made."
"Qui-Gon and his Padawan?"
Yoda nodded again. "Impressed the Senate, your former Padawan has. Soon ready for his trials Obi-Wan will be."
"I am relieved to know the Order will be in good hands."
His master merely hummed at that.
"So, what would you ask of me, Master?"
"Learn more of this Sith Lord's organs we must. Discover how she stole Knight Rynn's identity, I would ask of you. Her trail…"
"I'll see what I can discover, Master. But should I be the one to hunt down this Sith?"
Yoda nodded gravely. "Investigate this matter, I cannot. Busy with other duties is Qui-Gon. Only you among those who know can act."
Dooku sighed before nodding. "I will seek out what I can, Master. But if her trail was cold until she first appeared in Hutt Space, then it's unlikely I will be able to find her homeworld, let alone any information about Knight Rynn and her fate."
"Locate her homeworld, not a priority. If her homeworld not within Republic Space be, then perhaps Sith have visited more worlds in the Unknown Regions, hmm?"
"…that would be likely," admitted Dooku. He released a long breath. "I will go then, Master. The sooner I leave, the sooner I might start upon her trail."
Yoda nodded and then returned to his meditations. Dooku swept from the room and headed for the hangar bays. He had spoken true to his former master, and he already suspected that his first destination would reside not within Hutt Space, but the last known location of Knight Rynn: the Wheel.
The Dearg Due emerged above the desert world of Tatooine, burnished by its twin suns. Darth Gladiolus, Dark Lord of the Sith and one of three Sith Lords lurking through the Known Galaxy, gazed upon the tan world while her pilot, the Twi'lek Meera, daughter of Admiral Hemmen of the Second Fleet sworn to Gladiolus, busied herself handling their landing sequence. That bright presence in the Force she had sensed periodically throughout her travels struck her, nearly blinding her with the potential power within a single soul. Her Twi'lek pilot scowled at her console, clearly irritated by whoever was on the other side of her communication.
"I think they know who you are, Lord Gladiolus," the Twi'lek grumbled. Gladiolus had let slip her true name while en route from Ryloth. Meera had accepted the knowledge solemnly. "They've said these transponder codes are not viable on Tatooine. Not while 'Jabba the Hutt', as they call him, continues to govern this world."
Gladiolus grunted. "Then land us in secret near whichever spaceport will place us closest to wherever we might find Jabba. I will cross the desert. The Force ensures my strength."
Meera nodded, lips pursed tightly. Several seconds passed before she said, "Looks like our best option is Mos Espa. We'll need to head a bit out of the way to avoid any interested patrols, but this world is remarkably lawless for one alleging to have a governor."
"That's because it is Hutt justice that rules here, not true justice." Not the justice of the Sith, overwhelming and eternal. "The evils of the galaxy can be found on this world, perpetuated and increased by the mere presence of a Hutt."
"Will you kill him?"
"And liberate every slave I find on this wretched rock."
Meera nodded. Gladiolus remained perched in her spot behind the pilot as they descended through the atmosphere, heading down toward a sandy sea that could challenge the Mediterranean of her homeworld. The shuttle leveled out about two miles above the ground, drifting slightly this way and that as Meera carved a squiggling path across the world's surface. Eventually, a great city emerged in the distance, built up with the labor of countless slaves, no doubt. She made out a large spaceport, but that would not be their destination.
The Dearg Due lowered through the sky, eventually finding a flat, hard patch of ground about a mile from Mos Espa's outskirts. The shuttle settled softly, a matte black stain across a landscape of sand and sky. Gladiolus emerged, dressed in her typical Sith garb, and nearly recoiled when she stepped from the shade into the sun. It beat down, heavy and oppressive. She slunk back into her shuttle and changed into garb lighter and more pleasant in the heat. Hooded by thin, silken cloth and garbed in loose trousers and tunic, she started for the city.
Though Gladiolus would soon free the slaves than witness their suffering, she needed to crush Hutt rule before she could act. One miscalculation, one error, and Jabba could flee for a world that would safeguard him even against the full naval might of a Sith Lord.
She paused as a thought struck her. With a smirk, Gladiolus continued into Mos Espa with a single need: directions to Jabba's front door.
Dooku spent thirty-seven minutes aboard the Wheel before he realized his efforts were wasted. The few contacts that Knight Rynn had passed along to the Jedi Council before her disappearance proved fruitless. Anyone she had met during her few days aboard the station had either gone to ground or had been absorbed into the Crusader Navy, as the people called the Sith Lord's personal forces still spread throughout Hutt Space. From what he learned, five fleets served under the Sith. One was comprised entirely of Republic volunteers. Most, however, were former slaves, freed by a Sith.
That knowledge troubled the old Jedi. He had studied enough history to know that the Sith enslaved countless thousands, even millions, of sentients, using their forced labor to increase their power. For one to act so contrary to history meant they were dealing with a different breed of Sith. For a moment, Dooku entertained the notion of living in harmony with this Sith.
But he cast aside that thought as soon as it arrived. She would seek to destroy the Jedi and the Republic. That was certain. She had embarrassed both with her actions and even cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the Jedi Order. Though the atomic glassing of Nal Hutta disgusted many, enough agreed with the choice that Dooku could not shake the feeling that the galaxy he had known for all his life would soon be torn apart in the fires of war.
And this Sith Lord would be one of the banners millions, even billions, would flock to.
As Dooku made for his shuttle, uncertain where he should venture next, an official of the Wheel intercepted him.
"Master Jedi," said a lithe Duros, wringing his hands. His bulbous eyes flickered to a nearby alcove. "I believe I have something you… desire."
He hummed and slipped into that alcove, careful to mask his passing with the Force. While not the most genteel of tricks, Dooku knew that spies for senators, bureaucrats, and the various guilds would take note of a Jedi Master speaking with an employee of the Wheel.
"What do you wish to tell me?" he asked once the Duros joined him.
"Jedi Whae Rynn. She was here months ago, negotiating… something. We don't know. But a woman with black markings and yellow eyes caught her attention. They left, one after the other."
"Do you know where they went?"
"Their paths head away from the Core. Into the Outer Rim." The Duros then leaned in close. "Many who trespass into Sith Space leave from here, heading out the way they did."
Dooku hummed. He had considered visiting the key worlds of Sith Space briefly on his journey from Coruscant. For thousands of years, the products of Korriban, Ziost, and Dromund Kaas had terrorized the galaxy. Given that all the evidence he and Master Yoda possessed suggested the Sith Lord he hunted had emerged from elsewhere, they had fallen to a lower slot on his list.
It appears I was wrong to discount them. This Sith is more tenacious than I expected.
"You have my thanks," Dooku said with a smile. "And now that I know where I must go next, I should depart."
The Duros blubbered and quibbled, attempting to slow the Jedi Master. But Dooku escaped with ease. A little trick of the Force, and he was clear of the Duros. Though he appreciated the insight and information provided by the alien, Dooku needed to focus on the task set before him. His next venture would be into Sith Space, and the three vile worlds that had caused the Jedi trouble in the past, and now in the present.
He only hoped, as he boarded his shuttle, that the threat of the Sith could be permanently vanquished.
Gladiolus strode across the Dune Sea, slowly etching her way northward. With the Force, she maintained a cool internal temperature. She needed little moisture, and her feet remained atop the sand no matter how deep the dunes beneath her got. While she could have seized a Bantha and ridden the beast across the waste, she wanted her presence to go as unnoticed as possible. The great, lumbering beasts would have revealed her presence to any scout or spy about the Dune Sea.
On foot, she could mask herself as a speck, a mirage, a figment of the imagination.
From what the Sith Lord learned in Mos Espa, Jabba maintained a palace located on the fringe edge of the Northern Dune Sea. Once upon a time, the palace had been the citadel of an order of monks. But that had been centuries ago, back when Jabba was weak. Now that he was powerful enough to lord over the world of Tatooine, the monks had allegedly vanished, their order given to the sands of time.
She smirked at that thought. Sands of time. She felt as though time fell away as she crossed the dunes. Day and night were all that remained, and she knew not how long each was. She could guess, certainly. Perhaps she might even have a spark of realization thanks to the Force. But Gladiolus had no cause to learn the truth. She did not need to hurry, for her enemies remained far away, distracted by their own petty conflicts.
The twin suns of Tatooine sat heavy and low in the sky as she crested a tall dune. Gladiolus paused at the top, staring at the bright circles in the violet sky. One burned a hearty red while the other remained gold. She thought about her two lightsabers, about the one crafted by her power and the one taken by her power. For a moment, she wished she possessed them both. But then Gladiolus recalled that she had given no time to training with both weapons. Unless she wanted to learn through pure instinct or risk her destruction, she would be limited to a single blade until her training could be furthered, deepened.
Gladiolus pressed on, even after night fell. Moons moved through the starry sky, luminous without any city light to dampen their majesty. She paused twice to stare up into the sky. Otherwise, the Sith Lord pressed on, knowing that with every step she drew nearer to her Hutt foe. Soon, he would be dead.
Soon, Tatooine would be liberated. And once that transpired, she would be free to hunt down the presence in the Force that lingered almost always at the edge of her awareness, burning bright. The source appeared to be a child, based on her limited prodding. Secrecy would protect the child better than any power he possessed. She would let the child remain anonymous until the proper moment arrived.
The moment she gazed upon the child and realized who they were.
As day approached, a pale glow holding to the horizon wherever Gladiolus spotted it, she sensed a great host of life forms. She lengthened her strides, almost hurrying her pace, as she pushed onward. The Hutt's palace was near. Soon, she would reach it.
Soon, another Hutt would perish by her hand.
Dooku did not stop in the Korriban system. His hand had hovered over the controls, ready to drop from hyperspace should he sense anything that would help guide him toward answers concerning the Sith Lord running about. But the Force remained deceptively silent. And so his shuttle continued.
He passed by Dromund Kaas. The Force remained silent.
He sensed the moment he needed to drop out of hyperspace and so arrived in the Ziost system. The Sith world stunk of the dark side, a cold world of tundra and forest. Dooku closed his eyes and nearly flinched away from the console before him when he felt a scream in the Force. He followed that scream to its origins, plummeting through the atmosphere and passing over a great wood. An ancient city, decrepit and ruined, appeared almost a kilometer and half distant from the scream's source. Dooku brought his shuttle down in the shadow of the city's ruined walls.
The Jedi Master hiked his way back to the source of the scream. He withdrew his lightsaber from his belt, holding the curved pommel in his hand. Decades of training prevented Dooku from accidentally igniting his weapon.
Eventually, he reached the source of the scream. His gaze wandered the area around him. There was a small clearing surrounded by great trees. A few boulders emerged from the ground here and there, but nothing stood out that suggested the pain he sensed.
And so Dooku closed his eyes. His physical senses could lie to him, but the Force would not. He reached out with his feelings and followed the scream, despite how it pained him and sickened him to his core. The taint of the dark side was strong. The taint was slightly familiar, akin enough to the wave of dark side power from when the foreign Sith Lord arose to her full powers that Dooku suspected he had stumbled upon the site where Knight Rynn fell by that Sith's power.
Dooku opened his eyes and glanced down. A blackened patch of grass lay beneath the shelter of a great oak. Pain and horror, fear and desperation. He could taste those feelings, forever burned into the patch before him.
With a sigh, he kneeled before the burnt patch and rested a hand right above it. Dooku closed his eyes as he briefly mourned Whae Rynn. He had not known her, but she was a Jedi. He recalled what the Jedi Code said about death (there is no death, there is only the Force) and then rose to his full height.
"So you killed one of our own and then masqueraded as her," he muttered as though the Sith Lord might be present and listening to him. Dooku breathed out heavily. "I know vengeance is not the Jedi way… and yet I cannot help but desire it. For Knight Rynn. For all the innocents you've harmed."
And for the peace of the galaxy that you so brazenly upset, he thought, unwilling to utter those words aloud.
Dooku turned away from the site of Whae Rynn's death. He trudged back to his shuttle, parked in the shadow of the fallen city. He paused near his shuttle, staring at the city. Something about it troubled him. Drew him.
Answers, he realized. Answers concerning the Sith Lord he pursued lay within.
His mind set, Dooku stepped away from his shuttle and headed into the city. He pierced its fallen defenses, wormed his way along overgrown, crumbling infrastructure, and then stumbled upon a street of trees and pyramids. One burned bright with the Force. The Jedi scaled the exterior with swift leaps instead of entering through the waiting entry. He sensed that what he sought awaited him at the pinnacle and not within the pyramid's depths.
At the pyramid's top, Dooku discovered a large Sith holocron, darkened to a color emulating dried blood. He reached out and tried to activate the holocron, but it remained silent.
Dead.
Yet before he turned away, a hoarse voice groaned on a false wind. The Jedi froze, for he heard a name upon that wind. His lips parted and repeated the name aloud, to himself: "Darth Gladiolus."
Night fell before Gladiolus reached the gate of Jabba's palace. She would not deny the fortune of this hour, yet she did not truly believe day or night would make a difference in the end. The Hutt within would fall by her hand. And once he fell, so would the rest of the wretched system upheld by his cruelty, his greed, and his malice. Hers were kinder, fairer, more just. A Sith's rule was preferred to that of a Hutt.
A band of masked locals had begun to follow her several hours ago, though they maintained their distance. They seemed to sense the danger she posed, and so they dared not risk draw near enough to turn her gaze away from the Hutt and to them. And since they would not trouble her, Gladiolus did not trouble them.
She strolled forward, her gaze barely wandering up the fifty-foot gate, built of what appeared to be rusting durasteel. A flashing, cursing eye emerged several feet away, but she ignored it. Gladiolus instead reached out and lifted the door. Circuitry and gears struggled as they opposed her will, screaming and whining as they attempted to resist her power. The eye swore up a storm, but its words fell on deaf ears.
A black maw opened before her, and so the Sith Lord entered.
Gamorreans, the foul green-skinned pig-men she knew Hutts loved to use as guards, lumbered forward as Gladiolus forced the door to hold where she raised it. They held vibroaxes, ready to try and cleave her in twain. She stepped forward, igniting her crimson blade, and spun between their slow, heavy blows. She sliced twice, removing a pair of pig-shaped heads, overly large and overly disgusting. Their bodies slumped over long after she had strolled past their standing corpses.
The door slid halfway from where she had held it and remained firm.
She followed a sand-floor passage as it slowly curled inward. Her lightsaber remained ignited, despite the lack of threats. Gladiolus sensed most were asleep, content to embrace the safety of sleep they had known under the protection of Jabba Desilijic Tiure. A dark grin, toothy and violent, broke across her face. She would not bring just justice down upon Jabba and those sworn to him.
Darth Gladiolus brought death, as terrible and swift as she cast it across the surface of Nal Hutta.
The passage brought her to a stair. She followed it down, sensing the nearness of her target and those most strongly bound to him. They all slept, including the Hutt. Gladiolus also sensed a trap, a means by which the Hutt could kill any who threatened him.
He is welcome to try and eliminate me, the Sith Lord decided. Why, I might even wake him first. Let him beg or threaten, or by some other means seek preservation against his inevitable death.
But escape has already been stolen from him.
Gladiolus descended the final step. She swept into a large hall, perfect for entertainment and greeting. Her gaze dipped to a section of floor crosshatched, beneath which slumbered a terrible beast. She was almost tempted to seek out the creature and slay it, just so the Hutt would understand the severity of her power and the truth that his life would soon reach its ultimate, final conclusion. But that would be unnecessary. Once he realized who she was, he would understand. He would know of her judgment upon Nal Hutta and tremble.
Against her better judgment, Gladiolus stood upon the crosshatched floor. She stared at the Hutt, a foul, slovenly creature of slime and decadence. She sneered and then bellowed, "Waken, Hutt! Waken and face justice!"
The Hutt shot awake with a confused mutter. Some strange monkey-esque creature screeched as it leaped from its little spot against its master. Several others squawked and squeaked, confused why their slumber had been so rudely interrupted.
"So you are Jabba," said Gladiolus, not permitting the Hutt an opportunity to get his bearings. "Gardulla mentioned you when we spoke. You are less impressive than I expected."
Jabba rumbled before bellowing in Huttese, that foul tongue: "Guards! Seize the interloper! Guards!"
"Afraid you don't have much in terms of guards, now," Gladiolus said. She lazily spun her lightsaber, bringing attention to its brilliant crimson blade. "Though I only killed two, so perhaps I'm wrong."
The Hutt paused at that admission. He blinked and then asked, "Then who are you?" Miraculously, his voice did not tremble.
"Not a friend," confessed Gladiolus. "I should mention that when I spoke with Gardulla, it was moments before a thousand atomics burned Nal Hutta to ash and echoes, leaving behind naught but glass and sorrow."
"So you are the crusader, the false Jedi," the Hutt accused. "But I know the truth of your weapon. You are a Sith!"
"Ah, so you know my kind."
Silence spoke volumes almost equal to any word from the Hutt.
"So, then you must know why I am here."
"I am not as easy to kill as Gardulla," bragged Jabba. "You should mind your tongue before I punish your brazenness."
Gladiolus paused, considering whether or not the Hutt was serious. The moment it dawned upon her that he was serious, she threw back her head and boomed with laughter. Her body ached as waves of pain and pleasure flowed through her; so hard did she laugh that her voice echoed through the chamber, troubling and stilling those gathered to watch her confrontation with Tatooine's ruling Hutt.
"You? Punish me?" she asked, unable to completely thwart her amusement. "I had not thought that arrogance and stupidity were inborn traits of the Hutts. I had presumed the ambition and arrogance of your race was a product of your history and of long lives, able to stand up against the challenges you have managed to overcome. But it appears those defects were bred into your abominable race long ago."
The Hutt roared, furious at her provocation. He slammed a meaty fist atop his stubby arms against a large button—
a tremble in the Force
—and Gladiolus leaped into the air a heartbeat before the floor beneath her feet gave way. Her crimson blade still active, she swung the moment her feet touched solid ground. Her blade carved through flesh, melting and searing all it passed through. A wretched spray splashed her face, prompting her to close her eyes. A wicked death roar rattled the room. With her own wordless roar, Gladiolus blasted a massive pulse of Force power through the chamber. Though she knew releasing such power might draw undue, unwanted attention to Tatooine, it also drove away every fiend, critter, and fool that might dare attack her.
It was unlikely, given she had slain their master, Jabba the Hutt. But one never knew with the desperate and fanatical. A chance remained, faint as it was, that one present might attempt to avenge their master against her.
Seconds passed as all gathered and present hesitated. Her eyes remained closed. She did not need them. The Force would alert her to an attack. She waited for any who might dare her, willing and jealous enough to attack.
Seconds turned to minutes. Gladiolus was eventually left alone. Her eyes flickered open, and she stared at the mutilated corpse of Jabba. She spat on the slaver and gangster and then muttered, "Good riddance to filth."
She leaped away from the corpse, passing over the hole left behind by his action. She peered down into the gap; some foul beast moved about, growling and hungering for any flesh to satisfy it. Gladiolus considered descending into the pit below and slaying the creature. Mercy might not be her creed, but she was willing to grant it to all who lived to merely die a terrible death. Yet part of her wondered if the beast might find the means to free itself, to conjure from certain death a new life.
Unlikely, but it could happen.
And with that decided, the Sith Lord departed the palace, content to leave it abandoned for the desert to consume. If anyone else called it home, they were welcome to hide in their towers and palatial bowels, forgotten by time and history.
Instead of directly communicating with Coruscant from Ziost, Dooku returned to the Jedi Temple. He considered heading straight to Master Yoda before deciding the whole Council needed to know all he had discovered. He would not deny his findings were meager, but they were enough to commit a stronger effort toward hunting the Sith Lord, Darth Gladiolus. Though her nature seemed benign by the standards of past Sith, she had already killed one Jedi Knight. The Sith Lord was a danger to the Order and to the Republic they had long served.
He entered the turbolift up to the Council chambers. One member of the Council always remained close at hand so that they could all be summoned swiftly, should an emergency demand that they all be summoned to attendance.
Dooku glanced out the transparisteel wall of the lift. He spotted hovercars and speeders pass, confined to their lanes, as the few clouds permitted to float in the day sky moved southeasterly. Sun shone upon the districts surrounding the Temple; thankfully, the Senate was not within his view. He struggled to stomach the increasing corruption of that ancient, august institution. The Jedi Order and the Senate were the two great pillars upon which the Republic rested, and one was already rotted. He could not permit the other to fall.
The turbolift reached the council chamber floor. Dooku turned as the door hissed open and stepped out, his cape rippling behind him. His stern gaze wandered the bank, searching for any member of the Jedi Council. A frown coiled between his brows as he moved from the bank to the waiting chamber, still finding nobody waiting.
And then he sensed the Council, already gathered. Agitation drew Dooku's attention, though whose particular agitation he could not tell. It almost felt like several were agitated, unable to let go of whatever troubled them.
How un-Jedi-like.
Dooku paused before the door into the chamber, waiting for whoever was present to depart. He reached out and then blinked. It was his former Padawan, Qui-Gon, and his Padawan learner, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He waited several minutes. When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan finally stepped out, only the Padawan continued to the turbolift banks with a murmured "Master".
"It's good to see you, old friend," Dooku told Qui-Gon. "I sense something has happened while I have been away. What is amiss?"
Qui-Gon nodded pensively. "The Trade Federation has decided to protest the continued debate in the Senate concerning the taxation of their trade routes by blockading the world of Naboo. It appears they have taken offense at Senator Palpatine's actions and have decided to inflict pain upon him and his world."
Dooku sighed. "What has this Republic become, where a corporation can act out so? I am relieved that you are being sent to handle the issue, old friend."
"Indeed," Qui-Gon said. "It is troubling that corporations like the Trade Federation possess the means to inflict their will upon Republic systems. But this is the galaxy we live in. We can strive to create change…"
"But we are Jedi, and we have sworn off directly interfering in politics."
Qui-Gon nodded. "I should go before Obi-Wan grows too impatient. He struggles with remaining present, instead attempting to peer into the future."
"Foresight is a useful skill."
"I will not deny its use, but if he does not mind the present, then he can miss events occurring around him."
"You fear that will cause trouble."
"I fear it will bring him grief." Qui-Gon then sighed. "It was good to see you, my former master."
And without another word, Qui-Gon left. Dooku watched his former apprentice go, left with a troubled feeling. It was as though they would never meet again. Not on equal footing, nor with a familiar understanding of each other.
But he could do nothing about that now. Dooku watched Qui-Gon slip into a turbolift before turning to enter the Council chamber, ready to report the name of the mysterious Sith who had masqueraded as one of their own and proceeded to liberate the slaves of Hutt Space, no matter what evil cruelties she committed.
Darth Gladiolus returned to Mos Espa to find the city in turmoil. The city did not burn with revolution and looting, as might have happened in some ancient time. The slavers maintained too firm a grasp over the city to permit that. But turmoil still rippled through the city, a plague upon their comfort. As she reached out into the Force, she sensed their disquiet, their fear, their uncertainty. They knew about her slaughter of Jabba the Hutt, of how she pierced his palace in the midst of night and destroyed him with ease. They also knew she had vanished back out into the Great Dune Sea, a specter bound by word and deed to destroy them, in turn.
Garbed as any trader crossing the sands of Tatooine, Gladiolus found no trouble as she slipped through the winding streets and alleys of Mos Espa. She sought out the highest concentration of slavers: panicked, uncertain, frightened. Once she dealt with them, bringing down the institution as a whole across the planet would be child's play. Why, she suspected it was mostly relegated to Mos Espa and anywhere else the taint of the Hutts spread forth. Between Gardulla, who once dominated the planet, and Jabba, who was set to dominate it, she suspected the taint only went deep where they held sway.
And because of that, her presence onworld would be prolonged long enough to uproot it all—and discover the presence she sensed in the Force.
She found the slavers halfway across the city, hidden within a massive warehouse-like structure. Strange vehicles, little more than two massive engines and a piloting rig, were lined up almost haphazardly, as though they had been returned to their stations without care. The Sith Lord slipped between them as she drew closer to the slavers, who argued loudly about their next course of action.
Gladiolus drew near and then waited for the perfect lull in the conversation. A Toydarian, fluttering and furious, finished his point by saying, "We would all be wise to flee the planet! Several already have, taking their slaves with them!"
"Then they," Gladiolus declared, her voice amplified to fill the massive chamber, "shall find that my grasp is not so limited." She stepped forward with a slinking motion. Lowering her hood and drawing fabric from her mouth, she revealed her true self to the slavers. They recoiled at the sight of sulfuric eyes and a human female, her face marked with tattoo designs. "Jabba perished with ease, for he dared threaten me. He could have found a means to live, had he been… wiser."
The slavers exchanged uncertain, wary looks. Some feared she spoke true, while others feared what the easy lie meant. Gladiolus counted maybe fifty in total. More than she expected, given the days that passed between her execution of Jabba and her return to Mos Espa. That so many remained spoke volumes of their arrogance—or to their poor financial choices. The Toydarian she interrupted, for one, clearly could not flee the planet. A brief consideration of the reason why passed through her mind before being swiftly set aside. He was a slaver, like the rest before her. She might show mercy and grace, but they would need to earn it. Desire it.
Covet it.
She continued forward, her lightsaber resting calmly against her palm. Her thumb rubbed the ignition, ready to trigger her weapon. She sensed the unease in those before her. Several gazes dropped to her weapon. That it had not been activated yet did not fill them with relief or ease. A few feared her deactivated weapon more than if the blade thrummed.
"Now, I am willing to be… merciful. But you must mean what you say." Her gaze wandered from face to face, savoring their fear and worry.
"Who are you?" demanded a human, half his face burned and the other half covered in bandages.
She sneered at him. "You cannot be so foolish as to not know who I am."
The man's mouth opened, ready to spew whatever filth filled his mind when a slaver out of view bellowed, "She is Lady Edelweiss! The false Jedi who burned Nal Hutta!"
"I am greater than any false Jedi," Gladiolus declared. She waited for uncertain mutters to break out before continuing. "I am a Sith Lord, one who makes even the greatest of Jedi Masters quake with fear. Time and again, they have sought to purge my order from the galaxy. Time and again, we have returned, obsessed purely with revenge. Why, even now Sith of that nature work in the halls of power, seeking to undermine and eliminate the Republic the Jedi hold dear." She smirked viciously. "But I? I am a different breed. I seek to reveal to them, being both my fellow Sith and the Jedi, the falsehoods they hold dear. I am the coming of a new age, the end of an era.
"And you are all fortunate to witness its birth. Some of you may even live long enough to serve me. The rest shall be dealt with, relics of a bygone era. Relics of a time best forgotten, left to the works of history that will one day fade into myth and legend."
The human who had snarled at her stepped forward and spoke once more. "You still have not said who you are!"
"That is true. I have not introduced myself." She curtseyed to them mockingly. "I am…"
"The one responsible for Nal Hutta and the disturbances in Hutt Space is a Sith Lord who calls herself 'Darth Gladiolus'," Dooku told the gathered Jedi Council. "I have discovered that she slew Jedi Knight Whae Rynn, the same one she masqueraded as during her crusade against the Hutt slave trade."
Disturbed and disgruntled hums and grunts met his proclamation. Dooku had eased his way into the explanation, but eventually it would be revealed that select members of the Order had kept secret their knowledge that the Sith had returned. He glanced at Master Yoda. Nothing had been said yet of the girl's uncertain origins. If she had emerged from the depths of the Unknown Regions or Wild Space, then how had she learned of the Sith? He could understand if she were a powerful dark sider, one whose techniques and ambitions matched the Sith of yore. But she claimed a Sith Lord's title. He knew that with grim certainty.
"This is troubling news," said Mace Windu. "Unfortunately, public opinion is slightly swayed in her favor. Though many are horrified by what happened to Nal Hutta, there is a… belief among the public that the Jedi should have stepped in and dealt with the Hutts long ago. A number located here on Coruscant have already fled with everything they possess in tow."
"Including slaves?"
"We fear so, despite the laws prohibiting slavery within Republic Space," said Ki-Adi-Mundi. "But as it stands, we have no evidence to support that conclusion. Only speculation and feelings in the Force."
"Which has increasingly been shrouded by the dark side," Dooku pointed out. "How else were so many on this council blind to a Sith Lord free to run about in the galaxy?"
"Two Sith," Yoda said suddenly. "A master and an apprentice. Speculation of Sith not extinct, long has been. Rumors, fears, as old as Ruusan. Careful with this course we must be."
Dooku frowned while disgruntled conversation broke out amongst the Council. Two Sith? He had no reason to believe Darth Gladiolus had a second with her. Not one who was a Sith Lord like her. Perhaps she had a servant, but not an apprentice.
"I do not believe this second Sith is with Darth Gladiolus, Master," Dooku said. "If there is a Sith Order structured as you say, then they are separate from Gladiolus."
"Then three Sith," muttered Mace Windu. He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "I would recommend that you consider pursuing this Sith 'Gladiolus' further, Master Dooku. The Council will begin its investigation into the chance that other Sith walk among us."
Dooku bowed and left. He doubted the Council would get far in their investigation. Not if what had been said was true. Not if Sith had lingered after their apparent defeat at Ruusan. Not if they had potentially infiltrated the Republic.
Unfortunately for him, the only person living with true answers to his questions happened to be the very same Sith he now pursued.
He only hoped this 'Darth Gladiolus' remained stagnant, looming in Hutt Space as some demon spoken of in hushed whispers on backwater worlds across the Rims. Else, he would need to hunt her down once more.