Chapter II

My skin begins to heal, coming in pale pink and welling with healing blood. The wound is stiff inside now, and again the pain has changed. The exit point on my back is harder to reach, and so remains raw longer. Eventually I can stand to look at my back in a mirror hung on the inside of a metal cabinet. The onboard miniature med-droid, plugged as it is into the wall, is finally able to assist me.

After a time of harsh denial, I come to the conclusion that my master did not plan for me to survive against the two Jedi. Perhaps he even foresaw my death, not the narrow miss.

Perhaps I will have my revenge on Sidious as well. But first, this man Tyranus.

When I can go to the ship’s computer, I do. Finding the Count Dooku on Serenno is not challenging; the royal family is proud of their lineage. Surprisingly, the Dooku records intersect with those of the Jedi Temple. Sidious took this wretch from our enemies’ halls? Silently the anger burns within my thoughts. The Jedi records are impenetrable, I know, to both public and specialized eyes. They needed to be. I wonder what they have to hide.

I focus. Even my thoughts are whirring away, released by the betrayal of my master. It is almost as if he is dead, because that eventuality is the only one I ever imagined where he and I not allied. But such tangential thoughts must be pushed away. Focus.

Dooku became a Jedi, and then defected. Lord Sidious found him, and is grooming him as my replacement. His location? Perhaps The Works, my training ground, but most likely not. Dooku has his own past, and Lord Sidious has hideouts I do not know.

Where to begin?

I want to fly. I want to leave this place, where cameras may have their glinting eyes on my ship. I am still stiff, and carefully monitor my body’s reactions to the painkillers and other ministrations. But once I get to the pilot’s seat, flying is familiar enough to be comfortable. I am surprised that the Naboo have not tried to investigate this ship: I have been in their hanger for almost a month, with the doors locked and the cameras on.

A quick look at a local newsfeed erases most of the confusion. The Trade Federation’s push into wilderness opened up a nest of gundarks: aquatic sentients called Gungans, with whom the Naboo have been negotiating for the last few weeks, since a peace was officially declared between the two cultures. The droid armies have been wiped out by a human child called Anakin Skywalker—the newsfeeds are replete with his face.

News of Queen Amidala pierces me with the reminder of my failure. I would endeavor to complete my task, I would prevail--but the time for that treaty has passed and the Neimoidians have fled. The galaxy has moved on and forgotten, although I barely can resist pursuing her to complete Sidious' wishes to the letter.

The Infiltrator leaves Naboo’s skies without a word shouted after it.

The Sith have been hidden for so long. I yearn to burst from the shadows and reveal our existence, to know the resulting fear. For now, I will turn that energy, and direct it toward this being Dooku.

I’m not ready for this. I know it the moment I step through the shattered window of Chateau Malreaux. Vjun: world of acid rain, bloodthirsty groundcover, gothic architecture. My wound twinges when my boots hit the tiled floor, but I am a juggernaut, an intent, a drive--!

Dooku says, “Thank you for notifying me of the malfunctioning force field. But you could have just opened the window.” He is as he looked in Sidious’ records, the ones still open to me. They also provided the Count’s likely locations, including this mansion. He has one hand on an antique bookshelf, his feet in a fencer’s stance, and the mien of a carrion bird; shrewd, cold-eyed, arrogant. Circling above his prey which does not know it is about to die. Stormy clouds outside cast gray shadows in the daylight.

I activate my lightsaber. It is repaired in the most rudimentary way, wiring and electrical tape—I attack, the blades held low. I get the satisfaction of knowing his surprise. He has never seen such a weapon before; saber hand pushing his red blade around in elegant loops, he backs away into the center of the room.

Strike, parry, jump, clash, strike. He spins, cuts for my shoulder. I block, and something inside me tears. My throat is filling with blood. Dooku moves forward to press the advantage, and I spit it onto his face. I mustn’t bring a hand to my chest, although I’m falling apart, pain leaking through my defenses as surely as a blade. I step away from the bookcase he pushed me toward, away from him.

He hurls books at me with the Force. It is easy to turn them aside, even with my arms tucked close against my body. The Force holds the skin-bound pages, the breakable spines. He knocks some away from his face with one hand, deflects some to the floor with a flourish of his lightsaber and the Force; one hits him on the side. He does not respond—doesn’t retaliate. The tests are over. These records older than holocrons lie broken, tented into triangles, some pages littering the floor. He’s standing in their midst looking at me with incredulity, knowing that I feel like I’m falling apart.

“So,” he says, sonorously, regal even with the red blood spattering his white hair. “You are the old apprentice. Interesting. Lord Sidious suggested you might be alive.”

I say nothing. Vaguely I think, So? I often am subject to this apathy. There are forty armed guards on a causeway between my success and I. So?

“Interesting.” He examined me; like Sidious he silently examined the set of my feet. “A cowering animal. It is a bit sad for the future, really.”

I must not move.

“Leave,” he says.

I am surprised. I was prepared to die. “Why?” Why do you allow this, Dooku? Let your mercy, or whatever it was, teach me about you.

“A clear enemy will provide me practice. Besides, it’s not worth my time right now to kill you.” He turns his back once, infuriatingly secure, terribly correct, and walks away.

I think I can leave. I think I can bring myself back to my ship. It floats just outside the mansion.

Instead, for a time, I become well acquainted with the crimson-and-bone checkered floor.

I wasn’t ready. I need to heal.

It takes one year and seven months.

I know exactly the time, the day, and the year, at any moment I wish to look for them. The chronometers are still synchronized with Naboo, although I set my ship to travel the galaxy. Occasionally I stop for fuel, using the Dark Eyes to order it. They have audio output, but rudimentary intelligence. The fuel-station workers hear my quiet voice emanate from the black droids.

In my sleeping quarters, the only thing that moves is the chrono display. I lie there and heal and atrophy. I want to move; I have never been still for long. The Force holds me down, now, because I have ordered it to. I discipline my disciplined rage into stillness.

Sidious preached patience, but always gave me diversions. Droids, obstacle courses, half-sentients to kill. Is resting this way against his wishes? Perhaps living is, but I still harbor aspersions of returning to him, perhaps with Dooku’s white, severed head in hand. I am still the apprentice, one of two.

But Sidious himself broke that rule.

I am confused, and thought does not alleviate the confusion.

I wake up, change the bandages over my wounds, check the flawless navicomputer, and go back to sleep, cocooned in the Force; not a particular side of it, but a wave, a braid, of energy. Sometimes I would not have known whether I slept for a day or a week, were that information not written in green-glowing digits against the wall.

When I can exercise, I do. When I cannot, I do not. The former begins to overwhelm the latter.

I need a teacher. I’m working, rebuilding my body to as near its former state as it can be. I am no longer bed-ridden, and my skin has regrown so that I consider having it inked again. The tattoos are, though, a mark of devotion, and I feel shaken as to who or what I am now devoted to. I have mended the staff lightsaber.

The ship’s equipment serves well enough, but I require a sparring partner and new ground. But whom? If ever I have made allies during a mission, they were quickly discarded out of necessity, to protect the secret of the Sith. What permanent contact do I have? Who would be any use against experienced Dooku?

Jedi Padawan comes to mind. He is skilled…he veritably killed me. I will have to get into the Jedi Temple.

But he lost a master too.

And he will want to continue to fight the Sith, to fight Dooku, whose name he does not know. So I have information and an opportunity that he wants, as well as a task for him to undertake in turn.

First I need his location, then his name. His Force sense is burnt into my memory, coupled with my pain. It will not be easy to restrain myself from attacking him as I attacked Dooku, not as I wish to tear into any Jedi who lives. They will not find me, as I walk their halls cloaked in the dark side that pervades the galaxy. I will watch their masters, unseen.

I find myself imagining this future before it solidifies into a plan. Dangerous fantasies!

I must restrain myself, not move too quickly and fail, like on the last two occasions when my life was in another being’s hands.

I plan.

Still, this walk into my enemy’s fortress will be satisfying.