If Ahsoka hadn't been to the Lake Country on Naboo with its lush waterfalls and beautiful meadows, upon arriving at the villa – an estate she'd gleaned from Lux's halfhearted attempts at conversation belonged to his mother's side of the family – she might've thought she'd come to paradise.
Though its leaders were hell-bent on expansion, Kyzeron had never felt anything but stagnant. It was a place of dead ends in the Force, where none but the truly desperate or truly enterprising ventured; most stayed away for fear of upsetting the Empire or the nobility and winding up slaves themselves. Physically, breezes traveling through it were a scant few degrees cooler than the surrounding air temperature, and more often than not choked off by the stifling humidity.
It wasn't like that here.
The air that wafted into the gunship as it landed was clean and cool – and it moved. The wind bit at her exposed arms and legs sharply but without malice, like a water creature holding an unfamiliar object close enough to examine by taste. The jungles that dominated Onderon's surface had transitioned into violet palm trees, a hardier stock than those closer to the equator. Rupings and smaller, brightly plumed avians rode the currents high above; the palm fronds rustled with their passing.
Even without reaching into it, Ahsoka could feel how strong the Living Force was here. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, and felt a hidden tightness in her chest loosen. The grip Kyzeron had on her soul was slipping away, even if she knew Barriss should've been there with her.
She froze up again, running back to her walls of icy apathy out of reflex, but they gave her no peace now. She was too full of feeling – it pounded on the gates of her little mental fortress and howled until she could hear nothing else – and she didn't dare release any of it into the Force. Surely orders had been sent out by now for the Elite storm troopers to begin their search patterns, each unit precisely placed to form an unbroken net screening for the slightest use of Jedi power...
Grief gave way to panic, and Ahsoka curled a little tighter around herself on the munitions crates she and Lux were sharing. She'd touched the hearts of so many in the plaza by the auction house, rioted them into rebellion, but she'd nearly lost herself to (she had to name it for what it was) the dark side to do it. And for what? She was alone and apart again, a speck of dust in the cold emptiness of space so far from hope and help even the stars seemed dim.
Lux draped his short cape over her shoulders and helped her to her feet with such tenderness Ahsoka clawed at it, anchoring herself to his presence in the Force. He was never completely untroubled, but he was always warm and welcoming. Yes. He was her purpose, her mission – the star to guide her to salvation.
"It's early, still, but would you like to retire after a light supper?" he asked as he led her away from the gunship, their escort following a respectful distance away. The path curved around an especially dense group of tree trunks, but through the lush vegetation, Ahsoka could see flashes of stonework that suggested a large building. "Or, I, well..."
He trailed off, looking distinctly embarrassed. Ahsoka tucked her borrowed cape (it fell laughably nearly mid-calf when it was so much shorter on him, but she wasn't complaining) tighter around herself and raised a brow at him.
"Forgive me. I meant only that..." He huffed a laugh and grinned at her, a look she'd never seen before on him that was so boyish and unrefined and utterly joyful it warmed something deep inside her. "Well, I spent so much time here as a child, and I've been dying to go revisit my old haunts. I'd love to share them with you – to make amends, if I can, for what happened today."
Some flicker of indecision must've shown on her face, because his smile faded some. "Of course," he broke in before she could speak, "I'm being silly and asking too much of you. I'll stay in tonight and do my paperwork. I'll be just down the hall."
Just down the hall. But that was still away from him and his sunshine grins and the warmth she really, really wanted to keep a hold on right now.
"You know, for a former Senator, you really wear your heart on your sleeve," Ahsoka said with an affectionate smile, stalling for time.
Lux flushed. "I... tend to swing between protocol and how I'm really feeling, most days. Especially if I'm trying to impress someone."
"And you're trying to impress me?" Ahsoka bit back an incredulous laugh. The idea of someone of his rank trying to win the good graces of a slave was ridiculous to say the least, but Lux continually defied her expectations of a slave owner. Perhaps it was time to stop setting them.
"You tell me. Weren't you the one who said that a week's time was enough to get a good sense of my character?" he retorted smoothly.
"Yes, but I don't think it's just that."
"Oh?"
Apparently he wasn't going to take that for a complete answer. Smiling, she added, "Your apologies the second you think you've offended me, the way you helped me calm down before when I was losing touch in the speeder, the way you always ask my opinion before making a decision that might concern both of us..." She barked out a laugh when it hit her. "You just want me to like you."
Lux's brows rose a fraction, and for a few long seconds Ahsoka was mortified he'd misinterpreted her. Her lekku flushed, but when she summoned the courage to look up at him again, she found the same grin as before had leapt back onto his face.
"Very perceptive," he said, crossing his arms demurely behind his back. "I've been in public service since I was young. I always did better if I knew people liked my delivery, my way of doing things. I'd not condone supporting a politician with charisma but lacking substance, but is it shameful to want the best of both worlds?"
"You wear your heart on your sleeve and you like to dance around the point."
"Well, I beg your pardon for giving you context that proves your assumption correct, Ms. Taari." He said it stiffly, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes. "You seem in fairly good spirits, but to reiterate, just in case: would you prefer to spend a quiet afternoon and evening to recuperate, or shall we explore a little?"
They rounded the bend, and the villa, a group of buildings nestled against a rocky cliffside, came into view. The artful construction of sandy brick and painted durasteel with a roof of blue tiles put the blocky grey stonework favored in Kyzeron to shame. Domesticated varieties of the larger deep-jungle trees shaded charming nooks, but let enough sunlight down elsewhere for verdant gardens to thrive.
Ahsoka nodded to the grove of wild palms to their left. "Anything in there that would eat us if it got a chance?"
"Nothing you couldn't handle, I'm sure. Besides, there's a ray shield around the entire estate retrofitted with top of the line scanners and bio-filters. If the system senses a threat – a large predator or a harmful toxin, for example – it programs the shield to strengthen as much as would be needed to repel it."
Ahsoka gave a low whistle and murmured, "Major security for a patch of land and a couple of nice buildings in the middle of nowhere."
Lux shrugged. "Many Onderonians value tradition and accept major change with caution. Some found my mother's government proposals shockingly liberal. She made a lot of enemies very quickly, so she wanted to be sure her son and heir was perfectly safe even when on vacation."
His sunshine dimmed as he spoke, obscured by heavier and heavier clouds until what little brightness remained was for her benefit alone. His somberness made her heart ache, even as she started cross-analyze the tidbits he'd given her with what little else she knew about his family. She hated herself for that.
She was already using him as a tool to accomplish her own ends. She'd gone into this with that intention, and it wouldn't do her any good to get attached. But like her Master before her, letting go of attachments – and stopping herself from making them in the first place – was something she'd always struggled with. Now that she'd gone and melted her walls away in a catastrophic surge of anger, keeping herself emotionally apart from the situation would be harder than ever.
I betrayed Anakin and Barriss by not acting quickly enough, and Obi-Wan and Cody and Padmé by not being there when I should've been. Now I'm betraying a person who has more legal right than anyone to treat me badly but isn't – he hasn't pressed me once about what happened in the arena – to avenge them.
Ahsoka set her jaw. She was just going to have to hunker down and deal with it, the same as everything else. She'd keep her guilt at bay without Lux's warmth somehow – starting with accelerating her timetable. There was an opportunity in what he'd divulged to learn more. For all her claims, the sooner she had a more solid profile on him, the better. She had to be gone before she got too attached to him.
"I thought you were Lord Noreino's heir," she prodded, swallowing remorse and an instinct to slip back into her sedate Alynna persona. Lux responded well to banter, so that was what she'd give him. "Or can you be both if your mother was from another Great House? I'm sorry, I've never had the best grasp on politics."
"Now who's dancing around the point?" Lux said with a weak laugh, a beam of sunlight peeking through an overcast sky. He motioned to the gardens ahead of them. "You still haven't answered my question, and we're running out of time to make a break for the undergrowth."
"I doubt our tail would approve – I'm sure they're still nervous about earlier today." Ahsoka inclined her head to the storm troopers and Noreino guards fifteen or so feet behind them. "How about a happy medium? Show me around the gardens, first, and we'll play it by ear from there. If you were once a Senator, I don't think I'd be presuming too much if I said you must've had a favorite reading spot nearby."
Lux's expression brightened. "I did, actually! How are you with climbing?"
"Why would we need to climb?"
"It's in a tree... One that was a lot lower to the ground five years ago."
"I should've expected that," Ahsoka said. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward an especially gnarled old tree in answer, and she flashed him a wry smile.
Lux did care about her, and he wouldn't betray her in a hurry, but this would be a long game. It would be so easy to take the power she'd used today to move faster, to make him tell her what she needed to know. Ahsoka shook the thought away. She'd do this her way, and her way didn't involve casual forays into the dark side. Lux, as kind as he was, was expendable. But going down that road again was one betrayal she was not prepared to make.
"News from Onderon, Your Majesty: a communiqué displaying the proper clearance codes was logged five minutes ago. Its contents are encrypted, barring all but the highest level of clearance, but I believe it concerns Project Archetype."
The man called Emperor Dooku Serenno by most – and Darth Tyranus, his truest title, by a handful – blinked his eyes open to regard the young man standing before him. Dooku enjoyed the charming dance around the subject the masses called politics, but hated repetition; it was just as well that he hadn't announced himself as a formality. Though Dooku's mind had been far away, he'd sensed this particular underling coming four hallways off.
While his blatant disregard for privacy was an irksome trait, his bluntness and the information he carried now would earn him the right to speak – but not entirely without reprimand.
"I prefer facts to beliefs, Agent Kallus," Dooku said, rising smoothly from the low seat in his study he used for meditation and righting his cloak behind him. "Beliefs are fickle. Facts are more difficult to alter. I have made you head of the new Imperial Security Bureau, so I hope, for your sake, that your interruption is as worthwhile as you... believe."
To his credit, Alexsandr Kallus did not flinch, and kept his fear down to a quick throb that soon disappeared. In a rare display of tact, he bowed and said, "Your word is law and your judgment the basis from which all morality emanates, my Emperor. I will leave determining that to your superior reasoning."
The words were flowery, but Dooku did not humor him with a show of thanks; rather, he extended a hand for the datapad Kallus held out to him. Kallus had been in his service long enough to know the absence of a threat or an insult was the only way Dooku expressed praise, and he had no qualms with it he dared to voice.
Dooku strode forward, the crisp thuds of his boots on the tile echoing in the room that had once been the Jedi Council chamber. Snatching up the datapad, he inserted his code cylinder into the reader and cued up the communiqué.
"From the file size, I assume the document is not a long one. Shall I await your orders here?"
Dooku huffed quietly but permitted Kallus the small victory technicality afforded him. Through the ISB he was granted a high level of security clearance, but after a year and a half on the hunt, Kallus was bored of the tasks assigned to him. He'd been trying to worm his way into the likes of Project Archetype for months, and had surely brought Dooku this communiqué himself for that very reason.
Dooku was careful to keep his thoughts heavily shielded just in case as he withdrew to begin reading. Project Archetype was the pinnacle upon which many things in his new Empire rested, and he would not allow Kallus' meddling to sully it.
I.Y. 1.11.18, 1600 hours.
Elite Lieutenant 379.
Subject: Possible Threat to Project Archetype.
Two-pronged Jedi incursion on Kyzeron Royal Auction House suspected.
One incursion confirmed by designation: Reduction Subject 6882 (Barriss Offee). Classification: Padawan. Strength before Reduction: 12,000m/c. Strength after Reduction: 1160m/c (slightly above average).
Instigator of second incursion (suspected Jedi) was not identified.
Weapons used in first incursion: Imperial lightsaber prototype modified mid-combat, which overloaded shortly after. Subject 6882 disarmed multiple gladiator commandos and threw the overloading lightsaber at the Noreino private box before succumbing to her injuries. 34 guests confirmed dead as a result of the explosion, Lord Imperator Noreino and Heir-Designate Aluxsidrian not among them. Use of the Force beyond Subject 6882's midichlorian yield not suspected.
Weapons used in second incursion: stolen vibroblade later recovered on a Gotal corpse (possible original owner due to matching sheath on his person). Eyewitness accounts from guests confirm all locks, collars, chains and gates holding slaves broke at the same moment. Eyewitness accounts from reliable sources impossible to acquire; all private and state guards and troopers on duty perished in the same attack. Number of deaths is estimated at 500. Use of the Force confirmed by multiple eyewitnesses.
Slaves then moved across the plaza to intercept reinforcements. Reliable sources allege slaves recited an unbroken chant of 'run, fight, rebel' as they fought. Instigator leapt down from the auction house roof to join the riot shortly after, but soon fled in the same direction; 7 Elites and 30 storm troopers are confirmed dead by their hands. Conclusive record of midichlorian count and appearance was impossible to establish due to an unknown shielding technique. Total casualties and losses of slave property are still being ascertained. More information to follow as the investigation continues.
Hail Serenno.
The message was brief and to the point. That was typical from an Elite storm trooper, whose thoughts were conditioned so rigidly they permitted little else. But this one, the lieutenant assigned to the Kyzeron region, was so much so that her report bordered on lacking information.
Dooku did not allow it to gnaw at him too much. The unidentified Force wielder's first attack had generated an astounding number of casualties, but that was no excuse for hastiness. He'd trained his subordinates well; more information with which to determine a course of action would be on its way soon.
With probes so razor-focused and precise they cut through the Force almost without disturbing it, Dooku lapsed into a waking meditation. At the call of the Dark Lord of the Sith, the dark side surged up, roaring and ready to answer him. He opened his mind to receive its guidance.
He rifled through the chaotic onslaught of information it threw at him with practiced ease, whittling it down until the currents calmed. He found then that he'd come to rest on a single image, flickering and fading into darkness around the edges: Anakin Skywalker in his old Jedi robes and Lux Bonteri – now Aluxsidrian Noreino – in combat gear walking side by side through the ruins of a jungle fortress. The setting refused to take on greater clarity despite his efforts, but from the distinctive lilac hue of the palm trees, someplace on Onderon was the likeliest possibility.
The whelp who'd been such a thorn in his side during the Clone Wars looked much as he had upon his and his fellow rebels' capture two years before. In that case, using his appearance as a temporal marker would likely prove futile. Dooku knew not why the Force had shown the boy to him when by all accounts his father had him safely in hand, but to see Anakin Skywalker now...
That particular detail was twice as interesting.
Was this a fragment of the past, or of a possible future? Surely not the latter; Skywalker was gone, and his power was securely within Dooku's grasp. Besides, the fallen Jedi had never been to Onderon. Even the most secret missions left traces, and Skywalker's records in the Temple and in the old Republic military archives were files Dooku had had reason to peruse thoroughly.
Strange, how information about this eluded his probes into the Force. Even as he pictured the image in his mind it blurred white, a hue his visions hadn't taken since his turn to the dark side twenty-two years prior. Something was beginning, bringing light to the Force and making the dark corners difficult to see into.
He could not allow that to happen.
One Jedi dead on Onderon, and another appearing suddenly with exceptional power... Dooku calmed himself. Every disadvantage can be made into an opportunity.
He removed his code cylinder from the datapad, locking the message and its contents away before striding across the room to where Kallus stood. Kallus gaped when he handed him the datapad then brushed past him to the hallway beyond. A heartbeat later, he scrambled to catch up.
"Your Majesty, tell me your orders for–"
"I must speak with my apprentice. You will stand by until then."
Kallus put on a burst of speed to place himself between Dooku and the door. Dooku tempered an impulse to kill him for such audacity with the knowledge that Kallus' ambition made him a useful pawn. But he did not stop walking, either. Kallus was forced to jog backward to keep a respectful distance away from him.
"Please, Emperor Serenno, tell me your will so that I may prove my worth to you and to the Empire! Don't leave everything to your apprentice. He has not served you nearly as long as I, and he is not half as loyal!"
Dooku stared down the bridge of his nose at him. "If legitimate power is what you wish for, you would be wise not to impede the one person in this galaxy who can give it to you, Agent Kallus."
Kallus paled and slowed, leaping out of the way in the nick of time to avoid getting trod upon. Dooku's patience was wearing thin; before the younger man could begin voicing flustered apologies, he said, "The time for playing errand boy to eavesdrop on my plans is over. Return to your duties. You are dismissed."
He reached the turbolift and closed the door with the Force before Kallus could get another word in, and programmed it to take him to the training dojo.
The turbolift was an efficient one, and the journey across dozens of floors to the appropriate level took less than a minute. The sycophants he permitted in rarely ventured here; with no one to impress, he disembarked without ceremony. Even from afar he could hear the zip-swish of a lightsaber moving through combat forms at a dizzying speed, and the answering snaps of laser bolts being scattered into ions.
The blond youth weighed down next to none by a half-mask and a small life support module whirled as Dooku approached. The deep, seething fury he'd been channelling into his exercises drew a low growl from him before he remembered his place, dousing his crimson blade and dropping to one knee.
"Master," he said, his voice distorted by the mask, "what is your bidding?"
"Rise, apprentice. Walk with me."
The young man stopped only to fetch his cloak and toss the hood over his hair, cropped closer to his scalp than he'd worn it in years in the wake of a recent head injury, before doing as he was bidden.
Though he'd only been training as a Sith for a year, the apprentice's fighting skill was a credit to him. A plan was coalescing in Dooku's mind that would make good use of his brute strength and strong will. Still, there was much about him that meshed poorly with Dooku's designs, and that had to be addressed before Dooku's vision. "You are not wearing your full life support suit. Tell me why that is."
"If I may speak freely, Master," he began hesitantly, weighing how well Dooku would take a contrary opinion, "it hinders my movements. I'm faster without it."
"But the suit's durasteel exoskeleton and blaster-resistant fabric make you impervious to conventional attacks," Dooku retorted, using in the same gentle tone of voice that had swayed dozens of planets to his cause in the first place. "You carry many scars from when the odds you faced were insurmountable, do you not?"
"I did not have your teachings then, Master."
"Here is another, if you wish to use that excuse against me," Dooku snapped. Anger was needed now, and pressure. "You are far more powerful in the suit. The advantages I had built into it will make you stronger, and allow you to take down your enemies with a full offensive with your defense already attended to."
His apprentice's eyes flashed a brighter yellow beneath his hood as the rage at a freedom taken and glee from another given warred inside him. The younger man hated him with a passion that preceded his induction into Dooku's service by nearly four years. It was a loathing rich with memory, full of past wrongs and fierce clashes of wits and blades. Dooku had often wondered why his old Sith Master had not done as he had, taking the boy apart piece by piece and creating something new with the rubble; it was more efficient than spending thirteen years softening him up.
But Darth Sidious was nearly two years gone, killed off by a blend of poison and Sith magicks so subtle and powerful he couldn't possibly have hoped to save himself. His past wisdom and machinations were useful, but only to a certain point. There was no use dwelling on the rest when the future beckoned, broader and more ripe for the taking than Sidious could ever have imagined.
"I will wear the suit, Master," the boy said finally, as predictable as ever.
"Good. You will soon go to the Japrael system to investigate a Jedi attack. The insurrection has been foiled, but the perpetrator has likely gone into hiding. Set up blockades, security checkpoints, Elite search grids. Tighten regulations. Frighten the populace into submission. Do not rest until the one responsible has been dealt with."
"It will be done, my Master."
Dooku smiled thinly. Yes, Anakin Skywalker was safely within his clutches. Dooku intended to get to the bottom if this mystery, and if anyone could spring a trap laid by proponents of the light side of the Force and emerge victorious, it was the keenest weapon in his arsenal: the bloodthirsty, unstoppable Darth Vader.
Ahsoka is starting to thinks Lux may mean more to her than a simple means to her desired end: finding her lost Master. But unbeknownst to her, sinister agents conspire against her. What is the mysterious Project Archetype? Why is Onderon so important? How do Lux and his father fit into it? Are there secrets Lux is keeping from her even she cannot guess at? Either way, something wicked this way comes. Will it be Ahsoka's undoing? Only time will tell...
HELLO PLOT COMPLICATIONS WHO ASKED FOR PLOT COMPLICATIONS? AHSOKA IS DOWN WITH THE FEELS, VADER IS BACK, KALLUS IS HERE, AND DOOKU HAS SOME SPOOKY PLAN CALLED PROJECT ARCHETYPE INVOLVING JEDI, IS THAT OK FOR PLOT COMPLICATIONS???
Hope so! Either way, I doubt Ahsoka is going to have the best time now discovering what REALLY happened to Anakin. Unless this is a different Darth Vader, cause I've read a couple of fantastic fics where even Ahsoka herself was called Vader. Who knows, maybe the Sith have a list of apprentice names somewhere like those baby name generators online, and both Palpatine and Dooku got 'Vader' as the top pick...
But enough rambling. I've got a lot to say about this chapter, particularly the second half. (Sorry in advance for the wall of text!)
I.Y., for those of you who are wondering, stands for Imperial Year, and since the units for day and year on Coruscant (the galactic standard) are the same as on Earth, I wrote it out so 1.11.18 means first year, eleventh month, eighteenth day of that month. Dooku technically came to power a month into a standard year by my calculations, but I figure reconstructing the entire calendar would be too much of a hassle, so his rule has technically been for a month less than what the date says it has.
Dictators lie about that kind of stuff all the time to craft their personal mythology, anyway.
Now, about Dooku's name. In canon he was the Count of House Serenno of the planet Serenno during the Clone Wars. But since he abandoned to the Jedi a young child, I assume he went by only his first name (Dooku) when he was a Jedi and went by Dooku Serenno once he'd left. It makes sense when his other family members who'd held the title were also referred to as Count 'Firstname'. Since in canon they called Darth Sidious Emperor Palpatine and not Emperor Sheev, I'm assuming the same logic applies here. Besides, I like the way 'Hail Serenno' sounds.
Another little detail I wanted to emphasize was Dooku's visions. In TCW and Rebels, Jedi visions are shown with a white tint around the edges, like they're fading into something the viewer can't process. I figured, since white is very symbolic of the light side, that having visions tinted with black would be something symbolic of the dark side – and that rather than searching through a white haze, the Sith try to read into the shadows. Dooku can read the shadows easily now that the Jedi have fallen from power, but as Snoke said...
I'll see you guys in the next chapter!