The Young Republic | A Star Wars Story

Chapter 29

The Party

"All warfare is based on deception."

"Master," Count Dooku bowed for Sidious, a grim feeling masked by indifference at the sudden arrival of the Dark Lord. "This is an unexpected meeting."

Sidious had not so much as bother to look at Dooku as he stepped into the castle on Sorenno, his loyal guards trailing on behind him. He walked slowly, drawing out the silence of tense uncomfort between the two Siths.

"Do not flatter yourself, Count Dooku. I did not want to come here half as much as you wish for me to not have arrived," Sidious drawled, and it felt even more eerie without the cloak he usually wears. Sidious stood before Dooku not as the Sith Lord, but as the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. "It is a matter of urgency."

"Of course, my Lord," Dooku said coolly. It clashed against the rolling thunder of his Master's presence, the threat of this conversation as static as lightning. It was smoldering.

"The time-walker is intervening with our plans," Sidious said. Striking and strong, Dooku could feel the anger boiling deep inside his Master Sith, hidden well and deceivingly so. "What that boy did was reckless. Time should not be meddled with."

That had been long ago, Dooku thought. Why had his Master brought it up now?

But there was the thunder in the yellow of his Master's eyes. A glutenous want that he rarely let creep past the perfectly crafted mask he wears so ritually. Maybe there is a new desire in his Master, a new power he seeks other than the Chosen One, all sparked to life by thoughts of what that boy had done. To meddle with time...

"And yet... You will not dispose of the girl?" Dooku said. If Sidious wanted to, the girl's heart could stop at any moment. Or Mother Tazil can get caught in this web of madness. Dooku's personal spies had reported interaction between Sidious and Mother Tazil - interactions that hadn't happened since that first time Sidious tried killing off the girl through the dark threads of the witches of Dathomir.

Sidious glared up at Dooku. No. Time will rid the girl of this world in due time. Sidious could feel the last little light of the girl's life slowly burning away. If she continues on this path, one more magnificent use of the Force will end her. She will kill herself soon enough.

"There are things she knows, powers to tear through veils of space and time, to push through folds of reality. The type of power one only learns from years in the dangers of the Unknown Regions," Sidious explains. 

Ahh, so there it was. He wants to know that power.

Could it be that Sidious has a new target? That Sidious' murder is now aimed at the boy he had groomed all these years. The thought sat heavy in Dooku's chest. His old Padawan, Qui-Gon, had been sure the boy is the Chosen One, had died for the boy. It was a bitter pain, dull and slow, that Dooku had felt. It was the final straw needed to leave the Jedi, the final pang against his soul needed to become the Tyrant. Dooku does not want Skywalker to be the Chosen One, had hated the boy from the bitterness of losing Qui-Gon. But Sidious wanted the boy, and Dooku kept his distance.

But now... Sidious had lost Anakin Skywalker. Had lost the years of grooming and preparing for the rise of Darth Vader. All tore down by the pitiful light in that girl. It was almost enough to make Sidious drop the command to rid the wrenched galaxy of the Jedi, to throw it all away if only to focus all his hate on the girl that dares to stop him.