(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Dooku…

-x-X-x-

“These setbacks are unacceptable, Darth Tyrannus.”

Kneeling with his head bowed, Yan Dooku, Count of Serenno, Leader of the Confederacy, and Lord of the Sith, clenches his jaw. There are many things he wishes to say to the hologram of his Master, Darth Sidious… but he says none of them. Instead, he hedges.

“Things are proceeding apace, are they not? Any momentary setbacks are meaningless in the face of the greater plan, my Master.”

“Incorrect. The war must last long enough to suitably diminish the Jedi before the kill stroke. Order Sixty-Six will only work once your old Order has been brought to its knees. Only then can we build something anew from the ashes.”

Dooku’s teeth grind for the briefest of moments before he reasserts control over himself. The problem is… his Master is not wrong. The plan has always relied on the death of the vast majority of the Jedi. Most of them are simply too indoctrinated, too brainwashed to ever be able to see the truth. That the Light has failed them… and that only by way of the Dark Side of the Force can the galaxy be made anew.

The plan requires Dooku to eventually be defeated and captured. Taken into custody so that he might spend the rest of the war in honorable captivity before renouncing his former allies for their ‘crimes’ once his Master’s new government was in place.

From there, he would be able to take up his position as Headmaster of a new Academy… a Sith Academy, with the younglings and initiates and padawans who could be retrained making up its population.

But first, the Masters had to die. The Knights had to die. The older Padawans unfit for retraining had to die. And the main problem that he and his Master were facing right now… was that that wasn’t happening.

Oh, it was certainly happening in some places. Hundreds of Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights had perished on Geonosis. Hundreds more had died since all across the galaxy as the Clone Wars had gotten fully underway. The problem was, there were almost ten thousand Jedi in the galaxy… a small number to be sure, but enough to properly lead the Grand Army of the Republic against the Separatist Droid Armies.

The death toll for the Jedi should have been over a thousand at this point. It should have caused a cascading effect as the Dark Side grew in prevalence and power and the Light waned with each passing day. That latter part was happening to be fair, Dooku could feel his own power growing the longer the war went on.

The problem was… it wasn’t producing the effect that he and his Master desired. Jedi weren’t dying in droves like they were meant to. Those who survived their first battles seemed to inevitably adapt. Those who made it off of one battlefield wound up making it off of even more.

The Jedi were not warriors, they were peacekeepers. And yet… and yet, the longer the war went on, the more those Jedi who survived seemed to be adapting to their new roles. It was disturbing. It was disquieting. And for his Master, it was infuriating.

“First Trench fails at Malastare and then your own protégé dies before she can spend her life in a useful way to us. All across the galaxy, your pawns are failing before their time, Tyrannus.”

He can’t quite help himself, even though he knows it’s inadvisable.

“Well… they’re all meant to fall eventually, right Master?”

“Not this early! Do not be foolish. My Empire cannot be rushed into being. Everything must happen precisely as I have foreseen… and you, my apprentice, are not living up to my expectations.”

Our Empire, Dooku wants to say. But he’s not that stupid. Instead, the Count of Serenno simply keeps his head bowed.

“Apologies, Master. I will not fail you. I will get things back on track, I promise.”

He doesn’t say any of the other things he wants to say either. Like how it’s not surprising that the aliens he’s forced to work with are failing to live up to their expectations. The entire point of the Confederacy is to lose after all. They’d built the Separatist Movement on the backs of a bunch of sniveling cowards with too many credits and not enough sense. Credits that had then been spent on massive droid armies to be thrown into a grinder against the clones from Kamino.

A sterile war, in a sense. A cleaner war. Still… was it any surprising that the Separatists didn’t have anything in the way of able commanders? Even the likes of Admiral Trench had failed to live up to his reputation. And Ventress… what a disappointment, that girl was.

In the end, the only two that Dooku could even remotely rely on had turned out to be General Grievous and Commander Tann. Everyone else was proving to be more and more worthless against the Jedi and their clone soldiers with each passing day.

“See that you do, Tyrannus. See that you do. I will not be available to communicate for some time after this. There is something happening on Byss and I intend to leave to attend to things there immediately after this conversation. Do not try to contact me, I will contact you instead, my apprentice.”

Dooku, seventy years old, a former Jedi Master, and the leader of an entire galactic movement, rankles not for the first time at the indignity of being anyone’s apprentice. And yet… age is merely a number. Experience and power are all that matters and in the areas that matter, specifically Mastery of the Dark Side… Darth Sidious stands head and shoulders above him. And likely always will.

“As you command, Master.”

The holocall winks out a moment later, leaving Dooku to slowly rise from his kneeling position as his body protests and creaks. Reaching for his anger and rage, he uses them to fuel his connection to the Dark Side, washing such weakness away from his body as he bathes in that power for a moment.

Then… a knock at his chamber doors. Eyes narrowing, he turns away from the holo projector with a flick of his cape and moves to sit behind his desk. Only then does he respond.

“Enter.”

The large double doors to his study open and a familiar face steps into the room. Commander Sev’rance Tann… a disappointment when it came to the Force, but an incredibly skilled mind when it came to tactics. She had been one of his Dark Acolytes for a short time before removing herself from the role in order to properly assert herself as a Military Commander within the Confederacy.

However, ever since Ventress’ death, she had been back, orbiting him like she thought she might be able to convince him she should be his next apprentice. Funny that… if she were smarter, she would not want the role. After all, it was nothing but a lie. Dooku was no Sith Master. He could not have a real apprentice. And any he did take under his wing at this time would inevitably be sacrificed by his true Master at some point, all to ensure Dooku’s loyalty.

Regardless, as Sev’rance approaches, Dooku straightens up and clasps his hands in front of himself, eyeing her curiously.

“Commander Tann. What is it?”

He can sense her nervousness in the Force. Unusual given she’s usually much more composed. And yet… she’s even visibly fidgeting, he notices. Not much, but enough for him to see it.

“Count Dooku… my lord… I have news of Asajj Ventress.”

His eyes narrow dangerously, his nostrils not quite flaring but only because of his own impressive self-control. The Count of Serenno sits very, very still as he stares at Sev’rance with blazing eyes, pinning her like one might pin a rat to a wall.

“Explain.”

Pulling a datapad from her belt, she hesitates to take a step forward… in the end, he simply reaches out with the Force and rips it from her grasp, the datapad flying through the air and landing in his hand so he can read it. As he does so, as he takes in the message within… rage does not even begin to describe what Dooku feels.

“I believe… that Commander Ventress mistakenly thought us closer than we actually were. While we did share one moment of intimacy… the truth was, she was never more than a means to an end for me. In her weakness… she has exposed the deception behind her supposed demise, sir.”

… Yes, he can see that. The message, sent by Ventress with a recent time stamp incongruent with her ‘death’, was obviously a risky play born of emotional weakness. Ventress goes into great detail about her feelings for Sev’rance… and how she had ‘rediscovered’ herself on her home planet and ‘realized’ how much she loved the blue-skinned woman.

She then goes on to offer Sev’rance an opportunity to escape with her, to fake her own death and leave the Separatist Movement behind so they can be together. Funny… that more than anything infuriates Dooku to no end. He’s already so incredibly low on competent commanders and here was a traitor trying to take one of the only ones he could still rely on away from him.

“… You have done well, Commander Tann. Very well.”

Sev’rance’s pleasure can be felt in the Force. She’s proud to receive his praise, even as she bows.

“Thank you my lord. But… what should we do?”

Hm… that was the question, wasn’t it? They knew exactly where Ventress had gone thanks to this lapse in judgment. Dathomir. The young woman had returned to her roots, finding sanctuary among the witches who had birthed her. Dooku had long known exactly what Ventress was to be fair… better than she knew herself.

Still… it was always part of his Master’s plan to destroy said witches. To annihilate them once and for all and leave the Sith the dominant force of Dark Siders in the galaxy. Their leader, a ‘Mother Talzin’, had apparently rubbed Sidious the wrong way one too many times… it was always going to be him or her in the end.

Treachery was the way of the Sith, after all.

For a moment, Dooku’s eyes trail away from the datapad and over to the holoprojector he’d just stepped away from. Admittedly, this sort of decision was something his Master would want to have run by him before Dooku acted. Destroying the Nightsisters of Dathomir was the sort of thing that Sidious would relish giving the order on… and rage at being told about only after the fact.

… But at the same time, Dooku’s Master had just told him not to contact him again and that he would be out of contact for the next little while. Byss of all places… was quite difficult to reach, both physically and through the holonet.

That said, it wasn’t like Dooku could afford to wait and let this issue fester either. Some might say that Ventress and Dathomir would keep for some time yet… after all, it was exceedingly rare for the Nightsisters of Dathomir to leave their home planet.

That wasn’t the problem though. The problem was Dooku himself. He has a furnace in his chest that roars at this deception from his former apprentice. Ventress managed to pull the wool over his eyes and the only reason he found out about it was because Commander Tann was more loyal to power than she was to love.

Infuriating, to say the least… and if he allowed Ventress and the Nightsisters of Dathomir to continue to persist even one moment longer than he had to, it would effect his judgment on every major decision going forward. It would cloud his senses and drag his mind into a quagmire that would only serve to cause more problems.

No… no, there was only one choice here. Only one option available to him.

“… Contact General Grievous immediately. Have him bring his fleet here to pick us up. Then, together… we shall head to Dathomir and see to our little traitor.”

Commander Tann bows at the waist, head low.

“As you command, Count Dooku.”

Yes… that’s how it should be. Sure, she was technically an alien… but she was near-human enough. And Dooku did find competence to be even more valuable. It just so happened to be that most aliens were infuriatingly incompetent and savage while most humans tended to be more reliable… and civilized.

But Tann… Tann was one of the good ones. He would ensure there was a place for her in the new order that he and his Master were striving to create. Just as soon as she proved herself to him one final time by putting a blaster bolt right between Ventress’ eyes without flinching or hesitating.

No need for him to bring that up now though. Let it be a surprise… a gift, so to speak. One should relish being able to fix one’s mistakes, after all…

-x-X-x-

A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!