Saga - PT Love, War and the Peace Inbetween (OC, Dooku, later on Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme) Updated 06/28

Yeah, Cymbir and Friscan won't let things fall by the wayside, but neither will the Council. But what will happen to our dear Antares once she is rescued.

 

Chapter 9:

The Sith and their puppets didn’t give her a second chance of escape or to subvert the Jedi to her will instead of theirs. She was placed under constant, personal, supervision. Of course, they sent droids to do most of the work. Objects that carried no feelings and therefore could not be changed by her. She hadn’t seen Dooku in what had felt like weeks. It disturbed her, that she missed him. Not the kind of way she missed her family, that was full of heart-rending longing but in the way that he was something familiar, something that had been part of her life but was now missing. It didn’t stop her from missing him. Didn’t stop her from wanting him dead, too.

They were talking about moving her. She’d noticed that things were beginning to feel…empty. There’d once been a hum of interlacing emotions. The general hum of boredom, the determination of work. It was slipping away into an excitement and then nothingness. Whoever else had been held in the facility was being moved or they were being buried.

Whichever it was, it was fast. She took that as a small mercy.

There would be none for Master Dinhra. He’d resisted at first. They all did to a point. But eventually her power would tear them apart. She would tear them apart. She’d never been in control, that had been stolen from her the moment Dooku had identified her power. But that tentative grasp was beginning to slip. No matter how hard she scrambled, clawed, she couldn’t keep hold.

It was because he held out too long. The shields that kept him safe for the first few days began to peel back, like the layers of a rotted fruit. He tossed his feelings, is despair into the Force, but she threw them right back at him. It was a constant and brutal assault that left them both thin and spent. Bodies littered the prison and they weren’t taken away. A constant reminder of what her power coupled with a Force-sensitive could do.

And Master Dinhra, so kind and gentle in the beginning, began to change. Hardness settled into his glowing gaze, a shield that was crafted out of angry pain. She’d tried to hold back, to withdraw, but that only seemed to make matters worse. She’d killed men and women, she’d been responsible for their sinking into madness, but she’d never witnessed such a change. His helplessness began to turn his kindness into anger, his anger stopped just being at Dooku, the Falleen and the Ventress, it turned to her also. She couldn’t blame him, she loathed what she’d become.

His changes became hers. She began to see darkness everywhere. Friscan had escaped, but there was no escape for her. Her helpless was a cause of her weakness. That echo that she’d felt with Friscan was a hundred fold with Master Dinhra. They couldn’t escape each other, couldn’t escape one another’s fear, pain and sadness.

Eventually, Dooku’s voice came over the loud speaker. And she wondered how she could have ever missed it. He’d come to gloat over his victory. “Have you reconsidered my offer, my old Jedi friend?”

“Aye, Cristoff, I have,” Master Dinhra said. “I will join you.”

She could hear the smile in Dooku’s voice. “You have grown wise. Ventress, release Dinhra.”

The bald, pale woman came over and waved the release chip over his binders. Dinhra’s long thin fingers played around the scabs of his abused wrists. He’d fought hard, harder than anyone. And he’d fallen further than any of the others.

That shattered her heart in new painful ways.

He turned his cold, glowing eyes on her. “And what is to become of Lady San?”

“She is the key, Dinhra. The key to saving all our brothers and sisters. We can rule this galaxy, as we were always meant to. Save the weak-minded fools from themselves. Allow the peace and justice we fought and died for.”

She closed her eyes. She knew that Qui-Gon Jinn’s death had been the catalyst that had finally led Dooku from the Jedi. But it was his own arrogance that had brought him into the hands of the Sith.

---

Fixing Serenno hadn’t been as easy as Chancellor Palpatine had made it seem. His cousin had bogged down much of their financial support in ridiculous investments. He’d managed to pull most of their financial statements. And it was this datawork that accidently lead him to the truth. Or perhaps it was Palpatine’s goal all along.

Lead the former Jedi to the Sith. The Master of the one who had killed Qui-Gon. His apprentice, his brother. It was a pain he had never quite pushed aside. It hadn’t been that long ago, when he’d sat down with Qui-Gon, hearing the younger man extol his Padawan’s latest victories and moan over his eloquent stubbornness.

It pained Cristoff now, that he’d never met Obi-Wan in person. That Qui-Gon’s last legacy was lost to him. But maybe he could give a hope to that legacy now. Maybe he could destroy the Sith.

He invited Palpatine to see the changes on Serenno, masking it as a wonderful public relations event. Already, trouble was beginning to stir in the galaxy. The Trade Federations embargo had only been the first of many angry reprisals. Palpatine, of course, would need to put on a good show. And Dooku would provide him just the stage.

Palpatine greeted him warmly enough when they met face to face. Dooku responded in kind, now watching the man for any tell-tale signs of deception. Knowledge and hindsight were always the great illuminators, Palpatine was good at playing at shadows. It’s all wrong in Dooku’s mind. He’d left the Jedi because they had become so good at forgetting themselves, they were going to lead the Order and the Republic into disaster. He’d taken control of Serenno because he thought it could be a bastion for others during that inevitable crumble. But where Dooku was failing, Palpatine was succeeding.

The anger was unbecoming a Jedi. But he’d left that path. So now he stood on shifting sands, working to destroy the Sith himself.

Palpatine had only been there a night before Dooku realized how unprepared he was. He had invited the Chancellor, had arranged parades, public events, had made the next few days a celebration to remember. He’d provided a lure, but hadn’t arranged the trap.
He may not have been a Jedi any longer, but he still had the Force. Patience often led to that illumination. As Qui-Gon had been fond of saying, “The Force will present a solution.”

He waited, and watched, and smiled, and paused to shake the Chancellor’s hand while the press captured their holos. His anger grew, becoming less about the injustice in the world and more of an indulgence. Why did Palpatine succeed?

The solution he sought came the night before Palpatine was to leave. He’d invited the Chancellor into his study for a glass of wine and discussion about the future of Serenno. It was after the first sip that Palpatine laid his own lure, Dooku quite unaware that he’d already been trapped.

“I know, that you know, Cristoff?”

Dooku feigned ignorance. “Chancellor?”

“That I am the Sith Master your Order has been looking for,” Palpatine clarified. He sat his own glass of wine down on the small foot table in front of him. “Yet, I do not find myself surrounded by the Jedi Council. This is most intriguing.”

Dooku was startled by the admission and nonplussed that he had not thought of this option before. Why hadn’t he contacted Yoda right away? Because some part of him felt that this was personal. That it was his duty to destroy the Sith, for all the Jedi’s sake. Especially, for Qui-Gon.

“You wish to kill me,” the Sith said.

“Your apprentice killed mine,” Dooku returned evenly. He and Qui-Gon had not always agreed, but their relationship had continued where most Master/Padawan teams drifted apart with time. Now that he was no Longer a Jedi, he wasn’t afraid to admit that he had loved Qui-Gon Jinn as one might a brother.

“He was an obstacle in the way of my goals, Cristoff. A way to restore peace and freedom to the galaxy. His loyalty was a thing to be lauded but ultimately foolish as you have seen.”

Qui-Gon had agreed with most of Dooku’s distaste for the Council and for the Republic’s Senate. It was only his loyalty to the Jedi, their loyalty that had kept them in the Order. Qui-Gon had wanted to change things by example, but ultimately he’d been censured and harassed by the council, even as they’d led him to his death.

“He was a good man, a great Jedi, a servant to the Force.”

“And where did his morality lead him, Cristoff?”

This was the moment that Dooku was snared in Palpatine’s trap, though he thought he was laying his own. He scoffed. “You think you can bring me to the Dark?”

“Most sentient beings are only a few steps away from being what I am, Count.” Palpatine’s voice had grown cold, unyielding. “You and your previous ilk, set up rules that ultimately hinder progress. All the while, you secretly desire for the power that I hold. Join me, Cristoff, and that power could be yours. Serenno will flourish. Jinn has been avenged at the hands of his own apprentice.”

Dooku caught the yellow, angry flicker in Palpatine’s eyes when he spoke of Obi-Wan’s accomplishment. The first Jedi in a millennium to kill a Sith. That must have rankled, when a Padawan had bested his animal.

“Maul outlived his usefulness,” Palpatine continued. “You could take his place at my side.”

Dooku, was a seventy-year-old man, well past his prime. He wasn’t without resources or abilities. And perhaps like Qui-Gon before him, he could change things from the inside out. Join the Sith while working to destroy them.

He cocked a questioning gray brow. “What must I do?”

---

“Knight Scyth,” Obi-Wan Kenobi asked, stepping beside his fellow Jedi Knight. Friscan had been watching from the forward viewport as soon as their stolen Separatist cruiser had exited out of hyperspace. It had been difficult to fine and equally as difficult to retrofit so that it could carry living beings and not the droid army.

The trick, would most likely be a one-time Taun Taun ride. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan was concerned about the Council’s strategy. The amount of munitions, the possible death toll, was strangely weighed against one prisoner’s rescue. His mission report regarding the prisoner was vague to say the least, but the details of the compound and the planet itself were exceptional. He knew that Friscan had been held there for a time.

He was surprised to see Friscan flinch when he approached. He offered Obi-Wan a half-hearted smile. “Sorry, too deep in thought.”

They were close in age, Friscan a few years his junior. They’re Masters had not much chance to work together, Lari Tysell being at least two decades younger than Qui-Gon with Friscan being her first apprentice and Obi-Wan being Qui-Gon’s last. Obi-Wan knew the other Jedi to be a fine Knight and a stalwart defender. He was reticent to include him in the operation.

The other man had just recently come back from torture and a form of subversion that would have left anyone jumping at shadows, even friendly ones. He would have preferred Friscan stay back at the Temple until he’d regained his center. Padawan Vale was not in the vicinity for the first time since they’d exited Coruscant’s atmosphere. He hadn’t wanted to question the Master in front of the Padawan. He’d seen how detrimental that had been in his own relationship with his apprentice.

“Are you well enough, Friscan?” he asked, pitching his voice low despite them being relatively alone.

The other man shook his head, black hair falling across his grey eyes. “No,” he admitted. “But you’ll need me, Cym, and Anakin. When we find her, I think its best you carry her. She won’t be able to walk on her own. Her muscles have greatly atrophied. And you…I have no doubt you have the best shielding. I’m sorry Obi-Wan, until I’m more like myself, the burden she carries you will need to help her.”

“That is the thing, Master Friscan,” Obi-Wan countered. “The Council has made it very unclear what it is I need to help her from or with. To be clear, I do not even understand why we are going on this mission to begin with. Who is Antares San?”

Friscan put a hand around his elbow, holding him fast. He felt the other man lower his shields. Without evening trying, he could feel the turmoil bleeding off of the Jedi. Obi-Wan blocked him, a shield as habitual and instinctive as breathing. The dark-haired Jedi released him. “Imagine not being able to block it, now imagine being able to turn the pain I felt onto Padawan Skywalker or Cym. Anyone and everyone. Now imagine that power in the hands of the Sith.”

Obi-Wan took an involuntary step backwards. In his weaker moments, he was ashamed to say that he was afraid of the Sith, what they could do, what they had already taken from him and from the galaxy. This war raged now, because Sidious and Dooku were pulling on the Separatists marionette strings. Friscan didn’t need to explain more for Obi-Wan to draw the line between the dots he’d laid out.

“How is that possible?” he muttered mainly to himself.

“I don’t know,” Friscan answered. “I know they’ve drugged her, they did drug me. But whatever they’ve done, they’ve opened the Membari Box of Trouble. Her control is minimal at best and it’s stripped her of any kind of hope. It’s why I was so adamant the Council not go into too much detail in the report. Anonymity will be her only protection. And ours. Once it becomes known what she could do, it won’t only be Dooku and his acolytes after her, it will be Black Sun, the Hutt Consortium, anyone who wants to grasp power and nullify the Jedi.”

---

Master Dinhra had lulled them all into a sense of security. Dooku had believed he’d brought at least one Jedi to his cause and Ventress followed the lead of Dooku. They weren’t watching, hadn’t even suspected the attack, until Master Dinhra’s long fingers hand encase Antares fragile throat and began to squeeze out what little life was left within her.

She’d did the only thing she could do. She closed her eyes and hoped that this nightmare would end. That the small glimpse of humanity she’d seen in the Count would compel him to send her body to her mother and brothers. That they and Endrex could move on with their lives. That they could find some peace in this tragedy her life had become.

Ventress rushed behind him but he removed one of the hands to send her careening into a nearby solid white wall. The crack of her skull against the wall forced Antares to look. It was lucky to Dinhra only needed one hand to kill her.

Antares looked up and caught his gaze. Beneath the coldness and the anger, he was shattering. He hated this whole situation and he hated himself most of all for allowing it to come to this. Every sentient being in the galaxy had a breaking point and this was his. Antares was pretty sure she’d hit hers two lifetimes ago. His eyes begged her to understand.

She hoped that hers told him she did.

And then there was a concussive sound. Transparasteel and durasteel rented and splintered and though she couldn’t see the splintered pieces, she could feel rising alarm in those beings who felt and thought. A blast of power, tossed Dinhra away from her. By instinct she gasped in a breath.

“No,” she wanted to scream, but it came out as a breathy whine. Her mind hadn’t caught up to the series of events. All she could think was her last attempt of escape had once again been thwarted.

A foreign voice sounded over the loud speakers, accompanied by red flashing lights, and the rising and falling crescendo of an alarm. It was the first thing that sounded like music in her ears since she’d been captured. “Jedi have entered the base, Jedi have entered the base.”

It took another moment still before she realized what this meant. “Friscan.”