Chapter 7: If Mice can plan… do they Dream?
…
The dignified Count Dooku, grand orator and public face for the increasing
Republic Reform (Not at all the Secessionist party in Galactic politics, why would you even ask?) movement. The unofficial leader and visionary for change was a particular man.
With particular tastes, undoubtedly refined and well-bred, every step and movement of his radiated a dangerous edge of calm and wisdom. As if he knew every step he would make and how to best implement his every action as he saw fit.
A kind of man that was dangerously charismatic.
He made an imposing sight, that was to be expected, and even admired. Even his facial hair was magnificently trimmed to a sharp silver line.
The last of the Lost Twenty, the twentieth, natural, of the Jedi who resigned from the Order, and yet in spite of his departure the Count still enjoyed great respect and honor from the Jedi Order.
A political idealist, a man defined by his principles, his idealisms for the galaxy… few could have expected the sheer insanity that he had strode in soon after he left the Order.
None who could have stopped him.
Through pools of betrayal and filth, Dooku had planned his own friend's death, and meticulously falsified said death in cold efficiency, hiding his deeds to such a degree that not even the Jedi realized that one of their members had been betrayed so utterly. Sifo-Dyas, a powerful Force Seer, died in ignominy.
Wading in political intrigue and the dark manifest, the serene Count of Serrano soon found his newest apprentice, and after murdering her sister to ensure her fall, began to create a weapon from a man for his great war.
Again, and again, Dooku manipulated those underneath him, and with their trust, forged them into tools of his own. Why?
Why, to shatter against the great Republic, and force them to expose the ever-expanding rot with violence on a scale that no one could even imagine?
Did the Dark Side corrupt and ruin this great Jedi so far? Or was this buried in him, simply waiting for the moment that the man became powerful?
Count Dooku crossed his legs, folding his hands over his knees. "So it is agreed on, Jango Fett."
The Mandolorian was impossible to read behind that signature mask, and heavy dull grey Beskar armor. And yet, even though the Count was unarmored and free of any obscuring on his own face. The sheer ease with which the Fallen Jedi had with someone who so should by all rights, utterly loath the man who caused him to fall into slavery.
It was disturbing on both their parts.
Like they understood a completely inhuman mindset, something so far removed from actions and their results, that they revolved around on
something greater than simple morality or consequences.
A slight curl played on Dooku's lips. "Or do you not agree? Do you think you can find a higher bidder?" His face smoothed out to granite. "Finding another of your talents would be difficult I admit, but not impossible. And for a man like you- a better price would be easy."
Neither men tensed or readied themselves, both too skilled to require any preparation in less time to kill the other. At least, they both believed so.
Dooku sighed. "I simply thought that you would wish to bare your fangs at the Republic sooner rather than later."
Before the Bounty Hunter could answer, a battle droid skittered into view, sliding on its poorly designed feet and it's top-heavy chassis. "Sir-Sir-Sir-Sir! Rep-Reporting for… Du-ty!"
"... Shameful."
"Isn't it? But it was designed to be such, something so pathetic-"
"No. Shameful how far you have fallen, Jedi Dooku."
The air seemed to freeze, even though that was impossible. The sheer tension had thickened.
A high-pitched squeal suddenly came from the droid- "
Sheeeee!" - before it was silenced.
"Choose your next words carefully." A man like the Count of Serrano needed no threats, the mere idea of who and what he was, was far more than enough for most to cower.
But Jango Fett was a Mandolorian, and as such he was defined solely by battle. The choices, the failures, and the victories in it, more real than anything else in a galaxy of grey. Most saw their culture as barbaric, uncivilized, a relic of war in a galaxy of peace.
And they would be correct, there were no more true Mandalorians in the Galaxy, no true honor in battle, and no worth to be found beyond death.
And so he removed his helmet. Showing a face that would define an era. "Shameful we both are, and how far we have come. I agree, but I have one stipulation."
But maybe, maybe this devil's bargain had its own opportunity.
Jango Fett could not be a
true Mandolorian, but perhaps he could raise one. And if he had to fall with a man that had forgotten everything but his dreams… If he had to work with a man that could not even be called a shadow of what Jango had so respected on that day, a man who had cast aside everything that had made him and in so lost everything he wanted to create-
Then he would.
Count Dooku wondered how foolish his once-foe could be, believing that he could raise a Mandalorian when the man himself couldn't even remember what that meant. And with Jango Fett as the only example, his new soldiers, his new Clones, would be strong, but without anything beyond a bounty hunter's delusional ideals, and the ruins of the Jedi's to follow, they would never amount to anything beyond… simple tools.
Darth Tyrannus would leash any power, chain any monster, claim any darkness, all to force the truth into reality.
The Liberation Front, or as it was affectionately named and teased for,
Three People Who Should Be The Chancellor.
Three who had all the will, strength, raw charisma, and morality to enact a long-needed revolution for the Republic, but had not even the slightest clue.
And it was just as hilariously sad as it sounded.
A rather recent addition to the horrid mess that was considered galactic politics, The Liberation Front was recent… As in barely nascent and formed from the straggling remains of people with nowhere to go but in their shadow. And as in it should have happened far, far sooner, and not in the last 5-10 years of peace.
Rather unfortunate, one could say. Misfortune made dream.
An organization with no real formal hierarchies, no official rules, not even a standard banner or uniform, and yet…
It was an entirely functioning fleet.
Ships and resources needed to both maintain and staff those old, salvaged, barely functioning crafts were provided by Anakin's ludicrous ideas. Like Asteroid mining. In the Outer Rim. Where every horror was made manifest. Just a few days ago, the fleet had to outshoot a worm the size of an orbital space station with bone spurs that exploded outward in shrapnel. With acid and poison. Because of course.
Anyway-
The fleet was upkept by a young padawan as well to miraculously better or original standard of functionality. And adding the cherry to the sundae, another helped organize and arrange the ships, electing and extensively detailing their captains and forcing down contingency plans in case of events.
"You're pulling it the wrong way, again." The offhand remark, after a quick glance outside the bridge, lit the match. The verbal exchange of flames back and forth and back and forth.
So to speak.
"And you need to check your eyes again because
This is definitely the wrong way."
"My eyes? What of your head then? With how many times you've crashed us into the worst situations one could ever imagine, I'd hope that you only have minor brain damage." Interjected a strikingly smooth-toned and stylistically dignified man, not at all disrupted by a magnificent beard.
"Me? Oh that's rich, I'm the one with brain damage, yeah, sure, right. Where'd that accent come from again?" The other man, younger by a decent amount of years, brushed back his hair again, narrowing his eyes in concentration or annoyance.
The single hand outstretched onto the bridge of the spacecraft as if he were about to command legions to fall in line. Following that line, a bridge better fit for the scrapyards than any current day use emerged, and further, that line synth-glass reinforced with dura-weave, and further still… An empty void of stars. And one singular asteroid. Laced with veins of glassy shine.
"I told you, Anakin. My accent is none of your concern. Just like I told you, that if you pulled that asteroid in that method, you'll only waste our time. Unless that suddenly appeals to you, I believe you should begin listening to those with more experience than you."
"Ha!" Crowing in mirth, Anakin snapped his fingers at, "Obi-wan, you just called yourself old. Told ya that beard aged you like milk!"
Obi-wan automatically moved his hand up, in a manner solely reminiscent of a wise thinker-perhaps like his dear Master. Catching himself, the Jedi Knight(In spirit!) scowled. "Experience does
not equal age, my younger brother. Or weren't you arguing that, when you-" His eyes flew open.
"Anakin! The Asteroid!"
The massive structure dwarfed even their large starcraft (a repurposed cargo frigate, lovingly partaken from those unfortunately poor Hutts). Proved to be a rock that essentially could and was mistaken as a large moon at one point before they had carefully detonated it smaller- that rock still ten times their size barreled past their ship. So large its gravity scraped along the internal pressure of the ship's, and now barreled past them, heading for an impact on the dusty sphere behind them.
"No!, Shit! Fu- Obi, get to the anchor harpoons! We have to try and slow it down even a little!"
His mind racing in lightyears, the older Jedi quickly calculated the odds, and the strength of their ship, and the potentially fatal error or even using outlandish movements like hyperspace jumping, or…
"There's no time, Anakin! I'll get the comms, just try and slow…just slow it. Down."
The Force exploded in a nexus of energy, an ocean of energy and sheer power flooded past them, like a nova of energy into a single person, and with a single hand that conduit for such energy breathed low, flames tingling along that sheer flood of power, and commanded it to obey him.
Anakin, young Jedi Padawan, slowly willed the Asteroid to stop.
No, not slowly, his eyes flared open with impossible energy and with an almost visible aura of the Force, so dense, around him, he clenched his hand.
Shattering the next extinction event for that unfortunate planet behind them, into nothing more than a meteorite shower.
On that day, Tatooine looked up. And saw the stars falling.
And as if it were by divine providence, with the stars came rain.
Rain on a planet that had forgotten what water could be.
…
"So… which one of you would like to explain why we are having to explain that Jedi aren't gods?" Qui-Gon Jinn said in a tone so flat it could disprove reality. Desperately training to keep the amusement out of his voice, and failing.
A whistle broke out from the Chosen One, not at all nonchalantly.
In fact, it was very much the opposite of nonchalant and it served its purpose. Anakin raised his eyebrows, along with the corner of his lips in a roguish smirk. "Who me? Why don't you ask the man who convinced Jabba the Hutt to run away with an entire pirate fleet at his slimy tail. Without even a lightsaber?"
Qui-gon played along. "Hmm, an excellent point and a deflection that I have been curious of myself. Padawan? Care to elaborate?"
"You do realize I am no longer your Padawan, Master?"
"And yet, you respond to it so well."
Behind Obi-wan's lack of response to such a quick attack, Anakin cackled. Barely held back laughter annoying Obi-wan into another similarly childish deflection. "I see that our newest Desert Messiah would like to add something?
Please."
"No, no, the floor's yours."
"I insist."
"I desist your insist."
"That doesn't even make sense, clearly your mouth moves faster than your brain. As I saw very well when you nearly caused a cataclysmic event."
Anakin flapped his lips, "Well, you, uh, you don't make any sense." Realizing how stupid that sounded, he quickly forged on. "And hey, no harm no foul."
"Ahem," coughed Qui-gon, turning both of his apprentices' attention from their bickering to him, their going-gray-far-too-prematurely teacher. "Actually, you destroyed…"
He flicked through the datapad. "Obbu's palace of great grandness."
"That's a Hutt, they don't count." True. Mostly.
Obi-wan slanted his brow. "Sweeping planetary bombardment under the rug now? They may be terrible, morality-deficient, spacefaring slugs, but that's no excuse to break their most palace of palaces."
A shrug was the only response that he received from his light chastisement. "Meh. I'm sure you can
negotiate it with Jabba."
Adding a particular lilt to his words, Anakin smugged the most smug he could. To be fair, he pulled it off quite charmingly, but that disconcerting sound of an Imperial March playing to warcrimes in the background did add flair to his every move. His every move.
"Why yes, Jabba would be most amenable at the end of my lightsaber. A blue searing threat to the throat tends to loosen even their grasp."
"You found a throat in that!?"
Qui-gon wondered when his cute little Padawans grew up and became powerful combatants fighting against the (arguably, by who though?) most depraved organizations in the Galaxy.
It felt like just yesterday, he was attempting to train Obi-wan and Anakin to not permanently maim each other with lightsabers.
Ah, the memories. The painful, exhausting, debilitating, terrifying memories of training one of the greatest Jedi to ever live.
And the Chosen One.
Obi-wan may have possibly overturned his entire head into gray- In an Escape Pod, with Jabba!?- far overtaking the Chosen One's lead with that one.
Honestly, their charisma, and two very different methodologies and examples of charisma they had; terrified Qui-gon a little…
A lot.
He supposed there was also far too much sentimental attachment and pride in that fear, oh, how he could hear the Jedi's doctrine slamming him down, but…
Still, Qui-gon enjoyed guiding his students far too much to stomach burying those emotions into the force.
And far too embarrassed and prideful to shunt them off where either of them could feel it.
Before their bickering could escalate into one of them attempting to use the Liberation Front's ships and sending off into a devil-may-care attempt at oneupmanship against the worst the Galaxy had to offer; their Master interrupted for the sake of rationality.
"Now, now. I believe… that we have an urgent matter at hand." Both of them blinked at him, suddenly remembering that yes, he was still there.
And not lost in his memories, which had become far much more common at his age. Qui-gon was barely past 50.
"First, the fallout of your stunt Anakin, remember our plan to simply install that asteroid as a moon, and slowly and carefully remove the ice and add it into Tatooine? You and Obi-wan will have to deal with the environmental disasters that will likely ensue, and deal with the moisture farm's equipment especially."
"Of course, but why must you sound as if you are also punishing me, Master?" Obi-wan, the ever-dutiful student bowed serenely in acknowledgment, forcing Anakin to do the same.
"Because you distracted Anakin and needled him out of your own boredom," replied Qui-gon, inwardly wondering if they were classified as eco-terrorists on Tattoine yet. Knowing the Liberation Front's heavy influence on Tatooine- an unofficial main station for the movement- he suspected that Godhood should be expected, Anakin being the primary figurehead of the moment after all (and completely unaware of it, thankfully. Qui-gon's attempts to run damage control on the Chosen One's abilities and destiny were difficult enough.)
"And also, Anakin." The young man returned his focus from discussing with Obi-wan the best areas to focus on, and how to avoid sand again. Qui-gon smiled secretively. "It's high time you began crafting your own lightsaber, is it not?"
A trip to Illium was quite long overdue. Ah, but first a short detour to Coruscant to officially Knight Anakin and Obi-wan, and…to see how the Jedi Order had changed in his absence.
The HoloNet had exploded with the Naboo Invasion, and its Heroes even more so.
Especially, when the rumors of the boy-Hero of Naboo setting off in a three-man band to purge the Outer Rim of slavery began to trickle in with blurry vid-cam footage. And unsubstantiated, unbelievable, unrecorded, displays of speed and telekinesis by the unknown Jedi.
Naturally, their next target became the mysterious flame-haired boy who was said to have helped with defeating that other Dark Jedi! But was not a Jedi- when that section somehow leaked from the Jedi Temple, that a non-Force-Sensitives had gone toe to toe with a Dark Jedi(along with two other Jedi, but drama sold more) and won as a child! (Rengoku was actually nine, but one digressed)
First, it had been lazy third-rate Bounty Hunters sent after him, more as a drunken idea of hilarity to have such an oddity.
But as that boy continually dismantled and evaded his pursuers, and…when footage from his exploits began to leak. Well.
It became a race to the abyss of pathetic trash... (Sidious may or may not have increased that bounty, just as a moment of regard to the boy that disrupted his plans. Oh, what a joke, what fun… He would absolutely do that, and would also leak his bio-report).
Maul crunched the datapad in his hand. Flinging the sparking pieces into the nearest corner so he wouldn't feel like he was about to tear his way through his own ship.
Oh yes, he had lived. He had survived. In a strange twist of fate, the double cut through his abdomen had actually created his opportunity.
In the dual lightsabers' rate of cauterization, Maul lived. The agony and misery of the Nightsisters' play, the tyranny and madness of Master, the sheer hatred… It was all he had, all he could need.
And to see that his hates had become so high, had risen above him in so many ways that he couldn't have even realized before his miserable death. Before the depths he had to savage through and shatter apart even through madness and rage. To see those objects of his infinite hatred gather, make merry, live in joy and contentment.
Maul growled. Animalistic, wrong, primal, uncontrollable.
Because that was what he had become, just a filthy, monstrous animal surviving through spite and hatred. Long had he grown used to the consuming dark side that kept him both sane and insane, it was necessary. Long had the clarity of his rage overcame all else. Long had he first been so at odds with his pain, his hatred, the sheer agony in every fiber of his being, every cell that begged and pleaded for death while acid ran through them.
But now? Without hatred, Maul knew that death would find him anew. And unlike before, it would not be left wanting.
Chasing him through mounds of trash and filth, the cost of beauty and life to sink a planet beneath ugliness. Chasing him through even the dizzying channels of hyperspace, and soon even here would not be safe. A flame would not be deterred, oh, he knew. Flame must burn, and he must flee.
Flee until he could drown it all.
"Warning, warning. Approaching the Maw. Returning you to-" He smashed the navigation system into durasteel. Thorns of dull gray, splattered with too bright red. Thin and wet, like blood water. Like rusted filth.
He had fled through monsters that devoured stars, he had been nearly slain at ruined worlds that he had set up as traps to simply delay!
This, this galactic nightmare was his only chance.
The Maw, or the cluster of black holes at the very center of the galaxy, was a presence that not even Jedi or Sith could claim. Neither his Master nor the pathetic Knights of Light would find him here.
Only that man, only that living flame would. And Maul would be waiting.
A horrid grin split Mauls' face in half, teeth cracking into blood again, but he paid it no heed. A hyperspace leap, right into the very center of the cluster!
The Force was leading him to it, it was crooning in the language of Dathomir, of the chants of the Nightsisters! His hope led there, it began there.
Vengeance.
His hatred fulfilled.
Everything to the order of the Plan. The Plan, the plan, he would not be left wanting!
Closing his feverish eyes, itching in that wrong wrong wrong way again. Insects crawl under his skin, oil and blood ran through him, and parasites of metal clawed beneath his sight,
Maul forced the Force to flow through him, pool its viscera and darkness into him.
Tell him, Tell him where he must go!
Already, he could sense that his stolen starcraft- an enormous Trade Federation flagship (What were droids to his rage? Nothing but metal to tear- was screaming in agony. Entire sections of the craft ripped themselves from limb to limb, like a crying creature from the abyss of Dathomir. Lone shrieks filling the void of shadows. Heat rose, and auras of blazing orange began to shear apart the rest as engines died against the pull of undead stars.
Restraint. Know Restraint.
Not yet. He could not jump yet, he had to slip in between the black holes, between their devastating masses in hyperspace. Yet still allow them to pull him back, resist the jump until his movement landed him the heart of the galaxy.
It was an impossible jump, a jump that not even through trillions of droids could it be calculated.
Maul laughed with red raining from his orfices. But with his Hatred, it could! The Dark Side enacted its toll on him, even as it began to blaze to life in his mind. The path, he could see it!
He could see it!
…
When Maul awoke.
He wondered if it not better for him to have died. Limbs twisted, bones cracked and slurped down down down through his broken body, mechanical legs melted through his frame, something itchy everywhere. Maggots and worms he supposed.
Had the Force preserved him? Stolen his consciousness from Death yet again? Was his immortal existence forever barred from Dathomir? Chained to a body defiled and ruined?
Maul felt distinctively wrong.
Like an error in the code, an unknown presence in the Force, a dream within a nightmare, seeds implanted with a parasite, a life in death…
Where, exactly was he?
Some-
It-
She gnawed on his mind again.
Devouring memories,
running through the cracked red of Dathomir, joy with his brothers in flame, eating his dreams whole,
the Jedi dead at his feet, his Master finally relinquishing it all to him, Vengeance satisfied, swallowing his emotions through a mouth that stretched and stretched and stretched,
empty white, a stolen sun tearing through his crimson, blue and green robbing him of life, dead black wounds,
She ate everything.
And spit something else out.
Sinkhole Station
A prison of unbelievable construction and technology situated directly in the center of the Galaxy. Hence its name.
Also, is in the middle of all the supermassive blackholes of said galaxy.
The sister Station to this one, is similar in design but far larger in scope. And is said to be able to move Stars. And contains one in its Center. Both stations' construction and build are impossible to replicate by the galaxies' current standard of technology. And the next millennia. And the next. And the next.
It was constructed nearly 100, 000 years ago.
Built to contain a prisoner in a planet located within the Maw. Its inhabitants are known as Mind Drinkers.
This station has been destroyed.
. I gave it a solid try, and it didn't fit my taste.