Interlude
The darkness in Count Dooku's private quarters aboard the Invisible Hand felt almost tangible — thick, as though the Dark Side itself were deepening the shadows for its master. The only source of light was the cold, bluish glow of the holographic projector, from the center of which rose a majestic figure in a deep hood. Darth Sidious had not yet spoken a single word, yet his presence — even separated from him by thousands of light-years — pressed down on the Count's shoulders like a spine wolf lying in ambush somewhere in the hills of Serenno. The feeling was remarkably similar.
And yet Dooku stood perfectly still, hands folded behind his back. His face held its mask of aristocratic composure, but inwardly he was weighing every word with care. He knew that Sidious would not tolerate excuses — but the current situation on Mandalore demanded a thorough accounting, not a simple report of partial success.
"My lord," Dooku began, and his voice — usually rich and commanding — came out surprisingly dry in the silence. "Events in Sundari have taken an... unexpected turn. The plan to fully discredit Duchess Satine and transfer power to Death Watch encountered factors that fell outside any reasonable probability forecast."
Sidious tilted his head slightly, and in the shadow of his hood, eyes full of cold, calculating interest gleamed for a brief moment.
"An unexpected turn, Lord Tyranus?" The Sith Lord's voice was quiet and silky, but a restrained power ran beneath it. "As I recall, you used the phrase 'surgical precision' to describe your agent's methods the last time you sent me a report."
"As it should have been," Dooku replied, holding his gaze. "Our agent, Brute, performed flawlessly. He not only succeeded in provoking the Mandalorians into open action but managed to cast the Republic as the aggressor. It was the intervention of Kenobi — and, more notably, Skywalker — that created the anomaly. That particular Jedi displayed an inexplicable resourcefulness. By every calculation, they should have been killed when the commandeered vessel came down. Instead, they not only managed to land a burning wreck in the heart of the capital, but turned its systems around and used them for an information counterattack. It was blind luck bordering on madness."
Sidious was silent. The silence stretched long enough that Dooku felt a genuine chill in his chest, however briefly. The Sith Lord seemed to be savoring the account of the young Jedi's fortune.
In truth, nothing the Count had said was news to Palpatine. He understood better than anyone what the Chosen One was capable of — how, when genuine danger closed in, reality itself seemed to bend around the boy. Only Dooku saw it differently, reading it simply as an irritating complication. Fool. A useful fool, but a fool nonetheless, Sidious thought, his gaze cutting through the Count like a blade.
"Despite what transpired, we have achieved a stalemate," Dooku continued, attempting to reclaim momentum in the conversation. "An outright victory eluded Vizsla, but civil war is now inevitable. That will tie the hands of the Jedi Order for months. Satine retains power in name only — her authority has been destroyed."
The Count permitted himself a faint, barely perceptible smile.
"Brute is a rare instrument, my lord. He operates unconventionally, and with considerable intelligence. At this very moment he has a proposal for how to develop the crisis further. He plans to organize a series of attacks — made to appear ordered by Satine's government — to push the moderate Mandalorians decisively into the Confederacy's arms. He is prepared to press the situation to its conclusion and eliminate the Duchess entirely in the near term. His... creative approach to intrigue merits—"
Sidious raised one hand slowly. Dooku cut off mid-sentence, sensing the air around him go suddenly cold.
"Enough." The Sith Lord's voice was glacial and absolute, leaving no room for objection or further discussion. "The Mandalore operation is to be suspended. Agent Brute is to be recalled and placed in reserve."
Dooku went still for a moment, his eyebrows rising involuntarily.
"But, Master... we stand on the threshold of total success in this sector. Brute has nearly finished preparing the ground for—"
"Mandalore has served its purpose, Lord Tyranus," Sidious cut him off, and now there was unmistakable irritation in his voice. "We have created a focal point of instability that will drain the Republic's resources for some time to come. That is sufficient. Applying too much pressure now will compel the Senate to commit a full-scale army to restore order at any cost — and I have no interest in a Republic occupation of Mandalore. What I require is a smoldering ember of tension that the Jedi will spend themselves trying to extinguish."
Sidious leaned slightly forward, and his holographic silhouette seemed to grow heavier and more imposing in the blue light.
"Your agent has become too active. His actions are beginning to attract unwanted attention from the Jedi Council. You are taking a risk, Tyranus. One wrong step from this particular instrument, and Obi-Wan Kenobi will follow a trail that leads directly back to you. I will not gamble everything on the ambitions of a single operative."
"I understand, my lord." Dooku inclined his head in a gesture of deference, even as questions he suspected his Master would find uncomfortable were beginning to take shape inside him. "I will issue the recall order."
"See that you do." Sidious straightened.
"Brute will await my further instructions. On other fronts, his talents may find... a more fitting application."
The hologram flickered and went dark. Dooku stood alone in absolute blackness, staring at the empty space where the Lord's silhouette had just glimmered. He could feel that Sidious was leaving something unspoken. The reasons his Master had given were logical — but Dooku had spent far too long in this man's shadow to believe there was no second layer to them.
Deep down, he understood: Sidious was planning something. Too many times recently, operations that had posed a genuine threat to Anakin Skywalker had been quietly wound down at the very last moment. Perhaps... the ranks of the Sith were soon to receive a new addition.
XXXXXXXXXX
In his private office on Coruscant — hidden from all but the most trusted eyes — Sheev Palpatine leaned back slowly in his chair. He pressed his fingertips together and gazed at the glittering lights of the night-time city sprawling beyond the panoramic window.
A faint, ironic smile played at the corners of his lips.
Palpatine was a master of tactics and of reading people — yet even he had not anticipated that the "ancient Sith" Dooku had stumbled upon would prove quite so effective. In the intelligence reports he had reviewed earlier, Taalas had come across as a mysterious but ambiguous figure. Here on Mandalore, however, he had operated at his full potential. And that was... concerning.
Sidious closed his eyes and let himself sink into the currents of the Force. He found the newcomer almost immediately — a bright, unstable mark in the larger tapestry of intrigue. This Sith was not simply following orders. He was playing his own game, threading elements of chaos into the Grand Plan that Palpatine could not entirely account for. And his instincts were sharpening with every move. Each engagement had yielded more impressive results than the last — from that initial minor uprising all the way through to this recent campaign, which, had it not been for Anakin, could very plausibly have ended in complete success.
"You reached for the grandmaster's chair too soon, my ancient... 'friend,'" Palpatine thought, his smile widening briefly on that last word.
What troubled Sidious most was the direct confrontation between this Sith — Taalas, Brute, whatever name one chose to use — and Skywalker. Anakin was his future. His perfect blade. His masterpiece. At this stage in the design, the boy was meant to be accumulating anger, frustration, and a deepening sense of his own indispensability — through victories over enemies, not through being outmaneuvered by some schemer dragged out of the past.
If this Sith had killed the Chosen One — or worse, had made him look like a complete fool and humiliated him in front of all of Mandalore — the damage to the young Jedi's psyche could have been irreparable, warping the trajectory of his eventual fall in ways Sidious could not predict or control. He could not allow some random variable thawed out of carbonite to dismantle years of careful preparation.
The ancient Sith was a surplus piece on this board. A piece that Palpatine was quite certain would sacrifice its own allies if doing so improved its position in the game.
Rather like himself, in that regard.
"But you will still serve me," Sidious reflected, and his smile settled into something colder and more deliberate. "Only not in the way you imagine. I will remove you from this equation before you cause real damage. You are too valuable to simply destroy — and far too dangerous to leave running loose near my future apprentice."
"Let him believe he outwitted the Jedi on Mandalore. Let him believe Dooku values him. I will find a way to test his loyalty. To test it — and to break him, if the need arises."
Palpatine turned his gaze back to the archived intelligence reports on Riflor that had been pulled for a second review. He had already given the order to have the data quietly adjusted, ensuring the Jedi Council would not see the full picture of the uprising — building a vacuum around this Taalas, isolating him, preparing the conditions to either bend this fragment of the past to his will at the right moment, or crush it entirely.
In the greater game, there is no room for those who insist on playing by their own rules.
Sheev Palpatine reached out and extinguished the lamp on his desk with a gentle touch, rose unhurriedly, and moved toward the door. The game continued — and now he knew precisely which card to draw from the deck next.
End of Interlude
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Brute (Taalas)
The incoming signal caught me in the middle of studying a tactical map of Sundari, calculating exactly where to direct the next wave of "accidental" explosions to drive the Jedi into an inescapable corner. But the flickering figure of Count Dooku materializing above the projector extinguished my enthusiasm in an instant.
"Lord Brute," the Count's voice was quiet and measured, which somehow made it all the more unsettling. "Your achievements on Mandalore are... noteworthy. However, priorities have shifted. You are to cease your current operation immediately and vacate the system. I have a different assignment for you — one that requires your presence without delay."
I went still, feeling a cold fury begin to simmer somewhere beneath the surface. Stand down? Now? When we were practically holding both Satine and her bearded guardian by the throat? My instincts were screaming it — there was a certain unseen hand at work here, the kind that rakes everything in the galaxy toward itself and tolerates no rivals at the table. In this particular case, it was raking away from me, but the principle was the same.
Sidious. The old puppeteer was frightened for his precious Skywalker. The Force forbid that an "ancient Sith" like me would break his future toy ahead of schedule. The irony was almost poetic — the Dark Lord of the Sith, playing the role of an anxious nursemaid.
But outwardly I remained composed. I was no longer the Taalas who had first woken in this world and could barely squeeze out a Force lightning strike. I had grown. I was sharper than I had been, and I had reclaimed much of what the previous occupant of this body had once known. I straightened and inclined my head in a precise, measured half-bow.
"As you wish, Count. My loyalty belongs to the Confederacy and to you. If my blade is needed elsewhere, I won't delay."
"Good, Brute." Dooku appeared satisfied with my deference. "You have one standard day to hand matters over to Vizsla and complete your withdrawal. I will transmit coordinates shortly. Do not disappoint me."
The hologram died, and I stood staring into the empty air for a few more seconds. "Do not disappoint me." Old man — if you only knew how thoroughly I intend to disappoint you before this is over.
"Master..." Kem Val stepped out of the shadows, his massive frame barely fitting the room. "Your 'master' smells of fear and lies. I can sense it even through the hologram. Why do we listen to him? Let me eat him, and we can continue the hunt."
"Not yet, Kem. The time isn't right. As they say — to fell an old tree, you must first undercut its roots."
I turned back to the terminal. I had twenty-four hours. For an ordinary person, nothing. For a reasonably intelligent person with resources and a clear plan — more than enough.
XXXXXXXXXX
The meeting with Pre Vizsla took place at his field headquarters, amid the roar of fighters warming up for launch. The Death Watch leader was incandescent with rage following Skywalker's broadcast — which had done real damage to his reputation — and still stinging from his defeat at Kenobi's hands. My departure now was going to read as a betrayal no matter how I framed it. That said, this man was considerably easier to work with than Dooku.
"Pre, I have bad news," I said, placing a hand on his shoulder and threading waves of sympathy and trust through the Force as I did. "Count Dooku has personally ordered me to withdraw. A threat has emerged on the other side of the galaxy — one he believes only a master of the Dark Side can resolve."
Vizsla shrugged my hand off, and I could physically feel his eyes narrowing behind his visor. "The Confederacy is abandoning us? Now? When the Jedi are pinned down?"
"No, Pre. He believes in you." I lowered my voice. "Honestly, I argued with him. I told him I wanted to stay and watch you take Kenobi's head. But the Count believes Mandalore must be your victory. If I finish this for you, the people will see you as nothing more than a Confederacy puppet. He wants you to take Sundari yourself. To become the true Mandalore — a ruler who owes his triumph to no one."
It was shameless flattery, but Vizsla swallowed it whole without chewing. His ego was larger than the entire moon of Concordia.
"I bought us a day," I continued lying smoothly. "I'll stretch my departure to the last possible second and help coordinate the strikes. The plan I gave you this morning still stands. The Jedi and their allies are shaken and scattered. If you hit Sector Four now, they won't hold."
"I'll manage," Vizsla growled, drawing himself up straight. "Let your Count watch. I'll drown this city in blood if that's what it takes."
"I have no doubt," I said, smiling beneath my mask. "But just to be safe... I need to leave a couple of my people here to maintain communications. In case the Count wants to pass along new instructions."
Vizsla waved a hand dismissively. He was already fighting the battle in his head.
XXXXXXXXXX
I spent the remainder of the day not in the command post, but in the field. I had a different objective — the real reason I hadn't flown out the moment I received the order without so much as a goodbye.
Dependence on Dooku's intelligence network was a noose around my neck. If I intended to take control of the CIS, I needed my own shadow empire. My Revolutionary Galactic Alliance — the R.G.A. — had already put down its first roots on Riflor, but here on Mandalore, the soil had become particularly fertile. There were people here who despised Satine's corrupt upper class while quietly holding Vizsla's fanaticism in contempt.
I spent those twenty-four hours finding them — disillusioned police officers, communications technicians, junior Death Watch commanders. I met them in dim bars and abandoned warehouses, probing their minds through the Force, searching for the particular kind of person who could become a true believer given the right words and the right pressure applied in the right places.
"You fight for crests and ancient titles," I told one city guard captain, holding his gaze steadily. And I didn't merely speak — I wove the Force into every word, resonating with the buried resentment he had carried for years. "While your children go hungry in cellars because the officials have been skimming the supply lines. Satine feeds you speeches about peace. Vizsla feeds you dreams of war. But who puts bread on your table?"
I watched his pupils dilate. The ideas of social equality and technological progress — concepts born in another century, in another world entirely — fell on fertile ground here. For people living in a galaxy where centuries of feudalism and corporate oligarchy were all anyone had ever known, my words about the power of the working people under wise and principled leadership sounded either like madness to those who weren't ready, or like a genuine way forward for those who were. Their eyes lit up with particular intensity when I explained that every war in history came down to the redistribution of resources — of wealth — and that wars would continue for as long as the current order persisted, however much the conflict here might be dressed up in the pageantry of Jedi versus Sith.
"There is a third force in this war," I said quietly, many times over, to many different sets of attentive eyes, sliding a small encrypted data chip across whatever surface stood between us. "The R.G.A. We stand neither for the Republic nor for the CIS in its current form. We stand for a new order. That chip contains contact information. When Sundari descends into chaos — and it will, one way or another — you will be our eyes. You'll pass information directly to our command and to me. And when the time comes, we will build something genuinely great here."
In twenty-four hours, I recruited twelve key nodes. I spent the Force freely, bending their will and replacing it with devotion to an idea. My idea. Though of course, no Force compulsion lasts forever. What I was doing was simply nudging them in the right direction — allowing them to skip the long process of arriving at a conclusion on their own and deciding to embrace it.
"Master," Kem Val entered yet another abandoned warehouse, where I had just finished briefing a group of communications technicians. "You are sowing seeds that smell... strange. This is not Darkness, but something else. I don't care for it."
"It's an Idea, Kem. The most durable power is the kind that lives inside the minds of those who follow you. Droids can be reprogrammed. A slave can be freed. But a true believer cannot be stopped as long as he thinks he is building a paradise. And he will build it — take my word for it."
I checked the time. My allotted twenty-four hours were running out.
The autonomous network was in place. Now, even if Dooku tried to blind me, I would be able to track every development on Mandalore — and possibly in the surrounding sectors as well. Information is the currency of the future. And today I had become considerably wealthier.
"Time to go, Kem. Pack your things — and I know you've accumulated quite the collection of weapons. We're leaving, but we're leaving a shadow behind us that will devour this city when the moment comes."
I took one last look at the tactical map. Skywalker. Kenobi. Enjoy your small victory. You won the battle — but you didn't even notice me rewriting the rules of the war itself.
The ship's engines finished warming up, and we tore free of the surface and climbed into the clouds, leaving behind a Mandalore that was burning and tearing itself apart. Our heading pointed somewhere among the stars — toward the coordinates the Count had transmitted — but my thoughts were already far ahead of our course, in the place where the crimson star of the Revolutionary Alliance would one day rise over the galaxy!