"No, I'd say so," Dooku said. "It's murder."

"Exactly!" Eero said. "How did you talk me into this! We'll be tried for murder!"

"Only if they catch us," Lorian said.

"I just got into this for the credits," Eero said fretfully. "I'm a politician, not a murderer!"

"Yes, this certainly changes things," Dooku said smoothly. Eero was just as afraid of getting caught as an adult as he'd been as a young man.

''You've killed a Senator. The full might of the Senate security force will come down on you. Not to mention the Jedi. They are already looking for us. This will certainly give them a reason to hurry."

"We have to get out of here!" Eero said shrilly to Lorian.

"Calm down!" Lorian barked. "Can't you see what he's doing? Shut up and let me think!"

"Don't give me orders!" Eero suddenly drew out a vibroblade. "I'm sick of it. You've bungled everything!"

"You fool!" Lorian hissed. "Put that away!"

But it was too late. Dooku summoned the Force. The vibroblade flew from Eero's unsteady hand and landed on the energy cuffs binding Dooku's wrists. The blade cut through the cuffs easily. With split-second timing, Dooku slipped out his hand before the vibroblade could injure him. He felt only a slight burn of heat.

Within seconds, he had released the other cuff and the ones binding his ankles.

Eero took one look at him and bolted out the door. Dooku reached out a hand and his lightsaber flew from the room next door into his palm.

When he turned, lightsaber activated, Lorian had Eero's vibroblade and a blaster in his hand. Dooku smiled. This time it was not a game.

Lorian backed up toward the door. Dooku saw that he meant to escape. He would try to avoid the battle if he could. Dooku leaped, blocking his exit. Lorian would not leave this room alive.

He had never forgotten Lorian, and he had never forgiven him. It was not in Dooku's nature to forgive or to forget.

"You betrayed me once, and now you've tried to make a fool of me,"

Dooku said.

"So glad to see you haven't changed," Lorian said, giving his vibroblade a twirl. "Can I point out again that the galaxy doesn't revolve around you, Dooku? The kidnapping wasn't personal. I didn't know you were on that ship." He grinned. "But I have to admit, I enjoyed winning."

The light mockery that danced in Lorian's eyes inflamed Dooku. The old resentment balled up in his chest, the choking rage he had felt as a boy. Now it joined the fury of a man. Dooku felt it surge, and he didn't fight it.

He was older now, and wiser. Anger no longer had the power to make him sloppy. It made him more precise.

"Talk all you want. You will never leave this room," he said with such icy control that the smile faded from Lorian's eyes.

"Let's not be so dramatic," Lorian said uneasily.

"Master give me my lightsaber!" Qui-Gon called.

The words only buzzed faintly, as if they came from a long distance away. Dooku did not need his Padawan. Qui-Gon would only get in his way.

He needed to finish this alone.

Lorian had seen his intent in his eyes. Between them now was the knowledge that Dooku would not allow him to surrender. He fired the blaster. Dooku deflected the fire easily. There was no way that Lorian could win this battle. Dooku could see the desperation in his eyes, the sweat forming on his brow. He enjoyed seeing it.

Lorian kept up a steady barrage of fire while he swung the vibroblade, using the same Jedi training he had absorbed so long ago.

Dooku kept advancing. He knew perfectly well where Lorian was headed - to Qui-Gon's lightsaber. Dooku decided to speed up the process. He lunged forward and with an almost casual swipe severed the vibroblade in two.

Then he whirled and kicked the blaster out of Lorian's hand.

Lorian sprang and fumbled for Qui-Gon's lightsaber. Dooku allowed him to pick it up. He had no reason to fear.

Qui-Gon cried out, but Dooku didn't hear what he said. All his focus was on Lorian now.

"Go ahead, attack me," Dooku said, holding his lightsaber at his side, letting it dangle casually. "Show me how much you've forgotten."

Lorian activated the lightsaber. Even in the midst of a battle Lorian could not win, Dooku could see the pleasure the former Jedi took in holding a lightsaber again.

He leaped at Dooku. The first strike was easily deflected. Without his connection to the Force, Lorian could not handle the weapon as he once had. Dooku enjoyed this humiliation the most. He parried Lorian's attacks, barely moving.

"Pity," Dooku said. "You were a worthy opponent once.

Now a flare of anger lit Lorian's gaze. He suddenly shifted his feet, moved unexpectedly, and came close to landing a blow.

Dooku decided it was time to stop playing with him. It was time to show him what fear was. Time to show him who the winner was.

He moved forward in perfect form, gathering the Force and molding it to his desires. His lightsaber danced. Lorian managed to evade one strike and parry the next, but it cost him. He stumbled with the effort.

"Master!"

Qui-Gon's voice cut through the heart of Dooku's concentration with the same annoying buzz.

" Master. Stop."

Qui-Gon did not shout this time. Yet his tone penetrated Dooku's concentration better than his cry had. Dooku looked over. Bound and helpless, Qui-Gon looked back.

That gaze. Dooku almost groaned aloud. He saw integrity and truth there, and he could not hide from it. He saw himself through Qui-Gon's eyes, and he could not do it. His Padawan had revealed to him what he should have known already. He could not go down this road.

He deactivated his lightsaber. Lorian took a deep, shuddering breath.

"It's over," Dooku said.

CHAPTER No.13.

Dooku handed over Lorian and Eero to Coruscant security. He didn't speak much with Qui-Gon on the journey back. Dooku knew that there were things that needed to be said, but he wasn't sure what they were. He knew that Qui-Gon had saved him from something, and he was grateful. Yet he did not want to admit that he had come so close to violating the Jedi code he was so proud of upholding.

They walked past the rows of cruisers in the Temple landing area, the place where he had said good-bye to Lorian so long ago, for what he thought was forever.

"So what did you learn from the mission, Padawan?" he asked Qui-Gon.

"Many things," Qui-Gon answered neutrally.

"Name the most important one, then."

"That you will withhold facts from me that I need to know."

Dooku drew in a sharp breath. He did not appreciate a rebuke from his apprentice. This natural a.s.surance of Qui-Gon's could get out of hand. What Qui-Gon needed was a little more fear of his displeasure.

"That is my decision," he answered severely. "It is not for you to question your Master."

"I am not questioning you, Master. I am answering you." Qui-Gon's gaze was steady.

Angrily, Dooku walked a few more steps. "I will tell you the lesson you should have learned." He stopped outside the landing bay doors.

"Betrayal should never take you by surprise. It will come from friends and enemies alike."

He left his Padawan and walked down toward the great hall. He drank in the sounds and sights of the Temple. He was glad to be back among the Jedi. Seeing Lorian again had disturbed him greatly.

He found himself in front of the Jedi archives. Now he knew why he had felt driven here. What Lorian had left him with was envy, and he realized why.

Lorian had accessed the Sith Holocron. He had looked upon it. Maybe he had even gleaned some secrets from it. And he wasn't even a Jedi!

Dooku had put it out of his mind for so many years, and now it had all returned - the same hunger, the same irresistible urge to know the Sith. Was it fair that a non-Jedi had glimpsed the Holocron's secrets, and Dooku, one of the greatest Jedi Knights, had not?

Dooku stood for a moment outside the archives, drinking in the silence, thinking about what lay within. Now no one could challenge his right to see it. He deserved to know, he told himself. He deserved to see it.

The ma.s.sive doors opened, and Dooku strode in.

Dooku and Qui-Gon's final mission together had lasted two years. It had been difficult and filled with dangers. They had worked together as never before, their battle minds in perfect rhythm. They had succeeded.

They returned to the Temple, weary, leaner, and older.

Dooku had not spoken of the future. Qui-Gon would now undergo the trials. They both knew he was ready. Qui-Gon waited for some parting words on the long journey home, but none came.

They pa.s.sed from the landing platform into the great hallway of the Temple. Almost immediately, Qui-Gon saw a familiar form ahead and his heart lifted. Tahl had come to welcome him.

They had not seen each other in years. They walked toward each other, and they clasped each other's shoulders in their old greeting.

Qui-Gon searched Tahl's striped green-and-gold eyes, needing to see that she was well and in good spirits. She nodded to let him know this was so.

"You're tired," she said.

"It was a long mission," he admitted.

He could feel Dooku waiting impatiently behind him.

They were scheduled to go straight to the Jedi Council for their report. Tahl, too, felt his Master's irritation. She nodded a quick good-bye and mouthed "later."

Qui-Gon turned back and walked in step with Dooku. "I see your old friendship has not died, even after all these years," Dooku said.

"I trust Tahl with my life," Qui-Gon said.

Dooku was silent for the entire length of the long hallway.

"You have been an excellent Padawan, Qui-Gon," he said at last. "I could not ask for a better one. I will tell the Council this as you face the trials. But I will not tell them this: You have a flaw. This in itself is not a bad thing. Each of us has one. It is bad when we don't see it. Yet what is far worse is to see your flaw and to think it is not a flaw at all. " Dooku stopped. "Perhaps it is my fault that I was never able to teach you my most important lesson."

Qui-Gon looked at his Master. The long, elegant nose, the dark hooded eyes, the pale skin. It was a face he knew intimately, but he also knew, and had known for some time, that it was a face he did not love. At first this had bothered him - until he realized he did not need to love his Master, merely learn from him. He was grateful to have a Master so strong in the Force. He had learned much.

"Your flaw is your need for connection to the living Force. Qui-Gon, the galaxy is crowded with beings. The Jedi Order is here to support you. Nevertheless you must carry the following knowledge in your heart,"

Dooku said. "You are always alone, and betrayal is inevitable."

Thirty-two Years Later Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi

CHAPTER No. 14.

Qui-Gon was the Master now, and he still remembered the lesson. It was the only one Dooku had given him that he had not heeded. Qui-Gon had come to believe that beings were more complicated than such a simple formula. And he had come to see that to live without friendship or trust was to inhabit a galaxy he did not want to live in.

Yet hadn't events in his own life proved his Master right?

Qui-Gon felt the hardness of the bench underneath him. He and Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi were on a s.p.a.ce cruiser crowded with beings. His eyes were closed. Obi-Wan was beside him, no doubt thinking that Qui-Gon was sleeping. Behind his closed lids, Qui-Gon imagined he could feel the speed of the ship vaulting through the stars. Every kilometer that pa.s.sed in a flash carried him forward into an uncertain future.

Betrayal should never take you by surprise.

But it did. Every time.

His first apprentice, who he had nurtured, had betrayed him.

Xanatos had turned to the dark side, had invaded the Temple itself, had tried to kill Yoda. Now Xanatos was dead. He had chosen death rather than surrender, stepping off firm ground into a toxic pool on his homeworld of Telos. Qui-Gon had leaped to prevent him even as his heart knew he was too late. He had seen the man Xanatos fall, blue eyes blazing with hatred, but at the same time, he had seen the boy he had once known, blue eyes full of eagerness, full of promise. It had cut him, made him grieve.

Months had pa.s.sed since the incident, and Qui-Gon felt the memory as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. Had his former apprentice failed his training? Or had Qui-Gon been the one to fail?

His second Padawan, whom he also loved, had also betrayed him. Obi-Wan sat beside him now, but Qui-Gon did not feel the old harmony between them. Obi-Wan had left the Jedi Order in order to devote himself to a cause on a planet they had tried to save. Qui-Gon still remembered standing on the rocky ground of Melida/Daan, seeing something in the eyes of his apprentice he had never seen before. Defiance. Obi-Wan would not listen to Qui-Gon's order to leave. He had remained.

Obi-Wan had come to see that he had been wrong. He had done everything he could to rebuild what they'd had between them. They had begun on a long road. Trust was the goal.

Tahl's disapproving frown rose in his mind. You are always so dramatic, Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan is a boy who made a mistake. Do not hold him responsible for your failure with Xanatos.