But not the only one.

The blue-scanned image before him now became miniatures of Ken.o.bi and Skywalker as he had seen them so many times before: shoulder-to-shoulder, lightsabers whirling as they enthusiastically dismantled droid after droid after droid. Feeling as if they were winning, while in truth they were being chivvied exactly where the Lords of the Sith wanted them to go.

Such children they were. Dooku shook his head.

It was almost too easy.

This is Dooku, Darth Tyra.n.u.s, Count of Serenno: Once a great Jedi Master, now an even greater Lord of the Sith, Dooku is a dark colossus bestriding the galaxy. Nemesis of the corrupt Republic, oriflamme of the principled Confederacy of Independent Systems, he is the very personification of shock and awe.

He was one of the most respected and powerful Jedi in the Order's twenty-five-thousand-year history, yet at the age of seventy Dooku's principles would no longer allow him to serve a Republic in which political power was for sale to the highest bidder. He'd said farewell to his former Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, now a legendary Master in his own right; he'd said farewell to his close friends on the Jedi Council, Mace Windu and the ancient Master Yoda; he'd said farewell to the Jedi Order itself.

He is numbered among the Lost: the Jedi who renounced their fealty to the Order and resigned their commissions of Jedi Knighthood in service of ideals higher than even the Order itself professed. The Lost Twenty, as they have been known since Dooku joined their number, are remembered with both honor and regret among the Jedi; their images, sculpted from bronzium, stand enshrined in the Temple archives.

These bronzium images serve as melancholy reminders that some Jedi have needs the Order cannot satisfy.

Dooku had retired to his family estate, the planetary system of Serenno. a.s.suming his hereditary t.i.tle as its Count made him one of the wealthiest beings in the galaxy. Amid the unabashed corruption endemic to the Republic, his immense wealth could have bought the allegiance of any given number of Senators; he could, perhaps, have bought control of the Republic itself.

But a man of such heritage, such principle, could never stoop to be lord of a garbage heap, chief of a horde of scavengers squabbling over sc.r.a.ps; the Republic, to him, was nothing more than this.

Instead, he used all the great power of his family fortune-and the vastly greater power of his unquestioned integrity-to begin the cleansing of the galaxy from the fester of this so-called democracy.

He is the icon of the Separatist movement, its public face. He is to the Confederacy of Independent Systems what Palpatine is to the Republic: the living symbol of the justice of its cause.

This is the public story.

This is the story that even Dooku, in his weaker moments, almost believes.

The truth is more complicated.

Dooku is ... different.

He doesn't remember quite when he discovered this; it may have been when he was a young Padawan, betrayed by another learner who had claimed to be his friend. Lorian Nod had said it to his face: "You don't know what friendship is."

And he didn't.

He had been angry, certainly; furious that his reputation had been put at risk. And he had been angry at himself, for his error in judgment: trusting as an ally one who was in fact an enemy. The most astonishing part of the whole affair had been that even after turning on him before the Jedi, the other boy had expected him to partic.i.p.ate in a lie, in the name of their "friendship."

It had been all so preposterous that he hadn't known how to reply-In fact, he has never been entirely sure what beings mean when they speak of friendship. Love, hate, joy, anger-even when he can feel the energy of these emotions in others, they translate in his perception to other kinds of feelings. The kinds that make sense.

Jealousy he understands, and possessiveness: he is fierce when any being encroaches on what is rightfully his.

Intolerance, at the intractability of the universe, and at the undisciplined lives of its inhabitants: this is his normal state.

Spite is a recreation: he takes considerable pleasure from the suffering of his enemies.

Pride is a virtue in an aristocrat, and indignation his inalienable right: when any dare to impugn his integrity, his honor, or his rightful place atop the natural hierarchy of authority.

And moral outrage makes perfect sense to him: when the incorrigibly untidy affairs of ordinary beings refuse to conform to

the plainly obvious structure of How Society Ought To Be.

He is entirely incapable of caring what any given creature might feel for him. He cares only what that creature might do for him. Or to him.

Very possibly, he is what he is because other beings just aren't very . . . interesting.

Or even, in a sense, entirely real.

For Dooku, other beings are mostly abstractions, simple schematic sketches who fall into two essential categories. The first category is a.s.sets: beings who can be used to serve his various interests. Such as-for most of his life, and to some extent even now-the Jedi, particularly Mace Windu and Yoda, both of whom had regarded him as their friend for so long that it had effectively blinded them to the truth of his activities. And of course-for now-the Trade Federation, and the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the Techno Union, the Corporate Alliance, and the weapon lords of Geonosis. And even the common rabble of the galaxy, who exist largely to provide an audience of sufficient size to do justice to his grandeur.

The other category is Threats. In this second set, he numbers every sentient being he cannot include in the first.

There is no third category.

Someday there may be not even a second; being considered a Threat by Count Dooku is a death sentence. A death sentence he plans to p.r.o.nounce, for example, on his current allies: the heads of the aforementioned Trade Federation, InterGalactic Banking Clan, Techno Union, and Corporate Alliance, and Geonosian weaponeers.

Treachery is the way of the Sith.

Count Dooku watched with clinical distaste as the blue-scanned images of Ken.o.bi and Skywalker engaged in a preposterous farce-chase, pursued by destroyer droids into and out of turbolift pods that shot upward and downward and even sideways.

"It will be," he said slowly, meditatively, as though he spoke only to himself, "an embarra.s.sment to be captured by him."

The voice that answered him was so familiar that sometimes his very thoughts spoke in it, instead of in his own. "An embarra.s.sment you can survive, Lord Tyra.n.u.s. After all, he is the greatest Jedi alive, is he not? And have we not ensured that all the galaxy shares this opinion?"

"Quite so, my Master. Quite so." Again, Dooku sighed. Today he felt every hour of his eighty-three years. "It is ... fatiguing, to play the villain for so long, Master. I find myself looking forward to an honorable captivity."

A captivity that would allow him to sit out the rest of the war in comfort; a captivity that would allow him to forswear his former allegiances-when he would conveniently appear to finally discover the true extent of the Separatists' crimes against civilization-and bind himself to the new government with his reputation for integrity and idealism fully intact.

The new government . . .

This had been their star of destiny for lo, these many years.

A government clean, pure, direct: none of the messy scramble for the favor of ignorant rabble and subhuman creatures that made up the Republic he so despised. The government he would serve would be Authority personified.

Human authority.

It was no accident that the primary powers of the Confederacy of Independent Systems were Neimoidian, Skakoan, Quarren and Aqualish, Muun and Gossam, Sy Myrthian and Koorivar and Geonosian. At war's end the aliens would be crushed, stripped of all they possessed, and their systems and their wealth would be given into the hands of the only beings who could be trusted with them.

Human beings.

Dooku would serve an Empire of Man.

And he would serve it as only he could. As he was born to. He would smash the Jedi Order to create it anew: not shackled by the corrupt, narcissistic, shabby little beings who called themselves politicians, but free to bring true authority and true peace to a galaxy that so badly needed both.

An Order that would not negotiate. Would not mediate.

An Order that would enforce.

The survivors of the Jedi Order would become the Sith Army.

The Fist of the Empire.

And that Fist would become a power beyond any Jedi's darkest dreams. The Jedi were not the only users of the Force in the galaxy; from Hapes to Haruun Kal, from Kiffu to Dathomir, powerful Force-capable humans and near-humans had long re-fused to surrender their children to lifelong bound servitude in the Jedi Order. They would not so refuse the Sith Army.

They would not have the choice.

Dooku frowned down at the holoimage. Ken.o.bi and Skywalker were going through more low-comedy business with another balky turbolift-possibly Grievous having some fun with the shaft controls-while battle droids haplessly pursued.

Really, it was all so . . .

Undignified.

"May I suggest, Master, that we give Ken.o.bi one last chance? The support of a Jedi of his integrity would be invaluable in establishing the political legitimacy of our Empire."

"Ah, yes. Ken.o.bi." His Master's voice went silken. "You have long been interested in Ken.o.bi, haven't you?"

"Of course. His Master was my Padawan; in a sense, he's practically my grandson-"

"He is too old. Too indoctrinated. Irretrievably poisoned by Jedi fables. We established that on Geonosis, did we not? In his mind, he serves the Force itself; reality is nothing in the face of such conviction."

Dooku sighed. He should, he supposed, have no difficulty with this, having ordered the Jedi Master's death once already. "True enough, I suppose; how fortunate we are that I never labored under any such illusions."

"Ken.o.bi must die. Today. At your hand. His death may be the code key of the final lock that will seal Skywalker to us forever."

Dooku understood: not only would the death of his mentor tip Skywalker's already unstable emotional balance down the darkest of slopes, but it would also remove the greatest obstacle to Skywalker's successful conversion. As long as Ken.o.bi was alive, Skywalker would never be securely in the camp of the Sith; Ken.o.bi's unshakable faith in the values of the Jedi would keep the Jedi blindfold on Skywalker's eyes and the Jedi shackles on the young man's true power.

Still, though, Dooku had some reservations. This had all come about too quickly; had Sidious thought through all the implications of this operation? "But I must ask, my Master: is Skywalker truly the man we want?"

"He is powerful. Potentially more powerful than even myself."

"Which is precisely," Dooku said meditatively, "why it might be best if I were to kill him, instead."

"Are you so certain that you can?"

"Please. Of what use is power unstructured by discipline? The boy is as much a danger to himself as he is to his enemies. And that mechanical arm-" Dooku's lip curled with cultivated distaste. "Revolting."

"Then perhaps you should have spared his real arm."

"Hmp. A gentleman would have learned to fight one-handed." Dooku flicked a dismissive wave. "He's no longer even entirely human. With Grievous, the use of these bio-droid devices is almost forgivable; he was such a disgusting creature already that his mechanical parts are clearly an improvement. But a blend of droid and human? Appalling. The depths of bad taste. How are we to justify a.s.sociating with him?"

"How fortunate I am"-the silk in his Master's voice softened further-"to have an apprentice who feels it is appropriate to lecture me."

Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "I have overstepped, my Master," he said with his customary grace. "I am only observing, not arguing. Not at all."

"Skywalker's arm makes him, for our purposes, even better. It is the permanent symbol of the sacrifices he has made in the name of peace and justice. It is a badge of heroism that he must publicly wear for the rest of his life; no one can ever look at him and doubt his honor, his courage, his integrity. He is perfect, just as he is. Perfect. The only question that remains is whether he is capable of transcending the artificial limitations of his Jedi indoctrination. And that, my lord Count, is precisely what today's operation is designed to discover."

Dooku could not argue. Not only had the Dark Lord introduced Dooku to realms of power beyond his most spectacular fantasies, but Sidious was also a political manipulator so subtle that his abilities might be considered to dwarf even the power of the dark side itself. It was said that whenever the Force closes a hatch, it opens a viewport . . . and every viewport that had so much as cracked in this past thirteen standard years had found a Dark Lord of the Sith already at the rim, peering in, calculating how best to slip through.

Improving upon his Master's plan was near to impossible; his own idea, of subst.i.tuting Ken.o.bi for Skywalker, he had to admit was only the product of a certain misplaced sentimentality. Skywalker was almost certainly the man for the job.

He should be; Darth Sidious had spent a considerable number of years making him so.

Today's test would remove the almost.

He had no doubt that Skywalker would fall. Dooku understood that this was more than a test for Skywalker; though Sidious had never said so directly, Dooku was certain that he himself was being tested as well. Success today would show his Master that he was worthy of the mantle of Mastery himself: by the end of the coming battle, he would have initiated Skywalker into the manifold glories of the dark side, just as Sidious had initiated him.

He gave no thought to failure. Why should he?

"But-forgive me, Master. But Ken.o.bi having fallen to my blade, are you certain Skywalker will ever accept my orders? You must admit that his biography offers little confidence that he is capable of obedience at all."

"Skywalker's power brings with it more than mere obedience. It brings creativity, and luck; we need never concern ourselves with the sort of instruction that Grievous, for example, requires. Even the blind fools on the Jedi Council see clearly enough to understand this; even they no longer try to tell him how, they merely tell him what. And he finds a way. He always has."

Dooku nodded. For the first time since Sidious had revealed the true subtlety of this masterpiece, Dooku allowed himself to relax enough to imagine the outcome.

With his heroic capture of Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker will become the ultimate hero: the greatest hero in the history of he Republic, perhaps of the Jedi Order itself. The loss of his (beloved partner will add just exactly the correct spice of tragedy to give melancholy weight to his every word, when he gives his HoloNet interviews denouncing the Senate's corruption as impeding the war effort, when he delicately-oh, so delicately, not to mention reluctantly-insinuates that corruption in the Jedi Order prolonged the war as well.

When he announces the creation of a new order of Force-using warriors.

He will be the perfect commanding general for the Sith Army.

Dooku could only shake his head in awe. And to think that only days earlier, the Jedi had seemed so close to uncovering, even destroying, all he and his Master had worked for. But he should never have feared. His Master never lost. He would never lose. He was the definition of unbeatable.

How can one defeat an enemy one thinks is a friend?

And now, with a single brilliant stroke, his Master would turn the Jedi Order back upon itself like an Ethrani ourobouros devouring its own tail.

This was the day. The hour.

The death of Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi would be the death of the Republic.

Today would see the birth of the Empire.

"Tyra.n.u.s? Are you well?"

"Am I . . ." Dooku realized that his eyes had misted. "Yes, my Master. I am beyond well. Today, the climax-the grand finale the culmination of all your decades of work ... I find myself somewhat overcome."

"Compose yourself, Tyra.n.u.s. Ken.o.bi and Skywalker are nearly at the door. Play your part, my apprentice, and the galaxy is ours."

Dooku straightened and for the first time looked his Master in the eyes.

Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, sat in the General's Chair, shackled to it at the wrist and ankle.

Dooku bowed to him. "Thank you, Chancellor."

Palpatine of Naboo, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, replied, "Withdraw. They are here."

=3=.