"You're exaggerating, as usual," Dooku said scathingly. But hadn't he been thinking the same thing?
"Everything is at stake for me," Lorian said. "But you've already been chosen by the great Thame Cerulian. Not only that, Master Yoda has taken a persona interest in you. The Council has watched you, too. They know you have an extraordinary Force connection. They'll forgive you. Especially since your Master is interested in the Sith. You could say you just wanted to do some research."
Lorian's voice floated up in the darkness, ragged with desperation. "I panicked when Oppo Rancisis came in. I saw my future, and it scared me. I could get kicked out, and where would I go, what would I do?"
"You should have thought of that before you stole the Sith Holocron."
"I know I shouldn't ask such a big thing, but who else can I ask but my best friend? Because no matter what, you're still my best friend." Lorian paused. For a moment, all Dooku could hear was their breathing. "Will you cover for me?"
Dooku wanted to burst out with a savage "No!" But he couldn't. He didn't know if Lorian could get kicked out of the order — he didn't think so. But it served Lorian right to have to worry about it.
Punishment would be severe for him, especially since he'd tried to lie and cover up. But Lorian was right —Dooku was a favorite of the Jedi Masters. He knew how he could tell the story so that he would just get a lecture, most likely. He would let them think it was a hunger for knowledge, a desire to impress his new Master. They would believe that.
Dooku didn't know what to say. He wasn't prepared to lie, but he couldn't say no to his friend. So he said nothing, and, after a long while, the two friends fell asleep.
CHAPTER No. 4
Dooku woke before dawn. Lying in the dark, he listened to the silence and knew that Lorian had left sometime during the night. He lay on his back, feeling the weight of the air on his body as though his friend was sitting on his chest.
Reluctant to rise, he stared at the walls, watching the darkness slowly silver into gray, until he could see the outlines of his furniture. The light on his bedside table began to glow softly and increase in intensity, his signal to wake up. Then a holographic calendar appeared and glowed in the air overhead. Usually the day calendar had been filled with appointments and classes. Lately he had liked looking at its blankness. Soon he would fill it up with missions.
He stared at it, thinking of his future. It was secure. Was Lorian right? Had he been smug about that and failed to appreciate his friend's distress?
He stared at the calendar for long minutes, thinking of this, before it registered on his brain that the entire day had been blocked out. Dooku sat up. The urban search exercise! It was today! Not only that, he saw that he and Lorian had been summoned before the Jedi Council following the search.
The exercise was designed more for competitive fun than for serious training. The older students, the ones who had either been chosen as apprentices or who had finished their formal Temple training, were invited to sign up. They were divided into two teams, and had to track one another through a segment of Coruscant near the Temple. They had to use stealth, cunning, and surveillance techniques. Dooku and Lorian had signed up the week before.
Dooku swung his legs over the bed. Would he and Lorian still be allowed to participate?
He dressed hurriedly and grabbed his training light-saber. He walked out into the hallway and saw Yoda ahead. Yoda nodded a greeting.
"Heading to the tracking exercise, are you?" Yoda asked. "I—I don't know if I am permitted . ." Dooku stammered.
Yoda cocked his head at him. "A commitment you made. A Padawan you are. And thus the answer you find is .. ."
"I'm going," Dooku said. He hurried off. He had just enough time to grab some fruit for the morning meal before the students assembled outside on the landing platform. He wondered if Lorian would have the nerve to show up.
Lorian stood at the edge of the small crowd on the exterior platform. He was clearly uncomfortable and avoided standing too near or too far away. He wore his hood low so that it shaded his eyes. Dooku stood at the edge of the group, opposite from Lorian. No one paid attention to them. Whatever the gossip had been, it had died down, and the students now only thought of the contest ahead.
The cool morning air flushed their cheeks and the wind whipped their robes around them as they chattered in excited voices. Dooku felt the combined Force from the group, energetic, unfocused, but strong.
For a moment he stood outside himself. It was something that happened to him from time to time. Suddenly he would feel removed, as though he floated above his classmates.
How young we all are, he thought, amused. Someday I will look back on this and wish for such simple things as a learning exercise on a cool morning.
It made him feel better for a moment. Someday his problem with Lorian wouldn't matter. It would be a blip, a moment of static, something lost in a sea of missions in a remarkable career.
Then Yoda and Oppo Rancisis emerged from the interior of the Temple. His gaze rested on Dooku only briefly, but it brought Dooku back to reality with a bump. His mood suddenly soured as he thought of the Jedi Council he would have to face.
The students quieted as Yoda approached. He stood in the middle of the group, nodding greetings at the familiar faces. He'd known them all since they were babies and had trained them all when they were younglings.
"In an exercise know you do that every year the oldest students participate," he said. "Urban tracking, this year's will be. That this is a test remember you must. Yet graded you will not be. Take it seriously but lightly you must. Attempt to win you will; if you lose, enjoy it you may."
The students smiled at Yoda's contradictions and fiddled with their training lightsabers. Everyone was anxious to begin.
"And now, the rules," Oppo said. "You will be divided into two teams of ten. In a moment, your team color will flash on your datapad. Each team will have a different starting point. The goal of each team is to successfully bring a muja fruit from one of the fruitsellers in the All Planets Market back to the Temple by sunset. Team members can be eliminated only by one light touch with a lightsaber."
The students smiled. They knew that no matter how easy it sounded, the actual exercise would turn out to be much harder.
"You must keep to the segment mapped out on your datapads. To cross the line is to be disqualified. Do you understand this?"
The students nodded, trying to conceal their anticipation. They all knew the rules.
Yoda nodded, letting them know that their attempts to hide their impatience hadn't fooled him a bit. "Perhaps wait you should until the sun is higher...." he began, his eyes twinkling.
"No, please, Master Yoda!" the students chorused the words together.
"Ah, then teams you will become. Look on your data-pads, you must."
The students reached for the palm-sized datapads on their utility belts. Dooku's screen glowed blue.
"Blue and gold, the team colors are," Yoda said. "And the captains are these: Dooku for blue, Lorian for gold. Waiting, the Jedi Masters are, to take you to your starting points."
Startled, Dooku looked first at Yoda, then at Lorian, whose blank face showed how deeply surprised he was. Why had they been chosen as captains? Maybe yesterday morning they would have been chosen. Yesterday morning, when they were not suspected of stealing a Sith Holocron. Yesterday morning, when they were still Padawans in good standing.
Dooku gripped his datapad, still reeling by Yoda's words. He had not yet completely figured out Jedi logic, that was certain.
"Hey, Dooku, wake up!" Hran Beling grinned at him as he tugged on the sleeve of his tunic. "Is it a little early for you?"
"Jedi Master Reesa Doliq is waiting," Galinda Norsh said briskly. "Let's get started."
Dooku noticed that the Gold Team members were all scrambling to board a transport. He hurried behind the other Blue Team members to get aboard their own transport. Reesa Doliq smiled at the students as they crammed in
.
"Room for everyone," she said. "Don't worry, I'll have you at the starting point in no time. In the meantime, you can start on your strategy."
The two transports lifted off. Dooku found that every Blue Team member was staring at him, waiting for him to begin. He was the leader, after all.
He cleared his throat and looked down at his datapad. The map of the area they would be operating in flashed onscreen. Dooku was familiar with much of it. It consisted of the Senate buildings, several grand boulevards that he knew quite well, and the All Planets Market, which was held in a large plaza near the Senate complex. As a promising student of diplomacy, he had signed up for special tutorials in Senate procedure, so he'd had plenty of opportunities to explore the Senate grounds.
Quickly Dooku scanned the map, trying to locate streets and alleys and space lanes. Everyone had to be coordinated and a strategy must be devised. They should spread out and each student should get a muja fruit. That would increase the odds of their win.
But why? Dooku thought suddenly. It was just what Lorian would expect him to do, so why should he do it?
"Our starting coordinate is Nova level," Galinda said. "That's good. There are many alleys there to hide in. And the gravsleds and truck transports will be unloading supplies for the market. We can use them for cover." She looked over Dooku's shoulder at the map.
Hran Beling nodded. "We can pick the fastest among us to pick up the fruit."
"They'll probably be staking out the fruit stands," Galinda said. "We have to get there first."
"Maybe not," Dooku muttered, his head bent over the map.
"Do you have a better idea?" Hran asked.
Dooku didn't answer. He was thinking. What would Lorian expect him to do?
He would expect me to race to get a muja fruit first. He would expect me to send three Padawans to retrieve the fruit, and guard them with the rest. If they all didn't make it, I'd send back two.
He looked at the map again.
"Do you have a plan or, what?" Galinda asked impatiently.
Dooku looked up at last. "Yes," he said. "We're not going after the muja fruit at all."
They looked at him skeptically. Dooku only smiled. He would bend them to his will. He would make them see his strategy. Because he knew one thing on this day: He had to win.
CHAPTER No. 5
"Why expose ourselves to get the fruit at the start?" Dooku asked them. "Why not let the Gold Team try for the fruit, and pick them off one by one? We might lose a few team members, but not as many as they will. When you are intent on getting something, you take more chances. Then, when no Gold Team members are left, we can simply stroll to the market, pick a fruit, and head back to the Temple. Simple."
"Sure, if we're able to pick them all off," Galinda said. "What if one of them gets through and makes it back to the Temple?"
"That is not an acceptable outcome," Dooku said. His coolness made the others exchange glances. Dooku had learned early that in order to inspire confidence he should not admit doubt.
Galinda was still skeptical. "But where can we set up surveillance? There's not much cover in the market. We need good sight lines."
"I have a plan for that, too," Dooku said.
Dooku stood as the transport landed. He noticed that Master Doliq was watching him curiously. He tucked his data pad into his belt. "Follow me," he told the others.
He jumped off the ramp and led the way through the twisting streets to the Senate complex. He walked so purposefully that no one asked him where they were going.
When he arrived at the complex he led the others onto a turbolift and descended to the lower sub-offices. He had a foolproof strategy. It just depended on his powers of persuasion and how much a friend of his was willing to bend the rules. He was learning that sometimes it was better to come at things sideways, especially when his opponent assumed he would come at them head-on. Persuasion and deception could work better than battles.
Dooku turned to the others as he reached a door. "Wait here. I'll just be a minute."
He accessed the door and walked in. A tall, spindly creature with waving antennae and bright yellow eyes sat at a datascreen. He looked up and saw Dooku, then pretended to tremble.
"Dooku! Oh, no! Have you come to show me up again?"
"Not at all, Eero." Dooku smiled. His first meeting with the young Senatorial aide Eero Iridian had cemented their friendship, but not in the usual way. Dooku had been attending a seminar on the political history of the Correllian system. Eero had read a paper he'd written on the subject, and Dooku had raised a hand to correct a number of points he felt were inaccurate. Eero had bristled at the newcomer, but a quick search of the archives had revealed that Dooku had been right.
Eero had been hoping to impress both his father, a Senator, and his boss. Instead, he'd been publicly embarrassed. Yet after the seminar he'd come up to Dooku and asked if the student would be interested in joining his study group. He'd been annoyed at Dooku, but he wanted to learn from him, too. Dooku had joined the group for a time, and he and Eero had become friends. Eero's father was powerful and Eero longed to follow in his footsteps. Dooku admired how hard he studied and the fact that he took the job of a Senatorial aide so seriously.
Of course that was not why he had come to see him today.
"I need a favor," Dooku said.
"Anything I have is yours," Eero declared.
"I need your code card to the C level transport hallway," Dooku said.
"Except that," Eero said.
Dooku said nothing. He just waited.
Eero fiddled with a flexible antennae. "Okay, why?"
"A Padawan exercise," Dooku said. "I need the element of surprise, and that passage overlooks the All Planets Market. There's also an exit with a turbolift straight down to market level. We can use it as a base."
"But it's restricted to Senate personnel."
"That's why I need your access card," Dooku said patiently. Eero's fault as a scholar, he recalled, was that he had trouble putting different facts together to reach a conclusion. He noted the reluctance on Eero's face. Maybe he should offer a favor as an exchange. This was the Senate, after all.
"I'll help you with that Tolfranian brief that's giving you so much trouble," Dooku offered.
Eero looked torn. "I could use the help. But I could get in trouble with Senate security if I give you the code card. It could go on my record. On the other hand, this brief is really important to my boss. .. ." Eero began to fiddle furiously with both antennae now, twirling them around his fingers until they sprang loose in coils. "Okay," he finally said in a rush of breath. He tossed the code card to Dooku.
"I'll have it back to you by this evening," Dooku said, hurrying out.
Now I have you, Lorian. You won't beat me.
The plan worked perfectly, for a while. Dooku and the team had a perfect view of the muja fruitseller from a window in a storage area. They could clearly see the bustling market and the fact that Lorian and the Gold Team members had set up several stakeout areas. They were waiting for Dooku to strike. Dooku knew that Lorian believed the Blue Team would make an aggressive first move. It was usually how Dooku began a lightsaber battle. But a trademark move could betray you. It was better to mix up tactics. Lorian had no idea that he, too, had a trademark move. When he began to lose a battle, he made a deliberately wide pass to the left, then spun around to his opponent's rear. This gave him precious seconds to catch his breath and compose his mind.
Dooku sent out his group in pairs. They communicated by comlink. From their perch above they were able to track the evasive procedures the other team employed. It was easy to direct their team members below. With a slight touch of the lightsaber, one after another, Gold Team members went down. Each hit was recorded on everyone's datapad.
They were winning. Lorian's team had managed to hit only one Blue Team member, and they'd taken out five of his.
Then Lorian must have figured out what they were doing.
Suddenly Dooku saw two Gold team members running toward the turbolift. Unable to access it, they began to use their cable launchers to scale the glass tube. They would find a way in. That left three Gold members. If Dooku were Lorian, he would try to ambush them at an exit.
Or Lorian would go for the muja fruit while he was running from him.
No, Dooku thought. Lorian knows the Senate well. He will think he can catch me here.
Just in case, Dooku barked into his comlink at his two team members in the market. "Guard that fruitseller. We have to abandon the surveillance post." He turned to the remaining six members of his team. "Let's get out of here."
The team members raced out of the storage unit. There was only one other way down — through the turbolift that connected to the Senate main halls. Dooku thought rapidly as the turbolift sank downward. Lorian had also attended seminars in the Senate. Lorian knew the building even better than Dooku. Lorian loved poking around in places he shouldn't. If he didn't know before that this turbolift led to only two exits, he had no doubt made it his business to know. It would have been easy to access a Senate map and find out.
Dooku reached out and pressed the button to stop the turbolift. "We're not getting out," he told the others. "We're going up."
He leaped up and balanced on the handrail. He accessed the escape hatch at the top and climbed up. Above his head was a door leading to a Senate level. A training lightsaber did not have the power of a true lightsaber, but it could most likely get through the metal door over his head.
He worked his lightsaber along the seam of the door. "Galinda, Hran, I need some help," he called down as he worked.
The two Padawans squirmed up through the opening. They got out their lightsabers to help him. Within minutes they had peeled back the metal just enough for them to squeeze through.
They crawled through the opening. Dooku saw an orientation kiosk and hurriedly accessed the Senate map. He found the fastest route to an exit.
"We have about three to five minutes before Lorian figures out that we're not coming out of that turbolift and we're no longer in hallway C," Dooku said. "That's enough time to buy some muja fruit, I think."