Chapter Eighty Three

Count Dooku's small yacht came out of hyperspace about as close to Coruscant as he could manage, lost in the truly monstrous amount of space traffic that continually filled the space around Coruscant. The planet's continuous need for food and other resources meant that more ships came and went on a daily basis here than in any other system in the Republic, even the other Core Worlds.

So it was very easy for Dooku's small ship to disappear in the multitude. Still, that was all to the good at the moment; Dooku had no desire for this mission to be interrupted by friend or stranger alike. This was why he was already wrapped in the best Force Stealth he could manage, so that other Force users, both his target and his fellow Jedi, would not be aware of his presence.

Searching the stationary ships scattered like tiny dots around the planet-turned-city, Dooku found the target vessel, and slowly began to make his way over to it. Odd. Considering it is the ship of a Sith, you would think there would be something off about it, something that made it stick out, but then again, that would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? Despite the upcoming encounter, Dooku had to smile at the whimsical thought.

It took Dooku a while to clandestinely move his ship through the crowd of ships so as to not arouse suspicion in his target. When he was close enough, Dooku, dressed in a spacesuit, exited his ship, using a brief Force push to send himself through space towards his target. An instant later he touched down without a sound onto the surface of the far larger yacht, which was almost the size of a small luxury liner rather than a personal yacht. There he was able to look through a small porthole and take a peek inside.

A moment later, he concentrated, imagining himself inside the airlock. An instant later he was inside, opening the inner door and striding into the ship, shaking his head for a brief second as he pulled off his spacesuit. Teleporting like that truly does take it out of you, but it had to be done. I could have wished for more time training in it, but I had to strike before Demask could disappear once more.

Walking forward, he was unsurprised to see the lights coming on red around him as he walked into a large area, which must at one point have been the central sitting area for the liner, or perhaps a casino before the ship was refitted for personal use. He was also unsurprised to see his target waiting for him.

The instant that Plagueis had felt the splash of Force power, he knew that at least one Jedi, perhaps more, had somehow found him. Knowing that, Plagueis had moved into the only area of the ship that was wide enough to let him use his Force abilities to the best advantage; despite his mastery of the lightsaber, Plagueis preferred to use his other Force abilities, many of which worked best at a certain distance. When he saw Dooku, however, he had to wonder if Master Fay had sensed him in some fashion, or if Sidious had betrayed him for some reason. Still, only one Jedi? The arrogance!

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Master Dooku? And the last time I checked, invading a private ship like this without a warrant was against the law," Plagueis asked dryly, his bald, slightly-bullet shaped head gleaming in the red lights of the room he had idly thought at one point to change into a trophy room. But Plagueis had always been too busy to bother with such things, so while the original furniture and decorations had been removed, they had not been replaced with more than a few large urns in the corridor containing the ashes of past Sith Lords. The urns seemed to almost soak in the limited lighting of the room, but that was deliberate. Like his apprentice, Darth Plagueis always felt calmer when surrounded by darkness.

"I believe we both know why I am here, Hego Demask, if that is your real name," Dooku replied coldly. "I wonder, is the arrogance of your attempts to sway me against the Senate and fanning my interest in the Sith part of the Sith mindset, or just your own?"

"Ah, so forthright, so righteous!" Plagueis snarled, dropping all pretense. "If you know that much, then why come here alone? Or is that a sign of your own arrogance?"

"No, it is a sign of my guilt. I should have realized the danger you were trying to steer me into, should have spotted you for what you were. But it took the death of your apprentice to warn me and the Order that the Sith were still around, still skulking in the shadows. After that, only my own memories and the Force could lead me to you, such were the illusions and lies you have surrounded yourself with," Dooku replied, activating his lightsaber. It glowed green in the ambient red of the room. "I doubt I truly have grasped the depth of your scheme even now, but the invasion of Naboo and sending your apprentice to attack my former padawan there was a step too far."

Plagueis activated his own lightsaber but made no other movement, the red-bladed lightsaber hanging loosely at his side. "Yes, you Jedi would know all about shadows, wouldn't you? You too hide your true selves behind your Oaths, behind your indoctrination, never comprehending that you have never understood the true power of the Force. Only those who have known the Dark Side can know that." The Sith Lord smiled, the expression almost hideously false on his face. "It is not too late, Dooku. Join me, learn the true power of the Dark Side, and you will be far more powerful than the Order could ever allow you to be."

Dooku chuckled quietly, remembering two young padawans, the powers and abilities young Potter and his Force Ghost mother had shared, and the way he had enjoyed watching the youngsters grow, knowing that as they did, so too would the Order change and evolve. "You in turn have no idea of the power of the Light Side of the Force." Shaking that thought out of his head, Dooku took a single step forward, his lightsaber coming up into a defensive position from Makashi which he could turn into an attack easily. "Hego Demask, Lord of the Sith, you are under arrest for crimes against the Republic. Come quietly, or I will be required to use lethal force."

Perhaps an onlooker might have thought the wordplay amusing, but Plagueis had rarely if ever felt anything was amusing ever since becoming a true Sith. Now he simply snarled and raised his hand, Force Lightning lashing out to attack Dooku. "I am Darth Plagueis, fool, and you will regret your arrogance!"

With that the battle was joined. Dooku blocked the Lightning with a Force Shield, before reaching over and grabbing at one of the giant urns, hurling it at Plagueis to disrupt his assault. The Sith Lord blocked Dooku's Force Grab with his own Push, but did disrupt his Sith Lightning assault to do so. This allowed Dooku to rush forward in an attempt to close the distance, launching his own long range attack, a slightly less powerful version of the exploding technique Harry had used against him a time or two in their spars.

As Dooku had known, however, the technique simply caused too large a splash in the Force to take a true master of the Force by surprise. Plagueis leaped away, his eyes widening as he saw the floor he had been standing exploding in metal shards. "So, the Jedi truly have learned new tricks! That will be important after I have killed you! The Great Plan will succeed, Dooku; you could no more stop it than a supernova!"

"I can stop you, and if you cut off the head, the body dies!" Dooku retorted, closing quickly.

To his surprise, however, the Sith Lord made no effort to get away, his own lightsaber coming up to block. The two danced around one another and through the room, lightsabers smashing into one another as they probed one another's defenses.

Dooku's Makashi form was perfect, taken to a level no other living Jedi could match, matching his opponent's speed advantage, which was large, with precision and a level of Force Precognition that Plagueis had never seen before. In reply Plagueis used a variant of Ataru and Niman combined, continually attempting to use Force powers in conjunction with his attacks, which pushed Dooku to the brink.

At the same time, he was also concentrating, trying to use his Force powers to his advantage. Yet here, Plagueis ran into several problems. His attempts at Force Crush were blocked, his attempt to reach inside Dooku and manipulate the Force inside his body likewise came to nothing. He then decided to use Force Illusions to fool his opponent's senses. He tried several types, from simply trying to create an image of himself a single step from his actual position, to a sound from behind Dooku.

None of them worked; the Jedi was able to see through them all and even once tried to lay a small trap for Plagueis in return, acting as if he had fallen for an illusion only to attack Plagueis as he tried to take advantage of this weakness. Plagueis fell back, only protecting himself at the last minute with a blast of Force Lightning that forced Dooku into the defense, using his lightsaber to absorb the lightning. They were so close together that both of them suffered from the backlash of the lightning, and Plagueis howled, creating a blast of sonic power that hurled Dooku away.

More Sith Lightning lashed out, but Dooku raised his Force Shield, absorbing the lightning and then suddenly popped out of existence! Plagueis whirled, his Force Precognition screaming at him and was just barely able to block the lightsaber coming for his side. What?! Is that how he boarded my ship, teleportation!? Now on the back foot, Plagueis desperately pushed his Force powers into his body to a level he would never do usually, taking Dooku's best attacks head on and turning them aside to attack in turn.

For several moments both combatants relied solely on their lightsabers as their Force Precognition skills probed and strove against one another, like two master chess players looking for the opening in their opponent's game plan, or two Aikido masters striving against one another in an effort to unbalance their enemy. Plagueis tried to use Dun Moch, but it failed. He tried to open the distance once more, but Dooku kept the battle close, anticipating his moves, every attempt at Force Grab either on Dooku or the surroundings blocked or redirected. He tried to use another Force Bellow, but Dooku simply backed away, replying with the same odd explosive technique Plagueis had never seen before. The explosion went off so close the shrapnel nearly caught the Sith Lord, slicing him here and there. Plagueis attempted Sith Lightning, but Dooku's Force Shield blocked it, and Plagueis nearly fell as a moment of disorientation hit him along with a red beam, but he shook it off before Dooku could capitalize.

By this point, however, Dooku was feeling it. Two teleportations had drained him, but so was his age, forcing him to use the Force to aide his physical skills to a high degree. That and Force Precognition was taking so much of his attention that he couldn't use any more to conjure up further Force assaults of his own. He was able to anticipate and block his opponent's continued attempts to use other Force powers, but that quickly became all he could do.

In short, he could feel his body giving out on him, while his enemy was still going strong, and Plagueis could feel it too, the battle slowly turning against the human Jedi Master. But then, I knew I would not live through this…

When the opening came, it was sudden and small, as it always was between two masters. Dooku's footwork seemed to fail him for just a brief second as he danced back over the shattered floor. The next instant Plagueis's red blade slipped past Dooku's green to take him right above the ankle, sending him crashing to the side as it sliced off his foot. The next second Plagueis' lightsaber came back into a thrust, flashing through Dooku's now broken defenses and burning straight through his chest, barely missing his heart. When Plagueis pulled his lightsaber back out, it left a gaping, smoking hole straight through Dooku's body.

Plagueis stood over his opponent's body, shaking his head mock-sadly. "Pity, Dooku. You would have been an asset to the Great Plan. Now you will simply die alone, with no one, not even the Order, realizing what has occurred."

"Did, did you think that I would have come here without leaving behind clues?" Dooku gasped, while using the Force to cut off the pain receptors in his body from his brain. He could feel the Force opening up its arms to him, beckoning, but Dooku refused to listen. Not yet, not just yet… Even as the Force reached for him, Dooku reached out subtly with the Force, grabbing up a lot of the debris from the fight.

Plagueis felt that, but didn't respond to it just yet. Instead he glared down at his dying opponent. "What did you do!?"

"I, *cough*, I left copies of my findings about *cough*, you, my suspicions, and *cough* anything else I could discover, ready to go out after a *cough* certain amount of time has passed without my, my input," Dooku replied honestly, though that wasn't all he had done. The rest he would sooner be tortured to death than share with the Sith standing above him. Which, Dooku acknowledged with a certain amount of gallows humor, was exactly what was about to occur. The Force was still there, reaching out, beckoning him into its embrace. Not yet, not yet…

Plagueis narrowed, his wide mouth twisting into a vicious sneer, struggling with a megalomaniacal urge to tell Dooku how badly he had underestimated the Sith Order. That even if he had succeeded here, the Sith would still have continued on. But he fought that feeling back easily, instead raising a hand. "I think that a slow death is not quite enough. Let us see what we can do to also make it agonizing!" Force Lightning crackled around his fingers and he gestured downward, lashing Dooku's fallen body.

As he did, his stance fell, becoming completely defenseless, and even as Dooku's body arched and twisted under the touch of Demask's Sith Lightning, Dooku struck back. The tiny wave of Force changed into a flood as he poured out all of his remaining concentration and power, all of his scant remaining life, into one last trick. Busy with torturing Dooku, Plagueis didn't even notice, having believed that Dooku didn't have it in him to speed up the bits of debris his Force Grab had been touching earlier enough for them to be truly dangerous.

And he was right; Dooku could not have sped up the random pieces of the nearby urn his Force grab had found, flailing out almost blindly as he had been. But one didn't have to throw a razor sharp spear as hard as you had a random bit of clay.

Before Plagueis could realize his mistake, dozens of thin spears impacted his body stabbing him through from the back and side. Even that might not have been enough to overcome him, however; Plagueis had mastered Force healing and his body to such a degree that he could heal from nearly everything. The pain from that and the sudden reversal, however, made his Force Lightning cut out. And then Dooku grabbed up his still blazing lightsaber and cut with all the power remaining to his seared, ruined body. Then he fell back, as Plagueis's now sundered body fell limply to either side of him.

As death started to cloud his vision, Dooku smiled, letting his eyes close for the last time as he felt the Force welcome him at last. I'm ready now…

OOOOOOO

Sidious felt it, Felt the Force changing, Felt the Veil's power settle down onto his shoulders. He felt his teacher's death, and knew, knew he alone ruled the Dark Side, as it should always be. Sitting alone in his hidden throne room he laughed quietly, feeling the darkness all around him, hiding him from his enemies, empowering him, and knew that he had taken yet another step towards his destiny. The Jedi will fall, and I will reign as master of the Force for eternity!

OOOOOOO

Deep in the Temple Yoda looked up from where he had been teaching Wulo, feeling a great, all-encompassing sadness settle down on his aged, weary bones. At the same moment the Force everywhere shifted in such a subtle yet powerful manner that many Jedi felt it, even if they couldn't understand what had occurred.

When the Chironian asked him what was wrong, Yoda released a sigh that contained in it all the sadness of a lifetime spent living on as those he knew died around him. "A great Jedi, passed he has. One with the Force is Master Dooku. Yet alone, he did not pass; shifted the Force has. Hope, perhaps, returned it might have, for the Force."