AN :
you guys deserve an extra Chapter;)
Next goal is hitting 350 power stones in 24h, there will be an extra chapter ;)
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There were other people who could serve those roles, Dooku knew, but the issue was he actually trusted Sifo.
Or he did, until recently.
...
Trust didn't just mean you thought someone unlikely to betray you, it also meant you believed in their competence, which Dooku no longer did. To find his old friend rifling through a dustbin, desperately searching for his liquor had been a sobering moment for the Count.
This was it, then. Coruscant, the sucking hole at the center of everything, would claim one more life, and it would not be the last before this awful Galaxy was finally put to order.
The Sith Lord had chosen a slaughterhouse deep into the undercity for their meeting place. Dooku parked his speeder in an alley, and entered through a side door marked employees only.
The security droids that were supposed to patrol the building were parked in a power charging station in low power mode, possibly an oversight from the manager but more likely the outcome of a mind trick from the Sith. Dooku stepped past the night shift's office where a man was asleep in his chair, while all the security holos that someone was supposed to be watching were switched off and not recording.
The call in the Dark Side led him to a refrigerated room filled with rows of hundreds of animal carcasses, suspended in the air by dully humming hoverslings. Many different species represented, of varying sizes and with differing numbers of limbs, now unrecognizable to Dooku without their skin and claws. Some were suspiciously small, maybe someone's missing housepets, while others were smaller still, possibly unlucky rodents. Fog clouded Dooku's breath as he searched between the rows.
The Sith Lord emerged from between them, a dark black shape illimunated by the soft blue light that filled the room. "Count Dooku." The Sith murmured in his wet rumple. "This meeting is long overdue."
Dooku's first instinct was to make an excuse, but he suppressed it. He certainly didn't respect excuses, and Palpatine definitely wouldn't. "Yes, the time has come. Sifo has… served his purpose."
"Gooood." The golden irises of the man seemed to gleam more brightly. "I have dispatched my assassin to deal with him."
Already? Dooku frowned, his stomach turning. The smell of the room was getting to him. He resisted the shiver that ran up his spine and the urge to pull his cloak around him. "I've only just agreed."
"Yeeesss." Palpatine frowned. "You've seen true, but… our ambitions are too important for such a momentary weakness. Your sentiment for the man has risked everything."
Dooku grit his jaw, a frustrated defensiveness rising within him at the same time his stomach twisted unpleasantly. "I have had him under control."
"Have you?"
Dooku opened his mouth to reply, but paused. Anything he said would just be an excuse.
"Even to your… former order, such attachments are chains, slowing you down, holding you back. My friend, I'm liberating you. You know it to be true."
"Then this meeting?"
"A… formality, and a warning. To put this Galaxy to order will require sacrifice, Count. Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
He was right. Dooku knew it. This Galaxy was a place where the liar and the thief prospered, not the noble or the strong. Not just here in Coruscant, but the Outer Rim families would consume rodents and other filthier things to get by. It was fully possible that this very slaughterhouse was used to dispose of sentient bodies, their meat and bones disappearing into the soups and stomachs of the desperate, unquestioning masses.
Sifo was just one man. How could Dooku possibly have let his own weakness get in the way of their grand project?
The Sith's smile widened under his hood. "Next time, you will be the one who severs the bond. I will not help you."
"Very well." Dooku finally answered. Somehow he felt strangely reassured, though very cold. He turned to leave the refrigerated room, not bothering to offer the sith any parting words. They were not friends who chattered idly.
He returned to his ship, and considered spending another night on Coruscant, then thought of his bed in the palace and his wife Athemeene, before deciding against it. It would be nice to spend the night at home, but he didn't feel like he could quite return there yet. He didn't want to track the grime of the ecumenopolis through his front door, it would be better to have more of a buffer between those two parts of his life.
Thinking this, he went to lay in the starship's bed, when he received a call on his compad. When he saw the caller, he stared for a moment not sure how to respond.
Had Sifo somehow felt Dooku's intentions in the force? Well, it wasn't really his intention, it was the Sith's. Even if Dooku hadn't agreed to it, the Sith would have sent the assassin anyway. It wasn't like Dooku could possibly warn the man, now could he?
Hesitating, he answered, not sure if this would be the last conversation he would ever have with his old friend.
"I'm sorry to catch your right when you were about to sleep, but I didn't know where you were." Sifo explained.
"That's fine." Dooku answered. "Is this important?"
"It's about your military expansion. We've hit a little bit of a snag that I thought you should know about." He then explained that Serenno was being sanctioned as a hub of piracy.
"I see." Dooku scowled. "So until these sanctions are removed, we cannot proceed."
"Actually, I found a way." Tan'ya's voice came from the holocall, and her head and hand popped into view.
"Yes, your daughter found a brilliant little work around." Sifo continued, smiling fondly. "See, the sanctions apply to Serenno as a planet, which is a legally distinct entity from the extended Serenno dynasty."
"So we'll have some relatives make the purchase for us?"
Tan'ya shook her head. "No, the sanctions were aimed at the head of state for planet Serenno and his extended family, which includes us, unfortunately. The trick of it is that within the Serenno family, we're still allowed to move our goods and assets around. If a member of our family happened to own a military vessel and transfer it to us for our use, while not acting in his capacity as head of state or as a government representative, that would bypass the sanctions."
Dooku considered his daughter's proposal. "The main branch here on our home planet are the wealthiest of our extended family. I don't think any Serenno cadet branches possess a defense fleet."
"But we do own a good piece of Raxus Prime, which means-"
"It means that it's possible for you to restore ships that are already parked on Raxus Prime." Sifo explained for Tan'ya, who pouted at being interrupted. "We were able to find a business that specializes in restoring classic ship hulls with modern technology, and selling them to collectors."
"Vintage war ships?" Dooku couldn't help the cynicism in his voice. "Surely that would be impractically expensive, and hopelessly ineffective."
"Hammerheads!" Tan'ya answered. "They're a rugged, reliable, tough and easily modified light cruiser, that's out of patent but still in production! The earliest Hammerhead hulls were made thousands of years ago, and the insides have been updated but the shape remains the same. Plenty of defense fleets today still use them."
Sifo nodded in agreement. "Dooku, Hammerheads aren't exactly top of the line, but they're still a good ship. For your circumstances, even without the sanctions, I might have recommended them anyway because there's such an abundance of replacement parts available for them secondhand. They're very cheap to maintain."
Dooku considered the two for a moment, before nodding his head once, slowly. "Well done you two. Go ahead and make the purchase."
A wide, surprisingly sinister grin split his daughter's face and she ducked out the holocall.
After she left Sifo shook his head, fondly. "You have an incredible child, Dooku. I could never have imagined the force gifting someone with a mastery of bureaucracy, but it's amazing to behold."
A warm feeling of pride stirred Dooku's heart, and he promised himself he would get a gift for her before returning home. Then he remembered the Sith, and the meeting he'd just had. The cold air of Coruscant seemed to be invading his ship's cabin, and he felt bone tired at that moment.
Tan'ya really was going to be devastated by Sifo's passing.
"Is something wrong?" Sifo asked.
Dooku hesitated. "Old friend, have you… considered making a holocron?"
Sifo looked surprised. "What brings that up?"
"You're not in the best of health." Dooku spoke, slowly. "If you haven't prepared one yet, please do so now. It would be a great loss for the Order, and the Galaxy if you were to pass without sharing some of your knowledge first."
Sifo looked at Dooku's image in the holo receiver, before nodding once, slowly. "Okay, I'll begin the process."
After ending the call, Dooku sat at the end of his bed, and put his head in his hands. Eventually, unable to sleep and unwilling to return home, he got up and went for a walk in the cold air of the upper city.
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