Covalent Bonds

Chapter 3

The question, "Where were you when Palpatine died?" became a standard throughout the Galaxy in the past two years.

Beings benchmarked their memories by that phrase. "I was recalibrating my speeder's odometer in the hangar when the news broke into my music." "We were enroute to our vacation timeshare villa when we heard the news. Our spawn didn't stop sobbing for hours." "I'm not very political. I didn't hear about it until the next day. I was in seclusion writing my vioflute sonatina. Most put a crescendo at the end, but I --- "

Count Dooku of Serenno knew precisely where he had been, almost to the nano-second. He had been at his family home on Serenno, using the Force to aid his timing in placing a bid one split-second after his competitor's on jockeying for a prime specimen of Jedi memorabilia. In the midst of a strategy session with the useful tool named Grievous, an alarm on his family crest ring vibrated his left pinkie. He pulled a thoughtful face on the General, stroking his beard and scowling, holding up an aristocratic hand before striding to his hooded private comm station, leaving Grievous to ponder on his motives when he demanded that the cyborg remain at the strategy table. Keeping a specious expression on his face, he logged onto the HoloNet auction site he frequented the most, JediNow. "Awarded to you, HONEST1. Congratulations," scrolled across the rare Pasmin set of ecru diplomatic robes that rotated before his steepled hands. He would have reached out to fondle the plushness of their sparking blue hologram image that was a hollow representation of their grace if Grievous were not pointing his mask in his direction, his cyborg head at a curious tilt. Got you, second-best bidder, Dooku preened, then a red wave of opportunity branded itself into his thoughts, surely a gift from the Dark Side. Something opportune had happened, an occasion similar to winning the item in the auction, fraught with possibilities of improvement in status, laden with the price of acquisition. My Master is ... dead?

Dooku betrayed this stunning news with no gasp. He cast about with all his considerable power to find the dark thoughts that distinguished his Master's Force signature. Nothing. Sidious was dead. Spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely dead. So much for his plans to clone himself. He sensed a gap in the black web of plotting they had constructed between them, the master schemer absent from the center of the web, Dooku's own satellite presence thrust into his place. The red wave diminished to dying ripples; the ambitions remained. Dooku gestured through the hologram to "purchase immediately, ship to customary drop site, charge to HONEST1," and smiled widely for the first time in several years. Opportunity. And I shall make the most of it. He fondled the Sith holocron that he had stolen from the Jedi Temple, the one that had made all that trouble between Nod and himself. Currently in use as a flimsiweight, this time the holocron revealed even more of its riches to his mind, like an onion with another layer peeled away, and like an onion would, the sensation of nearly unlimited power in the Dark Side brought tears to his eyes. Richly acidic thoughts of where he would take the Republic after his CIS forces' defeat of their flawed clone army formed in him, almost as visualized as the hologram had been. If droids were tools with no souls, clones were worse: they were cheap knockoffs of Fett, shaped by Kaminoans to boring repetitiveness. Yes, clones were part of his and Sidious' grand plan to start the Clone Wars, but they stank of mediocrity. The unevenness of an army with untweaked Fett's traits would have made commanding them like herding puuri cats, however.

Grievous viewed Dooku's actions with increasingly jaundiced eyes. He knew Dooku scorned down-and-dirty field commanding; Grievous accepted that. He did not accept that Dooku interrupted their strategizing for purchasing things that Grievous was certain Lord Sidious scorned. Grievous himself would never part with his lightsaber collection for any price. The glow he felt when he fondled each one, remembering his victory over the Jedi scum who had thought to best him in battle, sustained his warrior pride. Somehow he sensed that even before becoming enhanced by his cyborg body, he had earned this pride. The fact that Dooku would purchase pride rated him low on Grievous' scale of values. First came Lord Sidious. Second, Ventress and the other Dark Acolytes, whose expertise Grievous appreciated even if he hated the beings themselves. Third, Count Dooku. If Grievous had had a sense of humor left to him, he would have said DisCount Dooku. When Dooku said abruptly, "Lord Sidious has died," Grievous knew that he would have to become even fiercer than he had been as a warlord to ensure that Lord Sidious' marvelous plans would succeed to honor his memory. He had bowed to Count Dooku with no sense of irony at all. Finer distinctions like irony had been purged from his brain's matrix by the Geonosians who had built him back up from blasted flesh.

Today might have been a replay of that day over two years ago, Grievous thought. In the midst of discussing enticing new technology that would enable Geonosians to clone droids, Dooku had unfocused his eyes and rubbed his left pinkie. If Grievous' species rolled their eyes, he would have indulged in the habit as Dooku again held up an imperious palm and settled himself at his comm station, punching in data, hidden by the station's hood, as if he did not know that Grievous knew his habit and practice by now. Grievous shut down the display of crystal diagrams, crossed all four of his arms and waited for the inevitable return to the subject at hand as if nothing had interfered. Not much had changed in three years of war, except that their forces needed new technology to keep up droid production. He could wait a few minutes for the latest auction drama, he supposed.

Dooku's obsidian eyes glittered. Lot number six-twelve. My old Master's ship reg plate. Complete with docking permit stickers allowing it to dock anywhere, anytime. A find! Fallen or blown off in battle during their failed attempt to conquer Coruscant, it didn't matter: Dooku was catching up in the bidding and he added fifty thousand more credits to his bid to blow the opponents out of the water. Let Grievous tap all his fingers at once. I'll not be distracted from my goal. After bidding an additional thirty thousand credits to ensure his superiority, Dooku indulged his curiosity and tapped the "Upcoming!" holographic window. All else faded from view as a scroll of virtual flimsi unrolled as if in realtime. In elegant script, an invitation to a private members-only auction of one-of-a-kind Jedi antiques wrote itself in midair, each line slowly revealing itself, just as slowly fading. After jabbing 'save' to no response, Dooku stared at the invitation to commit it to memory. " ... most favored bidders ... exclusive ... time and date to be announced ... unique items ... priceless ... mortgage your estate for this one ... " Dooku recognized classy advertising when he saw it. At the end, no trace could be found of the window. How intriguing. Eh, back to business.

xxxxx
Master Adi Gallia relaxed at last under the heat lamp. Soothing strobes of pink light calmed her nerves and her fingers loosened, then the lines uncreased around her eyes. "Healer Regork, I can't help it. It's been well over a year and I still feel that this new Code is wrong and that I will never fit in."

"Do you think it iss of the Dark Sside?" Regork was noncommittal, as always. Adi liked that about him, almost as much as she liked his heat lamp.

"I think it might be."

Regork's fat tail dragged on the carpet. Alone of his kin, he had not lost it to predators or the occasional mating fight. It provided him with walking stability and a good deal of stored nutrition. Its red and black pattern he knew appealed to human infants, because they squealed whenever he visited the nursery. He had a wide snaggle-toothed smile and bright forked tongue that amused them, also. His habit was to pace slowly as his patients reclined on the diagnostic couch, which showed him their respiration rate and alpha brain waves' measurement in a discreet readout behind their sight. Today, Adi's readings remained steady.

"It iss encouraging to hear the word 'might,' Master Gallia. It iss a breakthrough, ssurely, don't you agree?"

"What do you think, Healer? You've been seeing me for fifteen years." More and more, I don't need you. But you're nice and I like coming here.

Ssteady waves, good. "It iss a breakthrough. I am encouraged and you sshould be, too."

Adi opened her eyes, slitting them to allow only faint pulses of pink to shine in them. She was quiet a long time. "I'm encouraged to break out into new directions, Healer. I'm thinking of splitting away from the Order. There are others who think like me."

"What would you d--- I mean, I mean, really? A sschissm, after millenia? Thiss iss a large sstep, Adi." Alpha wavess true, ssustained. Sshe's committed and has given thiss much thought. "Jedi may go it ssolo, as Tssui Choi and the Lady Fay have done, but if they required help, the Order would ssend it."

"I simply dislike the new Code. I was outvoted, me and Plo Koon and Saesee Tiin. If they don't come with me, I'll go alone. I'm ready for a change." She shaded her eyes from the pinkness and smiled pleasantly at Regork. "Isn't that what you say to embrace? 'Change'? I'm ready, Healer."

You're confiding in me and I can't confide this in anyone elsse. Sstang. "Be very ssure, Adi. The galaxy iss big and cold and there aren't many heat lampss out there."

"Maybe I'll bring yours along."

"Hahha. It'ss unique. I bought it at auction, wrenched it at the last ssecond away from a big dealer. Took all of my sstipend." It relaxess me, too.

I'll miss it. And this office. If these walls could talk ... "Well, I'm through for today and look! In under fifty minutes!"

"So you'll be one of the Lost." Dooku, then you and maybe others.

Adi rose and redonned her headdress. "Maybe it's time to stop that, too." She gazed around the office as if to memorize the setting. "The Ones Who Found Themselves."

Regork slicked his tongue out at her, tasting her scent, the warmth radiating from her glowing clear skin. To him, she appeared more confident than ever. "If and when you make the final decission, I'll sstand with you. You know that." He turned off the lamp, flicked on the couch's sterilizer and walked her to the door. "I may not go with you, but I'll wissh you well, if it comess to that." They exited after dousing the lights.

After several minutes, the heat lamp came back on, strobing as if in code. Its irregular pulses throbbed a dull red.

xxxxx
Siri plowed her bike downslope into a mound of snow and somersaulted off the seat. She landed directly next to Kenobi and Skywalker. Skywalker cupped his Master's jaw with a growing look of wonder on his handsome face. He skimmed a shaking flesh hand over ribs, arms and hips and then stopped. Siri crashed to her knees beside her fellow Master and took over at the waist. Is it that bad, no he's still breathing, but what has happened internally, stars' end ... She cupped her hands and concentrated. Hips? All right. Thighs? Some mild flaming from a strain to both. In between them, all was well. Knees? Left one sprained ... oh ... it's the right knee. Wrenched severely. She ran a hand down each calf, ankle and foot, not wanting to remove armor, cursing a little over the lack of tactile reinforcement to her diagnosis. That's it? She calculated. Twelve kilometers up, free fall, took a break on my bike after he reached terminal velocity in, oh, say, fifteen seconds, hit at an angle in soft material, fell approximately fifty-eight meters per second ... was this possible?

 "Master, he's not so bad off, oh, Master Tachi --- " Skywalker croaked as tears generated no doubt by the beastly cold fell onto Kenobi's bald patch. They rewet the blood on the scalp in front that had dried and turned it sloppy again. Sorry, Kenobi.

"Don't talk, Skywalker. You're hurt, too. Let me take him. It's hard to believe, but the worst thing is the right knee. Not even broken, though."

"He, oh all right, I'll be right ughn ow behind y-you ... "

"You're staying here. Look, here comes a med team. Don't you move, Skywalker." I'm ordering the Chosen One. Way to go, Tachi. "I, I think if you stay still, that would be a good thing." She lifted Kenobi away from the Chosen One, cradling his torso, straightening his crooked knee to parallel the other. "Here they come." A group of clones landed gently as a bouncer next to their General and Commander. Siri hoped that they would have been as solicitous over any injury of hers.

"We'll take it from here, General." The clones clipped stabilization boards around both injured Jedi's necks, heads and backs, turned on the anti-grav attachments and were off. Siri abandoned her faulty speeder and went for news of the battle.

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