31 BBY
Tan'ya and Asajj stood in tense silence, watching as the muun who interrupted them finished taking another drag from his breathing apparatus.
"I am the third party who's been funding the clone army." Hego Damask finally said matter-of-factly. "Perhaps I can answer some of your questions, before you decide to do something… drastic."
Tan'ya searched his face for any hints of dishonesty, yet the banker's features were as unreadable as his mind. But even without evidence, she was inclined to believe him - it made no sense for someone of Hego's status to participate in what to him was little more than a get-together between nobodies held on some backwater.
"Why build such an army?" Asajj asked immediately. "What are you planning to use it for?"
"That is a question with no easy answers I fear." He replied, stepping past them to sit with an audible sigh of relief. "I do apologize, those old bones struggle at times. Back to the matter at hand, when I, Master Sifo Dias, and Count Dooku first discussed the army, we all had very different visions for it. But we all agreed on its necessity." Damask paused, the barest hint of distaste shifting his features as he took another breath from his apparatus. "The Republic is rotting, and its decaying heart, Coruscant, is a hair's breadth away from collapsing under its own weight."
Asajj grimaced as she turned to Tan'ya. "It's true. Back when your father and I visited Coruscant, I felt a terrible Force presence hiding just under the city's surface. The suffering of hundreds of billions… I never witnessed anything like it, even on Dathomir."
"Then you understand just how dire the situation is, Knight Ventress." The muun nodded, face severe. "Coruscant is the microcosm of the Republic. More and more sentients are pushed to the fringes, just to prop up the Core's elite." He turned to Tan'ya, his apparatus whirring as he took another breath. "In our discussion you've proven yourself economically minded, Lady Serenno. I do not have to explain to you the degree of exploitation and bureaucratic obfuscation the Outer Rim is subjected to… and that it will only get worse, until the system breaks, with catastrophic results."
Tan'ya hummed thoughtfully. "You make a fair point, mister Damask. However, I fail to see how the clone army you commissioned along with my master and father would prevent the Republic's collapse. Do you intend for it to suppress rebellions, on Coruscant and the Outer Rim alike?"
"Not at all." The muun answered with a small chuckle. "Inevitably, like the lifecycle of a star that burns out, when the Republic weakens, the Sith re-emerge… or so I've been told by Master Dias. And he had the historical records to back it, showing that again and again, that has been the case. The Jedi can never defeat the Sith, because the Sith are a product of the Jedi, and the Sith can never truly defeat the Jedi, because the closer they come to success, the more and more incentive they have to turn on each other. It's a vicious cycle the Galaxy has been trapped in for seven thousand years, at least. Master Sifo believed that with the army backing the Jedi, this cycle will be broken."
Asajj narrowed her eyes. "You put a lot of faith and credits in what many among your kind would consider religious superstition."
"Is that so?" Hego regarded Asajj for a moment. "While not being force sensitive myself, I am a frequent guest of the Coruscant Temple, and spent enough time among the Jedi to not dismiss the Sith as a mere rumor. However, you do have a point. I had more practical reasons for funding the army as well."
"Such as?" Tan'ya asked.
"I am a chair of the InterGalactic Banking Clans, a position allowing me to monitor the flow of credits on a scale very few can," the muun answered. "A position so high up the meaning of money fundamentally changes. Contrary to popular belief, money isn't power, Lady Serenno. It is but a tool of it. And whenever I open my datapad and take stock of the names dancing among the ever changing graphs, I can't help but notice the name 'Senate' is not among them." He paused to take another breath from the apparatus. "So when the Republic collapses and the credit loses its worth, what other tools do you imagine the powerful, with their mines and factories tirelessly producing machines of war, will reach for; tools the remainders of the Republic will lack after centuries of demilitarization?"
"The Shogun and the Emperor," Tan'ya exclaimed with a dawning realization.
"Another historical parable, Lady Tan'ya?"
"You could consider it so." She nodded. "Long ago, in a small island on a planet far, far away, the Emperor was the ultimate authority. However, he delegated most of the 'mundane' tasks of ruling, such as managing finances or running the military, to the Shogun and his followers, while he focused on higher pursuits like art or religion. In doing so, he put himself at the Shogun's mercy, as he ceded all the real power to him. A mercy that the Shogun lacked."
Damask nodded, opening his mouth to respond, only to abruptly close it, as his brows creased, and he took a long drag from his rebreather. In the Force, Tan'ya could feel his tightly woven mind stirring, if only with a twitch of anxiety. Evidently something about her story must have given him pause.
"...Indeed." He whispered, deep in thought. "Perhaps the Emperor took Shogun's loyalty for granted, willfully blind to the consequences should his trust prove to have been misplaced. And it is too late for the Emperor to claw back his influence as well - the Shogun has grown too powerful, and too entrenched in the Empire; any attempt to subvert his power would either destroy what they've built, or lead to the Emperor's demise. The only way for the Emperor to ensure the survival of both himself and his Empire," the muun said in a hushed tone, a calculating gleam in his eye as he regarded Tan'ya, "is for him to raise a secret weapon the Shogun knows nothing of."
Tan'ya couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at how painfully the banker had extended the metaphor. "So is this your intention for the Clone Army, mister Damask? A secret weapon intended to pacify the powerful once the Republic implodes?"
"Oh, yes," the muun blinked, returning from his thoughts. "Once the corporations come to reap in blood what they no longer can in credits, the clone army will be there to prevent another invasion of Naboo from happening, and kill the age of warlords in its infancy. There will be peace, and the Republic will slowly rebuild, wiser for its past failures."
"And what do you get out of this?" Asajj asked, a hint of mistrust in her voice.
"War might be good for business, Knight Ventress, but anarchy certainly isn't," Damask smiled genially. "For securing my holdings and retaining my status, peace is a far more lucrative alternative."
"What about Father?" Tan'ya pressed. "What did he want the army for?"
"The Count had discussed using it to stabilize the Outer Rim." Damask explained after a moment. "He's always been greatly concerned by law and order, and the anarchic state of the Outer Rim offends him greatly."
Tan'ya pursed her lips, nodding. Her father had a love of order, something that served Serenno well when he brought peace to the planet, but caused him to overlook the deplorable state his people lived in once he was done driving out the invaders. Rather than looking to build up his domain by working on the economic problems his people faced, he cast his eye outward, seeking more enemies to fight.
To be fair to him, he had a pretty limited set of options available to him thanks to the Senate's meddling, but it couldn't be denied that a majority of the Count's energies had been spent on expanding the reach of the New Temple. Maybe that was a worthy endeavor, the world's he'd drawn in had benefited massively from having dedicated Jedi Knights rooting out raiders and criminal syndicates, but it revealed that ultimately her Father was a Jedi Master who sought to fight disorder, before he was a Count who shepherded his people.
Serenno didn't need a knight lost on crusade, it needed a prince.
"Then who killed Sifo?" Asajj asked. "Maybe the army is needed, maybe not, but the murderer must face justice."
"The assassin was a Sith, my contacts in the Jedi Temple can tell me that much." He answered, taking a long breath. "As for who sent him, I can only speculate. Even the Jedi haven't been able to learn much about him, but I suspect there was another party involved in this plan. Someone I had considered to be subordinate to me, who worked for me in the Senate and had influence over the bureaucrats to give us the cover we needed to evade the Republic's notice, but he's revealed himself to be ambitious, and uncontrollable. He's profited greatly from recent events, and though I can't prove anything, my suspicion falls on him."
"Who?"
"The newly elected Supreme Chancellor." He took another puff of his breather, shaking his head as he did, scowling. "Palpatine has definitely turned events on Naboo to his own advantage, and there were two different Dark Side users that attempted to assassinate Queen Amidala. If the Queen had died, he would have been acting head of state, able to call for a vote of no confidence himself."
"You believe Chancellor Palpatine was behind the invasion of Naboo?"
"He betrayed us." Hego replied simply. "And now that he has his office, I fear he's beyond reprisal."
That would make sense, and it would explain why Tan'ya's father rushed off to fight the Trade Federation beyond just his former padawan being threatened. Of course, Tan'ya would have to talk to her father about all this.
Whenever he had the time.
"So what's the plan now?" Tan'ya asked. "Why are you here tonight?"
"I'm here to get the plan back on track." Damask replied. "And for that, I have to ask you to refrain from talking to the Jedi Council. There's no way they'll accept the Clone Army now, not this early on. It's a weapon I will thrust upon them when they're desperate enough to need it, but now they'll discard it. Not to mention the damage it would do to the Count and your family. I don't think it's out of the question that you and all your siblings would be taken into the custody of the Jedi Order. The reputational blow to the New Temple." He shook his head again, taking a long puff. "In your shoes, I would consider very carefully before I make that call."
Tan'ya and Asajj looked at each other, reaching a wordless agreement. Hego was right, and informing the Jedi Council would have dire consequences for the dreams of both of them.
Damask continued. "I took a stroll by the landing pads, and to me it looks like the New Temple would benefit from a large donation. I've noticed your Jedi are flying about in YT-100's, second hand ones by the looks of it. As reliable of a ship as it is known to be, it seems beneath the dignity of your Order." He looked towards Tan'ya. "And your world struggles to raise the capital it needs to really start building a brighter future. I'm sure I would have a lot to gain by investing in an up and coming power of the Outer Rim."
He leaned back in his chair, watching the two of them. "So, what do you plan to do?"
Finally, with the ceremony over and all the guests either sleeping in rooms provided by the New Temple or leaving, Dooku let himself into his office and held the door open for Ky Narec who stepped in behind him. They'd both been drinking that night, but they were Jedi and able to suppress the toxins running through them fairly easily.
Without waiting for an invitation, Narec took the seat in front of his desk, as Dooku closed and locked the door behind them. When he sat down he took out his compad and turned it off, laying it on the desk in front him as Narec did the same.
After that Dooku took out that nice bottle of fortified wine he had in his cooler and a pair of glasses for the both of them.
"So, I guess I might start with, how long have you been using the Dark Side?" Ky asked him, taking a glass.
"Not as long as you, I suspect." Dooku replied. "I was forced to rely on it in the battle to retake Serenno from my brother, Ramil."
"And you've been using it ever since then? You revealed yourself in the Dark Side, I felt your hatred aimed at someone. Who was it?"
Dooku grimaced. So Narec had picked up on that much? He may have to reveal more than he intended in this meeting… "There is a Sith Lord on Coruscant, hidden in the senate itself. He operates through intermediaries, assassins like Aurra Sing. Two of those I love have been slain at his word, Sifo Dyas and Qui-Gon Jinn."
Ky stared at Dooku, his gaze not quite disbelieving, but not quite trusting, either. "How certain are you of this?"
"Absolutely."
"But how do you know?"
Dooku scowled, taking his first sip of wine before answering. He decided to take a gamble, mostly sticking to the truth. "Because when I left the Jedi Temple, he tried to bring me to the Dark Side. For a long time I considered his offer, but now he's begun to pick off those that are closest to me. I will kill him, in time, but now I'm not strong enough."
Ky looked surprised by that. "Not strong enough? But you're the greatest duelist in the Order."
"A large fish in a small pond, I've come to learn." Dooku said. "To defeat him, I will need powers much greater than those offered by the Jedi Order."
They sat in silence for a long moment, Narec considering his words. "Is Asajj in danger?"
Dooku nodded.
Narec frowned, gazing down into his drink. "Does she know?"
"Not yet."
Narec looked up at Dooku. "...The Dark Side offers power, Dooku, but it comes at a terrible cost. Maybe you won't be able to defeat him alone, but together we can do this. If we tell Yoda-"
Dooku sneered. "Yes, we shall tell Yoda so he'll have all the time he needs to rush to the man's defense."
"If he knew there's no way he would defend a Sith Lord!"
"No, but he will defend an elected Senator from the paranoid threats of a disgraced former Jedi. Until we have proof he cannot possibly ignore, we can only watch, wait, and try to spread our influence to counter his."
"Is the Sith really that influential?" Ky asked, incredulous.
"I was referring to Yoda."
Ky gave a huff of frustration. "Well I meant the Sith. How influential is he?"
"He's the Supreme Chancellor."
Ky blinked in shock, then gaped. "That's impossible."
"Not at all. A Sith Lord has become the democratically elected head of the Republic."
"...B-but, how?" He stuttered. "How- Why?"
"How? He simply won the election. The sham of democracy has never been anything but a competition to see who's most skilled at manipulating the masses and making deals behind closed doors. Nothing about being a Sith is in opposition to that. As for the latter, do you mean to ask why he would pursue the most powerful office in the Galaxy? You know the answer already."
Ky Narec sat still, staring at Dooku without any response. He closed his mouth, leaning back in his chair, obviously struggling to come to terms with the truth.
Dooku could sympathize with him. He had once been in a similar position, his entire world view and personal foundation crumbling beneath him. Though Sidious had found Dooku in that vulnerable state and twisted him for his own purposes, he had at least imparted one irrefutable truth.
"Narec, you must understand, the Republic itself is our enemy, and it always has been. The Sith Lord claiming power is merely its latest failure, and most of its worst crimes can't even be laid at his feet."
"But look, I agree the Republic is flawed, but what alternative are you proposing?"
Dooku paused, hesitating. He'd had this conversation many times before, but always with Sidious, and always concluding that the Galaxy needed an Imperial form of governance, an autocratic ruler that would make things right. Now Dooku didn't believe in that either.
"We live in a Galaxy of great diversity, and even among the same species there can be incredible divergence. The Iridonian zabrak and the Dathomirian zabrak have almost nothing in common, let alone the incredible range of human systems of governance. What can a human of the Deep Core understand of the needs of the Mandalorians, or the spirited patriots of Corellia? What value in compromising between these disparate parties as they wrestle for control of a distant and alien body? If they were separate from each other in governance there would be no need to sacrifice their own interests at all."
A look of comprehension came over Ky Narec's features. "...You want to break up the Republic, and that's all you want. You have no plan for what comes after at all."
Dooku's jaw clenched. "It is not for me to plan a future for trillions of sentients scattered across tens of thousands of worlds. I can only rise to fight the evil in my sight."
"But Dooku, you're talking about anarchy." Narec replied. "Without the Republic, there's nothing to stop the Galaxy from going to war."
"Other than the fear and pain of war itself? There are countless reasons for people to go to war, and countless reasons for them not to. It will be up to them to decide which carries the greater weight. For my part, I would rather give the people of Serenno the chance to struggle for their own future under their own power. Better that than begging on their knees for a Senate committee to find the time to fit them in the next election cycle!"
Dooku rose to his feet, swallowing the entire glass of wine in a single gulp, before putting the cork back on the bottle and putting it away.
"Now it seems to me you have a choice, Master Narec." Dooku turned to face him. "You can tell Yoda about my use of the Dark Side, hope he's not so distracted by that as to forget the Sith he meets with regularly, and explain to him how it is you came to use the Dark Side yourself. You will lose your status as Jedi Master, the New Temple will be torn apart by the Temple on Coruscant as both its founding Masters are tainted with the Dark Side, and Asajj will live forever as an exile, never at home anywhere. Or you can simply not." He paused, adding in a softer voice. "I know what I will do for my own children's future."
"..." Narec stared into the bottom of his cup. "And we won't teach them to use the Dark Side. We won't teach any of them."
"We will not." Dooku agreed firmly.
Narec stood up at last, pocketing his holocom as he turned to leave, but hesitated with his hand over the door control. "...You didn't ask how I came to know the Dark Side."
Dooku said in a kindly tone.. "Because I know you're a good man, Narec. And I know you regret it, deeply."
Without another word, Ky left the office, and Dooku left as well soon after. Under the cover of darkness Count Dooku approached his parked ship, and entered it without any witnesses. The only faces he saw on the bridge were the holographically projected images of his family on the ship's mainconsole that he'd set as his screensaver.
His wife and all four of his children looked out at him, and he hesitated. In particular his gaze lingered on Athemeene, knowing that he'd promised her. After a few seconds, he pushed the button to bring up the main menu and dialed in a number.
He knew he wasn't wrong. To defeat Sidious he would need more power, and for that he would need an instructor. His family could never be safe until that man was dead.
Fett's face appeared on the projector, peering up at Dooku wordlessly.
"Jango, I have a job for you. I need you to get in contact with Mother Talzin. Not to kill or capture her, just to speak with me. I have a proposition for her."
Schmoozing was unpleasant work, and well beneath him. Plagueis returned to his ship, ready to leave the muddy pit of Indinoor behind and relieved to be gone.
Not for the first time, a great Sith had walked in and amongst the halls of the Jedi, and none of them had known at all. Such unearned arrogance. The Jedi of the New Temple were as pathetic and wasteful as the ones on Coruscant, with the difference being that they were buoyed by the false confidence of youth instead of the obstinacy of age.
When the Galaxy was finally ordered as it should be, the entire useless, primitive edifice of the Jedi could be cast away once and for all. The Sith, far mightier, would bring the Galaxy to peace and stability. Force Sensitives would find work as artists, scientists, explorers, and many other things besides mere Knights of a worthless system that had held all in a stagnant cycle for millennia.
Though he had found his trip enlightening. Without even realizing she'd done it, the Heiress to the House of Serenno had delivered to Plagueis a dire warning, a future he had nearly brought to pass with his own lack of caution.
He had never thought himself a fool, and yet somehow he had actually allowed himself to trust a Sith!
A chuckle oozed its way out past his teeth, and he grimaced in pain, taking a hacking gasp through his mask to calm his burning lungs.
Hego Damask's own personal Yacht hadn't even made the leap to Hyperspace when his holocom started ringing. A Galaxy away on Coruscant, Darth Sidious had sensed Plagueis leaving Indinoor with his hated enemy still alive.
"Congratulations are in order, my friend." Plageuis answered his device, speaking warmly to the projected image of his apprentice. "To become the Supreme Chancellor is no small feat."
"Thank you, old friend. Thank you." Darth Sidious replied. "And of course, this is something that should be celebrated! When you return to Coruscant, we'll have to take the time to meet in person for a drink and a chat about old times."
"I think we won't have time for that." Plaguies replied. "The damage you've done to our plan has not been repaired yet, and I will have to be much more involved then I used to."
Sidious' lip twitched downward, before he caught it and kept his face carefully neutral. "I see. So we're not going to kill Dooku, then?"
"No need to." Plagueis answered. "He's going to lead a Separatist faction in the Outer Rim, just as we wanted."
"But not under our control." Sidious hissed. "He's going to wage a real war against us!"
"Worried that he might win?" Plagueis replied. "Please, Sidious. You underestimate yourself. Besides, he may not be under your control, but he will be under mine."
Sidious stared at his master for a long time. "...So be it." Then he hung up.
Leaning back in his chair, Plagueis allowed himself a genuine smile. Yes, the Grand Plan was still coming together, but instead of Sidious controlling all the pieces, it would be him. He cast his mind back to his own teacher, Darth Tenebrous, and the secret student he had raised to replace Plagueis should he ever become complacent.
"Ironic, that only now have I finally learned all that you had to teach me." He whispered to himself.