A New Jedi in an Old Republic

Garamost

Windu became aware of the stench of of the Dark Side even as he tried to piece together what had just happened. He was fighting Sora with Vaapad, the two of them unevenly matched. While his opponent was giving in to the Dark Side, he refused, mastering himself, even as it threatened to drag him down.

He remembered the presence of others, but to his shame, he could not remember who they were, save through deducing that information through logic.

In more immediate thoughts, he was now laying down with a blanket on top of him. It wasn't comfortable, but he was a Jedi, and he would endure the temporary position until he could figure out what was going on.

"Agent Ors," one of the Clones said from close by, "The General is waking up."

"Good," Mace heard Jan say. "Master Windu?"

Mace opened his eyes, and found himself with a blaster pointed at him. "Move that," he growled.

The Clone Trooper didn't budge. "Sir."

Mace kept his awareness on the weapon, ready to deflect it with the Force if needed when the Knight-Errant entered his field of view. The rough man had a neutral expression on his face, even as he knelt beside him.

Katarn looked Windu in the eyes, searching for something with that gaze, but found nothing. "He's good," he pronounced, offering the Jedi Master a hand to help him up.

Mace rose, watching as the Clone checked the gun, then turned back to helping to secure the room. It was the same room he was fighting in, but the lingering traces of the Dark Side permeated everything. It would take years to go away. "What happened?" he asked as he folded the blanket that had covered him.

He saw that the Republic Agent, Ors, was sitting on a chair, holding a bandage to her side. "Kyle, you want to answer that?"

Windu looked to Katarn, who was no worse for what had happened. "You and the other guy" - he pointed to Sora Bulq, who was laying a few feet away with another trooper standing guard over him – "were fighting when I got here, and I decided to break it up."

Mace knew there was more to it than that. "What happened?" he reiterated.

"I used the Force to separate the two of you," Katarn admitted with some embarrassment. "Except the thing you two were doing didn't react well to my intrusion, and it kinda exploded."

"Exploded." Windu repeated with only a hint of incredulity. "The Dark Side does not simply... explode."

"That's what happened," the captain of the squad reported. "We may not have been able to see the explosion ourselves, but its effects were felt." He indicated scuff marks on his armor that weren't there before. "Katarn warned us about it ahead of time, and it could have been much worse."

"I see," Mace turned to look at the Agent, using the Force to examine her wound. It wasn't serious, just superficial. "And Bulq?"

"Still down," the Clone said. "On the Agent's suggestion, we used some of our medical supplies to keep him unconscious, while allowing you to recover on your own."

"I'd rather not have him wake up at a bad time," Jan explained as she stood up, stretching out while Kyle watched her apprehensively. "Especially with others still possibly out there."

"I let one go," Kyle said now that Mace was awake. "Name of Assaj Ventress."

Mace did not recognize that name, but noted it for later. "And the others?"

"Twins I killed in one of the smelting facilities, should be on camera somewhere." Kyle shrugged. "Past that, I don't know."

"We encountered two," the lead Commando said. "They escaped after we engaged them."

"One of them went to Kyle," Jan elaborated, "while the other tried to ambush me."

"Glad to see our trap worked," the Clone who was guarding Sora said with pride. "That should be a sight. I wonder what the expression on her face was like?"

"Stow it, Commando!" Their leader snapped. "And there were two more here with you. One of them was one of the two that escaped us. She had two lightsabers. She withdrew with the other shortly after she arrived."

"That would be Ventress," Kyle identified her by her weapons.

"And the other was Quinlan Vos," Mace identified the other Jedi that was in the room with him. "He is... known to me." He couldn't say that he was a spy, not now. Or yet, at least.

"Any problems with him getting away then?" Katarn asked.

"No," Mace responded.

"I still say we should have shot up their shuttle," one of the Clones said as he watched one of the entrances to the room with his heavy weapon.

"No, have to leave them an out, or they would try to steal one of ours," Jan pointed out as she checked her injury. "Kyle, when we get back to our ship, I think a Bacta spray is all that's needed."

"Good," the Knight-Errant relaxed just a notch. "So, are we going to deal with the Dark Jedi running around still, or just call it a victory and go home, leaving her to walk to the nearest spaceport?"

Mace considered that, mulling the options over in his head.

"Do you sense her presence?" Jan asked Katarn.

"No," he shook his head. "But then she could be hiding. I'm not good at that stuff."

Mace centered himself, then sent out his own explorations into the Force. "I cannot sense the presence of another," he had to admit to his failure to locate any one else outside of that room. "There is too much of the Dark Side present."

Jan took that under advisement. "Then I'm going to call this mission a success," she said. "We'll note this location for later sweeping, but once we're assured that the enemy has left, we'll secure the battle recordings, then detonate the exits on our way out to keep the last enemy in."

"You don't want to sweep it ourselves?" the Commander asked.

"No," Jan said. "She's one person in tight quarters. Now that she would be on her guard, she would be more likely to ambush us than the other way around."

"Understood."

Jedi High Council Chamber

Coruscant

The flickering hologram of Mace Windu stood before the members of the Council in attendance. "We will be extracting shortly," he finished off his report of the Republican intelligence action, and the subsequent fights against the raiders. "I would speak more, but time is short, and it seems this would be better handled in person."

"Agreed," Yoda said. "Much concern there will be, in this attack. Good, it is, to be seen as fighting for the Republic. Speak with the Chancellor, I shall."

The hologram flickered out, leaving the room silent for a moment. "Six." Ki-Adi Mundi said. "Six Dark Jedi."

"One was Vos," it was pointed out. "We need to get more information out of him."

"No," Shaak Ti objected. "We cannot risk compromising his position yet. In addition, we have our lost Sora Bulq returned to us."

"Corrupted, you mean." Ki-Adi pointed out. "I would be interested in finding out how, and why."

"I am more interested in where these other Jedi are coming from," Kit Fisto said. "So many that escaped our notice."

"We know that our ability to recruit Force Sensitives is limited," Shaak-Ti noted. "Our Sentinels cannot be everywhere at once."

That there was a rather important example of a powerful Jedi who slipped through their recruitment process and become powerful in his own right – one who was helping them out – only reinforced the perception that they were not doing the job they thought they were.

"Discuss, many things we must," Yoda said as he hopped off his seat. "When Master Windu returns, and not before." He started to walk to the elevator. "A meeting, I must attend now. Return to your duties, all of you."

Office of the Chancellor

It didn't take the Force for Palpatine to discern that Isard was happy with himself, despite the fact that he hadn't changed his appearance at all.

He sat at his table, back to the glorious Coruscant skyline, while the head of Republic Intelligence and Senator Mon Mothma were across from him.

Sidious had to be honest with himself, he never thought that Mon Mothma had it in her to be this cunning, to cooperate with Armand Isard. At the rate she was developing, he would have to treat her with due respect in the future, or bring her closer into his circle. "Now, what is this about?" He kept the demeanor of the Chancellor intact.

"Your Excellency," Armand said, placing a data chip into the hologrpahic projector set into the desk, the blue image popping into life. "Earlier today, a Separatist strike force attacked a location that we were considering to be a weapons depot. The attack was repulsed with no casualties."

"That's excellent news!" Palpatine agreed with a smile. "The public will adore that."

"We agree," Isard said, "and we have already communicated with the appropriate people how to release this information. But that is not why we are here."

"Was there any damage to the facility?"

"No, your Excellency," Isard reported. "Rather, the cooperation we extended to the Army had a bit more to it." He tapped a button in front of him to move the hologram to the next position. "On the world of Garamost, we selected various locations for the factory in question." The sphere over the table took on the shapes of continents, with multiple locations marked.

"I thought you were considering multiple locations on the planet, and had settled on one in particular?" Palpatine expressed some confusion.

"Not quite," Mon Mothma spoke, the young Senator a bit unsure of her position, despite the successes of her agents. Or because of what it meant. "You see, there was some suggestion that the Separatists had intelligence agents inside the Senate. A natural thought given how long they were a part of our government."

"To that end," Isard picked up the flow of the briefing, "with the Senator's Agents giving us excellent bait, Intelligence was able to put together an operation to locate some of these assets that were left behind by the Separatists. With the aid of the Senator, several versions of the report describing the factory were produced, each with one small change in them." Another button press, and the marked locations on the hologram began to flash in order.

"The different copies were distributed to various known or suspected problem areas, and we would watch for how the Separatists responded. The existence of the EMP Carbine would encourage a swift reaction." Mon Mothma said. "The attack earlier today was at one of those locations, and we were able to trace that location to the paperwork handed out."

Palpatine's face paled at the thought that there were traitors among the Senators. Sidious was impressed by the acumen in finding these people who acted outside of his plans and contingencies. "Who?" he demanded.

Isard, to his credit, did not cow from the truth. "We traced the leak to someone in your office, Chancellor. The Separatists have a spy who works directly under you."

Serrano

The two survivors of the debacle knelt before their master, in front of the rest of the Dark Acolytes. Dooku had his back turned to them, gazing out the window of his office, using the scenery to help calm himself. "A trap," he repeated the single most important thing that came out of their report.

No, not the deaths. They were to be expected in the face of serious resistance. Not the skill displayed by the Clone Troopers in dealing with the Dark Acolytes (that was to be expected, given the long term plans of the Sith).

It was a trap.

His Master had sent his people into a trap.

What did he intend by such a thing, to cull a group so removed frrm him? Unless it was a warning to Tyrannus himself, about how expendable they were, that he should not grow too attached to any of them...

No, there would be time for that later. He had to deal with the fallout of this now.

"You are to be commended for returning to me alive," he stressed the last word appropriately as he maintained watch out the window, lest they think they see some sort of weakness. "That Master Windu was present was something that could not have been foreseen."

"Sora Bulq was far too eager to fight," Vos said. "He abandoned the mission to settle a score with the Grand Master."

"I do not care for the foibles of a dead man," Dooku had no feeling of loss where the newest recruit to his cause was concerned. It was Vaapad he was after, and the fool was ill-capable of teaching it. Perhaps if he had more time... but such was not to be. "It would appear that we were deceived." There was no way around it, and he had to share the blame with his Acolytes. Dooku privately feared for the moment when Sidious called for him, for that would not go well for him.

With a snap, he turned back to his Acolytes. "We must more carefully watch ourselves. If the Republic could fool my sources, then they can do the same to others within the Confederacy. For now, your tasks will be two-fold. The first will be replenishing our numbers, and the other will be to search for those who would side with the Republic against the Confederacy. You will act as my eyes and ears, subtly finding them, and reporting back to me. Some we will kill as an example to the others, some we shall turn against their corrupt masters on Coruscant. Dismissed!"

He turned away from them again, returning to the window. He waited for his senses to tell him that he was alone before flicking a switch in his desk with the Force, letting his Master know that he was free to speak.

Somewhere dark

Darth Sidious did not choose to speak to his apprentice right away, for while he knew what Dooku was preparing for, he too needed to lay down contingencies. Mas Amedda had been informed of the 'leak' as well by a well-meaning Palpatine, and by the look on his face, Sidious knew that there may have been some truth to the accusation, even if it wasn't him.

Thankfully neither Isard nor Mothma thought he was suspicious. After some gentle prying, they revealed that, in their minds, if it was he who was the leak, then the cause was lost already. Therefore it had to be someone – or something – else.

Pestage, ever quick to play to his strengths, suggested finding an appropriate person of inconvenience to the Chancellor, and planting the blame on them. Mas countered that there was no one that they could blame, given how compartmentalized the entire operation had been.

Not wanting to make a decision in haste, Sidious had dismissed both of them, to think of plans while he attended to his own matters. Understanding that it meant Sith, the two trusted advisers to the ruler of the Galaxy took their leave.

Small things first, the Dark Lord decided. Armand and Mon Mothma. Obviously the former will get an increase to his budget after this success. As for the Senator, he could arrange for her to join the Oversight Committee that looked after Armand and his department. Make it known that the two of them worked together on this, and that they were expected to keep doing good things for the Republic.

It would have the nice effect of reducing the exposure she had to the more... peace loving members of the Senate. Keeping her out of the orbit of Bail Organna would be a nice move.

For a moment, he considered the possibility of letting Pestage perform his works, aimed at the Senator from Alderaan, before dismissing it. He was too well entrenched in the Senate, too far above reproach. Even obvious choices, like the Banking Clan, or the Neimoidians could prove problematic in the long run. No, better to wait and see where the actual investigation goes, then place an appropriate target in the way.

And, he supposed, this could actually play well into his long term plans to destroy the Jedi. Make it look like they were heroic for helping out, then when it came time to pull them down, 'reveal' that they were interlopers where they did not belong. Short term loss for long term gain.

Then there was also the issue of the Knight-Errant. At first, he thought he was simply a well-informed rogue Jedi, but now, he was not so sure. The man was cunning, extremely so, and was prepared to fight against Sidious, even if he did not know that he and Palpatine were one and the same.

Perhaps a Bounty Hunter hired through the Confederacy? As part of their plans for the war, there would be a large bounty placed on the heads of the Jedi, though without them taking an active role in the war effort, it would be a useless gesture at this point. Better to wait on that.

He needed more information, but his spies had not yet had time to find things out. And once he had that information, he could move. But until then, perhaps another audience would be in order. Yes, that would work nicely.

Only once things were being arranged as he desired, did he activate the com-channel to his Apprentice.

Seranno

"What is thy bidding, my Master?" Dooku gave the traditional greeting to Sidious, kneeling before the flickering hologram.

"Your Agents failed in their task," the blue image accused the Count.

"They did, Master." Dooku agreed without committing to anything. "Resistance was greater than they expected, including Master Windu of the High Council."

"I do not care for your petty excuses!" Sidious snapped, the hologram only reducing his ire by the barest fraction. Dooku felt the caress of the Force on his throat, and knew that he was but a breath away from punishment.

"This incident has given me cause and authority to root out agents that do not report to you, my Master. I have tasked the Acolytes with this purge, and they have responded well. They grow in the Dark Side. They will also scour the Galaxy for more to bring to our cause."

"Good, good." Sidious cackled, releasing the threat of violence against Dooku. "The Jedi grow more cautious with each passing day, giving you the initiative to act. How fares Grievous?"

"Well, my Master. The General has been advancing according to plan, taking and consolidating as he goes. He has reported scattered opposition, but the expected Jedi-coordinated defense has yet to materialize."

"Another blow against them," the Dark Lord agreed. "Let him have his fun, then remind the cyborg who is truly in command."

"Of course, Master."

"Report back once progress has been made," Sidious snarled. "And I hope your punishments of your failures were well crafted."

"They are dead, my Lord."

"Then all is well, my Apprentice," the hologram flickered out, and Dooku realized that his Master was... distracted. It was the only reason he could think of that this communication had ended the way it had.

He would not squander this opportunity.

Garamost

With no warning, a great bubble burst under the ground, sending plants, soil, and metal into the air. From this new crater, the Dark Acolyte Saato strode. She had been trapped, or so the Republic fools had thought. But she was stronger than that.

And while she would hunt them down, those who thought to contain her like a rabid animal, she had something else to do first.

Murder Assaj Ventress and Quinlan Vos for leaving her behind.