Chapter Eleven: Recovery
Dec. 12th, 2012 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofleithianDisclaimer: I own nothing.
It was a dream that Grievous had been having for quite a while, if only with a different twist to it.
In the dream, he could still see the body of his beloved wife floating in the water – a sign that the gods had taken her so long ago, taken her out towards the
“I will do anything! Only give her back to me!"
But they did not listen.
It was there that the dream shifted, only to show him, once again, with her. Fighting alongside her – the single entity that they once were. Except the Kalee were losing.
A war that he was too familiar with.
It was only then that a man in a dark hood stalked from the shadows. He was tall, if anything else. Tall and dignified. And then he heard that familiar voice.
“I do not wish to hurt you, Grievous. Hand over your weapons and no one gets hurt.”
His wife, his dear wife, did not believe it. The name Grievous – after all, that was a future name. A name he hadn’t earned yet.
And she defied him. “We will never surrender to you.”
A sigh from Kenobi. “Then what happens next is your own doing.”
And it was there that Kenobi had drawn his lightsaber, only for Grievous to realize that instead of the familiar blue, it seemed to have, somehow, turned red. And even drawing his own lightsabers – but why were they lightsabers? He supposed he would never know – he suddenly felt something that he had not felt in a long time. He felt afraid.
Kenobi had fallen. He had become a Sith – he was going to destroy them. They had to fight against him.
But for no matter how hard he fought, he could not defeat Kenobi. If anything, Kenobi seemed to have become an unstoppable monster before his eyes, and Grievous was all but helpless before him. Fighting like a madman, fighting ferociously, and yet somehow, unable to win. His lightsabers, coming apart once again, and him, suddenly falling.
With a snarl of rage, his wife, his beloved Kummar, ran towards Kenobi, fighting ferociously – even looking up at Kenobi and Kummar fighting, Grievous could barely think through the pain. And yet somehow, he knew – he needed to save her. He got to his feet, taking up his lightsabers again, to face Kenobi.
Still, Kenobi did not falter. Taking down Kummar again – taking her down. Grievous, kneeling beside her. “Kummar...speak to me. Are you all right?”
“I am. Keep fighting.”
It was then that Grievous heard the faint sound of voices. Familiar voices. Voices of his Separatist comrades. He had apparently landed on some sort of Separatist planet. But where? And how...?
Blinking, almost unable to focus through the pain, he looked over at Count Dooku. The Count gave him a pleasant smile that, if anything, Grievous was almost surprised to see. The Count wasn’t really renowned for being pleasant – not to him, at least. “Good morning, General. I trust you slept well?”
“If by ‘slept well’ you mean ‘spent an apparently considerable amount of time in a comatose state’,” Grievous said, calmly, “Then yes, I did.” He blinked. “Where are we, Count?”
“You’re currently in the hospital on Mimban,” Dooku said, “And it is zero four hundred in the morning, in case you want to know.”
Grievous had to suppress a slight groan. Dooku honestly had to put it that way? Zero four hundred? Did anyone talk like that anymore?
Still, he supposed that he should be grateful to at least be alive. At least, grateful enough to not complain about Dooku’s arguably outdated terminology.
Then again, being in considerable pain also had something to do with it.
“How serious were my injuries?”
“You have had worse injuries, General, if I may recall,” Dooku said, “Although yes, they were quite bad. From what I could gather from the medical droids.” A pause. “I suppose, however, they were a minor improvement from the incident with Master Windu.”
Grievous supposed that Dooku was right. Then again, anything would have been preferable to experiencing what he had experienced with Jedi Master Mace Windu that day. The Jedi Master, he had learned, if only the hard way, was not one to pull any punches when sufficiently angry. If anything, his crushing of Grievous’ internal organs had left him with a considerable amount of difficulty breathing. The medical droids had even said that it was a miracle that Grievous had survived – then again, considering that he was more metal than flesh nowadays, perhaps in a way, that had saved him.
Still, he supposed that anything – even death – would have been preferable. At the very least, the incident gave him strength. Gave him energy – gave him additional anger. He could only pray that he would meet Mace Windu in battle once more, and best him as Mace had once bested him. It was, after all, only right to do so.
It was only later that they received the message from Darth Sidious. Grievous already knew the routine all too well, so he made sure to look as obedient as possible before Sidious – Dooku seemed to, as well. Sidious seemed to be the only being that Dooku would be ever willing to defer to.
“My lord.” Grievous said. There was something almost abhorrent about referring to this inscrutable creature as “my lord”, and yet something right. After all, Sidious was a genius. More than a genius, really – he could put geniuses of this day and age to shame. And that...that said volumes.
“General,” Sidious said. “I trust you are well?”
“I am. How fares the status of the Jedi?”
“They have landed on Coruscant.” Sidious paused. “I am almost surprised that they did not face a court martial for their actions in terms of what they did to Vader and Ventress, but then again...I suppose the Jedi were pushed into a desperate enough corner that they could not afford to condemn.”
Grievous could not really argue with that. After all, desperate calls called for desperate measures, in war or otherwise. “And what of our new plans?”
“I plan to move you to the Mustafar system. It is the best of plans – the Jedi will scarcely think to find you here.”
“With all due respect, my Lord,” Dooku said, “You cannot possibly rely on that.”
“Perhaps not,” Sidious said, “But a chance...it may create a chance for us. A chance to get the upper hand, if you will.”
Grievous knew that the practice of playing the long game – the long game of dejarik or otherwise – was an important part of war, but it didn’t mean that he necessarily agreed with it. Strategy was all well and good, so to speak, but fighting in the thick of the battle, the adrenaline rushing through you – that was the true joy of it. Sidious, meanwhile...
Sidious was a genius, yes, but it didn’t mean that Grievous trusted him. Grievous knew one thing that continuously troubled him in regards to Sidious – why didn’t he show his face?
It was no doubt a small detail, something that was no doubt understandable considering the position that they were in. And yet at the same time, it troubled Grievous, giving rise to a certain suspicion, fear, and distrust that he could not quite name. And that...that was something he couldn’t afford to have.
But as Dooku had said to him once, treachery was the way of the Sith. So he supposed that being surprised was never an option. The best he could do was be on his guard, and continue to follow Sidious’ orders as best as he could. Be a good little soldier, a good little pawn in the game of dejarik – and all the while, keep your wits about you.
“We will leave at once, my lord,” Grievous said. “And I will inform the Separatists of your orders.”
“Good, good.” The way the Sith Lord purred reminded Grievous almost of a contented rancor.
Once the transmission finally ended, Grievous turned to look at Dooku. “I am assuming he thinks it is good then.”
“Yes.” Dooku’s voice was short and almost irritable, as if saying, You thought otherwise, General? “It is best that we leave immediately.”
Unfortunately, organizing the Separatists was much harder. Even informing them of Sidious’ orders...some of them objected, yes. And some, such as a certain Viceroy Nute Gunray, had the audacity to claim that Sidious’ orders were wrong.
“Mustafar is a barren, fiery wasteland! Lord Sidious cannot possibly think to have us hide out in this place!”
It took all of Grievous’ self control to simply not strangle the little rat where he stood. He hated Nemoidians. Spineless, cowardly, whimpering, greedy creatures – and the Viceroy of the Trade Federation was no exception in that matter. Running back to Sidious if only out of fear. Dooku didn’t seem to like him very much either; it was something that Grievous supposed that they could both agree on, no matter how small.
“Mustafar,” Grievous said, speaking slowly, almost as if talking to a small child – it was the best way at least that he could find a way to keep his temper – “Is the last place that the Jedi will think to look. And besides – there is a bunker to protect you from the harsher elements of the planet. I believe that Lord Sidious’ decision is a wise one.”
After a long while of arguing with Gunray, the Viceroy, mercifully, did what he was told and boarded the ship with the others. If Grievous could still rub his temples, he could; he could already feel them throbbing. Apparently, even metal could not protect him from the sheer pain he felt in his forehead, the sheer amount of headaches from Gunray’s sheer stupidity and spinelessness. He was almost hoping that the Jedi would at least arrest – or better, kill – Gunray, because at this rate, he was already getting very irritated with the Viceroy, and very tired.
And yet the most irritating thing about it was that the Viceroy may have actually had a degree of a point. How did they know that Sidious wasn’t luring them into a certain death trap? How did they know – ?
Wearily, Grievous turned to look at Dooku. “Lord Tyrannus – I do hope that Lord Sidious has any clue what he is doing.”
“Oh, he does. He always does.”
“I’m worried, if you do excuse me for saying so, that the Viceroy may be right.”
Dooku merely raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? What makes you jump to that conclusion?”
Silence.
“Merely visions, Count. Merely nightmares.”
Dooku seemed, suddenly, very interested. “Tell me of them.”
“I saw General Obi Wan Kenobi himself as a Sith Lord.”
Dooku snorted, suddenly jarred out of his rather contemplative mood. “I doubt that Kenobi would be so easily turned to the Dark Side.”
“I do not believe either one of us knows this.”
“Well, I do. I know I have tried to persuade him to our side – he refused to listen to anything I had to say. So blinded by Jedi dogma. So blinded by everything he was taught in his childhood, about alleged good and bad things, selfishness and selflessness and so many others – all taught by others that were more interested in petty trade disputes and being the Republic’s personal thugs than trying to, say, solve the matter of slavery on Tatooine.” Dooku’s features seemed to soften. “And perhaps,” he said, almost pensively, “Freeing your people from the Huk.”
Even that mentioning was painful. “There was something else in the dream, Lord Tyrannus. I thought I saw...her.”
“Your wife?” For a moment, Grievous swore that he could see...something in the Count’s eyes. He couldn’t quite decipher what it was, however.
“Yes. And Kenobi...” It was almost hard to say. “He acted as her – no, our – judge, jury and executioner.”
“The very opposite of what a Jedi stands for.” Dooku sighed, rubbed his brows, almost as if rubbing away a loose thought stored away amongst the years of wisdom. “On the other hand, Sidious has been molding him into that opposite quite marvelously.”
Grievous was suddenly interested.
“It is...dirty work, General, and I never wanted to do this. Master Qui Gon Jinn...” Dooku shook his head, as if that loose thought from before was still rattling around in there, haunting him. “If he learned what I was doing, he would have never forgiven me. Kenobi...he was like the son he had never known.”
“I cannot say that I knew Master Qui Gon Jinn.” Yet even so, Grievous couldn’t help but feel a certain pity for Obi Wan he could not say he felt before. He was so used to seeing Obi Wan as self righteous, the very epitome of the worst of the Jedi – set in his ways, hypocritical, arrogant...and so much more. And yet even now, he could not help but wonder.
“Of course not. And I never really told you about him, did I?” Dooku took a deep breath. “He was my former Padawan. Killed by one of Sidious’ former apprentices, Darth Maul, back at the Battle of Naboo.”
“Ah. I see.” Grievous supposed that he had heard about such things. At least in the past, when he was still a General of Kalee. In a sense, he still was, but at the same time...he was not quite the creature he was before.
Dooku continued. “I did not ever think that I would be working with the man indirectly responsible for my student’s death. But desperate times...they call for the most desperate of measures. I can only hope that when Sidious is overthrown, when I best him – or perhaps we, at this rate – the galaxy will be made right. It will be made as it was meant to be made.”
Grievous could already picture it. The Republic, no longer corrupt, but formed into a great and beautiful Empire, stretching across generations, across ten thousand years, across all of time. The Empire that would stop the matter of slavery on Tatooine, and oppression, and stop things such as Kalee from happening again. And the army – with Kenobi and Naberrie as part of the Sith army, they would be able to keep the peace. Things such as the matter of the Trade Federation would, had they happened there, in this new Empire, have been no more than a border skirmish against the might of the Sith army.
Against the might of the Empire.
In time, the Empire would make the galaxy as it was meant to be – it would make it absolutely beautiful. Because if anything, the Jedi way of being...where had it got them? They couldn’t save or protect the people of the galaxy; Grievous even doubted that they even cared about the people of the galaxy. What good were they, if they could not fulfill their purpose and help those in need?
The age of the Jedi and the Republic had long passed. It should have passed long ago – the Jedi’s arrogance had hurt so many and helped so few, and the stagnant, bloated corruption of the Republic had done the same. The galaxy did not need bureaucrats or anything similar. The galaxy did not need alleged peacekeepers that simply sat and twiddled their thumbs (or something similar, depending on who they were) while the rest of the galaxy burned and suffered and thirsted and starved and died.
The galaxy needed warriors and soldiers. Soldiers that would lay down their lives for every citizen, instead of simply seeming to decide who lived and who died, who was important and who was unimportant, seemingly on a whim. Soldiers that held all life to be equal and worthy of defending, no matter who it was. Soldiers that could hold back such evils as slavery and poverty and so much more. Soldiers that would do what was right, instead of what benefited them most.
The galaxy needed soldiers. It needed warriors. It needed healers – it needed so many things that the Republic and the Jedi had not only been unable to give, but seemed to have refused to give. The galaxy deserved so much more.
Kalee had deserved so much more.
“I am aware that this is still difficult for you, General.” Dooku’s voice cut into his thoughts, smooth and clipped and refined as his upbringing on the planet of Serenno. “But have patience. You will get your vengeance. Your justice, rather.”
“I fail to see the difference, Count. There is an old saying...there is no justice like the justice of revenge.”
Dooku seemed thoughtful now. Pensive. Then, “Yes, General. I believe you are right. Now come...there is plenty of work to do.”
Even boarding the ship, Grievous could still see in his mind the image of Obi Wan Kenobi, dark and glowing with Sithly power and simply terrifying, holding a lightsaber, about to play the part of judge, jury and executioner to the hilt. And even now, Grievous could not help but worry.
He knew that he could not afford to worry, figuratively and literally – almost all of his emotions had numbed a long time ago. And yet even as the war had continued, it was almost as if they were fighting to resurface. Which was nonsense. He did not need emotions. He was a soldier who followed commands to the last, and a general who gave them without regret. He was General Grievous. He could not afford to feel such emotions, especially not fear.
And yet here he was, fearing the future. It was a common criticism that his father had given him when he was young. Calling him things such as reckless and impulsive – helping him channel his youthful, adolescent feelings of frustration and restlessness into the ways of combat.
And even now, he could already picture his father’s voice. “Do not focus on the future, my son. Focus on the present. This is the most relevant thing there is, right now.”
Grievous supposed that even here, his father’s piece of advice was relevant. Though the noble warrior was long dead, Grievous could still swear that at least at times, his father’s voice was in the back of his mind, guiding him towards greatness. It was, after all, the least he could do in the end.
Grievous tried to calm himself; even breathing was difficult, however. The wheezing, gasping coughs – it was something that he cursed Mace Windu for, for taking it away. Taking away his ability to breathe, all while thinking that he simply had the right to inflict pain. And to think others called the Separatists monsters! At least they were doing the right thing – trying to free other planets from the tyranny of the Republic. How typical it was for the Republic and their personal puppets, the Jedi Order, to call them terrorists and threats to peace, and even traitors. How completely and utterly typical.
And here they were, inflicting pain if only because it was their right. Grievous swore that when he caught up to Kenobi and Naberrie – or if he caught up to Kenobi and Naberrie, or even if or when he just caught up to one of them – he would teach them the new meaning of pain. He would make them see what they were doing. He would make them pay for everything that they had done, that the Republic had done.
Because at the core of it, it barely mattered what their justifications were for doing what they had done. They were the guilty, every last one of them, and deserved to be treated as such.
Holding onto his anger was the best that Grievous could do in the best of times, and in the worst of times. After all, after his wife had died, after he was confined to this prison of a suit of armor (even by his own choice, if only because of the amount of pain he was in), this white durasteel prison cell, it was all he had, in the end. The desire to punish the Republic. The desire to dispense justice.
And yet when all of this was over, where would he be? Would Sidious dispose of him for no longer being useful? Grievous could still remember it happening to others that had been in Sidious’ employ – the exception being him and Dooku, as they were both still no doubt useful, at least in Sidious’ eyes, and Maul, who had been disposed of personally by Kenobi, and later by Naberrie. In the future, he could not help but wonder...where would he be?
Where would Sidious be, if anything else? Would he be the rightful ruler of the Sith Empire, or would he and Dooku be ruling? Or would Kenobi and Naberrie be in charge? And where would Grievous be? The soldier still following commands, the General giving them, both? Would he be...?
Whatever tomorrow wrought, Grievous mused, he would need to focus on the present. After all, that was the most important of things. And even as he sat in the chair and fastened his seatbelt, the best he could do, he thought, was at least trust in Sidious – at least as far as someone could throw him, so to speak.
After all, that was all they could do. Trust in Sidious, odd as that sounded.
The rest would no doubt take care of itself.
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How is everything?
Date: 2012-12-12 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-13 12:52 am (UTC)The interaction between Dooku & Grievous is awesome. And I love how he almost feels pity for Obi-Wan!!
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