Legacy of the Jedi

Chapter 4

Dooku woke before dawn. Lying in the dark, he listened to the silence and knew that Lorian had left sometime during the night. He lay on his back, feeling the weight of the air on his body as though his friend was sitting on his chest.

Reluctant to rise, he stared at the walls, watching the darkness slowly silver into gray, until he could see the outlines of his furniture. The light on his bedside table began to glow softly and increase in intensity, his signal to wake up. Then a holographic calendar appeared and glowed in the air overhead. Usually the day calendar had been filled with appointments and classes. Lately he had liked looking at its blankness. Soon he would fill it up with missions.

He stared at it, thinking of his future. It was secure. Was Lorian right? Had he been smug about that and failed to appreciate his friend's distress?

He stared at the calendar for long minutes, thinking of this, before it registered on his brain that the entire day had been blocked out.

Dooku sat up. The urban search exercise! It was today! Not only that, he saw that he and Lorian had been summoned before the Jedi Council following the search.

The exercise was designed more for competitive fun than for serious training. The older students, the ones who had either been chosen as apprentices or who had finished their formal Temple training, were invited to sign up. They were divided into two teams, and had to track one another through a segment of Coruscant near the Temple. They had to use stealth, cunning, and surveillance techniques. Dooku and Lorian had signed up the week before.

Dooku swung his legs over the bed. Would he and Lorian still be allowed to participate?

He dressed hurriedly and grabbed his training light-saber. He walked out into the hallway and saw Yoda ahead. Yoda nodded a greeting.

"Heading to the tracking exercise, are you?" Yoda asked. "I–I don't know if I am permitted. " Dooku stammered.

Yoda cocked his head at him. "A commitment you made. A Padawan you are. And thus the answer you find is.. "

"I'm going," Dooku said. He hurried off. He had just enough time to grab some fruit for the morning meal before the students assembled outside on the landing platform. He wondered if Lorian would have the nerve to show up.

Lorian stood at the edge of the small crowd on the exterior platform.

He was clearly uncomfortable and avoided standing too near or too far away. He wore his hood low so that it shaded his eyes. Dooku stood at the edge of the group, opposite from Lorian. No one paid attention to them. Whatever the gossip had been, it had died down, and the students now only thought of the contest ahead.

The cool morning air flushed their cheeks and the wind whipped their robes around them as they chattered in excited voices. Dooku felt the combined Force from the group, energetic, unfocused, but strong.

For a moment he stood outside himself. It was something that happened to him from time to time. Suddenly he would feel removed, as though he floated above his classmates.

How young we all are, he thought, amused. Someday I will look back on this and wish for such simple things as a learning exercise on a cool morning.

It made him feel better for a moment. Someday his problem with Lorian wouldn't matter. It would be a blip, a moment of static, something lost in a sea of missions in a remarkable career.

Then Yoda and Oppo Rancisis emerged from the interior of the Temple.

His gaze rested on Dooku only briefly, but it brought Dooku back to reality with a bump. His mood suddenly soured as he thought of the Jedi Council he would have to face.

The students quieted as Yoda approached. He stood in the middle of the group, nodding greetings at the familiar faces. He'd known them all since they were babies and had trained them all when they were younglings.

"In an exercise know you do that every year the oldest students participate," he said. "Urban tracking, this year's will be. That this is a test remember you must. Yet graded you will not be. Take it seriously but lightly you must. Attempt to win you will; if you lose, enjoy it you may."

The students smiled at Yoda's contradictions and fiddled with their training lightsabers. Everyone was anxious to begin.

"And now, the rules," Oppo said. "You will be divided into two teams of ten. In a moment, your team color will flash on your datapad. Each team will have a different starting point. The goal of each team is to successfully bring a muja fruit from one of the fruitsellers in the All Planets Market back to the Temple by sunset. Team members can be eliminated only by one light touch with a lightsaber."

The students smiled. They knew that no matter how easy it sounded, the actual exercise would turn out to be much harder.

"You must keep to the segment mapped out on your datapads. To cross the line is to be disqualified. Do you understand this?"

The students nodded, trying to conceal their anticipation. They all knew the rules.

Yoda nodded, letting them know that their attempts to hide their impatience hadn't fooled him a bit. "Perhaps wait you should until the sun is higher…." he began, his eyes twinkling.

"No, please, Master Yoda!" the students chorused the words together.

"Ah, then teams you will become. Look on your data-pads, you must."

The students reached for the palm-sized datapads on their utility belts. Dooku's screen glowed blue.

"Blue and gold, the team colors are," Yoda said. "And the captains are these: Dooku for blue, Lorian for gold. Waiting, the Jedi Masters are, to take you to your starting points."

Startled, Dooku looked first at Yoda, then at Lorian, whose blank face showed how deeply surprised he was. Why had they been chosen as captains? Maybe yesterday morning they would have been chosen.

Yesterday morning, when they were not suspected of stealing a Sith Holocron. Yesterday morning, when they were still Padawans in good standing.

Dooku gripped his datapad, still reeling by Yoda's words. He had not yet completely figured out Jedi logic, that was certain.

"Hey, Dooku, wake up!" Hran Beling grinned at him as he tugged on the sleeve of his tunic. "Is it a little early for you?"

"Jedi Master Reesa Doliq is waiting," Galinda Norsh said briskly.

"Let's get started."

Dooku noticed that the Gold Team members were all scrambling to board a transport. He hurried behind the other Blue Team members to get aboard their own transport. Reesa Doliq smiled at the students as they crammed in.

"Room for everyone," she said. "Don't worry, I'll have you at the starting point in no time. In the meantime, you can start on your strategy."

The two transports lifted off. Dooku found that every Blue Team member was staring at him, waiting for him to begin. He was the leader, after all.

He cleared his throat and looked down at his datapad. The map of the area they would be operating in flashed onscreen. Dooku was familiar with much of it. It consisted of the Senate buildings, several grand boulevards that he knew quite well, and the All Planets Market, which was held in a large plaza near the Senate complex. As a promising student of diplomacy, he had signed up for special tutorials in Senate procedure, so he'd had plenty of opportunities to explore the Senate grounds.

Quickly Dooku scanned the map, trying to locate streets and alleys and space lanes. Everyone had to be coordinated and a strategy must be devised. They should spread out and each student should get a muja fruit. That would increase the odds of their win.

But why? Dooku thought suddenly. It was just what Lorian would expect him to do, so why should he do it?

"Our starting coordinate is Nova level," Galinda said. "That's good.

There are many alleys there to hide in. And the gravsleds and truck transports will be unloading supplies for the market. We can use them for cover." She looked over Dooku's shoulder at the map.

Hran Beling nodded. "We can pick the fastest among us to pick up the fruit."

"They'll probably be staking out the fruit stands," Galinda said. "We have to get there first."

"Maybe not," Dooku muttered, his head bent over the map.

"Do you have a better idea?" Hran asked.

Dooku didn't answer. He was thinking. What would Lorian expect him to do?

He would expect me to race to get a muja fruit first. He would expect me to send three Padawans to retrieve the fruit, and guard them with the rest. If they all didn't make it, I'd send back two.

He looked at the map again.

"Do you have a plan or, what?" Galinda asked impatiently.

Dooku looked up at last. "Yes," he said. "We're not going after the muja fruit at all."

They looked at him skeptically. Dooku only smiled. He would bend them to his will. He would make them see his strategy. Because he knew one thing on this day: He had to win.