The room was filled with a glow of red light, as a Sith lightsaber ignited before him, and Sturn blinked in shock at the blade, not quite believing what he was seeing.
...
"Did this come from the ruin?" He asked, looking at Tan'ya, despite knowing in his bones that wasn't the case. The leather on the grip was brand new, the hilt gleaming with fresh polish. "The assassin?" Sturn demanded, wide eyed. "The assassin was a Sith?"
"A Sith assassin was dispatched to kill my family." Dooku confirmed. "And was almost certainly behind the attack on the Correllian Temple."
Sturn gaped, disbelieving. "The Sith are extinct!" He protested, and even as he said it, he already felt himself not believing it.
"They were extinct." Tan'ya corrected him. "But Sith philosophy has only ever been a response to Jedi philosophy. Maybe our current strain of Sith are descended from the original species, or maybe not, but all it would take to recreate them is a single defecting Jedi."
"Why are they targeting your family?" Sturn demanded. "Do you have something to do with this?"
Dooku frowned, turning his head to make eye contact with his daughter. She nodded once, as if encouraging him to continue, before with a sigh, the Count looked back to Sturn. "They attempted to recruit me. Not overtly, not at first, but they recognised my dissatisfaction with the Republic, and sought for me to join them. Of course I didn't know they were Sith at the time, but eventually I pulled away when it became apparent who I was dealing with, and now Dark Side assassins are targeting my friends and family."
"No…" Sturn breathed out. "No, if the Sith were active, the Coruscant Temple would have warned us."
"It is unwise to rely on the Jedi Council for much at all." Dooku sniffed contemptuously. "They are totally blind to the fact that our present Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is a puppet of the Sith, as is much of the Senate. It was Palpatine himself who attempted to recruit me into their secret cause with promises of power."
"No, you can't prove any of this." Sturn interrupted, even as his mind raced. The idea was so terrible that he couldn't even consider it. The Supreme Chancellor working for the Sith? "I don't believe you. This kyber crystal easily could have come from the ruin you unearthed, and the lightsaber could have been made in the last few hours."
Dooku took out his compad, and pressed a few buttons. "I'm going to make available to you footage from the Sith's attack. We also have his body in our morgue, so that you can inspect it yourself under supervision."
"We'll also provide a copy of this conversation to you, when you leave." Tan'ya added. "You may need to refer to it later."
"Refer to it later?" Sturn blinked, staring in disbelief at the two of them. "For what?"
"For when you report to the Green Jedi Council." Tan'ya replied.
Sturn froze at that. What these two were saying was completely insane, but any report he made to the Temple on Corellia would absolutely have to include a copy of this conversation. "I thought you were going to shoot me." He murmured.
"Our military law would demand nothing less in response to desertion." Tan'ya glared at him. "However, surviving what is to come requires compromises. So instead, we will put Serenno's wellbeing before its law."
"This era of peace is rapidly coming to an end." Dooku explained, his stern tone seeming cordial compared to his daughter's icy venom. "The Sith have evolved, but the Jedi on Coruscant remain stagnant and willingly blind. They take younglings in as infants, just to prevent them from developing even the potential to touch the Dark Side. They are like a man who eats spoiled food because he cut off his nose and can't smell the rot. " He met Sturn's gaze, pinning him in place with a glare. "You've been to Coruscant. I'm sure you've felt the Dark Side growing in strength there. They can't even feel that the world they live on has become an open wound in the Galaxy's centre."
"Okay, hold on." Sturn held out a hand, struggling to keep up. "So there's a Sith faction on Coruscant manipulating the Senate. Have you tried warning them?"
There was a flash of anger behind Dooku's eyes, before he concealed it. "I've been warning them of the coming darkness for years. Sifo had a prophecy on the very subject. They've declared Anakin Skywalker the chosen one. A Jedi Master has been assassinated by a Sith." Dooku answered. "If even that wasn't enough, I have told Padme Amidala about Chancellor Palpatine, and she has told them. Now the Council won't even take my calls anymore. They are beyond help."
"Well, I'm sure relations are difficult between you, but if they knew, there's no way they'd do nothing."
"They are willfully blind, and they will not change their ways." Dooku dismissed. "Tell them everything I've said, if you like. You will get no further than I have."
Sturn stopped. "So… You've chosen to spare my life because you believe I can convince the Green Jedi of your theory. Even if I don't believe it?"
Tan'ya answered. "You believe that we believe. You will present our evidence to the Green Jedi, and then they will investigate. With luck, they will see what we see."
"But it's all just speculation. Without anything to prove Sith involvement, this is all just wild conspiracy theories."
"We know the Sith were directly involved in the Invasion of Naboo." Dooku said. "They made two attempts at eliminating Queen Padme Amidala. The one who would have benefited the most if they succeeded was Palpatine, who even despite their failure was able to maneuver himself into the role of Supreme Chancellor."
"I don't think it at all strange that a politician would use a crisis to their advantage." Sturn countered.
"By itself, no, but in conjunction with the fact he tried to recruit me to his secret cause with promises of power, and then when I refused my family was attacked by a Sith?"
"The only evidence you've given me is a red lightsaber!" Sturn objected. "There has to be another explanation then the Republic has been taken over by the Sith!"
"In the meantime," Tan'ya added, "we'll be contacting the other Orders. Only once a consensus is reached will we finally be able to do something about this madness."
Dooku pushed a button and a number of House Guards entered the room behind Sturn. Without hesitation, they immediately seized his arms and painfully jerked them behind his back, before slapping durasteel cuffs onto his wrists.
"I thought you said you were sending me back to Corellia!" Sturn gasped.
Dooku drew himself up, walking around the table to stand before Sturn directly. "We are, but you are guilty of dereliction of duty, Sturn. We're not sending you back there the way you came, piloting your own vessel and sitting proud at the bridge of a ship. We're deporting you back to Corellia.
On the way there you will be branded as a criminal, and exiled. If you ever return to Serenno, you will be executed. This is mercy, and you would be wise to remember it as such." Dooku then turned his back on the man. "Now take him away."
...
Watching Sturn dragged away from the meeting, Tan'ya found herself with mixed feelings about the man. His abhorrent abandonment of his duty at the worst possible moment had damn near killed her family, and her. At the same time, he seemed so hopelessly naive, Tan'ya almost didn't know what to make of him.
He grew up in Corellia, the Garden of the Republic. He fully believed in the ideals of the Republic, and yet somehow he didn't seem to realise that by rendering aid to an Outer Rim Autocrat, he was betraying those ideals.
In the end, she would be glad to never have to see him again.
The logic behind showing him mercy was simple. On Coruscant, there were more than ten thousand Jedi ready to lay down their lives in defence of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, while the New Temple was just starting to close in on two hundred. That was only if you included the various Teepo Paladins, Atlesian Jedi, Green Jedi and the like that hadn't yet fully committed to joining, but had at least stuck around.
All this was to say that if the Coruscant Jedi fully committed themselves to crushing the New Temple, a coalition of lesser orders would be their only hope of victory.
"I don't like this." Dooku murmured.
"A basic rule of PR is that if you're not actively communicating with your audience, someone else is." Tan'ya replied, eyes locked on the door that Sturn had been dragged through.
"Palpatine is going to be doing his best to discredit you, and by extension our alliance, if he isn't doing so already. That's not even mentioning the risk of your secret getting out.
We need to get ahead of the scandal, and have our version of events circulating among Galaxy's political elite. Besides, what better way to discredit the Supreme Chancellor than with something somewhat close to the truth?"
...
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