( 30 BBY )
Coruscant is an abomination that has to be destroyed - Dooku's mind kept coming back to that visceral thought as yet another day passed with him and his retinue trapped in traffic and port regulations. Storming out of the court had looked dramatic for the cameras, and had played well for the audience back on Serenno and across the wider Outer Rim, but in terms of the amount of time it saved him it meant very little.
When he and his soldiers had gotten back to his ship, he'd found that it had been grounded by the port authorities, who were mysteriously difficult to get in contact with when he wanted to find out why. Everyone there had given him the runaround, nervously insisting they had no idea who made that decision, but were unable to reach their supervisors or section chiefs to find out anything or get it reversed. It had been years since Dooku was so humiliated.
He barely held back his temper when a twi'lek receptionist finally tried to explain to him that the droid which was responsible for the landing clamp being placed had been sent to get its memory wiped immediately afterwards, so there was no way to know who had given the order. No supervisor was willing to answer their comms devices, and anyone who was called via the intercom to the front desk to answer Dooku's questions either didn't hear the request or ignored it.
In the end, Dooku decided it would be quicker to simply buy a new ship than to try and untangle the mess. He'd sent one of his bodyguards off with orders to purchase a freighter capable of transporting them all. Somewhat shockingly, purchasing a used ship actually had proven quicker than trying to get his personal diplomatic cruiser freed. Dooku would just have to send an aide back to Coruscant to untangle his cruiser from the chains of bureaucracy later.
Dooku and his remaining bodyguards had then departed Coruscant aboard the freighter, only for the Coruscant traffic tower to be mysteriously slow in broadcasting their flight codes. Trying to leave without a route was illegal and dangerous, as the skies of Coruscant were choked with billions of incoming and leaving starships at all times. They'd been circling in a holding pattern for six hours, before finally they received their flight codes and were able to leave.
Thus began their journey back to Serenno in the tight confines of a grimy old YT-1000. His bodyguards were almost as frustrated by the humiliating circumstances as he was, and in the narrow halls and tiny shared bunk rooms, he heard many muttered curses in their tongues. Their home was under attack, and they were trapped here in the Core because some petty voidkin wanted to spite the Count.
One of them even indulged in particularly vivid fantasies of blasting Grib Siv in his smug slimy face.
Dooku could sympathize, but Grib Siv was just a pawn of a much greater foe. The day would come when Dooku would strike the head from Palpatine's shoulders, and derive great pleasure from doing so. For now, he needed to calm himself and focus on the task at hand.
Thus, calling from the freighter's grubby and worn holocom, he set about trying to get a handle on the situation. His task wasn't made any easier by the holocom's operating system, its default language appeared to be some dialect of the Under City, and its translation into Galactic Basic was terrible.
He had to log into his holoterminal back on Serenno from this damn thing, which demanded a biometric security scan to confirm his identity, but the layer of grime encrusting the thumbprint scanner resulted in a false reading. Dooku had to borrow a cleaning spray from one of his men's blaster maintenance kits to get the damn thing working.
Even after logging in, it seemed to take an unbearably long lag time to access anything, and the connection kept dropping out. Fuming all the while, he persisted for hours, messaging the minor Counts and Barons that were in his alliance, and restarting every time the damned holocom lost the call or crashed while he was reading a report. Finally, after ten hours, Dooku wasn't quite satisfied with what he'd accomplished, but was so frustrated that he felt like he'd rather drive his lightsaber through the hull then continue.
Coruscant, Palpatine. The Senate. That damned judge.
Dooku breathed out through his nose, briefly reaching out to the light side to calm himself. He'd been so immersed in the Dark Side for so long that in comparison the peace of the Light Side felt like nothing, a thin vapor sprayed on raging flame. It wasn't nearly as satisfying, but Dooku persisted with his meditation until finally after more than a day he felt drained of his rage. Contrary to the past where meditation left him well rested, Dooku almost felt more exhausted than anything.
He briefly checked the holoterminal, and saw that Duke Harad wanted to talk with him. Now that he was feeling more in control of himself, he decided to call his friend.
"We're not going to let these blasted kriffers get away with this." Harad insisted. "Let's string them up, the old fashioned way. I want to see them kicking as they die!"
"The pirates themselves can be dealt with, but the men behind them are another matter." Dooku replied. "The Trade Federation is protected by the Senate."
"You're sure it's not the Hutts?"
"They are at most a proxy." As was the Federation, but Harad didn't need to know that. "And right now the Trade Federation is untouchable."
Harad's lip curled in disgust. "Untouchable, of course they are! The Fed doesn't pay taxes, but we do. We're not allowed a large defense fleet, they're allowed to rule half the Outer Rim. The Republic takes billions of credits from us, hundreds of billions, while the Federation receives constant subsidies. I want to know just how much of my money gets spent on those damned fundraising events for those stim snorting senators."
Obviously he was exaggerating the fact, but Dooku strongly agreed with the sentiment behind them. "You're upset."
"Of course I'm upset!" Harad snapped, dashing his tobacco on his arm rest by accident with a wild gesticulation. Seeing what he'd done he cursed, before relighting his cigar. "The senate treats us like we're the problem! We're nothing but a bunch of petty backwater tyrants. They're embarrassed about us! Embarrassed! They think we're all inbred, fratricidal monsters! No insult to you, Dooku."
"It's fine."
Harad continued. "They see us as a relic from a bygone era, while they're the height of sophistication, of fashion, of culture, of democracy. They don't just think they're better than us, they think we're evil. The megacorps are just the tool they use to keep their hands clean. They're civilizing us, don't you know? And if they happen to get rich enough to own a moon from it, why shouldn't they get paid for their good work?"
But Harad wasn't done. "You know they say it's our fault? That we're the ones holding the Outer Rim back? That's how they justify it to themselves." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, at something not on the screen. "The ruins of Xim's summer palace are still here! An hour by speeder, and you can see the old stones, still there! Twenty five thousand years they've been there! Twenty five thousand! And those Coruscanti calculators would crush it in a heartbeat just to put up another Correllian coffee chain."
Harad snorted angrily, smoke billowing from his nose. "Things can't keep going like this, Dooku. They just can't."
Dooku had heard many of the man's angry rants before, but at this particular moment he seemed especially upset. Had he really just called Dooku to rant about this? Thinking about it for a moment, he decided to venture an idea. "The senate will continue to hamstring us for the foreseeable future, unless something changes."
Harad paused, finally seeming to really look at Dooku instead of just angrily ranting. "So that's it then. Separatism. That's the corner we've been pushed into. Separatism."
Ever since the end of the New Sith Wars, Separatism had been a bloody thorn in the sides of many governments. Countless radical groups, many of them revolutionary and seeking to overthrow their rulers, existed across the Outer Rim. The This or That People's Liberation Front of Some World or Another had been a source of violent attacks and public facing anarchy for decades, if not centuries. That word, Separatism, had bad associations.
Harad, and most of the other rulers of the Outer Rim, had no love for the Separatist rabble.
Dooku was more understanding of them, though as a Knight, he'd personally put down a Separatist plot on Jabiim. If he was following Sidious' original plan, aiming to make his alliance as frightening as possible to the people of the Republic, he would have carried the title of Separatist openly.
No doubt when the time came, Sidious was still going to tar him with that brush, but if Dooku was going to succeed in his plans to break up the Republic, a more attractive, less tarnished name would be needed.
...
Apparently, chapters write themselves faster when Power Stones are involved. Who knew? Feel free to test the theory go ahead, toss a few my way.
...
If you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my patreon :
patreon.com/Rimanovi