Chapter Text
In retrospect, he shouldn’t have trusted himself to make such a decision while his cognitive functions were clearly not operating at full capacity.
That wasn’t to say he had no confidence in any of the decisions he made whilst sulking on his star destroyer with missing digits and a dull headache, dispensing commands from afar instead of death by his own hand. He dismissed the transmissions from Tovarskl that pleaded for negotiations and denied requests to evacuate settlements. He had no particular interest in examining his adamance that every Yam’rii be eradicated, whether or not Dooku’s instructions called for that level of destruction; it felt right. Watching the planet burn buoyed his sullen mood like warming his hands before a fire. Any issues that arose were resolved by simply reiterating his orders to destroy military bases and cities alike.
Save one.
Grievous couldn’t even recall the designation of the settlement at the center of the battalion’s query. Yam’rii names meant nothing. But the ground troops had discovered a large arena in their sweep of the city, and within it, the puzzled droids reported, there subsisted a significant number of non-Yam’rii lifeforms, many of which appeared sentient.
The droid battalion asked whether they, too, should all be destroyed.
To his own surprise, Grievous hesitated. Extracting useful information from the droids proved almost physically painful, but in the end he managed to glean what he needed to know from their primitive processors: it was a fighting arena, not unlike Petranaki, and the surviving creatures hidden away in its subterranean cells and cages were a mix of aliens enslaved by the Yam’rii and captured beasts against which they fought for entertainment.
“How many live?” he had asked.
“A few dozen bipedal sentients, General, and ten or so beasts. All are currently in chains, and locked away behind bars.”
Grievous growled, a reflex that defied introspection. He was already in an unpleasant mood; why shouldn’t he growl? “Slaves are of no use to me. They have no bearing on the success or failure of this invasion.”
“Then your orders are to destroy them, sir?”
His temper, already sparking embers, erupted in an inferno. “I have given no orders, you idiot droid! Tell me what my orders are again and I will destroy you personally!”
“Ah! Of course, General! I mean, no, General!”
“Have a shuttle remove the slaves from Tovarskl. Send them to the nearest star system that is held by the CIS, and the leaders there can decide what to do. I have no time for such things.”
“Er…” The droid had sounded loath to question any part of what Grievous said, but persisted. “Do…you want us to send away the beasts, too?”
A simpler conundrum. “No. Kill them. A swift death, or they would otherwise starve in their cages.” Just as quickly, a new thought occurred to him. “Save one. Capture it and have it delivered to my base on Vassek 3. That is all.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
He hadn’t questioned his logic at the time. If anything, he was proud of his foresight. His stronghold boasted cutting edge security measures, but every system in place was technological in nature, which was to be expected. Too expected. A unique line of defense in the form of something organic and aggressive could prove useful, like the value of a domesticated urbarra watching over a herd of kuunsi or amsi or…
What?
Focus.
Yes, this was an excellent idea. In spite of his damaged state and poor mood, he permitted himself a bit of excitement as he imagined what sort of vicious, monstrous animal his droids would have sent to him. A nexu? A rancor? An acklay, should he be so lucky?
He only learned what his droids had acquired after he departed Tovarskl, leaving much of his fleet behind in the moderately capable hands of TX-51 to await the establishment of a CIS system of governance, while he returned to Vassek 3 for minor repairs and, as it turned out, a far more critical need for stasis than he’d realized. It was a bit of an oversight for his internal diagnostics to disregard the complications of stasis-deprivation as a flaggable issue; all he could rely on to detect anything amiss was his own mind, which was, of course, becoming increasingly compromised.
He remembered docking at his stronghold. He remembered the blast door opening and stepping into the damp, flickering main hall. He remembered voices—or perhaps one voice—or perhaps just his own. He remembered the clank of his knees impacting the cavern floor, the press of metallic grips finding handholds across his heavy frame and laboring to support him.
And his next conscious memory was blinking blearily at the wall of his stasis pod. Little better than an upright sarcophagus, its interior at least was conformed in a way that he could stand at ease, almost resting, his elbows and posterior settled on jutting inclines in its structure. Wires fed from his head and gutsack out to supplemental support machinery, helping to maintain his stasis while recording and monitoring such vitals as brain waves and heart rate.
Grievous blinked again, then scowled internally as he realized this was no memory, but the present. He lifted his hands to find the release panel, fumbling slightly with the typical sluggish disorientation that immediately followed stasis, and growled when he saw his dismembered limb had been repaired without his knowledge.
No better way to find out what the kriff had happened than extracting himself from the pod. Depressing the panel with one hand, he tugged wires from ports and cast them aside as he pressured his shoulder against the too-slow yield of the pneumatic door. He spilled out into the dimly-lit room evocative of his medical chamber back on Geonosis, orienting himself with the sight of his grimy, torn cape draped over a nearby medical cart before wheeling around to face a sudden clatter. He collided with a bronze EV-series medical droid, upsetting a number of loose tools on the droid’s supply palette.
“Master!” exclaimed EV-A4-D. “Why have you left your stasis pod? You weren’t in there for very long at all.”
Despite his exasperation, Grievous did not give into his desire to lash out at the droid, but he brushed him aside with a light shove as he crossed the room to retrieve his cloak. “How long have I been in stasis?” he growled.
“A mere eight hours. You—”
“Eight!” He whirled back, claws clenching ragged once-white cloth. “Eight hours?!”
“You could stand to stay in there a little longer, if you want my professional opinion, but of course you don’t.” The medical droid toddled after Grievous, griping as was his wont. “Anyway, you were the one who came home complaining about your head. You were the one who insisted on going into stasis. You ordered me to monitor your brain activity for signs of irregularities.”
Grievous couldn’t remember any of this, but the droid had nothing to gain by lying. Most droids he’d known couldn’t lie, anyway. “Fine,” he grunted, fastening his cape into place around his shoulders. “Report your findings, doctor.”
“There’s nothing to report. Your brain activity was well within normal range during stasis.”
An aggravated, incoherent noise escaped the cyborg’s vocabulator. “Then there is no reason for me to remain in stasis, you stupid droid!”
“I am not a stupid droid,” EV-A4-D replied, miffed. “I was programmed with a great deal of intelligence. I am certainly more intelligent than you are.”
“Whoever chose to program you with your insolent personality should be made to suffer as I do now!”
The droid didn’t flinch. “Well, Master, would you like to continue to make threats to someone who may no longer exist but is certainly not here, or would you mind providing a little more guidance with regard to the wild beast you apparently asked to be delivered to this stronghold?”
“The…” Grievous’ frustration fell away as his mind scrambled to parse what he heard. “What?”
“The roggwart? The one you had placed in one of the holding cells until you were out of stasis? With no further orders, I might add.” A long pause stretched between them, both waiting for the other to fill it. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he asked, though the incredulous tone of his vocabulator made it clear he suspected Grievous did not.
And he didn’t. All he remembered was the initial order he’d given back in Tovarskl’s orbit; nothing since. The cyborg indulged a moment of concern before it traded out once more for irritation. “And if I don’t remember having such a conversation, doctor, what then? If you detected nothing wrong with my brain, then explain this!”
“I wasn’t monitoring you before stasis, was I?” was the dubious reply. “If you were out of sorts, then obviously stasis cleared up what was ailing you—which was, in point of fact, stasis-deprivation. You really should consider traveling with a stasis pod like this one.”
Grievous growled and raked his claws down his faceplate in an obsolete gesture that provided no relief. He’d rip this droid’s head off if he said the word “stasis” one more kriffing time. “I plan to. Enough. Tell me about the roggwart. It…” He stopped, full realization setting in. “It’s a roggwart.”
“You didn’t even remember that? What a mess.”
“I did not know what sort of beast was sent here from the arena on Tovarskl,” snapped Grievous. “Only that it was a beast. How old is this roggwart? Is it full grown? In good health?”
“Do I look like a veterinarian?” EV-A4-D griped. “I don’t happen to know all that, but I can estimate it stands approximately between three and four meters in height.”
“Nearly grown,” Grievous muttered. “It will finish growing in the next few months, if it’s healthy. Or it’s already grown and is just stunted from captivity. We’ll need a large chamber to accommodate it. And food—eels, I think. They prefer eels.”
“Master,” said the droid incredulously, “how do you happen to know so much about these creatures?”
Grievous felt his shoulders twitch in an impatient, dismissive shrug, as if shaking off the hazy recollection that flickered through his mind. Thankfully, the feeling passed as it should, painless and inconsequential; stasis had done its job and improved his functions. “It’s not important,” he uttered, pleased to feel as well as he did under the circumstances. “Just transfer the roggwart to a more permanent enclosure and order provisions as soon as possible.” He tightened his cloak around his body and angled for the door. “In the meantime, I must contact Count Dooku.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? The Count tried to contact you by holocomm earlier, but you were in stasis.”
Grievous once again wheeled around, claws grasping at the air just short of his medical droid’s head, barely curbing his murderous desire to rip EV-A4-D apart. “What? And you didn’t rouse me?!”
“I deemed it more important that you spend your time resting rather than waste it making holocalls.”
“Waste—it was Count Dooku!”
“Oh, calm down before you break something that requires surgery,” sniffed the droid. “I took down a message for you.”
“And the message is what?”
EV-A4-D’s design was such that it didn’t much allow for facial expressions, but his tone more than sufficiently expressed his deeply smug self-satisfaction. “He wants you to call him back.”
A huge taloned foot reared up and lashed out, but in the split-second before claws might have crumpled that elongated bronzium skull, a sudden pivot instead kicked the medical cart against the wall. The outburst of violence appeased his temper well enough to permit him a few seconds to compose himself and consider the ramifications of damaging EV-A4-D; no matter how impertinent the medical droid was, he couldn’t be certain how long it would take to obtain yet another replacement droid to make use of Zorryx’s precious data, and he would be vulnerable in the interim. So, instead of following through with what he’d preferred to do, he clanked out the chamber door, voice overflowing with venomous sarcasm in his wake, “Thank you, doctor. Whatever would I do without you?”
“Cease to function, I imagine,” said EV-A4-D with dry impunity.
Disgruntlement still guided Grievous’ path from his medical chamber to the communications room, weighing his stride with irritable stomps and subjecting the holocomm node controls to careless jabs and a slammed fist or two as he put out a call to Count Dooku. Before long, he crouched on one knee, head bowed under a familiar holoprojected figure.
“Grievous.” Dooku’s eyelids descended in an unimpressed squint. “Finally.”
“I apologize for the delay, my lord. I needed some time to recover after my battle—a successful battle, I assure you.”
“So I understand,” said the Count curtly. “I have been observing your progress.”
The cyborg’s faceplate flinched, tilting up. “Observing? You…have been watching me? How? When?”
Dooku brushed past this revelation, disinterested in Grievous’ obvious uncertainty and indignation. “I am overall pleased with your efforts at Tovarskl. You were not instructed to wipe out the planet’s inhabitants, but such measures do ensure our operations there will run smoothly and without interference.”
“I have also bested two more Jedi in combat,” Grievous pointed out, too proud to allow this achievement to be overlooked, though even as he spoke he wondered if he would be chastised for misplaced priorities.
To his immense gratification, however, Dooku bobbed his chin in approval. “Yes, impressive. Most impressive. Well done, my apprentice.”
“Thank you, Master,” preened Grievous, relishing the moment. The Count was not generous with his praise—nor in other matters. His synthesized voice clutched in anticipation as he broached one such matter. “Have I now proven myself worthy of the position I was promised?”
Dooku’s already regal posture stiffened. “You have proven yourself worthy of a larger fleet, General. You will need more to your name than a single successful conquest.”
Grievous pounded the holocomm station with both fists; the Count’s image juddered, a poor substitute for the violence he briefly imagined inflicting. A shout burst forth before he could contain his reflexive fury. “I have decades to my name! Why do you still toy with me?!”
The holoprojected display was as ever a monochromatic swatch of blue, but Grievous had seen the Count’s dark eyes heat to umber once or twice in his recollection, and he knew it was happening now. An unsettled sensation crawled through his gutsack, and he ducked his head in advance of the stern reprimand he was certain to receive. “Control yourself, Grievous. I will not tolerate such behavior.”
“I…apologize, my lord.”
“Apology accepted.” A pause followed, long enough to tempt an upward glance. To Grievous’ quizzical surprise, Dooku’s scowl had settled into something he found he couldn’t quite read; pensive at best, dismayed at worst. Before he could expend any more effort interpreting the odd expression, Dooku spoke up again, and Grievous quickly averted his eyes. “If you can manage to present yourself with a shred of decorum, there is someone who wishes to speak with you.”
“A Separatist leader?” Grievous asked the base of the holocomm station, unable to disguise his distaste.
Another curious stretch of silence, underscored only by the chronic wheeze of his lungs. “A leader,” Dooku confirmed, “but not in the sense you are imagining. He is my superior.”
Nothing short of the Force itself could have kept Grievous’ deferential attention on the floor. His yellow glare snapped up and locked on the Count’s face. “Your superior?”
“Once we have finished this call, he will contact you. Try not to make a fool of yourself.”
With creeping incredulity, Grievous recognized what twisted through Dooku’s voice and pinched his rigid countenance.
Resentment.
Not the usual cold contempt that aimed demeaning words at his apprentice like a precise blaster. The bitter, strangely defiant resignation in his tone and posture rang all too familiar to the cyborg. This was a man who had been given an order he preferred not to carry out, but whose professional grace and dedication to duty limited his response to a palpable, simmering displeasure.
Or perhaps there was a hint of fear.
Grievous wasn’t certain he was keen to meet a man who inspired fear in someone such as Count Dooku.
“How shall I address him, my lord?” he asked at length.
“You will call him Lord Sidious, and you will speak of him to no one else. His existence is the greatest secret you have ever been trusted with. Do not take this meeting for granted. I never imagined he would have a reason to want to speak with you directly. Be courteous. Stay vigilant. You are my apprentice, and my responsibility. Do not forget it.”
There was a secondary meaning burrowed beneath the seeming surface of what the Count said; something deeper than a tedious reminder to mind his manners. It wasn’t simply for Grievous’ sake, but his own. A subordinate’s behavior was a reflection on the master, after all, subjecting both of them to scrutiny and judgment. Confidently wrong in his interpretation, Grievous bent his spine in a bow. “I understand.”
You’ll understand as much as he wishes you to, my pitiful monstrosity, thought Count Dooku bitterly.
“Very good,” he said instead, and severed the connection.
Thirty seconds passed before the holocomm signalled a new incoming call. Steeling himself, Grievous accepted it, sinking back into a deep genuflection.
His peripheral vision registered the flicker of a new figure springing from the holoprojector, and a chanced glance committed more details to memory: cloaked in a dark robe, a hood pulled low over a pale face, eyes buried in shadow—and yet he could feel them as if they bore right through his shell of durasteel and armorplast to peer into his remaining organic components. His shoulders hunched and his plating compressed slightly, unconsciously guarding himself from the intrusive sensation. One of his internal diagnostic systems pulsed a low-level warning; his heartbeat was elevated, and increasing. How inconvenient. He pulled in a slow breath, trying to alleviate the faint tremor in his hands, the suffocating weight at the base of his skull, the dread gnawing through his gutsack.
What…was happening?
The cloaked man spoke, finally, his voice croaking through the tinny speakers. “General Grievous.”
It had to be psychosomatic. His body simply couldn’t respond to stimuli the way it felt like it did now, and yet for all the galaxy he’d swear his stomach lurched, his jaw clenched, his pulse rushed in his ears, sweat plastered his brow and his limbs shook uncontrollably as he fought the urge to prostrate completely before a presence as heavy as gravity. He swallowed—no, he didn’t, he couldn’t—he anchored himself in the physical space of the communications room by literally doing just that, digging grooves in the floor with his talons, balling his hands into fists and planting them on the ground, attuning his audioreceptors to the soft, resonating hum of the holoprojector. His presence in the moment solidified, grounding him enough that he could finally speak. He did so with great care and deference. “You are…Lord Sidious?”
Lips curled into the mere insinuation of a smile beneath hooded shadows. “I have heard quite a lot about you, General. Your reputation precedes you by more years than you can imagine.”
While he couldn’t begin to understand the full scope of such a statement, Grievous chose to take the man’s words as a compliment, if warily. He’d encountered his fair share of odious individuals who deflected from their intentions with a veneer of politesse. Perhaps that was why he felt so unsettled; a reflex from past unpleasant encounters. “Thank you, Lord Sidious.”
Something tugged at his chest.
His first impulse was to cough, but his frayed lungs had nothing to do with the visceral jolt that seized him, as if a hand gripped his chest plates and pulled him forward, centering his attention exclusively on the projected figure before him. No reason to question it, not under the magnetic compulsion of Lord Sidious’ unseen but inexorable gaze, and no desire to push back. How could he? That grip compounded his fears that this master of Count Dooku was another Jedi who had broken faith, and by all measures more powerful.
The Force pinned him in place as if under a boot heel of unfathomable proportions. Grievous held his ragged breath, anticipating a painful resolution.
“You will serve me as you serve Count Dooku,” said the cloaked man, voice devoid of inflection. “If for any reason you cannot answer to him, you will answer instead to me. Is that clear, General?”
“Of course, Lord Sidious,” Grievous replied instantly. “I am at your disposal.”
The corners of Sidious’ mouth lifted, and with them so, too, did the Force. “Indeed you are.”
Grievous breathed, tension releasing from his cybernetic body as he bowed his head once more. “How might I serve you?”
He did not see the smile spread into a sneer, but it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway.
“You shall do what you were made to do.”