Chapter Text
Everything was going to plan. Or, at least, it had been.
Count Dooku had predicted that the two Jedi heroes would board the Invisible Hand and make haste to rescue their precious Chancellor, whereupon Dooku would defeat both Kenobi and Skywalker. Then came the holovised messages to crush Republic morale and an execution, perhaps even two, ending with total victory and a swift escape. The Republic would collapse shortly after, and then they would hunt down and destroy the remaining Jedi. A complete and final victory, Dooku had told him. And just as he predicted, those Jedi heroes arrived, and went right for their Chancellor. Now all Dooku had to do was win, and in his own mind, he might have already. He was remarkably calm and self-assured about the whole situation. Perhaps he had reason to be so.
Grievous, though, had his doubts. Dooku might have bested them on Geonosis, but the old Sith had been well into his twilight years when the war began. He had only grown older since. With the Jedi desperate to rescue their previous Chancellor, they'd be fighting with appropriately more desperation than ever. Instead of trapping the Jedi, Dooku himself might become the trapped. The Count’s entire scheme rested on his ability to defeat two younger and quite possibly more powerful opponents. Grievous did not feel optimistic about it.
To think, even with that knowledge, Grievous had nearly kept himself on the bridge. That single decision to go up to Dooku’s observation tower might have won the war for him. Might have. On the sneaking suspicion the Jedi would best the aged Count, Grievous dragged every droid he encountered with him and his magnaguards. They all emerged into the elevator gallery at the same time: OOM-series security droids, B1s, B2s, droidekas, even a three meter tall, battle-scarred Octuptarra tri-droid had responded to the summons from its maintenance bay. Grievous split his forces three ways: two went through the side passages, his main force took the central hall to the observation deck.
The sight that greeted him made him freeze: Dooku had crushed Kenobi, just as planned; the dastardly Negotiator was pinned unconscious to the deck by a section of walkway. But young Skywalker had in turn bested the Count, and direly wounded him. They had not planned for Dooku to lose his hands. When Grievous and his guards had strode out onto the deck, the shock of the sight froze his boisterous greeting in his vocoder. The boy had his sabers at Dooku's throat, while the Chancellor looked on with vivid interest. They didn't notice him, or the droids quietly fanning out across the upper deck.
“Good, Anakin, good!” Palpatine said, wicked mirth bubbling over into his voice. All traces of the gentle-mannered senior politician vanished, and his face twisted into something hateful. “Kill him. Kill him now.”
“I shouldn’t,” the Skywalker boy breathlessly answered.
"Do it!" spat Palpatine, in a voice Grievous knew he’d heard before.
Skywalker decapitated the Count, and stood over his body, distraught and breathing heavily.
He's dead! Grievous thought in that moment, Dooku is dead! What did he do now? What was Sidious going to do now? A million thoughts raced through his mind as his internal computers calculated a million different outcomes of the moment that came next.
"You did well, Anakin. He was too dangerous to be kept alive," Palpatine said, as Skywalker stumbled over to release him.
"Yes, but he-"
The battle-scarred Octuptarra tri-droid blared an alert through the droid network—a main servomotor had fifty-eight milliseconds until failure. One of its three legs crumpled, hitting the durasteel deck with a clank, and then with a tremendous slam, it pressed a magnetized foot against a bulkhead to anchor itself upright. The droid’s bulbous ‘head’ rose back up, a red photoreceptor and long laser cannon aimed at the Jedi below.
Palpatine's expression changed from relief to fury, and Skywalker whipped about. “You!” Palpatine hissed in that horrifyingly-familiar voice.
In his shock and confusion, Grievous fell back on what he knew best:
"Kill them!" he roared to his droids. Grievous shed his cloak, drew four sabers, split his arms, and loped down the stairs. Anakin’s blue blade instantly snapped on, and he put himself between Grievous and the Chancellor.
Behind, a small army’s worth of blaster fire rained down. Droidekas and B2s sprayed away, B1s and OOM security droids held down the triggers of their E-5s, and the malfunctioning tri-droid unleashed a stream of rapid laser cannon fire. It fired so quickly its barrel glowed red hot within seconds, then it spun its head and switched to the next barrel.
Skywalker’s lightsaber moved so fast even Grievous couldn’t track it, reflecting the hail of fire in every direction: frying control panels, scorching the walls, cracking the massive deck-to-ceiling windows. Every combat analysis in his computers told Grievous that to fight Skywalker was to die-
An explosion of Force energy sent Grievous flying backwards, his head slamming against the stairs. It floored every battle droid on the upper deck, magnetism be damned. Skywalker rushed at him with a terrible cry, and Grievous barely raised all four of his blades in time to block the killing blow. The power behind the strike set off alarms in Grievous’s mechanical systems and triggered a coughing fit from his damaged lungs.
Furiously, Grievous counterattacked, one of his mighty durasteel talons darting out to grab at Skywalker. The young Jedi nimbly leaped away, and that was all the opening Grievous needed to charge him in turn. His systems told him to retreat before it was too late, fight another day, but Grievous now only saw a haze of red.
‘Too late’ came all too suddenly. Skywalker sneered at him, and reached out a gloved hand. Grievous jumped to strike, but an invisible grip caught him mid-air, and began to squeeze as Skywalker closed his fist. The pressure came from every place at once, not just his organ cavity where Windu had crushed him. The coughing returned with vengeance.
“You’ll pay for everything you’ve done, you monster,” Skywalker growled, taking a step towards him.
“Finish him, Anakin,” Palpatine urged, still locked to his mockery of a throne. “This war criminal doesn’t deserve a trial!”
“I would certainly like to,” said Skywalker. That unseen grip tightened on Grievous. His computers cut through his fury: distract the Jedi! Through the coughing, he managed to speak.
“Fight me, Jedi!” Grievous wheezed, his arms constricted against his body, lightsabers still on. “Or are you afraid you’d lose?”
“I fear nothing,” Skywalker said. He unclenched his fist, and Grievous dropped to the deck. “After I destroy you-”
Kill them both! Grievous sent the order through the droid network. His droids, who’d all been surreptitiously taking aim while Skywalker focused on Grievous, opened fire again. Grievous scuttled up to Skywalker, leaping into the air with all four sabers spinning, heedless of the blaster fire all around him, and now the true duel began. Faster than most organic eyes could perceive, Grievous and Skywalker met in a clash of blades. Within seconds Grievous knew he could not beat this man. Only the mass of blaster fire aimed at the Jedi kept him alive-
Why were the droids only shooting at Skywalker?
Execute the Chancellor! he ordered them wirelessly. The droid network returned a negative. Count Dooku had put Palpatine on the target exclusion list, reserved only for the highest of the Separatist leadership. Grievous wordlessly growled in rage, and sent the droid network the image of Dooku’s severed head. I am in control now! Obey me! Remove all excluded targets from the list except me!
The network complied, and the droids turned their fire on Palpatine. The Chancellor cried out, there was a flash of blue and red and green, electricity surged through Grievous’s systems- and then all faded to darkness.
"...sir? Sir?" A battle droid tapped its hand on his facemask. "Are you alright-” The droid vanished from his vision.
Grievous blinked, looking into the red eyes of one of the magnaguards, who had pushed away the offending battle droid. "It is done, General," the magnaguard said flatly.
"What..?" Grievous groaned, squinting in the light. He pushed himself off the floor, sitting up as best he could. His head spun, and he could not see clearly. "What is done?"
"We killed them, sir, just like you ordered," an OOM-series commander announced.
"Killed-?" Grievous looked down in front of him. There was Skywalker, riddled with blaster marks. Over further was Palpatine, sprawled on the floor. "Just as I ordered..." Grievous muttered. Skywalker's demise-by-droid was almost disappointing. "Not even a Jedi can block everything, it seems," Grievous said, with an amused laugh. He tried to stand, but fell back against the stairs, his coughing only making the sudden vertigo worse.
"Your head is wounded," a magnaguard said. "You should attend the medical bay, General."
“My systems have taken electrical damage,” said Grievous.
“Yes, General. There was an electrical disruption to the local droid network for nine hundred and two milliseconds. We have no sensory record of what occurred in that time, but our weapons remained active according to internal power logs,” the magnaguard explained. “During these nine hundred and two milliseconds, both General Skywalker and Chancellor Palpatine were killed by your orders.”
Grievous nodded to himself, looking over the blaster-riddled corpses. Skywalker’s final attack, it must have been. He couldn’t defend himself and Palpatine at the same time. “Two down, one to- Kenobi!" he rasped. "Is he still alive?"
"Yes, sir. And unconscious," said the commander droid.
If he still had teeth, Grievous would have grit them. He grabbed a railing, and pulled himself up, swaying about on his taloned feet. "I have wanted this for a very long time..." Grievous muttered, picking up Kenobi's lightsaber. After all their battles, would his final victory over his nemesis come about by the work of another? "I should end him right now."
"Given the amount of inconclusive duels you have had with him, that would be wise, sir-"
He silenced the droid commander with a cuff. "I didn't ask you! Secure him. Then take the bodies to the nearest airlock, and get a camera droid."
Minutes later, Grievous stood tall, wrapped in his cloak, with a magnaguard at his side to hold him steady. "Make sure he is never on camera," he said, fighting off waves of nausea.
"Of course, sir," said the droid commander, making one last alignment of the bodies of Skywalker and Palpatine.
"We are ready," reported the magnaguard managing the recording. He held a camera droid in his hands, not trusting the floating machine to keep the angles correct.
"Put this on every frequency there is, the whole galaxy must know what has happened here," Grievous ordered. "And show my right side only!"
The other magnaguard nodded. "We are live," he said. The broadcaster droid blinked a red light next to its lenses, as it hovered in place.
"Ah... greetings, misbegotten subjects of the Republic!" Grievous purred, in his best voice of confidence. The words Dooku and he had prepared for this moment had come back to his mind. "You know who I am. Perhaps you recall the breaking news I delivered earlier today, regarding the capture of your beloved Supreme Chancellor Palpatine? I promised you the end of his corrupt and rotting regime, and I come before you now to deliver. Behold!"
Grievous pulled up the body of Palpatine, limp and cold, his robes scorched black by dozens of blaster hits. He wished he could smile as he imagined the horror on the faces of his foes. "The savior of the Republic, so high and mighty in life! But in death, just another corpse." He dropped the body and pulled up Skywalker's next. "And the Hero with No Fear! Hah! Not killed by our great Count, nor even by me, but shot down as they turned and ran to escape my wrath! The cowards, the fools! A fitting end, I say."
Now the magnaguard moved the camera droid carefully; it turned to look at the airlock door, and pulled back in such a way as to avoid showing the supporting magnaguard. "Watch carefully, subjects of the Republic," Grievous said, as he showed the galaxy the two bodies. "This is the fate of those who oppose the coming flood. Swept away like common rats."
A droid opened the airlock, and Palpatine and Skywalker flew out. The camera kept recording until the last of the air had whistled and whined away, and then shut off. Out in the void, the battle continued all around them, the bodies of the slain pair spinning into the great silence beyond. The doors closed, and Grievous fell to his knees.
"Your head is wounded," the same magnaguard said again, as the chamber repressurized. "You should attend the medical bay, General."
"Insolent droid." He coughed, and darkness closed in around his vision. "Tell Captain Dofine he has command."
"Of the ship?" asked the commander battle droid.
"Of everything!"
Just then, Invisible Hand rocked and lurched, and all went dark again.
That was how Grievous found himself drifting back into consciousness, ever so slowly, reflecting on deeds done, until he became aware of where he was and when he was. The quiet whirring of the ship's engines sounded, some liquid bubbled, machines made their small noises.
"Finally. I was starting to think you'd never wake up," said a metallic voice. "Sometimes you are terribly dull..." There were only a few beings in the galaxy that could talk to Grievous like that without consequence: Darth Sidious, Count Dooku, and EV-A-4D, his medical droid. And since it was a droid talking...
"What happened this time, doctor?"
"Oh, nothing too serious. Just some minor concussive damage, nothing I couldn't fix here," said A-4D. "I see that Count Dooku is dead."
"He is."
"And that leaves you in charge of the entire Confederacy. No one can overrule you now."
"What are you getting at?" A-4D said nothing, but instead activated the containment field bonds on the medical bed. "Treacherous machine!" Grievous spat. "I-"
"Please, master, try and understand that this is for your own good," sighed A-4D, dimming his photoreceptors as if he were narrowing his eyes in annoyance. "Count Dooku was our highest authority, we both answered to him. Now that I only answer to you, I can bring to light an issue that I have kept silent on—against my will, I'll have you know—for some time now."
"Speak." Grievous tested his limbs against the bonds anyway.
"It's something I've noticed when I look under your skull. Dooku commanded me never to tell you about it, under any circumstance, but he's dead now and-"
"Get to that point."
"Well, I remembered that you once told me that your one condition for being reborn as a monstrous cyborg and tyrant of worlds was that your mind not be tampered with... Well, master..."
A burning, seething feeling took hold in what was left of Grievous's natural body. "Go on, doctor," he said, already sure of what the droid was going to say next.
"To put it simply, they did exactly that." A-4D clasped his claws, as if imploring his master to have mercy on the bearer of bad news. "They enhanced your reflexes and balance, which was a benevolent addition. But they greatly amplified your tendency to anger, to the point where it overtakes many other emotions, as we've all seen and suffered. In fact, they even put blocks on some of your memory centers-"
"Out!" roared Grievous, writhing against his bonds in fury. "Take it all out!"
"Master, some of the memory blocks are suppressing potentially traumatic-"
"Traumatic? Do you think I'm some sniveling weakling? I want it all gone!"
"As you command, but I think I'll leave the improved reflexes in, I know you'd regret removing those as soon as the next Jedi beats you in a fight." A-4D said, merrily deploying his surgeon's tools. Grievous tried to lift an arm to swat the droid, but it was still locked down. "And I won't remove these bindings quite yet. Just in case."
"I'm going to kill you, doctor."
"Don't make me turn off your vocoder. Now, hold still, this is brain surgery here..."
Eventually, after much muttering by A-4D, two tiny chips dropped down on the tray with a clink. "There you have it, master." A-4D said, deactivating the bindings. Instantly, Grievous jumped back to his feet. The impact with the floor left him coughing.
"I feel no different than before."
"Nonetheless, your mind is fully under your own command again. Maybe you can even go a day without knocking the head off any droid that displeases you."
He ignored the remark. "The guns have stopped," Grievous said, looking around the medical bay. No one was there, of course, A-4D had probably shooed them all out to give his master privacy. Touchingly loyal, for a droid, Grievous thought. That was the one virtue which kept him from being turned into scrap for his unbecoming attitude.
"Yes, we went into hyperspace half a day ago." A-4D said.
"Then we are approaching Utapau?"
"I believe so. Why the hurry?"
"I wish to have a talk with San Hill..." Grievous clicked his claws together. He always knew that Muun was nothing but a slimy, two-faced liar. Now he would pay for-
"Master, I must remind you that killing one of our most important war materiel contributors would be nothing but a bad idea, especially when we're losing."
"Quiet, droid," said Grievous. "Everything has gone according to plan."
"And now what?" A-4D asked. "There's still hundreds of Republic fleets out there, in case you didn't know." But Grievous ignored him again.
"I do not intend to kill the banker. Not yet. Now bring me my cloak, I'm going to-" Another fit of coughs stopped Grievous in mid-sentence.
"There's nothing I can do about that. Your lungs took quite a beating on Coruscant, and we don't have the facilities to heal them here. I'm afraid you'll just have to live with the pain for now." The droid sounded anything but afraid as he fetched Grievous's cloak. "Do try to avoid any more accidents today, master, you've already been beaten up by two Jedi as it is."
Grievous gave him a warning growl. "One last thing: what have you done with Dooku's parts?"
"They're in the morgue, master."
"Fix the body. As much as I would love to present Dooku's head to the Council, I don't think Sidious would like it."
Grievous stalked down Invisible Hand's corridors, and made his way to the bridge. When he entered, the crew hastily stood to attention.
"General." Captain Lushros Dofine saluted, backlit by the vortex of hyperspace. "Many congratulations to you for this magnificent victory today."
"How went the rest of the battle?" asked Grievous, uninterested in flattery or praise, even from a warrior he respected. Though, he supposed that the captain's mention of victory ought to have told him everything...
"We did not have much hope after being trapped by the Republic's reinforcements, but after your disposal of the dictator and his pet, the enemy seemed to lose heart." Dofine said. "We were able to punch a hole through their lines and escape into high orbit, we were on our way out within the hour."
"Losses?"
"They were heavy, General, but we gave them the worst of it. They lost a good lot more than we did, and their leader too." Dofine folded his arms, and smiled smugly; about as much emotion as he ever showed. The Neimoidian was a strange one, as far as his kind went. "I do not deny that there was a certain satisfaction in watching Skywalker's corpse fly off into space. Especially with that stunt he pulled with Mar Tuuk over Ryloth in mind."
"I regret I never got to insult that child Skywalker more." Grievous paced about the bridge. "How long until we reach Utapau?"
"Three hours, General," said Dofine. "But there are two issues I would like to bring up, with your leave."
"Yes?"
"First, where is Count Dooku?"
That was something Grievous would have to address soon, to everyone. Most people were not going to like the answer, and they were going to like the implications even less... But Dofine was trustworthy.
"He's dead, Captain."
The Neimoidian gave a slight sign of a frown, but spoke again. "Secondly, the one that has been on my mind since the battle..." Grievous gestured for Dofine to go ahead. "We tracked two Jedi who landed in the hangar, but only one died. What became of the second?"
Grievous remained silent for a moment, and a shadow of concern came upon him. "I have no idea, Captain."
Eight pairs of red eyes stared at him in the dim light. Obi-Wan had been in strange places before, but being held as a guest in the barracks of Grievous's own magnaguards was another thing entirely. Escape was out of the question, his utilities and lightsaber were missing, and he'd learned the hard way that the droids had vented the corridor's air outside their barracks. Their competence was uncanny.
"I don't suppose you'll tell me how long I've been here?" he asked, stretching his arms as best they could, bound as they were. The droids stared wordlessly, as they had since he woke up hours ago. "No? Very well..." This was shaping up to be one terrible experience. Again, Obi-Wan wondered: Where is Anakin, and where is the Chancellor? He no longer sensed their presence in the Force.
He had a bad feeling that he would not like the answers to those questions.