Work Text:
The Guard is the last institution Ventress expects to trust. That may be precisely why she chooses it.
Asajj Ventress surrenders at the prison complex shortly before dawn.
She does not make a spectacle of it.
No ignited lightsabers. No bodies dropped at the entrance. No dramatic declaration broadcast across the district for the Jedi to sense and Lord Sidious to notice.
She keeps her presence folded tightly around herself, compressing her Force signature until it is barely more than static beneath Coruscant’s endless noise. It leaves a headache behind her eyes and sweat cooling against her neck, but the Jedi Temple remains quiet on the horizon.
So does the Senate.
The Sith Lord hiding somewhere inside it does not reach for her.
Not yet.
Ventress approaches the Guard checkpoint with her hands visible and both weapons secured in a case hanging from two fingers.
The Guardsman behind the shield raises his rifle.
“Place the case on the ground.”
She does.
“Step back.”
She obeys.
That unsettles him more than open aggression would have.
Three additional Guardsmen emerge from the checkpoint. Their armor is white and red, identical at first glance, though Ventress has learned enough during the war to recognize the differences in rank and equipment.
One scans the case.
“Two curved-hilt lightsabers.”
“Observant,” Ventress says.
The rifle rises another centimeter.
She smiles without warmth. “I’m surrendering.”
“To whom?”
“The Chief of Defense.”
The Guardsmen exchange glances through their helmets.
“You can give your statement to Investigations.”
“No.”
“Then you can give it to the Department of Justice.”
“No.”
“The Jedi Temple has an active warrant for your arrest.”
“Especially no.”
The squad leader steps closer.
“Name.”
“Asajj Ventress.”
Every weapon points at her.
Ventress sighs.
This is going well.
She allows them to restrain her with cortosis-lined binders, though she could break the man fastening them before he finished locking the second wrist. She allows the scanners, the search, and the removal of every concealed blade they find.
They miss two.
She considers that generous.
“I will speak to Fox,” she says. “No Jedi. No Justice officials. No Senate representatives.”
“You’re not in a position to make demands.”
“I have intelligence concerning Count Dooku, the Separatist command structure, and the person giving him orders.”
The squad leader becomes very still.
Ventress continues, “Tell your Chief that Dooku is not the master on the board.”
That earns her a cell.
It is clean, which already places it above most Separatist holding facilities. The bunk is bolted to the wall. The water is drinkable. A camera watches from behind reinforced transparisteel while Guardsmen change shifts outside.
Ventress waits.
An hour passes.
Then three.
Then six.
She meditates for the first two, sleeps during the third, and spends the remainder considering whether Fox intends to leave her here until irritation makes her careless.
It would be an effective interrogation method.
A meal tray arrives through the slot.
Ventress studies it.
“Is it poisoned?”
The Guardswoman outside looks through the transparisteel. Blonde hair shows beneath the edge of her helmet where the seal meets her undersuit.
“If we wanted you dead, we wouldn’t waste food.”
Ventress tastes the stew.
It is terrible.
Not poisoned, though.
Another four hours pass before the cell opens.
A broad clone officer stands outside with a massiff at his side. The animal sniffs once, exposes several teeth, then sits.
“Ventress,” the officer says.
“I assume you’re not Fox.”
“Commander Hound.”
Investigations.
Ventress has heard of him. Criminal networks on Coruscant describe Hound and his massiffs with the particular hatred reserved for people who cannot be bribed.
“Your Chief kept me waiting.”
“He was deciding whether meeting you was worth interrupting his schedule.”
“And?”
Hound gestures toward the corridor. “He remains undecided.”
They escort her through the prison without allowing her to see the route clearly. Security doors open and close in irregular sequences. Turbolifts change direction twice. Ventress senses clones behind several walls, their presences familiar but subtly wrong.
Hound stops outside an office deep within the administrative wing. The plague next to the door had the stylized vulptex curled around the Republic star etched into the metal.
The room beyond is disappointingly ordinary.
Fox sits behind a metal desk wearing black fatigues instead of armor or formal dress. One sleeve is rolled to the elbow. A mug of caf rests near his hand beside several open files.
He is twenty-three, perhaps, though exhaustion adds years to his face.
Gold Pantoran marriage arches cross the bridge of his nose and curve beneath his eyes.
Ventress looks at them twice.
A clone has broken enough rules to marry a senator.
Interesting.
Fox takes a sip of caf.
“Remove the binders.”
Hound looks at him. “Chief.”
“If she intended to kill us, the restraints wouldn’t stop her.”
Ventress smiles. “Sharp.”
Fox’s gold eyes move to her.
“That wasn’t praise.”
Hound unlocks the binders but remains by the door with one hand close to his sidearm. The massiff lies across the threshold, effectively blocking it.
Ventress sits without being invited.
Fox glances at the file before him.
“Asajj Ventress. Former Jedi Padawan. Former Separatist commander. Former apprentice to Count Dooku. Current status disputed.”
“I’m adaptable.”
“You’re wanted for murder, terrorism, war crimes, attacks against Republic personnel, and enough property damage to qualify as a planetary disaster.”
“Most Jedi have similar records.”
“Their paperwork is better.”
Ventress leans back.
She expected a soldier. Perhaps an intelligent one, if Dooku’s reluctant admiration meant anything.
She did not expect this.
Fox does not posture. He does not lecture her about morality or reach for the easy triumph of having a former Separatist commander in custody.
He watches.
Calculates.
“Why did you surrender?” he asks.
“Dooku tried to kill me.”
“That happened months ago.”
“I was occupied.”
“With the Nightsisters.”
Her expression freezes.
Fox drinks his caf.
Ventress’s voice lowers. “How do you know about that?”
“I have ears.”
“On Dathomir?”
“I have ears everywhere.”
Not arrogance.
A warning.
Ventress studies the marriage markings again. Fox is willing to break laws when they become inconvenient. That may be useful, provided she convinces him that keeping her alive is less inconvenient than handing her over.
“The Nightsisters are dead,” she says.
“I know.”
“Dooku ordered the attack.”
“Grievous carried it out.”
“At the order of someone above Dooku.”
Fox sets down the mug.
There.
The first real reaction.
Small, but real.
“You said Dooku wasn’t the master on the board,” he says.
“He isn’t.”
“Then who is?”
“I don’t know his name.”
Fox’s gaze remains steady.
“You know something.”
“He calls himself Sidious.”
Hound shifts near the door.
Fox does not.
Ventress feels his attention sharpen until the office seems to contract around it.
“What is he?” Fox asks.
“A Sith Lord.”
“Dooku is a Sith Lord.”
“Dooku is the apprentice.”
Fox says nothing for several seconds.
Ventress can almost see him rearranging years of intelligence inside his head.
“Sidious is on Coruscant,” he says.
It is not a question.
Ventress feels genuine surprise.
“How did you know?”
“You avoided the Temple and surrendered to the Guard instead of Republic Intelligence. You entered through the prison district rather than Headquarters, where Senate traffic is monitored. You’re compressing your presence in the Force so tightly it’s making your left hand shake.”
Ventress looks down.
Her hand is still.
Almost.
Fox continues, “You’re not only hiding from the Jedi. You’re hiding from someone nearby who can sense you.”
She slowly folds her hands in her lap.
Dooku had spoken of Fox with irritation and something dangerously close to respect. Ventress had assumed it was wounded pride. Her former master disliked being outmaneuvered by anyone he considered beneath him.
Apparently, the clone had earned it.
“You read between lines,” she says.
“I read casualty reports. The lines are usually where people hide the bodies.”
Ventress decides she likes him.
That could become unfortunate.
“Sidious ordered Dooku to kill me,” she says. “When Dooku failed, Sidious ordered the extermination of my people. Savage survived the massacre, but I don’t know where he is.”
“And now?”
“Now I want Dooku dead.”
“That isn’t asylum.”
“It’s motivation.”
“You attacked him already.”
“We failed.”
“We?”
Ventress gives him a flat look.
Fox’s expression does not change.
“Savage Opress,” he says.
“You already knew.”
“I suspected.”
She hates how little information she has managed to surprise him with.
Fox turns one of the files around.
It contains an arrest transfer order addressed to the Jedi Temple.
Another is a Department of Justice detention request.
Both await his authorization.
“As it stands,” Fox says, “I can transfer you to the Jedi, send you to Republic detention, or hold you here under wartime authority.”
“And if I offer information?”
“You’ve offered names and a theory.”
“A correct theory.”
“I need evidence.”
Ventress leans forward.
“I can provide Separatist routes, command codes, safehouses, supply depots, and identities of agents within Republic territory.”
“Dooku will change the codes.”
“Eventually.”
“He’ll abandon the safehouses.”
“Not all of them. He’s sentimental about his estates.”
Fox’s mouth twitches.
Ventress continues, “I know how his assassins operate. I know Grievous’s habits. I know which bounty hunters work for the Separatists and which can be turned.”
“You want to become a bounty hunter.”
“I want freedom.”
“The Guild requires registration.”
“I wasn’t planning to ask permission.”
“I assumed.”
Fox looks toward Hound.
“Do we have work for her?”
Hound’s expression suggests he has several moral objections and twice as many arrest warrants.
“We have work for anyone who can locate fugitives without collapsing a building.”
Ventress smiles. “No promises.”
Fox looks back at her.
“Then no deal.”
The answer is immediate.
Ventress’s smile fades.
“You would turn me over?”
“Yes.”
“For property damage?”
“For refusing operational control.”
“I don’t take orders from clones.”
Hound’s hand settles on his blaster.
Fox only picks up his caf.
“Then you can take them from the Jedi.”
Ventress imagines the Temple cells. Council interrogations. Kenobi’s disappointment, Skywalker’s temper, and the possibility that Sidious has eyes inside the Order.
She exhales slowly.
“What are your terms?”
“You report to the Coruscant Guard, not the Bounty Hunters’ Guild.”
“I work for you?”
“You accept contracts approved by Investigations. You provide intelligence relevant to Separatist activity. You submit regular location reports and don’t leave Coruscant without authorization.”
“That sounds like parole.”
“It is.”
“I asked for asylum.”
“You’re an enemy commander with an extensive body count.”
“Former enemy commander.”
“The bodies remain.”
Ventress cannot argue with that.
Fox slides the Jedi transfer order aside.
“No killing unless the target presents an immediate threat or the warrant authorizes lethal force.”
“That is restrictive.”
“You’ll adapt.”
“What if they deserve it?”
Fox regards her over the rim of his mug.
“We can discuss definitions.”
Ventress feels a reluctant laugh threaten.
“And the Jedi?”
“They will be informed that you’re a protected military intelligence asset under the authority of the Chief of Defense.”
“They won’t like that.”
“I don’t require them to.”
“The Department of Justice?”
“Same answer.”
“And Sidious?”
Fox’s eyes become unreadable.
“He won’t be informed.”
There it is.
A rule breaking.
Not impulsive. Not theatrical.
Deliberate.
Ventress studies the clone who holds her life in his hands and realizes he may be the first powerful man she has met who does not need her frightened to feel secure.
She extends one hand across the desk.
“No killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Fox looks at her hand.
“Anyone who doesn’t legally deserve it.”
“You’ve ruined the elegance.”
“I’m a bureaucrat now.”
Ventress smiles.
Fox clasps her hand once.
“Welcome to the Guard.”