Count Dooku stood before Jabba the Hutt in the gloomy, richly appointed throne room of Jabba's palace on Tatooine. The smell of exotic spices and the low murmur of different species conducting their underworld business hung heavily in the air. The shadows of the hard figure of Count Dooku, with his dark armor and its discrete, bright blue trims, stood excitedly against the panorama of lavish surroundings.

"Mighty Jabba," Dooku began, his voice with just the barest hint of mechanical resonance, "I come before you with an offer that might reshape the galaxy."

Jabba's eyes narrowed as he spoke in Huttese, his tail flicking just a bit, "I've heard many deals, Dooku. Few hold their weight."

Dooku nodded, his lips curling upwards very slightly at the corners. The language was easy enough to understand. "This is not an ordinary proposition. The Confederacy of Independent Systems would like to align itself with the Hutt Clan, particularly with you, Jabba. Your influence in the Outer Rim is unrivaled."

Jabba chuckled, a deep gurgling sound. "And why should I align myself with your cause? The Hutts have remained neutral for millennia."

"That may be so," Dooku retorted, "but times change. The Republic grows weaker by the day, corrupt and ineffective, and the Jedi—once guardians of peace in this galaxy—now serve little more than enforcers for the Senate. With the Confederacy, that would change. You could expand your operations beyond your wildest dreams."

His majordomo, Bib Fortuna, leaned close to whisper in Jabba's ear. Jabba waved the man away with a gesture of impatience.

"You speak of expansion, Dooku, but the Hutts already control vast territories. What tangible benefits would this alliance bring?"

Dooku paced slowly, his cape billowing behind him. "Protection, for one. The full might of the Separatist droid army would be at your disposal. Imagine your enemies cowering before legions of battle droids."

"We Hutts have our own means of protection," Jabba retorted.

"Indeed," Dooku agreed. "But think about the trade routes. With the Confederacy's backing, you can now open new hyperspace lanes, avoiding any Republic tariffs or controls. Your spice can find an untaxed market."

Now he had Jabba's attention. His eyes widened slightly as he leaned forward on his dais. "Go on."

"And," Dooku plowed on, feeling Jabba's interest had subtly piqued, "we can offer you the best technological advancement. Cloaking for your ships. The most advanced armament. All to ensure your dominion in the criminal underworld."

Jabba rumbled reflectively. "The offers are tempting, Dooku. But the Hutts have thrived on neutrality. Why risk our position now?"

Dooku's voice turned serious. "Because neutrality is a luxury you may not be able to afford much longer. The galaxy is changing, Jabba. Those who do not adapt will be left behind… or crushed."

A chill silence filled the throne room. Jabba's court watched the exchange with bated breath.

At last, Jabba spoke. "You make bold claims, Count. But words are wind. What assurances can you provide?"

Dooku reached inside his cloak, pulling from it a small holoprojector. He flicked his wrist, and a fancy star map of the galaxy was alight around them, highlighting several trade lanes and other key positions.

"This," Dooku explained, "is a strategic overview of our current operations. As you can see, we are poised to control key sectors that would greatly benefit your enterprises. Join us, and you'll have access to all of this and more."

Jabba studied the hologram intently, his eyes darting from one point to another. After a long moment, he looked back at Dooku.

"That's an… interesting proposition," Jabba allowed. "But one should not resolve such a matter lightly. The Hutt Grand Council must be consulted first."

Dooku bowed his head graciously. "Of course. I wouldn't expect anything less. But remember, Jabba, time is of the essence. The longer you deliberate, the more opportunities slip away."

Jabba's laughter boomed out, bouncing off the walls. "Patience, Count. We Hutts are in the business of playing the long game; we've been at it long before the days of your Confederacy. We shall consider your offer… carefully."

Dooku gave a slight bow. "That is all I ask, mighty Jabba. I trust you will see the wisdom in our alliance. Until then, I bid you farewell."

At the last moment, when Dooku was to leave, the Hutt called after him: "But one thing, Dooku. If we decide to join your cause, what becomes of our autonomy?

Dooku stopped at the threshold, turned back to regard the Hutt with one raised eyebrow. "The Confederacy values the independence of its members, Jabba. Your realm would remain your own… with the added strength of our combined might."

With that, Dooku swept from the throne room and out of Jabba's palace, the twin suns of Tatooine leaving very long shadows across the desert. He stopped at its entrance, his towering form outlined in the failing suns, and paused to think.

The recent negotiation ran through Dooku's curious mixture of the mind of a Sith Lord and a college student. 'How different this meeting would have carried on, had I remained my former self.' The thought carried with it flavorings of wry amusement coupled with newfound wisdom.

Thumbing the activation stud for his suit's internal cooling system, Dooku pulled up the strategic overview provided by The Attraction System. What displayed was a holographic image, visible to no one besides him, flickering to life and detailing the intricate web that the Confederacy's operations had spread out to.

"We really are winning this war…" Dooku murmured. His voice was altered by the mechanical underlay of his prosthetic vocal diva, tinged with a sense of awe. "The original Dooku would have relied on political maneuvering and Force manipulation alone. But now…

He zoomed in on Hutt space and analyzed possible outcomes with an alliance. "With the Hutts on our side, this war will be a foregone conclusion for the CIS," he mused, a smile playing beneath his mask.

Dooku's thoughts strayed back once again to the fate of his old counterpart. "My old self would go to such great lengths, only to fail so spectacularly," he said to himself. "All because he wasn't really playing to win."

Count Dooku walked up to his ship, the sands of Tatooine shifting beneath his armored feet, when he saw something that caused even him to stop in disbelief. Before him, a group of Jawas, those small desert-crawling scavengers, were swarming over his prized vessel like ants on an abandoned sweet.

"What is the meaning of this?" boomed Dooku's mechanically altered voice across the dunes, causing the Jawas to hearken for a moment.

The Count's eyes narrowed behind his mask as his heightened senses took in every detail of the scene. Panels pried loose, wires hanging exposed, and several of the components already piled in the nearby sandcrawler of the Jawas.

"Utinni!" one of the Jawas squeaked before returning briskly to its task.

Enraged beyond a point he had known since his transformation, Dooku felt the warning from the Attraction System flash across his mind, signaling yet another peak in his negative emotions.

"You dare…" he began in a dangerous whisper. "You dare to lay your filthy hands on the property of Count Dooku, Leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems?"

The Jawas either were oblivious to the danger or too greedy to care, continued working. One of them, bolder than the rest, waved a hydrospanner at Dooku in what seemed to be a dismissive gesture.

That broke the camel's back.

A flash of blue, and Dooku's lightsaber ignited. The hum, so familiar, filled the air, mixed with the suddenly panicked cries of the Jawas.

"I have faced Jedi Masters and The Devil himself." Dooku, referring to Sidious, snarled, advancing on the scavengers. "I've swum the treacherous sea of galactic politics. And you… you miserable creatures think you can steal from me?"

The Jawas began to scatter, dropping their ill-gotten gains in their haste to escape. Dooku, however, was faster. He used the Force, his hand waving, sealing shut the sandcrawler's entrance, trapping the Jawas outside.

"Oh, no," menace fluttered through his tone. "You don't get to run away from this."

Dooku felt some sort of bizarre inner conflict. With each step of his approach, the Jawas now trembled. The side of him that had ever been a college student shivered at the thought of causing harm to these creatures, while Dooku's memories cried out for retribution.

"What am I to do with you?" he wondered aloud and seemed to listen more to himself than to them. "The old Dooku would have killed you on the spot. But maybe… maybe there's a better solution."

An idea took shape within his mind, driven by both newfound strategic acumen and augmented charisma.

"Listen carefully," he said to the Jawas—then turned off his lightsaber, but he was careful not to put it away. "You will return every component you've stripped from my ship. Then, you will repair any damage you've done. Do this, and not only will I spare your miserable lives, but I'll also give you coordinates to a wealth of salvage from the last Clone Wars battle in this sector."

The Jawas chittered at each other, weighing the odds.

"This is a one-time offer," Dooku said by way of continuation; his patience was beginning to wear thin. "Refuse, and I'll leave your sandcrawler as nothing more than a twisted wreck in the desert."

After a moment, the lead Jawa stepped forward and nodded his head vigorously.

"A wise choice," Dooku murmured, the first wisps of satisfaction curling in his voice. "Now, get to work. I have a galaxy to conquer, and I won't be delayed by the likes of you."

The Jawas scrambled to reverse what they had done, but this couldn't help but stir up thoughts on the incident within Dooku. His anger at that moment was understandable, but it came closer to blur his judgment. On the other hand, turning his anger into a strategic solution made an apparent setback an opportunity.

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* * *

Count Dooku was standing before his recently fixed vessel as the Tatooine suns finally dipped below the skies. The Jawas scurried around, their work complete, chittering excitedly amongst themselves.

"Well I must say," Dooku's mechanically altered voice resonated, "your craftsmanship is… surprisingly adequate."

The lead Jawa stepped forward; identifiable by a patch on his hood. "We keep our word, great Count. Ship good as new, maybe better!"

Dooku nodded his helmeted head; armour glinted in the fading light. "Indeed. And I, too, shall honor my commitment." He flicked his wrist, drawing out a datapad to key in a series of coordinates. "Here, as arranged, is the location of the Clone Wars battle debris. I trust you will find it… most profitable."

The Jawas broke into a chorus of happy squeaks and whistles. As they whooped it up, the head Jawa signaled his subordinates. They inched forward an astromech droid, its once-elegant form now dulled and dented.

"What this?" Dooku asked, tilting his mask a bit to one side in curiosity.

"Gift for you, Count," the Jawa offered. "R3-TZ. Smart droid. Needs work, but good."

Dooku stepped back, pacing around the astromech and taking a good look at what his heightened senses revealed. The droid peeped in a weak voice, its dome turning to track the Count.

"An R3 unit," said Dooku. "Quite adaptable, if memory serves. But why bring him to me?"

The lead Jawa shuffled his feet. "You show us respect. We show respect back. Droid help you, like we help you."

Dooku hesitated, considering the offer in balance in his mind. Where others would see only scrap, his merged consciousness—part Jedi Master, part college student—saw potential.

"Very well," he decided. "I will take your gift. R3-TZ was it? Come, then."

The droid let out a stream of excited beeps as it rolled toward the ship's ramp. Dooku turned back to the Jawas. "Your… generosity is noted. Perhaps there's more to your kind than mere scavenging."

The leader of the Jawas bowed low. "We remember friends, Count Dooku. Perhaps you remember us, too, yes?"

"Perhaps," Dooku smiled. A thin thread of amusement threaded through his mechanical voice. "Indeed, the galaxy is full of surprises after all."

He clambered into the ship, R3-TZ following behind, and took his seat in the pilot's cockpit. The astromech plugged into a port within arm's reach, its systems whirring to life.

"Now, then, R3-TZ," Dooku was saying to the droid. "Let us see what you are capable of. Plot a course to the Serenno system. It's time we paid a visit to my homeworld."

Being lifted from the sandy surface of Tatooine, he could not help but think of this day as it began to wind down. "Seems," he said aloud, "even the unlikely encounters may be productive. R3-TZ, I believe this is only the beginning of a most intriguing partnership."

The high-wailing pitch of the engine noise was now silent, leaving the soft hum of the hyperdrive as all that was left to fill the void as Dooku's ship cruised through the star-streaked expanse of hyperspace. The outline of Count Dooku stood almost threateningly tall and large in the ship's small maintenance bay, while it made the droid R3-TZ look like a dwarfish creature in comparison.

"Now, my young friend," said Dooku's mechanically altered voice within the small confines, "let us see what we can do about your…condition."

The Attraction System interface sprang into life just inside Dooku's field of vision, and along with it a highly detailed schematic of the inner workings of the R3 unit. Thought acquired him access to a store of data on astromech repair and optimization.

"Fascinating," he murmured, running a gloved hand over the domed head of R3-TZ. "Your circuitry is far more sophisticated than I initially presumed."

Dooku, with skillful hands, worked his way through repairs and upgrades to the droid's systems and couldn't help but reflect on how odd his position was. Echoes of his old life as a college student began to flood back and washed over him with a surge of unexpected emotion.

"You know, R3-TZ," Dooku said, his voice softening slightly, "I even had dreams once upon a time about this. In another life, before I ever was… well, this." He gestured to his armored form. "The idea of having a droid companion, an ally, the unyielding best friend out in the vast black? That was pure fantasy."

"Yes, I suppose it is, rather ironic," Dooku chuckled, the sound oddly distorted by his suit's vocal modulator. "Here I am, Count Dooku, leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, former Jedi Master, and now… well, something altogether different. And yet, here I find myself feeling rather excited at the prospect of a droid acquaintance."

All at once, with the last of his components coming online, R3-TZ activated. He swiveled his dome to survey his surroundings briefly and then settled his sensors on Dooku.

"There we are," Dooku said with a note of satisfaction in his voice. "How do you feel, my friend?"

He let out a string of enthusiastic beeps and whistles, spinning its dome in a full circle.

"Very good." Dooku nodded. "Your systems are functioning at peak efficiency now, and I've actually made a few… shall we say, modifications of my own design."

The droid chimed inquisitively.

"Oh, nothing too severe," Dooku assured him. "Just updating your processing power, sensor array, and holo-projection capabilities. I'm having a hunch it will come in handy during the days to come."

As R3-TZ rolled off across the maintenance bay to test his newly repaired and upgraded systems, Dooku felt a warmth spread across his chest—it was a feeling very unfamiliar to him, very alien to the cold, calculated persona he had built as a Sith Lord.

"You know, R3-TZ," Dooku mused, watching some excited movements the droid was making, "it's all well and good, and in all my years, both as a Jedi and as a Sith, trust has been in short supply. Allies become enemies, loyalties shift like sand in a storm." He stopped there, his mask tilting a little to regard the droid. "But you… you're different, aren't you? Your loyalty is programmed, yes, but it's no less real for it. In fact, it's perhaps more genuine than most I've encountered."

R3-TZ beeped affirmatively, rolling closer to Dooku and extending a manipulator arm in what seemed to be a gesture of companionship.

Dooku reached out, his armored hand gently patting the droid's dome.

* * *

Dooku's imposing figure was clothed in the silkiest of nightshirts to be discovered on his opulent homeworld of Serenno. If there were such a thing as proper garb, though, it would be for the prospect of his role as leader of the Confederation of Independent Systems. It somehow seemed right given the nature of the events to transpire this night.

The insistent chime of the holo-communicator broke the stillness of the humidity-filled night. Dooku activated it, revealing the blue-tinted image of his highly regarded Chiss general, Sev'rance Tann.

"My lord," Sev'rance intoned in coolly glowing intensity, "I bring news that will change the tide of our war."

Dooku leaned forward, his eyes catching fire. "Speak, Sev'rance, for what news is this that so incurs a need for such haste?"

"The Hutts, my lord," she said, an extremely unusual smile playing upon her lips. "They have entered into full trade and treaty agreements with—your Confederacy of Independent Systems."

There was an instant, no more, of complete immobility, before Dooku began to smile, really to smile, eyes shining.

"At last," he began, his voice full of satisfaction. "This alliance will definitely shift the balance in our favor."

As Tann related the particulars of the agreement, Dooku was already projecting into what was to come next. So nearly upon him yet it was so distant.

"What were the concessions, Sev'rance?" Dooku interrupted. "What did we have to give them to buy their fealty?"

Tann's expressions darkened. "They exact a substantial part of our market in the Outer Rim, My Lord. And immunity for their… more unsavory ventures."

Dooku nodded, as he had expected them to do exactly that. "Once again, a small price to pay for the resources and influence they bring to our cause. We shall grant them their desires... for now."

The old man felt the familiar hum of the Attraction System at the back of his mind. The strategic overview it provided had been instrumental in his dealings with the Hutts, giving him the ability to anticipate their moves and counter with precision.

"My lord," Tann continued, "the Hutts have joined us. We control all major hyperspace lanes; we have links to their massive intelligence network. So the Republic shall get a taste as it is taken by surprise. The Republic will be surprised."

Dooku's eyes sparked with a dark glee. "Indeed. Very soon, the Jedi and their Republic lapdogs will feel the full might of our combined forces."

The conversation wound down; in Dooku's mind, possibilities whirled like a kaleidoscope. In the Attraction System, the array of available strategies was dizzying, each more promising than the last.

"Sev'rance," he said, his voice taking on a commanding tone, "prepare our forces for major offensives. With the Hutts' resources at our disposal, we can now make major attacks without suffering anything.

Tann bowed his head in assent. "It shall be so, my lord. Would you wish me to now inform our other allies of this new development?"

Dooku hesitated, thinking. "Not just yet. Let us keep this advantage close to our chest for the time being. We'll reveal our hand when the moment is right."

As the hologram flickered out, Dooku turned back to the window, his reflection superimposed over the starry night sky.