Lorian's voice floated up in the darkness, ragged with desperation. "I panicked when Oppo Rancisis came in. I saw my future, and it scared me. I could get kicked out, and where would I go, what would I do?"
"You should have thought of that before you stole the Sith Holocron."
"I know I shouldn't ask such a big thing, but who else can I ask but my best friend? Because no matter what, you're still my best friend."
Lorian paused. For a moment, all Dooku could hear was their breathing.
"Will you cover for me?"
Dooku wanted to burst out with a savage "No!" But he couldn't. He didn't know if Lorian could get kicked out of the order — he didn't think so. But it served Lorian right to have to worry about it.
Punishment would be severe for him, especially since he'd tried to lie and cover up. But Lorian was right — Dooku was a favorite of the Jedi Masters. He knew how he could tell the story so that he would just get a lecture, most likely. He would let them think it was a hunger for knowledge, a desire to impress his new Master. They would believe that.
Dooku didn't know what to say. He wasn't prepared to lie, but he couldn't say no to his friend. So he said nothing, and, after a long while, the two friends fell asleep.
Chapter 4
Dooku woke before dawn. Lying in the dark, he listened to the silence and knew that Lorian had left sometime during the night. He lay on his back, feeling the weight of the air on his body as though his friend was sitting on his chest.
Reluctant to rise, he stared at the walls, watching the darkness slowly silver into gray, until he could see the outlines of his furniture. The light on his bedside table began to glow softly and increase in intensity, his signal to wake up. Then a holographic calendar appeared and glowed in the air overhead. Usually the day calendar had been filled with appointments and classes. Lately he had liked looking at its blankness. Soon he would fill it up with missions.
He stared at it, thinking of his future. It was secure. Was Lorian right? Had he been smug about that and failed to appreciate his friend's distress?
He stared at the calendar for long minutes, thinking of this, before it registered on his brain that the entire day had been blocked out.
Dooku sat up. The urban search exercise! It was today! Not only that, he saw that he and Lorian had been summoned before the Jedi Council following the search.
The exercise was designed more for competitive fun than for serious training. The older students, the ones who had either been chosen as apprentices or who had finished their formal Temple training, were invited to sign up. They were divided into two teams, and had to track one another through a segment of Coruscant near the Temple. They had to use stealth, cunning, and surveillance techniques. Dooku and Lorian had signed up the week before.
Dooku swung his legs over the bed. Would he and Lorian still be allowed to participate?
He dressed hurriedly and grabbed his training light-saber. He walked out into the hallway and saw Yoda ahead. Yoda nodded a greeting.
"Heading to the tracking exercise, are you?" Yoda asked. "I–I don't know if I am permitted. " Dooku stammered.
Yoda cocked his head at him. "A commitment you made. A Padawan you are. And thus the answer you find is.. "
"I'm going," Dooku said. He hurried off. He had just enough time to grab some fruit for the morning meal before the students assembled outside on the landing platform. He wondered if Lorian would have the nerve to show up.
Lorian stood at the edge of the small crowd on the exterior platform.
He was clearly uncomfortable and avoided standing too near or too far away. He wore his hood low so that it shaded his eyes. Dooku stood at the edge of the group, opposite from Lorian. No one paid attention to them. Whatever the gossip had been, it had died down, and the students now only thought of the contest ahead.
The cool morning air flushed their cheeks and the wind whipped their robes around them as they chattered in excited voices. Dooku felt the combined Force from the group, energetic, unfocused, but strong.
For a moment he stood outside himself. It was something that happened to him from time to time. Suddenly he would feel removed, as though he floated above his classmates.
How young we all are, he thought, amused. Someday I will look back on this and wish for such simple things as a learning exercise on a cool morning.
It made him feel better for a moment. Someday his problem with Lorian wouldn't matter. It would be a blip, a moment of static, something lost in a sea of missions in a remarkable career.
Then Yoda and Oppo Rancisis emerged from the interior of the Temple.
His gaze rested on Dooku only briefly, but it brought Dooku back to reality with a bump. His mood suddenly soured as he thought of the Jedi Council he would have to face.
The students quieted as Yoda approached. He stood in the middle of the group, nodding greetings at the familiar faces. He'd known them all since they were babies and had trained them all when they were younglings.
"In an exercise know you do that every year the oldest students participate," he said. "Urban tracking, this year's will be. That this is a test remember you must. Yet graded you will not be. Take it seriously but lightly you must. Attempt to win you will; if you lose, enjoy it you may."
The students smiled at Yoda's contradictions and fiddled with their training lightsabers. Everyone was anxious to begin.
"And now, the rules," Oppo said. "You will be divided into two teams of ten. In a moment, your team color will flash on your datapad. Each team will have a different starting point. The goal of each team is to successfully bring a muja fruit from one of the fruitsellers in the All Planets Market back to the Temple by sunset. Team members can be eliminated only by one light touch with a lightsaber."
The students smiled. They knew that no matter how easy it sounded, the actual exercise would turn out to be much harder.
"You must keep to the segment mapped out on your datapads. To cross the line is to be disqualified. Do you understand this?"
The students nodded, trying to conceal their anticipation. They all knew the rules.
Yoda nodded, letting them know that their attempts to hide their impatience hadn't fooled him a bit. "Perhaps wait you should until the sun is higher…." he began, his eyes twinkling.
"No, please, Master Yoda!" the students chorused the words together.
"Ah, then teams you will become. Look on your data-pads, you must."