by Cavan Scott
I yanked open the secret entrance and ushered Sifo inside, convinced we were going to get caught any second.
SIFO-DYAS:
Okay, okay, I’m in. Close the door.
DOOKU:
I’m trying.
They pull the door shut and we’re in the corridor with them, listening as the droid passes by.
DOOKU:
(BREATHES A SIGH OF RELIEF) That was close.
SIFO-DYAS:
You were brilliant.
DOOKU:
What if it sees the sand?
SIFO-DYAS:
It’ll fetch a broom.
DOOKU:
So much for the illuminators. It’s so dark in here.
SIFO-DYAS:
Where’s your glow rod?
Dooku clicks on his glow rod.
DOOKU:
I think I preferred it when I couldn’t see.
SIFO-DYAS:
It’s just a few spinner-webs.
DOOKU:
A few?
SIFO-DYAS:
Come on.
SCENE 22. INT. THE BOGAN COLLECTION.
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
The corridor came out into a vault filled with cabinets, relics of the past suspended on repulsor pads, some behind glass, others protected by crackling force fields.
SIFO-DYAS:
This is unbelievable. Look at all this stuff.
DOOKU:
Master Yoda told us the holocron was the only Sith artifact to survive the war.
SIFO-DYAS:
Master Yoda lied. And it’s not just Sith. Look at this. The Sorcerers of Tund. The Yacombe. Where did this all come from?
DOOKU:
Sifo. Here it is.
He rushes to a cabinet.
DOOKU:
(READING) “The Saber of Darth Krall.”
SIFO-DYAS:
Hmmm.
DOOKU:
What do you mean—“hmmm”?
SIFO-DYAS:
I thought it would be spikier.
Dooku takes a few steps.
DOOKU:
Hey. Look at this.
SIFO-DYAS:
Seriously. That’s what you want to look at? There’s all these…scrolls and weapons and whatever that creepy mask thing is, and you want to look at a lump of old metal?
DOOKU:
There’s something about it…something I’ve felt before.
SIFO-DYAS:
Doo. Look at this. I think it’s a parang.
We start to hear a noise inside Dooku’s mind, a growl like he heard in the assembly hall on Serenno. Low. Ominous.
DOOKU:
(WINCES)
SIFO-DYAS:
Dooku?
DOOKU:
Can’t you hear it?
SIFO-DYAS:
Hear what?
DOOKU:
The beast below.
SIFO-DYAS:
Okay. Very funny. Drop the act. This place is spooky enough as it is.
The growl intensifies.
DOOKU:
It’s coming.
SIFO-DYAS:
What?
DOOKU:
Coming for us. Coming for me.
SIFO-DYAS:
Okay, now you’re freaking me out. Let’s look at something else, shall we?
The growl becomes a roar.
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
And then it was in front of me, Jenza, fangs bared, wings outstretched. The same creature you showed me in the Assembly Hall. The Tirra’Taka. I can’t explain how but I could see it, feel its breath against my skin, its spines bristling, ready to attack, ready to tear us apart.
DOOKU:
(SCARED) No.
SIFO-DYAS:
Doo, calm down.
DOOKU:
Stay back!
SIFO-DYAS:
Dooku, there’s nothing there.
DOOKU:
Can’t you see it? Why can’t you see it?
Sifo-Dyas goes to grab Dooku, as—in the young Jedi’s head—the monster prepares to attack.
DOOKU:
(CRIES OUT IN FEAR)
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
I pushed out with the Force, every cabinet in the Archive shattering at once. Sifo-Dyas was thrown back, smashing into a wall as artifacts tumbled to the floor.
SIFO-DYAS:
(GRUNTS)
Alarms blare.
SIFO-DYAS:
(GROANS) Why did you do that?
DOOKU:
It’s gone. The creature.
SIFO-DYAS:
What creature?
DOOKU:
You couldn’t see it?
SIFO-DYAS:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. (WINCES)
Dooku scrambles up, running to his friend, glass crunching beneath his feet.
DOOKU:
Are you all right?
SIFO-DYAS:
(WHIMPERING) My arm. I can’t move it.
DOOKU:
That doesn’t look good.
Nearby a door slides open. There are running footsteps, a lightsaber humming.
QUIST: (COMING UP ON MIC)
Who’s there?
DOOKU:
Oh no.
QUIST:
Show yourself!
DOOKU:
Librarian Quist. We’re over here. My friend, he’s hurt.
QUIST:
Younglings? What happened here?
SCENE 23. INT. JEDI TEMPLE. INFIRMARY.
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
It was a good question, and one I struggled to answer, even as Yoda and Braylon confronted us in the Temple infirmary…
YODA:
Explain you must.
DOOKU:
We’re really sorry.
BRAYLON:
Sorry you were caught, you mean.
SIFO-DYAS:
(WINCES IN PAIN)
YODA:
Let the healer work. The bacta cast will mend your bones, if not our trust in you.
SIFO-DYAS:
It wasn’t Dooku’s fault.
BRAYLON:
No. He didn’t destroy the collection?
DOOKU:
I don’t know what happened. I was looking at the artifacts and then—
BRAYLON:
(INTERRUPTING) And then you threw your friend through a cabinet.
YODA:
Teradine’s legacy lives on. Destroy this journal we must.
SIFO-DYAS:
Are you going to expel us?
BRAYLON:
Don’t tempt me.
YODA:
Punished you must be. Disgrace you have brought upon the Hawk-Bat Clan. Upon yourself.
DOOKU:
We’ll never do anything like it again.
SIFO-DYAS:
We promise.
Doors sweep open and Lene enters.
LENE:
Master Yoda.
DOOKU: (NARRATION)
We looked up. The doors of the infirmary had swept open to admit a purple-skinned Altiri. Her head was shaved, a single lock of hair curled behind her right ear.
LENE:
I hear there was a disturbance in the Archives.
YODA:
Master Kostana.
BRAYLON:
I wasn’t aware you’d returned.
LENE:
Not before time, it seems. Was anything damaged?
BRAYLON:
Nothing that we can’t incinerate.
LENE:
Incinerate? You can’t be serious.
BRAYLON:
Lene, for the last time, there really is no cause for alarm. It was just a couple of Initiates, getting themselves in trouble. Again.
LENE:
How did they get in?
YODA:
Through Kaneer’s window.
LENE:
In the Archives? Hasn’t that been blocked up?
BRAYLON:
Obviously not.
YODA:
Said the same we did, after you and Braylon broke in.
DOOKU:
You did, Master Braylon?
BRAYLON:
It was a long time ago.
LENE:
And these are the culprits, I assume. That was quite a storm you whipped up in there.
YODA:
Strong in the Force, Dooku is.
LENE:
So I can sense. Tell me, Dooku…what did you see?
YODA:
Now is not the time.
LENE:
Really? The boy obviously disturbed something down there. We should understand what it was.
DOOKU:
I can’t remember. I’ve tried but…
SIFO-DYAS:
(SULKILY) I saw something. The wall, when I hit it.
DOOKU:
(TO SIFO) I’m really sorry.
BRAYLON:
You’ll have to forgive Master Kostana, Initiates. She has a particular interest in esoteric beliefs and arcane trivia.
LENE:
There is nothing trivial about the dark side, Yula.
DOOKU:
That’s what it was? The dark side?
YODA:
Not ready for such a test are you. Dangerous those artifacts are.
BRAYLON:
Which is why they are in a vault!
YODA:
Your punishment you will serve.
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
And serve it we did, hunched over Archive monitors under the watchful eyes of Restelly Quist…
SCENE 24. INT. JEDI ARCHIVES.
Atmosphere: Back in the cloistered Temple Archives. Dooku and Sifo-Dyas are writing with styluses on datapads.
DOOKU:
Why did I let you talk me into all this?
SIFO-DYAS:
I didn’t. You came of your own free will. And then threw me through a cabinet.
DOOKU:
How’s your arm?
SIFO-DYAS:
Getting better. Slowly.
QUIST:
That’s enough chatter.
DOOKU:
Yes, Librarian Quist.
SIFO-DYAS:
Sorry, Librarian Quist.
DOOKU:
Three days of translating agricultural treatises. No artifacts are worth this. If I ever meet Klias Teradine…
SIFO-DYAS:
Who knew there would be so much to say about crop rotations…
Lene Kostana enters the Archive behind them.
QUIST: (OFF-MIC)
Master Kostana. It is good to see you.
LENE: (OFF-MIC)
And you, Chief Librarian.
SIFO-DYAS:
(WHISPER) Doo. It’s her. The Altiri.
LENE: (OFF-MIC)
I wonder if you can help me find this?
QUIST: (OFF-MIC)
The Sands of Elath? My. No one has asked for that for decades.
LENE: (OFF-MIC)
You know where it is?
QUIST: (OFF-MIC)
Yes, yes. It might take some time, that’s all.
LENE: (OFF-MIC)
I can wait. Thanks, Restelly. What would I do without you?
QUIST: (OFF-MIC)
Find someone else to flatter? I’ll be right back.
Hobbles off. Lene approaches the boys.
LENE:
Good to see you two hard at work. What did the old goblin have you do?
DOOKU:
You can’t talk about Master Yoda like that!
LENE:
It’s a term of endearment, but your loyalty does you credit. Let’s see what you’ve got there…
She picks up the scrolls.
LENE:
(LAUGHS) The Lothal Papyri? He’s still having Initiates translate these?
SIFO-DYAS:
You mean they’ve been deciphered before?
LENE:
Only every time someone steps out of line. Took me and Yula at least three months. Good luck.
She passes the papers back to Sifo-Dyas.
SIFO-DYAS:
T-thanks.
Lene walks off, calling back to them.
LENE:
Tell Restelly I’ll pick the book up later. I need to see a man about an akk.
SIFO-DYAS:
(CALLING AFTER HER) O-okay.
DOOKU:
What was that all about?
SIFO-DYAS:
Beats me. She’s an odd one, that’s for—
He finds something in the papers.
SIFO-DYAS:
Hang on, what’s this?
DOOKU:
What’s what?
SIFO-DYAS:
A fragment of a book. Kostana must have—
He flicks through pages.
SIFO-DYAS:
Wow!
DOOKU:
What is it? Let me see.
SIFO-DYAS:
Look.
Dooku takes it and looks through the pages.
DOOKU:
(READING) Silooth…tuk’ata…veergundark…krastenane…
SIFO-DYAS:
You know what those are, don’t you?
DOOKU:
Hideous, by the looks of things.
SIFO-DYAS:
They’re Sith warbeasts.
He snatches the book back.
DOOKU:
Sith? Are you sure?
SIFO-DYAS:
Yes. The Bestiary of Darth Caldoth—see?
DOOKU:
But what’s Kostana doing with Sith texts?
Quist returns.
DOOKU:
Quist’s back. Hide it!
Sifo-Dyas shoves it beneath the papers. Quist walks over to them.
QUIST:
Where’s Master Kostana?
SIFO-DYAS:
She, er, she said she’d come back later.
DOOKU:
For her book.
SIFO-DYAS:
(QUICKLY) The one you were fetching.
QUIST:
Hmmm. Well, get on with your work, you two.
The librarian walks away.
QUIST: (OFF-MIC)
Plenty more documents where those came from.
SIFO-DYAS:
(SOTTO) And don’t we know it.
DOOKU:
What are you going to do?
SIFO-DYAS:
About what?
DOOKU:
About the Bestiary!
SIFO-DYAS:
What do you think? Read it.
DOOKU:
But shouldn’t we tell someone?
SIFO-DYAS:
No!
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
But I couldn’t let it go, Jenza. Something wasn’t right about Master Kostana, and it was my duty as a Jedi to investigate…
SCENE 25. EXT. JEDI TEMPLE. MAIN SPIRE. CONTEMPLATION BALCONY. NIGHT.
Atmosphere: A balcony halfway up the main spire. Coruscant air traffic zipping past in the background.
Lene Kostana is waiting as her pet Altirian convor flaps down to land on the balcony railing.
LENE:
There you are, girl. Been off hunting?
The convor chirps in response, Lene ruffling her feathers.
LENE:
Yes. Yes. I’ve missed you too. Here.
She feeds the convor, the bird chirping.
LENE:
Do you like that? Yes? Good girl. Good girl.
She waits a couple of beats and then…
LENE:
(CALLING OUT) It’s hard to sneak up on a Jedi, you know, especially in the Temple. If you needed to meditate, you only had to ask me to vacate the contemplation balcony…
Behind her, Dooku steps out from his hiding place and activates his lightsaber. Lene turns.
DOOKU:
I’m not here to meditate.
LENE:
Really? You’re challenging me to a duel, Dooku?
DOOKU:
Why did you give Sifo that book?
LENE:
Well, technically it was part of a book. Eight pages at most.
DOOKU:
(MORE FORCEFULLY) Why?
LENE:
Who said it was for him?
She ignites her own lightsaber. Her convor chirps, worried, flapping from its perch.
LENE:
Calm yourself, Ferana. There’s nothing to worry about, is there, Initiate?
DOOKU:
Was it a test? Is that what it was?
LENE:
Why would I be testing you?
DOOKU:
To see if we’re like you.
LENE:
Like me? What about me?
DOOKU:
I can…feel it inside you. Frustration. Anger.
LENE:
Is that so?
We hear the roar of the Tirra’Taka in Dooku’s mind. Distant, but insistent all the same.
DOOKU:
(WINCES)
LENE:
Initiate?
DOOKU:
I sense the dark side.
LENE:
You do?
Another roar.
DOOKU:
It must be stopped.
LENE:
And you’re the one to do it?
DOOKU:
Yes.
YOUNG DOOKU: (HOLO-NARRATION)
I launched myself at Kostana, my lightsaber slashing through the air only to be blocked…
LENE:
Not bad. Tera Sinube said you showed promise.