Instantly he was in the air himself, spinning away from Dooku’s vicious attack before he was even consciously aware it was coming. The blinding scarlet blur of Dooku’s lightsaber split the air, slashing a burning line along Yoda’s side before chopping his desk in half.

Yoda whipped out his blade while trying to set Whirry gently down on the cobblestones below. “Wish to hurt you, I do not!”

“That’s odd,” Dooku remarked. “I intend to enjoy killing you.”

As Yoda released Whirry from his mind’s hold, and let her spill gently onto the flagstones far below, the tip of Dooku’s lightsaber scored a burning line across his shoulder. The Count’s blade was quick as a viper striking. Among the other Jedi, perhaps only Mace Windu would have been his equal on neutral ground: but here on Vjun, steeped in the dark side, his bladework was malice made visible—wickedness cut in red light. “I’ve hurt you!” Dooku cried.

“Many times,” Yoda said. He considered his pain: let it drop. Now he had nothing but Dooku to focus “on, and his lightsaber gleamed with the same fierce green light that flickered from under his heavy-lidded eyes. “But killed me you did not, when you had the chance. A mistake, that was. More than eight hundred years has Yoda survived, through dangers you could not dream.”

“I know how to kill,” Dooku hissed.

Yoda’s eyes opened wide, like balls of green fire. “Yes—but Yoda knows how to live!”

Then their blades clashed together in a lace of fire, green and red: but the green burned hotter. Slowly, slowly, Dooku gave way: and in the dark, drunken Vjun air, Yoda was terrible to behold.

“Yes,” Dooku whispered. “Feel me. Feel the treason. All those years of teaching me, raising me. Trusting me. And here am I, the favored son, butchering your precious Jedi, one by one. Hate me Yoda. You know you want to.”

Count Dooku lashed out with his lightsaber. Yoda took a quick step back and felt the heat of the red blade as it sliced the air centimeters from his tunic. He jumped, spun, and struck at Dooku’s back before he landed. Dooku turned aside at the last moment, whipping his blade across the space where Yoda was seconds earlier. Facing each other again, their blades met, clashed, froze.

“Cunning, are you,” Yoda said, breathing hard.

“I’ve had excellent teachers,” Dooku said.

Yoda dropped and rolled to the side, his lightsaber blazing, reaching for Dooku’s ankles. Dooku leapt up and flipped backwards landing lightly to face Yoda squarely. On his feet again, Yoda whirled and struck at Dooku, his green blade meeting Dooku’s and pushing him back. Dooku attacked with reckless abandon fueled with hatred. Their blades hummed together, hissing and sparking.

“Dooku brought his blade down toward the diminutive Jedi Master and Yoda parried, locking his blade against Dooku’s. Yoda breathed, calming himself. “And yet, even here on Vjun, where the dark side whispers and whispers to me…love you enough to destroy you I do.”

Pushing Dooku back yet again, blades flashed and flared stutters of light, blood red and sea green.

Sweat ran in streams through Dooku’s beard as he countered Yoda’s every move, and his lips were white. Holobattles raged around them as the consoles showed Obi-Wan and Anakin clashing with wave after wave of battle droids. Dooku shot a quick glance at the red button on his desk and, with a Force push, he punched it in.

Yoda cocked his head. “A choice made, have you, Count?”

“I notice I am no longer your apprentice,” Dooku said between breaths. “There was always a chance you could overpower me, of course.” Yoda attacked: Dooku parried. “So I put a missile in high orbit, slaved to this location. It’s falling now. Gathering speed.” Dooku stepped warily back to the open window casement. “Can you feel it dropping? A thorn, a needle, an arrow. Faster all the time.” He paused to get his breath. “Obi-Wan and your precious Skywalker and your little Padawans will be wiped out when the missile hits. So what you need to decide is, what means more to you, Master Yoda? Saving their lives—or taking mine?”

And with that he leapt backward, out the window. Yoda bounded after him. In the dark Vjun air it was all he could do not to leap after Dooku, to fall on him like a green thunderbolt and annihilate him utterly.