Song: "Padmé and Ahsoka" from Star Wars: The Clone Wars OST

Grievous walked down to the Kaleela dungeons to speak to the false khagan, his hands clasped behind his back and his back hunched so he wouldn't smack his head against the low ceilings. Something he would certainly change about the Kaleela hall was the height of the rooms, which had been originally designed for beings a meter and a half tall, but now would house him, who topped two meters.

A week had passed since he'd taken Kaleela. The rest of the planet had been easy—the people were still recovering from the Republic's blow to Kalee, and at the promise of revenge, they had submitted—though very few were actually happy to, once they realized they would be governed by a cyborg leader and an army of droids.

Their prejudices were primitive and foolish to him.

He reached her cell, searching for a glimpse of her moon-pale scales. He suppressed roaring curiosity about her. He had pictured his replacement to be a man, perhaps a northern giant with burly limbs who might actually be able to land a punch, and maybe even dent his chest if he got lucky.

Instead, the replacement had been a tiny woman—albeit toned and muscular—with golden skin and breathing problems. Why had they chosen her? Did they honestly think she could stand against him? He had snapped, like dead twigs, the bones of the khans who had dared to fight him. If he could cleave them, why not the little lady?

He would give her an especially painful death once the droids subdued the rest of Kalee. But for now, a few taunts would do—perhaps a few touches to see whether she was starting to wither yet.

"Kummar?" he rasped as he reached her cell. Still not quite used to his new voice, and astonished at her silence, he raised his tone. "Kummar!"

Many things had been impaired when he'd become injured, but his vision was not one of them. And she was not in the cell. He inserted a claw into the keyhole, opened the door, and bent down next to the form of his wounded MagnaGuard.

The chest was beat out, and the electrostaff stolen. She must have placed every kilogram of her weight—which was scanty, as he knew—upon the guard to kill it. Impressed but angered, he stood, speaking into the com-link that hooked onto his audio-receptor. "Khagan Kummar has escaped. I have sent a visual. Track her down and bring her to me alive."

Every battle droid on Kalee now knew what she looked like, and she would be delivered into his hands soon. In the meantime, he must return to the lodge in which he'd stayed as an organic being.

He broke the door to the Kaleela lodge down and entered on his hands and knees.

Of course it would. Kummar's been living in my home for seven months.

Meaning that she had likely disposed of Shia—or perhaps Shia had bought the lie that he was dead and continued to live here.

He called as softly as his vocabulator would allow. "Shia?" And—what was his daughter's name? "Rón?"

The house was deadly silent. Pulling the memory from deep within his mind, he entered Shia's bedroom. It was completely empty and clean. He dashed to the right in the direction of his daughter's room, but it too was empty and cold.

Curling his fists, he walked toward the exit. They abandoned me. They're afraid of me.

He crushed his eyes shut; he would have given a sick grin if he could. As well they should be.

✺✺✺

He burned the Kaleela lodge down; there was nothing left for him here. A new keep away from the prying eyes of the Republic was necessary. Somewhere more private, a place he had intended to visit long ago.

"The third moon of Vassek," he said to a holographic San Hill, stalking around the remains of the Kaleela lodge. "Is it possible for the Banking Clan to fund a building project there?"

"Possible," Hill repeated, reclining in his chair. "What would this project contain? We only have so much money to fund the war, Grievous."

"A fortress," he said. "A private keep."

"Does the Kaleela lodge not suffice?"

"It is far too small for someone such as me," he protested. "I require a larger place to lodge when I do not conduct the war."

A long sigh from the chairman. "Perhaps I can entertain the idea."

Grievous stared at his clenched hands, staring at his face in the small mirror across the room. "A final request, Chairman—show how I transformed. I don't want to forget what I looked like before."

"But don't you like your improvements, General?"

"That is correct," he said, "but sometimes it is better to learn from the past so as not to repeat it. I pray you understand," he continued, his voice growing huskier as he clenched a fist.

Hill, not swayed, gave a casual smile. "Of course. We will get right on it."

✺✺✺

Three months passed, and there was no sign of Kummar. Grievous could not understand how she had evaded him. By now every exit to the neighboring planet of Oben was blocked. Battle droids and their commanders were stationed at every tribe and every port. Weapons need not be taken, because the Kaleesh technology was futile against metal.

Between his infrequent visits to check up on the search, he embarked on a slew of missions against the Republic, leaving his trademark stain of more dead Jedi, and in turn, one step closer to his happiness. Each kill plunged him into immense pleasure, especially when he touched those beautiful, handcrafted weapons that were now magneted to his metallic hips—testaments that he had overcome the wicked Order.

✺✺✺

He transmitted the image of Kummar from the computers in his head to the computers in his home and began to study her. Clearly, droids could not be trusted to fetch her—a woman so resourceful, so intelligent....

Narrowing his eyes, he snapped out of the haze his mind had momentarily entered. He admired many people, allies and enemies, whom he hated. The Jedi, for their weapons—those weapons that had slaughtered his people. Asajj Ventress, the Sith assassin, Dooku's other apprentice.

But there was nobody he admired and loathed quite so much as Khagan Kummar.

I can break you. I break everyone eventually.

But who are you? He wondered more. He'd never heard of her, and by the time he'd returned, she had been the khagan for seven months.

He could extract the necessary information later. He would learn who she thought she was to steal his place.

His medical droid, given to him by the Banking Clan, walked in. "Master," it said, its robotic voice high but still masculine. "You have an incoming transmission from....Count Dooku."

He removed the image of Kummar from the screen—though Dooku was aware of the search and wanted her dead even more than he did—and swiveled his chair to where the count's hologram was standing.

He dropped to one knee. "Yes, my lord?"

"The elimination of Tovarskl is crucial to Separatist progress," Dooku said. "I have chosen you to oversee the task."

Tovarskl.

He looked upward, his hands shaking. "T....Tovarskl?"

"Tovarskl." His voice was silky soft, like fine linens against Grievous' touch-receptors. "The last planet that Kalee attempted to take before the Republic....muddied the waters."

He gazed downward, running his fingers along his chest. Memories poured into his mind, of pain and love and suffering. But mostly utter pain. Faces of several women whose names he'd forgotten appeared in his mind. "I remember," he said. "But I get to take it from them?"

"And cause some....collateral damage as well," Dooku said, his voice continuing to grow quieter. "Consider it an order from your master."

They both knew exactly what collateral damage meant.

"An order that I am pleased to obey," Grievous affirmed. "I will snuff out the remaining populace there."

✺✺✺

Ronderu touched her breastbone in the middle of the night. Sleep did not come easily to her. Having just managed to travel along the canyons until they had settled in the Oslu tribe, she hadn't rested properly from her head injury in three months, and couldn't find it in herself to sleep.

She walked in only her linens to the window, where all that greeted her was stone. The Krath warrior had burned down her home. Dooku must have programmed it specifically to target her anytime it was on Kalee. But her senses told her that it was no longer on Kalee at the moment.

But how could her senses tell her anything about it, when it was a droid?

A single string of pain lifted in her chest, and exhaustion crept upon her bones. What was to come was routine to her. It seemed that every time this happened to her, the messenger droid had news of the general's adventures in destroying the Republic.

She would be more than happy to let it burn....if Arna was still alive.

The door opened, and a battle droid entered the room. Ronderu made sure to cover her face so it couldn't identify her. "The general has completely eliminated the Yam'rii populace on Tovarskl."

Her mouth dropped open. Eliminated?

The general hates the Huk as much as we do?

But without another word, the droid left. Ronderu sank onto a bench near the window, unable to process its words.

◈◈◈

Did you know....

● Grievous committed two genocides against the Yam'rii in Legends, which is why we only see one Yam in the whole movie saga (in A New Hope). The second genocide eliminated the whole population of Tovarskl, leaving Huk itself as the only planet that still had a Yam'rii populace.

● The motivation I put here for Grievous putting statues in his lair actually has basis in canon. A producer of The Clone Wars said that the only reason he would do something like that was to convince himself that the path he'd chosen was the right one.

Tell me what you think....

● Can Grievous break Ronderu, or will she break him first?

● Did the Yam'rii get what they deserved in the end?