“What changes will you be making?”  Grievous said.

“Allow me to explain. I recall that you were quite disappointed to learn of your complete lack of force sensitivity.”

“Of course I was!  What of it?”  Grievous said irritably.  Of all the things for the Muun to bring up, why did he have to choose that?

“Well, what if I told you that there was something I could do about that?”

“What could you possibly do?  Even Count Dooku couldn't give me the power of the Force!”

“Well, it wouldn't be the Force, per se, but it would give you more of the abilities that the Jedi possess.  Imagine if you could pull metallic objects to you, or shock someone with electricity with the power of your mind alone!”

“You could do that?  Give me those abilities?”

“Easily, why I'm astounded we didn't think of it before!  The magnetic pull ability is just a simple refinement of your current magnetic implants.  And while an electric modulator with that much power is certainly expensive, there is nothing technologically complex about it.  It might take you a while to accustom yourself to the new abilities, but they will surely be easier to master than using four arms simultaneously!  Some simple additions to your motor cortex will be needed, and a few tweaks here and there.  General, you are a marvel of engineering, but these simple improvements may just be the edge you need against the Jedi!”

“More upgrades,” Grievous said.  “Yes, I think you're right.  I want these changes completed immediately.”  He laughed then, already thinking what a nasty surprise his new abilities would be for the Jedi,

San Hill nodded and promptly arranged for the procedure to obtain the upgrades he had promised.  Grievous was ushered to the medical room and a medical droid gestured to a metallic slab.  The cyborg general settled himself onto it.

San Hill walked up to him.  “I hope you will find the upgrades to your liking.”

“If they help me decimate the Jedi Order, then they will be very much to my liking.”

San Hill smiled. “I think they will.”

The medical droid said,  “Please be very still, General.  This will be a very delicate operation.”

The General complied.  The droid carefully removed his facemask.  Grievous winced at the sensation.  When the action was completed, however, he simply stared straight ahead, his mind moving to strategies for upcoming battles.  It was as he was pondering how to successfully take Kamino, that something very unusual happened.  He fell asleep.

Grievous blinked his eyes blearily.  In front of him he saw the faces of San Hill and the medical droid.  “What--happened?”

“The procedure was a success!” San Hill said briskly.  “Perhaps you should practice your new abilities.”

Grievous stepped off the metal operating slab.  “Something seems wrong,” he said.  His mind seemed--noisy.  Where before there had been little but thoughts of strategy and killing Jedi, now he found it difficult to focus.  He tried to think of the Kamino battle again, but his mind wandered to Dooku and his constant admonitions of the cyborg’s battle tactics and what the Count thought of as ‘distasteful obsessions’, such as the General’s collection of lightsaber trophies.  Then he thought of how strange the medical droid standing passively at his side seemed compared to his own, with a blandly pleasant personality instead of a scathingly sarcastic one.  And suddenly, his mind thought of how long it had been since he had seen his homeworld of Kalee.

Kalee.  He had been going to travel there before the accident.  That had been years ago.

The accident.  Floating in a bacta tank, completely helpless.  Kalee again.  Death.  Pain.  Fear.

He growled, clutching his head.What's wrong with me?

“General?” San Hill said nervously.

Grievous turned on him.  “You botched something!”

The Muun frowned.  “What do you mean?”

Grievous picked him up by his collar and pulled him off the ground.  Bringing his mask mere centimeters from the Muun’s face, he growled, “What did you do to my mind?!”

San’s hands clutched at Grievous’s metallic arm desperately.  Dangling helplessly in front of the cyborg, he squeaked something in the Muun language and then in panicked Basic said, “Please, let me explain!”

Grievous slowly placed the Muun back on the floor.  “Very well.  You had best do so quickly, for your sake.”

The Muun grimaced, rubbing at his neck.  “You're probably experiencing what the medical droid referred to as memory backlash.  It's happening because I had the med droid remove the control chips Dooku had placed in your mind. I also instructed it to heal the damage they had caused,” San Hill said quickly. “It might seem overwhelming right now, but I was told you should adjust to the changes soon.”  He held up his hands defensively. “Please don’t kill me.  I was only trying to uphold my end of our agreement.”

Grievous snarled.  “If that were truly the case, then how did I end up with such alterations in the first place!”  He had specifically said that no one was to alter his mind!  It had been in the verbal agreement that San had accepted in lieu of a written contract.

“It was Dooku’s idea, not mine!” San Hill said, his eyes wide.  “He would have killed me if I hadn’t allowed him to perform that procedure.  Then I wouldn’t have been able to redress his breach of contract at all!  I had to let him go through with it.  But that’s why I concocted this pretext to operate on you.  I was just trying to uphold my end of our agreement, I swear!”

“So the other changes--”

“Are quite real!  But my main purpose in this procedure was to remove Dooku’s blocks.  I couldn't give you back the connections you had before, but eventually the new brain matter will form proper connections between your old memories instead of indiscriminately transmitting them as they did just now.”

Grievous could feel anger boiling inside of him.  The thought that Dooku might have resorted to such trickery had never occurred to him.  Grievous would have agreed to serve Dooku willingly without the need for such manipulation.  The promise of destroying the Jedi who had helped ravage his homeworld was more than sufficient to motivate him.  That Dooku had still betrayed him in a such a way was unforgivable.  “Tell me more about these--control chips.”

“I don't know his exact motivations.  But I do know that Dooku wasn’t content to hold you to your honorable word.  Perhaps it’s because he has no honor himself, or perhaps he just needed to feel he had complete control over you.  So he greatly reduced your ability to reflect on your past, and increased your aggression so you wouldn’t have control over it.”

Grievous growled and struck out at a control panel with a flash of lightning.  The panel crackled and exploded in a burst of sparks.  He blinked in surprise, looking at the fingers on his hand. He had just performed an attack with Force lightning.  Well, a passable imitation of it, anyway.  He hadn't expected that to be so—easy.

“Ah, I see the electrical modulator works,” San said, chuckling nervously.  “Why don't you try the magnetic resonance additions?”

Grievous nodded curtly and held out the same hand towards one of his lightsabers, which lay on a table near the operating bed.  Concentrating on pulling it towards him, he felt a surge of satisfaction when the lightsaber flew directly into his hand.  He had to root himself to the floor with the magnetic resonators in his feet to keep himself from being pulled towards the metal table, however, which was itself fortunately bolted to the floor.  Concentrating again, he stopped the magnetic pull from his hand.

“Hmmm, perhaps you'll need a bit of practice with the intensity of the pull, but you're doing an excellent job!”

Grievous laughed.  “The Jedi will learn the meaning of true fear now,” he said.

San said,  “Yes, I'm certain they will.”

“But first, there is the matter of Dooku,” Grievous said, clasping his hands behind his back.“His greed seems to know no bounds.  He must die.”

“I agree,” San Hill said.  “Count Dooku seeks only his own enrichment.”

Grievous narrowed his eyes at him.  “You have room to talk.”

The Muun met the General's steely gaze this time.  “I may be self-interested, but I don't discard people on a whim,” the Muun said.  “When I first joined the Separatists, I thought Dooku's leadership would benefit us all.  But the more I saw of his decisions, the more I realized that everyone,everyone has but a limited use to him.  And once that use has ended, they become—expendable.  I have no interest in waiting until his use for me runs out.”

“So you helped me for your own purposes, then.”

“Yes,” San Hill said.  “But also because I never go back on my word.”

Eyes still narrowed, Grievous said, “You do have some honor, I suppose, even if I find you highly distasteful.”

“Yes, well, I feel the same about you, General,” San said.  “It seems we must trust each other's sense of honor in this, after all.  You will need my help.  And I need yours.  I can hardly expect to destroy Count Dooku myself, after all. If I may ask, how do you intend to destroy him?  As I understand, Sith are nearly indestructible.”

“Preferably by arranging for his ship to meet an unfortunate accident during battle,” Grievous said.  “If I can make it appear like a Republic attack, all the better.  Facing him directly would be--unwise.”  The Sith Lord had outmatched him in all their sparring battles.  But that had been under controlled circumstances, when the Count knew he was fighting the General.    Grievous planned instead to use deception and surprise to kill Dooku.

“And, ah, what of Sidious?” San Hill said.

“I shall need to know if Sidious knew of this deception as well,” Grievous said.  His golden eyes turned to bore into the Muun banker.  “Perhaps you might know the answer to that question.

San Hill swallowed.  “Yes, I do.  He knew everything.  He even praised Dooku for conceiving the plan.”

Hatred boiled inside Grievous, but he shackled his emotions this time instead of lashing out. I can control my anger now.  It is my weapon, not Dooku's.

“Then I shall ensure he meets his end as well,” Grievous said.  “That will take some deception on both my part and yours.  We must draw this more elusive Sith to us carefully.  But first, I will need to kill Dooku.”

“If I may ask, what will happen to the Separatist government if you succeed?” San Hill said.

Grievous shrugged.  “That is not my concern.  I believe the Parliament has some sort of laws in place to cover such an eventuality.”

“Yes, ah, they vote for a new chancellor, while using the next person in the order of succession for the interim chancellor.  But losing Dooku so suddenly would put them in upheaval.  It would cause chaos--”  San stopped and looked up at the General's blazing gold eyes.

“I mean it might give the Jedi an advantage,”  San said.

Grievous's eyes narrowed.  “I will personally shield the Parliament from any and all attacks, whether they be Jedi or Sith in origin.  I will serve their wishes, as long as they do not keep me from mine.  That was our agreement, after all.”  For the first time in a long time, however, Grievous had more than one wish.I need to return to Kalee, explain to them what happened to me, see if I can—be of service to my people. It was for the Kaleesh that Grievous sought to wreak vengeance upon the Jedi in the first place.  Dooku had made him forget that.  Well, not forget it, exactly, but his thought processes had been so thoroughly sabotaged as to prevent him from from doing anything about it.  The memories had all been there, just almost entirely disconnected from his planning ability.  He wondered now if that had been why Dooku had seemed so displeased whenever Grievous had made any reference to his culture or homeworld, such as having his magnaguards wear the signature capes of the Izvoshra or when he had had the statues of himself done in his private fortress.

Turning his thoughts back to the present, he looked down at the Muun thoughtfully.  “In any event, I'm sure you are aware of the need for secrecy in this matter,” Grievous said.

“Yes,” San Hill said.  “Very much so.”