Abaixo estão trechos do romance. Dookan aguarda o cativeiro e servir no novo Império:
"It will be," he said slowly, meditatively, as though he spoke only to himself, "an embarrassment to be captured by him." The voice that answered him was so familiar that sometimes his very thoughts spoke in it, instead of in his own. "An embarrassment you can survive, Lord Tyranus. After all, he is the greatest Jedi alive, is he not? And have we not ensured that all the galaxy shares this opinion?" "Quite so, my Master. Quite so." Again, Dooku sighed. Today he felt every hour of his eighty-three years. "It is ... fatiguing, to play the villain for so long, Master. I find myself looking forward to an honorable captivity."
A captivity that would allow him to sit out the rest of the war in comfort; a captivity that would allow him to forswear his former allegiances-when he would conveniently appear to finally discover the true extent of the Separatists' crimes against civilization-and bind himself to the new government with his reputation for integrity and idealism fully intact. The new government ... This had been their star of destiny for lo, these many years. A government clean, pure, direct: none of the messy scramble for the favor of ignorant rabble and subhuman creatures that made up the Republic he so despised. The government he would serve would be Authority personified. Human authority. It was no accident that the primary powers of the Confederacy of Independent Systems were Neimoidian, Skakoan, Quarren and Aqualish, Muun and Gossam, Sy Myrthian and Koorivar and Geonosian. At war's end the aliens would be crushed, stripped of all they possessed, and their systems and their wealth would be given into the hands of the only beings who could be trusted with them. Human beings. Dooku would serve an Empire of Man. And he would serve it as only he could. As he was born to. He would smash the Jedi Order to create it anew: not shackled by the corrupt, narcissistic, shabby little beings who called themselves politicians, but free to bring true authority and true peace to a galaxy that so badly needed both. An Order that would not negotiate. Would not mediate. An Order that would enforce. The survivors of the Jedi Order would become the Sith Army. The Fist of the Empire.
Sidious explica o plano de matar Obi-Wan para Dooku:
"Kenobi must die. Today. At your hand. His death may be the code key of the final lock that will seal Skywalker to us forever."
Dooku understood: not only would the death of his mentor tip Skywalker's already unstable emotional balance down the darkest of slopes, but it would also remove the greatest obstacle to Skywalker's successful conversion. As long as Kenobi was alive, Skywalker would never be securely in the camp of the Sith; Kenobi's unshakable faith in the values of the Jedi would keep the Jedi blindfold on Skywalker's eyes and the Jedi shackles on the young man's true power.
Still, though, Dooku had some reservations. This had all come about too quickly; had Sidious thought through all the implications of this operation? "But I must ask, my Master: is Skywalker truly the man we want?"
"He is powerful. Potentially more powerful than even myself."
"Which is precisely," Dooku said meditatively, "why it might be best if I were to kill him, instead."
Dookan vê o plano como um caminho para a Sith Masterhood:
Improving upon his Master's plan was near to impossible; his own idea, of substituting Kenobi for Skywalker, he had to admit was only the product of a certain misplaced sentimentality. Skywalker was almost certainly the man for the job. He should be; Darth Sidious had spent a considerable number of years making him so. Today's test would remove the almost. He had no doubt that Skywalker would fall. Dooku understood that this was more than a test for Skywalker; though Sidious had never said so directly, Dooku was certain that he himself was being tested as well. Success today would show his Master that he was worthy of the mantle of Mastery himself: by the end of the coming battle, he would have initiated Skywalker into the manifold glories of the dark side, just as Sidious had initiated him.
Mais do plano envolvendo Anakin e a destruição da Ordem Jedi:
With his heroic capture of Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker will become the ultimate hero: the greatest hero in the history of he Republic, perhaps of the Jedi Order itself. The loss of his beloved partner will add just exactly the correct spice of tragedy to give melancholy weight to his every word, when he gives his HoloNet interviews denouncing the Senate's corruption as impeding the war effort, when he delicately-oh, so delicately, not to mention reluctantly-insinuates that corruption in the Jedi Order prolonged the war as well. When he announces the creation of a new order of Force-using warriors. He will be the perfect commanding general for the Sith Army.
Dooku could only shake his head in awe. And to think that only days earlier, the Jedi had seemed so close to uncovering, even destroying, all he and his Master had worked for. But he should never have feared. His Master never lost. He would never lose. He was the definition of unbeatable. How can one defeat an enemy one thinks is a friend? And now, with a single brilliant stroke, his Master would turn the Jedi Order back upon itself like an Ethrani ourobouros devouring its own tail. This was the day. The hour. The death of Obi-Wan Kenobi would be the death of the Republic. Today would see the birth of the Empire.
"Tyranus? Are you well?"
"Am I . . ." Dooku realized that his eyes had misted. "Yes, my Master. I am beyond well. Today, the climax-the grand finale the culmination of all your decades of work ... I find myself somewhat overcome."
"Compose yourself, Tyranus. Kenobi and Skywalker are nearly at the door. Play your part, my apprentice, and the galaxy is ours."