Zereth Prime was not on any chart.
Once, it had been a jewel in the Infinite Empire—a world of crystalline cities and psionic engines. Now, it was a tomb. The star at its center had collapsed into a blue-white singularity centuries before the Old Republic. Time itself bent there. Signals vanished. Ships that entered its orbit returned centuries later… or not at all.
But Serion had found it.
He stood alone in the command chamber of the Oblivion Ascendant, watching the star's hungry gravity twist the light of nearby stars. Around Zereth's orbit, ruins floated—shards of a planetary ring system laced with technology older than language.
Memory fragment—32 cycles prior
Serion's old ship, Black Requiem, coasted past the debris field. Its droid crew had long since shut down. He moved through it in silence, a lone figure drawn by dreams.
At the core of the field, buried in a hollow moon, he found it: a Rakatan vault, still pulsing.
It did not open with keys. It opened with thought.
He placed his hand on the obsidian gate, and it welcomed him.
Inside, he found silence. Then code. Then mind.
"You are not of the blood," said the voice.
"No," Serion replied. "But I remember."
In a chamber of mirrors and wires, suspended in a column of light, the Rakatan AI Core spoke with a thousand voices. It had no name. Only purpose.
"We were meant to shape the stars. The Jedi ended us. The Sith corrupted us."
"I would rebuild you," Serion whispered. "But not to rule. To prepare."
He showed it what he had seen. Visions of a future clouded in war. A shadow not of Sith or Jedi, but something else. The AI did not question. It adapted.
"We require vessels," it said. "Not ships. Hosts."
So the designs were forged. The Harvesters—warforms built from Mandalorian alloys, Rakatan neurosilk, and Separatist exodroids. Not merely machines. Not droids. Synthetic evolution.
He left the vault with more than schematics. He left with the Seed—a fragment of the AI that he installed deep within the Oblivion Ascendant's core.
Now.
Count Dooku walked with Grievous across the ravaged surface of Arkanis. The test had been successful.
"We target unstable worlds," Dooku said. "Worlds on the edge. Places no one will miss."
Grievous growled. "And the scream weapon?"
Dooku gestured to the sky, where an invisible ripple still distorted the clouds. "Contained. Directed. A combination of hyper-resonance, dark energy harmonics, and memory collapse. A Jedi hears it—and breaks."
Grievous clenched a clawed fist. "Let me deploy it on Felucia next."
"No," Dooku said sharply. "Felucia is bait. Let the Republic think it's a victory. The real test is Dathomir. If the Nightsisters break, we will know the weapon is ready."
Elsewhere in the galaxy, shadows stirred.
On Korriban, the last of the Sith tombs cracked open—not by acolytes, but by Harvester infiltration. What knowledge remained was absorbed, digitized.
On Hypori, Serion's machines rooted into the old droid foundries, corrupting command code left over from the Clone Wars.
On Kamino, rogue clones began disappearing. Taken not by deserters—but by something that arrived in a ship that never registered, and left before the water rippled.
Back on the Ascendant, Serion stood in the Vaultchamber.
The Seed whispered:
"Zereth stirs. A mind returns. The Gate begins to open."
He turned to the schematics on the central console. The next phase.
Not Harvesters.
Heralds.
Built not for battle—but for awakening.
And in the deepest part of Zereth Prime, something pulsed once. Then again.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Waiting.