Taliya descended the final ramp of Veil-1, boots touching down on black alloy etched with ancient Rakatan script. The hangar was silent but alive with low resonance—like the structure itself was breathing.
The Seed Core pulsed behind her, locked in a containment case of folded durasteel and null-field layers. She didn't dare look directly at it for long. Even unactivated, it made the Force bend around it—subtle but relentless.
A Herald greeted her—sleek, silent, humanoid in shape but clearly synthetic. It nodded, then stepped aside.
Serion stood at the far end of the chamber, framed by the massive spires of the forge control altar. Blue-white energy arced along the metal pylons beside him, casting skeletal shadows across the wall.
Taliya approached without speaking and held out the case.
Serion opened it with a single gesture.
The Seed Core was like a star trapped in obsidian—a black crystalline sphere, pulsing from within with violet-gold light. Ancient circuitry spiraled across its surface like veins.
He stared for a long moment, then closed the case.
"Well done," he said. "Few can take from a Hutt and live."
"I had help," Taliya admitted. "Two Jedi. Skywalker and Kenobi. I didn't kill them."
Serion turned his head slightly. "And why is that?"
"They weren't the kind of Jedi I expected," she said. "They were different. Quicker. Smarter. One of them fights like he feels everything."
Serion gave a faint smile.
"Skywalker."
"You know him?"
"I know what he will become."
Taliya frowned, but didn't press. Some truths with Serion came like cracks in stone—gradual, revealed under pressure.
"The Core?" she asked.
"Is the key," Serion said. "One of three."
"To what?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he gestured for the Herald to take the case.
"The AI systems have adapted. Keshl will absorb the Seed's logic. With it, our forges will breathe in rhythm with the Force. The machines will evolve… not by command, but by instinct."
Taliya shivered slightly.
She couldn't tell if he was building an army… or something closer to a species.
On Coruscant, Padmé Amidala stood at the center of the Senate's Grand Convocation Chamber, voice strong despite the indifference around her.
"We cannot continue this war without questioning the cost. Entire systems are being razed. Refugees flood the Mid Rim. If diplomacy has even a chance, we must seize it."
Scattered murmurs. A few nods.
But more silence.
The Peace Faction's influence was waning. Even Senators who once stood beside her now looked away.
Whispers moved through the political core: anonymous reports of increased Separatist aggression, of Jedi saboteurs, of military shortfalls. Panic was setting in, and someone—somewhere—was feeding it.
Bail Organa met her outside the chamber.
"They didn't even debate it," he said bitterly. "The motion was dead before you opened your mouth."
Padmé glanced upward at the Senate spire.
"We're losing this war… and someone wants us to stay lost."
On the shattered world of Felarin, in the ruins of a once-great city now reduced to ash and cratered steel, the Separatist Council convened in an underground vault lit by static-scarred holoprojectors.
Droid General Grievous loomed over the table, claws drumming impatiently. Wat Tambor adjusted his breathing apparatus with an irritated hiss.
Count Dooku stood at the head of the table, hands clasped behind his back.
"The Jedi stretch themselves thin. Their Order has grown reckless. And now… the Republic bleeds faster than they know."
San Hill of the Banking Clan sneered. "Then press the attack. Why wait?"
"Because we no longer must fight their war," Dooku said calmly. "Now, they must fight ours."
He turned and gestured. A holoprojection rose from the table—a sleek, curved weapon unlike any standard droid or ship. It bore no obvious origin.
"This," he said, "was given to me by an unseen hand. A weapon designed not to destroy fleets—but to break the Jedi."
They leaned closer.
It was a hybrid: part machine, part mind. A walking terror, armored in phrik-alloy shell, imbued with Force-reactive circuitry.
"It is called a Harvester," Dooku said. "And it feeds on energy… especially the kind the Jedi wield."
Nute Gunray narrowed his eyes. "You're saying it hunts Jedi?"
"I've seen it in action," Dooku replied. "It doesn't duel. It absorbs. Blade, mind, spirit—it drinks the Light from them."
A silence fell across the table.
"And who gave you this?" asked Tambor. "What hand?"
Dooku smiled faintly. "A friend to our cause. But not one who sits in the light."
Elsewhere, within a submerged vault beneath Kamino, a Herald stood unmoving in the shadows above the cloning chambers.
Its presence went unnoticed by the Kaminoans. It had not interfered, only watched.
It was not built for combat.
It was built for understanding.
And in the last four cycles, it had already mapped the neural patterns of the clones, the genetic drift in accelerated batches, and the unusual degradation in certain units—those exposed to heightened Force activity.
It recorded everything.
Serion had not sent it to attack.
He had sent it to learn.
In the darkness above Zereth Prime, the Oblivion drifted alone.
It did not dream.
But it waited.