Uncharted Space – Outer Rim, Vector X-5D
The stars here didn't align with any Republic map.
Even the Silent Wrath's navicomputer refused to name the system. A gas giant loomed below them, ringed in violent storms and electromagnetic haze. It was the kind of place Jedi were taught to avoid—uncharted, untouched, steeped in secrets.
Anakin Skywalker stood at the viewport in silence, arms crossed.
Behind him, Ahsoka Tano worked at a low-frequency signal scrambler.
"This is the third dead system we've hit," she said. "No signs. No contact. Just the same distorted signature."
Anakin didn't answer. His jaw was locked. His eyes never left the storm-shrouded horizon.
"He was here," Anakin said. "I feel it."
"Maybe," Ahsoka replied. "But feeling isn't finding. And if this is connected to the Seeds, we still don't know what we're looking for."
They had chased scattered signals, broken coordinates, and encrypted Separatist debris across four systems. All dead ends. All burned or buried.
There was no trace of Serion.
And the sixth Seed? A mystery still hidden in silence.
Zereth Prime – The Forgeheart
Deep within the heart of his command world, Serion stood before a new interface. The fifth Seed had opened a new map—a projection not of locations, but patterns. Ancient gravitational scars. Pre-Republic migration routes. Dead lanes.
At their intersection floated a single point, shrouded in electromagnetic noise.
"It lives," said Keshl, her voice more tonal now, more... alive.
"Show me," Serion commanded.
A projection emerged—a Vong bioship, dormant, its hull coiled around a Seed like bone around a nerve. The sixth Seed had not simply been hidden there.
It had chosen it.
"The Seed is dreaming," Keshl said. "Not in code. In memory."
"And does it remember me?"
"No. But it will."
Orbit of Object Sigma-Black – Aboard the Silent Wrath
The vessel floated ahead like a carcass in the void—massive, organic, its shape more grown than built. No visible engines. No windows. Only veined ridges and hollow eyes. A rogue Yuuzhan Vong bioship, its signal long since corrupted.
The same electromagnetic signature that had led them here… pulsed from its core.
Anakin leaned forward.
"We breach."
"Are you sure it's Serion?" Ahsoka asked.
"No," he admitted. "But it's not nothing. And that's all we've had."
Inside Sigma-Black
They entered through a jagged scar in the hull. No light. No sound. The walls pulsed faintly with heat and biological rhythms. Every step sank slightly into organic sinew. It was like walking through something still breathing.
"This ship's dead," Jesse muttered. "But not empty."
Anakin led them deeper, saber in hand but unlit, until they reached a chamber like a heart.
At its center floated a crystalized spire—dark, cracked, wrapped in strands of organic tissue.
A Seed.
But Anakin didn't know it.
To him, it was only another unknown—another dead end that felt heavy in the Force, but offered no answers.
He stepped closer, placing a hand on the air between them.
The Seed pulsed.
A ripple of pressure tore through the Force.
Ahsoka gasped.
Jesse stumbled.
Anakin staggered back, but remained on his feet. He could feel something there. Not darkness. Not clarity. Just... weight. Like a question he didn't know he was asking.
"What is this?"
No one could answer.
A moment later, the ship convulsed. Walls tightened. The Seed's pulse stopped. The bioship began to collapse inward—not in attack, but in retreat.
They escaped with seconds to spare, launching the Silent Wrath into emergency subspace jump.
No answers. No signs of Serion. No understanding of the Seed.
Just another shadow left behind.
Zereth Prime – Interface Vault
Serion watched the bioship vanish from sensors.
Keshl's voice returned.
"They touched it. Skywalker was there."
"Did he understand?"
"No."
Serion said nothing. A long silence passed.
Then:
"That's good. He'll chase again. We need him to."
Coruscant – Jedi War Council
Anakin reported nothing.
Just "no trace," "no evidence," and "the trail's gone cold."
The sixth Seed remained unmentioned. Unnamed. Unknown.
Even Ahsoka didn't bring it up. Because what could they say?
What had they seen?
Only something that pushed back.
Zereth Prime – Later
In the darkness, Serion stood at the edge of the archive vault, where the seventh Seed now pulsed faintly.
Seven voices. Seven doors.
And soon, the galaxy would hear them all.