Zereth Prime – Deep Core
The fourth Seed floated in stasis, locked within a cryo-field at the apex of the forge. Its containment shell pulsed with fractured harmonics—Force echoes, fragmented memories, corrupted directives still clinging to an identity long decayed.
Serion stood before it, unmoving.
All around him, the great forge complex hummed with shifting machinery—spires rose, energy thrummed through gravity tethers, and the Overseer AI Keshl projected silent streams of code along the blackened steel walls.
The fourth Seed was the most volatile. Unlike the others, it had resisted.
Not physically. Not with weapons.
With memory.
It had tried to remind him of what it once was—of the Jedi who buried it, the dark wars it had survived, and the truth of what it had seen before being sealed: an ancient synthesis of will and machine that had nearly consumed the Force itself.
But Serion did not care for memory.
He cared for dominion.
He reached forward—not physically, but through the Force and through the lattice of Keshl's network. The Seed began to tremble. The protective shell fractured. Lightning danced across its surface, then bent inward.
"Initiating interface lockdown," Keshl intoned. "Warning: core identity persistence at 27%."
"Strip it," Serion said.
The room darkened.
The Seed's will fought back—screaming in pulses that blurred time. Within the fracture, Serion glimpsed images: starships of living crystal, Jedi severing their connection to the Force out of fear, Rakatan priests binding minds in circuitry, forging consciousness in the image of war.
One voice tried to remain.
"You are not its master…"
Serion's eyes burned red.
"I am now."
With a surge of power, the Seed collapsed inward. Its mind—what little remained—was torn from its bindings. Ancient protocols, encrypted constructs, lost war tactics, and maps from pre-Republic dark zones flowed into Keshl's core matrix.
"Upload complete," the AI said, now steadier. "Fourth Seed neutralized. Subroutines integrated."
Serion lowered his hand.
And smiled.
"Begin fabrication of the Harbinger Protocol."
Outer Rim – Deep Space, Vector Uncharted
Beyond the known star charts, past the navigational hazards of the Tion Cluster, a small organic ship drifted between gravity wells.
It was not mechanical.
It pulsed.
Its hull was bone. Its engine, a gas-sac shaped like a heart.
It made no noise, no signature. It passed beneath hyperlanes and satellite arrays without detection. It had no AI, no droid brain, no readable systems.
But it saw.
It studied.
Inside, something hunched low to the deck, gazing through a fleshy viewport: a Yuuzhan Vong scout—scarred, plated in vonduun crab armor, its face marked by ritual. It made no recording.
Only remembered.
"The shapers will want to see this," it rasped in its native tongue.
Zereth Prime was still distant.
But it had smelled it. The blood of a living world that had been forged into steel.
A blasphemy.
A prize.
Mid Rim – Atrio SystemJedi Operation "Iron Wreath"
The Separatists had fortified the orbit of Atrio Prime with seven capital ships, a planetary shield, and a full mechanized division. The Jedi Council declared it a lost front. Retreat recommended.
Anakin Skywalker disagreed.
He stood aboard a modified Republic assault cruiser, studying the enemy formation from a forward viewport, arms crossed.
"They're not expecting an orbital descent on the north hemisphere," he said.
"Because it's a minefield," Commander Appo replied.
"Exactly," Anakin smirked. "So they'll assume no sane person would go through it."
"And we're…?"
"Different."
Within hours, Skywalker led three Jedi and two full companies of clone commandos through an uncharted descent vector, punching through the minefield with precision slicing and raw Force-aided reflexes. Half the team died on entry.
The other half reached the planetary shield control facility behind enemy lines.
And Anakin?
He tore through a division of droids like lightning through a dry tree—blades flashing, rage tightly coiled beneath focus. No elegance. Just purpose.
When the shield fell and the Republic reinforcements arrived, they found Anakin already standing atop the tower, cloak tattered, saber lowered.
"We're done here," he said.
Jedi Masters praised his tactics.
The clones revered him.
And Obi-Wan, far away, frowned quietly.
"He's starting to win too easily," he said.
Zereth Prime – Observation Deck
Serion stood beside a new prototype.
The Harbinger Unit.
It stood three meters tall—humanoid, but wrong. Its plating was raw phrik, veined with kyber lattice. A core pulsed in its chest, taken from the fourth Seed. Its face had no features—only a mirrored surface that reflected others, not itself.
"It will not need orders," Keshl explained. "It will interpret the battlefield as language. It will weaponize uncertainty."
Serion watched it power up.
"Good," he said. "The Jedi thrive in certainty. Let them drown in their faith."
Behind him, Taliya Marr entered, bruised from the fourth Seed mission but alive.
"You broke it," she said, nodding to the empty Seed cradle.
"I broke what kept it asleep," he replied. "Now it teaches."
"And what did it know?"
Serion turned toward her. His voice was low, almost reverent.
"The truth: that the Force was never a gift. It was a question we answered wrong."
She said nothing.
"The Seeds were made by those who tried to answer it another way," Serion continued. "Not Jedi. Not Sith. Something older. They failed. I won't."
"You're sure?" she asked.
"I have seen their memories. Their fears. Their flaws. Now I know what they were hiding from."
He walked to the viewport, eyes fixed on the stars.
"And I know what's coming next."
Jedi Temple – Coruscant
Yoda sat in silence.
Across from him, a relic sat on the table—a cracked Rakatan datastone, recovered from a forgotten vault. It had spoken of Seeds. Of Force-fueled minds that tried to conquer destiny by becoming more than flesh.
"Too much," Yoda whispered. "They reached too far."
He looked up as Obi-Wan entered, his expression dark.
"Anakin took Atrio Prime. Alone, nearly. No backup. He's winning battles before the Council can predict them."
Yoda's ears lowered.
"Power… is not always victory."
"I know," Obi-Wan said. "But I think he doesn't."
They said nothing for a long time.
And across the galaxy, something outside the Force moved closer.