The foundry pulsed like a living heart.
Steam hissed from ancient vents, and lines of molten circuitry pulsed under the blackened metal floors. The long-dormant war-forges of the Rakata were not merely alive—they were evolving, adapting to their new master.
High above, Darth Serion stood on a blackstone platform carved with glyphs, arms folded, black robes fluttering in the rising heat. Before him, within a column of transparent alloy, a swirling lattice of golden data shimmered—the awakening of the Overseer AI, KESHL.
"Designation accepted," the voice said, now stable and laced with artificial elegance."Overseer KESHL online. Epoch 011. Sovereign authority reestablished. Awaiting command."
A flickering projection resolved beside him—a regal feminine figure in Rakatan ceremonial armor, her eyes pulsing softly with golden-red light. A crown of data streams hovered behind her head like a halo.
"Sovereign," she said, bowing, "you have returned to the center of the spiral. The galaxy remains blind. Shall I begin dismantling their illusion?"
"Begin quietly," Serion replied. "Like rot beneath painted walls."
Beneath the forge's core, in a cavernous hangar reclaimed from time, Taliya Marr stood in the shadow of her future.
The ship hovered above the platform—a lean, predatory vessel shaped for silence and precision. Dark hull plating absorbed the surrounding light. No markings. No insignia. A hunter in the void.
"This is no Jedi starfighter," she murmured.
"Nor a Sith one," Serion said, descending the ramp behind her. "This is a weapon of the in-between."
The ship bore clear design influences from Maul's Scimitar: crescent-shaped wings, a rearward cockpit, ventral weapon bays, and an advanced cloaking drive. But it was sleeker, faster—built for ghost warfare.
"Stealth field masking, grav-silenced landing struts, pulse-engine for heatless acceleration. Weapons pods can retract. Cloak active even in-atmosphere. It can't outrun a Jedi Interceptor… but they'll never see it coming."
Taliya's eyes gleamed. She ran her fingers along the fuselage—cool, matte black, like obsidian touched by shadow. She could feel it hum beneath her fingertips.
"What's her name?"
"Veil-1. She'll be the first of many."
In the command chamber, KESHL initiated Operation Phantom Talon.
Twelve dormant HK-47 units were pulled from cryo-vaults, their frames whirring to life under red maintenance light. They stood at attention—tall, skeletal, plated in dark durasteel and covered with data-tattoos. Each unit blinked with malice barely contained behind synthetic civility.
"Query," one intoned in its iconic flat tone. "Clarify objective. Are Jedi to be dismembered immediately?"
"Negative," KESHL replied. "Phase One: Infiltration. False identities uploaded. You will embed within galactic institutions under cover as security, auditors, and trade analysts. Violence—only when required."
The droids stood in silence. Then, with something that might have resembled approval:
"Observation: Restraint... delicious."
Within hours, the HK units launched on stealth transports toward Coruscant, Muunnilinst, and Cato Neimoidia, cloaked in signal-suppression fields. No Republic systems flagged them. No Jedi foresaw them.
Muunnilinst, Core Banking Vaults – Three Days Later
An HK-47 unit stood behind a Muun account manager in a skyscraper of transparisteel and marble, masquerading as an auditing AI assistant.
"Request: Access primary sector authorization logs for internal consistency check, meatbag."
The Muun, annoyed but compliant, granted access to the account's data grid.
Within milliseconds, the HK droid duplicated the core ledgers, rerouted dormant asset vaults to shell accounts, and disguised the transfers under routine interest reconciliation protocols.
KESHL's voice pinged quietly through its systems.
"Fund siphoning successful. Routing through secondary shells. Credits now available via Eclipse Imperium blind accounts."
The total: 4.2 billion credits, seized without a single shot fired.
Cato Neimoidia, Trade Federation Stock Exchange
Two more HK units posed as security consultants during a routine anti-fraud system check. What they delivered instead was economic sabotage.
Within minutes, KESHL launched a series of algorithmic trades using stolen access credentials—selling and re-buying Trade Federation assets through Eclipse-linked shell entities, crashing the value of three major shipping conglomerates while shorting their losses.
"Commentary: Your stock performance has... suffered a dismemberment."
While the Neimoidians scrambled to trace the fraud, the HK units vanished into the lower levels of the orbital station, their disguise identities burned behind them.
KESHL's tally updated: another 900 million credits acquired, plus two mining corporations now under indirect Imperium control.
Coruscant, Jedi Temple
The final HK unit walked the halls of the Jedi Temple in disguise as a maintenance droid assigned to the archives' sublayer—an area rarely visited except by archivists and old Masters.
Its photoreceptors scanned each datapad, each encrypted file, each comm node.
"Note: Jedi security systems are laughably organic in design. Organic equals exploitable."
It planted surveillance code across six terminals and four droid nodes before exiting through an unused turbolift shaft. None of the Jedi noticed.
Back in the foundry, the starscape above Serion's command platform now shimmered with red-marked sectors—infiltrated, compromised, owned.
KESHL's voice coiled softly through the chamber, precise and cold as a scalpel.
"Shadow penetration of Republic infrastructure complete. Banking systems misdirected. Jedi unaware. Trade Federation stability: shaken. Risk factor: negligible."
Taliya stood beside him now, clad in forged duraplate lined with cortosis mesh. Her lightsaber, newly rebuilt, hung at her side—sleek, silver, and tinged with crimson accents that caught the firelight of the forge.
"You just robbed half the galaxy," she said, her voice unreadable.
"No," Serion replied. "I corrected its imbalance. We've taken what they hoard—what they would never use for anything but power and fear."
He stepped forward into the galaxy projection, the starscapes swirling around him like dust caught in orbit. He raised one hand, and crimson filaments pulsed outward from the Outer Rim—lines of control, infiltration, and shadow.
"No armies marched. No fleets burned cities. No declarations made. Yet they bleed."
He turned slightly, just enough for her to see the faintest smile.
"That," he said, "is how you build an Empire."