Rain fell like silver knives across the storm-battered platform. Each drop hissed as it struck durasteel, running in rivulets across armor plates, painting the 104th Wolfpack in a sheen of wet gray. Even the painted wolf jaws on their helmets seemed dulled by the relentless storm.
CT-2391—Husk—was first out of the gunship, boots splashing against the slick metal as his blaster barrel scanned the dark horizon. Around him, his brothers disembarked in practiced synchronicity, a dozen silhouettes moving as one beneath the heavy rain. The Wolfpack always moved together, fought together, and slept together. They were a unit, a family. And families looked after one another—even when storms like this threatened to swallow them whole.
Behind them, Plo Koon descended the ramp with the quiet grace of a predator aware of every sound, every motion. His robes clung wetly to his frame, droplets pooling along the ridges of his respirator. He paused at the edge of the platform, head tilted toward the black, roiling ocean. There was nothing but wind, rain, and the low, menacing hum of waves against the distant pylons.
"Master," Husk's voice crackled in the comlink, careful, respectful. "Is… something wrong?"
Plo did not answer immediately. His senses reached out, through the storm, beyond the platform, into the sea. The Force was restless here, thick and heavy, pressing against the edges of his mind. It was not absence—it was expectation. Something waited beneath the waves, patient and silent.
"The silence," he said at last, voice calm, measured, betraying nothing of the tension within. "Do you hear it?"
The clones glanced at one another. Outside, the storm raged, the rain battered the metal, but yes—something was missing. Even the wind seemed hesitant, reluctant to break the quiet that pressed down over the outpost.
Husk shook his head. "I… just hear the storm, sir."
Plo did not reply. He simply raised his hand, signaling the squad to begin. They moved with precision, scanning every corner of the platform, every doorway of the abandoned listening post. The air smelled of wet metal and ozone, of rain and rust, and yet there was something else—a subtle undertone, like the tang of iron carried through water.
Hours passed, and by nightfall the Wolfpack had established a perimeter inside the command center. Helmets were off, armor propped aside, rifles resting at their sides. The storm outside hammered against the walls, echoing through corridors lined with rusted panels and flickering lights.
The first signs were subtle. CT-4115—Muzzle—kept staring at a bulkhead, as though it were watching him back. "Feels like Kamino," he muttered. "The air, the water… the smell."
"Everything feels like Kamino to you," Husk said, shaking his head, but there was no laughter in his voice. Not this time.
"No," Muzzle whispered, almost to himself. "Not like this."
Plo Koon, seated in meditation near the center of the room, opened his eyes. The Force here was different. Not chaotic—quiet, patient, and cold. It pressed inward, probing at the edges of life itself, like the pull of a tide that promised to swallow everything whole.
That night, every man in the Wolfpack dreamed the same dream.
Black water. Endless, oppressive, swallowing. Kamino's oceans, vast and unfeeling. Voices, soft at first, chanting numbers that made no sense, yet somehow lodged in the deepest memory of the mind. They struggled, clawed at invisible currents, lungs burning, hearts thrashing in unison.
And when they woke, they did so as one. Gasps of air that felt like fire, hands clawing at their throats. The storm had not penetrated their bunks, yet their sheets were soaked, slick against the skin. Every clone touched his neck—and felt the ridges, faint but undeniable. Scars forming into lines that should not have been there, like the gills of some half-forgotten sea creature.
The room fell silent. Not just the usual quiet after waking in the middle of the night, but a deeper, more unsettling quiet. Something had shifted. Something had crossed from the world of sleep into waking.
And Plo Koon sensed it.
Not as fear. Not as anger. But as sorrow, heavy and deep, twisting through his chest. The Force whispered warnings, faint as the edge of a storm: these were not merely dreams. They were calls. Invitations. Doors opening where doors should never exist.
The Wolfpack sat motionless, wide-eyed, staring at each other without speaking. And somewhere, deep in the black water of the dream that still clung to them, a voice waited. Counting. Waiting.
(Do tell me what you guys think!)