The command center had grown too small.
The air inside was heavy, thick with whispers that crawled beneath words and silence alike. Every console hummed faintly in rhythm with the ridges on their necks. The reflections in the metal grew bolder, smiling when they did not, blinking when their eyes were still.
By dawn, even silence had begun to press against them, like a hand on the throat.
So when the first proximity alarm shuddered through the outpost, the Wolfpack reacted not with relief, but with dread.
Husk slammed his helmet into place, HUD flickering with static before stabilizing. The storm blurred every sensor, but one signal cut through, pulsing faintly from the far pylons at the edge of the platform. A distress beacon. Ancient, barely functional, but unmistakably Republic.
"It shouldn't be here," Muzzle muttered, sealing his gauntlets. "This post has been abandoned for months."
"Then someone—or something—turned it back on," Husk replied grimly.
The squad readied in silence. Rifles were checked, charges clipped, armor sealed. Each motion was familiar, drilled into muscle memory, yet this time every gesture felt slightly delayed, as though the storm itself watched and mimicked their movements a beat too slow.
Plo Koon joined them at the platform doors, his presence steady, though the Force pressed heavily against him. "Stay close," he warned. His respirator hissed as he pulled his cloak tighter against the wind. "The sea is not the only current here."
The doors opened with a shriek of rusted hinges.
The Storm Outside
Rain slashed like molten glass, stinging against plastoid. The durasteel beneath their boots shuddered with each wave striking the pylons, a hollow drumbeat that reverberated in their bones.
The Wolfpack advanced in tight formation, helmets bowed against the gale. Visibility was almost nothing—just a blur of silver rain, the faint glow of armor plates, and the endless black water churning below.
Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the platform extended further than it should. What should have been a short walk stretched endlessly, pylons looming like gravestones into the storm.
Husk's comm crackled with static. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Wolfpack, check in."
"Copy."
"Here."
"…present."
The last voice was wrong. A fraction too deep, distorted, layered.
Husk stopped, scanning the squad. All twelve moved in perfect formation, visors glowing in the stormlight. Yet for an instant, one helmet turned a beat too slow. The wolf-jaw insignia along its cheek stretched inward, inverted, teeth pointing down. Then it snapped back.
No one spoke of it.
The Beacon
The distress signal pulsed faintly ahead, mounted to a pylon half-submerged in the ocean's fury. Its red light flickered like a heartbeat, illuminating the storm in irregular bursts.
As they drew closer, the storm quieted. Not the wind, not the rain, but the sound of it, muffled as though pressed through water. Their boots struck the platform with muted echoes, as if the storm itself had withdrawn.
"Stay alert," Husk said, though his voice sounded distant in his own ears.
Plo Koon reached the beacon first. He laid a gloved hand against its corroded surface. The metal was slick, not with rain but with something thicker, darker, sliding beneath his touch. His senses stretched through the Force and recoiled. The beacon was not broadcasting distress. It was listening.
The red light flared. For a heartbeat, it illuminated their reflections in the pooling rainwater at their feet.
Only the reflections didn't match.
In the water, the Wolfpack stood taller, broader, their visors black and empty. The ridges along their necks flared open like gills, pulsing in rhythm with the beacon's flicker. One reflection smiled. Another reached upward, though the real clone had not moved.
The puddle rippled. The reflections began to count.
The First Manifestation
"Contact—left flank!"
Muzzle's shout snapped the squad into motion. Rifles swung, barrels tracking shapes moving across the pylons. Figures emerged from the storm, blurred and indistinct, but familiar. Armor plates gleamed under lightning, identical to their own—Wolfpack armor, wolf-jaw insignias gleaming wetly.
"Brothers?" one clone whispered, lowering his blaster.
The figures advanced in silence, steps perfectly synchronized. Their visors were dark, empty, reflecting only stormlight. The water pooled deeper beneath their boots than it should have, rippling outward with each step.
"Hold your fire," Husk ordered, though his voice cracked. "Identify yourselves!"
The nearest figure tilted its helmet slightly. Then it spoke.
"CT-2391… Husk…"
The voice was his own.
Husk's stomach turned to stone.
The reflections raised their rifles in unison.
The Clash
Blaster fire tore through the storm, crimson bolts vanishing into rain. The figures moved with impossible precision, anticipating shots, fading into mist only to reform closer. The Wolfpack closed ranks, back-to-back, returning fire with trained discipline.
Yet every time a reflection fell, its body dissolved into water, pooling at their feet, whispering numbers as it sank into the platform's cracks. And with each dissolution, the ridges along their real throats throbbed, pulsing brighter, hungrier.
"Fall back!" Husk barked, voice hoarse. "Back to the center!"
The squad retreated in tight formation, blasters cutting through rain and shadow. The reflections pressed closer, their smiles sharp now, visors glowing faintly with black light.
Through the Force, Plo Koon felt the truth: these were not enemies to be destroyed. They were invitations. Echoes of what the clones could become if they yielded. Each shot fired was meaningless—because the tide did not fight. It absorbed.
The beacon pulsed faster, almost frantically, and the reflections mirrored the Wolfpack's every move, counting louder, voices merging into a single, endless chorus.
"One tide. One pack. One below."
The Withdrawal
The squad reached the bulkhead doors of the command center. Husk slammed his fist against the controls, forcing the rusted metal open as blaster fire scorched past him. One by one, the Wolfpack poured inside, Plo Koon bringing up the rear, cloak billowing in the storm.
As the doors slammed shut, the reflections froze mid-step, water dripping from their armor. They raised their helmets in unison, visors glowing faintly.
And then they smiled.
The storm swallowed them.
Aftermath
The Wolfpack collapsed into the command center, helmets clattering to the floor, chests heaving. Husk ripped off his gauntlets, pressing trembling hands against the ridges at his throat. They were deeper now, etched into flesh, pulsing faintly with each breath.
Muzzle sat against the wall, staring at nothing, lips moving silently. Husk leaned closer and froze. He wasn't muttering nonsense. He was counting—fluently, steadily—in Kaminoan.
Plo Koon stood apart, gazing at the storm through the viewport. His presence in the Force was steady, but beneath it ran a current of sorrow. He had seen this before, not in form but in pattern. Ancient things that whispered, waited, and consumed not through hatred, but inevitability.
The Wolfpack was changing.
And the tide was rising.