The junction chamber stank of rust and wet plastoid. Armor dripped steadily, puddles spreading across the floor like black veins. The Wolfpack stood in silence, helmets clutched at their sides, water running down faces pale with exhaustion.
No one spoke. No one dared.
Muzzle still muttered in Kaminoan, voice even, calm. The rhythm of his counting matched the slow pulse of the ridges at his throat. His eyes were glassy, reflecting faint stormlight from above.
Husk's voice cut the silence. Hoarse. Ragged. "That thing… it knew us. It was us." He looked around at his brothers, visor clutched in trembling hands. "Tell me I'm not the only one seeing it. Tell me you all saw—"
"We saw," 4427 croaked. His breathing rasped, harsh as though his lungs still held seawater. His fingers dug against the ridges in his throat until blood beaded beneath his nails. "And it won't stop. It wants us under."
The words hung in the air like a curse.
The Drip
A single droplet echoed through the chamber.
Plink.
The Wolfpack swung rifles toward the sound. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls, though no movement stirred. The consoles flickered, lights dimming until only their HUDs illuminated the dark.
Then another drip.
Plink.
Muzzle's voice stuttered mid-count. His visor turned slowly toward the sound. "It's here," he whispered.
The water at their boots began to ripple outward, concentric rings widening across the floor. Reflections surfaced again—Wolfpack visors gleaming faintly from the puddles.
But this time, the reflections did not stay still.
They climbed.
The Climb
Hands of water stretched upward, clawing onto boots, dragging at ankles. The Wolfpack opened fire, blaster bolts hissing through liquid forms. Reflections shattered into sprays only to reform instantly, their jaws snapping wider with each attempt.
"Keep them off the floor!" Husk shouted, shoving 4427 backward as a pair of liquid hands surged upward, snapping closed where his throat had been.
Clones scrambled onto consoles, crates, anything above the waterline. Blasterfire turned the chamber into a storm of red light, reflections dissolving and reforming endlessly.
But then—one clone screamed.
CT-4115, Muzzle, was dragged halfway into the puddle before anyone could reach him. His visor cracked against the floor, helmet flooding from the inside. His brothers grabbed at his arms, straining against an impossible pull.
"Hold him!" Husk roared.
The puddle beneath Muzzle's body deepened, black and bottomless, ridges spreading outward across the chamber. Reflections swarmed, hands pressing against him, pulling, whispering numbers louder and louder.
Through his helmet, he screamed—yet his voice was doubled, layered, half his own and half something vast and cold.
"One tide. One pack. One below."
Plo's saber flared to life, cutting downward. The water recoiled, boiling away from the blade's heat. Muzzle gasped, collapsing onto the floor as the puddle sealed shut beneath him.
The reflections retreated once more, dissolving into ripples.
But the damage was done.
Muzzle's ridges flared wide now, raw and pulsing, water dripping steadily from his lips. His eyes reflected the orange glow of Plo's saber, yet the reflection in the puddle at his feet was not his own.
Fractures
The Wolfpack pressed tighter together, rifles wavering, every man breathing hard. But their eyes… their eyes darted from brother to brother.
"Check his neck," 4427 rasped, nodding toward Muzzle.
"No one touches me," Muzzle snapped, his voice layered, wrong.
"You're changing." Husk raised his blaster slightly. "We all are—but you're changing faster."
Muzzle's rifle came up instantly, barrel trembling. "You fire on me, Husk, you better finish it. Because if I go under, I'll take you with me."
The Wolfpack froze in stalemate. Blasters half-raised, eyes wide. The storm outside pounded harder, as if urging them to make a choice.
Plo stepped between them, cloak heavy with seawater, saber lowered but lit. "This is not your brother's fault," he said quietly. "The tide seeks to divide you, to make you doubt what you are. If you break now, you are lost."
But even as he spoke, he felt it pressing harder—the Force currents wrapping tighter around each clone's mind, pulling threads loose. Memories shifted, blurred, voices whispering from deep within their thoughts. The Wolfpack was no longer one pack. It was splintering.
The Corridor
The chamber doors slammed open. Water surged inward, flooding waist-high in seconds. Beyond the threshold, the maintenance corridor stretched downward, lights flickering in the dark.
"Where does it go?" Husk demanded.
"The heart of the pylon," Plo answered grimly. "Where the breach waits."
The Wolfpack exchanged glances. No one wanted to move forward. But the water pressed harder, pulling at their legs, urging them downward.
They advanced, rifles raised, boots splashing in rhythm. The reflections marched with them in the water, their visors black and smiling.
The Attack
Halfway down the corridor, the lights failed. Darkness swallowed them.
The reflections lunged.
Hands burst from the walls, jaws opening in silence, dragging clones into the dark water. Screams echoed in the confined space. Blasters flashed like lightning, bolts tearing through figures that dissolved and reformed instantly.
Husk fired until his rifle overheated, then swung it like a club, smashing a reflection's visor into shards of black glass. 4427 clawed at his throat as liquid hands tried to force themselves down his mouth, choking him with water.
Plo carved through the tide with sweeps of his saber, the blade's glow the only light in the corridor. But the more he struck, the more the reflections multiplied, pressing tighter, closing in.
They were no longer whispers. They were a choir.
"One tide. One pack. One below."
The Pull
The corridor floor collapsed beneath them.
Water roared upward, dragging half the squad down into a shaft that yawned open like a throat. Husk grabbed the nearest support beam, holding fast as his brothers screamed, their armor vanishing into the black below.
Plo extended a hand, the Force straining like a rope, pulling three clones back from the edge. But the tide pulled harder, invisible currents wrapping around him, dragging at his mask, his lungs, his mind.
For an instant, he saw it—the truth beneath the storm. Not a creature. Not a weapon. Something older. Endless. An ocean with no bottom, no surface, only mouths whispering in eternal dark.
And it wanted his pack.
Escape
With a final surge, Plo hurled the survivors back into the corridor. Husk slammed the emergency bulkhead, sealing the shaft as water crashed upward behind it. The door sealed with a scream of tearing metal.
The chamber fell silent. Only four clones remained standing, dripping, heaving for air. Half the pack was gone.
The survivors stared at each other, blasters half-raised, eyes wide with doubt.
"Are we still us?" 4427 whispered.
No one answered.
The tide was winning.