The vault doors groaned open like the throat of some long-dead god, the ancient durasteel petals pulling back to reveal a chamber choked with dust and silence. Lights flickered weakly as old systems stirred—some still obedient after centuries of disuse, others grinding forward as if roused from a grave.
Inside, the clone tanks stood like ghosts of a forgotten age. Rows upon rows of them, tall as starship engines, their glass faces filmed over with age and chemical frost. The chamber smelt of preservation fluids, burnt circuits, and something deeper—darker—the scent of ambition buried too long.
Serina Calis stepped into the chamber like a high priestess returning to her sanctum.
Her silhouette was regal in the low light—an obsidian figure wrapped in tailored silence. The hem of her longcoat kissed the dustless floor as she moved, the ambient gloom curling back from her presence. Every step was precise. Every word, when it came, was weighted with gravity.
"There is no more sacred ground left in this galaxy," she said, voice velvet-wrapped iron. "Not to me."
The man beside her followed in silence, his boots clicking softly behind her. Dr. Cenn Garreth—once of Kamino, then of Cartao, now of Polis Massa. A defector, a purist, a genius so obsessed with perfection that even the Sith had failed to keep him. He was gaunt from sleepless years, his gray eyes wide with reverence as he gazed upon the suspended sarcophagi of war.
"Kamino built tools," Serina said, letting her hand trail across a control console's ancient frame. "But I will build heirs. Instruments so precise, so unwavering, that they will not just follow orders… they will embody them. And you will be their father."
Dr. Garreth's breath trembled in his throat. "This technology is older than the Clone Wars," he whispered, kneeling beside one of the pods. "The framework is... pre-Republic. Splicing techniques here are near-miraculous. It's not just replication—this is adaptation. This evolves with each generation."
Serina smiled, cold and slow.
"Yes," she murmured. "And we will guide that evolution. This is not Kamino. Not some factory for meat-puppets. What you will build here, Cenn… is a civilization beneath my heel."
She turned, facing the center of the vaulted chamber where the central terminal still pulsed faintly. One hand reached to the console, and the lights overhead surged into brilliance. It was as if the lab remembered her. The databanks thrummed. Suspended scaffolds retracted with a hiss, revealing the full magnitude of the cloning pits—several levels deep, in concentric circles, enough to house tens of thousands of developing soldiers.
She spoke again, now louder, addressing not just the scientist, but the empty space itself.
"Project: INVICTA.
They will be unyielding.
They will feel no confusion, no hesitation, no collapse.
I do not want loyalty.
I want inevitability."
A long silence followed. Dr. Garreth rose slowly to his feet, awed. His voice was quiet but resolute, the voice of a man whose life's work had finally found its cathedral.
"Then I will need everything," he said, turning to her now, his tone sharpening into purpose. "A gestation engine capable of mass-phase accelerated growth cycles. The old Kaminoan model is outdated—clones burn out by thirty. I want recursive imprinting, full neuroplastic engagement, and three-tier cognitive redundancy. I will design them to learn as they fight. Their minds will grow in battle."
Serina nodded, eyes gleaming.
"I'll give you anything," she replied. "You want Spaarti chamber tech? I will take it. You want Sith alchemy to fortify bone and blood? I will drown them in it."
Garreth was pacing now, energized by her belief.
"I'll need genome banks," he continued. "Originals. Prime hosts. We can use Fett's genome as a baseline if we must, but I want variety. Genetic diversity, tailored combat instincts. Close-quarters, zero-G, mechanized warfare, infiltration—every soldier will be purpose-designed. One gene-seed for one purpose."
Serina stepped beside him, walking shoulder to shoulder now as they descended toward the central gene vault.
"You will have warriors who can navigate blackholes if I command it. Soldiers who do not sleep unless I speak the word. They will never march under a flag. Only under my will."
Garreth stopped and turned to her again.
"And the control failsafe?"
She regarded him, long and silent. Her smile returned, but there was no joy in it.
Garreth blinked. "You'd trust them without—"
A whisper bled into his ear. Something so dark and prophane that the Dark Side itself rejoiced at its vocalization.
His throat tightened. It was monstrous—and perfect.
Serina lifted a datapad from the central pillar. The screen displayed an embryonic silhouette, rotating slowly in a scan-ring. No features yet. Just raw potential. Garreth stared at it.
"I'll need time," he said, almost reverently. "Resources. Isolation. Full sovereignty over all matters of design and implantation."
Serina handed him the pad.
"Done," she said. "This facility is yours. Polis Massa bends to me. The Sith will never know what lies beneath its crust. And when they beg for reinforcements during the next great war, we will answer… with perfection."
He took the datapad like a relic from a shrine, holding it as if it might crack the moment he looked away.
Above them, the lights of the cloning chamber dimmed again, shifting into standby glow. But something had changed in the silence—an invisible tide, a sense of genesis not just of soldiers, but of a future written in engineered blood.
At the apex of the vaulted ceiling, a single word appeared across the forgotten command interface:
PROJECT: INVICTA
THE UNYIELDING SHALL INHERIT THE STARS.
And below, in the tanks, the first of them began to dream.
Even before they were born.
