The clone vats pulsed with life.
Rows of bioluminescent tanks stretched into the abyss of the chamber's deep sublevels, their contents no longer dormant. Limbs twitched within the birthing fluid. Eyes fluttered beneath closed lids. The cloned forms had shape now—muscle striations visible beneath translucent skin, neurons alight in preparation for accelerated imprinting. Dozens of them had already emerged from their shells. Their first steps were monitored in sterile white corridors, not by handlers, but by predictive-response algorithms designed to guide them like invisible midwives.
And above it all, in the control spire overlooking the central brain-core, stood two figures.
Dr. Cenn Garreth's face was pale with excitement. He looked a man possessed—gaunt, fire-eyed, stained with synthetic blood up to the wrists from hours of direct calibration. But he was smiling. Wide. Unapologetic. Serina Calis stood beside him, arms behind her back, gaze cold and consuming as she watched her creation stir into the world.
"They're perfect," Garreth breathed. "Beyond anything we ever dreamed on Kamino. We're folding experience into their minds with less than four percent memory degradation. Reflex latency is lower than even alpha-phase ARC troopers. And the gene-blending—your mercenaries brought me so much material, Serina. From Echani warbloods. Ubese assassins. Even a Zabrak berserker strain. All stabilized."
The clones were training already—some running obstacle routines, others practicing marksmanship in complete darkness. One team worked in complete silence, communicating only through rhythmic taps and glances, slicing through an imaginary enemy formation like shadows with knives.
"Phase One is ready," Garreth said simply.
Serina exhaled, slow and satisfied.
"Good."
She turned from the glass, her steps silent across the observation deck, eyes glittering like cold fire in the low light.
"And the energy core from Orax, thanks to the efforts of Raef Malstadt and his mercenaries?"
"Stable," Garreth replied. "Far more than we expected. The mercenaries recovered the thorium-crystal drive intact—thank the stars for that. It's powering our whole generation chamber without the need to tap Polis Massa's infrastructure. No chance of anyone detecting abnormal drain from the main grid. Your men were... brutal."
Serina's lips curled faintly at the corners.
"Brutality is a tax I'm always willing to pay for results."
She paused, as though tasting the moment, then continued with icy precision.
"But we are not done."
Garreth stiffened. He already knew. She didn't have to say it. But she would. She always would.
"You want to go beyond the Fett template," he said, softly.
Serina turned back to him, face sharp with promise. "I want a species. Not a uniform. Variety is the weapon of evolution. Jango Fett gave the galaxy soldiers. I intend to give it something else."
Garreth sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Then we'll need the Kaminoan template regulator."
Serina said nothing. The silence pressed like a blade to the neck.
"The Cloning Template Synchronizer," he explained. "The Kaminoans used it to rapidly adapt base genome sequences to alternate donor structures without degrading stability. Without it… we're limited to what's in this vault and what we can risk splicing manually. The regulator is still housed on Kamino. Deep in the ruins of Tipoca City."
"And guarded?" Serina asked flatly.
"Presumed. The remnants of Tipoca are crawling with scavenger clades and automated sentries from the Clone Wars. Worse, if Arkanian micro-clinics have set up, they may already be picking apart the same machinery. If someone else gets that synchronizer, they could mirror what we're doing here."
Serina's gaze turned blade-like.
"They won't," she said.
A sharp exhale. She walked to the center console and typed in a new encryption string. The lights dimmed and the chamber locked. Walls became black panels of obsidian-smooth durasteel, noise deadened. Not even internal transmitters would carry this conversation now.
Serina turned back to Garreth, and her voice dropped into something colder, lower—absolute.
"This project is to remain invisible. The Sith are ruled by appetites and egos. Taeli Raaf may claim to value knowledge, but she is still a beast of envy beneath her robes. If she learns the scale of INVICTA—if she sees what it is becoming—she will drag it before the Dark Council like a prize kill, dissect it with committees, dilute it with votes."
Garreth nodded grimly. "They'll bury it under protocol."
"Or worse," Serina murmured, "commandeer it. They would demand obedience routines. Behavioral failsafes keyed to the voice of the Emperor or herself. They would reduce my army to palace guards and leash dogs."
Her eyes glinted. "I will not allow it."
She keyed another sequence into the console. Holograms bloomed into the air—intercepted Sith intelligence reports, falsified troop movements, decoy operations traced to mercenary groups in the Outer Rim.
"I've already begun falsifying reports," she said. "We will misdirect anyone looking for unauthorized energy draw. Surveillance logs will show this vault repurposed as an archeo-xenology archive. If anyone even asks about INVICTA, they'll see ancient Rakatan scrap and dummy machinery."
"And the troopers?" Garreth asked.
Serina smiled.
"We're transferring the first battalion to a deep-space sleeper barge orbiting a dead moon. No one will know where they go once they leave the vats. No records. No transponder. If we need them… they'll come back to the galaxy like ghosts."
There was silence again—deep and electric.
And then Garreth whispered, "You realize what this means, don't you?"
Serina turned her head slightly.
"You're not just building an army," he said. "You're building a power base. Independent of the Empire. Of the Council. Of any faction."
"I am." Serina replied.
Her voice was iron. Uncompromising. She stepped past him, hand trailing across the console as new orders filtered through the secure datastream. Already, the first deployment of Project: INVICTA would vanish from records before it ever left the facility.
She stopped just before the threshold, half-turned, casting a final glance back at the flickering shadows of the clone tanks below.
"Begin preparations for the Kamino operation. We retrieve the synchronizer next. Assemble an infiltration team. Quiet, brutal, effective. No survivors. No witnesses."
Garreth bowed his head. "As you command."
And then she was gone—her silhouette dissolving into the corridor beyond, the weight of something far larger than war gathering behind her steps. Not conquest. Not revenge. Design.
Legacy.
