Private Northwest

[Her]

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Northwest​

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Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

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Civilization has come to it's end.

The EMPIRE OF THE LOST is no-more. Following the Sartinaynian Crisis revolt soon followed, and riots spilled out into the streets of Lianna City as economic collapse paved the way for the Imperial Remnant to pull out of the Tion Cluster where they left behind the territories of the Old Tion Hegemony for parts currently unknown. The seditious FIFTH WING, who were founded by the former Staff Director of the New Imperial Security Bureau, and a Dark Councillor based on the planet of Avalonia, had worked their plot well. Like a cancer within the host body they had spread wings far and wide across the self-proclaimed heirs to the GALACTIC EMPIRE, and from there they had weakened the very foundations of a system that had been turned on itself which had led to the end of the Imperial Remnant's occupation of the Tionese.

Indeed, the machination of the Sith know no bounds.

As the conspiracy completed it's goals to weaken and subsequently dismantle the Imperial Remnant from within one of it's key elements had been exposed as a result of the crisis that had played a crucial role in the dissolution of the Empire. The Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats is an initiative that had been designed to help the expats, disgruntled traitors, and agents of the TSIS'KAAR to join the Fifth Wing under the disguise of a program that was meant to root out threats to the Imperial regime that had been based on the planet Lianna. Through the creation of such an initiative the players within the conspiracy that had been founded to either reform, or dismantle the Empire of the Lost could control the flow of information or intelligence to the Imperial Ruling Council and the Empire's monarchy-- the KILRANS-- so as to obfuscate the movements and operations of the organisation within the upper echelons of the Empire. In this way the Fifth Wing could deflect, misdirect, or outright manipulate the elements so that it and it's members could not be found, or discovered leading to the creation of the Trigonus Report to pin scrutiny, or outright suspicion upon the rebellion known as the Tingel Arm Coalition that had tried to usurp the Imperial Remnant during the ill fated Rim Wars of 902 ABY.

During OPERATION POWDERKEG (a Fifth Wing attack upon the Empire of the Lost, and The Diarchy in the Sartinyanian system, which had resulted in both factions being framed into acts of war upon each other) the Star Destroyer known as The Quest had been breached and subsequently attacked leading to a leak within the DSDT Program which threatened to expose the seditious organisation who were responsible for the crisis on Bastion. As the initiative had been used to consequentially hack and turn the ship's weapon systems onto opening fire on the city of Ravelin (therefore framing the Imperials as the would-be attackers on the Diarchs) it had been breached by slicers which had resulted in the initiative and it's secrets becoming exposed. With the Empire of the Lost destroyed, and it's remnant scattered along the Outer Rim Territories, the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats program held no use anymore, and with it's secrets exposed, it was now a threat to the Tsis'Kaar who created and subsequently backed the seditious conspiracy that had called itself, 'THE FIFTH WING'.

Therefore it now has to be destroyed.

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OUTPOST NORTHWEST is one out of thirty installations located across the former territories of the Empire of the Lost. It is an outpost located in the district of Northwest found on the continent of Landra and was designed to blend in with the surrounding ports that were used as the point of entry to Lianna. When Director Drey was establishing the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats program she had selected Northwest because of it's geographical location, and economic importance due to it's proximity to a spaceport where commercial, civilian or military grade ships came or went. In this way the outpost could spy on incoming or outgoing ships while also surveying the local populace that lived in Northwest, and the ecumenopolis known as, 'Lianna City', where the Imperial Ruling Council established by Velran Kilran effectively governed the entirety of the Empire of the Lost.

If the Fifth Wing-- who had been built to be compartmentalized, and therefore spread among the various military or governmental branches of the Empire-- possessed a headquarters then Outpost Northwest had been it. It had been here that the Director had once used her position within the Tsis'Kaar to infiltrate a war council meeting convened by Darth Empyrean that had ultimately led to the Siege of Tion, her untimely death at the hands of Darth Malum of House Marr, and the subsequent purge which had shortly followed. Later, when the Director had still been alive, she had allegedly shut down the outpost, and it's operations during a cover-up after she had obfuscated and hidden the fact that Valery Noble had once infiltrated the Empire of the Lost in an effort to find the former Jedi Knight and bring her back to the Galactic Alliance.

With the Director dead, and it's crew murdered (as part of the aforementioned cover-up) Outpost Northwest has been gathering dust ever since. While the Tionese riot through the streets of the nearby district, and as the remnants of the Empire look towards the formation of the Imperial Sector Authority, the secrets held within the archives of the DSDT Program are at risk. Enter a former Jedi Knight, who like the Fifth Wing's founder had been turned to the Dark Side, and who now must orchestrate the closure of the initiative, it's outposts, and the people who had been recruited into the conspiracy at the turn of the ninth century.

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[Serina Calis]

Northwest.
Location: Lianna, Outpost Northwest
Objective: Burn the evidence.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Her

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."​

The silence inside the outpost was not the silence of abandonment, but of suffocation—like breath held too long beneath dark waters.

Dust shimmered in the stagnant air, disturbed only by the soft hum of ancient machinery running on borrowed time. Red warning glyphs blinked in rhythmic intervals along the data consoles, a heartbeat of failure pulsing through the nerve center of a fallen empire. Lights flickered overhead, cold and spectral, casting long shadows across the walls where the insignia of the Empire of the Lost had not yet been scraped away. The scent of old blood and scorched electronics still lingered like ghosts that refused to depart.

Then, the door hissed open.

From the threshold emerged a figure of haunting beauty and terrible intent. Cloaked in dark grandeur, her long cape stirred with the faintest breeze, trailing behind her like the wake of a descending star. Golden hair spilled in waves from beneath a deep hood, shimmering faintly in the low light. Her armor shimmered—crimson and magenta pulses slithering through the etched, angular runes upon her bodice and gauntlets. Living patterns, throbbing with the rhythm of the Force. Her presence bent the very air, and the outpost, though deserted, knew her.

Serina Calis had returned to seal the tomb.

She moved with unhurried grace, boots clicking softly against the durasteel floor as her sharp eyes scanned the shattered remnants of a conspiracy that had played its part too well. Her hands, clasped before her, radiated stillness—but it was the stillness of a predator, savoring the moment before the kill. She paused before the central holotable, now inert and cracked, and lowered her hood.

"Here you are," she murmured, to the bones of a dream. "The rotten heart. The cradle of a lie that brought down an empire."

Her voice was smooth, regal, and cool, yet beneath its elegance was coiled venom.

"They built you as a vessel of control. A mechanism to twist perception, suppress dissent, manufacture loyalty. They called it Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats. A clever name. As if truth could be filtered, sterilized, and archived without consequence."

She reached out, trailing gloved fingers over the surface of the table where once sat dossiers, names, targets—lives. The lights responded reluctantly to her touch, flickering alive one last time, as if in obedience… or fear. A projection shimmered upward: tangled schematics, archived personnel, encrypted manifests. All of it stained in the red of corruption.

"You were their eye. Their tongue. Their secret weapon. And when the Fifth Wing slithered into the bloodstream of the Empire, it was through you that they bled it dry."

Her lips curled into a cold, knowing smile.

"I do not mourn the Kilrans. Nor their hollow court of sycophants and pretenders. The Empire of the Lost was always rotting beneath its mask. But what began here—this—must not endure."

She stepped into the projection, letting the light wash over her, her silhouette cleaving through the old data like a blade.

"Your secrets are no longer a weapon. They are a threat. And I will not allow the future to be poisoned by the ghosts of old manipulations."

Her voice hardened.

"To every name recorded in this place, every loyalist turned traitor, every watcher who became the watched—you are ended. Your oaths were ash the moment your masters fell. The Fifth Wing has no more use for you. And I—" she tilted her head slightly, eyes gleaming with cruel clarity, "never did."

The holotable began to fracture under a pulse of unseen pressure, the holograms distorting, twisting—then imploding into static. She turned away as the systems screamed one last time.

Behind her, code unravelled. Servers melted into slag. Years of lies, violence, and silence torn apart with surgical precision. She had not come with an army, nor with banners, nor with proclamations. She had come alone—and that was all it took.

As the internal reactor began its slow countdown toward implosion, she walked toward the exit. The corridors echoed with the memory of whispered plots and buried truths. She passed an old mirror—cracked and blackened—but her reflection remained. Poised. Unflinching. Radiant with power and purpose.

"Let history forget this place," she said softly as she reached the open threshold. "Let the darkness take what time could not. The future belongs to the corrupt. To those who infect it with their very will."

Serina did not look back.

There was no need.

The past was becoming one with the Darkness.

And she was already planning the next ten steps.

 

[Her]

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Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

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"The Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats (DSDT) was an initiative launched by the New Security Imperial Bureau at the turn of the century. Allocated funding by the Imperial Moff Council under Emperor Velran Kilran construction of listening outposts across the territories of the Empire of the Lost begun in earnest. . ."
-- Excerpts describing the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats.

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Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats; Outpost Northwest. "Long may His Majesty of All Imperial Kind reign! Glory to the Empire!" ​ //DIRECT SURVEILLANCE OF DOMESTIC THREATS INITIATIVE LAUNCHED. //PROCESSING . . . //INTRUDER DETECTED. //INITIATING COUNTER-INTRUSION PROTOCOL. //PROTOCOL FAILED. //INITILIZATING SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE. //SEQUENCING. . . //CORRUPTION. //DELETING ARCHIVES. //PROCESSING. //ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. //ANALYZING . . . //SYSTEM INTRUSION DETECTED. //FILES DELETED. //ARCHIVES DELETED. //SELF-DESTRUCT SYSTEM LAUNCHED. //COUNTDOWN: 05:00, 04:59, 04:58 . . . //LOG-IN DETECTED. //WELCOME, DIRECTOR DREY. //SELF-DESTRUCT SYSTEM DEACTIVATED. // ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

The mouth of the entrance looms before Serina Calis and the subsequent cover-up she had been employed to oversee is certain to come about. Klaxons protested their pleas for the outpost to be abandoned by it's crew, and yet the hallways remained unmoved for they had long been removed from their posts. In a matter of mere minutes Northwest itself would be victim to an explosion set to rock the entire district, and under the fires of the Liann revolt it would be one of a series of catastrophes designed to blend in with the riots and subsequent destruction brought to Lianna as the Empire of the Lost collapsed.

A cacophony of noise filled the outpost as the self-destruct sequence counted down. There were twenty-nine other such locations scattered across the Tion Cluster, and the many other star sectors that the Empire had brought into it's domain. It would certainly take weeks to travel to each location to bring about the end of the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats initiative, but Calis would endure it for the reach and power of the Tsis'Kaar could not be besmirched by it's own manipulations or weapons. They had come into the Empire of the Lost quietly, murderously and under the disguise of servants, dignitaries and personnel they had brought about it's end through the Fifth Wing. Just as the Imperial Remnant had been unaware of the Sith and their machinations when the Empire had been alive it would be the same in it's grave as they were blinded by the power of the Dark side of the Force.

The klaxons abruptly stop, and the whirring sound of the outpost's generators (which had been previously building up their power reserves as part of the self-destruct sequence) suddenly powered down. Where there had once been a cacophony of noise playing the end of the DSDT Program there was now an eerie, unsettling silence in the wake of such sound, and it's prelude to an abhorrent destruction of the facility.

You are not alone.

Daylight pours through the gaping opened mouth of the facilities entrance casting a looming shadow over the entrance walkways into Outpost Northwest, and yet in the sudden stillness of the silence there is something in the background of the darkness. A looming presence in the Force that had not been there before, and now was. A person somewhere in the outpost who was responsible for stopping the self-destruct sequence before it had completed. Were they someone who had been apart of the Empire of the Lost? A member of the Fifth Wing, or someone affiliated to the late New Imperial Security Bureau? A trespasser who had found their way into the facility from the nearby riots in the streets of Northwest itself?

Or someone else?

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The sound of something distinctly mechanical fills the hallways to break the mutiny of the sudden quietness. As it comes closer it became clearer that it was a droid. It's feet are clunky, and make a terrible racket in the closed intertwined hallways of the outpost and it's durasteel floors. The LOM-series protocol droid is an ancient, almost archaic design in the modern age, and it is only out here in the Outer Rim Territories that you get to see something as old as this. In the Core Worlds everything is new, splendid and decadent for the Alliance is rich, and prosperous. Yet, out here, everything is old, terrible and depraved.

Several millennia have passed since the intrepid explorers left the Core to explore the Galaxy as they searched for new resources, cultures and people to share with their own, and yet somethings haven't changed even in the modern day.

"Welcome!" the LOM says in fluent Chandrilan. "I am designated TX-456, and have been assigned to assist you in the closure of the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats! Come this way. . ."

It turns and begins walking down the hallway back to where it had come from. As it does the entrance to Outpost Northwest closes and submerges Serina in darkness. With the only sound of the droid walking through the metallic hallways to pave her way through the facility it leads her, and as they walk something, or someone, is turning on the artificial lights which hang overhead as if lighting up Serina's path to the room.

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Imperial architecture is obvious, and easy to recognise. It's regimented, basic and is designed to serve it's exact purpose. Even in the thousand years since the first Galactic Empire had been formed it's successors had maintained most of the aesthetic brought about in those early days which brought about the end of the Clone Wars to usher in a new era of prominence, peace and justice across the Stars. It's distinct, and hard to miss. As the self-proclaimed successors to Palpatine's Empire, the Empire of the Lost had maintained those designs as they sought to bring about the Age of Imperialism and restoration of, 'THE GALACTIC EMPIRE'.

Deceived, they had not yet realised that there is only one true Empire, and it belongs to the Sith.

So, when the LOM brought Serina to the door which led into the room there is a distinctual difference between it and the rest of the Northwest facility. Where the other doors which led into crew quarters, offices and the main stay control room were bland, grey and metallic, the entrance to this room was made out of the same unidentified tree native to the Core world of Chandrila and therefore distinctly different to the rest of Outpost Northwest. As they reached the entrance to the room, the LOM turns the knob to the door and opens it for Serina to enter.

"My Master is waiting inside," it explains to Serina. "Please, come in."

The Room is distinctly Chandrilan in design, and nature. It's furniture, walls and colouration are familiar to those who have either been to, or lived on the planet of Chandrila. Situated in the centre of the room is a table, and on top of it is a Core I computer. There are two seats tucked in underneath the table, and to the side is a fish tank containing a Blackfish which gives the room an ambient round of running water which blends in with the soft whir of the old computer waiting at the desk.

"Please, sit down, and take your time," the LOM unit said pleasantly as it closed the door behind it, and the faint click indicated that it had been locked. A long time passes after it leaves. Far too long. There is nobody waiting in the room like it said, and so ideas of the droid having lied to Serina are almost certain to come up. You can't be blamed for thinking something is wrong here, and odd. It's dark, quiet (save for the ambience) and yet eerily familiar given the design of the furniture, design and equipment that is distinctly and vastly different to the Imperial decor that had filled the rest of the facility.

Just when it seems like nobody is actually here, or that no-one is coming to see her, and the temptation to destroy the wooden door to leave comes to mind-- with the desire to recommence the self-destruct sequence that had earlier been initiated before something, or someone had aborted it-- a second door which leads into the room opens, and a woman enters. She is blonde like Serina, and she is wearing a sleek pair of black leggings, and a mere shirt which accentuates her petite, small body. There are no weapons on her hips, or in her hands. She appears defenceless.

Wordlessly, without greeting, the woman extends a hand out to the chair tucked underneath the table, and drags it out so that she can take a seat in front of the computer. She reaches out to tap the keyboard, and her fingers type something after it turns on. Afterward Her reclines in the chair, and meets the gaze of Serina. As they look at each other she takes out a cigarette, slips it into her mouth, and lights it up. Interlocking the butt of the cigarette between her fingers, Her lowers it to the side, and allows her arm to dangle there as smoke begins to fill the room.

A soft exhale allows the drag of the cigarette to filter out of the slits of her mouth, and nose as Her smiles sadly at Serina. "Fear," Her says as she averts her gaze away from the Dark Jedi to look to the side as if she were recalling a distant memory. "How easy a quicksand of time people let that become. We both know that you could keep going place to place, outpost to outpost, so that you can destroy the program, and stop more of it's secrets from getting out. But like a penny that keeps turning up your desire to save the Tsis'Kaar from being discovered by the Imperial Remnant, revenge will keep rearing it's ugly head encouraging them to keep trying to find out who the Fifth Wing were, and how they succeeded in bringing about an end to their Empire until they find a way to shut down my project."

With a flick of her finger Her discarded the ash that had built up at the end of her cigarette, and took another toke. As she exhaled the smoke again the nearby tank containing the Blackfish begun to drain slowly, and the computer continued to whir quietly as she talked. "I do not want you to just destroy this program. . ."

Isn't that why you were sent here by the Tsis'Kaar?

". . . I want your belief."

In what?

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[Serina Calis]

Northwest.
Location: Lianna, Outpost Northwest
Objective: Burn the evidence.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Her

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."​

The chair remained untouched.

Serina Calis stood, cloaked in stillness, a blade sheathed in silence. The subtle glow of her armor pulsed faintly, tracing the contours of her bodice and gauntlets like veins filled with liquid fire, a rhythm that matched the slow, serpentine coil of her thoughts. Her hands were clasped before her as always—an image of patience, of control—but her posture was that of a poised dagger. Her blue eyes, cool and unblinking, swept across the Chandrilan-styled room.

A low, bemused breath escaped her nose. Not quite a laugh—no, something colder.

"How quaint."

Her voice moved through the room like smoke—soft, silken, and dangerous.

"Chandrilan craftsmanship. That scent... cedarwood lacquer, perhaps? An affectation only a native would know to preserve." Her gaze drifted toward the drained tank, the blackfish gasping in its narrowing world of water. "A rather theatrical touch. I see you've done your research."

She turned her full attention to the woman. "Yet for all your effort to evoke familiarity, to wrap this space in memories I've long since reduced to ash, you remain nameless. A silhouette behind a locked door. And now you speak of belief."

She began to circle the room slowly, each step light but deliberate—like a flame licking the edges of parchment. Not yet consuming. Not yet. But inevitable.

"You stopped the countdown. Unannounced, uninvited, and entirely confident. That tells me three things. First—you possess access equal to or greater than the Director once did. Second—you knew I would come. And third..."

Her voice lowered slightly, becoming more intimate, more dangerous.

"...you believe I can be moved."

She halted a few feet away from the woman, who remained seated and silent beneath her cool facade and curling smoke. Serina studied her not as a person, but as a reflection. A vessel filled with intent. She always looked for the intent first. The shape of the soul, not the words.

"Fear," Serina echoed, her voice a whisper now, thick with disdain and velvet. "You speak of it as though it governs me. That it governs them. You misunderstand."

She leaned forward slightly, just enough to let the shadow of her hood fall across her face, veiling everything but her mouth—those lips curved into a smile like a silk knife.

"I do not move because I fear discovery. I move because I relish it. Every outpost burned is not a precaution—it is a temptation. I want them to look. To dig. To trace whispers and shadows and half-truths until they begin to choke on them. What is destruction without an audience? What is power, if not the slow tightening of a noose around a fool's neck, while he still believes he's won?"

She straightened again, exhaling softly. The room, thick with cigarette smoke, seemed to bend around her like an oil painting left too long in heat—colors melting, lines twisting.

"Do you know what corruption is?" she asked, suddenly changing tone, turning thoughtful, distant. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling as if speaking to some god no longer listening.

"It is not fire, nor poison, nor decay. Not truly. Corruption is seduction. The sweet promise that doing what should never be done is necessary. It is the smile that welcomes you into ruin, the warmth of rot before the sickness shows. It is every righteous intention repurposed, every ideal warped into its own parody. And once it begins... it never ends."

Her gaze dropped again, fixing the woman with a look that bore straight through the smoke and into bone.

"I am that seduction. That smile. That necessity. Where the faithful lose their way."

She finally moved toward the chair but did not sit. Instead, she placed one hand on its back, fingers curling around it as if to remind the wood that it, too, could be broken.

"And now you ask me for belief. In what? You? The program? The lie it was built on?"

Serina's voice lowered into a hiss of dark amusement. "No. I don't think that's what you meant. You want me to believe in the project—but not in its purpose. You want me to believe in its consequence."

She moved again, slowly now, her steps a careful dance of power and poise. She stopped at the fish tank, watching the blackfish struggle, its world drained drop by drop.

"You stopped the explosion because you want this to be more than an ending. You want this to be a pivot. A moment in time. A new beginning. The kind born in silence, beneath layers of engineered obscurity."

She turned her head just enough to look back at the woman. Her smirk returned, faint and dangerous.

"You want me to reclaim the program. Not destroy it."

 

[Her]

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Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

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"Serina," Her began to say as the computer in front of her continued to whir in the background of their conversation. "I have allotted no more than twenty-eight minutes for this conversation, which is generous of me, to say the least. At any moment in our time together you can leave, go on you with your work, and finish what you started tonight. The door behind you was always open, and I wouldn't stop you even if I could, and we do not have to ever see each other again. I rarely see anyone more than once, either way . . ."

Lifting the cigarette back up to her lips Her took a toke, and was reminiscent of the woman who began the program Serina had been sent to destroy. Like the real person before them the Director had smoked whenever they had met in the nearby skyscrapers of Lianna City, and had rarely been seen without one. It had been nostalgic then as it was now for Her had known the real Ayra had been cremated in A City Lost to Time more than fifty years ago by the fallen Knight of the Old Republic who had been duplicated by the late Eggman at the turn-of-the-century.

The Sins of the Past are reflected in the Present.

After staring into space for a brief moment Her turned her gaze back to Serina. There was no smile now. Just the vacant look one knows and recognises in another who has traversed the path of the Dark Side.

It has been a long life.

"As I said. . ." Her said as she exhaled smoke as she spoke. ". . . You could destroy the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats whenever you wish. That is what you were sent to do, and after what happened to The Diarchy, it's risk to your organisation is enormous. I would like that. It served it's purpose as did the Fifth Wing. The Empire attacked Felucia, and threatened the Stygian Caldera. Now it doesn't exist anymore. In time perhaps someone, or something, will come back for the Old Tion Hegemony, and begin something new for the program to spy on them as it did the Imperials. But, at any rate, when something has become defective, it is time for it to be put out to pasture. Everything has it's time, and this particular program has done it's job."

Positioning the cigarette onto the table with an ashtray Her folded her arms across her chest, and eyed Serina thoughtfully. "I was new to all this when a man once told me the phrase: destruction breeds creation. In order to create you first have to destroy. The conspiracy to destroy, or reform the Empire of the Lost into a Sith Empire so that the former lands of the Tenth Sith Empire could be reclaimed resulted in it's subsequent collapse. The Tsis'Kaar accomplished what they were meant to do, and the enemy are no more. Through victory my chains are broken. So, what is done is done, and my program now moves onto the next."

"No . . . What I am talking about is not about the D.S.D.T, and it isn't about the Fifth Wing, and it isn't about the Empire of the Lost either. These entities, and their respective players were merely used to obfuscate, misdirect, or deflect away from my program, and they were used so I could get to the place that I want to go. Somewhere that our former substitute Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Friends were all told about when we were growing up among the Jedi. Children stories, and myths about the Force, and about the Galaxy that we were told so that we could forget where we came from, and the real families that we were taken away from, or left behind to join the Order. Indoctrination, mythology, cryptology, morphology. Take your pick."

Her slowly stood up from the chair, walked around it to one of the walls-- with her back turned to Serina-- and turned to stare into nothing for a few moments as if in deep thought while she revealed that both of them had once been members of the Jedi Order. When they met each others gaze for a third time, she asked: "Do you ever think that if you imagined, or believed in something, that it would come true?"

"Simply by will?"

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[Serina Calis]

Northwest.
Location: Lianna, Outpost Northwest
Objective: Burn the evidence.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Her

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."​

Serina didn't respond immediately. She stood in perfect stillness, framed by the shadows and the soft flicker of overhead lights. The whir of the old computer, the trickling drain of the fish tank, the faint perfume of cigarette smoke—it all settled like a tapestry of ghosts around her. She soaked in every word, every shift in tone, every calculated movement Her made as if they were verses in a sacred, ancient text. The kind she had rewritten in blood and lies more times than she could count.

The moment hung there, a blade's edge—delicate, trembling, and waiting for the strike.

Then, she stepped forward.

Just once.

One step closer to Her, into the dim center of the room where the light caught the crimson tracery of her bodice and turned it into a gleam of molten veins across her chest. She unclasped her hands—slowly, elegantly—and allowed one finger to trail across the back of the wooden chair that still stood between them.

"Creation," Serina said at last, her voice like warm honey poured over razors. "Is the most exquisite form of deception."

She tilted her head, the golden strands of her hair shifting like liquid gold beneath the shadow of her hood.

"Not because it is false. No. Quite the opposite. Because creation is always true, but never for the reasons you think."

She began to walk again, not in circles now, but in slow orbit around the room. Her boots echoed softly against the floor. Her voice, once soft, began to rise—layered, intimate and theatrical, like a confession whispered at the altar of a long-dead god.

"You say the program served its purpose. That the Empire fell, and with it, the experiment was concluded. But let us not pretend this was ever about surveillance. Or control. Or even victory. Those were the symptoms. Not the design."

She turned her eyes back to Her, and in that gaze was the storm—fierce, roiling, and seductive. The power of a thousand careful cuts.

"You built a mirror. And you let fools like the Kilrans and their sycophants peer into it, hoping to see an empire—but they saw themselves, and in doing so, collapsed beneath the weight of that reflection. You made them feel watched, and so they tore each other apart. You didn't need to surveil them. You only needed to let them believe they were being watched, and they performed their own destruction for you. That, my dear... is corruption."

Her hands now lifted, dancing slightly in the air like a conductor of unseen symphonies.

"Not the blunt ruin of war. Not the crude blade of rebellion. No. True corruption is the rot that dances. It sings. It courts its prey like a lover. It doesn't take—it offers. It seduces. It whispers, not screams. It convinces you that you are in control, that your desires are your own, right up until you're feasting on your own entrails and smiling."

She smiled now—wide, slow, and dangerous.

"And you ask if I believe that if one imagines something hard enough... it will become real? Darling..."

She drew in a slow, deliberate breath and exhaled it through a whisper of amusement.

"I have made people believe they were gods."

She moved now toward the wall, her hand brushing it, trailing across the warm wood imported from her own homeworld. Chandrila. A lie dressed in nostalgia.

"I have built empires from belief. And reduced legacies to ash for lack of it."

Turning her back to the wall, she leaned against it, her arms now folded across her armored chest.

"You speak of substitute families. Of myths told to children with stolen surnames. I remember those stories. I remember the quiet in the dormitories, the empty spaces beside us where sisters were taken for 'reassignment.' I remember being told love was a distraction. That ambition was a sickness. That wanting more... was dangerous."

Her voice deepened now, smoldering, seductive.

"And I cherished every word of it. Because it taught me the truth. They didn't want to protect us. They wanted to possess us. To tame us. Mold us. Keep us small, clean, and afraid. That was never love. That was domestication."

Her tone shifted again—cool, poised, surgical.

"But I broke the leash. As did you, I suspect. That vacant stare of yours doesn't come from disillusionment. It comes from clarity. You know now. What the Jedi could never admit. That belief is a weapon. Sharper than any blade. More enduring than any fleet. And it is wielded best not by those who are true... but by those who know it is all a lie."

She crossed the room again, slow and deliberate, closing the distance between them. There was no threat in her motion—only the quiet pressure of inevitability.

"You ask me for belief."

She reached out now, lifting the cigarette from the ashtray with two fingers, raising it slowly to her own lips, and inhaling—not deeply, but just enough to claim it.

"I will give it to you."

A pause.

"But on my terms."

She leaned in close now, her voice dropping to a velvet whisper, just above Her's ear.

"I will not believe in your program. I will become it. I will twist it into something worse. I will make the galaxy dream of order and then pull the sky down on their heads while they pray for it. I will take your design—this elegant, quiet, watching thing—and weaponize it with charm. With beauty. With trust. I will make every soul believe they are safe… until they realize they are mine."

Serina stepped back then, holding the cigarette between her fingers, smoke drifting from her lips in an elegant stream as she exhaled with pleasure.

"And the next time they look into the dark, searching for threats—they'll see me."

She smiled now—warm, inviting. Terrifying.

"So yes, I believe. Not in what is, but in what can be forced to be. Not in prophecy. Not in destiny. But in control. That is my gospel."

A final drag. Then she crushed the cigarette back into the ashtray.

"So tell me, architect of mirrors—what exactly is it you want me to build?"

 

[Her]

---

---

Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

---

"When all the options are wrong," he muttered to himself in the darkness, "what does it matter which one I choose?"
-- Darth Bane.

---

NOW:
​

As Serina exhaled smoke, and whispered seductively in her ear, the Dark Lord's narrowed, almost lifeless gaze stared into nothingness, and found herself remembering the same day she thought upon often, and one that she would never, ever forget.

THEN:
​

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC, which was later referred too as the Old Republic in the ninth-century, was the successor state to the Galactic Alliance which had folded, and consequentially dissolved at the advent to an era colloquially referred to by historians as, 'THE FOUR-HUNDRED YEAR DARKNESS', after civilization had collapsed galaxy wide while Zero's weapon tore through tens-of-thousands of star systems across the Galaxy.

It had restored peace, democracy and justice by 835 ABY as it and it's loyal guardians in the Knights of the Republic went about the process of rebuilding civilization after more than four-centuries of plague, famine and conflict. When the Sith had emerged from the Stygian Caldera to invade a fractured galaxy weakened in an era of Chaos-- to fulfil the promise of the Sith Code so that they could break their chains, and claim true freedom-- it had been these stalwarts of the light-- from Jedi to Senators to the common man, or soldiers-- that had stood against tyrants such as Ashin Varanin, Voracitos, Adekos, Lussk, Vazela and lastly Carnifex who had been beaten by the legendary Knights of the Old Republic in a famous Lightsaber duel on the saline, ocean rich world of Dac where the Mon Calamari had honoured the legacy that had been built up since the days of Alliance to Restore the Republic who had defeated the first GALACTIC EMPIRE several centuries ago.

As it had once been in the wake of the Seventh Battle of Ruusan it had appeared that the Sith were no-more. They had not just been scattered, and broken into the deepest, darkest corners of the galaxy-- not just defeated or stopped by their nemesis in the light-- but had been truly, and utterly destroyed thereby marking the beginning of a much needed healing, and a prolonged era of peace while the Jedi could return to their ancient roots of peacekeepers, and philosophers, and teachers seeking wisdom, guidance and understanding about the force.

Then the skies above Coruscant had been set on fire in a sudden, destructive blaze. Star Destroyers as far as your eyes could see blotted what had once been a grey, bleak skyline turned red under a barrage of destruction wrought by the successors of the destroyed Eight Sith Empire. Out of destruction they had bred creation and from the ashes of the Battle of Dac the ONE SITH revealed themselves to their enemy. In the wake of their surprise attack upon galactic centre they would march upon the Core Worlds and fifteen years after the Sith had first emerged from the realms of the Sith Holy Worlds the Old Republic was no-more; destroyed by their powers in the dark side, and their worlds annexed as they christened a Ninth Sith Empire to rule the stars themselves in perpetuity.

On that day a Jedi Knight-- who had recently passed their trials-- had been set to meet with Sochi Ru to celebrate. As she had waited within the archway of the open mouth entrance to the Jedi Temple she had watched in horror at the Return of the Sith and went onto fight valiantly for everything she loved, and held dear, only to see it all gone in the Star War referred to by some as, 'THE ONE SITH WARS'.

I will never forget that day.

NOW:
​

"So tell me, architect of mirrors—what exactly is it you want me to build?"

Her gaze turns from nothingness to look Serina in the eyes. Another girl turned woman let down by an institution that had been built to protect the peace, and maintain it. Now left to wander in the darkness like her. Had the Jedi come after Calis yet like they had tried to in Lianna City last year with the Director? Did the Council elect to deem her a lost cause, and try to eliminate her before she became a threat? What suffering-- what trauma had led her down the dark path? Was there still good in her?

Is there anything good in me?

Gently Her pushes Serina aside and walks by her to the Core I. It is an obsolete technology. Some might describe it as 'avant-garde' even back in those days. Invented, manufactured and later distributed across Chandrila by a very old, and now long defunct technology firm known as Chandrila DataTech, this device is so old and rare that there is a strong likelihood that nobody alive today has seen one before. On the world from where it originates from the people there are hungry-- some are obsessed-- by technology and so as there is one day where something is new, and fresh on the next it is old, and unwanted.

Suffice to say such a device shouldn't be here. Not in this time, and certainly not in an outpost which belonged to an Imperial Empire collapsing all around it as the two Dark Jedi conversed in the room, and yet it is. Why? As she finished her approach to the device, Her taps the head of the monitor to the computer, and looks over her shoulder to say to Serina: "In order to get there we will have to build something more sinister than what the Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats and it's inventor had ever hoped to accomplish. With the Blackwall raised, and the Imperial Remnants scattered once more, it will take a significant amount of time, money and patience to create a new surveillance program within the realms of the Sith Empire, and the Stygian Caldera."

"For us to get there we will have to make efforts to prove that this relationship I seek to create with you is not one that can be easily broken by chance, or serendipitous opportunity, or a cunning plan to use one, and the other to get ahead only to break our links when it feels right. What I suggest is a permanent arrangement which goes beyond mere transaction, trade or even co-operation. True belief that erodes the corruption that you have spoken about so well, and of which has destroyed many Sith from that of a lord, and his subject, or the master and their disciple, or the emperor and his councillors."

Bleep.

Her averted her gaze to the chrono of her wrist, and realised that their time was up. There was a schedule to maintain, and Childhood awaits. She taps the top of the monitor again for a second, and last time. "There is a game on this. If you pass it then we can begin. Fail and well... All of this might as well have been like a Blackfish who just ran out of time."

The nearby fish tank is empty, and the lifeless eyes of the Blackfish are staring up at nothing. Wordlessly, without so much as a goodbye, Her walks back to the wooden door, opens it up and closes it behind her. The Core I continues to whir in the oddity that is the room and the monitor screen is blank, and uninviting.

What could possibly be on there?

---

 

[Serina Calis]

Northwest.
Location: Lianna, Outpost Northwest
Objective: Burn the evidence.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Her

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."​

Serina did not move at first.

She stood in the center of the room like a sculpture carved from shadow and flame—her silhouette a wicked contradiction of elegance and menace, the soft pulse of magenta and crimson veining her armor now casting long reflections upon the wooden walls like blood running down the spine of memory. The door clicked shut behind Her like the end of a ritual, the finality of a covenant unsigned. The blackfish, dead and floating in its drained glass tomb, was a fitting witness to the quiet tension now thickening the air.

The whir of the Core I filled the silence like a ticking heart. Ancient, improbable, and yet—as she stared at it—it felt inevitable.

She drew in a breath, deep and unhurried, then released it with a soft sigh that was more than exhale—it was a statement.

"Let's not pretend I haven't seen this before."

Her voice spilled into the room like velvet dipped in venom.

The blank screen stared back at her, stubborn in its silence, but she approached it with the same glacial poise she afforded every conquest—be it city, council, or soul. Her boots clicked rhythmically on the floor, a quiet metronome to the dance of her thoughts. She stopped before the terminal, but did not touch it. Not yet.

"Games," she murmured, glancing at the monitor as if it were a child caught lying. "Always games. Tests wrapped in riddles, dressed up like prophecy. Always with some ancient mechanism buried in nostalgia to make it all feel important."

She raised her hand—not to touch the monitor, but to brush a lock of golden hair back behind her ear. Her fingers lingered at her jawline, thoughtful, idle, like an executioner twirling her blade while the condemned prayed for mercy.

"You want permanence," she whispered. "A bond unmarred by the politics of Sith betrayal or Jedi asceticism. A belief system that supersedes the old rules. Not master and apprentice. Not tyrant and servant. But something pure in its corruption."

She laughed softly—low and musical and cold. A sound that belonged in the inner sanctums of ruined temples.

"Darling... that's not belief. That's worship. And if that's what you want—if you're asking me to build a new black sun beneath which no oath may break—then you must understand something fundamental."

Her hand finally reached for the terminal, pausing just above the key surface as if feeling for its pulse.

"I am not a subordinate. I am not a partner. I am not an equal. I am the embodiment of seduction unmoored from morality. I am corruption freed from shame. If you invoke my belief, you must understand what it costs. Because once I begin to build, once I shape the unseen to mirror my will..."

She turned her head slightly, looking once more at the dead blackfish with a detached pity.

"...you will never be able to stop it. Or me. Not because you lack the power—but because, by then, you will not want to."

She turned back to the monitor, lowering herself slowly into the seat like a queen claiming her throne.

"You want to prove this relationship? Then let's begin with what we truly are, not what we pretend to be. You came to me draped in myth and memory—stories of Jedi youth, of lost orders and broken trusts—as if I might flinch. As if the pain we carry is mutual. It is not."

Serina's voice sharpened, every word now as exact and deliberate as a scalpel at the edge of a heart.

"I did not fall. I stepped into the dark. Eyes wide. Eager. I left the Jedi not in sorrow—but in triumph. Their truths were small. Their power loaned. Their love conditional. And I? I do not share the pain of the betrayed—I share the pleasure of the betrayer."

She leaned forward slightly, hands poised over the ancient keys of the Core I, yet still not typing.

"You want my belief? Then you must understand what it does. I am not a loyalist. I do not kneel. I do not pray. I infect. I transform. I corrupt systems from within, rewire principles into compulsions, and make every choice seem like a freedom. I am not your partner in design—I am the rot in the walls that becomes the foundation."

The words were no longer performative. They were confessional. Gospel.

"I do not build from ashes. I make the fire desirable. I make ruin... fashionable."

Finally, finally, she touched the monitor.

Not typing yet—merely touching.

A soft press of fingertips. A connection. An act of invasion.

"Whatever you've placed inside this relic," she purred, "whatever test you've crafted to decide whether I'm worthy of your myth—know this: if I play your game, and I win... I will not join your vision. I will devour it. I will reforge your ambitions into my own, wrap them in silk and ruin, and sell them back to the Sith Empire as salvation. They'll kiss my hand and thank me for the privilege of their enslavement."

Her head tilted, that smirk returning—laced with cruelty, intelligence, seduction, and something deeper.

"Because I am not here to obey. I am here to infect."

And then, finally, she typed.

A single key.

Just enough to awaken the screen.

And if it were a god sleeping within that machine, it would open its eyes only to see her reflection. Serina Calis. The face of darkness not as destruction, but as desire. As control. As the very thing you crave—right until you belong to it.

"Let's play."

 

[Her]

---

---

Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

---

"Let's play."

Doors are wonderful inventions. You never know what is on the other side until you open one, and pass through it. An endless of world of limitless possibilities are left to the imagination to those who stand on the precipice of the unknowing. One, with the right cunning, and intuition, could make an educated guess but in the end the only way to truly ever discover what was on the other side is to walk through, and see with your own eyes.

As the monitor screen to the rest old computer comes to life, as Serina takes her seat, she is met with a peculiar image. The screen is a green hue, and on the image displayed is a door left ajar with a singular word underneath:

eXit​

Engaging with the game brings you to a dark room much like the one Serina was sitting in. Ahead is a door but there is a barrel in the way. Beneath the image of the dark room, and the blocked path (which is being prevented by the barrel in question) is an eerie query beneath which reads:

"You're trapped in a dungeon with your friend. You see a barrel. What do you do?"

Well?

---

 

[Serina Calis]

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."

Tag - Her



A slow smile began to crawl across Serina's lips, languid and feline. The screen before her flickered faintly in its sickly green glow—primitive, archaic, deliciously inadequate. The kind of interface meant to humble a user into reverence. But she was not reverent.

She was inevitable.

Her fingers rested on the keyboard, unmoving for a moment, as if allowing the words on the screen to seep into her bloodstream, letting them mingle with the ancient and forbidden things that lived inside her. The question lingered on the display like an invitation, or a dare.

"You're trapped in a dungeon with your friend. You see a barrel. What do you do?"

She exhaled slowly, smoke still curling in the air from the crushed cigarette in the ashtray, its scent mingling with the old circuitry like incense in a sacrificial temple.

"Ah," Serina whispered, her voice low, laced with amusement and something darker. "The illusion of simplicity. A riddle dressed up as a prompt. A test of empathy, strategy, instinct. They want to see what I choose. But more importantly..."

Her fingertips hovered just above the keys, a breath away from command.

"...they want to know who I am in this equation. Am I the prisoner? Am I the friend? Or am I the barrel?"

She tapped a single key.

> Examine Barrel

Because, of course, you begin with understanding. Even the most savage must learn what they are about to destroy.

The screen blinked. The barrel remained.

"Obstruction," Serina said softly. "The oldest metaphor in the world. The thing between you and freedom. Between you and the future. So often, people spend their entire lives trying to move the barrel. Push it aside. Climb over it. Work around it. Always, always assuming that the obstacle is real. But you see…"

Her fingers danced across the keyboard.

> Set Fire to Barrel

"...I've never been interested in what's in the way. I'm only interested in what happens when I change the rules."

 

[Her]

---

---

Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

---

> Set Fire to Barrel

It had been a source of metaphor to describe the dark side, among philosophers and historians, dating back several millennia. Perhaps the most famous of those among the throng of Dark Jedi, Sith Lords and cultists-- such as those on Rhand, or Tund-- to perceive the Dark side of the Force as flame had been DARTH MALGUS who had once taught his apprentices, disciples and followers that to serve the dark was to bring never, unending war to the masses, so that in the articles and theatre of warfare, weakness could be eradicated so only the strong may endure among the Stars.

A new query appears after the game took Serina's answer:

"The barrel is destroyed revealing a tunnel. Your friend is too weak to leave with you. As the dungeon catches on fire they pass you a note. It reads: "PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ME."

How many friends did you make growing up among the Jedi did you leave behind?

---

 

[Serina Calis]

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."

Tag - Her



The room was too still now, as if the world itself were waiting to breathe until she did.

The green glow of the Core I screen flickered across Serina's armor, casting distorted light across the crimson lines etched into her bodice. It danced over her lips, now slightly parted in a knowing smirk, over her cheekbones, carved from elegance and sharpened by purpose, and across her eyes—those frigid, piercing jewels of pale sapphire that reflected nothing but hunger and design.

Her gaze locked onto the screen.

"PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ME."

A child's handwriting, perhaps. A plea scribbled in desperation. A test? Certainly. But one that revealed far more about the designer than the designed.

Serina didn't answer right away. She simply lowered herself into the chair once more with queenly composure, her legs elegantly crossed at the knee, posture straight and unapologetically regal. Her fingertips, clad in clawed crimson-tipped gloves, rested gently atop the desk, as if savoring the stillness.

She tilted her head slightly.

"How many?" she whispered, voice a velvet dagger gliding through the quiet. "As if they mattered."

Her lips curled.

"I remember their names. Of course I do. The Order teaches us to forget, to surrender attachment—yet expects obedience to grow from camaraderie. Such delightful contradiction. They bred children in glass towers of dogma and dared to call it virtue. So yes, I remember them."

She leaned forward slightly, the glow of the monitor catching the shimmer of crimson patterns that crawled across her armored torso—like veins pulsing with dark ichor, alive and ancient.

"Marla. Ilaris. Qen. Tasi. Jorrel. Sweet children, all of them. Marla used to cry when the Masters weren't looking. She missed her parents. I used to dry her tears in secret. Tell her stories the Archives never approved. Tales of queens with serpent tongues and warriors who ruled stars."

A pause. Her voice turned indulgent, almost nostalgic.

"She called me her shadow sister."

Another pause.

"And I let her die."

The smile returned—not cruel, but beautiful. Soft. Sad. Like a statue weeping from its own perfection.

"I didn't kill her, no. Not with my hands. But when the Temple burned, and the flames reached the eastern dormitories... I did not run toward her."

She tapped the desk once. Lightly. Thoughtfully.

"I ran away."

Her gaze drifted toward the fish tank again—empty now, silent. And then back to the monitor.

"I could lie," she murmured, eyes narrowing into brilliant slits of polished sapphire. "I could say I regret it. That I was frightened, confused. That I was young. That my chains had not yet broken."

She straightened, now speaking not to the screen, but to Her. Even if she wasn't in the room, Serina knew she was listening. She could feel it. That inevitable, suffocating attention from the other side of the mirror. As if two versions of the same sin had finally found one another in the dark.

"But what use is power if not to choose who survives you?"

Her voice, still low, now held a razor's edge. A haunting melody of desire and destruction.

"You want to know how many friends I left behind? All of them."

She leaned in, her smile deepening—no longer sad, no longer soft. Now it gleamed with unapologetic pleasure.

"Because I do not keep friends. I make investments. And when they fail to yield, I burn them. I let the weak rot, because their devotion is always conditional—fragile things born from mutual fragility. But fear?" She chuckled, low and sultry. "Fear is eternal. Pain is loyal. Desire never betrays you, Love is the greatest tool."

She raised a hand, as if gesturing toward the unseen audience that had made this little test.

"You built this question like a morality trap. A snare to weigh my conscience like some broken scale. But you forget…"

Now she stood again, looming over the monitor like a predator with no interest in games anymore.

"I am the fire. I do not answer pleas. I do not kneel for ghosts. I will leave the note where it lies, and when the flames consume it, I'll remember the way the ink curls as it burns—not the words."

She turned slightly, allowing the light of the monitor to silhouette her from behind—an outline of warlike grace and forbidden beauty. She no longer looked like a woman sitting at a computer.

She looked like the beginning of someone else's end.

"If this is your game, then understand this now: I will never beg. I will never turn back. I will never weep for the friend I left behind. I am the one who leaves."

Her final words struck like a chord beneath the skin.

"And when your own fire comes—and it will—remember that I offered you my corruption willingly. You need only say the word... before I become the barrel in your path."

She didn't look at the screen again. There was no need.

> Force Drain, Target: Friend

Let the game calculate its response.

Let Her decide if she wanted to stand with the inferno, or be consumed by it.

 

[Her]

---

---

Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

---

> Force Drain, Target: Friend

Betrayal is the nature of the dark side. Ambition, desire, destiny. These were often the platitudes of the men, and women who traversed the dark path to walk among the people as deities in the flesh. Friendship was a shackle for the weak. To keep you tethered to others who bring you down, or hold you back. To follow the pathology of the Dark Side is to embrace the individual, and the self.

It's a lonely, isolated form of existence.

But necessary for those who wish to become something more.

"You start to escape but your friend is too weak to go with you. They hand you a note. What do you do?"

"PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ME."

You just killed your friend.

"You crawl through the tunnel and the tunnel leads you to a beach. What do you do?"

---

 

[Serina Calis]

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."

Tag - Her



Serina Calis did not hesitate.

She read the line on the screen—"You crawl through the tunnel and the tunnel leads you to a beach. What do you do?"—and for the briefest of moments, something ancient stirred in the pit of her stomach.

But it was not guilt.

It was recognition.

She knew this question. Not the words. The shape. The taste. This was the pivot. The breath between endings and beginnings. The lull after slaughter when silence stretches thin across the bones of what once was.

This wasn't a test anymore.

It was a mirror.

She leaned back in her chair, legs crossing with languid, decadent grace, and exhaled a slow breath through her nose. Smoke—though none lingered—seemed to coil from her lips nonetheless, as if the very air responded to the temperature of her soul.

"You mistake my silence for hesitation," she said aloud, to no one and to Her. "But I am not contemplating loss. I am savoring the moment after."

Her voice dripped with a honeyed venom, every syllable drawn out, luxuriated in, like a silk-gloved hand trailing across the throat before the blade.

"You see… beaches are fascinating constructs in the mythology of choice. A beach is a line. A threshold. Not quite sea, not quite land. It is a place that exists between what was and what will be. You crawl through the darkness—blood still fresh on your hands, memory still burning behind your eyes—and what greets you?"

She gestured toward the screen, her fingers elegantly splayed.

"A pristine, empty horizon. A place with no walls. No watchers. No consequences."

She smiled then, indulgent and cruel.

"That's the fantasy, isn't it? That once you've sacrificed enough—slit enough throats, whispered enough lies—you emerge reborn. Clean. Naked as a newborn god, standing on the edge of an untouched world."

She shifted forward, resting her elbows on the desk, chin delicately atop her interlaced fingers. Her eyes gleamed like razors dipped in blue flame.

"But I do not believe in rebirth. I do not want redemption. I want dominion. I want a beach not to rest on—but to conquer. To ruin. To stain."

She tapped the keyboard now, fingers dancing lightly.

> Walk into the water

"But not to cleanse," she said aloud, as the cursor blinked. "To claim."

"The ocean is depth. Vastness. The unknown. It is the grave of every delusion of permanence. And I have no fear of drowning—because I am already a creature of depth."

> Submerge completely

She paused, inhaled. The air tasted like iron and memory.

"The Jedi taught us that water is clarity. Peace. The washing away of sin."

She sneered now.

"But they never told you that even in the deepest ocean, something watches back."

A beat.

"I want it to see me."

> Open your eyes underwater

"The friend I left behind will rot in fire and ash, but I… I will look upon what lies beneath the surface. And I will make it mine."

She stood then, letting the chair shift back without grace. Her posture was regal, upright, her cloak spilling from her shoulders like black velvet kissed by a storm. She walked slowly around the desk, letting her hand trail across the wood—Chandrilan-grown, polished, sacred to someone else's past. It meant nothing to her. Sentiment was always the first chain.

When she reached the fish tank, her gaze dropped to the lifeless blackfish.

"Beaches, tunnels, notes, barrels... all these metaphors, so carefully chosen. But the truth is simpler."

She leaned in close to the glass. Her reflection mingled with the corpse inside.

"I am the beach. I am the tunnel. I am the end and the exit and the ocean you drown in trying to reach something better."

She turned her head just enough to speak to the room, as if Her were standing just behind her shoulder.

"If this is the kind of vision you seek to share—if this is the game—we may yet have a future."

Her voice dropped now, low and breathless, but vibrating with sensual promise and apocalyptic certainty.

"But if you ever presume to offer me mercy again…"

Her fingers curled slightly against the glass.

"…I will show you a world where I am the final choice. And you will thank me for the privilege of being ruined by it."

She returned to the desk, fingers brushing the keyboard one last time.

> Swim deeper

Because there was always something more.

Something beneath.

And Serina Calis?

She always went deeper.

 

[Her]

---

---

Lianna, Northwest, Outer Rim Territories, Lianna system;
The Empire of the Lost.
Tags: Serina Calis

---

> Walk into the water

It was Darth Bane who had once described it. By embracing the pathology, and nature of the dark side, once eradicates their former selves to embrace the new. You have to kill who you are in order to become something more. As you contemplate, and find navigation through the often convoluted, murky logic that is the Dark Side of the Force, one can equate it to sinking.

That is certainly how the Jedi perceive their former comrades, friends, brothers, or sisters who embrace the new path.

It is called THE FALL.

"In the water you see a boat. What do you do?"

What is this feeling?

I didn't like it at first.

Suffocating. Drowning. Loathing.

> Submerge completely

Open your eyes underwater

I embraced it as well.

> Swim deeper

Falling.

---

---

The Dark Lord of the Sith emerged from Outpost Northwest hooded, and her facial features concealed. Yellow eyes lowered themselves upon a district on fire. Rioting was in the streets, and revolution in the air, as the Empire of the Lost collapsed in real time. It had never been the same since the day of the Siege of Tion when the Mors Mon appeared seemingly out of no-where, and the behemoth that is The Malsheem bloated the skies of Tion to destroy the planet, and crush the Imperials who had encroaching into His realms, into His secrets, into His territory which had marked the beginning of the end for the Imperial remnants that had banded together on Lianna at the turn of the ninth century.

Broken by The Sith, weakness had crept into the ranks of the Imperial elite, and The Fifth Wing had been allowed to take root. The security apparatus and the Police state designed to survey or designate domestic threats had been turned against the very nation who had created it. When The Rule of Two had first taken their steps upon the lands of the Liann, to meet with Santhe-Sienar to discuss an arrangement that would see the vast wealth accumulated by their predecessor-- Darth Ayra -- passed onto her successor, they had envisioned an Imperial crusade into the heart of the Stygian Caldera to destroy The Kainite and eradicate one of the three warlord factions which had formed a loose triumvirate under the rule of The Corpse Emperor.

One taste of battle against them at Tion had been more than enough for the so-called Lost-Imperials. They hadn't even retaliated, or tried for some form of retribution. Therefore The Empire of the Lost was no-longer fit for purpose.

It had to be destroyed.

As she admired the scenery of destruction, Her averted her gaze to the inside of her robes, and there she produced her communicator. The incoming transmission was for TK-73: the operating number she had assigned for herself at the height of the Empire when the New Imperial Security Bureau still existed. It was for a meeting in the Dac system. There appeared to be survivors from The Imperial Ruling Council who had survived The Sartinaynian Crisis and were now gathering above Mon Calamari to meet.

It was time to start again in what was to come next.

"Out of destruction I breed creation."

The Nomad had been right.

---

---

"Congratulations, you're heading to a new world! Do you want to play again?"

With the last input made by Serina registered, eXit's final prompt appeared on screen signalling the end of the game, the test, the indoctrination. It had been a computer simulation invented by Alicia Drey where members of The Fifth Wing had been selected to go through the simulation to assess whatever results that could be gleamed from their inputs. If they passed then they were given instructions and positions within the Empire that were compartmentalized, and kept separate from the rest of the conspiracy.

Do I need to explain what happened if they failed?

There is a crank on the door which leads into The Room and stepped inside is the same LOM-series protocol unit designated as TX-456. Without another introduction it wordlessly walked around to the table, and shut the Core I down. Only when it was finished did it turn around to the Dark Jedi and explain:

"Thank you for participating in our program. I have been instructed by my master to escort you off the premises. The Master has instructed me to inform you that instructions will be passed along to you, in person, regarding the closure of The Direct Surveillance of Domestic Threats. I have been designated to become your companion to assist in the closure of the program, and to assist you in communication with The Master. I am also programmed to perform protocol services such as translation, etiquette, and other tasks that you require as a gift for your participation."

"Master, might I suggest we leave these premises now, before the planet is put into lockdown?"

---

 

[Serina Calis]

"The fires of the past will be smothered under silken lies."

Tag - Her



Serina Calis rose from the chair as if ascending a throne—not quickly, nor with haste, but with the deliberate elegance of someone who knew the weight of every movement, every breath, every glance. Her long, obsidian cloak whispered behind her, the sound of its trailing fabric more haunting than the klaxons outside, more final than any command. The magenta veins of her bodice flickered like a dying heartbeat beneath her armor, casting sharp geometric shadows across the wooden furniture, which seemed almost embarrassed to be touched by her shadow.

She did not look at the Core I again. She did not need to.

It had played its part. It had whispered its truths, offered its illusions, and finally, knelt before her will.

Let the machine dream of her forever.

The LOM droid's voice clinked and hissed with the tired cheerfulness of artificial civility. It spoke like one unaware it stood in the presence of something that did not serve destiny, but wrote it. Something not human—no, not anymore—but a being made of dark designs, of secrets braided into bloodlines, of history rewritten in sighs and screams. And now, it stood waiting for her command, like a servant before a queen who did not crown herself but demanded coronation by nature alone.

Serina turned her head slightly.

Just slightly.

The gesture alone was devastating.

The motion pulled the hood forward across her golden hair, casting her features into partial silhouette. Her pale lips parted—soft, perfect, untouched by mercy—and she exhaled through her nose, the faintest tremor of amusement in the corners of her mouth. Not a smirk. Not even satisfaction.

This was inevitability personified.

She studied the droid for a heartbeat longer, her crystalline eyes boring through it—not in scrutiny, but with the cold, dispassionate weight of someone measuring a tool for its usefulness, its disposability, and its poetic irony.

"You may call me Mistress," she said at last, her voice like the faint trailing smoke of a burned prayer, every syllable dipped in honey and venom, sin and silk.

Then she walked.

She did not respond to the rest of the droid's speech. She did not acknowledge the gratitude, nor the program, nor the chaos outside.

Because it was her chaos.

The revolutions in the streets, the fires in the skies, the collapse of governments and ideologies—these were not events.

They were tributes.

And she was the high priestess.

Each bootstep was an orchestral note echoing through the hall, as if the outpost itself mourned her departure—its secrets stripped bare, its illusions shattered, its purpose fulfilled only by her passage. She walked as though the galaxy were a garden to be cultivated, ruined, replanted, and drowned again in her vision. She was not leaving.

Serina did not smile.

She only breathed in deeply—slowly—as though the death of an empire was perfume crafted just for her.

Then she turned her gaze skyward, to the stars beyond the smoke.

Where new orders would be forged.

Where gods still waited to be slain.

And with a final flick of her cape, she descended the steps of the outpost into the dying world she had left behind—and into the next she would devour.