Unknown Regions – Aboard the Ravager
The vessel drifted like a corpse through the stars—scarred metal twisted into brutal symmetry, its hull marked with symbols that had not been spoken aloud in centuries. It had no transponder, no signature. Only a presence.
In the dark, a man stood before a viewport of blackened transparisteel, armored in jagged durasteel etched with faint red veins that pulsed like embers beneath the skin. The helm he wore obscured all expression, save for the pair of glowing eyes beneath the visor—cold and steady as a frozen sun.
He did not speak.
He did not meditate.
He listened—to the whispers in the Force.
Not commands.
Not prophecy.
A direction.
He did not yet know where it would lead.
Only that it would end in revelation.
And possibly in fire.
Outer Rim – Dargul Station
They tried to trap him.
A pirate fleet. Thirty ships. Reinforced shields. Gravity wells. They had intercepted his path and laid the ambush with confidence.
They lasted four minutes.
He emerged from hyperspace without warning. The moment his ship appeared, the temperature in the command deck dropped. Static clawed at every transmission. Communications failed.
Boarding was not a tactic. It was an inevitability.
Security footage—what remained—showed only fragments: armored boots walking across a flame-scarred corridor; a red glow without source; shadows distorting walls. One camera captured him in full silhouette—broad, deliberate, ancient.
No saber.
Just his hand.
And then everything shattered.
The lone survivor's audio log crackled before fading:
"He doesn't kill like the Sith. He moves like... judgment. I saw his eyes. Red. Not burning—glowing. Like coals that never die."
The file was passed from outpost to outpost.
Until it reached Coruscant.
Coruscant – Jedi Temple, High Council Chamber
"There's been another report," Mace Windu said, his tone clipped.
He projected the hololog into the center of the room. The red-tinged silhouette. The whispered voice. The cold, dread-laced quiet that followed the transmission's end.
"Outer Rim?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.
"Yes. But not only there. Whispers from Ilum. Taris. Ossus. Too many to dismiss."
"He hunts... but not for war," Plo Koon said. "This isn't conquest. This is movement. The Force shifts with him."
"And yet we do not know his name," said Adi Gallia.
Yoda exhaled slowly. "Mask he wears. Not just armor... identity hidden, even from the Force."
A long silence.
"Whatever he is," Windu said, "he's not waiting to be discovered."
Coruscant – The Works, Deep Below
Palpatine stood alone.
Even here, below the great city, where shadows whispered louder than wind, he felt it.
A pressure in the air. Not close, but growing.
He narrowed his eyes.
"This one isn't mine," he said quietly. "And that... intrigues me."
Behind him, the faint flicker of a hooded figure inched forward—a pale acolyte whose voice rasped with unease. "He leaves nothing behind. No pattern. No demand. Just ruin."
"Because he doesn't need to be understood," Palpatine murmured. "Only felt."
A pause.
"And yet... he approaches."
He turned toward the dark with a smile.
"The galaxy begins to tremble."
Dathomir – Southern Wastes
The mists thickened around the cliffs. From a tall rock, a Nightsister elder raised her arms, her fingers brushing the sky.
"Something stirs," she whispered.
A chant flowed from her lips in ancient Paecian. Beneath her, the wind danced with strange rhythm. The Force did not swirl as it once had—it twined.
Drawn not toward the stars.
But toward a center.
A weight.
Balance.
And something deeper.
Her eyes opened, glowing faint green.
"I must go."
Corellia – Jedi Enclave
A young Jedi Knight froze mid-duel, his blade locking with his partner's.
"Do you feel that?" he asked suddenly.
His opponent blinked. "Feel what?"
The Knight didn't answer. He turned his head toward a direction he could not name—an invisible compass shifting inside him.
A calling.
Not a warning.
A pull.
He lowered his blade and stared into the distance.
"Something's out there. Waiting."
Hyperspace – Multiple Vessels
Across the galaxy, individuals answered the same unspoken call.
A transport left Naboo in silence.
A freighter diverted course from the Hydian Way with no explanation.
A rogue Jedi, long thought lost, entered hyperspace from the edge of Hutt space, guided only by instinct.
None of them had names for what called them.
But they moved.
And the stars bent around them in quiet anticipation.
The Ravager – Observation Deck
He stood unmoving.
His eyes glowed softly behind the visor. Not with fire.
But with permanence.
He sensed the stirrings of the Force—the Jedi, the Nightsisters, even the Sith.
All aware, now.
Good.
Let them come.
He would not speak his name.
The galaxy had forgotten it.
But they would remember what followed in its wake.
He turned his head slightly, as if speaking to a shadow only he could see.
"A place not of weakness, but of truth."
His fingers curled into a fist.
"I am not here to rule," he said softly.
"I am here to break what is false."