Chapter 17: The Facility
POV: Kael Vorn
The coordinates led to a barren moon orbiting a dying red giant, its surface scarred by ancient meteor impacts and the slow erosion of cosmic radiation. Against this desolate backdrop, a Republic research station squatted like a metallic tumor—all harsh angles and industrial practicality, designed for function rather than aesthetics.
No signals. No life signs. No energy readings beyond the faint glow of emergency power cells.
The station appeared dead.
Ventress brought their damaged ship in for landing with aggressive precision, her piloting style reflecting the controlled violence that defined everything about her. The landing was harder than necessary, but flawless in its execution—exactly what Kael would have expected from someone trained to turn any tool into a weapon.
"This feels wrong," Kael muttered as they powered down the engines. His Force Sense had been screaming warnings since they'd dropped from hyperspace, a constant pressure at the back of his skull that made his teeth ache.
Ventress checked her reclaimed lightsabers, twin crimson blades that had been returned to her when the Council authorized their mission. "Everything about this mission feels wrong. Yet here we are."
They descended the boarding ramp together, an unlikely pair bathed in the dying star's crimson light. The moon's atmosphere was thin but breathable, carrying the metallic taste of irradiated dust and something else—a chemical tang that reminded Kael unpleasantly of hospital disinfectant.
[FORCE SENSE: ELEVATED DANGER LEVELS]
[LIFE SIGNS: ZERO DETECTED]
[SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS: INACTIVE BUT FUNCTIONAL]
[RECOMMENDATION: PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION]
The station's entrance stood open, blast doors retracted to reveal corridors that disappeared into red-lit darkness. Emergency lighting cast everything in shades of blood and shadow, while dust motes danced in the thin air like microscopic ghosts.
But the dust wasn't thick enough for years of abandonment—weeks, maybe months at most. Someone had been here recently.
"No organic life," Ventress observed, her senses extending through the Force to probe the station's interior. "But something watches."
Kael felt it too—surveillance systems that hummed with standby power, ready to activate at the first sign of intrusion. Automated defenses that could turn the entire facility into a death trap with the flip of a switch.
They moved deeper into the station's bowels, passing laboratories with equipment still arranged for active research. Crew quarters contained personal effects that suggested their owners had expected to return—holopictures of families, half-finished letters, clothing laid out for the next day's shift.
In a mess hall, meals sat rotting on tables, the food decomposed beyond recognition but still arranged as if the diners had simply stepped away for a moment.
"They left in a hurry," Kael observed, his voice echoing strangely in the empty space.
Ventress nodded, her hand resting on her lightsaber hilt. "Or were taken. Quietly."
"What could make an entire Republic facility evacuate without distress calls? Without any sign of struggle or resistance?"
The implications hung heavy between them as they ventured deeper into the station's central research wing. Here, the architecture changed—reinforced bulkheads, blast-resistant viewports, airlocks designed to contain something that might try to escape.
And behind sealed doors marked with biohazard warnings, they found it.
Rows of containment tanks filled the chamber like technological sarcophagi, each one filled with murky preservation fluid that obscured the shapes floating within. Control panels displayed vital signs, neural activity readings, Force sensitivity measurements that made Kael's blood turn to ice.
The bodies inside were humanoid and alien in equal measure, but they all shared one terrible commonality—they had been Force-sensitive. Children, mostly. Their skulls bore the surgical scars of electrode implantation. Neural probes snaked through cranial ports like mechanical parasites feeding on consciousness itself.
Kael's Force Sense exploded with phantom echoes of pain and terror, the psychic screams of innocents subjected to experiments that defied every principle of civilized behavior.
"What is this?" Ventress whispered, her voice strangled with an emotion he'd never heard from her before.
His hands shook as the Codex analyzed the horror before them, overlaying technical specifications and experimental parameters that painted a picture of systematic atrocity.
"They were testing something. Measuring Force sensitivity. Trying to... enhance it? Extract it?"
One of the tanks drew his attention—its occupant stirring weakly in the preservation fluid. A young Twi'lek girl, emaciated beyond belief but still clinging to life with the desperate tenacity of youth.
Kael smashed the glass without thinking, catching the child as she collapsed in a cascade of medical fluid and broken dreams. Her skin was cold as death, her breathing shallow and irregular. The neural implants in her skull sparked and died as they lost connection to the monitoring systems.
Her eyes opened, unfocused but aware. "Save... others..."
Then she died in his arms, her final breath carrying the weight of all the suffering this place had witnessed.
Kael's scream was raw anguish, the sound torn from his throat by horror too vast for words. The child's body was weightless in his grasp, a reminder that evil was not an abstract concept but a choice made by people who had decided that some lives mattered less than others.
[FORCE SENSE: 278/400 USES]
[EXTREME EMOTIONAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
[ALIGNMENT SHIFT: +2% TOWARD DARK]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 56% LIGHT-LEANING, APPROACHING TRUE GRAY]
Ventress found a functioning terminal while Kael processed his horror, her criminal skills proving useful as she sliced through security protocols with practiced ease. Data files cascaded across the display, revealing the scope of the project they had uncovered.
"Project Shadowfeed," she read aloud, her voice tight with controlled fury. "Objective: Cultivate Force-sensitive subjects for integration into contingency protocol. Authorized by..." She paused, scrolling through authorization codes. "No name. Just a designation: Order 66."
Kael's blood turned to ice. Order 66—the phrase that would doom the Jedi and transform the Republic into the Empire. But it was supposed to be years away, a secret protocol known only to the highest levels of Sith hierarchy.
"It's connected. The clone inhibitor chips, the systematic extermination of Force-sensitives, all of it part of the same plan. But why the experiments? What are they preparing for?"
He tried to explain what the designation meant, tried to warn Ventress about the scope of the conspiracy they had uncovered. But the curse activated immediately, turning his words into meaningless gibberish about kitchen appliances and breakfast protocols.
Ventress glared at him, frustration radiating from her like heat from a forge. "What aren't you telling me? Every time we uncover something important, you start babbling nonsense!"
Kael forced himself to focus on what he could say without triggering the cosmic gag order. "Someone is preparing something terrible. This facility—it's just one site. There have to be others."
The data confirmed his suspicions: seventeen facilities scattered across both Separatist and Republic space, all running similar experiments, all answering to the same unknown authority. A conspiracy that transcended the war itself, using the conflict as cover for something far more sinister.
[MAJOR MYSTERY REVEALED: PROJECT SHADOWFEED]
[CONNECTION TO ORDER 66 CONFIRMED]
[PALPATINE INVOLVEMENT: HIGHLY PROBABLE]
[TIMELINE INTEGRITY: 87%]
[MAJOR DIVERGENCE FROM CANON EVENTS]
They fled the station like refugees from a nightmare, carrying stolen data and the weight of knowledge that neither of them was equipped to bear. The ship's engines struggled against the moon's weak gravity, trailing smoke from damage sustained during their earlier battle.
As the facility dwindled to a speck behind them, Ventress broke the oppressive silence that had settled over the cockpit.
"That was a Republic station. Republic authorization codes. Whoever authorized this horror... they're on your side, gray one."
Kael stared at the data crystal in his hand, its surface reflecting the red light of the dying star they were leaving behind. He knew it ultimately led to Palpatine, but proving that connection was impossible without revealing knowledge he couldn't share.
"No," he said quietly. "They're not on anyone's side but their own. And we're going to stop them."
Ventress's yellow eyes met his in the reflection of the viewport, and for the first time since they'd met, he saw genuine emotion beyond the rage and pain that usually defined her.
"Then we're truly allies. For now."
It wasn't much—barely the beginning of trust between two people who had every reason to distrust each other. But it was a start.
And in a galaxy sliding toward darkness, sometimes a start was all you could hope for.
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