=== Anakin ===
The ocean wind met them the moment they stepped off the ramp, brushing across Anakin's face with a salt-sharp bite that felt strangely welcome after the long flight. He followed Palpatine down onto the black sand, boots sinking slightly into the damp shore as the waves rolled in and out with a slow, steady rhythm. Lah'mu was nothing like Kamino, no endless storms, no roiling grey horizon, yet the ocean was just as chaotic here as it was there.
Palpatine walked with his hands folded behind his back, robes stirring lightly in the breeze as he took in the wide stretch of shoreline. "The Kaminoans are an aquatic species by ancestry," he said, his tone calm and measured, "though they abandoned true aquatic living centuries ago. Their bodies adapted to land long before they joined the Republic, but their cities… their cities always remain tied to the water in some way." He nodded toward the glimmering curve of the waves.
Anakin followed his gaze and finally saw vast domes rising from the shallows like pearl-smooth islands, their surfaces gleaming under the muted sun. They were smaller than the ones on Kamino, more compact, their foundations reinforced with broad metal ribs that sank down into the sea floor below.
Still, something about them held the same sleek elegance, the same sense of precision and artistry that Kaminoans poured into all of their creations.
As they descended toward the nearest dome, Palpatine continued speaking, his voice carrying easily over the sound of the surf. "Eight years ago, when the Imperium began its war against the Hutts, the Republic made the decision to relocate the Kaminoans. There was no choice, as their world would have been taken, stripped, or destroyed like so many others. This settlement was constructed in haste, but they… adapted." His tone softened a fraction, though a note of regret lay underneath. "Even so, being forced from one's world is not a wound that heals quickly."
Anakin nodded quietly. He understood exile more than most, leaving one life behind, stepping into another. The ache of it lingered even years later.
A metal platform extended from the dome's main entrance, lowering itself to meet them as they approached. Standing at the end of the walkway was Lama Su, tall and slender as ever, his long neck bending with a slow, practiced grace as the Chancellor came into view. His pale face held its usual unreadable calm, but something colder lingered beneath it.
"Chancellor," Lama Su said, his voice smooth but strained around the edges. "Welcome once again to our… home." The pause was deliberate, a quiet acknowledgement of the displacement they had endured. "We are grateful for what the Republic has done for us. We simply wish it had never been necessary."
Palpatine returned the bow with warmth that seemed to settle the air. "Your people's safety was paramount. And I have never forgotten the sacrifice made in leaving Kamino behind."
Lama Su inclined his head, accepting the gesture, even if the bitterness behind his eyes did not fully fade. Only then did his gaze drift toward Anakin. The Kaminoan studied him with a slow, assessing sweep, head tilting just slightly as if measuring something only he could see.
"And this," Lama Su murmured, "is the one you spoke of."
"He is," Palpatine answered, placing a gentle hand on Anakin's shoulder. "Anakin Skywalker. The young man I told you about."
Lama Su regarded Anakin for another heartbeat, his expression impossible to decipher. At last he nodded, as though some private theory had just been confirmed. "Then we have much to discuss."
Turning with that fluid Kaminoan poise, Lama Su gestured for them to follow. The walkway lights brightened under their feet, and the doors ahead parted with a soft, pressurized hiss. A faint, cool mist drifted outward from the interior's sterile environment.
Anakin moved a half-step behind the Chancellor, letting his eyes sweep over the strange horizon.
"What did he mean," Anakin said quietly, "about me being the 'one' you spoke of?"
Palpatine didn't slow. He only shifted his head slightly, enough that his voice reached Anakin without carrying to the Kaminoan walking ahead. "Precisely what he said," the Chancellor murmured. "He was referring to our earlier conversation… the one you and I had when you first saw the SunEater."
That memory struck like a cold spark. The vast hull of the weapon. The Chancellor's unsettling certainty about the Republic's decay. The Jedi's blindness. The future.
Palpatine continued, his tone warm and low, almost soothing. "You remember what we discussed, the rot within the Senate, the complacency in your Order. You saw it as clearly as I did. And you agreed that something needed to change, you agreed to help me, and be on my side."
Anakin said nothing, though his jaw tightened. Of course he remembered. That moment had lingered with him far longer than he admitted.
"I know more than you think, Anakin," Palpatine said gently. "I know about Padmé. And I know she is pregnant."
Anakin stopped for a fraction of a breath, just long enough for a tremor of shock to go through him before he forced his steps to continue. "How—"
"I have my ways," Palpatine said, lifting a placating hand. "But don't be alarmed. I'm not here to condemn you. In truth, I admire it. The devotion you hold for her… the kind of love most beings spend their lives seeking and never finding. It's beautiful." His voice softened even further. "And it is something the Jedi would throw away without hesitation."
Anakin looked down, letting that sting sink in. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the criticism, but hearing it now, spoken without bitterness or accusation, felt different. Uncomfortably so.
"Tell me," Palpatine went on, "if the Order learned of your marriage, what do you think would happen?"
The answer should have come fast, but Anakin found himself staring ahead in silence, the sea wind tugging faintly at his robe.
Palpatine answered for him, his words sharp and deliberate. "They would strip you of your rank. Your lightsaber. Your standing. Everything you've fought for since you were a child. And for what crime? For daring to love another? For building a family?" He shook his head slowly. "If that is the price of their loyalty, then I fear their devotion has become cruelty in disguise."
The tension in Anakin's chest deepened. He couldn't deny any of it, not when he'd felt those pressures tightening around him for years. But hearing it laid out like this, so plainly, made something inside him bend.
They reached the base of the main dome. The white metal gleamed with that strange Kaminoan sheen, as though polished by endless storm winds. A soft hum emanated from the structure, and mist drifted from vents along the walkway, giving the approach a dreamlike haze.
Lama Su pivoted smoothly and gestured for them to follow, the door sliding open with a whisper of vapor. As they stepped inside, the light shifted to that pale, aquatic glow so distinct to Kaminoan architecture, washing over the walls in soft, cool layers.
"We received the package you sent us," Lama Su said without ceremony as they walked deeper into the dome. "And we have learned a great many things from him."
They stepped through a final set of curved metal doors, and the chamber it revealed swallowed the three of them in silence. Elevated walkways branched like spokes across a cavernous expanse, each overlooking rows upon rows of luminous tanks where fresh clones floated in embryonic sleep. Hundreds of thousands, maybe more, an entire army still in its earliest breath. The Kaminoans had always been efficient, but seeing this renewed effort so far from their storm-lashed homeworld made the war feel suddenly closer, as if the future itself were taking shape in front of him.
"What are all these for?" Anakin asked, his voice low. The sight pulled at him because this wasn't just a precautionary array of forces. This was preparation on a scale that hinted at desperation.
Palpatine walked beside him with a slow, measured pace, his hands folded into his sleeves as though he were strolling through a garden. "Preparation," he answered softly, though the weight in his tone carried far more than the word itself. "Even after what happened on Mortis, the Imperium continues to expand unchecked. They consume worlds, strip civilizations to their bones, and enslave anyone they deem beneath their standard. If we do nothing, the Republic will eventually join the pile." He nodded toward the endless columns of tanks. "This army may be the only thing that keeps our people safe when diplomacy inevitably fails."
The hangar-like door at the far end opened as Lama Su led them deeper. Here the atmosphere shifted. The lights dimmed to a colder hue, and the quiet hum of machinery sharpened into something more surgical. Another dome lay ahead, this one shielded by thick reinforced panels and guarded by two Kaminoan security drones standing completely still, their forms gleaming like polished bone.
Inside, the chamber opened into a vast circular space centered around a single raised platform. Upon it lay a figure so massive that the equipment surrounding him seemed built for giants. The harsh white illumination washed over skin the color of obsidian, scarred in a way that almost resembled living stone.
Vulkan, completely still yet radiating a presence even in unconsciousness.
Anakin had seen Astartes before, but this… this was something else entirely. A Primarch was beyond any measurement he understood. Even dormant, Vulkan's sheer size made the air feel heavier, as if gravity bent just a little more around him.
Lama Su gestured for them to approach. "We have made considerable progress in studying him," he began, his tone carrying both pride and unease. "His physiology is unlike anything we have encountered. Durable beyond reason. Adaptable. Resilient." He paused beside the table, his elongated fingers moving to a tray of delicate instruments. "And completely incapable of dying."
Anakin frowned. "What do you mean 'incapable'?"
The Kaminoan did not answer immediately. Instead, he stepped closer to Vulkan and drew a precise, needle-fine blade. With an almost reverent calm, Lama Su made a shallow incision along the Primarch's arm. The skin parted cleanly, only for the wound to vanish before a bead of blood could form.
Anakin blinked. "That… shouldn't be possible."
Lama Su continued, his movements smooth and almost clinical. "We thought the same. But the regeneration extends far beyond the normal limits of cellular repair." He lifted Vulkan's hand, positioning one of the great fingers. With no hesitation, the Kaminoan pressed the blade through and severed the digit at the knuckle. It fell onto the metal tray with a dense sound, heavy as a stone striking steel. For only a moment it lay still, then the stump began to pulse, flesh knitting, bone weaving, nail and skin rising anew as though time itself were reversing for him.
Palpatine stepped forward. His composure slipped for the briefest heartbeat. His eyes, normally calm and political, flickered with something raw and electric yellow, predatory, hungry. Anakin didn't see it, focused as he was on the impossible regeneration before him, but something in the air tightened, an invisible current of triumph running cold.
The Chancellor's voice returned to that familiar grandfatherly tone. "Remarkable. Truly remarkable." He clasped his hands behind his back again. "Do you have any idea what grants him this… gift?"
Lama Su shook his head. "No. And that is our greatest frustration. His genome resists examination. Every attempt to isolate the locus responsible for his regeneration results in immediate degradation. The material collapses before we can map it." His tone shifted into something resembling irritation. "Worse still, cloning him has proven impossible. The samples disintegrate before they can reach the first stages of replication."
He gestured to the severed finger, which was already rotting.
"A shame," Palpatine murmured, and though the regret in his voice sounded polite, something beneath it vibrated with a far deeper calculation. "An army of beings like him could end this war before it even begins."
Lama Su inclined his thin head. "Perhaps. But nature appears unwilling to repeat him."
Anakin found himself staring at Vulkan again, drawn in by the quiet, immovable presence of the giant. There was something heavy in the air around him, a sense of power that had survived countless deaths—something ancient and indestructible. Something that felt… wrong in a way he couldn't articulate, as though no normal being, not even a Jedi, should endure this kind of existence.
Yet the Kaminoans had tried to study him. Tried to duplicate him. Tried to turn his biology into a weapon.
And the Chancellor… the Chancellor was clearly already thinking of what this discovery meant.
Anakin felt a chill curling at the edge of his mind.
Anakin barely had time to register things before the galaxy itself seemed to lurch beneath him. What began as a cold shiver in the Force suddenly tightened into a brutal fist, crushing the breath from his lungs. His hand shot out instinctively toward the table for balance, fingers scraping the metal edge, but his knees still buckled. A ragged gasp tore from him as a distant chorus of screams, dozens, then hundreds, flared and vanished all at once, like stars being extinguished in rapid succession.
The shock of it hit him so hard he nearly vomited.
Lama Su faltered midstride. The Kaminoan offered no verbal response, but his elongated face shifted with a faint crease of confusion. One of the guards took a half-step forward in concern, but Palpatine's hand lifted gently, almost dismissively, keeping everyone at a distance.
Except him.
The Chancellor moved with quiet, deliberate calm, gliding to Anakin's side, the hem of his dark robes whispering across the polished floor. There was a flicker, just for an instant, in his features, something predatory and gleaming beneath the surface. His eyes caught the harsh blue lights overhead, and for a heartbeat they burned a molten, hungry yellow.
But no one was looking at him. All eyes were on the Jedi collapsing in agony.
By the time those eyes returned, the warm mask was already back in place.
"Anakin… what's wrong?" Palpatine murmured, sinking to one knee beside him with practiced gentleness, a steadying hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
Anakin's breath came in stuttering bursts. The pain wasn't physical; it was something deeper, ripping through the center of his being, hollowing him out from within. He tried to speak, but his voice cracked under the weight of what he felt. A wave of despair rolled through him so violently he felt tears sting at the corners of his eyes.
"They're… dying," he forced out. "The Jedi, something's happening to them. All of them. I can feel them being—" He winced, clutching at his chest. "—snuffed out. All at once. Something is killing them."
The words hung there, trembling, the horror settling over the room like a frost.
Palpatine leaned in a little more, his hand tightening with carefully measured concern. "We must return to Coruscant immediately."
Anakin nodded shakily, still struggling to center himself, but the terror in his mind only sharpened. He pushed himself upright with Palpatine's help, his legs unsteady beneath him, breath uneven as he tried to pull the Force back around him in something resembling balance. But the echoes of the dying clung to him, gnawing at his composure.
The Chancellor turned his head slightly toward Lama Su, tone shifting back to crisp authority. "Continue your work. And keep me apprised of anything new you uncover. The Republic values your… contributions."
Lama Su inclined his narrow head, though even he seemed somewhat unsettled by the sudden outburst of the Jedi Knight. "Of course, Chancellor. We will remain in contact."
Two of the red-armored guards moved in, guiding Anakin toward the long corridor leading back to the landing platform. Palpatine followed closely, hands folded into his sleeves, his measured footsteps echoing softly against the metal flooring. Anakin was too shaken to notice the slight upward curl at the corners of the Chancellor's mouth, the quiet satisfaction gathering there like a shadow finding its rightful place.
Everything was unfolding exactly as he intended.
As they neared the final threshold and the bright wash of natural light spilled over them, Anakin forced himself upright without assistance, still breathing hard, still pale, but his urgency was unmistakable.
"We have to go," he said, his voice tight with fear. "Please… the Order needs us."
"Come, my boy. Let us hurry!"
The words floated behind them as they stepped into the sunlight, masking the triumph simmering beneath.
===
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