Coruscant shimmered with midnight light, but beneath its opalescent surface, darkness moved. In a secure holo chamber masked from every known surveillance grid, Darth Sidious stood alone—hooded, faceless, patient.
"The Queen will not bend," he said into the silence.
A voice crackled back through the encrypted channel. "She doesn't have to. She only needs to move."
A pause. Sidious allowed himself the faintest curl of a smile. "The Jedi?"
"Dispatched. Jinn and his apprentice."
"Good. Let the Federation flinch. Let the Queen run. Everything will follow."
Far above Naboo, a silver Republic cruiser dropped out of hyperspace and glided toward the blockade. Onboard, Master Qui-Gon Jinn stood still, eyes closed, immersed in the weight of what he could not yet name. Obi-Wan Kenobi, poised but uncertain, glanced toward his master.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"Focus," Qui-Gon murmured. "Feel, don't anticipate."
They entered under diplomatic pretense, but it quickly unraveled. The viceroys stalled. Communications broke. Poison gas hissed through the vents.
The Jedi moved like wind through a crack—cutting, dodging, dismantling droids with precision. It wasn't a negotiation. It was bait. And they had stepped into it.
In the shadows of Eclipse Command, Serion watched the footage from long-range probes planted in the outer systems. His hands folded behind him as data streamed through spectral overlays. He saw the Naboo incursion. He saw the Jedi escape.
Taliya stood beside him in silence. "They act quickly."
"They act predictably," Serion corrected. "Sidious plays the board. We must watch the space between the pieces."
On the planet's surface, the Jedi emerged from the swamps, drenched and exhausted. There, amid flailing limbs and half-spoken apologies, stumbled Jar Jar Binks, a Gungan outcast who led them beneath the water to Otoh Gunga. The Gungans did not welcome them. But with persuasion—and a glint of the Force—a transport was granted.
A journey through the planet's core brought them to the besieged capital, Theed. The Queen, dignified yet trapped, accepted their aid without hesitation. Amid flashing blaster fire and tactical misdirection, they stole away in a royal cruiser and punched through the blockade, engines howling.
They didn't get far.
Damage forced a landing on Tatooine—harsh, remote, lawless. There, in the dust-choked alleyways of Mos Espa, they met a boy.
His name was Anakin Skywalker.
He was a slave with clear eyes and an impossible intuition. He built machines, outpaced adults in podraces, and showed no fear in front of Jedi.
Qui-Gon watched him closely.
Obi-Wan watched his master even more closely.
The deal was struck. The boy would race. If he won, he would be free.
He did.
His mother, Shmi, stood tall even in sorrow. "He was meant for more than this place," she said, tears held at bay.
"Will he become a Jedi?" she asked.
"He has a path," Qui-Gon said. "Only he can choose to walk it."
"He will," she answered.
They left Tatooine behind, unaware that in orbit, a dark figure on a Sith infiltrator had watched the entire exchange. Darth Maul turned his ship toward Coruscant.
On the capital world, Queen Amidala stood before the Galactic Senate. She spoke of her people's suffering, of blockades and invasion, of a violation of all that the Republic claimed to protect.
And she was met with bureaucracy.
Chancellor Valorum hesitated. Procedure consumed urgency. Committees were proposed.
Amidala's voice chilled. "This body is unable to act."
Palpatine leaned close, soft-spoken. "There is a remedy, Your Highness. A vote of no confidence."
The words had been seeded in her mind days before. Now they slipped from her lips like her own.
"I move for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum."
Gasps. Protests. Applause. In a single moment, the Republic pivoted. Valorum's fall was not a collapse—it was a nudge.
And Palpatine was already rising.
The Jedi Council convened in quiet unrest. Qui-Gon brought Anakin forward, arguing prophecy. "He is the Chosen One. He will bring balance to the Force."
Obi-Wan's voice remained low but firm. "He is dangerous. There is too much we don't understand."
The Council deliberated. They listened. But they decided nothing.
Outside the chamber, Serion observed through indirect channels—signal reflections, Force intuition, political drift maps. Taliya waited for instruction.
"The Jedi question, but do not act," he said.
"And us?"
"We prepare."
Below the Eclipse citadel, Serion's engineers began construction on a flagship—the first of its kind, silent and cloaked, built to eclipse any Republic vessel. A spear in the dark.
Taliya studied doctrine daily—ancient texts, modern tactics, historical failures. That morning, she'd issued her first command to reassign a Spartan unit to intercept Muunilinst signals.
"They're replicating Kaminoan data," she said.
"Good," Serion replied. "Let them believe they are alone."
The galaxy churned. Jedi moved. Sith plotted. Republic fractured.
And amid it all, a boy dreamed of stars.
Serion closed his eyes and whispered, "The descent has begun."