Chapter II
The descent into the excavation site was marked by a stark shift in the atmosphere. As Serina followed the House Calis Guard through the carved tunnels beneath her fortress, she could feel the weight of something ancient pressing against the walls. The air was cooler here, damp with the scent of stone long buried, undisturbed for millennia. Faint vibrations hummed beneath her boots, almost imperceptible, as if the very ground still remembered the power that had once surged through it.The tunnel widened into a grand chamber, dimly illuminated by portable floodlights and glow-lamps hastily set up by the excavation team. A gaping fissure had been torn into the rock, exposing metal—not rusted or corroded like one would expect from something buried for eons, but pristine.
The walls, now fully unearthed, bore the hallmark of the Rakata.
Serina recognized their architecture immediately. Smooth, dark metal panels, arranged in strange, almost organic patterns, pulsed with faint traces of ancient energy. The symbols—Rakatan script, alien and jagged—glowed a dull amber, flickering in and out of existence like a dying heartbeat. The air itself seemed charged, thick with something unspoken.
The workers lingered at the edges of the chamber, refusing to step closer. They whispered among themselves, eyes darting toward the structure as if expecting it to move.
Serina barely noticed them. She had eyes only for the door.
It stood at the far end of the chamber, half-buried in rock, massive and sealed. Unlike the walls, its surface was scarred, as if something had tried to force its way inside—or out.
"Report."
Her voice cut through the murmurs. The lead engineer—Voss, the one from the meeting—stepped forward hesitantly. He was sweating. That alone was telling.
"It's a factory," he said, voice uneasy. "Or at least, it was. Our scans are incomplete, but the subterranean structure extends far deeper than we initially estimated. Much deeper. There's some kind of power source still active, but we don't know what it's fueling."
Serina turned to him, her expression unreadable.
"Have you opened it?"
Voss hesitated. "We… attempted to. The main door won't budge. The metal is unlike anything we've encountered—it resists cutting torches, plasma drills, even detonite charges. And there's something else."
He motioned to a nearby technician, who quickly brought up a datapad. The screen flickered to life, displaying a feed from their earlier scans. It showed the interior of the structure—at least, what little they could see through the small breaches they had managed to make in the outer casing.
What Serina saw made her eyes narrow.
Rows of machines.
Not modern machinery—not even ancient Sith or Old Republic technology. This was Rakatan. Twisted, organic-looking constructs, their surfaces blackened with time, yet unbroken.
And they were still active.
Faint pulses of orange light flickered along their surfaces, stretching through conduits like veins in a long-forgotten beast. The power—dormant, but alive—flowed through the structure in pulses.
A heartbeat.
Serina handed the datapad back. Fascinating.
The Rakata, the builders of the Infinite Empire, had mastered technology so advanced that even the Sith had struggled to replicate it. But the Empire had fallen. Their creations had been lost. Their factories, their armies, their weapons—all of it had faded into legend.
Yet here, buried beneath Rakata Prime, one of their factories remained.
And it still lived.
Serina turned back to the great sealed door. Her fingers flexed slightly at her sides.
She wanted in.
"Stand back," she commanded.
The workers obeyed without hesitation, scrambling backward. The House Calis Guards remained firm, but their stances shifted, their fingers resting near their weapons. They were disciplined soldiers, trained to be unshakable—yet Serina could feel their unease.
She didn't blame them.
Serina extended her hand toward the door, reaching out with the Force.
The moment her consciousness brushed against the structure, a shockwave of sensation struck her mind.
Darkness. Power. Memory.
The factory knew she was there.
A deep, thrumming resonance shook the chamber, the very air crackling with unseen energy. The amber lights on the door flared—not as a warning, but as an acknowledgment.
She pressed harder.
Through the Force, she could feel the factory's will. It was not sentient, not in the way a living thing was, but it had been designed to serve. The Rakata had built it for a singular purpose.
To create.
To manufacture.
To build weapons of war.
Serina's lips parted slightly. This was a prize beyond value. If she could control it, if she could bend it to her will—
The door shuddered.
The amber script flickered—then shifted. The runes reformed, rearranging, and for the first time in thousands of years, a mechanical hiss filled the air.
Then, with a slow, grinding motion, the massive door began to open.
The chamber trembled. Dust and rock crumbled from above as the ancient gears fought against time itself, peeling away the seal of ages. A deep, mechanical groan echoed from the depths beyond, the sound of something awakening.
The workers fled. The guards raised their weapons.
Serina stepped forward.
As the door fully parted, a wave of stale, cold air rushed out from within. The darkness beyond was absolute, broken only by the dim, pulsing glow of ancient consoles flickering back to life.
And then—
A single, massive shape loomed in the shadows beyond the threshold.
It was a machine. No—an automaton. Towering, twice the height of a man, its form obscured by time and dust. Its surface, once pristine, was now worn with age—but not broken.
Then—
A single, searing orange eye flared to life in the darkness.
A sound followed. Not words, not language—just a deep, reverberating pulse that shook the walls.
Serina stared.
Her heart did not race. She did not flinch.
Instead—she smiled.
"Fascinating."
