"She was powerful and persistent and self-obsessed, all features that would continue to grate on Madelyn, but she was powerless to deal with Calis. Even her words tonight could prove dangerous, given what she understood about the girl's unpredictable nature." - Money, Madelyn Lowe
The chamber was dark.
Not the soft, velvet dark of luxury or slumber, but the kind of smothering stillness that came only when machines chose not to breathe. The filtration systems of Polis Massa's sub-atmospheric domes were muted to a low hum, and the stars—endless and unblinking—hung like executioners in the void beyond the transparisteel wall.
Serina Calis opened her eyes.
She did not jolt awake. There was no gasp, no shudder. Her rise from unconsciousness was a slow, deliberate shift—like a curtain parting, the performer ready behind it. Her form lay in silken sheets of deepest crimson, her body stretched and coiled as if carved from alabaster and temptation. The pale glow of her bedside console bathed her cheekbones, and the faint, rhythmic pulse of her armor's dormant core cast low, pulsing shadows across the walls—like heartbeats echoing in an empty tomb.
She exhaled once, long and quiet. Today was the day.
Her gaze drifted—first to the ceiling, then down across her arm laid languid across her chest, fingers curled like a predator's talon—until it settled on the single object that broke the cold symmetry of the chamber.
A rose. (Quinn Varanin )
Suspended in a slender black vase of volcanic glass. Alone, impossibly red. Its petals, perfect yet slightly wilting at the edges, leaned ever so slightly toward her—as if even inanimate beauty sought her attention. She stared at it in silence. Then, softly, she spoke.
"Isn't that always the way? You bloom... for fools."
A quiet bitterness trembled behind the sultry calm of her voice. The memory of the Free Trade Council still blistered her ego like acid: The Commonwealth's lackey (Ivalyn Yvarro ) poised contempt, the smug derision of Madelyn Lowe , and the suffocating laughter between lines and glances from every minor bureaucrat who dared look down on her.
They had painted her as a child. Inexperienced. Arrogant. Emotional. Weak.
Her tongue ran across the edge of her teeth. Her legs slid from the bed like silk over glass, her bare skin kissed by the cold floor as she stood—entirely naked, yet utterly unashamed. There was no one here but the cameras she had installed herself. Let them watch. Let the archives remember her like this: unyielding, perfect, terrible.
She stepped toward her dressing dais.
The armor greeted her like a lover. Not the soft kind. No—this was the lover who pressed you against the wall and whispered war into your ear. Piece by piece it slid across her skin: obsidian weave, glowing trim, pauldrons carved like the wings of an angel that had long since fallen. The magenta veins of circuitry pulsed to life across her bodice, trailing down her skirted armor panels like the veins of a beating, monstrous heart. Her gloves locked in place with a whisper and a hiss.
She was not dressed.
She was reborn.
Her stride to the command terminal was slow, indulgent, purposeful. Each step a declaration of purpose, hips swaying with serpentine arrogance, her presence magnetic even in solitude. She activated the console with a mere brush of her claw-tipped finger. The room flickered alive—holograms spinning into being like ghosts summoned from the depths of space.
OPERATION: DAGGERFALL
STATUS: GREEN
ALL MERCENARY ARMIES AND AUXILIARIES STAGED AT JUMP COORDINATES
INCRIMINATING DATASETS — ANONYMITY MAINTAINED
TARGET: GOVERNOR DARTH FURY — SAIJO
OBJECTIVE: ABSOLUTE ANNIHILATION
She smiled, and it was not a nice smile. It was the curve of a blade before it slid between ribs.
Saijo was a fortress world. Built to endure. Built to inspire fear. And its ruler— Darth Fury —was a brutalist of tradition, a devotee of the old, grinding strength of the Sith. Serina had never met him. She didn't need to. He was a monument to the Empire's hypocrisy: they spoke of evolution, of vision, but honored men like Fury for their stagnation. Their loyalty. Their inability to see beyond the next campaign of blood and steel.
And the Tsis'Kaar? Their precious Darth Malum of House Marr ?
Her lips twisted in disgust. That creature hadn't even deigned to look in her direction. Not when she walked into Dorvalla. Not when she carved a throne from silence. She had offered her brilliance, her loyalty, her wit—and they had scorned her like a painted harlot brought to a strategy table. They would pay for that mistake.
The dagger, she had learned, did not need permission to be sharp.
Her agents had labored in shadow for months. They had infiltrated Fury's supply lines, forged convincing bribes and intercepted communications. They had built an elegant fiction—so perfect it would read as truth to any Sith inspection officer—suggesting that Fury was harboring Jedi and Alliance soldiers, misusing resources, and conspiring to betray Malum and the Emperor (Darth Empyrean ) himself. A web of disloyalty painted in bright, damning color.
And now... now the noose would tighten. Now her fleets—mercenaries loyal not by oath but by fear, contract, and her own unique persuasion—would descend upon Saijo like wolves upon an old, proud stag.
There would be no trial.
There would be no honor.
Only desolation.
The console lit up again. A soft chime sounded.
"Fleet Magnus reports readiness. Operation Daggerfall: countdown at T-minus thirty minutes. Shall we proceed?"
She didn't answer immediately.
She walked back toward the rose.
Her hand hovered just above it, fingers trembling, but not from weakness. From restraint. The flower was beginning to curl at the edges, losing its flush vitality. Like so many things in the galaxy, it had been beautiful for only a moment—and then, it would fade, unnoticed, unloved.
"I would've given them peace," she murmured. "Maybe you would tell me how dangerous this is."
A beat of silence.
Then she turned away from the flower and strode toward the viewport.
The stars were still there. Pale. Distant. Indifferent.
Her voice, when it came, was a low purr.
"Proceed, alert the Kainite forces Daggerfall is underway. Alert Darth Prazutis that I will either come back triumphant, or I will supplicate completely to his will."
Let the galaxy tremble.
Let Saijo burn.
Let the name Serina Calis no longer be spoken in condescension or mockery—but in fear. In reverence. In awe.
The sundering had begun.
DAGGERFALL HAD BEGUN.
