Serenno was a world of old nobility its mansions towered above silver plains, surrounded by vineyards and ancient vaults. It was here that Count Dooku, once Jedi Master, now political dissenter and shadowed manipulator, welcomed Cassian Voss into the next phase of galactic war.
They met not in public, but beneath the surface of Dooku's ancestral estate, inside a war room older than the Republic itself. Holoprojections floated in the air designs of droids, capital ships, logistics networks.
Dooku gestured toward the flickering galaxy between them.
"The Republic is rotting, Cassian. You know it. You feel it. Why build for the corpse when you can forge the future?"
Cassian studied the plans. Confederacy warships primitive by his standards. Droids with poor tactical subroutines. Still, they had reach. Infrastructure. Capital. And most importantly, independence.
"What do you want?" Cassian asked.
"I want you at the table," Dooku replied. "Not as a contractor. As an architect. Build the spine of our new military. Design weapons that make Coruscant tremble. And in return, you'll own a piece of what comes next."
Cassian didn't answer at once.
He didn't need to.
Reforging the Monster
They took him deeper into the underground complex past storage rooms and old Separatist blueprints to a stasis chamber that hissed open as Cassian approached.
Inside floated a cyborg prototype, twisted and brutal: the first shell of what would become General Grievous.
It was a mess. Cheap alloys. Inefficient servo-motors. A body designed for intimidation, not efficiency.
Cassian snorted. "Who built this? A Jawa?"
"It was a crude beginning," Dooku admitted. "But it can be refined."
Cassian turned to EVA.
"Upload the latest Spartan combat telemetry. Begin a total rebuild. I want this thing to be able to slaughter Jedi without ever drawing a lightsaber."
Over the next hours, Cassian integrated energy-sheathed carbon-fiber muscles, a gyroscopic central nervous array, and a target-prediction module fused with a fragmented shard of EVA's combat AI. The end result wasn't Grievous it was something beyond.
"Designation?" EVA asked.
Cassian thought for a moment.
"Call him Requiem. A war song in metal."
Shadows on Coruscant
While Cassian worked with Dooku, his growing power echoed across the galaxy and Coruscant noticed.
In the Jedi Temple, Mace Windu and Yoda convened in silence. A projection of Cassian's new Starforge class ship hung in the center of the council chamber.
"Too advanced, this is," Yoda said. "Too quickly made. Secrets he keeps."
Windu folded his arms. "He's outfitting both Jedi and Separatists. We have no evidence, but too many coincidences."
"Watch him, we must. Quietly. Closely."
The Hunt for the Rakatans
Cassian stood aboard the Voss Paradox, gazing at ancient star maps etched into a recovered Jedi artifact. His goal now was older than the Republic older than the Sith.
The Rakatans. A species long thought extinct, whose hyper-advanced technology once ruled the galaxy through the Infinite Empire.
"Find me the Rakatan homeworld," he told EVA. "I need more than what's left behind."
"Confirmed. Probability scan complete. Potential archives located in Outer Rim ruins, Sector Theta-Zero. Ancient vault, pre-Republic. Uninhabited."
Cassian nodded.
He turned to HK-47, now rebuilt with Forerunner shielding, magnetic phase plating, and plasma core weapons.
"Infiltrate the site. Extract every fragment of data. And don't leave any witnesses."
"Observation: With pleasure, meatbag creator."
HK-47 departed silently aboard a cloaked vessel.
Meanwhile on Naboo…
On Naboo, Senator Padmé Amidala stood on her balcony, watching distant ships streak through the sky. She had not seen Cassian since he delivered the diplomatic cruiser an act of peace from a man who only spoke in war.
She missed him. And feared him.
Her aide entered quietly. "Senator. Jedi Masters Windu and Kenobi wish to speak with you about your industrial contacts."
She took a breath.
The galaxy was changing. And Cassian Voss was at its centre.