The holocron sat in the center of the lab, rotating slowly above a containment pedestal encased in magnetic fields. Even behind shields, the dark object radiated presence—cold, oppressive, like a whisper that never stopped muttering in the back of one's mind.
But Shepard wasn't afraid.
He stood before it in his private lab on Facility Zero, his fingers moving as thousands of nanites hovered in the air, forming thin tendrils of silvery light. They wove into the crevices of the holocron, slipping through ancient Sith security encryptions like keys reshaping themselves to open locks long rusted shut.
The holocron pulsed red in protest.
And then—
It yielded.
Dark crimson light erupted from it, holographic glyphs spinning wildly in the air as the core cracked open, revealing the vast store of forbidden Sith knowledge within.
Most would have been torn apart by the mental onslaught. The madness of the ancient Sith, the unstable data constructs, the twisted philosophy—all of it designed to burn minds that were not ready.
But Shepard was not most.
His nanites formed a buffer, absorbing the data, filtering it, translating it. Hours passed in silence as the knowledge poured into him—rituals, theories, twisted science, Force manipulation at the molecular level, neural control implants designed to mimic mind tricks, Force-bond cloning, even Sith cybernetic integration schematics.
But what caught his attention most was the navigation sector of the holocron.
A hidden layer—encrypted separately—unlocked only once the dark knowledge was accepted.
A full galactic map unfolded before him in the air, layer upon layer of star systems and ancient lanes long erased from modern records. Hyperspace corridors lost to time. Forgotten planets, sealed-off sectors, abandoned warzones of the Infinite Empire.
He stood silent, breath caught in his throat.
"This… is the full picture."
The map rotated in front of him, glowing in soft blue and red. Dozens of locations blinked—asteroid shipyards, sealed vaults, and uncharted hyperspace anomalies.
But one system pulsed brighter than the rest. Overan.
According to the Rakatan records, Overan had once been a critical construction world during the final days of the Rakatan expansion. Its atmosphere was rich in elemental fuels. Mountains of conductive ore. Caverns of rare hypercrystals. And orbiting the planet: half-completed spaceyards, abandoned when the Infinite Empire crumbled under the strain of war and rebellion.
Shepard's eyes gleamed.
"If I can reactivate those facilities… complete them… I'll have my own shipyards."
Independent of the Republic. Invisible to the Jedi. Hidden from Sith eyes.
He transmitted the coordinates to Unit Seraph.
Overan – Outer Rim Expanse72 hours later
A stolen freighter emerged from hyperspace, cloaked by advanced ECM generators designed by Shepard himself. Unit Seraph stepped onto the surface of Overan in full tactical gear.
The world was a graveyard of potential.
Dust storms swept across dark red soil. Massive construction scaffolds lay collapsed across a barren valley. Towering crane arms stretched skyward like the bones of giants. Ancient Rakatan machinery—black and skeletal—lay half-buried in dust. The orbital platforms above still hung in place, silent and dark.
Seraph-6 knelt beside a dormant generator, brushing aside sediment. "Still intact. Power systems are degraded but restorable."
Seraph-1 nodded. "Secure perimeter. Begin excavation and system diagnostics."
For the next several hours, the elite squad worked to reactivate local power, establish a base camp, and deploy nanite beacons. Shepard monitored the feed from Facility Zero, watching with silent pride as they mapped the ruins and integrated with the surviving infrastructure.
Inside a half-buried command tower, Seraph-3 pried open a rusted console and activated a core databank. A surge of flickering light filled the room, and ancient Rakatan glyphs scrolled across the dusty screen.
"Command," Seraph-3 reported, "this place was never finished, but it was built to mass-produce capital ships. Armaments, carriers, maybe more. All automated. All scalable. Construction designs are preloaded."
"Good," Shepard said. "Begin reactivation. I'll send more nanite carriers for fusion processing and atmospheric scrubbers. We'll bring Overan back online."
Later, standing once again before the galactic map, Shepard watched as Overan's coordinates shifted from red to blue on his private display—indicating nanite control had been established.
He crossed his arms.
Kamino was the surface game. The show. The public project.
But Overan?
Overan would be the forge.
Soon, the galaxy would have two armies.
One led by politicians and manipulated by Sith hands.
The other led by him—by logic, precision, and purpose.
And now he had the tools, the secrecy, and the reach to build it.
"Let them play their war," Shepard whispered. "I'll build the future between the stars."