Three weeks, or what seemed like it passed in the cell of the first prisoner of Grievous' castle. Grievous looked down at her sweat covered form, only clothed in a black cloth around her chest and a loincloth around her modesty. The cyborg stood over her, looking like a vulture as it watched its prey take the final breath of life. In his right hand was the reward he had gotten from the Elder of the village, a torturing device that struck at the nerves of any being under its twin prong touch. As he held it, the prongs sparked, electricity climbed up the prongs length with a sinister crackle.

Walking around his prisoner, he slashed it across her back, the device sending massive amounts of pain through the skin and into the nerves that were near where the prongs struck. The girls' back arched, a scream breaching her lips. Grievous smirked coldly, pressing the device against her spine. That caused her to scream even louder, the pain causing her to thrash and spasm.

He chuckled as he found a specific nerve that caused her to spasm in pleasure but he stopped after a while, letting her try to regain her barings before beginning the torturing routine again.

"Impressive," He commented, "most impressive resilience."

The girl didn't comment, gasping for air. He jabbed her in the gut with the device, her body arcing with electric current before falling as he pulled it away. She was spent for today, as Grievous deactivated the torturing device, waving the medical droid over.

"Feed her the daily ration through a tube." He ordered before sweeping out of the cell.


Silently standing on the deck of his ship, Grievous watched as the fleet started moving to the edges of the solar system, creating a perimeter to the ever growing fleet. It was time to expand and explore, maybe even update the new ships with the ships that Grievous had studied from his previous masters' "Empire" ships. Mary was working on seeing if she could combine the two different ships into one, but that would take some time.

"Ready for Hyperspace, Sir." An officer droid reported as Gabrielle looked up from her level.

"Call in the fleet that is ready to leave, head to the most dangerous solar system that is neighboring this system." He ordered, taking his seat on the second level of the bridge.

As Mary worked with two new communication droids on the Communication level of the bridge, Grievous looked at the viewport, wondering if this was something that his master would of done. If anyone had done this before in the galaxy that he had used to live in, even in the outer rim or unknown sections of the galaxy. Very few had even gone there as most of the Galaxy was known anyway, this was knew to him so Grievous was going to savor the feeling of the new exploration.

As the main fleet, named Darkening Storm, moved to the edge of the galaxy before reaching the location of the jump. As Grievous gave the order to jump to hyperspace, stars blurring into lines as the fleet vanished, another being watched from another part of the system.


Unit ST-101, designated Strander, looked from his post on the NSS Stellaris, the newly constructed Subjugator class heavy cruiser. The Super Tactical Droid watched as his commanding officer jumped from the system to explore and left him in charge of construction and defense of the home system. Not much of a good post but he obeyed, as he was not going to pull rank and get scrapped. Looking away from the viewport, he brought up the holograms of the new plans that his commanding officer, Mary, had sent him.

The Vampiress was very intriguing, having the idea to combine the technology of the Imperial Empire with the New Separatist Fleet. Her work was fascinating, the combination of the Imperial I star destroyer and the Munificent class frigates into a single starship. Something like that would look extremely awkward but have much better shield, weapons and speed. The cost was that the ship would be much more prone to starfighter attacks.

As he worked quietly on the idea, he noticed that the ship in the simulation was draining power too quickly and leaving it a sitting duck. Looking at the detailed systems of the simulation, ST-101 found the problem, the current state of power usage and what the fleet used to power each ship was making this happen. Pulling out the different energy and fuels for this new combination fleet, he tested each one. Nothing worked, each was worse or slightly better than the last.

"Scan the surrounding planets for any source of energy usage and new materials that could be used as fuel." He ordered, the crew instantly working on the task.

As they scanned, something was picked up.

"The planet closest to the sun, it has a powerful liquid like ocean that has a powerful energy found in the liquid itself." A scanner droid reported.

"Get a research team out there and collect a few samples." ST-101 ordered, putting his metal hands together.

This could be interesting, the home solar system could help make sure the fleet was even more powerful than any of the native species of this new galaxy. To the point that maybe, very unlikely but maybe, the New Separatists would go from the old Separatist ship to a whole new design.


Renkebu Aayla woke up from her restless, haunted sleep. She hung from her hand covered bindings, unable to do anything else but hang. The Twel'ia groaned, her body showing the signs of breaking, not physically but mentally. She had fought to stay sane through the cyborgs' torture but she could feel her mind start to slip. The Jedia padawan whimpered as the medical droid came over and checked her vitals, it's cold metal hands making her shiver.

"All vital signs normal," It said, the voice monotone and unfeeling, "Starting to lose some bone density but that can be corrected."

Renkebu grunted and tried to get away from the cold metal, only for the droid to pull her back, continuing its medical diagnosis. She did her best to shut the voice out, but her strength and will wasn't like it used to be. Her last thought before drifting back into nothingness was, "I hope the Jedia destroy this monster."