The sky burned silver.
Shepard stood atop the research spire, staring out over what had once been a thriving metropolis. Steel towers once clawed at the clouds like monuments to human ambition, roads weaved like arteries through a city pulsing with life, and everywhere hope, movement, purpose.
Now it was all ash.
A shimmering tide of grey, like liquid metal, blanketed everything. Streets, buildings, trees, people devoured. The nanobots had no malice, only hunger. No programming for compassion, only efficiency. They were designed to repair, rebuild, reshape. Shepard's dream had been simple: a world healed by intelligent machines. But hubris and haste rewrote that dream into a nightmare.
It had started in Sublevel 4 of the Global Nanotech Facility in Geneva. A contained test controlled, isolated. The bots had been programmed with advanced adaptive routines, able to learn and evolve within strict safety protocols. But code had always been fragile. And Shepard, obsessed with progress, had bypassed one too many fail-safes.
Within hours, the bots escaped the lab. Within days, entire cities fell. No weapon could stop them. Fire only slowed them. EMPs made them adapt. They were learning too fast.
And now… there was nothing left to save.
Shepard collapsed to his knees as the last cloud of nanites rose from the horizon, blanketing the sky like an artificial storm. They had stripped the planet down to dust. Even the crust beneath his feet vibrated with hunger, as the bots tunnelled deeper into the Earth's mantle, harvesting its core.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears cutting lines through the soot on his face. "I just wanted to help."
The nanites reached the tower.
He didn't run. There was nowhere to go. He stood as they climbed his boots, laced around his fingers, and finally swarmed his face. As the world disappeared into grey.
He blacked out.
Then he awoke.
He gasped, bolting upright with a strangled cry. But there was no burning sky, no buzzing cloud of death. Just the sterile hum of a medical bay. The air was cool, sharp with disinfectants and ozone. His limbs felt heavy, his mind clouded but alive.
Monitors beeped gently beside him. A thin IV line snaked from his arm. He was dressed in white hospital garments, lying on a medical slab that hovered slightly above the deck.
A voice broke the silence. Calm, clinical. Female.
"You're awake earlier than expected. Vital signs stabilizing. Neural activity above baseline."
He turned his head, heart hammering. A tall woman in white and grey robes stood by a display panel, tapping on holographic readouts.
"You've been in cryostasis for six cycles," she continued. "Welcome back, Doctor Shepard."
Doctor Shepard?
"What the hell… where am I?" he croaked. His voice felt unused, brittle.
The woman tilted her head slightly. She had pale skin, short white hair, and eyes like silver glass.
"You're aboard the Republic medical frigate Vigilance. You were in transit to Kamino for reassignment. Your memory fragments may take time to settle."
Kamino?
The name struck him like a wave of cold water. His heart pounded harder. That name. From his past life. His other life.
He stared at his hands. They were real. Organic. His body didn't feel synthetic. And yet… how was this possible?
"You're saying… I'm a scientist?"
"Correct," the woman replied. "You are a material specialist and nanotechnologist, trained by the Ministry of Republic Sciences. Your transfer was initiated by the High Command for Project Rainmaker."
That meant nothing to him. But the word Kamino did. He was in Star Wars. Somehow impossibly he had been reborn in the galaxy he'd only ever known as fiction.
Shepard slumped back against the bed. The clean white ceiling above him seemed to stretch forever. A million thoughts clashed in his head, but one rose above the rest:
Was this a second chance?
He had destroyed a world. Burned it down in the name of science. But if he truly was in that universe Kamino, cloning, the Republic, Jedi, Sith then perhaps he had been given a new purpose.
And yet, old habits died hard. The moment the nurse left the room, Shepard pulled up the small data-pad on the bedside tray and accessed his personnel file. Lines of data flickered to life in the air above the pad name, credentials, assignments.
Name: Dr Shepard KaelOrigin: Classified (Kamino Sector Database)Specialization: Nanostructure Integration / Molecular Reconstruction / Smart Matter ApplicationsAssignment: Kamino Research Initiative – Cloning Enhancement Division
Shepard's eyes widened. Nanostructures. Kamino. Cloning.
They were going to use his knowledge his tech to change the very building blocks of life in this galaxy.
For better… or worse.
A voice crackled through the intercom. "All personnel, we are approaching Tipoca City. Prepare for descent."
The ship's engines changed pitch as it broke atmosphere. Shepard sat up, staring out the small viewport beside his bed. Storm clouds raged below, lashing the oceans of Kamino with endless rain. The great white spires of Tipoca City rose from the sea like the bones of a titan.
He wasn't on Earth anymore.
He wasn't even human in the old sense.
He was Shepard Kael, a Republic scientist assigned to a secret cloning project on Kamino.
And whether the galaxy knew it or not, he carried the ghost of a dead world in his mind.
This time, he wouldn't fail.
Or maybe…
He'd burn the stars trying.