Mustafar burned beneath an eternal crimson sky. The lava rivers flowed as they always had, but this time, no Jedi came.
The Separatist leaders Nute Gunray, Wat Tambor, Poggle the Lesser, and the others sat in anxious silence within the obsidian chambers of the fortress once promised to them by Darth Sidious. It was supposed to be their sanctuary, their safehouse, the reward for a war fought at his behest. Instead, it had become a tomb of silence. There were no guards, no transmissions, only the dread certainty that they had been betrayed.
"We shouldn't have come here," murmured Shu Mai, her voice cracking.
"Too late for regrets," sneered San Hill. "He's going to kill us all. Just like he did to the Jedi."
Hours passed. Each second stretched into eternity. Some paced like prisoners awaiting execution. Others stared at the sealed door, unable to breathe. Then, the silence was broken not by the hiss of a lightsaber, but by the heavy, metallic echo of approaching boots.
Through the charred halls marched a towering figure clad in black obsidian armor, wreathed in steam and shadow. Requiem the resurrected form of General Grievous entered like a wraith. His limbs gleamed with alien alloys, and his eyes, once full of pain, now burned cold and clear. His voice was no longer rasping; it was smooth, calculated, like the machine he had become.
"You were bait," Requiem said, standing before them like a statue of vengeance. "Palpatine never intended to spare you. You were a ceremonial culling to tie up loose ends. But Cassian had other plans."
The Separatists blinked in disbelief. It wasn't a Jedi. It wasn't the Emperor's executioner. It was their own.
Outside, the roar of inbound shuttles split the lava-drenched skies. Stealth transports dropped from orbit, cloaked and silent, part of a plan laid out by Cassian Damaris weeks before the war had even ended.
"Move. Now," Requiem ordered.
No one argued.
Within minutes, the Separatist leadership was off-world, spiriting away in encrypted convoys through narrow hyperspace lanes invisible to Imperial patrols. Their destination: a fleet of hidden dreadnoughts constructed in Cassian's Deep Forge yards, buried beyond the Rim.
In the cold recesses of space, aboard one of those dreadnoughts, the Council met once again not as rulers, but as survivors.
They stared at one another across the table, changed men and women, faces lined with defeat. For a moment, none spoke. Then the holotable flared to life, and the image of Cassian Damaris appeared calm, precise, powerful.
"I warned you this would happen," he began, his voice devoid of anger. "And you ignored me. But I don't blame you. Your arrogance is what built the Confederacy, and it's also what nearly destroyed it."
Nute Gunray's lip twitched. "Why save us?"
Cassian didn't blink. "Because your deaths would benefit Palpatine. And I'm not in the business of helping tyrants."
Requiem stood behind them, arms folded. "We are not saviors. We are a weapon. A ghost blade in Cassian's arsenal."
Cassian continued, "Palpatine failed to get your wealth, your factories, your trade routes, and your science divisions. All of it was relocated under my directive before the war's end. Your companies, assets, and archives now answer to me. You have two choices: vanish into obscurity, or help me dismantle the Empire piece by piece."
The room was silent.
Wat Tambor spoke first. "And if we choose to fight?"
Cassian's hologram leaned forward. "Then you become the blade that cuts the Empire's underbelly."
It was not idealism that moved them it was survival.
In the months that followed, the newly-forged alliance, now dubbed The Shadow Blade, began a relentless campaign of invisible warfare. Imperial convoys vanished without trace. Munitions depots exploded from within. Supply chains fractured.
Whispers of a phantom rebellion took hold within the Empire, but none could trace it.
On Coruscant, Palpatine's wrath grew. His intelligence officers offered only theories and fragments. His new enforcer, Darth Vader, executed hundreds for incompetence.
Still, the bleeding didn't stop.
The Separatist survivors, once cowards and profiteers, had been reforged in Cassian's crucible. Under Requiem's command, they became saboteurs, assassins, engineers of destruction. And Cassian ever distant watched from the shadows, orchestrating every blow.
History would forget their names. But the Empire would remember their sting.
The blade had been drawn.
And now, it cut deep.