A/N:

Set seven years after the rise of the Empire.

Ahsoka is sent on a mission to retrieve information on something the rebellion has come to call "The Emperor's Secret Weapon." Though, it is still unknown exactly what it is. When she arrives at this small uninhabited planet, she finds out that this "weapon" is kept in an old Sith temple, and that there is a strange Force null space there, where the Force is completely suppressed. Following a group of scientists into the inner chamber of the room, she's startled to find that the "secret weapon" is... Anakin. Or more accurately, Anakin's, as in more than one. Clones.

Seeing her long-lost master experimented on for the last seven years, Ahsoka is overcome by guilt, and she attacks the group of scientists and stormtroopers holding him, attempting to free him. However, she finds out that he's in too rough of shape to wake up as he's been in stasis for almost a decade. So, she kidnaps a scientist and steals an Imperial shuttle, and plans to take Anakin back to the rebellion where she hopes he'll recover and help them defeat the Empire.

But what does seven years of loss mean for Anakin, and what happens when he finds out who's behind the mask of Darth Vader?

XXXXX

I've seen other "cloned Anakin" stories before, and the premise has always intrigued me, though, admittedly, it takes away from the whole "Anakin falling" arc of the series. Also, cloning Force sensitivity seems to be taboo in SW, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

If that's a deal breaker for you, then that's fine. I hope you find another story you like.

Also, this will end up being a slow burn Anisoka story as Padme is dead in this universe, as are Luke and Leia. Most of the other stuff is based in canon. (i.e. Order 66, Empire taking over, Darth Vader, Inquisitors, etc.)

Being set just seven years after the birth of the Empire, the rebellion is in its younger years.

XXXXX

Ahsoka drops down from the ceiling and looks around the room. She's in some sort of… antechamber or something with the room she needs to get to right on the other side of a huge door.

"Come in, Fulcrum," her comm crackles to life. "Fulcrum, are you in?"

Ahsoka lifts her wrist. "Copy base. I'm in."

"And?"

She looks around the room. "Nothing yet. I had to drop into a connecting room as the walls of the target room are too thick to cut through."

"Understood, Fulcrum. What do you see?"

Ahsoka ignites one of her lightsabers to get a little bit of light, and looks around, noticing some strange runes and symbols carved all along the inner walls.

"Interesting," she murmurs.

"Interesting?" the other voice asks. "What's interesting?"

"There are all these… runes and symbols carved into the stone."

"Runes and symbols?"

"Yeah, but that's not the interesting part," she continues. "The interesting part is… I think… I've seen them before." She tilts her head and takes a closer look at the characters. "Somewhere long ago," she continues, "when I was still a—" Her voice stops abruptly as memories of her time as a Jedi race through her mind. Then her eyes fly open wide.

"These are Sith runes!" she exclaims, igniting her other saber now, for additional light. "They're everywhere!" Then a thought strikes her. "This is probably a Sith Temple."

The person on the other end of the comm is silent for a minute, then asks, "Why would they keep it in a Sith Temple?"

Ahsoka shakes her head. "I have no idea, but I intend to find out."

The 'it' they're talking about is what the rebels have come to call "Palpatine's Secret Weapon." Something they've discovered through decrypted transmissions, though, no one really knows what it is. Some have speculated that it's an ancient weapon of some kind. Others, some sort of Force sensitive artifact.

The only thing they know for sure is, whatever it is, Palpatine values it greatly. So much so that the security they had to go through just to be able to even get on planet was greater than anything they've had to go through to get into the Imperial palace.

Ahsoka looks up at the giant door in front of her. "I see the door, base. I'm going to try to open it."

"Be careful, Fulcrum. If you encounter any danger, don't worry about the weapon. Just set the charges and get out of there. I'd rather blow the whole thing to the Outer Reaches than lose you trying to figure out what the weapon is and what to do with it."

"Understood," Ahsoka nods and puts the comm away.

She approaches the door and runs her fingers over it carefully. It's smooth, almost polished in appearance. She also notices that the door has the same runes engraved in it that are on the walls, so she figures that she may be able to use the Force to get it to open.

With a deep breath, she calls upon the Force, and lifts her hands towards the door. But, instead of the door opening, her Force energy seems to fall into a bottomless abyss, disappearing into nothingness. Frowning, she lifts her hands again, but just like before, her Force energy seems to just disappear into the void.

Intrigued, Ahsoka then opens herself up all the way in the Force, a dangerous maneuver in the middle of an Imperial controlled installation, and stretches her senses beyond the door to try and find out what's causing this massive disturbance in the Force. But just like before, it's like there is a siphon, drawing all the Force in the area away.

She knits her eye markings in confusion and tries to think of what could possibly be so strong that it's able to suck all the Force energy in the area away. But before she has a chance to figure out what it could be, her comm sparks to life with an urgent message. "Fulcrum, you have incoming. Fifteen seconds."

Ahsoka quickly searches the room, and hides behind a large column, masking her presence in the Force. Not that it seems to matter with the giant Force void in the area. A few moments later, the outer door to the room flies open and the lights come on. Then two men in Imperial science officer uniform's walk in, followed by a small detail of Stormtroopers.

Ahsoka sticks her head out from behind the column, watching, as one of the Imperial science officer's steps up to the wall and presses a button on a remote, causing a small panel to appear from behind one of the polished stones. Once displayed, he leans down, and lets the panel scan his eye. Then, he stands back up and places his hand on the panel as it reads his palm.

With a loud noise, the massive door then retreats a couple inches and begins to open, sliding sideways into the wall. Once it's open all the way, the group of men then move into the inner room, and the door starts to quickly close behind them.

Without time to think it over, Ahsoka makes a mad dash towards the rapidly closing door. Somersaulting through a small opening and landing inside, with only seconds left to spare.

She immediately scrambles behind a large trunk pipe in the corner when she gets in, and takes a moment to catch her breath; carefully eyeing the stormtroopers in the room to make sure that no one saw her slip in. After a few moments of watching them move, she lets out a breath of relief and begins to take stock of her situation.

The first thing she notices as she begins to look around the room, is that she's been cut off from the Force completely. Like there's a giant hole where the Force should be.

She frowns. "Maybe this disturbance is the secret weapon," she considers, as it sure seems to work a whole lot better than the other Force repelling agents or restraints that she's experienced before. And it can obviously cover a large area. Though, without getting close to your target, it seems like this would just be unnecessary.

Not seeing anything that sticks out, she continues to scan the room for anything that she might be able to take back to the rebellion; something they could use when fighting the Empire, when she notices something that causes the breath to catch in her chest.

Anakin.

Or… more accurately… Anakin's.

As in… more than one.

Clones.

Her heart starts to beat rapidly as she looks at all the copies of her former master, floating in these large bacta tanks. "That's why I couldn't feel him after Order 66," she realizes. "He's been here, in this Force forsaken room, the whole time."

Suddenly, a great shame courses through her, as she never even tried to look for him over the last seven years, only worrying about her own safety. Maybe she could have saved him if she'd only known.

"Prep patient zero for cloning," one of the science officers says, bringing Ahsoka out of her thoughts. "The Emperor wants to try a new procedure for copying his midi-chlorians."

The other officer looks at him, confused. "I thought we were already able to copy his midi-chlorians."

"We are," the first officer agrees, "but our current success rate is low. The last few clones have only been able to use about 70% of patient zero's Force potential. Emperor Palpatine wants it higher."

The first science officer then walks up to a stasis pod in the middle of the room and keys in a code, and Ahsoka watches with rapt attention as it raises from the ground and opens up in front of her.

Anakin Skywalker lays still in the pod, emaciated and covered with tubes. His hair has grown well past his shoulders, and his body is filled with cuts and bruises from what she's sure has been abuse.

Something in her just snaps when she sees him like that, wanting nothing more than to free him. To be… near him again. It's been one of her greatest regrets, not being there for him when everything went down. Sure, they may have drifted apart a little bit when she left the Order, but her connection to him, her… feelings for him, have always remained. And she can't just sit by and watch him be used as a tool for the Emperor when she has a chance to do something about it.

Wait…

…tool…

"He's the secret weapon," she realizes with a start.

Which makes perfect sense. What better way to take out the remaining Jedi than to use the most powerful Jedi to ever exist. Though, from the sound of it, it seems like they've been having trouble making a one-to-one copy of him, which is really good news, considering she's seen what a fully powered Anakin Skywalker can do on Mortis.

"Giving them issues, even when unconscious, huh Skyguy?" she quips to herself, a small smile breaking out on her face. "That's my master!"

Ahsoka, then flips out from behind her cover and takes out the three stormtroopers closest to her. Then she dives over the stasis pod and cuts down the scientists at the controls. She throws her other lightsaber at another stormtrooper behind the stasis pod, impaling him gruesomely in the face.

Leaping over another console, she hides behind a large condenser and takes a moment to catch her breath. She notices that she feels exhaustion already starting to affect her body, as she remembers that she doesn't have access to the Force anymore, so her body isn't used to expending this much energy when she fights, as she can usually pull from it.

A blaster bolt whizzes past her face, and Ahsoka barely has enough time to stagger backwards. She chastises herself for letting her focus slip. Without the Force, she needs to keep her head in the game, or else she will get herself killed.

The door to the room starts to open, and Ahsoka spies the last scientist running for the outer room. She glances up at the ceiling and spots a huge HVAC unit positioned right above the door. So, with a flick of her wrist, she tosses her shoto blade at the support cables, cutting all but one of them, which snaps under the weight of the unit, and sends the HVAC unit crashing down in front of the door to block it.

Now scared out of his wits, the scientist then hides behind the same trunk pipe that Ahsoka had hid behind when she first got in the room, shaking from fear.

Ahsoka retrieves the lightsaber she threw at the stormtrooper by the controls earlier, and peers around the condenser. Without the Force, she can't call her other blade back to her, so she'll have to make do with one for now.

"Only three bucketheads left," she thinks. Rex's affectionate nickname for the stormtroopers rubbing off on her.

She can see two of the last three hiding rather obviously behind one of the cloning tanks. So, with a little flourish, she jumps over the condenser and runs up to the tank, stabbing her saber into the glass, shattering it. Which causes bacta fluid to spill all over the floor.

This casuses the stormtroopers slip and fall as they try to scramble for new cover. But Ahsoka is quick to catch up to them, cutting through each of their weapons, and slashing them across the chest, killing them.

"Two down, one to go," she says to herself, ducking behind another one of the tanks.

Not having access to the Force at the moment, Ahsoka isn't able to feel where the last stormtrooper is, so she has to rely on her Togruta biology instead. She leans down and lets one of her lekku lay on the floor, sensing the different subtle vibrations in the room. The constant hum of the machinery provides a background score as she picks up the more irregular sounds of the stormtrooper's steps, and Ahsoka picks her head up and heads towards the sound of the footfalls.

With blinding speed, she runs up behind the unaware trooper and stabs her lightsaber though his chest. Now, that he's dead, it's just down to her and the last scientist.

Ahsoka leans against the control panel for the stasis chamber and calls out to him. "You can come out now. I have no desire to hurt you."

A couple moments later, the scientist shakily steps out from his hiding spot with his hands up. "I- I- I don't have any money or anything," he offers, thinking she's a bounty hunter. "I'm just a scientist."

Ahsoka shakes her head. "I'm not here for money." Then she points at Anakin. "I'm here for him."

The scientist's forehead creases in confusion. "You want… patient zero?"

"His name," Ahsoka replies quickly. "…is Anakin. And he's coming with me."

The scientist lowers his arms cautiously. "But he's in stasis…"

"I know. Which is why you're going to help me wake him up."

"I- I- I can't do that," he stutters out, shaking his head.

"What did you say?" Ahsoka ignites her lightsabers and starts walking towards the man.

He immediately puts his hands back up and starts to backpedal. "Wait! Just wait!" he says. "What I mean to say is… I can't wake him up here." He motions around the room. "We don't have the equipment I need." He pauses for a moment as he watches the Togruta absorb this information.

"He's been in stasis for a little over seven years now," he continues. "So, I can't just bring him out of it. It's going to take time and a lot of around the clock monitoring for it to happen."

Ahsoka doesn't say anything as she ponders, looking at Anakin. Her heart aches for him. To have been kept in stasis for seven years… she can't even imagine. She brings her hand up and strokes his cheek. "If I can get you the equipment, could you wake him up somewhere else?" she asks quietly.

The scientist nods. "Yes, I can."

Ahsoka nods. "Okay then. Let's get him out of here." She then lowers her hand and looks at the scientist. "And you're coming with me."

The scientist doesn't say anything, and Ahsoka does a quick cursory check of the room. "I assume you occasionally have to take a clone out of this room, am I right?" The other man nods.

"Okay, so how do you normally do that?"

He points to a med pod on the wall.

Ahsoka looks over, then looks back at the stasis pod. They are almost identical. "Okay, I need you to prep him for transport," she says, nodding at Anakin. "We're just going to use the stasis pod instead of the med pod as it looks almost identical. Will that work?"

The scientist thinks for a moment, then nods. "That should work, yes."

Ahsoka nods. "Okay, good. Last question. How did you get here? Do you have your own ship, or what?"

The scientist nods again. "Yes, there is a lambda shuttle waiting for me on the landing pad outside. But…"

"But what?

He looks around the room at all the dead bodies. "They'll be suspicious if I come to the ship without any stormtroopers."

Ahsoka looks around and thinks for a moment. "You just let me worry about that. All I need you to do is get us to the ship, and get us past the Imperial blockade. I'll do the rest."

"But there are two star destroyers up there," the scientist can't help but saying. "And each of them has over fifty tie fighters!"

Ahsoka waves her hand as if it's no big deal. "Don't worry." She looks at Anakin, fondly. "I was taught by the best."

The scientist takes a deep breath and nods. "Okay, I'll prep him for transport." Then he starts to move, but before he can get three steps, Ahsoka ignites one of her lightsabers and lifts it to his throat, freezing him in place.

"I said before that don't want to hurt you," she says casually, but then her voice gets colder. "But if you so much as hurt a single hair on his head while you're getting him ready for transport. I will not hesitate to cut you down. Do you understand me?"

The scientist nods quickly, swallowing. "Yes. I won't try anything."

Ahsoka looks at him for a moment before lowering her saber. "Good."

Fifteen minutes later, Ahsoka comes up to the scientist, clad in stormtrooper armor, holding the helmet under her arm. "Ready to go?"

The scientist looks over the stasis pod one more time, checking all the levels and vitals, before turning to her and nodding.

"Okay, let's go," she says, putting on the helmet.

They make to the door and Ahsoka sees the HVAC unit blocking the way. "Oh yeah," she mutters, looking around for something to move the unit. She turns to the scientist. "Wait here, I'll be right back." Then she jumps over the HVAC unit and goes to the very far end of the outer room.

As soon as she gets a few feet away from the cloning lab, she can feel the Force start to flow back into her, and she lets out a breath of relief. It feels refreshing, like finding water in the desert.

She raises her hands and calls upon the Force to move the giant HVAC unit, though the big hunk of metal doesn't move. The Force is still seemingly dropping off into whatever Force repelling situation Palpatine set up in that room.

Gritting her teeth, she calls upon the Force again, with everything she has. "You should probably stand to the side," she calls out to the scientist. "Far away from the unit."

The scientist hurries to the side, bringing the pod with him. "O-Okay. I'm out of the way," he calls back, unsure what she's about to do. But having seen her take out the stormtroopers, he doesn't want to take any chances.

Ahsoka then releases a giant Force push at the HVAC unit, sending it skidding just a few feet away from the door; most of the energy from the Force push being absorbed by the room.

The scientist pokes his head out of the hole, wide-eyed, with the stasis pod in tow. "You're a Jedi!" His voice higher, showing his excitement.

Ahsoka smiles at his excitement but shakes her head. "I'm no Jedi."

The scientist doesn't say anything back but seems to look at her in a different light now, and the pair both walk up to the outer door.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

She nods. "Are you?"

Without saying a word, the scientist opens the panel. Then scans his eye, scans his palm, and stands back as the outer door begins to open, revealing a dark, rainy landing pad with a single, solitary, lambda shuttle sitting at the end of it.

The two of them are able to walk all the way down the landing pad unfettered, but when get close to the ship, the pilot comes out, eyeing them suspiciously. "Where are the others?" he asks, hand on his blaster, obviously nervous.

Ahsoka tightens her grip on her blaster, but the scientist speaks up calmy and evenly, much to her surprise. "They're still in the lab," he says. "You should know that Imperial regulations state that the majority of the security detail has to stay with whoever's in the lab."

The pilot just looks at him for just a moment, as if he's trying to work out if his explanation is acceptable or not. But after a couple seconds, he nods and turns around, moving his way back up the ramp. However, just when he's about to enter the ship, Ahsoka takes her blaster and hits him on the back of the head, knocking him out.

The scientist then takes the stasis pod up the ramp and into the small medbay, hooking it up, while Ahsoka drags the unconscious pilot off to the side.

She pulls out a small detonator from her pocket and flips a switch. A timer of ten minutes then starts counting down on the screen.

While the scientist was getting the stasis pod ready, she set the charges she brought with her all around the laboratory, not wanting anything of the Anakin cloning project left to be restarted later.

She then walks up the ramp and jumps into the pilot's seat, closing the ramp and lifting the shuttle off the ground. When they get to the outer atmosphere of the planet, one of the star destroyers contacts them.

"Lambda Shuttle A8FH4, please state your number, purpose, and clearance codes."

Ahsoka looks over at the scientist who nods in understanding and picks up the comm. "Imperial Scientist 43H4T. On a mission for the Emperor, headed to Imperial Center. Clearance code is FF989K7."

The radio falls silent, and Ahsoka begins to calculate their hyperspace coordinates quickly, in case they need to make an emergency jump. But not fifteen seconds later, the star destroyer comes back with an answer. "Roger, A8FH4. You're cleared for Imperial Center."

Ahsoka trades smiles with the scientist. "Roger, flight command. Lamba Shuttle A8FH4 out."

Ahsoka then pushes forward the hyperspace lever, sending the world around them into streaks of blue.