A/N:
Hello! This is a repost of the story I posted a couple months ago by the same name.
At the end of last month, I took down almost all my stories as I was very insecure about them and wanted to rewrite them to go in a different direction. This was the only one that I was even sort of happy with, but I ended up taking this one down as well as I wanted to change the story just a little bit.
If you remember it from the first time it was posted, the gist will remain the same, though the timing of certain things will be different.
In a more personal note, thank you to those who reached out to make sure I was okay. I sincerely appreciate your support. I'm good. Brains are just weird sometimes and do weird things.
Love you guys,
Christian
Ahsoka is tired.
She's spent the last two days combing through the jungles of this unnamed, uninhabited, Outer Rim moon, looking for a supposed secret imperial installation. Though, thus far, she's found nothing but trees and wildlife.
Rebel Command had sent her here after hearing about the supposed installation through an intercepted imperial communique.
According to their report, it's supposed to house a weapon of some kind. Something that can change the fate of the galaxy. Something that Palpatine is purposely keeping secret.
"Where the kriff is it?" she huffs frustratedly, looking around.
She finds a place to sit down and fishes out a small datapad from her belt. Then, she pulls up the report Rebel Command had sent her, looking it over again. According to the coordinates from the imperial transmission, the installation should be right around here, but all she sees are trees.
"Great, just great," she mutters, rolling her eyes. She blows air out the side of her mouth and turns off the datapad, stuffing it back into her pocket.
Feeling frustrated, hot, sticky, and tired, she takes a moment to just close her eyes and center herself in the Force, letting it rejuvenate her, hoping it can give her some peace and guidance where other methods have failed.
She opens up to it and feels it flowing all around her, in her, connecting her to everything and everything to her. It's strong here, she notices, surprised. A little dark in some places, but strong, nonetheless.
After a few moments of quiet meditation, she feels it start to move, pointing her to an area of the jungle she's yet to explore. She stretches her senses out in that direction, hoping to see what the Force is leading her to, but there seems to be something blocking her, preventing her from seeing past a certain point.
Frowning, she comes out of her meditation and looks in that direction, wondering what it could be that's blocking the Force in that area. After a few more minutes of rest and recuperation, she gets up and begins to head in that direction.
She's not walking long when she comes across a clearing, and in it, an old, derelict temple. She frowns. This can't be the secret imperial installation, can it?
While it's close enough to the original coordinates for it to be a possibility, the stone structure just looks too broken and run down for it to be serviceable. And it just doesn't seem like something the empire would use. On the other hand, though, the Force definitely led her here, so maybe it's worth taking a look.
Swallowing her doubt, she approaches the old stone structure and begins to walk around it, looking for a way in.
Once she passes the first wall, she comes across a rather new looking landing pad, along with a large durasteel door leading inside; two things that most certainly seem out of place in an old temple. She reconsiders her early assumption. This might just be the imperial installation after all.
She approaches the giant metal door and looks around for a way to open it, but there doesn't seem to be a keypad, or any other sort of controlling mechanism, anywhere.
She briefly considers just using her lightsaber to cut a hole through the metal, but she's sure that a giant hole in the door would be a little too obvious if any imps were to show up.
Dismissing that thought, she decides to just keep walking around, looking for another way in.
It's not until she gets to the end of the final wall that she sees what she's been looking for—a small, grated, metal exhaust vent, just above her head.
From the ground she can tell that it's just big enough for her to fit through, though it will be tight. She smiles to herself as she eyes the grate, now this is something that she can use her lightsabers on.
It takes a couple jumps for her to successfully cut away enough of the grate so that she can fit inside, but eventually she's able to get in, and begins crawling along the surprisingly sturdy exhaust pipe, making her way into the inner part of the temple.
She's crawling for a few minutes, when she suddenly comes across an air vent in the duct work and looks down. The room below her is pitch black so she can't make out anything, but she's pretty sure that this is the room just inside the giant metal door. She opens the vent from the inside, and drops down from the ceiling, landing quietly on the old stone floor below.
She ignites one of her lightsabers and holds it up over her head, creating a small pocket of light in the otherwise pitch-black room.
Not sensing any danger, she opens herself up to the Force and stretches out her senses, trying to get a rough layout of where to begin her search. But just when her senses are about to reach the main part of the temple, they stop abruptly, like they're being blocked again. She sighs in annoyance, shaking her head. It'll be annoying if she can't use the Force while in here.
While she's considering this, an unexpected alert from her comm comes in, starting her. She jumps slightly and can't help but chuckle as she lifts her wrist to answer. "Fulcrum."
The unmistakable sound of someone exhaling comes through the comm. "Thank the gods you're okay!"
Ahsoka smiles, the warmth she hears in the other person's voice giving them away. It's Breha Organa. "I'm fine, base. No need to worry."
She hears Breha scoff, and she can picture the other woman rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "As if that's ever stopped me before," she says.
Ahsoka chuckles, rolling her eyes affectionately. She likes Breha a lot. She's spent a lot of time with her since joining the rebellion. The woman is like Anakin. Albeit, a calmer, more levelheaded, female version of Anakin—Always worrying, always concerned, but fierce and decisive.
"So, did you find what you were looking for?" Breha asks next, jogging Ahsoka out of her thoughts.
Coming back to the task at hand, Ahsoka moves her lightsaber around the room, looking for anything that might give her a clue as to what the emperor has been building here. "Nothing yet," she responds. "But I just got inside, so I'm just starting my investigation," she explains.
She continues exploring, when something on one of the walls beside her glints in the light of her saber, catching her eye. She hums curiously and starts to head in that direction.
Breha picks up on her friend's curious tone. "What is it?"
Ahsoka approaches the wall and finds that it's covered in engravings. They look like symbols of some kind, maybe runes. She lifts a hand to run her fingers over the cool stone, feeling an odd sense of familiarity. "The walls of this temple are covered in engravings," she explains. "They look to be some kind of runes."
"Runes?" Breha repeats curiously, sounding surprised.
"Yeah. And I think… I think I've seen them before." Ahsoka ignites her second saber to get a little bit more light and moves closer to get a better look. With the extra illumination, she's able to make out the runes a little more clearly now, and memories of her time as a Jedi start to flash through her mind. It only takes a few seconds for recognition to hit.
"These are Sith runes!" she exclaims, jumping back quickly. She spins around to look at the other walls. "They're everywhere!"
Breha is silent, unsure of what to say. While she knows that the Sith and the Jedi are ancient enemies, she doesn't know much about them as a group. "Why would they keep it in a Sith Temple?" she asks after a moment.
Unsure, Ahsoka just shakes her head, wondering the same thing. "I don't know, but I intend to find out."
Seeing something else glinting in the light of her saber on the other side of the room, she migrates in that direction, coming upon a giant stone door in the wall, which seems to lead further into the temple. It looks identical to the one that was outside, but it's made of stone instead of metal.
"Maybe this is where Palpatine is keeping his weapon," Ahsoka considers.
"I see a door, base. I'm going to try to open it," she says into the comm.
"Just be careful, Fulcrum," the Alderaanian queen says, Ahsoka can feel her worry even without using the Force. "If you encounter any danger, don't worry about the weapon. Just set the charges and get out of there."
Ahsoka reaches down and pats the pouch on her belt where the charges are kept. "Understood, base. If it gets too hot, I'll get out and blow the whole thing to wild space. Deal?"
"Deal!"
Ahsoka smiles. "Fulcrum out."
She ends the transmission and approaches the giant door, noticing that the stones that make up the door itself and the surrounding area are smooth, almost polished in appearance. They also have the same runes and symbols engraved in them that are on the walls.
"This must have been what I saw glinting in the light."
She does a quick check around the area for an opening mechanism, but just like the metal door outside, there doesn't appear to be anything she can use. So, considering that it used to be a Sith temple, she decides to just use the Force.
She extinguishes one of her sabers and sets the other on down on one of the nearby broken pillars for light. Then she stands directly in front of the door and calls upon the Force, sending out a current of Force energy towards the bottom to open it. But strangely, when she sends out the Force, nothing happens, like it just seems to disappear into nothingness.
Humming in surprise, she gathers even more Force energy and tries it again. But just like before, the Force just seems to disappear into some kind of void, dissipating completely before it can even reach the door.
Curious now, if not a little confused, she opens herself up all the way in the Force—a dangerous maneuver in the middle of an Imperial controlled installation—and reaches her senses out beyond the door, hoping to find what it is exactly that is causing this massive disturbance in the Force. However, just like before, whenever she sends out any kind of Force energy, it just seems to be siphoned away, fading completely.
Her eye markings knit in confusion. There has to be something going on inside that room that affects her using the Force, but she's never encountered a Stih artifact or a piece of technology strong enough that it can siphon all the Force energy in the area away.
At least she now knows why the Force appeared the have been blocked when she tried stretching her senses out earlier. It wasn't that it was actually being blocked, it was just disappearing into this strange Force void.
She stops for a minute to ponder what to do, when suddenly, her comm sparks to life with an urgent message. "Fulcrum, you have incoming. Thirty seconds." It's the captain she left patrolling around a neighboring planet, keeping an eye out for her for any imperial ships.
Ahsoka curses her luck and picks up her saber, running to hide behind some rubble by the outer door. Figuring if worst comes to worst, she can always just escape back out into the jungle.
A few moments later, the big metal door leading in from outside opens, and two men in imperial science officer uniforms walk in, followed by a small detail of stormtroopers. They also have a medical pod of some kind with them.
Once everyone is in, one of the science officers breaks off from the group and approaches the inner door.
Ahsoka watches with great interest as he walks up to the door and presses on a few of the stones around it, making them light up, like some kind of combination.
After touching seven of them, one of the stones slides away, revealing a small panel. The officer then leans down and lets the panel scan his eye before standing back up and placing his hand on it to read his palm.
After a few seconds, a loud booming noise comes from the door, and it retreats inward a couple inches before sliding sideways into the wall.
Once it's open, the group of imperials begin to move inside quickly, entering the inner chamber with apparent haste. Ahsoka wonders why, but soon understands, as she notices that the door to the room is already starting to close.
She blinks in surprise. There must be a sensor or something that makes the door start to automatically close when someone enters the inner room. Meaning that, if she doesn't make a move soon, she'll be locked out.
With no time to waste, Ahsoka leaps out from behind her cover and makes a mad dash towards the rapidly closing door, just praying that the stormtroopers don't notice her as she's approaching.
Thankfully, her worries don't come to fruition as she's able to somersault through the small opening in the door just before it shuts, making it safely inside.
Once in, she immediately scrambles behind a large trunk pipe in the corner, carefully watching the other people in the room, making sure she wasn't spotted when she dove in.
Once she's sure that the coast is clear, she lets out a breath of relief, and begins to take stock of her situation.
The first thing she notices is that the Force dampening effect of whatever is going on inside is ten times worse than how it feels outside. She's completely cut off from the Force now. Like there's a giant hole inside her where the Force should be.
"Maybe this is the secret weapon," she considers. It sure seems to work a whole hell of a lot better than some of the other Force repelling or restricting agents she's come across. And it also seems to be able to cover a large area, large enough that it would render whole armies of Force user's moot.
"But that doesn't make any sense," she thinks immediately after. "Without getting close to your target, a disturbance like this wouldn't do you much good."
Dismissing that theory, she tries to think of what else it could be, when one of the science officers speaks, bringing her out of her thoughts.
"Let's go ahead and prep patient zero for the procedure. The emperor wants to try a new process for copying his midi-chlorians," the older of the two officers says, speaking to the younger one.
Ahsoka's eye markings rise in interest.
Patient zero?
Copying midi-chlorians?
"Did they capture a Jedi?" she wonders. Her brow furrows.
If so, whom? She knows that some of the Jedi were able to escape after Order 66; but not many, so it might not be anyone she knows.
"It would still be kind of nice to have another Force user on the team, though," she thinks, wryly.
The second science officer turns towards the first one and frowns, confused by his earlier statement. "I thought we were already able to replicate his midi-chlorians?" he asks, his tone is curious.
"We are," the first officer just nods, flipping a few switches on the main control panel to bring the various pieces of medical equipment around them to life. "But our current success rate is low. We're only able to replicate about 60% of patient zero's midi-chlorian count. Emperor Palpatine wants it higher."
The younger science officer frowns, and Ahsoka can tell that the man clearly does not like having his work criticized. He sulks a little bit, but doesn't say anything, going to do what he's told.
He walks up to the med pod in the middle of the room, and keys in a code, starting the opening sequence. There's a loud hiss as the pressurized air is released, and the pod's doors begins to open, sliding out of the way, to the side.
Ahsoka just watches with rapt attention as the medical capsule sitting not twenty feet from her, slowly opens, anxious to see who's inside it.
At first, she doesn't think she'll be able to get a good look at whoever it is, because the science officer is still standing in the way, hooking the person up to what appears to be an IV. But then he moves, and Ahsoka gets her first look at who's being held inside the pod.
The first thing she notices about the mystery person is that they have long hair. Long enough to fall down past their shoulders, though this also has the effect of covering half their face. It's also unkempt and matted, from what she's sure has been long hours in the pod.
She travels a little bit further down to their face, which is mostly hidden, when she notices a very familiar scar over their right eye.
She freezes and her stomach drops, blood going cold.
"It can't be. It just can't be."
Her heart is pounding mercilessly in her chest, and she feels this unbearable weight pushing down on her, holding her in place.
Finding it hard to breathe, she's left with just enough air in her lungs to be able to mutter just one word.
"Anakin."