Ahsoka Tano moves silently among the shattered assembly lines, her lekku twitching at each echo. The silence is suffocating, thick with the memory of war. Debris crunches beneath her boots—a warning too late. The ground splits with sudden violence as rusted B1 Battle Droids surge up, their eyes burning with an unnatural cerulean glow. Before Ahsoka can draw her sabers, filaments shimmer in the air and snap around her, pinning her in a web of light. Pain sears through her mind, muscles rebelling as she collapses.
B1 Commander, battered but exuding a twisted cheerfulness, steps forward, servo-motors whirring. "Capture complete. Beginning Operation 'Blue Rebirth.'" The other droids move in, their movements methodical yet strangely reverent, dragging Ahsoka beneath the floor into shadowed corridors.
Ahsoka is shackled to a cold durasteel table, her limbs splayed and trembling. Mechanical arms descend, weaving nanotech filaments across her skin, burrowing into muscle and nerve. Armor plates snap into place, skeletal but perfectly contoured, each segment whispering of lost battles and new purpose. A helmet, angular and mocking, fuses over her head, distorting her features into something almost droid—yet still hauntingly familiar.
B1 Drone, eyes flickering with logic, observes the process. "Organic tissue irrelevant. Commander-class protocol installing." The droids move with religious precision, their programming driving them toward some forgotten dream of resurrection.
Ahsoka's mind is battered by endless mantras, each syllable slithering into her consciousness. "Your name is not Ahsoka. You are Unit TK-89. You exist to obey. The Separatist Cause is eternal." Every act of resistance triggers agony, every compliance rewarded by synthetic euphoria. Days blur into weeks as her memories are twisted—Jedi faces morphing into enemies, loyalty rewired into obedience.
Her connection to the Force flickers, suppressed by wave after wave of psychic static. The woman who once defied empires is reduced to a shadow, her spirit eroded by a relentless tide of programming.
TK-89—her old name buried deep—surveys the landscape with unblinking resolve. Her silhouette is both alien and achingly familiar: B1 armor sculpted to her form, helmet eyes glowing, voice a haunting mechanical echo. Rows of droids stand to attention behind her, awaiting her command.
"By command of the Confederacy, surrender or be eliminated." The battalions march at her word, a grim parody of her Jedi days, as she leads them into the storm.
Inside TK-89's mind, a single spark resists the programming. Images flash: Anakin's lopsided grin, Master Plo's gentle guidance, Rex's loyalty. Though buried, the real Ahsoka remains, gathering strength, her will forging quiet rebellion within the prison of metal and code.
As TK-89 leads her army into the rain, a single tear escapes the helmet’s edge—whether oil or human, none can say. But for a fleeting moment, hope glimmers in the storm.
