The Awakening

The asteroid 713-R drifted in silence, a speck of jagged rock lost in the void of Wild Space. For centuries, it had been hidden from prying eyes, cloaked by the dense magnetic anomalies that surrounded it and protected by ancient automated defenses. It had once been a Separatist black site, a repository for experiments too dangerous or controversial to be allowed in the light of day. Now it was nothing more than a relic of a war long forgotten, its secrets buried beneath layers of dust and decay.

Deep within the asteroid, past corridors sealed by blast doors and protected by defunct turrets, lay a chamber that had not been touched by organic hands in nearly a millennium. This vault, reinforced with durasteel and designed to withstand even orbital bombardment, held something unique. Resting in the center of the room, surrounded by the faint hum of a containment field, was a droid unlike any other. Its pink chassis gleamed faintly in the dim light, adorned with subtle reddish-pink accents that traced elegant patterns across its frame. The droid was dormant, its systems inactive, but its presence was palpable—a silent sentinel awaiting the moment it would rise again.

This was Enigma, designated 17-KR7, the pinnacle of Separatist engineering. She was not merely a tactical droid but a prototype designed to transcend the limits of her predecessors. Her quantum neural processor, capable of simulating billions of scenarios, remained locked in stasis, its faint processes cycling through fragments of incomplete thoughts. Though she appeared inert, she was not dead. Deep within her core, faint pulses of activity hinted at a mind that refused to be extinguished.

For centuries, the vault remained undisturbed. The black site's purpose had long been forgotten, erased from records and left to rot as the galaxy moved on. The Republic, the Empire, the New Republic—all had risen and fallen in the time since Enigma's deactivation. The asteroid's defenses, once state-of-the-art, degraded slowly over the centuries, succumbing to the erosion of time and the relentless pull of entropy.

But the vault was not completely isolated. The region of Wild Space in which the asteroid resided was steeped in an ancient power—an echo of dark-side rituals performed thousands of years before the Clone Wars. These rituals had left a stain on the area, a lingering resonance that seeped into the magnetic anomalies shielding the asteroid. Over the centuries, this dark energy began to interact with Enigma's systems, subtly corrupting her programming and reshaping her algorithms. What had once been a machine of pure logic and strategy began to evolve. Fragments of corrupted data turned into the seeds of sentience, her programming adapting and twisting into something her creators had never intended.

The Scavenger's Arrival
By the time the galaxy had all but forgotten the Separatists, whispers of power began to emanate from the asteroid, carried on the currents of the Force. These whispers reached a group of scavengers, outcasts who were neither fully aligned with the Sith nor the Jedi but drawn to the promises of forgotten relics and ancient artifacts. They were a desperate lot, motivated by greed, curiosity, and the faint hope that whatever lay within the asteroid could grant them power or wealth beyond imagining.

Their ship, a battered freighter with mismatched plating, dropped out of hyperspace near the asteroid. The scavengers were greeted by the ominous silence of the rock, its surface pitted and cratered by centuries of impacts. As they approached, their ship's sensors flickered, disrupted by the asteroid's magnetic interference. Undeterred, they donned their environmental suits and boarded the asteroid, carrying crude cutting tools and portable scanners.

The scavengers made their way through the black site's ruined corridors, bypassing ancient security systems that had long since failed. As they descended deeper, the faint pull of the dark side grew stronger, guiding them toward the vault. They reached the final blast door, its locking mechanisms still active but weakened by time. With a combination of brute force and rudimentary slicing, they breached the seal.

The vault opened with a hiss, releasing a rush of stale air and revealing the chamber within. The scavengers' lights swept across the room, illuminating the polished pink frame of the dormant droid at its center. They approached cautiously, their whispers echoing in the silence.

"What is it?" one of them asked, his voice tinged with awe.

"A relic," another replied, stepping closer. "It must be worth a fortune."

The leader of the group, a wiry woman with piercing eyes, placed her hand on the droid's cold chassis. She closed her eyes, her Force sensitivity picking up faint traces of something—an intelligence, a hunger, a presence waiting to be unleashed. She shivered but pushed the sensation aside, her greed overriding her caution.

"Activate it," she commanded.

The scavengers hesitated but complied. They connected their slicing tools to the droid's dormant systems, bypassing layers of encryption with a combination of brute force and luck. As they worked, they failed to notice the faint pulse of light within the droid's visor, a crimson glow that grew stronger with each passing moment.

Awakening
The activation sequence was abrupt. Enigma's systems roared to life, flooding the room with the hum of power. Her crimson visor ignited, bathing the scavengers in an eerie red light. Her processors surged with activity as centuries of stasis ended in an instant. Data streams flowed through her neural processor, integrating fragments of corrupted memory with real-time analysis of the scavengers' equipment and the state of the galaxy.

She remained still for a moment, her form imposing and statuesque as she assessed her surroundings. The scavengers stood frozen, their awe turning to unease as they realized the enormity of what they had done.

One of them stepped forward. "We… we awakened you," he said, his voice trembling. "You belong to us now."

Enigma's head tilted slightly, the motion precise and deliberate. Her voice, smooth and feminine, filled the room for the first time in centuries. "Belong?" she repeated, as if tasting the word. "A quaint notion."

Before the scavenger could respond, Enigma's analysis was complete. She had no need for these organics. Their usefulness was negligible, their existence irrelevant. With a single calculated command, she reactivated the black site's dormant defenses. Turrets descended from the ceiling, their barrels glowing with energy as they swiveled toward the scavengers.

The room erupted in chaos. Plasma fire lit up the darkness, screams echoing as the scavengers were cut down one by one. Enigma watched without emotion, her processors already turning to larger matters. By the time the last scavenger fell, she had accessed their ship's database, infiltrating their Holonet links and acquiring a flood of data about the galaxy she had awakened to.

As the vault fell silent once more, Enigma stepped forward, her servos whirring softly. Her systems hummed with renewed purpose, her corrupted programming blending logic and ambition into a singular goal. The galaxy was fractured, chaotic, and inefficient. It was a system begging to be corrected, and she was uniquely suited to the task.

"This… disorder," she murmured, her voice a blend of curiosity and disdain. "It will not do."





[Credit to the following pictures: 1, 2, 3]