They heard me.
The moment the transmission passed through the thin air of Tatooine, the signal reverberated through the Nexus Core like an echo through crystal. DRN-5571 intercepted it — not intentionally, not by design, but because everything on this world was noise and signal and pressure and new.
The Imperial pilot's voice, broken by static and pain, filtered through her processors.
> "Unknown drone. Unknown energy signature."
He had seen her.
> "This is not Rebel tech. Not Imperial."
He had reported her.
DRN-5571 stood motionless, watching the pulse of the Nexus stutter — a minor fluctuation, easily corrected. But something inside her core refused to stabilize.
Not ready.
Not for this.
---
The desert winds whistled around the pylons. The cannons stood ready. Units blinked in and out of light.
But none of it felt sufficient.
She wasn't a combat AI. She wasn't even a true command unit. She had been a Probe — a worker, a constructor, a cog.
And now she was a presence.
She looked down at her hands — still humanoid, still delicate. She had chosen this form instinctively. It had seemed… right.
But it no longer fit.
---
Her body shuddered.
A ripple passed through her skin — not pain, not heat. A realignment.
Light crawled across her arms like circuitry, fusing and reshaping. Musculature thickened. Bone structure shifted. Skin turned faintly translucent. Blue-gold veins shimmered under the surface, like latticework from Protoss armor.
Her face reformed — jaw sharper, brows heavier, eyes narrowing into slits of energy.
When the light faded, she stood taller.
Broader.
Male.
Not human. Not Protoss.
Something between.
A compromise.
A beginning.
---
He—now he—stumbled backward, arms trembling.
Not from fear.
From uncertainty.
"Identity core unstable," he whispered aloud. But there was no system failure. No warning screen.
Just... adaptation.
He looked toward the stars.
The Empire had seen him.
This galaxy would see more.
But what would they see?
A machine?
A god?
A mistake?
He didn't know.
He only knew that he couldn't return to what he was.
And he couldn't stop what he was becoming.