The atmosphere aboard the royal Japanese transport ship was frenetic as the armed troops dashed through the corridors readying themselves for an inevitable boarding. That is if the imperial star destroyer pursuing them didn't destroy them first. The ship changed its route to fly over a nearby, sparsely-populated desert planet, by the princess's command, although they didn't know for what reason. If it was to lose them, then it wasn't working as the star destroyer remained right on top of them, blasting them with everything they got. The ship responded in due force, but it was of no use. Even if the star destroyer had its shields down, their blasts would never have penetrated the thick hull made from corellian metallurgy. The act of shooting back was really more a symbolic gesture than anything, a sort of, "we won't go down without a fight," sort of thing. After all, it was only a convention ship modified slightly for small-scale combat, nothing that could challenge an imperial battleship. However, even this would be taken away from them. The destroyer's turrets concentrated on the back of the ship, near the engines, and with one decisive shot, took them out, leaving the ship and its occupants crippled in orbit far above the barren world below. The reactor's explosion caused a huge tremor that was felt throughout the ship. Both Hima-3P0 and Saku-D2 as the walked aimlessly through the chaotic corridors.

"Did you hear that?" the gold-plated, blue-"haired" droid said to her counterpart.

Beep, bleep, whoo, wheep," Saku-D2 said in her astrotech code, translating to, "Yeah, I did."

"They shot down the main reactor! We'll be destroyed for sure!" The bluenette, big-breasted droid said. The two made way for a platoon of heavily armed rebel troops running by them. "This is madness!" she exclaimed, throwing up her arms.

"Eh…" Saku-D2 replied, "I've been through worse."

"Eh!? No, you certainly have NOT been through worse! You lie!"

"No doubt you're boobs are the cause of all this!"

"Oh, even now you're still you're difficult self, Saku-chan!"

By the entrance, the armed rebel troops awaited patiently for the boarding party. Even now, they were not going to go down without fighting. Hima looked at them as they gathered.

"We're doomed," she said.

"Beep bo beeeeppp," Saku said.

"There'll be no escape for the princess this time!" Hima said coldly. Then, there was the sound of a huge cracking. "What was that?" the golden droid asked. She figured out soon enough that they were caught in a tractor beam. The armed rebel fighters looked around themselves, investigating the noise, mostly to keep their minds off of the certain death they were to face. In a matter of minutes, they were going to find themselves at the mercy of the Empire. Hima wondered if the Empire would disintegrate Saku and herself on sight, or would they be put to service for the imperial military or bureaucracy as confiscated goods. Probably the former - what use would the Empire have for a protocol or astro-tech droid? She imagined all sorts of terrible fates in store.

After the scraping sounds from the exterior subsided, they returned their attention to the front door, awaiting what was to come.. Eventually, the door lit up in a dazzling display of sparks and exploded before them, and in one by one, the ganbotroopers entered; the professional infantrymen of the evil Space Empire. Dressed in beige armor, they wore spherical helmets with black, mirror-shade visors, which aside from concealing their eyes, were designed to help them target their foes. Ready and trained, they came in, rifles blazing, wasting no time trying to overwhelm the rebel force. The rebels lit them up, knowing that they could never stand a chance if they allowed the ganbotroopers to overwhelm them, not that they stood chance, but regardless. Laser bolts flew back and forth down the white shaft, creating blinding flashes of red light that sometimes appeared to envelope the entire hallway. The visors provided the ganbotroops with a distinct advantage here as the light did not blind them or distract their vision, unlike their clear eyed opponents. The rebels managed to take down a few imperials early on, but they just kept coming, and in no time at at all they started to take some casualties. As more and more imperials came in, the rebels were forced to move back and deeper and deeper into the hull of the ship. They were trapped before, and now they were more trapped than ever.

Hima-3P0 and Saku-D2 hid behind a door frame as two fleeing rebel troops ran past them. The rebels stopped and squatted. When the pursuing ganbotroops turned the corner at the end of the corridor, they opened fire. One went down, but the two other ganbo troops avenged their fallen comrade by taking a rebel themselves. More and more, on the polar ends of the corridor, troops came to reinforce their side, turning the passageway into a laser show shooting range. The two droids took a risk and made a quick dash across the hallway to the adjacent door.

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" Hima-3P0 told Saku-D2 as they through the onslaught.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I know!" The astrotech droid yelled back. No less than four laser bolt whizzed past the two as they ventured across the firing line, and one exploded the control panel for the door right behind her as soon as they made it to safety; however, the force of the blast did send Hima-3P0 flying over.

"Ahh," she groaned as she picked herself up, "That was close." She looked around to see that she was talking to no one. Saku-D2 had absconded off somewhere, hopefully because she didn't see her fall, but it wasn't unlikely that she did and left anyway. "That droid!" Hima scowled her, as she went off to find her.

With the rebels now retreating right where they wanted them, the entranceway was secure. And then out of the fog of war, she entered. Breathing loudly through her face mask, she assessed the situation. She flipped her purple cape from side-to-side to as she looked down on the dead troops through her emotionless lenses. She breathed again, and lurched forward into the ship, undaunted. Without any need to indicate, her troops followed her instinctively. She walked weaponless. She only used her weapon for worthy opponents.

Hima-3P0 walked further down the dark corridor, still looking for her fellow droid. 'She always manages to pick the worst times to get herself lost! Oh, I hope she didn't get herself caught by the boarding party...or worse,' she said, imagining her friend being disintegrated by an imperial blaster. 'No,' she said to herself, 'I wouldn't be so lucky.'

"This is our only chance!" the mysterious woman you all obviously know is, but I still won't reveal until later, said. She handed Saku-D-2 a holotape and slid it into her disc drive, which sounds vaguely sexual I know, but if you shipped them, you would be very wrong.

She walked into a new corridor, unlike the rest. Here the emergency power did not restore the main lighting fixtures, and so the room was barely illuminated by red floor lights and some wall panels. The exchange of laser fire from other parts of the ship could still be faintly heard and occasionally, rebel troops would rush hurriedly past the entranceway. "Saku," she shouted again, concerned, but also a little irritated."Saku-D2, where are you?" Hima-3P0 spotted her droid friend at the end of the corridor with her mysterious client. 'Eh?" she thought. 'Who is that mysterious human? Even though I am a protocol droid on the princess's ship, I don't know if that is the princess or not, and will continue to assume she isn't. But seriously, what is up with, Saku with that human? Is she a secret lover? I mean, I heard of human-droid love, but I've never actually seen it.' Again, she Hima-3P0 is very wrong. Don't ship this pairing. This is Star Wars, you all know it doesn't happen.

'Well, she better not be Saku-D2's lover because then this pinkette bitch will be begging the Empire to take her away.

"Do you understand?" the pinkette mysterious not-the-princess woman asked the droid. Saku bleeped in the affirmative. And with that, Hima watched as the mysterious passenger turned around and and receded down the dark corridor. Saku, now with her holotape stored safely inside her, rolled in the opposite direction toward her friend.

"At last, Saku!" Hima exclaimed, "There you are! Where have you been!" Saku-D2 revolved her blondish-colored head to face her fellow droid. "They're heading in this direction! What are we going to do?" Hima continued, "We'll be sent to the droid factors on Genosa, have our genders switched against our will! Turned into yaoi schoolboy droids to the lust of stupid yaoi fangirls!"

"Ugh! Hima-chan!" Saku said, "I have something very important to do, so can you do me a favor that might help?"

"What? At a time like this? Well, if it'll help out, sure!"

"Good, listen," Saku said, "Stay here and get blasted by the Ganbotroops as I head to the escape pods!"

"What?" Hima kicked her trashcan friend as she drove off chuckling to herself.

"Ow!" Saku said, "Kicking still hurts even if I'm made of metal, don't do that!"

"Well, don't make jokes like that! Especially at a time like this!" Hima said, going after her.

"Who's joking?" Saku laughed again, but not for long, as Hima returned it with a swift metal kick. "Ow! Seriously, stop!"

The ganbotroops checked the computer rooms and found nothing. Walking through the corridors, past the rows and rows of captured rebels and droids being escorted to the star destroyer, for interrogation and death, they entered the control room to report the bad news.

The cloaked woman breathed heavily, perhaps even more heavily to further taunt the choking rebel. Surrounding them, the troops watched in awe as their leader lifted the passenger up a good yard off the ground it seemed with her barehands, clutching her tightly by the throat. The rebel girl's feet swayed helplessly as she dangled under the evil witch's power. Still clutching her, she looked away from her and toward the reporting troop

"The Giant Ganbot plans are not in the main computer," he reported.

With that, the towering sorceress returned her blank gaze back to the rebel. "Where are those transmissions that you intercepted?" her neck began to crack under the strain, "What have you done with those plans?"

Struggling even for breathe, she tried to talk. The masked woman eased up on some of the pressure so that she could string together some articulate syllables. "Errgggaahhh," she said, "We intercepted no transmissions! Errggggaahhhh. This is a convention ship! urrrghhhhh. We're on an economic mission!"

"If this is a convention ship," she asked as the tightened his throat with her mind, "then where ARE the new mangas?" But in her rage and impatience, she choked her too hard and with a snapping sound, the rebel girl was clearly dead. The corpse being of no use, the darkly-clad woman threw the refuse against the wall and the body limply twisted down to the metal floor.

"Commander!" The troops all snapped to attention as she declared her order, "Tear this ship apart until you find me those plans! And bring me the passengers, I want them ALIVE!" She flipped her cape as she left the room, and the troops went about following their orders, combing the ship for anyone who survived the initial onslaught.

Walking through the back channels of the ship, the troops made sure to investigate extra diligently as the lighting was low. It was in this room that the mysterious passenger from before waited. With her personal side arm loaded and primed, she hide herself behind a wall panel and waited for the right time to strike at the approaching troops. 'It's a narrow corridor,' she thought, 'so they can't really rush me. I might be able to get away from them.'

But there was no time to form a plan. "Look!" the forefront trooper said as she spotted her, "There's one. Set for stun." She revealed herself and popped a shot at him, hitting him in the center of his armor plate. The blast was powerful enough to penetrate it and the soldier fell dead instantly into the arms of one of his brothers behind him. Hoping to capitalize off of the distraction, the pinkette girl turned to flee. But one of the troops stepped forward and fired a bluish beam from his gun, hitting her. She fell down instantly, only semi-awake and unable to move. The troops stepped forward to examine their catch.

"She's breathing," one of the troops said, "Inform Lord Saiscon we have a prisoner."

"Hey!" Hima chased toward Saku as she climbed up on the steel supporting steps, "You weren't being serious, were you? You're not permitted in there; it's forbidden, Saku-chan!"

"Um, Hima-chan," Saku said, as she broke the electronic lock and raised the barrier into the pod. "We're about to become prisoners of the Empire and these are the only means of escape! Do you want to stay here and get killed?"

"Well, I know! But still, it goes against my programming for protocol. Oh, maybe I can just ask someone if it's okay real quick, and come back!"" she looked around.

"Blam!" A laser bolt hit the column nearest her, exploding at a spot just above her head. "Hey!" he heard a trooper shout, "Remember, Lord Saiscon wants passengers alive!"

"Right, sorry."

"I'll get permission later!" Hima said as she quickly crouched down and stepped into the pod. "I'm sure they'll understand if I tell them nicely. I mean, I have to do it to survive, right?"

"Hima-chan, on second thought, really do get out, please, and get captured by the Empire."

But there was no time for Hima-3P0 to change her mind, even if she wanted to. The pod ejected and the two droids watched as the entire scope of the ship came into their window view. No sooner, did the entire star destroyer encompass their space and in no time at all became a small blip on their screen. It was actually a beautiful experience in an odd sort of way.

"Everything looks so small from out here," Hima said.

Saku nodded, "Yes, because we're getting further away,so our perspective is greater."

"Hmm," Hima nodded, actually rather impressed by the provocative philosophical statement from her friend. "That's actually quite an interesting way to put it, Saku-chan."

"Thanks!" the smaller droid smiled as she nodded, "Yeap, bigger when we're near, smaller when we're farther away."

And then it hit Hima-3P0 what Saku-D2 actually meant. "You...you were talking about the physical depth of field," she said. "What?" Saku asked.

"I meant philosophically, Saku-chan! I know things get smaller when you move away! I meant, like, it's amazing how second ago, we were about to die and we were in peril, and so many of our friends and workmates died, and it all seemed important and perhaps it is, but yet it all happened in just this small blip of space. Even, the Empire's main ship of choice, the gigantic star destroyer, capable of housing an entire army, doesn't even occupy .1% of the universe! That's what I meant.

Hima could here the ship whizzing into the atmosphere, it was so quiet in the pod.

"Oh, well," Saku said, "All that goes without saying. But I think my comment about how things get smaller the farther you get from them is quite insightful, too-"

"Oh, you're such an idiot!"

"Eh!?" Saku said, "What's eating you, busty-tron? What makes what you said better than what I said!"

"You didn't even understand what I said, did you!"

"Yes I did!" Saku replied back.

"Oh yeah? What did I say? Repeat it back to me?"

"Um…" Saku said, looking out the window as if the answer would come from space. "You were saying the ship was big and it looks smaller from out here."

"Oh, Madokami, Saku-chan! You're such a nerf-herder idiot! You didn't understand anything!"

And the two droids continued to argue over this, all the way to the surface of the planet below.

Back on the ship, the white-robed passenger had recovered and was able to walk and talk, which was good for her because she wanted to mouth off to the leader of this outfit and she needed to be in prime condition to do so. And given the characteristics of this operation, she had her suspicions as to whom was behind all this, and she's been wanting to tell her off for a long time.

Two troops to her immediate sides and locked in handcuffs, she was escorted back out through the maze of corridors and closer and closer to the entrance, although she didn't have to wait until she was on the Star Destroyer for her suspicions to be confirmed. As they turned one corner, she saw the Empire's most sinister agent, and just as always she did not allow herself to feel daunted.

"Well, if it isn't Darth Saiscon," she addressed her full of righteous indignation, "In your stupid purple hat! In your stupid purple cape! And your stupid black mask! And your stupid red hair bun that comes out of the hat somehow like it's detachable." Saiscon did not feel anything from Chinatsu's princess barrage. She maintained her composure, hands fisted and on the side of her hips. She had all the power here, her captive's petulant insults only stood to affirm that point. "Only you could be so bold," the captive continued. If she hadn't had handcuffs on, she would've pointed straight up at that stupid face of hers. "Well, I hope you know that the Imperial Senate will not stand for this affront! When they find out that you've attacked a ship on official business, then-"

"Oh, don't act so surprised this time, Princess Chinatsu," Darth Saiscon cut her off in her quasi-robotic, but feminine voice. See, it was Princess Chinatsu the whole time! Sure fooled you!

"You weren't on any 'convention' mission this time! Several transmissions were sent to this trip by rebel spies! I want you to tell me what happened to the stolen plans that they sent you."

"What?" Chinatsu replied, "I don't know what you're talking about! I a member of the Imperial Senate returning from a convention mission, heading back to the Planet Japan-"

"YOU are a member of the Otaku Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!" she said loudly as she pointed at her condemningly. The troops did as they were told, and took the captive princess past Lord Saiscon and out of the ship.

One of her officers approached her and walked alongside her, eager to express her anxieties about this mission. Saiscon permitted it.

"Holding her could be risky, Lord," she said, "If word gets out about this altercation, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate."

"I need her alive. She is my only lead to their secret base."

"She'll die before she tells you anything!"

"You let that be my concern. As for now, send a distress signal, and inform the Imperial Senate that all aboard this craft were killed-"

"Lord Saison," another officer came and saluted her, "the battle plans are definitely not aboard this vessel, and no transmissions were made. An escape pod was jettisoned during the infiltration, but no lifeforms were aboard it."

"Then she must've hidden the plans in the escape pod. Saiscon slowly lurched towards the officer, towering above her in stature. The officer did her best not to display her intimidation, but she couldn't resist a small twitch of the mouth. "Send a detachment down to the surface to collect them. See to it personally, commander! There will be no one to stop us this time!" The officer saluted, "Yes, m'am," and left to carry out her orders.