A/N
Hello again guys. I hope you enjoy chapter eight, and if you do, or you notice any mistakes, let me know, and I can go fix them. Once again, thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: Disney still hasn't responded to my letter. I'm guessing it got held up in the post office.
Without a sound, the Lambda-class landing shuttle descended upon the Coruscanti landing platform. Behind it and the landing platform, the mushroom shaped senate building could be seen. And behind that, one could just see the smoke still rising from the Jedi temple.
A slight hiss of escaping gas could be heard as the landing ramp slowly lowered, coming to a rest on the durasteel floor. A squad of four Stormtroopers walked down the ramp, armored feet clanking as they made contact with the metal surface.
At the other side of the platform, another pair of Stormtroopers stood at the entrance to the turbolift into the building. Glancing uncertainly at each other, they stepped forward to meet the quadruple of advancing troopers. One of them raised a hand, stopping the men who had walked down the ramp. "ID and clearance, please."
One of the Stormtroopers reached behind his back, gloved hand grasping for something.
Instead of taking out the ID and clearance codes that the trooper expected, he pulled out a small vibro-knife. Before the trooper could react, the knife plunged into his chest, straight through his plastoid armor. The other trooper raised his weapon, trying to fire at his sudden assailants.
Far too quickly for any organic being to accomplish, one of the four attacking troopers dashed forward. Before the trooper could fire, he received a punch to the face, and a kick to the gut. Then, before he knew what was happening, he was being raised in the air. Struggling against the durasteel grip that held him in place, he kicked and screamed, trying anything to break free.
Then, with one mighty heave, the Stormtrooper went tumbling off of the landing platform, vanishing from sight someways down the massive drop. In a few minutes, he would reach a very messy end. The Stormtrooper who had thrown him turned around, and spoke to the one with the vibro-knife. "All resistance on the platform cleared, sir."
The troopers began walking towards the turbolift at the end of the platform. Entering it, one of the troopers pressed a series of buttons, and the lift began a slow descent.
Several minutes later, the turbolift came to a halt. As soon as the doors slid open, the four troopers stepped out into the room. The dozen or so Imperial personnel there looked up in surprise. "Hello, troopers," one of the officers said, with an extremely thick Coruscanti accent, "Did command send you? Well, you can tell them that we have that faulty plasma circuit under control."
One of the recently entered troopers nodded. Turning around, they got back into the turbolift. The officer noted that they were moving rather stiffly. What the Imperials didn't notice, however, was that one of the Stormtroopers had dropped a small disc on the floor. That disc started blinking a soft, red, light, indicating it was active. They also didn't notice that as the turbolift closed, not one of the troopers pushed any of the buttons.
Then, the disc let out a faint hiss. A few of the more observant Imperials in the room turned towards it, wondering what was happening. A light green smoke slowly filled the space. One of the troopers suddenly noticed what was happening. "Gas!" He shouted, "Helmet filters on!"
There was a series of clicking as the troopers turned on their air filters, rendering them immune to the gas's poisonous effects. The officers in the room looked on in horror, quickly realizing that their gray caps wouldn't protect them from the gas. Withing seconds, they were all lying on the ground, gasping and clutching at their throats.
By now, the gas had filled the room, making impossible to see through the green haze. The half-a-dozen Stormtroopers still standing were terrified out of their minds by whatever had attacked them. As the turbolift doors slid open, all of them jumped, and pointed their blasters in the general direction of the sound.
The four troopers who had previously left the room came out of the doors. One of the Stormtroopers, a Sergeant, squinted at them as they entered. "You there, stop!" He said, "Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your heads!"
The armored figures responded with several rounds of blaster bolts. About 5 seconds later, all that remained of the Sergeant and his men was a few charred corpses, each with several rounds of blaster fire evidenced on their armor. The four troopers dispersed, each heading for a different console. As the last of the poison gas dispersed, one of the troopers removed his helmet.
"This is BX-314 reporting in," the commando droid said, "We have the information requested."
"Good," came the rasping reply, "Return to your shuttle and prepare to dock. Well done, droid."
"Sir," said the droid at tactical, "The shuttle is docking. We will transfer the target information to the bridge when the procedures are complete." Grievous nodded, showing no outward sign of the excitement he felt inside. Well, it wasn't really excitement. He couldn't have emotions. It was just a shadow of an emotion, something his extremely damaged brain did to keep him sane. But it was close enough.
This would be it! He would get the information he needed, which would lead him to Kenobi! Then, he could finally destroy the Jedi for what he'd done.
A few minutes later, the console beside Grievous's chair lit up, displaying the information his commandos had stolen. Turning to it, Grievous's mechanical eyes scrolled through the giant data file in seconds.
There were massive amounts of information in there; docking reports, crew transfers, Imperial clearance codes, (Grievous stored those away, they could be useful later) all of it possibly leading to Kenobi's location.
None of it seemed relevant, except for one little tidbit of information. It appeared that a Stormtrooper guarding the senate building had noticed a pair of Jedi accompanied a Senator into the senate building. Several hours later, the Jedi recall code had been changed to a "run and hide" message. Grievous was willing to bet that one of those two Jedi was Kenobi.
"Prepare another commando team," Grievous instructed no one in particular, "Instruct them to be ready for departure in 15 minutes." The comms officer called the hangar and instructed a shuttle to be prepared. The droid at tactical ordered another commando squad be fitted with leftover Stormtrooper armor. And 15 minutes later, the squad boarded the vessel, preparing for another journey down to the planet below.
"Execute!" came Commander Appo's deafening order. With that word, the squad explosives expert pressed the detonator. The back entrance to the file relay facility blasted open. Through the hole in the wall rushed a total of eighteen Stormtroopers, spreading out in the open room.
Following after the 501st squads marched the tall, black-armored figure of Darth Vader. If his appearance wasn't threatening enough, the cold, mechanical breathing unnerved just about anyone unfortunate enough to hear it.
Standing in the impromptu entrance to the facility, Vader was mildly shocked at the number of bodies littering the floor. Half-a-dozen Stormtroopers lay dead, holed in various places with blaster bolts. Just as many Imperial officers were laying on the floor as well, clutching and clawing at their throats.
A trooper with a sensors backpack stood up from beside the body he was crouching by. "Dioxis gas, sir. They didn't stand a chance," he said sadly.
Appo nodded. "Is there any chance of contamination? I don't want one of us being poisoned."
One of the squad medics spoke up. "Oh, no, not with helmets on, sir. And besides, it's long gone." Vader waved over the sensors trooper, gesturing for him to check the shot Stormtroopers.
Vade stood idly by as his troopers carried on the investigation. It was quite boring, really. He couldn't exactly do anything to speed it up; the group he was with were all clones. If a clone wasn't operating at peak efficiency at any time, they would simply be sent back to whatever facility they came from, and then a new one would be transferred over to take their place.
A few more boring minutes past, and nothing of note happened. Then, the sensors trooper waved his superiors over. "Sirs," he said, "I've confirmed that these blaster marks came from an E-5 blaster rifle. Odd, because those were used almost exclusively by the battle droids of the CIS."
Appo's helmeted head turned towards Vader. "That would explain why we haven't found any other life signs in the area," he muttered. Vader slowly nodded, agreeing with his second-in-command's statement. "Sirs, could you come over here?" another trooper at one of the data consoles called.
Vader and Appo strode over, and looked over the trooper's shoulder. 'Sirs," he said, "It appears that all of the data file from the past week have been copied. Onto some sort of portable storage, if I'm correct."
Vader considered this. Who had broken into a minor Imperial facility, killed the garrison, and left? And for what? A few docking reports, it looked like. It didn't make sense. Unless...
What if they were looking for something? Perhaps a person or valuable item. There was no way to know for sure. Only the one who had done this could answer these questions.
"Squad 1, remain here and keep looking through the scene. Keep me appraised of any changes. Squad 2, with me." And the 9 Stormtroopers of squad 2 followed Vader out of the building, searching for any clues as to where those had done this had gone.
