CHAPTER 21: The Invasion Begins
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Inside the palace of Naboo~~~~~~~~~~~~
Queen Amidala sat at a very large desk, her handmaidens sat around her and in front sat a few other members of government; Queen Amidala sat watching a blue hologram of a man.
"It would seem…… the Trade Feder……Viceroy…..it will…." The hologram was fading in and out; the man who was speaking kept blacking out. Amidala leaned forward in her chair.
"Senator Palpatine, can you hear me??" the Queen asked; instantly, the hologram vanished, Amidala turned to the Governor,
"What's happening?" she asked, the Captain quickly checked the machine it came from.
"All communications have been shut down." He informed; The Governor turned to the Queen.
"That can only mean one thing; Invasion." He stated
"The Trade Federation wouldn't dare go that far!" Queen Amidala exclaimed
"Your highness please, we must take action!" The Governor pleaded, Queen Amidala sat back in her chair,
"I will not condone any action that will lead us to war." She replied firmly.
~~~~~~~~~~Deep Within a Forest on Naboo~~~~~~~
Angela trotted on through, the firm ground beneath her feet started becoming soft and squishy. Angela heard a crashing sound up ahead and silently sneaked up on the source. She took cover behind a very thick tree; her eyes widened behind her hood and mask at what she saw. Ships, vessels of some sort moved about through the trees, knocking most over. Luckily for her, none were heading in her direction; Angela saw hundreds of animals flee from the ship's path.
"Dear Lord, there has to be about 9 of them!" Angela noted in her head. Some the vessels stayed behind, and opened up, Droids riding on some type of scooter came cruising out and began scouting the area.
"So this is the Viceroy's invasion……" Angela paused as she took in the site, "Doesn't look like much." She murmured softly; a droid, who had just appeared marching out of a vessel, was leading a small group of about 30 droids; all were armed. Angela saw the droid head over to a small stand, and a blue Hologram appeared; two tall figures showed up
"Viceroy," The droid spoke; Angela leaned in closer to hear, "we've captured the Queen." The Droid spoke; Angela's eyes widened as she heard this,
"Oh Shi…." Angela couldn't even finish her curse,
"Excellent, but we fear that the two Jedi may have snuck aboard on one of your vessels." The Viceroy informed,
"If they're down here Sir, We'll find them." The Droid assured.
"Make sure that you do. And be mindful, I think there's another threat down there then just a couple of Jedi…" The Viceroy warned before he and his Advisor faded away. Angela smirked,
"They're talking about me." She laughed inside her head. Angela tensed up as she felt something hard press against her back.
"Halt!" A droid ordered from behind her; Angela raised both her hands up in the air then glanced behind her shoulder. A droid stood there, pointing his gun at her; Angela moved her left hand down over to her right hip and firmly took hold of her saber's hilt. In a flash, Angela pulled out her long saber and swiped it back at the droid's head; it fell to the ground with a soft thump. Angela pushed the still standing body of the droid to the ground; it collapsed in a small heap on the squishy ground.
"Hey you over there, freeze!!" Angela's head snapped in the direction of the order; she had been spotted, now four more droids came at her; three on a scooter, one on his feet.
"Oh Crud!" Angela swore out loud before she took off running; a high whistling sound began sounding off and colorful red and green lights flew by Angela's head,
"Oh Double crud!" Angela mumbled under her breath at the fact that she was being caught in an open fire. Angela skillfully dodged through the trees, and kept putting distance between her and the droids; but they still kept their pursuit. Angela, as she looked ahead, noticed a slight change in the scenery, the air was more moist, and the ground was more damp; Angela was entering a swamp. A huge log laid in her path, Angela, without hesitation jumped high over it. She could sense that the droids were still following, so Angela quickened her pace. She could hear all around her, the snapping of leaves and twigs; when she took some time to glance behind her shoulder, Angela felt the right side her body connect rather roughly with a bigger object. This threw Angela off her feet, literally; she and the unknown object went tumbling to the ground. Angela shut her eyes tightly and braced herself for the impact of her landing. The force of their contact sent them both rolling over each other; Angela being the lighter one, landed on top. Her left hand rested on the object and she felt something quite alarming; a soft, quick thudding under her touch. Angela's eyes snapped open as she realized that what she was feeling was a heartbeat and she quickly propped herself up on her arms to look down at what lied beneath her. Two beautiful deep blue-green eyes stared back up at her. Angela's mouth opened slightly in shock;
"It's a young man!" her mind screamed to her as she took in the sight of the very handsome man who looked to be just as shocked as Angela was. He wore a white tunic and leggings with knee-high brown boots, over his broad shoulders rested some type of robe; he had a light golden brown hair color with a hint of red in it, on the right side of his head grew a long and neatly tied braid. He didn't look to be much older than Angela. The humming sound of the droid's scooters closing in brought Angela out of her trance; she looked over her shoulder then back to the young man. Angela looked down and realized that she was half straddling the man's waist; though he couldn't see it, color rose to Angela's cheeks. Quickly she rolled off him and jumped to her feet, giving him a quick look Angela spoke up
"Run!" She ordered and took off sprinting. A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, when she looked over; the young man was running right beside her. The droids began firing at both of them now; and Angela at that moment felt another presence. Swiftly, she dived out of the path of the coming droids and crouched by a tree; the young man kept on running. Angela felt the need to go help him, but as she kept watching, turns out he didn't need her help. About 20 something feet away stood two other figures, Angela heard a high pitched voice cry out;
"Oh NO!!" then a deeper voice jumped in, "Get down!"
One of the figures dropped to the ground while the other whipped out a green lightsaber and reflected the flying laser shots. He took down all the droids who were chasing Angela and the young man. The young man ran up to the older looking man who had just put away his lightsaber. An extremely tall and funny looking creature, who had the high voice Angela had heard a few seconds ago, rose to his feet from the ground he fell to.
"You saved my again!" He exclaimed softly in awe, the young man looked up at the tall figure, his brows were furrowed softly.
"What's this?" he asked, the older man looked to the younger man,
"A local. Come on, we can't stay here. More trouble is coming our way." The older man spoke before he and the younger man took off jogging.
"More? More you say?" The funny looking creature repeated, he quickly followed the two men. Angela stuck close to the trees and she too silently followed the two men and creature.
"Exsqueeze me, but if you're running from danger, best place to go is Gungin city. Tis a hidden city." The creature spoke; both men stop moving and turned to look at the tall creature.
"A Hidden city?" The older man repeated, "Can you take us there?" he asked. The tall creature, who Angela guessed was called a Gungin, thought about the question for a second.
"Uhhh….on second thought no." he answered.
"No?" The older man repeated; he placed his hands upon his hips.
"Tis embarrassing, but….my afraid my's been banished. Da Boss will do terrible things to me if I return. Terrible things!" The Gungin explained; the older man lifted one hand from his hip and pointed up to the sky,
"You hear that?" he asked. The Gungin raised one of his long ears off his shoulders and he listened.
"Yeah." He answered; the older man began to take a few intimidating steps toward him,
"That is the sound of a thousand terrible things heading in our direction," The young man jumped in,
"If they find us, the will crush us, grind us into tiny pieces and blast us into oblivion." He added, a small smirk pulled on his lips; Angela as she watched this scene, bit her lips back to prevent herself from smiling.
"He's cute." She noted in her mind. The Gungin thought about what the two men had just stated,
"Uhhh… you'sa made good point. This way!" he spoke while spinning around quickly; the Gungin's long ears would've smacked the young man had he not dodged them just seconds before. Angela watched the two men follow the Gungin off into the swamp; the younger man gave a quick glance back over his shoulder in the direction where Angela hid. Once he was gone from sight, Angela stepped out from behind the tree,
"Well that was interesting." She mumbled, then she spun on her feet and took off sprinting back to the palace.
"I need to get to the Queen!" she told herself. Angela realized that if she was going to try to stop this invasion from spreading, she was going to have to act quickly. During her journey back to the palace, Angela began devising her own plan of action to take down the Viceroy and bring an end to his Invasion.