Chapter 14 - Battle of Theed

DISCLAIMER: We do not own Star Wars or any of the characters in it, though we wish we did. We only own Aniya Skywalker and Jaufre (pronounced Jaw-Free) Naberrie. =)

Author's Note: Nope. Nothing with Aniya here! :) Lol.

~ Amina Gila

Jaufre Naberrie

The beginning of the path is mostly clear, but once we enter the hall of the palace, a group of battle droids spot us. We split in half, me heading with Padme and several others over to one of the walls while the other half goes to the other side. We stand behind the pillars, taking shelter while peering out now and them to shoot down a few droids.

I dodge a blaster bolt that nearly takes off my head, backing almost completely behind the pillar as I try to fire at them again. The first several droids in the front go down, but more of them march up to take their places and continue to shoot. They probably have a whole army here and they'll keep coming until they wear us down or kill us.

For a moment, my gaze darts up and down the elegant palace hall, taking in the damage the battle has caused. Gaping, smoking holes have been blown through it in many places where a shot missed its intended target. Not to mention the pieces of destroyed battle droids littering the hallway. Once the battle is over, it's going to take a long time to be fixed up. I suppose I shouldn't concern myself with it, considering there may not even be an "after the battle" if I don't focus.

Anger twists inside of me as I shoot at the droids, taking down another one. Even after all of this is over, it's going to take everyone on the planet a prolonged time to recover from the invasion. And to imagine, all of this occurred just because of people's greed. I wonder where the rest of our family is. We haven't had any contact with them since before the whole disaster started. They're probably in the camps with everyone else. I really hope they're all okay.

I duck back behind the pillar – really grateful for the palace's design as I nearly get my head blasted off again by a droid.

"We don't have time for this, Captain," Padme hisses, turning to Captain Panaka. No, we really don't. The longer we take, the more time we're giving the enemy to regroup and send more droids to attack us, preventing us from reaching Gunray.

"Let's try the outside stairway," Captain Panaka offers. He whirls around, blasting a hole in the window. The glass shatters into a million pieces, leaving a wide gaping hole open for us to exit. Captain Panaka is the first to climb onto the narrow ledge. Padme and I climb out next, followed by several other guards. A group of about a dozen soldiers remain behind on the floor below to give us cover as the droids continue shooting. Soon, we're all lined up standing on the narrow ledge. When was the last time I ever did something this risky?

I avoid looking down at the long fall below us as we fire grappling hooks to several floors above. At least if someone fell, they'd only land in the waterfall far below us. Better than hitting the ground and… I'd rather not think about what would happen.

The hooks catch on the top of the window two stories above us, and we all begin pulling ourselves up the wall with the help of the hooks, before finally landing on another window ledge. We're outside the hallway to the throne room now. I'm sure the heads of the Trade Federation will be waiting there when we arrive. I hope Padme has something in mind, because this part of the palace is definitely going to have far more security than the rest.

Padme takes aim and fires a blast through the window, shattering the glass. We all climb into the hallway in between the towering pillars. I'm really glad the palace was built with them. They're very useful in fighting and hiding, which is ridiculous when I think about it, because that shouldn't even be a thought I had to have in my own home planet. My gaze darts up and down the hallway. It looks clear; most of the droids are apparently distracted downstairs. Good.

For a moment, my mind wanders back to Anakin and Aniya. Hopefully, they're alright down there in the hanger bay. If they stayed inside the fighter, they should be.

We take off running down the large hall, heading for the door to the throne room. Just then, I hear the clattering of droids, and two destroyer droids roll up in front of us, stopping as they unroll to take aim. I raise my blaster to fire at them, but then I spot several other droids rolling up towards us from other directions. Oh great. Now what are we going to do?

Padme tosses her to pistol to the floor and looks at Captain Panaka. "Throw down your weapons. They win this round."

"But we can –" he begins to protest.

"What, you want us just to surrender? I hope you have a brilliant plan for this, sister," I grumble.

"I said throw down your weapons," she orders, glaring at me. I set my blaster down on the floor reluctantly. The others follow suit. Hopefully, Padme has some idea what she's doing. I suppose we probably couldn't overcome so many droids without being killed ourselves, but I'm not sure if we'll have a chance to escape. But then again, when has my sister ever been unable to get us out of tight spots? She seems capable of handling nearly any situation, whether through fighting or diplomacy. That's why I admire her so much – though I will never tell her so.

Battle droids swarm out of a nearby doorway, surrounding us. They march us down the hallway to the throne room. The doors slide open to reveal Gunray, and five other members of the Trade Federation.

"Your little insurrection is at an end, Your Highness," Gunray announces haughtily, "Time for you to sign the treaty, and end this pointless debate in the Senate."

Right on cue, Sabe – who has once again taken on her dress as the Naboo queen – appears in the doorway with several guards surrounding her. "I will not be signing any treaty, Viceroy, because you've lost!" she retorts.

Gunray and the others whirl towards the door, staring at them in shock. I do my best not to smirk.

Several of the guards shoot at the droids, taking down a few before they can even move to react. "After her! This one is a decoy!" cries Gunray as the group with Sabe takes off. Six of the battle droids run out of the room after them. Only four in here. This shouldn't be too hard if we can coordinate an attack just right.

"Your Queen will not get away with this," he seethes furiously. Pretending to be dejected over her failure to 'act' as the queen, Padme slumps down on the throne. She moves her hand slightly, striking a security button on the arm of the chair. A concealed compartment slides open, and she pulls out three blasters. The first she tosses to Captain Panaka, and the other to me. She takes the third for herself, and the three of us hastily shoot down the few droids left in the room.

Gunray and the others frantically look between us and the droids in a panic as we rapidly win the battle. They ought to think twice before trying something like this again. As soon as it's clear, a few of the other officers with us run to the control panel, slamming it closed so no one will be able to enter. Captain Panaka yanks out several more blasters, throwing them to the rest of our entourage.

We surround the members of the Trade Federation, aiming our blasters at them.

"Now, Viceroy, this is the end of your occupation here," Padme announces.

"Don't be absurd!" retorts Gunray, though he looks on the verge of panicking, "There are too few of you. It won't be long before hundreds of destroyer droids break in to rescue us." We'll see about that.

**w**

Anakin Skywalker

"Yes, we have ignition," I inform right before sliding back into view, pushing a button, and making the engine fire up.

"You!" shouts the captain upon spotting me, "Come out of there, or we'll blast you!"

Threats are nothing new to me. "Not if I can help it!" I yell back, "Shields up." The fighter takes off, knocking over the captain. The other droids start firing at the ship, but blaster fire isn't made to penetrate fighter shields. It all bounces off easily. Still, we need to get rid of them before they figure out some way of preventing our take off.

"This should stop them," I mutter, turning on the same laser fire function I'd used earlier to destroy the droids attacking Padme. The ship starts firing at the droids, blowing them up. My eyes fall on another button on the control panel, and again something in the back of my mind whispers at me to push it. "And take this," I add, pushing it. Two torpedoes shoot out of the ship but miss the droids, instead striking something farther into the ship.

"Darn, I missed!" I groan. They fly down the hall into the room beyond, and suddenly the whole thing blows up. "Let's get out of here!" I call, worried. The explosion was really fierce, and it seems to be continuing to denotate more things from the inside out. We have to hurry if we don't want to get blown away with it.

I send the fighter flying forwards out of the hanger as fast as I can, swerving to avoid the remains of the group of droids. Explosions ring out across the hanger as I zoom forwards. I throw the fighter forwards full speed, whizzing the rest of the way out of the hanger and into space as the cloud of flames and debris expand behind me with increasing speed. The ship shakes from the force of the explosions ringing out nearby.

"Now, this is Podracing! Whoopee!" I squeal, relieved to finally have a familiar feel to all this. I just Aniya were here, not back on Naboo, probably an extremely dangerous situation and missing all the fun. I have to admit, though, it would have been much harder to do this while squashed together, since moving around wasn't that easy. I can only hope that back on the ground she's fine. And hopefully so are Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Padme, and Jaufre.

As I zoom away from the ship, with the explosions continuing with increasing fierceness, I spot the remainder of the Naboo craft that lifted out of the hanger earlier. I don't contemplate the fact that the fleet is a lot smaller than the one that left. It's obvious the missing ones were all destroyed. But being the nine-year-old I am, that's far from my first thoughts.

Behind me, the Trade Federation ship is continuing to blow to pieces. The fleet starts heading back towards Naboo and I follow, since there's no other way I'll know where to land. The explosions on the enormous ship continue, until finally the center of it blows up completely, breaking the remainder of the ship in half, and engulfing it in a cloud of flying debris and flames.

The Trade Federation is gone. The battle is over. We won.

And it feels… amazing. Because I know I did it. I saved Naboo. And thousands of people on it.

Now that I'm finally out of danger, my mind goes back to everyone else. I hope Aniya was able to find somewhere safe to stay until the end of the battle. And that her nightmare didn't happen… A shudder runs through me. I need to get back to the hanger bay as soon as possible and find out what transpired.

The spaceship glides into the same hanger it blasted out of before and comes to a stop. Looking around, I spot all the pilots already out of their fighters. They're gathered around, talking to each other. Now is when reality sinks in that I shouldn't have been flying that fighter at all. Opening the cockpit, I stand up. "I'm not going to get in trouble, am I?" I ask sheepishly. All the pilots just stare in amazement, completely speechless.

Unlike Aniya, the attention I'm getting doesn't unnerve me. I'm not exactly used to it, considering we were slaves on Tatooine, but we definitely got quite a bit of attention for being the only humans ever to be in a Pod Race. And, of course, survive. Even if we only won once.

My gaze darts around the hanger bay, looking for Aniya. Where is she? I don't see her anywhere, or Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, for that matter. What happened to them anyway? And where's Padme and Jaufre? Have they won the battle in the throne room yet? All the droids should be shut down, so they shouldn't be encountering much resistance anymore.

I climb down the ladder of the fighter, eyes frantically darting around the hanger bay. Just where is my sister? She isn't out here, that much I can tell. Nearby, there's an open door. Somehow, I get the feeling the fight might have carried them in there… but what would Aniya be doing in there? Unless she went in there to stop her nightmare from happening. Of course, she would try to. I just hope she's okay.

I hurry over to the doorway, stepping inside and looking around. I don't hear anything. Hesitantly, I move forwards across the long walkway. I need to find them. And fast.