I am currently dreading writing this chapter. You may think I write action sequences good but really I can only write sword fighting. Ugh, in this I must write exchanges of gunfire! Darn, why did I choose Aurra Sing as Sidious's new apprentice? She's a former bounty hunter for crying out loud! Actually when you think about her in this it works. This chapter is probably going to drag on forever when I write it. Never mind, I am boring you with all these dreads of typing this.

Chapter: 23: Mon Mothma's Second Capture

"Master." Aurra Sing said approaching Sidious from behind on the bridge of the Gorgon.

"Yes?"

"Before I leave you may want to know that we have intercepted a transmission for Mon Mothma herself. What she said is not important however, its where the transmission came from."

"Where?"

"Underground on Coruscant, by the Imperial palace."

"There is a bunker down there yes, it is hidden. I never used it, be prepared however, there is a maze to go through an a lot of blast doors and auto turrets. But go now my apprentice and bring me the Chancellor."

"Yes master."

XxX

Three Hours Later

Aurra had already got into the palace an hour ago. She was currently sprinting through the basement, over twisted and turning plumbing parts, past heating systems and cooling systems and with her storm trooper half legion behind her. She was looking for a certain place on the west side of the basement, which would be very easy to find since the basement was circular and you could mathematically pinpoint the very west point which was where the supposed door to the Chancellor's bunker was. After jumping over one pipe, ducking and rolling under another to large to jump she came up and a wall faced her, branded with a huge orange W. The two lower points were touching the ground, paint had leaked down it and it looked very eerie.

Alright, Sidious had told her where to look. At the very tip of the W, there was a hidden pressure pad, Aurra's long clawed hands found it and pushed. Suddenly the whole slab of the wall imprinted with the W was pulled back and up. There was a long wide hallway behind it. She started down it, her storm troops with her. At the end of the hallway she looked both ways, they were exactly the same, all the way at the end they split in two again, in the middle there were the entrances of two more, opposite each other.

Aurra did as Sidious had trained her. She reached out with the Force to find which way to go. It told her silently, right, to the end, left. So she did. She came to a circular room this time, which had five blast doors along its walls. She asked the force again, the very middle one it answered. She snapped her claws together and called her demolitions team, and instructed them to blow up the middle door.

The troops eagerly placed a round disk on the door, pressed a couple of square buttons on it and ran. Seconds later with a bang that echoed in Aurra's ears the door exploded and fell leaving a burning gap in the wall that Aurra and her troopers strode through.

This went on for about a half hour until they finally came into a white plasteel room with another blast door. Sidious had told her if she found this room she was close. From what he said there were three others behind the blast door, each filled with auto turrets. But she had come prepared. She snapped her chalk white clawed hands and pointed at the door. Her demolitions team came out again and placed three bombs this time, the blast door was huge.

As they ran back from it Aurra unclipped a small metal sphere from the row of five on her belt and pushed down the switch on top. Lights began to blink around the spheres equator and when the blast door blew and fell to the ground Aurra hurled it in. The sphere of course was a thermal detonator and it would make short work of the turrets. Seconds later there was another bang and a flash of white light, then silence. Aurra and her company stepped into the room, the auto turrets would be no threat now as they were melting chunks of durasteel. This process was repeated two more times and when Aurra stepped into the third room the door to a common room had already been blown down.

Aurra smiled as she glimpsed the white robe of Mon Mothma flee behind another blast door. She strode into the common room, walked up to the blast door and knocked. The storm troops behind her exchanged quizzical looks though they were invisible under their bone white helmets.

"Chancellor!" Aurra called. "You might as well let us in, we have explosives and I would certainly hate for the door to damage you."

There was no answer, Aurra doubted Mon Mothma could hear her. She shook her head, they could not use explosives of course, she had just said that to save some effort. Oh well. Aurra unclipped a lightsaber from her belt, pushed the activation button and an aqua blade extended, one that she had collected from a Jedi long ago. She plunged it into the door and slowly brought it up. At the top she twisted it two the right and brought it across, down, across, and up where it connected to the hole she had first started it. She kept the saber active and held it to one side. Spun and kicked the door with the heel of her boot. It shook and fell inward, landing with an echoing metallic bang. The moment Aurra looked in she was fired upon but three orange droids. She dodged out of the way as the bolts flew out and hit two storm troopers. She signaled for them to take cover as more fire erupted from the door. The troops ducked behind anything they could find, and others pressed themselves against the wall near the door. After a couple more burst of fire the droids seemed to give up on that and switched tactics.

Aurra gasped as a silver blinking orb flew out of the doorway and landed behind the sofa where three storm troopers ducked. Before they could move, or even gasp the grenade… popped. At that moment Aurra knew it was not a thermal detonator but something worse. Green smoke floated out of the hole in the top of the grenade, but it wasn't smoke, it was gas. The storm troopers helmets were not designed to resist it either. The three behind the sofa were the first to be affected. Aurra opened a pouch and pulled out three gas masks that covered the mouth and face. She put one on her own face and handed the other two to the storm troopers next to her. Each troopers shed their helmets revealing the face of a man with black curly hair. Clones left over from the war, they inserted the gas masks on their faces and three more gas grenades flew out of the door and popped. By now every other storm trooper, including those still in the hall were on the ground. Aurra knew exactly what kind of gas it was, it affected their nerves and muscles, making them burn and feel hot when actually they were shutting down. As a result almost every storm trooper had yanked off their helmets and chest plates, any that were still alive were fiddling with their boots but only two had managed to take them off.

Then one of the two fell limp and died, the other one had succeeded in tearing off all his armor except the under mesh, apparently he just gave up then because he laid back onto the floor until he to fell limp and died.

"Mocking query: Storm troopers, oh storm troopers are you dead yet?" Asked a metallic voice from the doorway and three orange droids stepped out, flanked by Mon Mothma who wore a gas mask and had a raised blaster pistol. One of the storm troopers fired at the droids.

"Urgent command," Cried one of them. "Chancellor return to your room."

"Mon Mothma did so as the two troops behind Aurra dived behind the sofa and Aurra herself blocked incoming blaster bolts with the blue lightsaber, just as Sidious had taught her.

"What the hell kind of droids are these?" Aurra yelled more to herself.

"Answer: We are experimental HK-500 assassin droids based off of a line of HK-50 droids found in history texts dating back to four thousand years ago." One droid answered still firing on Aurra. She finally was able to bounce a bolt back at it. It burned into the droid's left photoreceptor and a plume of black smoke popped out.

"Irritated statement: HK-500 A is down." One of the droids said. It turned to fire on Aurra as the other fired at the two storm troopers.

"Threat: You will pay for that." It said to Aurra.

"I know what I threat is!" She yelled at it. "You don't need to explain what type of sentence you are using."

"Statement: It is in my programming meatbag."

Aurra had just about had enough. Holding her lightsaber and blocking on coming blaster bolts with her right hand she pulled out her blaster pistol and fired it, the bolt hit the droid between the photoreceptors. It shook, grunted and fell backwards, landing stiff.

"Irritated exclamation: HK-500 B down." It said. Meaning that it must be HK-500 C.

Aurra raised her blaster and fired. The bolt whizzed through the air and burned right into the droids left audioreceptor drilling into its droid brain. It too grunted and fell. Aurra let out a relieved sigh. Back to business. She slowly approached Mon Mothma's doorway, glowing saber in one hand, shiny blaster pistol in the other. She pressed her back against the wall and willed the blaster pistol's setting to stun. With a click she knew it worked. Sidious was right, she was strong in the Force. She deactivated her saber now, clutched the pistol with both hands and looked into the room, immediately a red blaster bolt flew at her, missing her ear narrowly. She returned fire and a blue ray hit Chancellor Mothma in the face. She dropped her blaster and fell down stunned, eyes opened. Aurra signaled her storm troopers in to cuff her.

Next Chapter: The Shipyards of Kuat