Star Wars: Conflict

Chapter 7

The sun had slightly risen. Though faint, there was a small source of light from outside the Jedi Temple. Anakin Skywalker, with Captain Hazard and minuscule battalion of clones, walked towards a hangar door leading towards the outskirts of a landing platform. All the clones were at Anakin's side, all but Kickback.

Kickback, exhausted, ran up towards the group of men marching onward.
"Sir! Sir... The... Probes, still haven't finished charging. It's too early to leave--" Kickback barely muttered, trying to catch his breath.

"Then you'll have to catch up to us when they finish." Anakin sternly replied, still marching towards the hangar door, impatient of waiting any longer. Kickback was now left even more breathless than before, stunned from the fact of Anakin's sympathy, or lack thereof, for his own soldiers. Kickback ceased his walking, and stood boggled with confusing and distrusting emotions, experiencing this pain of abandonment Anakin had left him with.

Captain Hazard fiddled with his wrist gauntlet, and at last the huge door amidst them began to lift open, slowly. Padme Amidala, a beautiful Senator from Naboo, and unthinkably Anakin Skywalker's wife, was walking through a much smaller door towards the right. She had come to see Anakin in his quarters, as she had expected him to be. However now as she stopped to glimpse him marching with the 332nd battalion, she realized his situation had been much worse than Obi-Wan had described.

"Annie" a voice cried out. Anakin twisted towards his right to notice his wife standing, waiting for him to realize her. Anakin paused, quickly deciding whether or not to pursue his mission, or see what the matter was with Padme. He choose the latter.

"What's wrong? Anakin quietly questioned, signaling his clones to stay put as he walked towards Padme.

Padme looked softly into Anakin's eyes, and said, "I heard what's going on; Obi-Wan told me. Don't you see what you're doing? You ruining your relationship with Obi-Wan, for a relationship you don't even know you'll have anymore. Only through acceptance are you able to move past what you've experienced! Annie, sometimes, people move out of our lives so that through this pain, others are able to bind it, and love you all the more... I love you, Anakin. Don't leave that."

Anakin caressed Padme's chin, assuring her that he had everything under control, which he hadn't.
"All will be ok." He said, letting go, moving back to the clones. Padme realized that Anakin cared more for his obsessive past, than he does his own wife, and it did not sit well with her.

A loud, cacophonous buzzing came from a small disc. Aurra, with her long fingers pressed the center, ceasing the sound. Tammy was already awake, pacing the floor. Through the night, she recalled the reason Ahsoka had been arrested; She had been found in possession of nano droids within an abandoned hanger on Coursaunt's Underworld level 1315. Tammy paced herself, frightened by the choice of either telling Aurra this, allowing her to inflict even more pain upon others and herself, or hiding this information, causing Aurra to continue in a never ending search for information that she'll never find, dying from her own agony. Although Tammy didn't want Aurra to loose her mind further than she had, she realized Aurra might have already lost it completely. It was no use to hide what she knew. Tammy told Aurra.

"Aurra... I found something. Ahsoka wasn't banned from the Jedi order for murder but because she was accused, found with an outpour of nano droids. Now, I remember where they found them, but I--"

"Tell me at once." Sing demanded.

Tammy said, with slight hesitation, "It was an old, abandoned warehouse on level 1315. Apparently, if I remember correctly, a major fight occurred throughout that warehouse between Ahsoka and her accomplice, Asajj Ventress. I believe this warehouse might give us a clue to where Ahsoka may now be."

Aurra's eyes brightened. "Good" she said, "Let's go."

Sikar watched as Aurra stood from her bed, determinedly walking towards her closet to change into a much darker, almost transparent to the night, assassination outfit that helped conceal the brightness of her lithe, white body. Aurra finished her outfit with a black mask covering her forward face and eyes. Both hunters then stepped outside of the room, towards the lower lobby of the complex.

As the two arrived at the lobby, Aurra, with the slightest glimmer of abhorrence in her eye, walked silently yet straightforwardly toward the manager.
Stripping her pistol from her pocket, Aurra placed in on the front desk.

Aurra stared straight into the man's eyes, yet she could only envision Ahsoka.
"We're looking for a warehouse on 1316--"

"Fifteen" Tammy interjected.
Aurra Sing ignored Tammy's comment, although it would make all the difference of the manager's answer.
"Where would that be? And, we're looking for specifics. The coordinates."

The man stood shaken from Aurra's demands with such harshness of her attitude.
"I... I don't know, I'm sorry."

Tammy closed her eyes, breathing softly, to clear her mind.
"He's lying; he knows exactly what we're talking about; he's been there."

Aurra now widened her eyes and enclosed her sight on the manager.
"Well then, I guess we have our answer."

She propped up her pistol and blasted the man out of sight, sending him below the desk to the cold, unforgiving floor.

Tammy opened her eyes, saying "Eh, I... I wasn't!" But there was no use; she had made a mistake. Aurra Sing pushed the front door by way of the force, holstered her blaster, and strode off into the streets of the underworld.